ADDENDA (1848)' § 1. ALTHOUGH the plan of the present portion of this work does not admit of particular criticism, it will neither be useless nor irrelevant to refer to one or two works, lately before the public in the Exhibitions of the Royal Academy, which either illustrate, or present exceptions to, any of the preceding statements. I would first mention, with reference to what has been advanced respecting the functions of Associative Imagination, the very important work of Mr. Linnell, the "Eve of the Deluge; "2 a picture upheld by its admirers (and these were some of the most intelligent judges of the day) for a work of consummate imaginative power; while it was pronounced by the public journals to be " chaos of unconcocted colour."* If the writers for the press had been aware of the kind of study pursued by Mr. Linnell through many laborious years, characterized by an observance of nature scrupulously and minutely patient, directed by the deepest sensibility, and aided by a power of drawing almost too refined for landscape subjects, and only to be understood by reference to his engravings after Michael Angelo, they * The usual style of journalist criticism in those days, on any picture which had true colour in it at all. Neither Turner, nor Linnell, however, entrusted their fame to legal advocacy or defence. [1883.] 1 [These Addenda are not contained in ed. 1, which has, instead, two pages of other Addenda consisting of four notes : 2 (a) The note on "Railways in the Lake District" now at the end of sec. i. ch. i., p. 36; (b) A note afterwards omitted on sec. i. ch. iv. § 6, see now p. 69 n. ; in sec. i. ch. vii. § 6 n., see now p. 121 n.; (d) A long note, afterwards omitted, referring to sec ii. ch. iii. § 33, p. 288. This note is here printed at the end of the Addenda of 1848, see p. 341. The numbering of the paragraphs is here introduced for convenience of reference.] [No 620 in the Academy of 1848. Sold at Mr. Gillott's sale (1872) for £1099; afterwards in the collection of Mr. Angus Holden; No. 8 in the Old Masters' Exhibition of 1883. For another reference to Linnell, see Vol. III. pp. 604–605 n.] would have felt it to be unlikely that the work of such a man should be entirely undeserving of respect. On the other hand, the grounds of its praise were unfortunately chosen ; for, though possessing many merits, it had no claim whatever to be ranked among productions of Creative art. It would perhaps be difficult to point to a work so exalted in feeling, and so deficient in invention. The sky had been strictly taken from nature, this was evident at a glance; and as a study of sky it was every way noble. To the purpose of the picture it hardly contributed: its sublimity was that of splendour, not of terror; and its darkness that of retreating, not of gathering, storm. The features of the landscape were devoid alike of variety and probability; the division of the scene by the central valley and winding river at once theatrical and commonplace; and the foreground, on which the light was intense, alike devoid of dignity in arrangement, and of interest in detail.* § 2. The falseness or deficiency of colour in the works of Mr. Landseer has been remarked above, p. 302.1 The writer has much pleasure in noticing a very beautiful exception in the picture of the "Random Shot,"" certainly the most successful rendering he has ever seen of the hue of snow *The literary student will recognise the change of style in these notes, and the imitation of Johnson instead of Hooker. Johnson had been a much earlier model to me, and a far better and healthier tutor.3 [1883.] 1 [It may be convenient to bring together here Ruskin's references to Landseer. The first notice is at the beginning of the first volume of Modern Painters, where he describes the "Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner" as "one of the most perfect poems or pictures which modern times have seen" (Vol. III. p. 88). By the time of the second volume Ruskin had come to see Landseer's defects, and retracted his "implied overpraise" (Vol. III. p. xlvi. n.). Landseer, he said, was "much more a natural historian than a painter" (above, p. 302 n.). His colour was defective, and his treatment of animals, as compared with Veronese's, was "unimaginative" (above, p. 302; sec. ii, ch. iv. § 11). În Pre-Raphaelitism (1851), § 29, Landseer's early "watchfulness of nature is commended. His later works were not so highly praised; cf. Academy Notes, 1856, No. 147, where also his " clay-colouring" is mentioned; other minor references occur in Academy Notes, 1857, No. 597; and 1858, No. 854. In Modern Painters, vol. v., Ruskin again compares Landseer's treatment of animals with that of the Venetians and Velasquez, and criticises the trivial sentiment of the English painter (pt. ix. ch. vi. § 20). Cf. also Academy Notes, 1859 (s. "French Exhibition," No. 91 a.) For another reference in this volume, see sec. i. ch. xii. § 2 n., p. 149.] 2 [No. 403 in the Academy of 1848; afterwards in the collection of Mr. T. Wrigley.] 3 [See Præterita, i. ch. xii. § 151; and Proserpina, ii. ch. ii.] under warm but subdued light. The subtlety of gradation from the portions of the wreath fully illumined, to those which, feebly tinged by the horizontal rays, swelled into a dome of dim purple, dark against the green evening sky; the truth of the blue shadows, with which this dome was barred, and the depth of delicate colour out of which the lights upon the footprints were raised, deserved the most earnest and serious admiration; proving, at the same time, that the errors in colour, so frequently to be regretted in the works of the painter, are the result rather of inattention than of feeble perception. A curious proof of this inattention occurs in the disposition of the shadows in the background of the "Old Cover Hack," No. 229.1 One of its points of light is on the rusty iron handle of a pump, in the shape of an S. The sun strikes the greater part of its length, illuminating the perpendicular portion of the curve; yet shadow is only cast on the wall behind by the returning portion of the lower extremity. A smile may be excited by the notice of so trivial a circumstance; but the simplicity of the error renders it the more remarkable, and the great masters of chiaroscuro are accurate in all such minor points; a vague sense of greater truth results from this correctness, even when it is not in particulars analyzed or noted by the observer. In the small but very valuable Paul Potter in Lord Westminster's collection, the body of one of the sheep under the hedge is for the most part in shadow, but the sunlight touches the extremity of the back. The sun is low, and the shadows feeble and distorted; yet that of the sunlighted fleece is cast exactly in its true place and proportion beyond that of the hedge. The spectator may not observe this; yet, unobserved, it is one of the circumstances which make him feel the picture to be full of sunshine.* 2 * I beg the reader to observe that I could be just, even to the Dutch school! [1883.] 1 [Afterwards in the collection of Mr. R. Heathcote.] 2 [At Grosvenor House. Painted in 1647. For details about the picture, see Mrs. Jameson's Handbook to the Private Galleries of London, 1844, pp. 266-267.] |