The Life of John Ruskin Part 11

"Vokins wished me to name to you that Carrick, when he read your criticism on 'Weary Life,' came to him with the cheque Vokins had given, and said your remarks were all right, and that he could not take the price paid by Vokins the buyer; he would alter the picture. Vokins took back the money, only agreeing to see the picture when it was done."

John Ruskin in reply said he did not see why Carrick should have returned the cheque.

A letter from Mrs. Browning describes a visit to Denmark Hill, and ends,--"I like Mr. Ruskin very much, and so does Robert; very gentle, yet earnest--refined and truthful. I like him very much. We count him one among the valuable acquaintances made this year in England." This has been dated 1855; but Ruskin, writing to Miss Mitford from Glenfinlas, 17th August, 1853, says, "I had the pleasure this spring, of being made acquainted with your dear Elizabeth Browning, as well as with her husband. I was of course prepared to like _her_, but I did not expect to like _him_ as much as I did. I think he is really a very fine fellow, and _she_ is the only sensible woman I have yet met with on the subject of Italian politics. Evidently a n.o.ble creature in all things."

In June, 1850, he had met Robert Browning, on the invitation of Coventry Patmore, and said: "He is the only person whom I have ever heard talk ration-ally about the Italians, though on the Liberal side."

In these volumes of "Modern Painters" he had to discuss the Mediaeval and Renaissance spirit in its relation to art, and to ill.u.s.trate from Browning's poetry, "unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages, always vital and right and profound; so that in the matter of art there is hardly a principle connected with the mediaeval temper that he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and too rugged lines of his." This was written twenty-five years before the Browning Society was heard of, and at a time when the style of Browning was an offence to most people. To Ruskin, also, it had been some, thing of a puzzle; and he wrote to the poet, asking him to explain himself; which the poet accordingly did.

That Ruskin was open to conviction and conversion could be shown from the difference in his tone of thought about poetry before and after this period; that he was the best of friends with the man who took him to task for narrowness, may be seen from the following letter, written on the next Christmas Eve:

"MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,

"Your note having just arrived, Robert deputes me to write for him while he dresses to go out on an engagement. It is the evening. All the hours are wasted, since the morning, through our not being found at the Rue de Grenelle, but here--and our instinct of self-preservation or self-satisfaction insists on our not losing a moment more by our own fault.

"Thank you, thank you for sending us your book, and also for writing my husband's name in it. It will be the same thing as if you had written mine--except for the pleasure, as you say, which is greater so. How good and kind you are!

"And not well. That is worst. Surely you would be better if you had the summer in winter we have here. But I was to write only a word--Let it say how affectionately we regard you.

"ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

"3, RUE DU COLYSeE,

"_Thursday Evening, 24th" (December_, 1855).

CHAPTER IX

"THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART" (1857-1858)

The humble work of the drawing-cla.s.ses at Great Ormond Street was teaching Ruskin even more than he taught his pupils. It was showing him how far his plans were practicable; how they should be modified; how they might be improved; and especially what more, beside drawing-cla.s.ses, was needed to realize his ideal. He was anxiously willing to co-operate with every movement, to join hands with any kind of man, to go anywhere, do anything that might promote the cause he had at heart.

Already at the end of 1854 he had given three lectures, his second course, at the Architectural Museum, specially addressed to workmen in the decorative trades. His subjects were design and colour, and his ill.u.s.trations were chiefly drawn from mediaeval illumination, which he had long been studying. These were informal, quasi-private affairs, which nevertheless attracted notice owing to the celebrity of the speaker. It would have been better if his addresses had been carefully prepared and authentically published; for a chance word here and there raised replies about matters of detail in which his critics thought they had gained a technical advantage, adding weight to his father's desire not to see him "expose himself" in this way. There were no more lectures until the beginning of 1857.

On January 23rd, 1857, he spoke before the Architectural a.s.sociation upon "The Influence of Imagination in Architecture," repeating and amplifying what he had said at Edinburgh about the subordinate value of proportion, and the importance of sculptured ornament based on natural forms. This of course would involve the creation of a cla.s.s of stone-carvers who could be trusted with the execution of such work. Once grant the value of it, and public demand would encourage the supply, and the workmen would raise themselves in the effort.

A louder note was sounded in an address at the St. Martin's School of Art, Castle Street, Long Acre (April 3rd, 1857), where, speaking after George Cruikshank, his old friend--practically his first master--and an enthusiastic philanthropist and temperance advocate, Ruskin gave his audience a wider view of art than they had known before: "the kind of painting they most wanted in London was painting cheeks red with health." This was antic.i.p.ating the standpoint of the Oxford Lectures, and showed how the inquiry was beginning to take a much broader aspect.

Another work in a similar spirit, the North London School of Design, had been prosperously started by a circle of men under Pre-Raphaelite influence, and led by Thomas Seddon. He had given up historical and poetic painting for naturalistic landscape, and had returned from the East with the most valuable studies completed, only to break down and die prematurely. His friends, among them Holman Hunt, were collecting money to buy from the widow his picture of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, to present it to the National Gallery as a memorial of him; and at a meeting for the purpose, Ruskin spoke warmly of his labours in the cause of the working cla.s.ses.

In the summer of 1857 the Art Treasures Exhibition was held at Manchester, and Ruskin was invited to lecture. The theme he chose was "The Political Economy of Art." He had been studying political economy for some time back, but, as we saw from his letter to Carlyle, he had found no answer in the ordinary text-books for the questions he tried to put. He wanted to know what Bentham and Ricardo and Mill, the great authorities, would advise him as to the best way of employing artists, of educating workmen, of elevating public taste, of regulating patronage; but these subjects were not in their programme. And so he put together his own thoughts into two lectures upon Art considered as Wealth: first, how to get it; next, how to use it.[7]

[Footnote 7: July 10 and 13, 1857. He went to Manchester from Oxford, where he had been staying with the Liddells, writing enthusiastically of the beauty of their children and the charm of their domestic life.]

There were very few points in these lectures that were not vigorously contested at the moment, and conceded in the sequel--in some form or other. The paternal function of government, the right of the state to interfere in matters beyond its traditional range, its duty with regard to education--all this was quite contrary to the prevailing habits of thought of the time, especially at Manchester, the headquarters of the _laissez faire_ school; but to Ruskin, who, curiously enough, had just then been referring sarcastically to German philosophy, knowing it only at second-hand, and unaware of Hegel's political work--to him this Platonic conception of the state was the only possible one, as it is to most people nowadays. In the same way, his practical advice has been accepted, perhaps unwittingly, by our times. We do now understand the difference between artistic decoration and machine-made wares; we do now try to preserve ancient monuments, and to use art as a means of education. And we are in a fair way, it seems, of lowering the price of modern pictures, as he bids us, to "not more than 500 for an oil picture and 100 for a water-colour."

After a visit to the Trevelyans at Wallington he went with his parents to Scotland; for his mother, now beginning to grow old, wanted to revisit the scenes of her youth. They went to the Highlands and as far north as the Bay of Cromarty, and then returned by way of the Abbeys of the Lowlands, to look up Turner sites, as he had done in 1845 on the St.

Gothard. From the enjoyment of this holiday he was recalled to London by a letter from Mr. Wornum saying that he could arrange the Turner drawings at the National Gallery.

His first letter on the National Gallery, in 1847, has been noticed. He had written again to _The Times_ (December 29th, 1852), pressing the same point--namely, that if the pictures were put under gla.s.s no cleaning nor restoring would be needed; and that the Gallery ought not to be considered as a grand hall, decorated with pictures, but as a convenient museum, with a chronological sequence of the best works of all schools,--every picture hung on the line and accompanied by studies for it, if procurable, and engravings from it.

Now--in 1857--question was raised of removing the National Gallery from Trafalgar Square. The South Kensington Museum was being formed, and the whole business of arranging the national art treasures was gone into by a Royal Commission, consisting of Lord Broughton (in the chair), Dean Milman, Prof. Faraday, Prof. c.o.c.kerell, and George Richmond. Ruskin was examined before them on April 6th, and re-stated the opinions he had written to _The Times_, adding that he would like to see two National Galleries--one of popular interest, containing such works as would catch the public eye and enlist the sympathy of the untaught; and another containing only the cream of the collections, in pictures, sculpture and the decorative crafts, arranged for purposes of study. This was suggested as an ideal; of course, it would involve more outlay, and less display, than any Parliamentary vote would sanction, or party leader risk.

Another question of importance was the disposal of the pictures and sketches which Turner had left to the nation. Ruskin was one of the executors under the will; but, on finding that, though Turner's intention was plain, there were technical informalities which would make the administration anything but easy, he declined to act. It was not until 1856 that the litigation was concluded, and Turner's pictures and sketches were handed to the Trustees of the National Gallery. Ruskin, whose want of legal knowledge had made his services useless before, now felt that he could carry out the spirit of Turner's will by offering to arrange the sketches; which were in such a state of confusion that only some person with knowledge of the artist's habits of work and subjects could, so to speak, _edit_ them; and the editor would need no ordinary skill, patience and judgment, into the bargain.

Meanwhile, for that winter (1856-7) a preliminary exhibition was held of Turner's oil-paintings, with a few water-colours, at Marlborough House, then the headquarters of the Department of Science and Art, soon afterwards removed to South Kensington. Ruskin wrote a catalogue, with a.n.a.lysis of Turner's periods of development and characteristics; which made the collection intelligible and interesting to curious sight-seers.

They showed their appreciation by taking up five editions in rapid succession.

Just before lecturing at Manchester, he wrote again on the subject to _The Times_; and in September his friend R.N. Wornum, Director of the National Gallery in succession to Eastlake and Uwins, wrote--as we saw--that he might arrange the sketches as he pleased. He returned from Scotland, and set to work on October 7th.

It was strange employment for a man of his powers; almost as removed from the Epicurean Olympus of "cultured ease" popularly a.s.signed to him, as night-school teaching and lecturing to workmen. But, beside that it was the carrying out of Turner's wishes, he always had a certain love for experimenting in manual toil; and this was work in which his extreme neatness and deftness of hand was needed, no less than his knowledge and judgment. During the winter for full six months, he and his two a.s.sistants worked, all day and every day, among the ma.s.ses of precious rubbish that had been removed from Queen Anne Street to the National Gallery.

Mr. J.J. Ruskin wrote, on February 19 and 21, 1852:

"I have just been through Turner's house with Griffith. His labour is more astonis.h.i.+ng than his genius. There are 80,000 of oil pictures done and undone--Boxes half as big as your Study Table, filled with Drawings and Sketches. There are Copies of Liber Studiorum to fill all your Drawers and more, and House Walls of proof plates in Reams--they may go at 1/-each....

"Nothing since Pompeii so impressed me as the interior of Turner's house; the acc.u.mulated dust of 40 years partially cleared off; Daylight for the first time admitted by opening a window on the finest productions of art buried for 40 years. The Drawing Room has, it is reckoned, 25,000 worth of proofs, and sketches, and Drawings, and Prints. It is amusing to hear Dealers saying there can be no Liber Studiorums--when I saw neatly packed and well labelled as many Bundles of Liber Studiorum as would fill your entire Bookcase, and England and Wales proofs in packed and labelled Bundles like Reams of paper, as I told you, piled nearly to Ceiling ...

"The house must be dry as a Bone--the parcels were apparently quite uninjured. The very large pictures were spotted, but not much. They stood leaning against another in the large low Rooms. Some _finished_ go to Nation, many unfinished _not_: no frames. Two are given unconditional of Gallery Building--_very fine_: if (and this is a condition) _placed beside Claude._ The style much like the laying on in Windmill Lock in Dealer's hands, which, now it is cleaned, comes out a real Beauty. I believe Turner loved it. The will desires all to be framed and repaired and put into the best showing state; as if he could not release his money to do this till he was dead. The Top of his Gallery is one ruin of Gla.s.s and patches of paper, now only just made weather-proof ...

"I saw in Turner's Rooms, _Geo. Morlands_ and _Wilsons_ and _Claudes_ and _portraits_ in various stiles _all by Turner._ He copied every man, was every man first, and took up his own style, casting all others away. It seems to me you may keep your money and revel for ever and for nothing among Turner's Works."

Among the quant.i.ties so recklessly thrown aside for dust, damp, soot, mice and worms to destroy--some 15,000 Ruskin reckoned at first, 19,000 later on--there were many fine drawings, which had been used by the engravers, and vast numbers of interesting and valuable studies in colour and in pencil. Four hundred of these were extricated from the chaos, and with infinite pains cleaned, flattened, mounted, dated and described, and placed in sliding frames in cabinets devised by Ruskin, or else in swivel frames, to let both sides of the paper be seen. The first results of the work were shown in an Exhibition at Marlborough House during the winter, for which he wrote another catalogue. Of the whole collection he began a more complete account, which was too elaborate to be finished in that form; but in 1881 he published a "Catalogue of the Drawings and Sketches of J M.W. Turner, R.A., at present exhibited in the National Gallery," so that his plan was practically fulfilled.

During 1858 Ruskin continued to lecture at various places on subjects connected with his Manchester addresses--the relation of art to manufacture, and especially the dependence of all great architectural design upon sculpture or painting of organic form. The first of the series was given at the opening of the Architectural Museum at South Kensington, January 13th, 1858, ent.i.tled "The Deteriorative Power of Conventional Art over Nations;" in which he showed that naturalism, as opposed to meaningless pattern-making, was always a sign of life. For example, the strength of the Greek, Florentine and Venetian art arose out of the search for truth, not, as it is often supposed, out of striving after an ideal of beauty; and as soon as nature was superseded by recipe, the greatest schools hastened to their fall. From which he concluded that modern design should always be founded on natural form, rather than upon the traditional patterns of the east or of the mediaevals.

On February 16th he spoke on "The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art and Policy," at Tunbridge Wells; a subject similar to that of his address to the St. Martin's School of the year before, but amplified into a plea for the use of wrought-iron ornament, as in the new Oxford Museum, then building, and on April 25th he again addressed St. Martin's School.

The Oxford Museum was an experiment in the true Gothic revival. The architects, Sir Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward, had allowed their workmen to design parts of the detail, such as capitals and spandrils, quite in the spirit of Ruskin's teaching, and the work was accordingly of deep interest to him. So far back as April, 1856, he had given an address to the men employed at the Museum, whom he met, on Dr. Acland's invitation, at the Workmen's Reading Rooms. He said that his object was not to give some labouring men the chance of becoming masters of other labouring men, and to help the few at the expense of the many, but to lead them to those sources of pleasure, and power over their own minds and hands, that more educated people possess. He did not sympathize with the socialism that had been creeping into vogue since 1848. He thought existing social arrangements good, and he agreed with his friends, the Carlyles, who had found that it was only the incapable who could not get work. But it was the fault of the wealthy and educated that working people were not better trained; it was not the working-men's fault, at bottom. The modern architect used his workman as a mere tool; while the Gothic spirit set him free as an original designer, to gain--not more wages and higher social rank, but pleasure and instruction, the true happiness that lies in good work well done.

To explain the design of the Oxford Museum and to enlist support, he wrote two letters to Dr. Acland (May 25th, 1858, and January 20th, 1859), which formed part of a small book, reporting its aims and progress, ill.u.s.trated with an engraving of one of the workmen's capitals. Ruskin himself contributed both time and money to the work, and his a.s.sistance was not unrecognised. In 1858 "Honorary Students.h.i.+ps"

(i.e., fellows.h.i.+ps) were created at Christ Church by the Commissioners'

ordinances. At the first election held, December 6th, 1858, there were chosen for the compliment Ruskin, Gladstone, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Dr.

(Sir) H.W. Acland, and Sir F.H. Gore Ouseley. At the second, December 15th, 1858, were elected Henry Hallam, the Earl of Stanhope, the Earl of Elgin, the Marquis of Dalhousie and Viscount Canning.

Parallel with this movement for educating the "working-cla.s.s," there was the scheme for the improvement of middle-cla.s.s education, which was then going on at Oxford--the beginning of University Extension--supported by the Rev. F. Temple (later Archbishop of Canterbury), and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas d.y.k.e Acland. Ruskin was heartily for them; and in a letter on the subject, he tried to show how the teaching of Art might be made to work in with the scheme. He did not think that in this plan, any more than at the Working Men's College, there need be an attempt to teach drawing with a view to forming artists; but there were three objects they might hold in view: the first, to give every student the advantage of the happiness and knowledge which the study of Art conveys; the next, to enforce some knowledge of Art amongst those who were likely to become patrons or critics; and the last, _to leave no Giotto lost among hill shepherds._

CHAPTER X

"MODERN PAINTERS" CONCLUDED (1838-1860)