A SOMEWHAT singular circumstance has taken place this year, in the
choice of their principal or master piece by two important societies of English
artists.
The Society of British Artists placed, as the central attraction of their
rooms, an illustration of Shakespeare.* The New Water-Colour Society honoured
with a similarly central position an illustration of Tennyson.†
Duly allowing for privileges of seniority and presidentship, it would
not be just towards either body of artists if we supposed that the places
assigned to these works of art were entirely trustworthy indications of the
estimate formed of them. But whether promoted by law, by courtesy, or by
admiration, those pictures stood forth to the English―and more than the English―public
as in some central or typical way exponents of the power of the two societies ;
and foreigners, at least, would be justified in concluding that the sanction
given by two important bodies of English painters to these readings of the
greatest dead and greatest living English poets, indicated with some truth the
measure of general understanding of poetry in the artist mind of the country;
and perhaps also (as the appeal to public judgment was made so frankly)
something of the public mind of this country on the same matter.
I am not going to criticise those pictures. If the reader is not of my
mind about them, I should not have any hope of being able to make him so―nor
even any wish to make him so. If he is of my mind about them, he will understand
why they should have set me thinking―not on the whole pleasurably―of the course
and probable prospects of the curious group of English personages to whom art now
addresses itself. For it would not be difficult to show, if necessary, that
these two works do verily express the final and entirely typical issue of the
most popular modern views on the subject of poetry in general: and more than this,
there is a certain typical character even in the hero and heroines of the
pictures―the " Hamlet" not unworthily representing what is popularly
considered as Philosophy; the "Jephthah's Daughter"2 what
is popularly accepted as Piety; and the "Cleopatra" what is popularly
displayed as Splendour.
* No. 53. "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" (F. Y. Hurlstone).
† No. 212. "A Dream of Fair Women" (E. H. Corbould). The
illustrations of Shakespeare by Mr. Gilbert, which occupy a conspicuous
position (on each side of Mr. Burton's centre piece) in the rooms of the Old
Water-Colour Society, curiously involve that society also in a parallel
manifestation of opinion.
1.[No. 125. " Sir Andrew Aguecheek writes a Challenge," and
No. 132. " The Banquet at Lucentio's House."]
xiv. 241 Q
2.["Jephthah's Daughter" and "Cleopatra" were among
the figures in Corbould's illustration of Tennyson's poem.]
Or, in a nearer and narrower view, these pictures contain a concentrated
expression of the character which distinguishes a modern English exhibition of
paintings from every other that has yet been, or is likely to be. Bad painting
is to be found in abundance everywhere, so that we do not distinguish ourselves
by our weakness; foolish painting in greater abundance still, so that we do not
distinguish ourselves by our imbecility ; more or less meritorious painting, at
least in all principal French and German schools, as well as in ours, so that
we do not distinguish ourselves by our merit : but purely and wholly vulgar painting
is not to be found developing itself elsewhere with the same naivete as among
the English ; and we do distinguish ourselves by our vulgarity. So, at least,
it appears to me. As I have just said, I do not wish to argue with anyone who
disputes the fact, but to trace thence one or two conclusions with those who
admit it.
What vulgarity is, whether in manners, acts, or conceptions, most well-educated
persons understand; but what it consists in, or arises from, is a more
difficult question.1 I believe that on strict analysis it will be
found definable as "the habit of mind and act resulting from the prolonged
combination of insensibility with insincerity";* and I think the special
manifestation of I among artists has resulted, in the first place, from the
withdrawal of all right (adecuación, apropiado, justo), and therefore, all
softening (delicadeza, ternura), or animating (estimulante) motive for their work; and, in
the second place, from the habit of assuming, or striving by rule to express,
feelings which did not, and could not, arise out of their work under such
conditions.
* It would be more accurate to say, "constitutional
insensibility"; for people are born vulgar, or not vulgar, irrevocably. An
apparent insensibility may often be caused by one strong feeling quenching or
conquering another; and this to the extent of involving the person in all kinds
of cruelty and crime: yet, Borgia or Ezzelin, lady and knight still; while the
born clown is dead in all sensation and capacity of thought, whatever his acts
or life may be.
Cloten, in Cymbeline, is the most perfect study of pure vulgarity which
I know in literature; Perdita, in Winter's Tale, the most perfect study of its
opposite (irrespective of such higher virtue or intellect as we have in
Desdemona or Portia). Perdita's exquisite openness, joined with as exquisite
sensitiveness, constitute the precise opposite of the apathetic insincerity which,
I believe, is the essence of vulgarity.2
1.[Compare Modern Painters,
vol. iii. (Vol. V. pp. 117-118), and vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vii., "Of Vulgarity";
Elements of Drawing, 240; Sesame and Lilies, 28; and Art of England, 161.]
2.[For Lucrezia Borgia, see Two
Paths, 187; for Ezzelin, Vol. XII. p. 137 n.; for Cloten (as a contrast to
Imogen), Modern Painters, vol. iii.
(Vol. V. p. 112); for Perdita, ibid.
(Vol. V. p. 99), and vol. iv. (Vol. VI. p. 442).]
I say first, by the withdrawal of all softening or animating motive, and
chiefly by the loss of belief in the spiritual world. Art has never shown, in
any corner of the earth, a condition of advancing strength but under this
influence. I do not say, observe, influence of "religion," but merely
of a belief in some invisible power god or goddess, fury or fate, saint or
demon. Where such belief existed, however sunk or distorted, progressive art
has been possible, otherwise impossible.1 The distortion of the
belief, its contraction or its incoherence, contract or compress the resultant
art; still the art is evermore of another and mightier race than the art of
materialism. Be so much of a Pythagorean as to believe in something awful and
impenetrable connected with beans, and forthwith you are not weaker, but stronger,
than your kitchenmaid, who perceives in them only an adaptability to being
boiled. Be so much of an Egyptian as to believe that some god made hawks, and bears
up their wings for them on the wind, and looks for ever through the fierce
light of their eyes, that therefore it is not good to slay hawks, and some day
you may be able to paint a hawk quite otherwise than will be possible to you by
any persistency in slaughter or dissection, or help of any quantity of stuffing
and glass beads in thorax or eyesocket. Be so much of a Jew as to believe that
there is a great Spirit who makes the tempests his true messengers, and the
flaming fire his true servant, and lays the beams of his chambers upon the unshrinking
sea,2 and you will paint the cloud, and the fire, and the wave,
otherwise, and on the whole better, than in any state of modern enlightenment
as to the composition of caloric or protoxide of hydrogen. Or, finally, be so
much of a human creature as to care about the heart and history of
fellow-creatures, and to take so much concern with the facts of human life
going on around you as shall make your art in some sort compassionate, exhortant,
or communicative, and useful to anyone coming after you, either as a record of
what was done among men in your day, or as a testimony of what you felt or knew
concerning them and their misdoings or undoings, and this love and dwelling in
the spirits of other creatures will give a glory to your work quite unattainable
by observance of any proportions of arms and collar-bones hitherto stated by
professors of Man-painting. All this is irrevocably so; and since, as a nation
concerning itself with art, we have wholly rejected these heathenish, Jewish,
and other such beliefs―and have accepted, for things worshipful, absolutely nothing
but pairs of ourselves―taking for exclusive idols, gods, or objects of
veneration the infinitesimal points of humanity, Mr. and Mrs. P., and the
Misses and Master P.'s,―out, I say, of this highly punctuated religion, which
comes to its full stop and note of admiration after the family name, we shall
get nothing, can get nothing, but
such issues as we see here. The whole temper of former art was in some way reverential―had
awe in it: no matter how carefully or conventionally the workman ruled and
wrought the psalter page, he had every now and then a far-away feeling that it
was to be prayed out of―somebody would pray out of it someday―not entirely
mechanically, nor by slip of bead. No matter how many Madonnas he painted to
order from the same outlines, the sense that the worst of them was sure, late
or soon, to be looked up to through tears, could not but thrill through him as
he arched the brow and animated the smile: nay, if he was but a poor armourer
or enameller, the feeling that those chased traceries of cuish and helmet would
be one day embossed in hot purple, deeper, perhaps, through fault of his, would
every now and then make his hammer smite with sterner, truer tone―awe and pity
ruling over all his doings, such as now are unattainable. For Mr. and Mrs. P.
are not in that sense awful―not in that sense pitiable: both in another and
deeper sense, but not in this.
1.[With the following passage―a central one in Ruskin's writings―
compare (among other places where he insists on religion in this sense―of the
recognition of spiritual being―as the root of great and progressive art), Lectures on Art, 37 seq.; Stones of Venice, vol. iii. (Vol. XI. p.
70); Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol.
IV. p. 6).]
2.[Psalms civ. 3, 4.]
Then the second source of the evil is the endeavour to assume the
sentiment which we cannot possibly have. Let us accept our position, and good
scientific, or diagrammatic, or politely personal and domestic art is still
possible to us―still may be made, if not majestic work, yet real work. There is
use in a good geological diagram; and there is good riding in Rotten Row, to be
seen any day between four and six; but if we profess to paint ghosts, when we believe
in no immortality or ―Iphigenias and daughters of Jephthah, when we believe in
no Deity―this is what we come to: not but that even ghosts are indeed still to be
seen, and Iphigenias found (though perhaps sacrificed not altogether to Diana)
by sharp -sighted persons upon occasion.
It may be thought, I speak too seriously―or speak seriously in the wrong
place―of this matter. I do not. The pictures are ludicrous enough. That which
they signify is not ludicrous. And, as if to make us think out their signification
fully, the Tennyson picture has a companion―an opposite at least―another
illustration of English poetry by English art: the gate of Eden, with a Peri at
it―an interesting scene to people who believe in Eden.1 We suppose
ourselves to be rather nearer that gate do not we?―than any of the old
shepherds who saw ladders set to it in their dreams. And this is the aspect
assumed by the gate, and the aspect of the angels in―or outside of it―upon such
closer acquaintance. A "strait gate" truly.2
This being so, I cannot enter with any pleasure into examination of the
works of the two Water-Colour Societies this year. For in their very nature
those two societies appeal to the insensitiveness and pretence of the public: insensitiveness,
because no refined eye could bear with the glaring colours, and blotted or
dashed forms, which are the staple of modern water-colour work; and pretence,
because this system of painting is principally supported by the idle amateurs
who concern themselves about art without being truly interested in it; and by
pupils of the various watercolour masters, who enjoy being taught to sketch
brilliantly in six lessons.
1.[New Water-Colour Society, No. 73 : "The Peri," by Henry
Warren.]
2.[For the Biblical references, see Genesis xxviii. 12 and Matthew vii.
13.]
In spite of all the apparent exertion, and reflex of Pre-Raphaelite
minuteness from the schools above them, the Water-Colour Societies are in
steady descent. They were founded first on a true and simple school of broad
light and shade―grey touched with golden colour on the lights. This, with clear
and delicate washes for its transparent tones, was the method of all the
earlier men ; and the sincere love of Nature which existed in the hearts of the
first watercolour masters―Girtin, Cozens, Robson, Copley Fielding, Cox, Prout,
and De Wint formed a true and progressive school, till Hunt, the greatest of
all, perfected his art. Hunt and Cox alone are left of all that group, and
their works in the Old Water-Colour are the only ones which are now seriously
worth looking at; for in the endeavour to employ new resources, to rival oil
colour, and to display facility, mere method has superseded all feeling and all
wholesome aim, and has itself become finally degraded.1 The sponge
and handkerchief have destroyed water-colour painting; and I believe there are
now only two courses open to its younger students―either to "hark
back" at once to the old grey schools, and ground themselves again firmly
on chiaroscuro studies with the flat grey wash, or to take William Hunt for
their only master, and resolve that they will be able to paint a piece of
leafage and fruit approximately well in his way before they try even the smallest
piece of landscape. If they want to follow Turner, the first course is the only
one. Steady grey and yellow for ten years, and lead pencil point all your life,
or no "Turnerism."2 No "dodge" will ever enable
you otherwise to get round that corner. Those are the terms of the thing; we
may accept or not as we choose, but there are no others. I name, however, a few
of the works in the rooms of the two societies which are at least indicative of
power to do well, if the painters choose.
1 [Compare Vol. XIII. p. 247.]
2 [Compare Vol. XIII. pp.
241-249, 260, etc.]
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