that we have the whole key at last to Mr. Ruskin's meaning of the word 'thought' as separable from the art of painting. For it is not the incident that Raphael or the Dutch masters introduce-given in its refinement by the one, in its vulgarity by the other, and in its simplicity by both-it is not even the touching allusion which Raphael introduced in the folded hands of the sleeping saint in his Deliverance of St. Peter, or the erudite allusion in the actions of Plato and Aristotle in his School of Athens, and of which he forbore all use in the Disputà and the Parnassus-it is not even such incidents or allusions which a painter may discreetly use for the enrichment of a picture to which Mr. Ruskin does honour; but it is the incident that will bear description, expatiation, and speculation-the incident that will furnish a text for those arbitrary interpretations and egotistical rhapsodies so foreign to the real simplicity of art, which fill Mr. Ruskin's books-the incident for which there is least space in the highest productions, simply because it does represent that thought which is independent of the painter's language, and of which, therefore, the greater the number in one picture the more the author's purpose and praise is secured. There is but one form in which the old masters, who were compelled occasionally to address themselves to superstition at the expense of true taste, made the mistake of attempting to combine a number of thoughts, incidents, allusions-call them what we may-in one picture. This was the case in their representations of the Last Judgment, such as that by Fra Angelico in Lord Ward's gallery, where the side of the Condemned far outweighs in number of thoughts, and those not his own, that of the Blessed, and we need not say at what expense of nobility and every other desirable attribute of art. Indeed, the more the subject is considered, the more we are persuaded it will appear that numerous thoughts in one picture are only to be found in the lower walks of art, and that the further we descend the scale the greater the quantity of that element, in Mr. Ruskin's sense. Our Hogarth may be cited as a unique example of the successful application of painting to quantity of subject and number of allusions, and those of a high moral order. Nor are we in the least disposed to agree with the German lecturer who said of him that he badly painted capital satires;' but, on the contrary, are astonished at the beauties of the painter that have been overlooked in the fame of the moralist. At the same time it must be admitted that Hogarth stands at best but at the head-however far in advance of-that class of art in which multiplicity of thought, or what we may define as illustration, is the painter's principal object. Nor is there any halting in the downward course, or avoiding of that extreme but actual result to which this principle tends; for if number of thoughts be admitted as the one great merit in a work of art (and number and nobility we perceive cannot go together), there is no denying that the caricature, with its point, allusion, wit, meaning, and double meaning in every line, is, by Mr. Ruskin's reasoning, proved to be as much the highest in the scale of excellence as Michael Angelo is the lowest. But now we are reminded of another principle which Mr. Ruskin ignores altogether, and to which any painter who may be misled to follow out his doctrines must inevitably do violence. For if the real test of style, according to the philosophical meaning of the word, be defined as that form of art which suggests no want, as, for instance, the Sistine Madonna, it may be equally defined as that form of art which suggests no superfluity. Thus we return to the fundamental law of the incapacity of the mind to enjoy more than a certain amount of interest at once, and, as a necessary consequence, to the fundamental necessity of diminishing one source of interest in proportion as another is added; and applying this to the present question, we arrive irresistibly at the conclusion that, where numerous thoughts are presented to the spectator at all in one picture, the painter's language, far from being invaluable, is partially superfluous. The thoughts or incidents of Hogarth are almost, if not quite as intelligible to us in the form of an engraving, while for more elaborate themes and still more numerous allusions the slightest light and shade, or the mere outline, as in Cruikshank or Retsch, is all-sufficient. And here at all events the author ratifies the conclusion of his views at which we have arrived,, by the following rather paradoxical passage:- Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we should call a man a greater painter only as he excelled in precision and force in the language of lines,' (vol. i. p. 8.) We trust we have demonstrated that, as, where the thought or idea is highest and singlest, the painter's language is not 'invaluable' but indispensable, so where the thoughts are lower because more numerous, and therefore capable of expression by a simpler form of art, the painter's language is in great measure superfluous. We are not, however, intending either to excuse or to insult Mr. Ruskin by comparing him with this common herd whom he misleads. In the error that has led him to lay down the principles we have endeavoured to confute, he is rather to be frequent now and common always-men who, leading lives in the study of some particular pursuit or hobby, are ignorant of the legitimate sources of interest in a picture, and seek only for those which we may define by the vague and often-used term of the pleasures of association.' But it is the pleasures in which art differs from other forms of human intelligence, and not those in which she accidentally agrees with them, that we must seek; therefore not for thought, nor erudition, nor history, nor antiquarian lore, nor anything which, though a picture may contain, it is altogether independent of. These, it is true, have their interest and value as connecting a work of art with the scholarship, the superstition, or the fashion of its time, but are so far from constituting any essential part of its merits, that not one of these concomitants, however ingenious and abundant, could render a picture endurable if it happened to be vile as a work of art. But though Mr. Ruskin may be classed with these minds in the false conclusions they form, he has no right to the real excuses they may plead. They are occupied with other pursuits distinct from the world of But to turn now from those reasons for | istic, or even tradition about a fine picture the exclusion, or very limited admission of is interesting, however collaterally so-yet thoughts in a painting, which are inherent it is far greater folly and ignorance to proin the art of painting, to such as may be nounce the one to be all and the other nosaid to be rather facts of experience. Is thing; and on this road no one will ever rise that to be considered the highest attribute above the herd in the understanding or enand purpose of a picture which has the joyment of art. greatest number of ignorant and vulgar admirers? Yet, as regards the subject, the story, the thought in a picture, such does experience prove to be the case. Not only do we observe this in the crowds that gather round that stronghold of Mr. Ruskin's principle-viz. the greater the number of regarded as the type of a class of minds, thoughts, however awkwardly expressed, the greater the merit-the caricature-shop, but every exhibition shows that the story is all the uneducated care for. Follow a laquais de place marshalling a party through a foreign gallery, and his whole jargon is of what is represented. It is dull work for him and his listeners when he has only to tell that that is St. Peter, that St. Lawrence, and that figure behind St. Roch; but the party brightens up if he can explain that the figure of St. Clara is a portrait of the painter's wife, and is quite happy when there is some such knotty allegory to untie as that in the Garofalo in our National Gallery, where St. Augustine is endeavouring to comprehend the mystery of the Trinity, and a child showing him that it would be just as easy to empty the ocean with a spoon. Nay, even the most trivial story, not in the picture but about it, is eagerly listened to, and the anecdote that such a prince offered to cover the canvas with napoleons, remembered with far more interest than the picture itself. Not that there is anything blameable or surprising in this. A painter's aim is not, like a cook's, obvious to the commonest understanding. We may like a dish to have a pleasant ap-art: he professes to live only in it, and pearance, but everybody knows that is not its real purpose. As soon, however, might we judge of a dish by our eyes and not by our palates as exclusively exalt the thought of a picture and cry down its language. Were the subject, or the rendering of the We have dwelt thus at length on this subject, the highest merit in a work of art, first chapter for the obvious reason that connoisseurship would be attained without here lies that organic defect which renders much study, and far fewer mistakes made the whole body of Mr. Ruskin's criticism in the formation of collections. Far, how-morbid and diseased. He who pronounces ever, from this being the case, it was the the painter's thought to be everything, and saying of the most cultivated and felicitous his language nothing, must of course next private collector that England has yet known-the late Samuel Rogers-that if a picture bore an eloquent description he did not want to see it. Though, therefore, it would be great folly, as well as ignorance, to be indifferent to the thought or allusion of a great painter-for any fact, character (how generously!) only for it. They err from ignorance, and are, generally speaking, ready to acknowledge it,-he from a quality which is apt to prove a barrier even to that lowest stage of wisdom. attempt to force upon art a moral and not a pictorial responsibility. We are at once stopped by this in the preface to the second edition, which is strictly consequent on this first chapter. Having assumed that the state of religion was better in Italy during the immobility of Byzantine art than in the time of Michael Angelo and Benvenuto Cellini-a question the historian may answer-he thus proceeds : mind far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his creation, and the knowledge which is past his finding out. 'And must it ever be otherwise with paint It appears to me that a rude symbol is of-ing? for otherwise it has ever been. Her sub tener more efficient than a refined one in touching the heart, and that, as pictures rise in rank as works of art, they are regarded with less devotion and more curiosity. But, however this may be, and whatever influence we may be disposed to admit in the great works of sacred art, no doubt can, I think, be reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility of all that has been hitherto accomplished by the painters of landscape. No moral end has been answered, no permanent good effected, by any of their works. They may have amused the intellect, or exercised the ingenuity, but they never have spoken to the heart. Landscape art has never taught us one deep or holy lesson; of his creatures. 'If we stand for a little time before any of the more celebrated works of landscape, listening to the comments of the passers by, we shall hear numberless expressions relating to the skill of the artist, but very few relating to the perfection of nature. Hundreds will be voluble in admiration, for the one who will be silent in delight; multitudes will laud the composition, and depart with the praise of Claude on their lips-not one will feel as if it were no composition, and depart with the praise of God in his heart. - These are the signs of a debased, mistaken, and false school of painting. The skill of the artist, and the perfection of his art, are never proved until both are forgotten. The artist has done nothing till he has concealed himself the art is imperfect which is visible the feelings are but feebly touched, if they permit us to reason on the methods of their excitement. In the reading of a great poem, in the hearing of a noble oration, it is the subject of the writer and not his skill-his passion, not his power-on which our minds are fixed. We see as he sees, but we see not him. We become part of him, feel with him, judge, behold with him; but we think of him as little as of ourselves. Do we think of Eschylus while we wait on the silence of Cassandra, or of Shakspeare while we listen to the wailing of Lear? Not so. The power of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation It is commensurate with the degree in which they themselves appear not in their work. The harp of the ministrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it records. Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding the which the artist's power is to be displayed; and 'I speak not only of the works of the Flemish school-I wage no war with their admirers; they may be left in peace to count the spicula of haystacks and the hairs of donkeys; it is also of works of real mind that I speak-works in which there are evidences of genius and workings of power-works which have been held up as containing all the beautiful that art can reach or man conceive. And I assert with sorrow that all hitherto done in landscape, by those commonly conceived its masters, has never prompted one holy thought in the minds of nations. It has begun and ended in exhibiting the dexterities. of individuals, and conventionalities of system. Filling the world with the honour of Claude and Salvator, it has never once tended to the honour of God.' Were Mr. Ruskin amenable to those rules of consistency which with other writers forbid the penning of many a magnificent paragraph, we should have been spared this rhapsody of plausible sophistry and careful alliteration. He would have halted, as we do, at the first sentence, and, admitting that as pictures rise in rank as works of art, they are regarded with less devotion and more curiosity,' he would either have shrunk from an argument which involves the necessity of keeping art undeveloped and barbarous, as the Greek Church to this day does; or, knowing that it is only in the development of any art that we can perceive its real aim, he would have looked a little closer at that 'curiosity,' or, in other words, at that other source of interest, separate from religion, which, by his own admission, increases in strength in proportion as pictures increase in merit. But this is begging the whole question; for to have interposed such considerations between Mr. Ruskin and his arguments would have been to interdict them altogether. We take them, therefore, as they are, and boldly meet the accusation of the religious and moral shortcomings of land scape art, or any art, by the utter denial creed be tested by its influence on the beand denunciation not of those shortcomings, liever. Independent of all the attacks upwhich we gladly confess, but of those doc- on painters, living or dead, which we shall trines which so mischievously misrepresent presently investigate, and which may be the real mission of art. Whether sacred or considered the substance of his works, the historical, landscape or domestic, art was mere incidental and accessory portions teem not given to man either to teach him religion with a malice, bitterness, and uncharitableor morality; and wherever he is found pro- ness, which is as uncalled for as it is unjusfessing to learn one or the other from her, tifiable. Mr. Ruskin may talk of love for something worse than that spiritual indif- trees, stones, and clouds, and profess an imference which Mr. Ruskin laments-name- pious horror for those who do not represent ly, false and morbid fervours-and some- them according to his ideas of truth, but thing worse than that human interest he where, throughout his writings, do we find despises namely, cold and selfish abstrac- one spark of that love for man, woman, or tions-will be found. As the minister of child which is foremost among all the prethose ineffable pleasures which stand in cepts and the fruits of religion and moralisweet reconciliation midway between the ty? How comes it that the man who lives senses and the soul; as the stirrer of those under the influence of him whom he prohumanising emotions which harmonise nounces 'the greatest landscape painter the equally with man's highest spiritual aspira- world has yet seen;' and further, as he rations and his commonest daily impres- owns, 'more among mountains than among sions-which have none of the dangers of men,' and therefore under nature's immediselfish sensibility or the penalties of false ate teaching-how comes he to have formexcitement ;-as all this, and infinitely ed such low and contemptuous notions of more, art is indeed to be looked upon as a gift his fellow-creatures as appear directly and of inappreciable price to a race who need indirectly in every chapter he has written? those pure pleasures which recall their for- Considering the little company he professes feited innocence, quite as much as those to keep, how comes it to be only of that moral lessons which point to its loss; but kind as to wring from him the declaration beyond this she happily gives and teaches that 'There never yet was a generation of nothing. For if outward Nature herself, men (savage or civilized), who, taken as a with all her blessed influences, never really, body, so woefully fulfilled the words, "havexcept in an infidel novel, taught a man to ing no hope and living without God in the fear God, love his neighbour, and correct world," as the present civilized European himself; if from the beginning of the world race;' that 'a Red Indian or Otaheitan samen never really listened to the voice of the vage has more sense of a Divine existence creation as the means of moral and religious around him, or government over him, than teaching for if they had, St. Paul would the plurality of refined Londoners and not have been sent to the Gentiles-neither Parisians?' (vol. iii. p. 258.) will they to the best painter's best echo of Again, that I truly believe that there it. " For art is the shadow of His wisdom, never yet was idolatry of stock or of stone so and but copieth His resources.' He, there utterly unholy as this our idolatry of sha fore, who would wrest art from her real dows;' nor can he think that of those field and purposes-he who with brilliantly- who burnt incense under oaks, and poplars, strung words and active sophistry of and elms, it could in any wise be more justthought would misrepresent the real ly or sternly declared, The wind hath scheme of Providence, putting one thing for bound them up in her wings, and they another, would, if we can imagine followers shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices,' numerous enough to constitute him a leader, (iii. 72.) bring about just that false state of society and just that idolatry of shadows for which he now professes to pity us. For he who advocates false motives, and assigns false sources for the teaching of religion and morality, does in fact weaken and obscure, though he may not openly deny, the faith in those only motives and sources which have been revealed to us. What too, we have a right to ask, have been the results of all the supposed religious and moral teaching of art upon the writer himself? Let the nature of the How does it happen that this man never descends from his mountains-the pure and holy hills,' as he calls them-without stumbling on that particular kind of young lady who, rising in the middle of the day, jaded by her last night's ball, and utterly incapable of any wholesome religious exercise, can still gaze into the dark eyes of the Madonna di S. Sisto, or dream over the whiteness of a crucifix, and who returns to the course of her daily life in the full persuasion that her morning's feverishness has atoned for her evening's folly?' (iii. 57.) Or Are these the holy thoughts' which a right feeling for art is to prompt? Is this the language of a man whose heart and mind have been refined even by the commonest and most legitimate influences of art? If so, the world must be weaker and wickeder even than Mr. Ruskin believes it, not to feel it a matter of duty as well as self-interest to repudiate doctrines which bear such unpalatable fruits in the person of their especial apostle ! of the fashionable lady | as Claude, Poussin, Canaletto, Wilson, Mr. Ruskin professes to have written his first two volumes for the express purpose of defending Turner, which, considering that this great painter received while living the unfeigned and unstinted admiration of every British artist worthy the name, and a larger share of that of the cultivated public than usually falls to the lot of artistic genius-considering, too, that this was an admiration so far from barren that he lived to afford to be fastidious as to the individuals from whom he would accept commissions, and died possessed of a larger fortune than any English painter has ever accumulated -appears somewhat unnecessary. Nevertheless, had Mr. Ruskin performed this self-imposed task honestly and sincerely, the world would have been indebted to him for a work of much beauty and interest, and Turner grateful even for services not needed. As it is, however, Mr. Ruskin has taught us that there is an admiration and love more worthy both of Turner's works and Turner's memory, and that is one which resents the use of his name as the pretext for the most unmannerly vituperation of all those great painters who occupy that genealogical tree of art on which Turner's shield now hangs proudly aloft. No enthusiasm for Turner can ever justify, because none can ever really cause, the offensive sentiments levelled at such men |