We are to believe, then, that these old masters, Claude and others, had no intention whatsoever of suggesting the idea of a natural scene, but simply of juggling the spectator into the belief that he was looking at the scene itself: and that, consequently, what in the mouth of Dante * was the highest commendation, becomes, in the mouth of Mr. Ruskin, the severest censure; it makes them Pharisees.

Now, of Salvator I have said enough already. If there be any Reader capable of entertaining the accusation before a real picture of the real Claude, it may be well to say that the painter has been revealed to us, by his friend Sandrart, as a man of simple manners, and a placid, benevolent, and candid disposition; absorbed in landscape, and living a virtuous unmarried life, with a relation to keep his house, that he might give undivided attention to it; wandering whole days among the Apennines, forgetful of distance, time, and food; and descanting, with a mingling of the philosopher and the artist, on each beautiful phenomenon of blushing morn and pensive eve. This is the chief of the Pharisees.

It is possible Mr. Ruskin may possess evidence, denied to others, that landscape art, having for two centuries devoted itself to the imitation of natural objects, its all absorbing effort was to produce ideas, not of those objects themselves, but of their imitation only. But then I think we should have the documents. Possibly also Mr. Ruskin may have personal

*

"Morti li morti, e i vivi parean vívi :

Non vide me' di me che vide il vero."

Quoted from Il Purgatorio, in vol. iii. of Modern Painters.

knowledge that Joseph Mallord William Turner, whether publishing an antagonistic "Liber Studiorum," or even making that strange post-mortem bequest to the National Gallery, had no idea of being seen of men." But then, as I say, we should have the documents.

But, perhaps, there was something in the management of the older pictures that betrayed the crime. Here is a passage that may throw some light on the subject. It speaks of

“particular accuracies or tricks of chiaroscuro, which cause objects to look projecting from the canvas; and tells us that "solidity or projection gives that as food for the eye, which is properly only the object of touch. (Ibid. pt. ii. sec. i. chap. vi. § 3.)

a statement which throws no small confusion on the mission of Art itself. We are further told that

out of the picture never Michael Angelo bids you

"he who throws one object lets the spectator into it. follow his phantoms into the abyss of heaven, but a modern French painter drops his hero out of the picture frame." (Ibid.)

It were unhandsome to anatomise figurative language; though we are settling elementary principles. Such things as painters throwing objects out of pictures, spectators walking into them, Michael Angelo reproving chiaroscuro, his phantoms going into the abyss on architectural seats, and French frames dropping heroes like the tree Celia spoke of to Rosalind, may perhaps be illustrations of those qualities of executive power, "truth, simplicity, mystery, inadequacy of means, decision, velo

city." As regards the accused, it is some consolation that they did not, by Mr. Ruskin's own account, tell absolute falsehoods, but only portions of truth, "particular truths of tone," and accuracies or tricks of chiaroscuro. How far they carried, or might, or should have carried, the presentation of these or other qualities, belongs to other parts of our inquiry. Nothing easier, of course, than to construct a highpressure machine, and crush them with inexorable logic. It is only assuming conditions they never accepted, and holding them to professions they never made: only calling a certain amount of imitation the "tricking into a belief of reality," and a certain want of it "the denial of truth," and the thing is done. Whether such triumph is a legitimate one, may appear as we proceed.

CHAP. III.

THE TURNER CONTROVERSY CONTINUED.

sive one.

TRUTH OF TONE."

OUR course is still, as in the last chapter, a defenThere can be no possible doubt that the name of “ Turner " is one of which English Art may be justly proud. I will not ask if it is really to take place with those of "Shakspeare and Verulam ;"* but only whether we are to level the thrones of Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator Rosa, to erect its monument from out their ruins? This is the substantial question throughout this part of our inquiry; and our evidence shall, for the most part, be Mr. Ruskin himself.

Having recorded sentence on the Pharisees under title of "ideas of imitation," Mr. Ruskin proceeds to a very ingenious demonstration of truth-landscape truth," truth of tone," "truth of space," "truth of earth," "truth of clouds," and so on.

Through the whole of this demonstration I shall not attempt to carry my Reader. Not only is such a course incompatible with my limits, but my difference with Mr. Ruskin does not profess to stand on the absolute denial of his premises. Were I to admit almost all he affirms as to the more circumstantial accuracy of Turner's pictures, it might no more

* Edin. Lectures, p. 181.

follow that he was the greater artist, than it would that he was the better man. I neither deny all, nor admit all; nor am I careful to weigh, in scrupulous balance, either what I deny, or what I admit. We will begin with "truth of tone."

By "truth of tone" is intended, not the "toning down" (which is an affair of complexion), nor yet the mere general aspect of a picture as compared with nature (which might be called an affair of pitch); but the due and proper relations between the parts of a picture amongst themselves.

"Now," says Mr. Ruskin,

"the finely toned pictures of the old masters are some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves below her key: the dark objects in the middle distance having precisely the same relation to the light of the sky which they have in nature, but the light being necessarily infinitely" (two or three octaves) "lowered, and the mass of the shadow deepened in the same degree." (Modern Painters, pt. ii. sec. ii. chap. i. § 4.)

These are strange measures; but let us notice the result.

"I have been often struck, when looking at a camera obscura on a dark day, with the exact resemblance the image bore to one of the finest pictures of the old masters." (Ibid.)

We have essayed the vindication of these masters from the charge of jugglery. Have they, after all, jugglerised the camera obscura?

"Now, if this could be done consistently, and all the notes of nature given in this way, a note or two down,”