Arrows of the Chace, vol. 1/2. Ruskin John

19 free from that plague of our own hearts which brings the shadow of ourselves, and the tumult of our petty interests and impatient passions, across the light and calm of Nature. We do not sit at the feet of our mistress to listen to her teaching; but we seek her only to drag from her that which may suit our purpose, to see in her the confirmation of a theory, or find in her fuel for our pride. Nay, do we often go to her even thus? Have we not rather cause to take to ourselves the full weight of Wordsworth’s noble appeal—

      “Vain pleasures of luxurious life!

      Forever with yourselves at strife,

      Through town and country, both deranged

      By affections interchanged,

      And all the perishable gauds

      That heaven-deserted man applauds.

      When will your hapless patrons learn

      To watch and ponder, to discern

      The freshness, the eternal youth

      Of admiration, sprung from truth,

      From beauty infinitely growing

      Upon a mind with love overflowing:

      To sound the depths of every art

      That seeks its wisdom through the heart?”20

      When will they learn it? Hardly, we fear, in this age of steam and iron, luxury and selfishness. We grow more and more artificial day by day, and see less and less worthiness in those pleasures which bring with them no morbid excitement, in that knowledge which affords us no opportunity of display. Your correspondent may rest assured that those who do not care for nature, who do not love her, cannot see her. A few of her phenomena lie on the surface; the nobler number lie deep, and are the reward of watching and of thought. The artist may choose which he will render: no human art can render both. If he paint the surface, he will catch the crowd; if he paint the depth, he will be admired only—but with how deep and fervent admiration, none but they who feel it can tell—by the thoughtful and observant few.

      There are some admirable observations on this subject in your December number (“An Evening’s Gossip with a Painter”21); but there is one circumstance with respect to the works of Turner which yet further limits the number of their admirers. They are not prosaic statements of the phenomena of nature—they are statements of them under the influence of ardent feeling; they are, in a word, the most fervent and real poetry which the English nation is at present producing. Now not only is this proverbially an age in which poetry is little cared for; but even with those who have most love of it, and most need of it, it requires, especially if high and philosophical, an attuned, quiet, and exalted frame of mind for its enjoyment; and if dragged into the midst of the noisy interests of every-day life, may easily be made ridiculous or offensive. Wordsworth recited, by Mr. Wakley, in the House of Commons, in the middle of a financial debate, would sound, in all probability, very like Mr. Wakley’s22 own verses. Wordsworth, read in the stillness of a mountain hollow, has the force of the mountain waters. What would be the effect of a passage of Milton recited in the middle of a pantomime, or of a dreamy stanza of Shelley upon the Stock Exchange? Are we to judge of the nightingale by hearing it sing in broad daylight in Cheapside? For just such a judgment do we form of Turner by standing before his pictures in the Royal Academy. It is a strange thing that the public never seem to suspect that there may be a poetry in painting, to meet which, some preparation of sympathy, some harmony of circumstance, is required; and that it is just as impossible to see half a dozen great pictures as to read half a dozen great poems at the same time, if their tendencies or their tones of feeling be contrary or discordant. Let us imagine what would be the effect on the mind of any man of feeling, to whom an eager friend, desirous of impressing upon him the merit of different poets, should read successively, and without a pause, the following passages, in which lie something of the prevailing character of the works of six of our greatest modern artists:

      Landseer.

      “His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,

      Show’d he was nane o’ Scotland’s dougs,

      But whalpit some place far abroad

      Whar sailors gang to fish for cod.”23

      Martin.

      “Far in the horizon to the north appear’d,

      From skirt to skirt, a fiery region, stretched

      In battailous aspéct, and nearer view

      Bristled with upright beams innumerable

      Of rigid spears, and helmets throng’d, and shields

      Various, with boastful argument portray’d.”

      Wilkie.

      “The risin’ moon began to glowr

      The distant Cumnock hills out owre;

      To count her horns, wi’ a’ my pow’r,

      I set mysel’;

      But whether she had three or fowr,

      I couldna tell.”

      Eastlake.

      “And thou, who tell’st me to forget,

      Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.”

      Stanfield.

      “Ye mariners of England,

      Who guard our native seas,

      Whose flag has braved a thousand years

      The battle and the breeze.”

      Turner.

      “The point of one white star is quivering still,

      Deep in the orange light of widening dawn,

      Beyond the purple mountains. Through a chasm

      Of wind-divided mist the darker lake

      Reflects it, now it fades: it gleams again,

      As the waves fall, and as the burning threads

      Of woven cloud unravel in pale air,

      ’Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloudlike snow

      The roseate sunlight quivers.”

      Precisely to such advantage as the above passages, so placed,24 appear, are the works of any painter of mind seen in the Academy. None suffer more than Turner’s, which are not only interfered with by the prosaic pictures around them, but neutralize each other. Two works of his, side by side, destroy each other to a dead certainty, for each is so vast, so complete, so demandant of every power, so sufficient for every desire of the mind, that it is utterly impossible for two to be comprehended together. Each must have the undivided intellect, and each is destroyed by the attraction of the other; and it is the chief power and might of these pictures, that they are works for the closet and the heart—works to be dwelt upon separately and devotedly, and then chiefly when the mind is in its highest tone, and desirous of a beauty which may be food for its immortality. It is the very stamp and essence of the purest poetry, that it can only be so met and understood; and that the clash of common interests, and the roar of the selfish world, must be hushed about the heart, before it can hear the still, small voice, wherein rests the power communicated from the Holiest.25

      Can, then, will be, if I mistake not, the final inquiry of your correspondent,—can, then, we ordinary mortals,—can I, who am not Sir Augustus Callcott, nor Sir Francis Chantrey, ever derive any pleasure from works of this lofty character? Heaven forbid, we reply, that it should be otherwise. Nothing more is necessary for the appreciation of them, than that which is necessary for the appreciation of any great writer—the quiet study of him with an humble heart. There are, indeed, technical qualities, difficulties

20

“Memorials of a Tour in Scotland. 1814. iii. Effusion.”

21

See the Artist and Amateur’s Magazine, p. 248. The article named was written in dualogue, and in the passage alluded to “Palette,” an artist, points out to his companion “Chatworthy,” who represents the general public, that “next to the highest authorities in Art are the pure, natural, untainted, highly educated, and intelligent few” The argument is continued over some pages, but although the Magazine is not now readily accessible to the ordinary reader, it will not be thought necessary to go further into the discussion.

22

Mr. Thomas Wakley, at this time M.P. for Finsbury, and coroner for Middlesex. He was the founder of the Lancet, and took a deep interest in medicine, which he at one time practised. I do not find, however, that he published any volume of poems, though he may well have been the author, as the letter seems to imply, of some occasional verses. He died in 1862.

23

The references to this and the five passages following are (1) Burns, “The Twa Dogs;” (2) Milton, “Paradise Lost,” vi. 79; (3) Burns, “Death and Doctor Hornbook;” (4) Byron, “Hebrew Melodies,” “Oh! snatched away in beauty’s bloom;” (5) Campbell; and (6) Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound,” Act ii. sc. 1.

24

It will be felt at once that the more serious and higher passages generally suffer most. But Stanfield, little as it may be thought, suffers grievously in the Academy, just as the fine passage from Campbell is ruined by its position between the perfect tenderness of Byron and Shelley. The more vulgar a picture is, the better it bears the Academy.

25

“Although it is in verse that the most consummate skill in composition is to be looked for, and all the artifices of language displayed, yet it is in verse only that we throw off the yoke of the world, and are, as it were, privileged to utter our deepest and holiest feelings. Poetry in this respect may be called the salt of the earth. We express in it, and receive in it, sentiments for which, were it not for this permitted medium, the usages of the world would neither allow utterance nor acceptance.”—Southey’s Colloquies [“Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society.” Colloquy xiv. (vol. ii. p. 399, in Murray’s edition, 1829)]. Such allowance is never made to the painter. In him, inspiration is called insanity—in him, the sacred fire, possession.