LITMIR.BIZ

43

See, however, the sunset picture of his predecessor, Bellini (726). Connoisseurs should note that this picture is referred to by Richter as bearing on the vexed question of Palma Vecchio's relation with Titian, and showing that the latter imitated the former rather than vice versâ (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 85. See also Morelli's German Galleries, p. 25).

44

Called also "Sinon before Priam" (Æneid, ii. 79).

45

The two pictures were bought by the nation in 1834 for £11,550. The sum was then thought a very large one, and the trustees fortified themselves with the opinion of experts. Amongst these Sir David Wilkie, R.A., wrote, "It is certainly a large sum for two pictures; but giving this difficulty its due weight, I would decidedly concur in giving this sum rather than let them go out of the country, considering the rarity of such specimens even in foreign countries, and their excellence as examples of the high school to which they belong, to which it must be the aim of every other school to approach."

46

The picture is inscribed "Mariage d'Isaac avec Rebecca," but it is a repetition with some variations in detail of the Claude known as Il Molino (The Mill) in the Doria palace at Rome. Ruskin characterises this version of the subject as a "villainous and unpalliated copy." "There is not," he adds, "one touch or line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form, which cannot have been much altered by the copyist" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 9, sec. iv. ch. ii. § 8).

47

The following is the text of this portion of Turner's will: "I give and bequeath unto the Trustees and Directors for the time being of a certain Society or Institution, called the 'National Gallery' or Society, the following pictures or paintings by myself, namely Dido Building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the De Tabley collection. To hold the said pictures or paintings unto the said Trustees and Directors of this said Society for the time being, in trust for the said Institution or Society for ever, subject, nevertheless, to, for, and upon the following reservations and restrictions only; that is to say, I direct that the said pictures or paintings shall be hung, kept, and placed, that is to say, always between the two pictures painted by Claude, The Seaport and Mill." The "picture formerly in the De Tabley collection" is the "Sun rising in a Mist," 479. Turner bought it back at Lord de Tabley's sale at Christie's in 1827 for £514: 10s., and ever afterwards refused to part with it. The other picture, the Carthage (498), was returned unsold from the Academy, and Turner always kept it in his gallery. His friend Chantrey used to make him offers for it, but each time its price rose higher. "Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the picture?" he asked. "Be buried in it," Turner replied – a remark he often made to other friends.

48

"So in N. Poussin's 'Phocion' (40) the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see the stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct reverse: you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all the way down; but you would have had to look for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have been confused with the stone behind it" (ibid.).

49

Compare on this point G. Poussin's "Abraham and Isaac" (31).

50

One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosa —

The Daisy.

51

"In some of the convents (in Mexico) there still exist, buried alive like the inmates, various fine old paintings … brought there by the monks" (Dublin National Gallery Catalogue). The Spanish influence gave birth, moreover, to a native Mexican School of painting, said to be of considerable merit.

52

"Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular" (Two Paths, § 57 n.) – "The delight of vulgar painters (as Murillo) in coarse and slurred painting merely for the sake of its coarseness, opposed to the divine finish which the greatest and mightiest of men disdained not" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. § 3).

53

The French partiality for Murillo is traditional, dating back to Marshal Soult's time, from whose collection the "Immaculate Conception" was bought. Murillos were his favourite spoils from the Peninsular War. "One day, showing General G – his gallery in Paris, Soult stopped opposite a Murillo, and said, 'I very much value that, as it saved the lives of two estimable persons.' An Aide-de-camp whispered, 'He threatened to have both shot on the spot unless they gave up the picture'" (Ford's Handbook).

54

"He was not a bad painter," continued Ruskin, "but he exercises a most fatal influence on the English School, and therefore I owe him an especial grudge. I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. I never have seen one before the Paul Veronese… I intend some time in my life to have a general conflagration of Murillos." Ruskin would have been relieved to know that of late years at the National Gallery Paul Veronese – and especially his St. Helena – has been very frequently copied.

55

Amongst the curiosities of criticisms are the differences between experts as to whether this is a morning or an evening effect. Contradictory opinions on the point were submitted to the Select Committee of 1853, but as the picture had been "restored," each side was able to impute the difficulty of deciding to the "ruinous" nature of that operation.

56

It may be interesting to note on the other side that Dr. Waagen (whose experience of the sea is given under No. 149) finds the waves in this picture to "run high," and to be "extraordinarily deep and full."

57

Compare for equally defective perspective the covered portico in 30.

58

Visitors to Venice may like to be reminded that most of Ruskin's criticism upon Tintoret's works there is now easily accessible in (1) The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, (2) The Stones of Venice, travellers' edition, and (3) the reissue of the second volume of Modern Painters. Mr. Ruskin always accounted his "discovery" of Tintoret as one of the chief works of his life. "I have supplied," he wrote in Stones of Venice (1853), "somewhat copious notices of the pictures of Tintoret, because they are much injured, difficult to read, and entirely neglected by other writers on art." "I say with pride," he wrote in the epilogue to the second volume of Modern Painters (1883), "what it has become my duty to express openly, that it was left to me, and to me alone, first to discern, and then to teach, so far as in this hurried century any such thing can be taught, the excellency and supremacy of five great painters, despised until I spoke of them; – Turner, Tintoret, Luini, Botticelli, and Carpaccio. Despised, – nay, scarcely in any true sense of the word, known." For the Pre-Ruskinian view of Tintoret, the reader may consult Kugler's Handbook of Painting.

59

For an exhaustive and interesting history of the legend see Mr. J. R. Anderson's Supplement to St. Mark's Rest. One account, it seems, places both Perseus and St. George in the Nile Delta. Politicians who say that England has gone to Egypt to save that

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