CHRONOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES: WHAT SHALL WE COLLECT?
Is knowledge, like Saturn, destined to devour her own masculine offspring, and leave only the weak to live to propagate follies? If Common Sense, the strong born, has escaped, it is because Knowledge has been deceived, like Saturn, with a stone, not very easy of digestion, nor promising to add much to her substance. But this survivor, Common Sense, has the effeminate yet numerous progeny to contend with, who, with a busy impertinence, multiply absurdities, and put them forth under the glorifying name of their parent, Knowledge. We rejoice, therefore, to see a laudable attempt being made to rescue knowledge from the cramming in of uncommon and worthless things, and to substitute for the people’s use a knowledge of “common things.” And we hope an aggregate addition of the bone and muscle of a little more common honesty, and true genuine natural feeling, will be the result of the wholesomer food. The people have been long enough imposed on by false titles; or the “Useful Knowledge,” the pretence of the age, has been exhausted, and resort had to a very useless substitute.
It is not long since that we read the question and answer scheme of an examination of a retired village school, consisting of labourers’ children; one of the questions being, “What is chronology?” “What is its derivation?” Answer, “Derived from two Greek words,” &c. Will any one think that children so taught become wiser or better? This may not be an isolated instance. It seems possible that chronology may become rather too fashionable a study, and engage a host of collectors of valueless nothings. The neglected science has certainly some arrears to make up. Some few years ago we were authoritatively told that “History” is nothing but an “old Almanac.” Since which time, History and her sister, Chronology, have been discarded servants—out of place, and glad to pick up a few pence here and there as charwomen, in all sorts of odds and ends of corners, to sweep away time-collected dust and rubbish. Their industry seems likely to be rewarded at last. A few of the old worshippers, taking advantage of this exhaustion of “useful knowledge,” benevolently lend them a helping hand, and are trying to persuade the public that the dust was gold dust, or better than gold dust, and the rubbish a treasure, and advising that it should all be swept in again—and where?—into our National Gallery! and doubtless their next step will be to appoint a Parliamentary Commission, not so much for the purpose of sifting it, as of issuing treatises and lectures upon the value and national importance of this new-old treasure trove. So that the public may look to this, that, instead of having their eyes gratified by the beauties of art, they will be disgusted with its deformities; while their heads will be so stuffed with its history, as to leave no room for a thought of its excellence, or a sentiment to be derived from it.
Let not the reader be alarmed at the very mention of the National Gallery. We are not about to inflict upon him the evidence in the Blue Book respecting the picture-cleaning, the doings and misdoings of trustees, the “discrepancies” of opinions and statement of facts, the faults of a system which is inconsistently at once condemned and recommended for continuance, the labyrinth of question and answer leading to no conclusion, the blame here and the flattery there, the unwilling admissions and unreserved condemnations: most people we see are perhaps inclined to believe, in this instance at least, that a “big book is a big evil.” We do not, therefore, intend in this place to reopen the discussion which made the subject of our former papers.
The difficulty under which the Commission laboured was visible from the beginning. The trustees had approved of the cleaning. The task of very decidedly condemning this approval was naturally distasteful; therefore, what is too evidently wrong is charged upon a “system,” while the honourable personages are praised and flattered as if they had never had anything to do with it.
The case must for a while rest where it is, and we should have waited with patience the leisure of our now busy Parliament for its resumption, were it not that a very grievous mischief is left in the Blue Book, where it meets with much favour, to be taken up and made the key-note, the first and last principle of every future discussion respecting a national gallery. It might be thought that, after thirty years of its establishment, we should not have now to come to the question, what a national gallery should be. But so it is. There has been as yet no “fixed principle,” we are told, upon which a national collection is to be formed. We have no charge to bring against the trustees on that account; indeed, we rejoice that they had no fixed principle, if by fixed principle is meant such scheme and system as we see pertinaciously and insinuatingly urged upon the public notice in parts of the evidence, and more particularly in the appendix of this voluminous Report.
We give our reader credit for good taste and common sense, and doubt not he will think it sufficient that a national gallery should consist of good pictures—the best that are to be had. But no: common sense is too unrefined for this knowledge-age, and good taste is of private purveyorship, and of very little importance in forming a public collection. However absurd this may seem to be, we assure the reader that it is an idea put forth with a good deal of authority, and perhaps no little presumption, on the part of some of its advocates; we see its dressing up into a substantial image of magnitude, and mean to take up the sling and the stone, and do battle with it. There are always a multitude of dilettanti who, loading their memories with names, love to talk with apparent learning about art, and yet have little feeling for its real excellences. To such, a history of art is better than art itself. They would make a national gallery a lumber-house of chronological curiosities. They have a perverse love for system and arrangement: very good things in their proper places, and with moderation, keeping a very subordinate position, not without value in a national gallery; but the value is little indeed, if put in any degree in competition with what should be the great primary aim—to gather together the finest works of the best painters. The chronological arrangement should be the after-thought, arising out of what we possess, not directing the first choice. This whim of the dilettanti school is not new with us. It may be seen in the Report of the Commission of 1836—and is repeated in the present Report.
“The intelligent public of this country are daily becoming more alive to the truth, which has long been recognised by other enlightened nations, that the arts of design cannot be properly studied or rightly appreciated by means of insulated specimens alone; that, in order to understand or profit by the great works, either of ancient or modern schools of art, it is necessary to contemplate the genius which produced them, not merely in its final results, but in the mode of its operation—in its rise and progress, as well as in its perfection. A just appreciation of Italian painting can as little be obtained from an exclusive study of the works of Raphael, Titian, or Correggio, as a critical knowledge of English poetry from the perusal of a few of its masterpieces. What Chaucer and Spenser are to Shakespeare and Milton, Giotto and Massaccio are to the great masters of the Florentine school: and a national gallery would be as defective without adequate specimens of both styles of painting, as a national library without specimens of both styles of poetry. In order, therefore, to render the British National Gallery worthy the name it bears, your committee think that the funds appropriated to the enlargement of the collection should be expended with a view not merely of exhibiting to the public beautiful works of art, but of instructing the people in the history of that art, and of the age in which, and the men by whom, those works were produced.”
There is but little said here in many words, and that little based upon an erroneous presumption. We do not believe that the “intelligent public” are becoming alive to “the truth,” which is a fallacy, that they cannot profit by great works without having before them the previous failures, experiments, and imbecilities of the earlier practitioners in art. If the public have any intelligence at all, they will appreciate the “Madonna de Sisto,” for instance, without disgusting their eyes with such Byzantine “specimens” as that shown to Mr Curzon in the monastery, where the monk in his strange ignorance inquired if “all women were like that?” Nor is the parallelism between poetry and painting here fortunate. For, besides that books may sleep on shelves and not offend, and pictures (for the purpose intended) must obtrude themselves on the eye, we do not see that Chaucer and Spenser at all bear the relation to Shakespeare and Milton that Giotto and Massaccio do to the great masters of the Florentine school. All these were men of great, mostly independent genius, worthy of galleries and libraries for their own sakes. But they are here placed as screens to hide the chronological deformities behind them. The “not merely exhibiting to the public beautiful works of art” would seem to infer, to give any force to the passage, that not only the painters Giotto and Massaccio had no “beautiful works,” but that Chaucer and Spenser were poor poets, having no beauties, and no other or little merit but that of being the warning precursors to Shakespeare and Milton, to enable them to eschew their faults.
The committee very cautiously abstained from defining any chronological limits, for we are not to infer that they are to begin with Giotto. However they may consider him the founder of the Italian school, the appendix shows that the Byzantine and very early Italian art (if to be obtained) are desired specimens. “The specimens more especially fitted for a gallery of paintings commence with movable paintings on wood, by the Byzantines, representing the Madonna and child, single figures of saints, and sometimes extensive compositions on a minute scale,” going back even to the ninth century, and so to the earlier Italian “influenced by Byzantine art.” And more decidedly to show the mere chronological object, it is added, “In the case of works without names, or inscribed with names before unknown, the test of artistic merit must chiefly determine the question of eligibility.” Artistic merit only in these cases, and then “chiefly” so that in other cases names are everything.
And all this is for the purpose of instructing the people, not in art, but in the history of art, which may be quite well enough learnt from books by the curious, or in some museum of curiosities, better than in a national gallery, where the real and proper instruction would only be hindered by the sight of things antagonistic to any beauty. We do not doubt that this idea, carried out, would lead to a pictorial chronological mania, if it does not commence with it, not unlike the Bibliomania, ever in search of works, only rare because worthless. Such a national gallery as this scheme contemplates would be the exhibition of a pictorial Dunciad, in which we hope the veræ effigies of the first schemers and promoters would not be omitted, that some future satirist may give them also their merited immortality. Why cannot a committee upon a national gallery confine themselves to the objects for the consideration of which they are appointed, and not run needlessly into the duties of an educational committee, and talk of instruction, when the preservation and advantageous exhibition of the monuments of antiquity and fine art “possessed by the nation” are what they are required to give their attention to? There is enough to be done in the line pointed out to them, and no need of bewildering themselves or the public, led astray by this ignis fatuus of a chronological whim. We are weary of the daily cant; everything is to be instruction, works of art are to be “specimens.” Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, are to be known only by and as “specimens.” The “people” must be ever in a worry of knowledge, flying about from specimen to specimen: it is for knowledge alone they are to come to a national gallery—we hear nothing of enjoyment, of an indulgence in the repose of taste; and we do sometimes smile, in turning over the leaves of the Blue Book, when meeting with much talk about instructing the people, and turn our thoughts for a moment to the happy “specimens” of instruction the walls of our or any National Gallery exhibit. Is moral instruction or art instruction to be gathered in by the people’s eyes, with their astonishment at “Susanna and the Elders,” and that other Guido purposely purchased as a companion to it, the “Lot and his Daughters?” very costly specimens of instruction, the one amounting to £1680, the other £1260, and neither thought very good specimens for instruction in art—not that the severe criticism upon Guido in the evidence is quite to be depended upon. The great flustering “Rape of the Sabines” is not of very nice instruction, perhaps, either in morals or art. There are the “Three naked Goddesses” by Rubens, to whom the caterers of public instruction took the part of Paris, and threw the golden apple, and a very large one too;—what are their Flemish nudities to teach? A stern moralist showed his insulted purity by dashing one offending specimen to atoms.
We do not, however, profess to be such purists as to desire an irruption into the Gallery of a mob of mad Savonarolas, not easily gathered together in these Latter-day-Saints’ times, knowing as we do the real why and wherefore of collecting; yet we cannot but smile at the pretence of instruction, which is sometimes put upon moral, and sometimes shifted to pictorial, grounds. But there is a class of pictures we could wish to see more sought after—pictures of a pure sentiment. It is true they are rare, in comparison to those of a far other character; but they are the most precious, and the really improving. Nevertheless, at once to get rid of this pretence and sham of instruction, we would ask, to whom are such works of sentiment precious, and whom are they likely to improve?—Certainly not the multitude, who would look at them with indifference, and pass them by. They are precious to cultivated minds and pure tastes: minds which, either from natural dulness or evil habits, cannot receive, or even admit, the perception of common virtues, will be altogether untouched by their pictorial representations. Fortunately, there are enough works of a simply pleasing character, that excite little emotion, and none of a high caste, so that, to a certain degree, those may be gratified, and receive a pleasure, who will neither receive instruction nor improvement from a national gallery. And it is this modicum of pleasure to all which justifies expenditure for a national gallery. The real, solid benefit, delight, and improvement are very great, but they are the luxury of the few.
It must be that the multitudes go to such an exhibition more from curiosity than from any love of art. Nor is love of art likely, in the first place, to be there implanted; for, in most cases, a certain love of art, commencing, perhaps, with a mere love of imitation, precedes taste—that perception of what is good. If we were to collect only for the masses, we should have a very worthless gallery. Nor would “the people” ever even learn, from a chronological collection, that history of art, which it seems, in the opinion of the Commissioners, so desirable to teach them. Art, which is not valued for itself, will not, in general, be valued for its history; and without the love for itself, a knowledge of its history is nothing but pedantry. High art is a common prate; it is in every one’s mouth, but in very few hearts. It is not difficult to find the “reason why.” High art treats of high and noble sentiments, of generous actions, fortitude, patience, sublime endurance—all that is great, and good, and pure—all tending to a real “elevated taste.” If it be true that “Similis simili gaudet,” the recipients of delight from this High art should, in some degree at least, be recipients of these high virtues themselves. It must be a large nature for High art. Such a nature may not always be good; but if it be large, even if it be viciously great, it may be possible that it will have a perception of what is great in art, though it may lose its finer qualities. But narrow and utterly selfish minds are altogether out of art’s pale. There are degrees of narrow-mindedness and of selfishness, and there is a condition which may be free from these vices, yet of no very elevated virtue. We do not wish to put all our fellow-men in the worst category, but we do maintain that there is a general lack of moral training—of moral habit—and not confined to one branch of society, which operates as a bar to the acquirement of a real taste for art. We live in too mercenary an age. There is too great a worship of mere money—there is cold calculation where there should be feeling. The romance of life is a term of contempt. What is useful supersedes what is good. Take classes with their characteristics, and see if they be fit for the enjoyment of the Fine Arts. The Parliamentary class have established new maxims. Expediency has taken the place of honour, and perhaps of integrity. To say one thing and mean another not only meets with no reprobation, but is justified and applauded. Statesmen make sham speeches and false promises; politicians bribe and are bribed. Is it likely that High art, whose essential being is good, great, and noble, and, beyond all, truth, should find a real love among such? We deny not exceptions, we speak of that which prevails. View the large and important class, the manufacturing, the great fabricators of wealth—they are encouragers of art, but of what quality? Shall they who thicken their cotton goods with flour, to give them a deceitful substance; shall the common traders, who adulterate everything, whether it be what we put in our mouths or on our backs—nay, to a fearful extent, even the drugs, for lack of whose genuineness miserable sufferers die—shall these, we say, stand with delight before the grand dignity wherewith Michael Angelo has embodied our common nature; or before the pure “Spozalitio” of Raffaelle; or, to come to a “specimen” in our National Gallery, before the lovely countenance of the pure-minded St Catharine, beaming with every grace of truth, of love, of faith, and of fortitude, that appears too much natural instinct to have the effort of strength? Will they, whose pursuits are the material things of a material world, stand for a moment to receive one impression that shall produce an unusual awful thought, before the solemn miracle, the “Raising of Lazarus” of Sebastian del Piombo? No one will deny that there is but little feeling for works of this kind; and that there is so little, characterises our utilitarian times.
It may be as well here to notice what is said in the body of the evidence with regard to this chronological principle. The questioning is not very extensive, and was, perhaps, purposely limited. J. Dennistoun, Esq., is examined, and says: “The only further observation I would venture to make is the extreme desirableness of something like an arrangement of the pictures. I believe that is a matter felt to be so important that it is hardly necessary for me to speak upon it. I think a chronological arrangement in schools is desirable; but, in the meanwhile, as that would be totally impossible in the present building, I think, as far as possible, an arrangement of the pictures might be made chronologically, without reference to schools,—even that would be a step.” We observe that Mr Dennistoun subsequently, as if alarmed at the chronological prospect, very much qualifies this his opinion. To Question 5901, he says: “I have already stated that I think they should omit no favourable opportunity of obtaining any monument illustrative of the progress of art in any school, such as pictures authenticated by signature or date, and of sufficient interest to be specimens of art of that period. But I think it is desirable that they should, in the first place, bestow their attention and dedicate their funds to that more particularly interesting and valuable period of Italian art, which I have already considered in the course of my evidence.” This puts the chronological arrangement happily a little more in the background. As might have been expected from the accomplished and learned author of the Dukes of Urbino, we find in Mr Dennistoun a nice appreciation of the immediate predecessors of Raffaelle, but he has no very long list; he only mentions twenty whose works should be collected, not merely on account of their historical relation to Raffaelle, but for their merit.
No one is more thoroughly acquainted with the Italian schools than Sir Charles Eastlake, both as an artistic critic and historical scholar. He is (Q. 6512) consulted with regard to chronological arrangement. He evidently fears the subdivisions of the whimsical process. Q. 6515: “Would you then propose to arrange the Italian school in a chronological series as a whole, or would you subdivide it into separate schools?”—“I would certainly not separate the schools needlessly; but I would not take out the finest works and put them apart.” Q. 6015: “Then you do not approve of having separate apartments for paintings of the Venetian, Florentine, and other schools?”—“I see no objections to a separation, but I do not see that there would be anything gained by having a mere historical series independent of merit.”
We rejoice to find that the influence of Sir Charles, deservedly great, will not tend to turning our National Gallery into an hospital of invalids and imbeciles. We now come to Mr Dyce’s evidence. Q. 7471: “You have also, in your published work, made suggestions as to the mode of carrying into effect the historical and chronological principle in the arrangement of the collection?”—“I have touched on the subject very slightly, though I have laid it down as a primary rule in the formation of the National Gallery, that the historical arrangement of the works should be had regard to.” Q. 7472: “You insisted that an endeavour should be made, as far as possible, to show the origin and progress of a school of art, independently of showing the excellence of its highest and most perfect works?”—“Yes.” As Mr Dyce’s pamphlet, a Letter, addressed, by permission, to H.R.H. the Prince Albert, K.G., may be considered the first, and perhaps authorised, movement towards the fully setting up the chronological system, we shall make it the subject of our comments more at large; preliminary to which it may be useful to show the reader the number of painters in the several lists furnished in the Appendix, which, we are yet told, is imperfect—in fact, deficient, by many omissions; so that the actual lists—as the mania of making fresh acquisitions would become very restless and busy—would be possibly doubled and trebled. Sir Charles Eastlake, in his suggestions in the Appendix, not very strenuously, we think, notices the object, keeping it somewhat subordinate; and we discover here why Mr Dyce has dedicated his letter, by permission, to H.R.H. the Prince Albert. “The idea of a catalogue of the masters, who might sooner or later be represented in a national gallery, has occurred to many; but the actual formation of such a list has only been recently undertaken, according to a plan suggested by His Royal Highness Prince Albert, and for His Royal Highness’ use. With reference to that list, I may add, that the catalogue of the Italian masters was prepared by myself, and that relating to the other schools by Mr Wornum. The series cannot be considered complete; there are probably both omissions and redundancies; but it may, at least, be taken as the ground-work for such a guide.” We find the lists for this chronological collection to contain (the Byzantine curiosities not included) one thousand five hundred and fifty-five names, and it is probable that as many more might be collected. So that these specimens, if even confined to one for each name, would very soon exhaust the public purse, and possibly so disgust the nation, by their exhibition, as to cause a stoppage of supply for a national gallery. Seeing this array of names, Mr Dyce may well add, when he asks, “What ought a national collection of pictures to be?”—“extensiveness will, I think, suggest itself as one of those characteristics.”
We are not denying that catalogues of this kind are of value—far from it; they are parts of the history of Art; but surely a dictionary of painters is one thing and a collection of pictures another. An army and navy list are valuable documents, but would be rather unwieldy national incumbrances if accompanied by each individual’s portrait at full length—especially viewing the collection, as is the case with this gallery scheme, “independently of merit.” It may be well said, that it is absurd to think of such a scheme with our present building; and it would be difficult to find a site of sufficient area for these specimens by thousands, and at the same time provide for the increase at the present ratio of art propagation.
We proceed to consider Mr Dyce’s pamphlet, or letter—happily not very long—for we have seldom met with so much serious nonsense in so few pages. He blunders on the very threshold of his work; for, as shown, he makes extensiveness a characteristic, whereas it must be but the accident of finding good things to collect. He considers it as a museum, having evidently in view a collection of curiosities, the thing above all others a National Gallery should not be. “Then, again, as every collection has in view some definite purpose, the systematic fulfilment of that purpose on the most enlarged basis—in other words, systematic arrangement, and a wholeness or completeness in relation to its particular purpose, seem necessary to the idea of a national collection.” Words, words, words! all to envelop a commonplace truth that no one need be told. Of course, every man, woman, and child, having a “purpose,” should suit the matter in hand to it. If the man had been destined to manufacture small-clothes instead of writing about art, he wouldn’t begin at the wrong end, and stitch on the buttons before he had cut out his shapes. Of course, he would have had his arrangement and his “chronological” measure too, and not put the boy’s fit on the aged father. There is no end to writing in this style; there may be, if a writer pleases, miles of verbiage before reaching a place of rest or tolerable entertainment, without any prospect of the journey’s end. Then he goes on thinking, and “thinks” what nobody ever doubted: “I think we may assume that a public museum ought to fulfil its purpose” (so ought a pipkin)—but more—“and, secondly, that the objects contained in it ought not merely to be coextensive with that purpose, but illustrate it with the greatest possible fulness and variety; that is to say, the collection ought to be at once extensive and complete.” Extensive and complete—or we would put it plainly, as with regard to the pipkin, that care should be taken that as much be put into it as it will hold without boiling over, preserving in the simmering every variety in the broth—the meat, the bone, the fat, and the vegetables. Notwithstanding this his very clear explanation, he immediately again gravely asks, “But what are we to understand by the completeness of a collection of pictures?” The reply to this question (a reply which may well astonish any inquirer) “depends upon the view we take of its purpose;” that is, to pursue our illustrations, whether the small-clothes be to be made for grandson or grandfather; whether the pipkin is to hold porridge for breakfast, or broth for supper. “Now all, I imagine, will agree, that the object of our National Gallery is, to afford instruction and enjoyment” (a discovery which he very shortly annihilates, by taking out the enjoyment, and making the instruction doubtful); “that it is, or ought to be, an institution where the learned study art, and the unlearned enjoy it, where docti artis rationem intelligunt, indocti sentiunt voluptatem; so that we have to consider how that instruction and enjoyment which the gallery is calculated to afford ought to be provided for.” Not a doubt of it. But why, Mr Dyce, ride your poor hobby-horse round this circle? Don’t you see you haven’t advanced ten paces beyond the stable door. In fact, you have said but the same thing over and over again; but you have taken out of the pack-saddle a scrap of Latin, which, however well it may sound, and your own hobby may prick up his ears at it, is really a piece of arrant nonsense; indeed the reverse of it is the truth; for it is the unlearned, of course, who come to your lecture, that they may understand, “intelligunt;” and the learned, the “docti,” they who know something about the matter, only who can perceive, “sentiunt,” the “voluptatem,” the pleasure of art. But we said Mr Dyce would annihilate enjoyment, and see if he does not do the thing, and most astonishingly. After the passage last quoted, follows: “Now, if there be any, and at this time of day it is to be hoped there are very few, who think that the purpose of the National Gallery will be served by what in popular phrase is termed ‘a selection of the best works of the best masters’” (we rejoice to find so sensible a phrase is popular), “I will simply beg them to apply their opinion to the case of any section of a national library to convince themselves how utterly untenable it is.”
Now the Curiosity Museum is a Library, and a Museum of Curiosities and a library are, ergo, moulded into one—a National Gallery; whereas the materials will not amalgamate,—not one is a bit like the other. To go on is really to get deeper and deeper into the quagmire of nonsense, the only kind of depth to be met with in the whole pamphlet. It must sadly have tired the patience of his Royal Highness, if he did read it; and if Mr Dyce wrote it with any view of giving his Royal Highness a lesson in the English language, which was not needed, he has furnished as bad a “specimen” as could be well met with. But to the matter and the argument:—“the best works of the best masters” is as silly an idea, he thinks, as to supply a library with the best dramatists, Shakespeare, of course, included. He is an advocate for the worst, such as no one would read—and why?—the very sound of it is truly asinine. “Would such a proceeding be tolerated for a single moment? Would it be endured that they, that any body of men, however eminent, should possess the right to withhold from the public any attainable materials for literary knowledge and criticism?”—for which purpose Mr Dyce does not withhold this pamphlet. His materials it is not difficult to decide. It certainly could never have been intended for knowledge but under the greatest mistake; supposing it then to be for criticism, we take him at his word, and indulge him accordingly, or, as he says, “in relation to its particular purpose.” But he is not satisfied yet; having nothing more to say, he must say that nothing in more words. He continues—“that, in fact, they should have it in their power” (that is, the any men, however eminent) “actually or virtually to pronounce a judgment on the comparative merits of authors, the accuracy of which could only be tested by the very comparison which the judgment has the effect of preventing. Yet there is no difference between such a proceeding and the restriction of the national collection of pictures to such works as might happen to be considered the best.” What a circular jumble of words is here!—“a judgment on comparative merits” not to be pronounced, not to be endured to be pronounced, because such judgment has the effect of preventing the said judgment, which is here made at once both desirable and undesirable.
The reader sees how much nonsense may be comprised in less than two pages, for we have not advanced further in the pamphlet. A library, to be a good library, ought to contain the veriest rubbish, even Mr Dyce’s letter, because without comparison therewith we shall never be able to appreciate the styles of Swift, and Addison, and Milton, nor Shakespeare’s dramas, without ransacking the “condemned cells” of Drury Lane. And when at length, by these forbidden comparisons, we have discovered the best works of the best masters, it is not to be endured that “any men, however eminent,” should prefer them to the worst, or at least not give the worst equal honour. Our letter-writer thinks he strengthens his argument by quotations from the evidence, which, if there be anything in them, are quite against him, for they tend to show that selection should be of the best: thus Mr Solly is asked, Q. 1855—“Is it your opinion the study of these earlier masters is likely to lead to a purer style on the part of our own painters, than of the later and more effeminate school?”—“Certainly. I perfectly agree with the questions that have just been put to me, and I am not aware that I could add anything to them, as I think they comprehend all that I should have thought of suggesting myself upon the subject.”
It would have been surprising if Mr Solly had not agreed with questions so manufactured by epithets—for “purer” and “effeminate” make an undeniable difference. The questioner might as well have said, Don’t you think good better than bad? Don’t you think virtue better than vice? This is a specimen of the art of dressing up a false fact, to knock down with it a true one; but even here, according to the Dycian theory, the only earthly reason for preferring the purer is that it is the earlier; if the effeminate had by chance changed places with it, it would have had his chronological post of honour.
In his next quotation the pamphleteer is intent on giving a blow to his compeers of the English school. Mr Leigh confirms Mr Solly’s view—is questioned, Q. 1913: “You say the more chaste works of the Italian school—do you refer to an earlier era?”—“I allude to that particular period so justly referred to in the questions put to Mr Solly.” Q. 1914: “Do you mean the historical painters who were contemporaneous or prior to Raffaelle?”—“Yes.” Q. 1915: “You prefer these to the schools of Bologna?”—“Yes; it is a school whose works we are exceedingly in want of, to enable us to correct the tendency of the English style towards weakness of design, effeminacy of composition, and flauntiness of colouring.” But Mr Dyce has altogether forgotten his own rule, that it is not to be endured to give a judgment, &c.—that is, to pronounce what is good, what is “best” and “of the best,” and that if proved best, we have nothing whatever to do with that accident. We have just warned the public, by showing the probable number of specimens for this new “Old Curiosity Shop,” to be called our National Gallery. Page 18, Mr Dyce says, “Still, if it be remembered that only fifteen years after the commencement of the Royal Gallery of Berlin it possessed works of all classes, from the rude Byzantine down to productions of the last century, to the number of nearly twelve hundred, we need entertain no great misgiving as to the possibility of forming even a very considerable collection within a moderate period.” The public, we hope, do entertain a very great misgiving of the consequences of so frightful an inundation, especially as it is to begin with the rude Byzantine. But as the “rude Byzantine” may stand as high art, or fine art, in comparison with still more rude beginnings; and as antiquity lore is ever increased as it looks backward, and is not confined to country, there may be cause for misgiving whether there may not be an attempt to ransack China and Japan for new old schools—to discover picture mines in Peru, for monstrosities in paint and design; for all become legitimate sources under the ever-growing chronological mania, this outrageous pedantry of the “The history of Art.” And here the writer of the pamphlet, having perhaps momentary misgivings himself as to the quality of the stuff to be collected, goes backwards and forwards in oscillating contradictions, from best to any specimens, and from any specimens to best, ending in such wise conclusion as he generally comes to, that it is “best” to get the “best” specimens we can, but no matter whether we get them or not, provided we get any. For he insists that the one object is to have “a collection illustrative of the history of the art, and “(in italics)” the formation of it must be undertaken expressly with that view.” Moreover, “secondly, that though it be desirable that all works collected should be of the highest order—that is to say” (he loves to explain himself thus by duplicate) “that every master should be represented by one or more of his best works, yet as such works are not essential to the completeness of the collection, considered as an historical series, but serve rather to enrich it as a mere assemblage of beautiful works,” &c. &c. Can anything show more his contempt of mere beautiful works, as in no way being an object in collecting? In fact, the whole pamphlet is to recommend, if not to enforce, the gathering together an enormous mass of curiosity lumber, and building a labyrinth of “Chambers of Horrors” to hold them. And it must be taken into account that this absurd, this tasteless scheme, is not confined to pictures. It is proposed, in most views of our future gallery, that statues are to be added, and architecture is to claim its due share as one of the Fine Arts; and where are we to begin, and where end? Is statuary to find its rude commencement in the “Cannibal Islands,” its progress in Tartary, its rise and deification in joss-houses, Burmah furnishing “specimens,” even the wheels of Juggernaut moving slowly and majestically to a new enthronement in Kensington Gardens, or wherever our grand, national, amalgamated museum is to be? Pagodas will yield up their deformities to the new idolatry of chronological worshippers; the old monsters of Nineveh will be revived; and to prove Lord Jeffrey to be right, that there is no principle of beauty, many a hideous image will in arrangement claim affinity to the Venus de Medicis and the Apollo Belvidere. Really, all this is but a natural consequence of the first step in the system. It is to be, not art, but a history of art, to be shown by “specimens;” nor will it do to bring a brick even from Babylon as a specimen of its architecture. The public may rejoice in its ruin, or it would have to be brought in bodily, and a hundred or two crystal palaces added to our wonder of the world; as it is, there must be an “hiatus maxime deflendus.” We should have architecture, and “specimens” of architects of all the several countries and schools, as of pictures and painters. The English progress would be delightful to see. Holingshed says, that within the memory of many in his days, chimneys were rare; of course we must have “specimens.” We might go on indeed to weary the reader with absurdities, and it would only be following out Mr Dyce’s chronological idea in all its collateral branches; for, getting warm in riding his hobby, his heated imagination looks out for inconceivable vanishing points, which recede as fast as he finds them, till he sees in the unbounded space of art, which he thinks he has himself created, arts and sciences flying about in every direction, and crossing each other like so many dancing comets. The reader must look for a little incomprehensible language and confused utterance when Mr Dyce descends, having breathed the bewildering gas of his extraordinary sphere, to put his thoughts on paper, and thus he writes: “What I was going to say was in substance this—that if the idea of a complete museum of the fine arts involved the illustration of decorative art, and of physical science in its relation to art, to an extent which, though not unlimited, is nevertheless indefinite, if the vanishing point” (the italics of Mr Dyce), “so to speak, of such a museum lies somewhere in the region of practical science, one is immediately led to consider whether, as the reverse is true—viz., that practical science finds its vanishing point in the region of fine art—the true idea of a museum of arts would not be that which embraced the whole development of the artistic faculty, and commenced, therefore, on the one hand, with those arts which are solely, or almost solely, dependant on æsthetical science, and terminated on the other with those which are solely or chiefly dependant on physical science. Such an institution would start at the one extreme from physical science, and at the other from fine art; and these two would meet and cross one another, the influence of each vanishing and disappearing towards the opposite extremes.” So that, if there is anything to be understood and unriddled from this confusion of wordy ideas, it is this, that these arts and sciences, æsthetical and physical, do not meet to kiss and be friends, but to cross each other, and, having simply blazed awhile in each other’s faces, to fly off to their own vanishing points, more distant than ever, disappearing beyond the hope of that happy junction which, nevertheless, it had been the whole purpose of Mr Dyce’s pamphlet to bring about, and which, perhaps, he thinks he has brought about, or intends to bring about, unconscious of the impossibility which he has set in their way.
Lest the reader think we have needlessly brought in this body of architecture, we must again quote Mr Dyce. He certainly, to do him justice, does admit that specimens of architecture may be too big; but if he enumerates and measures his “fragmentary remains” from the British Museum and elsewhere, “models of whole structures, or models and casts of details,” “adequate to the great purpose of exhibiting the development of architecture, both as it is a science and a fine art, in all the various stages of its history,” and if some genii could bring them all together and throw the brick and plaster down before him, we doubt if his, or any known human agility, would enable him to escape the being buried under the dust that would be made by the deposit.
“But secondly, there is a peculiarity in the case of architecture which deserves to be specially noticed. It is this:—that the examples required to illustrate the history of architectural construction and decoration lead us at once into the province of practical science and of decorative art; and thus the door is opened to a more extended view of the contents of a National Gallery of Art.” When he told us in the commencement that extensiveness was one of the characteristics of a National Gallery, we never thought of an extensiveness that should have no termination. The opening of this, his one door, shows a wearying vista—but there are so many doors to open to “complete” his scheme, that it is past all comprehension where he will find door-keepers, or the nation means to pay them.
Let us imagine these ten thousand chronological galleries built, and inhabited by all the arts and sciences. Who could preside over such a seraglio of beauties and uglinesses?—who could possibly know anything about one-half of them? We should doubt even Mr Dyce’s powers to interpret their languages, which would be wanted, considering that the object in view is instruction in their history. And yet Mr Dyce, in his scheme of government for the National Gallery, looks to some one “coming man.” “Some officer should be appointed to take charge of all business relating to the National Gallery, to be responsible for the immediate management, and to whom the public should look for the success or failure of the undertaking.” He must be a very wonderful man indeed: if Mr Dyce has any such in his eye, he ought to have named him; for no one besides ever saw a man on earth equal to so much; and if he is to be general instructor too, he would be wondered at, as when
“——still the wonder grew
That one small head should carry all he knew.”
Yet upon the appointment of this one officer Mr Dyce again insists in the conclusion of his letter, and under the idea of his duty embracing sculpture and architecture, as well as painting, under which heads also are included unlimited and undefined æsthetical and practical arts and sciences.
In our former articles on the National Gallery, we advocated the appointment of one responsible person; in what then, it may be asked, do we differ from Mr Dyce? Simply, that we would confine his attention to one thing which he might be able to know—to the collection of pictures. Even if it were thought desirable to place statues under the same building, we would put them under the direction of a person specially acquainted with sculpture.
The interest of the nation has been now awakened with regard to the National Gallery, to the pictures only, to their collection and preservation. A national museum, such as Mr Dyce and others propose, is far too large a subject, to discuss which seriously would be only drawing away the public mind from that which is a pressing necessity. As the system holds at present, we are neither able to buy pictures properly, nor to preserve them when we have them. Mr Dyce’s own experience in the art qualifies him to speak upon this point, and in justice to him we add, that, excepting the times when the chronological mania is upon him, he writes fairly and sensibly; and we willingly add his modicum of assent to the general opinion, upon the matters which the blue-book has brought before the public. Indeed, in this pamphlet he has two styles of writing: the pages might be well thought the work of two hands. Whatever relates to his chronological scheme is redundant, confused, and ambitiously laboured. He does not appear very clearly to know what he has to say. He is, we suppose, in the midst of his theoretic arrangements, as a painter of eminence visited with some misgivings as to the worthless trash the fulfilment of his scheme would introduce. He writes like one under an adopted whim, against his first instincts, with the verbosity of an untutored and awkward advocate. When he knows clearly what he is writing about, he writes like other people.
He successfully exonerates the keepers of the National Gallery, those appointed subsequently to Mr Seguier, from much of the blame that had been cast upon them. He shows that the responsibility had been, for the most part, taken out of their hands, with regard to the purchase of pictures; that the trustees superseded the keepers, and were afterwards themselves superseded by the Treasury as to active operations. The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, from the nature of their appointment, are sure to be more incompetent than the trustees themselves. It is in evidence that the Lords of the Treasury had no confidence in the trustees; nor, perhaps, much in themselves. Therefore, in 1845, when the trustees recommended the purchase of the Guido from Mr Buchanan, the Treasury do not comply with the request unconditionally—they require Mr Seguier to be consulted as to the condition of the picture; and also “two other eminent judges of the merit and pecuniary value of Italian pictures.” They even point out the individuals for selection: “Mr Woodburn and Mr Farrer might probably be selected with advantage for the purpose, or any others whom Mr Eastlake might consider preferable.” The Lords of the Treasury then preferred the opinion of two dealers in pictures to that of the trustees or Mr Eastlake; the latter being more competent than all the others put together to decide upon the subject. The only surprising thing is, that the trustees, upon this slight put upon them, did not resign their appointments, which, if honourable in other respects, were now marked with the character of incompetency. We have already strongly insisted that picture-dealers should in no case be consulted. They are too much interested, and wish to keep up the value (artificial) of pictures; and the world knows too well the nature of their trafficking, to place implicit confidence in their decisions. We say not that a judicious choice might not be made of skilful and honourable men; but looking to all times, and with some knowledge of the temptations of trade, we should be sorry to see the practice of consulting dealers become a habit or a rule. Take the case which has occurred—the Treasury nominate judges; at a subsequent meeting of the trustees these very judges have pictures to be recommended—are other trading judges to be called in? In that case decisions will have to go the round of these dealer judges. They will either be shy of pronouncing against the interests of each other, or be under the temptation to give each other a good turn, or, at any rate, keep up the market, which they themselves supply. The public have of late been let a little too much into the secrets of picture trafficking, and of picture manufacturing. Is there truth in the exposure that an overbaked would-be Raffaelle was spoiled for that master, but would make an admirable Correggio? With all the respect we owe to individuals, we confess that there is a strong resemblance between picture-dealing and horse-dealing. The habit of appointing dealers as judges would certainly end in a council of dealers, who would, in actual operation, supersede all others. The fiat of the Treasury transferred to the fiat of Wardour Street. We are glad to quote Mr Dyce on this subject:—“This, then, is the present state of matters. The right to entertain a proposal to purchase any picture rests with the trustees; the ultimate opinion of its merits, on which the purchase depends, is not theirs, but that of certain ‘eminent judges’ of such points. The trustees decide what may be and shall be purchased, if it be worth purchasing; the eminent judges decide whether it be worth purchasing, and worth the money asked for it. It may be said that this is an extreme and exaggerated case; that the Treasury, though reposing confidence in the recommendation of the trustees, might nevertheless think it desirable, on several accounts, to have this recommendation fortified by the opinions of eminent judges. True: but as it cannot be supposed that the trustees would press a recommendation, in any case, in the face of an adverse opinion given by the judges they had summoned to their assistance—in other words, since they cannot make a recommendation at all without both summoning such assistance, and obtaining a favourable opinion—it is perfectly clear that the favourableness of opinion they have obtained, not their concurrence in it, must be looked upon by the Treasury as the real warrant for adopting their recommendation. Nor, on the other hand, is it refining too much to say that the ex officio trusteeship of the heads of the financial department of the Government, not only annihilates the responsibility of the trustees, but prevents the due exercise of the control which that department ought to have over their proceedings.”... “If the trustees were to be superseded in a matter of such importance, they surely ought to have been consulted, not only as to the manner in which they might, with the greatest advantage, avail themselves of professional assistance, but as to the class of persons who were to afford it. But no discretion was left to them; and who, let me ask, were the ‘eminent judges’ fixed upon by the Treasury? Will it be believed that not only the class of persons, but the very individuals chosen to give an opinion, on which the purchase of pictures was to depend, were those who were in the habit of offering, and actually at the time were offering pictures to the trustees for sale? At the very meeting (held February 2, 1846) at which the communication from the Treasury was read, I find the trustees considering a proposal for the sale of a collection of pictures by Mr Woodburn, one of the judges nominated by the Treasury. At the next meeting (held March 2, 1846), I find that “the trustees again took into consideration the offer of a picture, by Spagnoletti, for sale by Mr Farrer,” the other “eminent judge” recommended by the Treasury. So that, in fact, the “eminent judges” were by turns competitors for the patronage of the trustees, and by turns sat in judgment on one another’s wares.”
Constitutions grow—they are not made. We never knew one from any manufactory, paper-made, that could hold together; yet we go on with the conceit that we have consummate skill in that line; we make ourselves, as it were, sole patentees for all people and nations, and wonder at the folly of those who reject the commodity, and yet we never attempt the thing on a small scale at home, or a large one abroad, but the result is a failure. The School of Design is a parallel case with the National Gallery. The committee of management of that school was in the same relation with the Board of Trade as the National Gallery with the Treasury. The action of the body was stopped if no official representative of the Board of Trade was present; and if present, the council felt themselves to be a nullity. Yet the council could not at once be easily dismissed, for the Parliamentary grant was voted for the council of the School of Design. In 1842, therefore, this constitution is remodelled. The School is put “under the management of a director and of a council, subject to the control of the Board of Trade.” But here again is a failure. The council and director cannot arrange responsibilities. The director resigns, another succeeds: as before, there is no working together. The constitution has to be remodelled again. The Board of Trade takes the management, assisted by the artist members of the old council. This fails also; and at last that is done which should have been done at the beginning—an officer is appointed, “under the authority of the Board of Trade, to superintend and be responsible for the business of the schools.”
In our democratic tendencies we are jealous of one responsible director; and, on the other hand, with our aristocratic tastes and habits, we devolve upon men of rank and wealth, solely on account of their rank and wealth, duties which they are not qualified to perform (and, we think, the greater honour would consist in their declining such positions), and which, if in other respects qualified to perform, they will not, simply because it is not their distinct personal business, and of a paid responsibility. And thus it is that the really qualified persons, eminent for their knowledge in art, science, and habits of business, are ever excluded. Can we be surprised if there be perpetual failures?
The best boon the trustees of the National Gallery can confer upon the nation, is to resign in a body. Surely there is now little to induce them to remain where they are, and as they are. This step would compel the Government to do what they have found it necessary to do in other cases—appoint a paid and responsible minister; and, if it be thought worth while to have a National Gallery at all, to provide liberally the means of obtaining it. It will never do, on every trifling occasion, to have to go to Parliament, and to be met in a huckstering spirit. We must break some of the shackles which the modern utilitarian school is ever imposing; we must learn to view the fine arts as a constitutional part of the liberal arts, which must be treated liberally, if we would have them permanently established.
We must now return for a little space to the subject which, in the commencement of this paper, we proposed to discuss: “What are we to collect?” We shall make a great mistake indeed, if we are led by Mr Dyce as an authority, to pass contempt upon either the works of, or the admiration felt for, the genius of the greatest men in art—if we put chronological series in competition with excellence. He overdoes his part, and can gain nothing by such language as this:—“Turgid, unmeaning panegyrics of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, Titian, Correggio, and the rest.” These “and the rest” are such pre-eminently great masters, that, in some shape or other, we would have their works ever before the public. Where we cannot have originals, we would have copies, and the best that either have been made and can be acquired, or that can now be made. We cannot think a gallery perfect without them. We would have a portion set apart especially for copies of the best works, and also for prints. In them we might have the designs, and the light and shade, the great and beautiful ideas represented: and here we cannot but lament, that the perfection to which the art of engraving has been brought should in this country be given up to inferior and almost to worthless things. Our engravings indicate the public taste, the causes of the low state of which we have already remarked upon. If there be really a desire to instruct the public—and without instruction there will not be an encouragement for a better devotion of that beautiful art—let the collecting the best engravings, whether old or new, be a great object with the purveyors of a National Gallery. Nor would we have the grand works to which we allude put away in portfolios, but glazed, and hung upon walls specially appropriated to them. Let us have, at least, good things—the best originals we can procure, and the next best, copies, and engravings of the best; and not waste time and squander means in searching out for chronological histories, the attenuated deformities of the Byzantine schools, the hideous performances of those predecessors in art, who had not yet acquired the knowledge of drawing with any tolerable correctness.
We are earnest to make this protest against the chronological scheme, and we hope it will be dissipated by the general voice, because Mr Dyce’s pamphlet seems to have found favour in the eyes of the commissioners. They almost adopt his language—or at least, with little variation of phrase, his argument, and his illustration. They too speak of an “intelligent public,” which has no existence as to art, and is but the translation of Mr Dyce’s Latin quotation, “docti artis rationem intelligunt.” With him, they snub the admirers of “Raffaelle, Titian, and Correggio,” and adopt his literary illustration, and a very bad illustration it is, for the rubbish of books in the world is even greater in bulk than the picture rubbish. Some of the book rubbish may indeed bear affinity to art, and come within the scope of the scheme’s arrangement. The woodcuts of our earliest spelling-books, of Jack the Giant-killer, of Pilgrim’s Progress, and the “specimens” heading last dying speeches and confessions, may yet be discovered with some pains, and no very large cost, if a Parliamentary commission would bespeak Mr Dyce’s acceptable labours. How gratifying to such collectors would it be to trace the rise and progress of that particular branch of the art now so much in fashion, from the earliest “specimens” of designs in popular editions of Æsop’s Fables, to Mr Landseer’s last costly print. Nor should the old glazed picture tiles, that used to amuse our early childhood, when the glow of fire-light illuminated the “animali parlanti,” warmed our young affections, and heated our incipient imaginings, be omitted. The “intelligent public” might perhaps hence learn not only a little in the history of art and its progress, but somewhat also of the history and progress of cruelty, when they see how much artistic labour has been bestowed, and what a large price is given, in our modern improvement days, in getting up and in the sale of that “perfect specimen,” Mr Landseer’s “Otter Hunt,” where the poor creature is writhing upon the spear of the huntsman, and the howling brute dogs are in sympathetic delight with the human bigger brute than themselves. It will be then not uncreditable if the “intelligent public” retrograde in their taste, and for once agree with Mr Dyce in rather admiring the attenuated and ill-drawn deformities, which, after all that can be said against them, were a less libel upon man and brute than some later and more perfect “specimens.” To this extent the chronological idea must go for completion, for Mr Dyce, the favourite of connoisseurs and dilettanti, will not allow them to stop short of it. “Notwithstanding appearances,” he says, “I do not imagine the trustees of the National Gallery ever seriously contemplated the establishment of an index expurgatorius of pictures.” Such opinions he considers obsolete. We must have all “specimens,” however bad; for he says, in emphatic italics—“The collection can aim at no lower object than to exhibit the whole development of the art of painting; the examples of which it consists must therefore range over its whole history!” The “ςηματα λυγρα” of Zellerophon were not of a more deadly character than would the contemplated collection be to all true notions of the Beautiful in art—the collection of inhumanities, the doleful horrors of saints and demons, and worse and more awful representations which preceded perceptions of the Beautiful.
We ought to be glad to learn from any who know better than ourselves, but we very much question if our perpetual appeal to the practice of foreign galleries, in the way in which it is made, is at all a healthy sign. We are not sure that some of the examples we seek may not rather be warnings. It is a confession of imbecility and mistrust in themselves of trustees and commissioners. Foreign architects, foreign directors, and foreign galleries, bear too prominent a part in our blue-books and our pamphlets. We are confident in our own men, if not in the “intelligent public.” We have men quite able to devise galleries, and to know how to fill them. The misfortune has been, not that we lack men of ability, but we do not employ them. And why? Our governments have no better taste, no better knowledge, no better desires, with regard to the arts, than the “intelligent public.” They have never entertained serious views upon the subject. In conclusion, we would ask if the series of Hogarth’s pictures have been removed from our National Gallery, on which they conferred an honour and importance of a kind that no other gallery in Europe can boast of possessing, with the object of forming a chronological series of the British school. We hope to see them transferred to their old places. Our National Gallery should not be deteriorated, to give a grace to Marlborough House, however much it may want it.