VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,—RETURNING FROM THE BALL

MS. "Fallacies of Hope"
(An Unpublished Poem).—Turner.

And again:—

We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his celebrated MS. poem, the Fallacies of Hope, to which he constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to his Morning—returning from the Ball, which really seems to need a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the Fallacies of Hope, we will quote it for him:

"Oh! what a scene!—Can this be Venice? No.

And yet methinks it is—because I see

Amid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,

Something which looks like a Venetian spire.

That dash of orange in the background there

Bespeaks 'tis Morning! And that little boat

(Almost the colour of tomato sauce)

Proclaims them now returning from the ball!

This in my picture, I would fain convey,

I hope I do. Alas! what FALLACY!"

But there is some good "horse sense" mixed up with frivolity in an article on the canons of criticism a few pages later:—

GENERAL MAXIMS

I. The power of criticism is a gift, and requires no previous education.

II. The critic is greater than the artist.

III. The artist cannot know his own meaning. The critic's office is to inform him of it.

IV. Painting is a mystery. The language of pictorial criticism, like its subject, should be mysterious and unintelligible to the vulgar. It is a mistake to classify it as ordinary English, the rules of which it does not recognise.

V. Approbation should be sparingly given: it should be bestowed in preference on what the general eye condemns. The critical dignity must never be lowered by any explanation why a work of art is good or bad.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICULAR STYLES

Rules for Art Critics

1. To criticise a Picture by Turner.—Begin by protesting against his extravagance; then go on with a "notwithstanding." Combine such phrases as "bathed in sunlight," "flooded with summer glories," "mellow distance," with a reference to his earlier pictures; and wind up with a rapturous rhapsody on the philosophy of art.

2. To criticise a Picture by Stanfield.—Begin by unqualified praise; then commence detracting, first on the score of "sharp, hard outline"; then of "leathery texture"; then of "scenic effect of the figures"; and conclude by a wish he had never been a scene painter.

3. To criticise a Picture by Etty.—Begin by delirious satisfaction with his "delicious carnations" and "mellow flesh-tones." Remark on the skilful arrangement of colour and admirable composition; and finish with a regret that Etty should content himself with merely painting from "the nude Academy model," without troubling himself with that for which you had just before praised him.—N.B. Never mind the contradiction.

4. To criticise a Picture by E. Landseer.—Here you are bound to unqualified commendation. If the subject be Prince Albert's Hat or the Queen's Macaw, some ingenious compliment to royal patrons is expected.

Punch will be happy to supply newspaper critics with similar directions for "doing" all the principal painters in similar style.

He subjoins some masterly specimens of artistic criticism:—

The "facile princeps" of daily critics of art (he of the Post) has the following, in a criticism of Herbert's Gregory and Choristers:—

"There is a want of modulative melody in its colours and mellowness in its hand (whose?), pushed to an outré simplicity in the plainness and ungrammatical development of its general effect. The handling is firm and simple, though in the drapery occasionally too square and inflexible."

MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
YE EXHYBITYON. AT YE ROYAL ACADEMYE.

The neglect and rough handling of the treasures of the National Gallery, where pictures presented to the nation were buried in a vault, is a frequent source of indignant comment throughout this period—note for example "The Pictures' Petition" in 1853. But in another sense contemporary pictures were roughly handled by Punch. Thus in 1849 he puts in an effective plea for realism as against Wardour Street "Old Clo'," and appeals to artists to "paint human beings instead of clothes-horses." There is indeed a strangely familiar ring in "Mr. Pips's" notes on the R.A. Exhibition of the year:—

"The Exhibition at large I judge to be a very excellent middling one, many Pictures good in their kind, but that Kind in very few cases high. The Silks and Satins mostly painted to admiration, and the Figures copied carefully from the Model; but this do appear too plainly; and the action generally too much like a Scene in a Play."