In the chapter entitled the 'Task of the Least,' the author argues, adroitly enough, 'that the minutest portion of a great composition is helpful to the whole,' and examples from Turner's compositions furnish good evidence in this respect. Under the titles of the 'Lance of Pallas,' and the 'Wings of the Lion,' the Greek and Venetian art inspirations are descanted upon. These are chapters of great interest to the student. Mr. Ruskin finds the Venetian mind perfect in its belief, its width, and its judgment. Yet it passed away. Not desiring the religion, but the delight only of its art, in proportion to the greatness of the power of the Venetians was the shame of their fall. Chapters follow on representative painters—Durer and Salvator, Claude and Poussin, with comments on the 'faithless' and 'degraded' system of classical landscape—Rubens and Cuyp. The next discourse is on 'Vulgarity.' A striking exemplification of it Mr. Ruskin finds in the expression of the butcher's dog in Landseer's 'Low Life,' and Cruikshank's Noah Claypole in the plates to Oliver Twist. He counts 'among the reckless losses of the right service of intellectual power with which the century must be charged, the employing to no higher purpose than the illustration of Jack Sheppard'and the "Irish Rebellion," the great, grave (using the words deliberately and with large meaning), and singular genius of Cruikshank,' though the works selected are hardly fair specimens of the artist's general illustrative labours, and the 'Irish Rebellion' is surely worthy of art record and rendering. The most fatal form of vulgarity is described as dulness of heart and dulness of bodily sense, general stupidity being its material manifestation. 'One of the forms of death,' suggests Mr. Ruskin's 'keen-minded friend,' Mr. Brett, the painter—a vague enough definition—but it pleases Mr. Ruskin, though he amends it, and settles at last on the term 'earthful selfishness,' as embracing all the most fatal and essential forms of mental vulgarity. Hastening to an end, it can only now be simply stated that chapters on Wouvermans and Angelico succeed. Then the 'two boyhoods,' an interesting and highly-wrought comparison of the early lives of Turner and Giorgione, and of the different circumstances under which their art-minds severally dawned and developed. The remainder of the book is almost wholly devoted in glowing strains, like the pompous glory of the crowning movement of a Beethoven symphony, to loving yet deferential homage to Turner. His works and life are traced out and lingered over, not with biographical exactness, but with some effort to make them explicable of the character of the great painter. 'Much of his mind and heart I do not know—perhaps never shall know; but this much I do, and if there is anything in the previous course of this work to warrant trust in me of any kind, let me be trusted when I tell you that Turner had a heart as intensely kind and as nobly true as ever God gave to one of his creatures.' And in a tone replete with the most solemn and impassioned poetry and feeling, the author brings his great work to an end. Emphatically a great work—a noble jewel in the crown of art literature, resplendent enough to have its flaws dwelt upon and some imperfections and shortcoming in its setting pointed out, and yet to lose little in estimation after the utmost has been said and done in these respects.
NOTES:
[23] In 1861 was published The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., founded on letters and papers furnished by his friends and Fellow Academicians; by Walter Thornbury. In a more recent work, Haunted London (1865), Mr. Thornbury has himself passed judgment upon his Life of Turner, pronouncing it to be 'a careless book, but still containing much curious, authentic, and original anecdote.'
[24] It may be noted, however, that in 'The Georgian Era' (1834) occurs the following passage:—'Some have gone the length of saying that in marine views Turner has wrested the palm from all competitors; but with this, few, surely, will agree who have seen the sea pieces of Powell, an artist who, though but recently deceased, has had no biographer to commemorate his poverty or his genius.' The works of Powell, however admirable, are not likely now to be preferred to Turner's. 'The Georgian Era' is not a work of much repute.
[25] 'What can I say of the Napoleon of Mr. Turner? called (with frightful satire) "The Exile and the Rock Limpet." He stands in the midst of a scarlet tornado looking at least forty feet high. "Ah!" says the mysterious poet from whom Mr. Turner loves to quote—
"Ah! thy tent-formed shell is like The soldier's nightly bivouac, alone Amidst a sea of blood....... ......but you can join your comrades!"
FALLACIES OF HOPE.
'These remarkable lines entirely explain the meaning of the picture; another piece is described by lines from the same poem, in a metre more regular—
"The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side, And merit's corse was yielded to the tide."
(This was the burial of Wilkie at sea: now in the National Gallery.)