To the Editor of “The Times.”

Sir: At the time of my departure for the Continent some months ago I had heard it was proposed to light the Turner Gallery, at Kensington, with gas; but I attached no importance to the rumor, feeling assured that a commission would be appointed on the subject, and that its decision would be adverse to the mode of exhibition suggested.

Such a commission has, I find, been appointed; and has, contrary to my expectations, approved and confirmed the plan of lighting proposed.

It would be the merest presumption in me to expect weight to be attached to any opinion of mine, opposed to that of any one of the gentlemen who formed the commission; but as I was officially employed in some of the operations connected with the arrangement of the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House, and as it might therefore be supposed by the public that I at least concurred in recommending the measures now taken for exhibition of the Turner pictures in the evening, at Kensington, I must beg your permission to state in your columns that I take no share in the responsibility of lighting the pictures either of Reynolds or Turner with gas; that, on the contrary, my experience would lead me to apprehend serious injury to those pictures from such a measure; and that it is with profound regret that I have heard of its adoption.

I specify the pictures of Reynolds and Turner, because the combinations of equal coloring material employed by both these painters are various, and to some extent unknown; and also because the body of their colors shows peculiar liability to crack, and to detach itself from the canvas. I am glad to be able to bear testimony to the fitness of the gallery at Kensington, as far as could be expected under the circumstances, for the exhibition of the Turner pictures by daylight, as well as to the excellence of Mr. Wornum’s chronological arrangement of them in the three principal rooms.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. Ruskin.

Denmark Hill, Oct. 20.

P.S.—I wish the writer of the admirable and exhaustive letter which appeared in your columns of yesterday on the subject of Mr. Scott’s design for the Foreign Office would allow me to know his name.[102]

[From “The Daily Telegraph,” July 5, 1876.]
TURNER’S DRAWINGS.