There is, however, one condition of extreme and exquisite skill in which haste may become unerring. It cannot be obtained in completely finished work; but the hands of Gainsborough, Reynolds, or Tintoret often nearly approach completion at full speed, and the pencil sketches of Turner are expressive almost in the direct ratio of their rapidity.
But of all rapid and condensed realization ever accomplished by the pencil, John Leech’s is the most dainty, and the least fallible, in the subjects of which he was cognizant. Not merely right in the traits which he seizes, but refined in the sacrifice of what he refuses.
The drawing becomes slight through fastidiousness not indolence, and the finest discretion has left its touches rare.
In flexibility and lightness of pencilling, nothing but the best outlines of Italian masters with the silver point can be compared to them. That Leech sketched English squires instead of saints, and their daughters instead of martyrs, does not in the least affect the question respecting skill of pencilling; and I repeat deliberately that nothing but the best work of sixteenth century Italy with the silver point exists in art, which in rapid refinement these playful English drawings do not excel. There are too many of them (fortunately) to be rightly exemplary—I want to see the collection divided, dated carefully, and selected portions placed in good light, in a quite permanent arrangement in each of our great towns in connection with their drawing schools.
I will not indeed have any in Oxford while I am there, because I am afraid that my pupils should think too lightly of their drawing as compared with their other studies, and I doubt their studying anything else but John Leech if they had him to study. But in our servile schools of mechanical drawing, to see what drawing was indeed, which could represent something better than machines, and could not be mimicked by any machinery, would put more life into them than any other teaching I can conceive.
It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that I accept the honor of having my name placed on the committee for obtaining funds for the purchase of these drawings; and I trust that the respect of the English public for the gentle character of the master, and their gratitude for the amusement with which he has brightened so many of their days, will be expressed in the only way in which expression is yet possible by due care and wise use of the precious possessions he has left to them.
(Signed) J. Ruskin.
[From “The Architect,” December 27, 1873.]
ERNEST GEORGE’S ETCHINGS.
To the Editor of “The Architect.”
My Dear Sir: I am entirely glad you had permission to publish some of Mr. Ernest George’s etchings;[116] they are the most precious pieces of work I have seen for many a day, though they are still, like nearly everything the English do best in art, faultful in matters which might have been easily conquered, and not a little wasteful, sometimes of means and time; I should be glad, therefore, of space enough in your columns to state, with reference to these sketches, some of the principles of etching which I had not time to define in the lectures on engraving I gave this year, at Oxford,[117] and which are too often forgotten even by our best draughtsmen.