But this, I beg my readers to observe, will be the seventh large book I have actually at this time passing through the press;[5] besides having written and published four volumes of university lectures[6] in the [[306]]last six years; every word of them weighed with care. This is what I observe the ‘Daily Telegraph’ calls giving ‘utterances few and far between.’ But it is as much certainly as I am able at present to manage; and I must beg my correspondents, therefore, to have generally patience with me when I don’t answer their letters by return of post; and above all things, to write them clear, and in a round hand, with all the ms and ns well distinguished from us.
The woodcut, indeed, prepared for this Fors was to have been a lesson in writing; but that must wait till next year, now; meantime you may best prepare yourself for that, and all other lessons to be given in my new edition of the Elements of Drawing, by beginning to form your own cherished and orderly treasures of beautiful art. For although the greatest treasury in that kind, belonging to St. George’s Company, will be as often aforesaid public property, in our museums, every householder of any standing whatever among us will also have his own domestic treasury, becoming hereditary as accumulative; and accurately catalogued, so that others may know what peculiar or separate good things are to be found in his house, and have graciously permitted use of them if true necessity be.
The basis, however, of such domestic treasury will of course be common to all; every household having its [[307]]proper books for religious and economic service, and its classic authors, and engravings.
With the last we must at present class, and largely use, the more perishable treasure of good photographs; these, however, I do not doubt but that modern science will succeed, (if it has not already done so,) in rendering permanent; and, at all events, permanent copies of many may soon be placed in all our schools. Of such domestic treasure we will begin with a photograph of the picture by Fra Filippo Lippi, representing the Madonna; which picture last year had its place over the door of the inner room of the Uffizii of Florence, beyond the Tribune. This photograph can of course eventually be procured in any numbers; and, assuming that my readers will get one, I shall endeavour in this and future numbers of Fors, to make it useful to them, and therefore a treasure.[7]
The first thing you are to observe in it is that the figures are represented as projecting in front of a frame or window-sill. The picture belongs, therefore, to the class meant to be, as far as possible, deceptively like reality; and is in this respect entirely companionable with one long known in our picture-shops, and greatly popular with the British innkeeper, of a smuggler on the look-out, with his hand and pistol projecting [[308]]over the window-sill. The only differences in purpose between the painter of this Anglican subject and the Florentine’s, are, first, that the Florentine wishes to give the impression, not of a smuggler’s being in the same room with you, but of the Virgin and Child’s being so; and, secondly, that in this representation he wishes not merely to attain deceptive reality; but to concentrate all the skill and thought that his hand and mind possess, in making that reality noble.
Next, you are to observe that with this unusually positive realism of representation, there is also an unusually mystic spiritualism of conception. Nearly all the Madonnas, even of the most strictly devotional schools, themselves support the child, either on their knees or in their arms. But here, the Christ is miraculously borne by angels;—the Madonna, though seated on her throne, worships with both hands lifted.
Thirdly, you will at first be pained by the decision of line, and, in the children at least, uncomeliness of feature, which are characteristic, the first, of purely-descended Etruscan work; the second, of the Florentine school headed afterwards by Donatello. But it is absolutely necessary, for right progress in knowledge, that you begin by observing and tracing decisive lines; and that you consider dignity and simplicity of expression more than beauty of feature. Remember also that a photograph necessarily loses the most subtle beauty [[309]]of all things, because it cannot represent blue or grey colours,[8] and darkens red ones; so that all glowing and warm shadows become too dark. Be assured, nevertheless, that you have in this photograph, imperfect as it is, a most precious shadow and image of one of the greatest works ever produced by hand of man: and begin the study of it piece by piece. If you fancy yourself able to draw at all, you may begin by practice over and over again the little angular band on the forehead, with its studs, and the connected chain of pearls. There are seven pearls and fourteen studs; the fifteenth, a little larger, at the angle of the transparent cap; and four more, retiring. They are to be drawn with a fine brush and sepia, measuring the exact length of the band first; then marking its double curve, depressed in the centre, and rising over the hair, and then the studs and pearls in their various magnitudes. If you can’t manage these, try the spiral of the chair; if not that, buy a penny’s worth of marbles and draw them in a row, and pick up a snail shell, and meditate upon it, if you have any time for meditation. And in my Christmas Fors I will tell you something about marbles, and beads, and coral, and pearls, and shells; and in time—it is quite possible—you may be able to draw a boy’s marble and a snail’s shell; and a sea urchin; and a Doric capital; and an Ionic capital; and a Parthenon, and a Virgin in [[310]]it; and a Solomon’s Temple, and a Spirit of Wisdom in it; and a Nehemiah’s Temple, and a Madonna in it.
This photograph, then, is to be our first domestic possession in works of art; if any difficulty or improper cost occur in attaining it, I will name another to answer its purpose; but this will be No. 1 in our household catalogue of reference: which will never be altered, so that the pieces may always be referred to merely by their numbers.
Of public, or museum property in art, I have this month laid also the minute foundation, by the purchase, for our schools, of the engravings named in the annexed printseller’s account.[9]
And respecting the general operation of these schools and of the museums connected with them, the conclusion, which I am happy to announce, of the purchase of a piece of ground for the first of them, for six hundred pounds, requires some small special commentary.