The P.R.B.
Pre-Raphaelite Painters. By Robin Ironside, with a Descriptive Catalogue by John Gere. (Phaidon Press. 25s.)
THE Phaidon volume of Pre-Raphaelite painters coincides happily with the last of the centenary exhibitions ; unhappily it. is, in some respects, less than a worthy permanent memorial of the Brother- hood. Recent exhibitions and research have brought to light new and little-known works, some of them here reproduced for the first time ; after the period when these painters were violently out of fashion we are ready to place them in historical perspective. Mr. Ironside, in a somewhat overwritten and precious introduction (" the broad propensities from which the Pre-Raphaelites struck their spark of beauty are discernible "), can now see them not as an unheralded phenomenon but as part of the European movement away from classical convention ; he relates their work to Victorian social con- ditions and rightly limits the essential inspiration to the intense years of the 'fifties and early 'sixties. By then the enthusiasm which kindled the hard gem-like flame had burnt itself out. It is passionate, emotional intensity which makes the work of those years live ; with Millais it checked facility and in Rossetti outweighed faulty tech- nique. That control gone, the descent to Bubbles and Venus Verticordia was easy and all too swift. Of the domestic tragedy which ended Ruskin's friendship with Millais, Mr. Gere acutely remarks that had his influence continued the degeneracy of Millais's art might well have been longer delayed. Contrary to current fashion, Mr. Gere gives Ruskin the justice and understanding which are his due.
The descriptive catalogue contains a wealth of information, much of it new, the results of careful scholarly study combined with taste. Enthusiasm perhaps leads to too eclectic treatment with a tendency to dwell on certain painters and works. The detailed documentation will have more appeal to the specialised student than to the general reader, but even he hardly needs to be told that George Herbert was vicar of Bemerton, if indeed .he wants that dull Dyce at all. There are occasional errors, and the location of at least one picture is not up to date. Cornelius Overbeck (an unfortunate portmanteau in Mr. Ironside's department) makes a Siamese twin of two German artists. Millais's picture is not the Prescribed but Proscribed Royalist. There is at least the possibility that a drawing in the Ashmolean may be the " missing " Dante illustration (Purg. xxviii, 52) commissioned by Ruskin in 1856, or a study for it ; it was once in his possession. The smaller Oxford version of Seddon's Jerusalem has its own problems and deserved record, as did the Dublin replica of The Return of the Dove to the Ark ; both early instances of the Pre-Raphaelites' curious readiness to repeat their work. Macracken, first of those northern merchant patrons of the new school, was not a shipping agent (a mistake started by W. M. Rossetti) but a linen and cotton broker. Changing trade conditions led to the sale of his pictures and the ultimate enrichment of Ashmolean and National Gallery ; the man who had courage to buy gossetti's " blessed white eye-sore "—Ecce Ancilla Domini-
in 1853 is not to be forgotten. Still, minor sins of omission and commission do not detract from the general reliability and informa- tiveness of Mr. Gere's work.
A volume of this kind is inevitably an anthology reflecting the tastes and knowledge of the compilers which will not necessarily be those of every reader. Everyone will welcome the stress laid on Madox Brown's landscape paintings, though it is a pity the most important of them is reduced to an, illustration hors texte ; likewise th
the liberal selection from Arur Hughes, the most hauntingly poetic of all the Pre-Raphaelites. His portrsait of Alexander Munro as Ferdinand (reproduced for the first time) is an interesting contrast with Millais's almost contemporary treatment of this theme. The pen study for Home from Sea is also new, and bears out Mr. Gere's theory that the figure of the girl is a later sentimental addition to the painting. We would suggest that the Ewell Spring drawing must also be linked with the history of this picture. One of W. B. Scott's almost unknown contributions to the decorative scheme at Wallington is an important novelty ; his unfamiliar Swinburne at Balliol would have been a useful complement. We would gladly sacrifice so many late dim Burne Jones for the series of astonishing pen drawings on vellum he started at Oxford in 1856. The Knight's Farewell, for instance, has never been reproduced, and is the very quintessence of pure Pre-Raphaelite feeling. Miss Siddal will always have a strange romantic fascination. Clerk Saunders is here, but of her limited output Lady Macbeth and the eerie We are Seven still await illustration. A chance has been missed. One of the later Rossettis might have been included when Hunt's licence is extended to 1875. The three " Guggtuns " are of high quality, and Mrs. Morris is represented in the wonderful Dublin Guenevere. But what has happened to poor Fanny ? Not one face but three look out from all his canvases, and we might have been allowed a sight of the third muse. There is that fine profile head, formerly in the Walpole collection, in just the same technique of pen and wash as that to which the uninteresting Mrs. Beyer apparently owes her inclusion ; a technique not nearly so rare with Rossetti as Mr. Gere implies. Collins is not represented at all—too high a price to pay for Bowler.
In these matters de gustibus . . . but with the quality of the plates there is a legitimate quarrel. Colour reproduction one can accept as an approximation ; in black and white the Pre-Raphaelites demand precise clarity of detail and distinction of tones. Neither quality will be found in most of these plates. Beata Beatrix is a sticky grey-black mass where all values disappear and with them all the quality of the original. In the Millais Ruskin, coat and rocky background merge in ah inky black without a trace of the delicate detail. No one unfamiliar with the original could even suspect the existence of monogram, date and inscription in the Dublin drawing. Poor photographs may have been used, or the plates too hastily passed. Whatever the reason it is regrettable that the illustrations are unworthy of a press which has done the cause of art some service in the past, and of a book on which care and scholarship
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