JOHN RUSKIN.
En THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE,—Your reviewer and a correspondent consider that Ruskin " hampered " himself, and made much of his other• criticism
inconsistent, by his "trumpet-call to painters to go humbly to Nature, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, scorn- ing nothing." This advice was inconsistent, we are told, with any appreciation of composition in art, and of Turner's work in particular•. There is no such inconsistency in Ruskin's teaching on this matter. Your correspondents throw scorn upon Ruskin only by rejecting and selecting his words.
Allow me to cite the actual words in their context. They occur in a passage of advice to " young artists" :—
" Making the early works of Turner their example, as his latest are to be their object of emulation, they [i.e., young artists] should go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thoughts but bow best to penetrate her meaning, and remember her instruction I rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and good, and rejoicing always in•the truth. Then, when their memories are stored, and their imaginations fed, and their hands firm, let them take up the scarlet and the gold, give the reins to their fancy, and show us what they are made of. We will follow them wherever they choose to lead ; we will check at nothing ; they are our masters, and are fit to be so. They have placed themselves above our criticism, and we will listen to their words in all faith and humility; but not unless they themselves have before bowed, in the same submission, to a higher Authority and Master."— ("Modern Painters," Vol. I., Part II., Sec. 6, Chap. 3, § 21.)
Ruskin, it will be seen, was inculcating a method of study, not a philosophy of art; his advice to young students, so far from involving any inconsistency with his praise of Turner's later work, was actually directed towards showing them how they might hope to emulate the flights of that master. If any one doubts that Turner's mastery was founded on long
and careful study of Nature, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, scorning nothing, he has only to spend half-an-hour in the National Gallery among the Turner studies to learn the truth ; and for the rest, believe me, Sir, that Ruskin is " not such a fool as many people believe who have not read
London.
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