" THE STONEBREAKER "
Sta,—Your readers may or may not agree that the Pre-Raphaelites " must always appear, to any person of normal sensibility, as utterly lacking in taste," or that they are " the pre-eminent example of not being able to see the wood for the trees " ; they may or may not sympathise with your able and well-informed art critic when he says he is "incapable, perhaps, of seeing them with a fresh eye." But they will, I am sure, agree that jaded as he may well have felt at having to explore so many pictures with, to do him justice, so finely observant an eye, he would have felt more jaded still had he been compelled to carry even a few of the flints in John Brett's picture, The Stonebreaker, to the place where he says they are, namely, " on top of Box Hill." This is seen in the far distant background of the picture, rendered with a certain ability, it may be thought, for seeing woods as well as trees.
It would be pleasant if your art critic's admirers, of whom (also "in the far distant background") I am one, were able to organise an expedi- tion to the spot, to give him a chance of seeing one of the most famous landscapes near London, and to photograph the scene as it now is. The sites of some of Cezanne's landscapes have been photographed ; but for one of us who could recognise the Mt. Ste. Victoire, a thousand would
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