THE " LEBER STUDIORUM" AS A COPY-BOOK.* An old idea
of Mr. Ruskin's, that the Liber Studiorum of Turner might be used as a school of landscape art, has been taken up by Mr. John Ward, F.S.A., and an attempt is made in the publication before us to give the Liber, for that pur- pose, a more accessible form. Good examples of the plates grow scarcer and costlier every day. Examples of the etchings, before mezzotint was added, are still rarer. For those who cannot visit the Print Room, or the South Kensington Library, or one of the great private collections, study such as Mr. Ruskin proposed is impossible. Mr. Ward's scheme accord- ingly is to give reproductions in the first place of the etchings, as nearly as possible in fac-simile; to add to these reduced woodcuts from the plates as completed in mezzotint, so as to give an idea of the look of the plate when light and shade were added to the etched lines. Then some parts of the etched work are given enlarged, for closer study ; and, finally, four of the mezzotints are reproduced in photogravure. Mr. Short has worked on these four plates so as to help out the dullness of the mechanical reproduction. The plates are removable for purposes of study, and a large amount of descriptive text and some practical notes are printed with the smaller cuts.
There can be no question that the Liber gives an admirable series of lessons to the student. It is the work of a great artist, and it exhibits him deliberately building up his subject, giving first in the etching its structural skeleton of outline, and then adding to that in the mezzotint the textures and lights and shadows. What a demonstration in this kind of analysis is the Solway Moss, to name only one instance ! Whether the student only looks at, or whether he actually copies the plates, he has separated out for him the two stages of an artistic process, and nothing better can be done for him in the way of a drawing-lesson. And it is an interesting fact, and a testimony in favour of this scheme, that Mr. Frank Short, as any one who knows his work would gather, has him- self gone through an apprenticeship to the Liber Studiorunt. Many of the plates he has reproduced line for line and scrape for scrape, and his original mezzotint work is a development from Turner's practice.
For the general principle of this publication, then, we have nothing but praise. But one or two things may be said by way of criticism. The great lion in the path of such schemes is always expense. Two guineas and a half, the price of the work before us, is a sum beyond the purse of most art- students, so that the usefulness of the drawing-book will be limited to a small number. Now, this price, one would think, might have been considerably reduced. A smaller number of etchings would have served the purpose of the student, and it might have been wise to omit the photogravures altogether, since, at the best, they are dull compared with good im- pressions from Turner's plates. Nor is the choice made in this particular a very happy one. There are four photo- gravures. One of these is a first-rate subject,—namely, the Little Devil's Bridge. Two others, the St. Catherine's Hill and Falls of the Clyde, are good, but not best ; and the Isis is one of the poorest. The etchings come out fairly well, with some inevitable coarsening. The wood- cut reductions are many of them charming, and it is one of the great merits of the book that it includes among these some of the lovely unpublished plates, like the Crowhurst, the Stork and Aqueduct, and the Via Mara, all three of the first rank.
Another source of cost that might have been cut down with great advantage, is the luxurious pages of letterpress. There are two kinds of people who occupy themselves with art,—those who have an eye for a picture and those who have not, but who look upon a picture, as an excuse for reading something about it. The picture is merely a reminder of things that have been said. This is a quite innocent enjoyment, but not one that should be indulged in at the expense of the art-student,
• A Selection from the "Lae)* Studiorum" of J. M. W. Turner, B.A. for Artists, Art Students, and Amateurs: a Drawing-Book Suggested k v the Writings of Mr. Ruskin. With a Historical Introduction by Frederick Wedmore, Practical Notes by Frank Short, and Extracts from the Writings of the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, MA, and others. London: Blackie and Son ; Wimpy and Newton ; Reeves and Sons.
nor should the latter have his instincts confused or perverted by all this literary accompaniment being thrust upon him. Mr. Ruskin's genius, of course, has led many lesser people astray. It was a necessity of his nature, admiring the Liber as intensely as he did, to translate the passion of admiration into composition in another kind, but of equivalent force.
Now, this literary expression is a moral mezzotint—the light and shade are strong, as in Turner—but it is moral light and shade, from the necessities of the material the writer has to work in, and it has nothing to do with Turner. It is not interpretation (which the Liber does not need for those who have eyes) ; it is fantasia :—
" Another than Turner would have painted the convent, but he had no sympathy with the hope, no mercy for the indolence of the monk. He painted the mill in the valley. Precipice overhanging it, and wilderness of dark forest round ; blind rage and strength of mountain torrent rolled beneath it,--calm sunset above, but fading from the glen, leaving it to its roar of passionate waters and sighing of pine branches in the night. Such is his view of human labour."
No ; it is his view of a picturesque scene, and it is quite unlikely that Turner dismissed the convent because of its
theology, and chose the mill because of its ethics. The passage is a fine Ruskin of the place, and for those who have not the eye for a Turner of it, this is splendid compensation.
With Mr. Stopford Brooke's "eloquence," from which a large part of the letterpress is drawn, we have little patience. Ruskin at second-hand is worse than most things at second- hand, and, eloquence aside, the practical part of Mr. Brooke's commentary is a development of some hints of Mr. Ruskin's about Turner's composition. Their ruthless application to each plate gets upon the nerves in the end. Our only quarrel with Mr. Wedmore's " graceful pen" is that it insinuates the obvious with needless caution and at needless length. Mr.
Short's " practical notes," the practical parts of them, are admirable, and it is a pity that it was not left to him to say the one or two words desirable by way of comment on each plate.
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