On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 1

On the Old Road.

Vol. 2.

by John Ruskin.

PICTURE GALLERIES--THEIR FUNCTIONS AND FORMATION.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY SITE COMMISSION.[1]

_Evidence of John Ruskin, Monday, April 6, 1857._

114. _Chairman._ Has your attention been turned to the desirableness of uniting sculpture with painting under the same roof?--Yes.

What is your opinion on the subject?--I think it almost essential that they should be united, if a National Gallery is to be of service in teaching the course of art.

Sculpture of all kinds, or only ancient sculpture?--Of all kinds.

Do you think that the sculpture in the British Museum should be in the same building with the pictures in the National Gallery, that is to say, making an application of your principle to that particular case?--Yes, certainly; I think so for several reasons--chiefly because I think the taste of the nation can only be rightly directed by having always sculpture and painting visible together. Many of the highest and best points of painting, I think, can only be discerned after some discipline of the eye by sculpture. That is one very essential reason. I think that after looking at sculpture one feels the grace of composition infinitely more, and one also feels how that grace of composition was reached by the painter.

Do you consider that if works of sculpture and works of painting were placed in the same gallery, the same light would be useful for both of them?--I understood your question only to refer to their collection under the same roof. I should be sorry to see them in the same room.

You would not mix them up in the way in which they are mixed up in the Florentine Gallery, for instance?--Not at all. I think, on the contrary, that the one diverts the mind from the other, and that, although the one is an admirable discipline, you should take some time for the examination of sculpture, and pa.s.s afterwards into the painting room, and so on. You should not be disturbed while looking at paintings by the whiteness of the sculpture.

You do not then approve, for example, of the way in which the famous room, the Tribune, at Florence, is arranged?--No; I think it is merely arranged for show--for showing how many rich things can be got together.

115. _Mr. c.o.c.kerell._ Then you do not regard sculpture as a proper decorative portion of the National Gallery of Pictures--you do not admit the term decoration?--No; I should not use that term of the sculpture which it was the object of the gallery to exhibit. It might be added, of course, supposing it became a part of the architecture, but not as independent--not as a thing to be contemplated separately in the room, and not as a part of the room. As a part of the room, of course, modern sculpture might be added; but I have never thought that it would be necessary.

You do not consider that sculpture would be a repose after contemplating painting for some time?--I should not feel it so myself.

116. _Dean of St. Paul's._ When you speak of removing the sculpture of the British Museum, and of uniting it with the pictures of the National Gallery, do you comprehend the whole range of the sculpture in the British Museum, commencing with the Egyptian, and going down through its regular series of gradation to the decline of the art?--Yes, because my great hope respecting the National Gallery is, that it may become a perfectly consecutive chronological arrangement, and it seems to me that it is one of the chief characteristics of a National Gallery that it should be so.

Then you consider that one great excellence of the collection at the British Museum is, that it does present that sort of history of the art of sculpture?--I consider it rather its weakness that it does not.

Then you would go down further?--I would.

You are perhaps acquainted with the ivories which have been recently purchased there?--I am not.

Supposing there were a fine collection of Byzantine ivories, you would consider that they were an important link in the general history?--Certainly.

Would you unite the whole of that Pagan sculpture with what you call the later Christian art of Painting?--I should be glad to see it done--that is to say, I should be glad to see the galleries of painting and sculpture collaterally placed, and the gallery of sculpture beginning with the Pagan art, and proceeding to the Christian art, but not necessarily a.s.sociating the painting with the sculpture of each epoch; because the painting is so deficient in many of the periods where the sculpture is rich, that you could not carry them on collaterally--you must have your painting gallery and your sculpture gallery.

You would be sorry to take any portion of the sculpture from the collection in the British Museum, and to a.s.sociate it with any collection of painting?--Yes, I should think it highly inexpedient. My whole object would be that it might be a.s.sociated with a larger collection, a collection from other periods, and not be subdivided. And it seems to be one of the chief reasons advanced in order to justify removing that collection, that it cannot be much more enlarged--that you cannot at present put other sculpture with it.

Supposing that the collection of ancient Pagan art could not be united with the National Gallery of pictures, with which would you a.s.sociate the mediaeval sculpture, supposing we were to retain any considerable amount of sculpture?--With the painting.

The mediaeval art you would a.s.sociate with the painting, supposing you could not put the whole together?--Yes.

117. _Chairman._ Do you approve of protecting pictures by gla.s.s?--Yes, in every case. I do not know of what size a pane of gla.s.s can be manufactured, but I have never seen a picture so large but that I should be glad to see it under gla.s.s. Even supposing it were possible, which I suppose it is not, the great Paul Veronese, in the gallery of the Louvre, I think would be more beautiful under gla.s.s.

Independently of the preservation?--Independently of the preservation, I think it would be more beautiful. It gives an especial delicacy to light colors, and does little harm to dark colors--that is, it benefits delicate pictures most, and its injury is only to very dark pictures.

Have you ever considered the propriety of covering the sculpture with gla.s.s?--I have never considered it. I did not know until a very few days ago that sculpture was injured by exposure to our climate and our smoke.

_Professor Faraday._ But you would cover the pictures, independently of the preservation, you would cover them absolutely for the artistic effect, the improvement of the picture?--Not necessarily so, because to some persons there might be an objectionable character in having to avoid the reflection more scrupulously than otherwise. I should not press for it on that head only. The advantage gained is not a great one; it is only felt by very delicate eyes. As far as I know, many persons would not perceive that there was a difference, and that is caused by the very slight color in the gla.s.s, which, perhaps, some persons might think it expedient to avoid altogether.

Do you put it down to the absolute tint in the gla.s.s like a glazing, or do you put it down to a sort of reflection? Is the effect referable to the color in the gla.s.s, or to some kind of optic action, which the most transparent gla.s.s might produce?--I do not know; but I suppose it to be referable to the very slight tint in the gla.s.s.

118. _Dean of St. Paul's._ Is it not the case when ladies with very brilliant dresses look at pictures through gla.s.s, that the reflection of the color of their dresses is so strong as greatly to disturb the enjoyment and the appreciation of the pictures?--Certainly; but I should ask the ladies to stand a little aside, and look at the pictures one by one. There is that disadvantage.

I am supposing a crowded room--of course the object of a National Gallery is that it should be crowded--that as large a number of the public should have access to it as possible--there would of course be certain limited hours, and the gallery would be liable to get filled with the public in great numbers?--It would be disadvantageous certainly, but not so disadvantageous as to balance the much greater advantage of preservation. I imagine that, in fact, gla.s.s is essential; it is not merely an expedient thing, but an essential thing to the safety of the pictures for twenty or thirty years.

Do you consider it essential as regards the atmosphere of London, or of this country generally?--I speak of London only. I have no experience of other parts. But I have this experience in my own collection. I kept my pictures for some time without gla.s.s, and I found the deterioration definite within a very short period--a period of a couple of years.

You mean at Denmark Hill?--Yes; that deterioration on pictures of the cla.s.s I refer to is not to be afterwards remedied--the thing suffers forever--you cannot get into the interstices.

_Professor Faraday._ You consider that the picture is permanently injured by the dirt?--Yes.

That no cleaning can restore it to what it was?--Nothing can restore it to what it was, I think, because the operation of cleaning must sc.r.a.pe away some of the grains of paint.

Therefore, if you have two pictures, one in a dirtier place, and one in a cleaner place, no attention will put the one in the dirtier place on a level with that in the cleaner place?--I think nevermore.

119. _Chairman._ I see that in your "Notes on the Turner Collection,"

you recommended that the large upright pictures would have great advantage in having a room to themselves. Do you mean each of the large pictures or a whole collection of large pictures?--Supposing very beautiful pictures of a large size (it would depend entirely on the value and size of the picture), supposing we ever acquired such large pictures as t.i.tian's a.s.sumption, or Raphael's Transfiguration, those pictures ought to have a room to themselves, and to have a gallery round them.

Do you mean that each of them should have a room?--Yes.

_Dean of St. Paul's._ Have you been recently at Dresden?--No, I have never been at Dresden.

Then you do not know the position of the Great Holbein and of the Madonna de S. Sisto there, which have separate rooms?--No.

_Mr. c.o.c.kerell._ Are you acquainted with the Munich Gallery--No.

Do you know the plans of it?--No.

Then you have not seen, perhaps, the most recent arrangements adopted by that learned people, the Germans, with regard to the exhibition of pictures?--I have not been into Germany for twenty years.

120. That subject has been handled by them in an original manner, and they have constructed galleries at Munich, at Dresden, and I believe at St. Petersburg upon a new principle, and a very judicious principle. You have not had opportunities of considering that?--No, I have never considered that; because I always supposed that there was no difficulty in producing a beautiful gallery, or an efficient one. I never thought that there could be any question about the form which such a gallery should take, or that it was a matter of consideration. The only difficulty with me was this--the persuading, or hoping to persuade, a nation that if it had pictures at all, it should have those pictures on the line of the eye; that it was not well to have a n.o.ble picture many feet above the eye, merely for the glory of the room. Then I think that as soon as you decide that a picture is to be seen, it is easy to find out the way of showing it; to say that it should have such and such a room, with such and such a light; not a raking light, as I heard Sir Charles Eastlake express it the other day, but rather an oblique and soft light, and not so near the picture as to catch the eye painfully.

That may be easily obtained, and I think that all other questions after that are subordinate.

_Dean of St. Paul's._ Your proposition would require a great extent of wall?--An immense extent of wall.

121. _Chairman._ I see you state in the pamphlet to which I have before alluded, that it is of the highest importance that the works of each master should be kept together. Would not such an arrangement increase very much the size of the National Gallery?--I think not, because I have only supposed in my plan that, at the utmost, two lines of pictures should be admitted on the walls of the room; that being so, you would be always able to put all the works of any master together without any inconvenience or difficulty in fitting them to the size of the room.

Supposing that you put the large pictures high on the walls, then it might be a question, of course, whether such and such a room or compartment of the Gallery would hold the works of a particular master; but supposing the pictures were all on a continuous line, you would only stop with A and begin with B.

Then you would only have them on one level and one line?--In general; that seems to me the common-sense principle.

_Mr. Richmond._ Then you disapprove of the whole of the European hanging of pictures in galleries?--I think it very beautiful sometimes, but not to be imitated. It produces most n.o.ble rooms. No one can but be impressed with the first room at the Louvre, where you have the most n.o.ble Venetian pictures one ma.s.s of fire on the four walls; but then none of the details of those pictures can be seen.