The Crown of Wild Olive
persist in looking at vicious and false art, they will continue to
offend you. It will be well, therefore, to have one type of entirely
false art, in order to know what to guard against. Flaxman's outlines to
Dante contain, I think, examples of almost every kind of falsehood and
feebleness which it is possible for a trained artist, not base in
thought, to commit or admit, both in design and execution. Base or
degraded choice of subject, such as you will constantly find in Teniers
and others of the Dutch painters, I need not, I hope, warn you against;
you will simply turn away from it in disgust; while mere bad or feeble
drawing, which makes mistakes in every direction at once, cannot teach
you the particular sort of educated fallacy in question. But, in these
designs of Flaxman's, you have gentlemanly feeling, and fair knowledge
of anatomy, and firm setting down of lines, all applied in the
foolishest and worst possible way; you cannot have a more finished
example of learned error, amiable want of meaning, and bad drawing with
a steady hand.[269] Retsch's outlines have more real material in them
than Flaxman's, occasionally showing true fancy and power; in artistic
principle they are nearly as bad, and in taste worse. All outlines from
statuary, as given in works on classical art, will be very hurtful to
you if you in the least like them; and _nearly_ all finished line
engravings. Some particular prints I could name which possess
instructive qualities, but it would take too long to distinguish them,
and the best way is to avoid line engravings of figures altogether. If
you happen to be a rich person, possessing quantities of them, and if
you are fond of the large finished prints from Raphael, Correggio, &c.,
it is wholly impossible that you can make any progress in knowledge of
real art till you have sold them all--or burnt them, which would be a
greater benefit to the world. I hope that some day, true and noble
engravings will be made from the few pictures of the great schools,
which the restorations undertaken by the modern managers of foreign
galleries may leave us; but the existing engravings have nothing
whatever in common with the good in the works they profess to represent,
and if you like them, you like in the originals of them hardly anything
but their errors.
Finally, your judgment will be, of course, much affected by your taste
in literature. Indeed, I know many persons who have the purest taste in
literature, and yet false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon which
puzzles me not a little: but I have never known any one with false taste
in books, and true taste in pictures. It is also of the greatest
importance to you, not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake,
in these days of book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of
literature, and live on a rocky island of your own, with a spring and a
lake in it, pure and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of
your library to you, every several mind needs different books; but there
are some books which we all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer,[270]
Plato, AEschylus, Herodotus, Dante,[271] Shakspeare, and Spenser, as much
as you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves to right
and left of them for purposes of perpetual study. Among modern books,
avoid generally magazine and review literature. Sometimes it may contain
a useful abridgement or a wholesome piece of criticism; but the chances
are ten to one it will either waste your time or mislead you. If you
want to understand any subject whatever, read the best book upon it you
can hear of; not a review of the book. If you don't like the first book
you try, seek for another; but do not hope ever to understand the
subject without pains, by a reviewer's help. Avoid especially that class
of literature which has a knowing tone; it is the most poisonous of all.
Every good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and awe; it may
contain firm assertion or stern satire, but it never sneers coldly, nor
asserts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence or love
something with your whole heart. It is not always easy to distinguish
the satire of the venomous race of books from the satire of the noble
and pure ones; but in general you may notice that the cold-blooded
Crustacean and Batrachian books will sneer at sentiment; and the
warm-blooded, human books, at sin. Then, in general, the more you can
restrain your serious reading to reflective or lyric poetry, history,
and natural history, avoiding fiction and the drama, the healthier your
mind will become. Of modern poetry keep to Scott, Wordsworth, Keats,
Crabbe, Tennyson, the two Brownings, Lowell, Longfellow, and Coventry
Patmore, whose "Angel in the House" is a most finished piece of writing,
and the sweetest analysis we possess of quiet modern domestic feeling;
while Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh" is, as far as I know, the greatest
poem which the century has produced in any language. Cast Coleridge at
once aside, as sickly and useless; and Shelley as shallow and verbose;
Byron, until your taste is fully formed, and you are able to discern the
magnificence in him from the wrong. Never read bad or common poetry, nor
write any poetry yourself; there is, perhaps, rather too much than too
little in the world already.
Of reflective prose, read chiefly Bacon, Johnson, and Helps. Carlyle is
hardly to be named as a writer for "beginners," because his teaching,
though to some of us vitally necessary, may to others be hurtful. If you
understand and like him, read him; if he offends you, you are not yet
ready for him, and perhaps may never be so; at all events, give him up,
as you would sea-bathing if you found it hurt you, till you are
stronger. Of fiction, read Sir Charles Grandison, Scott's novels, Miss
Edgeworth's, and, if you are a young lady, Madame de Genlis', the French
Miss Edgeworth; making these, I mean, your constant companions. Of
course you must, or will read other books for amusement, once or twice;
but you will find that these have an element of perpetuity in them,
existing in nothing else of their kind: while their peculiar quietness
and repose of manner will also be of the greatest value in teaching you
to feel the same characters in art. Read little at a time, trying to
feel interest in little things, and reading not so much for the sake of
the story as to get acquainted with the pleasant people into whose
company these writers bring you. A common book will often give you much
amusement, but it is only a noble book which will give you dear friends.
Remember also that it is of less importance to you in your earlier
years, that the books you read should be clever, than that they should
be right. I do not mean oppressively or repulsively instructive; but
that the thoughts they express should be just, and the feelings they
excite generous. It is not necessary for you to read the wittiest or the
most suggestive books: it is better, in general, to hear what is already
known, and may be simply said. Much of the literature of the present
day, though good to be read by persons of ripe age, has a tendency to
agitate rather than confirm, and leaves its readers too frequently in a
helpless or hopeless indignation, the worst possible state into which
the mind of youth can be thrown. It may, indeed, become necessary for
you, as you advance in life, to set your hand to things that need to be
altered in the world, or apply your heart chiefly to what must be pitied
in it, or condemned; but, for a young person, the safest temper is one
of reverence, and the safest place one of obscurity. Certainly at
present, and perhaps through all your life, your teachers are wisest
when they make you content in quiet virtue, and that literature and art
are best for you which point out, in common life and familiar things,
the objects for hopeful labour, and for humble love.
FOOTNOTES:
[266] I do not mean necessarily to imply inferiority of rank, in saying
that this second class of painters have questionable qualities. The
greatest men have often many faults, and sometimes their faults are a
part of their greatness; but such men are not, of course, to be looked
upon by the student with absolute implicitness of faith.
[267] Including under this term, John Lewis, and William Hunt of the Old
Water-colour, who, take him all in all, is the best painter of still
life, I believe, that ever existed.
[268] This is especially the case in the St. Cecily, Rossetti's first
illustration to the "palace of art," which would have been the best in
the book had it been well engraved. The whole work should be taken up
again, and done by line engraving, perfectly; and wholly from
Pre-Raphaelite designs, with which no other modern work can bear the
least comparison.
[269] The praise I have given incidentally to Flaxman's sculpture in the
"Seven Lamps," and elsewhere, refers wholly to his studies from Nature,
and simple groups in marble, which were always good and interesting.
Still, I have overrated him, even in this respect; and it is generally
to be remembered that, in speaking of artists whose works I cannot be
supposed to have specially studied, the errors I fall into will always
be on the side of praise. For, of course, praise is most likely to be
given when the thing praised is above one's knowledge; and, therefore,
as our knowledge increases, such things may be found less praiseworthy
than we thought. But blame can only be justly given when the thing
blamed is below one's level of sight; and, practically, I never do blame
anything until I have got well past it, and am certain that there is
demonstrable falsehood in it. I believe, therefore, all my blame to be
wholly trustworthy, having never yet had occasion to repent of one
depreciatory word that I have ever written, while I have often found
that, with respect to things I had not time to study closely, I was led
too far by sudden admiration, helped, perhaps, by peculiar associations,
or other deceptive accidents; and this the more, because I never care to
check an expression of delight, thinking the chances are, that, even if
mistaken, it will do more good than harm; but I weigh every word of
blame with scrupulous caution. I have sometimes erased a strong passage
of blame from second editions of my books; but this was only when I
found it offended the reader without convincing him, never because I
repented of it myself.
[270] Chapman's, if not the original.
[271] Carey's or Cayley's, if not the original. I do not know which are
the best translations of Plato. Herodotus and AEschylus can only be read
in the original. It may seem strange that I name books like these for
"beginners:" but all the greatest books contain food for all ages; and
an intelligent and rightly bred youth or girl ought to enjoy much, even
in Plato, by the time they are fifteen or sixteen.