Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin at the Yale Center for British Art

Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin 

Yale Center for British Art

September 5 – December 8, 2019 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

A controversial book of the mid-1800's provides the title for a major exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art. Unto This Last was a book of four essays, published in 1862, on the nature of society, economics and human welfare. The author was a celebrated figure in the British art world, John Ruskin.

Originally appearing in a popular journal, Ruskin's essays proclaimed a message which challenged the "free market" economic system of Victorian Britain. Targeting the selfishness and hypocrisy of Britain's ruling class, Ruskin proclaimed:

"There is no wealth but life."

That is not what most of Ruskin's readers expected him to say.

Unto this Last took its title from the parable of Jesus, "The Workers in the Vineyard" (Matthew 20: 1-16). Jesus had urged that workers be treated fairly and paid an equal wage, just as the souls of all the faithful would receive the benefit of God's grace, regardless of when they professed their belief.

Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.

Ruskin applied this biblical teaching to practical economics. His essays stirred-up a hornet's nest of criticism and the book version sold dismally. Ruskin's reputation as a best-selling author suffered a resounding blow.

John Ruskin, Self-Portrait, in Blue Neckcloth, 1873

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a brilliant writer who had established his reputation as an authority on art with the publication of the first volume of Modern Painters in 1843. For readers eager to hear more from Ruskin about the palaces of the Venetian doges or "truth to nature" landscape painting, Unto This Last came as a rude shock.

Had they read Ruskin's earlier books like Modern Painters a little more intently, Victorian art lovers might have realized that Ruskin was as much a moralist and a social critic as he was an authority on art. 

No visitor to the Unto This Last exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) will make that same mistake.

Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin occupies five galleries in the YCBA. The exhibit rooms are filled almost to overflowing with ninety-plus paintings, drawings, photographs, manuscripts and minerals collected by Ruskin - he was as avid about natural history as he was about art.The leather mail bag, which brought a daily avalanche of correspondence to Ruskin's desk, is on display as well.

Ed Voves, Photo (2019)

 A manuscript notebook of John Ruskin,1842

Ed Voves, Photo (2019)

 A selection of mineral samples collected by John Ruskin,

on view in the Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin exhibition 

The YCBA galleries replicate the "over-stocked" material culture of Victorian Britain. More significantly, the exhibition testifies to the vast amount of knowledge compiled, studied and commented upon by Ruskin during his long life. But even more importantly, these exhibit objects testify to Ruskin's power of observation. No "gradgrind" collector of facts, Ruskin learned by observing.

These perceptive observations on art, nature, and ethics Ruskin presented to the British public and ultimately to people all over the world. Ruskin's writings found avid and appreciative readers. After reading the first volume of Modern Painters, Charlotte Bronte declared, "I feel now as if I had been walking blindfold - this book seems to give me eyes." 

Reginald Knowles, title page design for Unto This Last, 1907 edition

In 1904, an Indian lawyer working in South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi, received a copy of Unto this Last to read on a train ride from Johannesburg to Durban. The experience of reading Ruskin's book profoundly affected Gandhi, who later wrote that it "brought about an instantaneous and practical transformation in my life,” leading to the discovery of "some of my deepest convictions reflected in this great book.”

Ruskin was also a noted teacher of art, at his alma mater, Oxford University, and at the adult educational institutions known as Working Men's Colleges. He was also a proponent of education for women.

It is truly delightful to note that these Ruskinian precepts are very much in evidence in the Unto this Last exhibition. Three doctoral degree students at Yale, Tara Contractor, Judith Stapleton and Victoria Hepburn, did much of the research for the exhibit and wrote brilliant essays and explanatory text for the exhibition catalog. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2019)  

From left: Tara Contractor, Judith Stapleton and Victoria Hepburn, 

curators of Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin

Yale art professor, Dr.Tim Barringer, and YCBA curator, Courtney Skipton-Long, made vital contributions, as well.

"Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death," Ruskin wrote in the third essay of Unto This Last. The marvelous cooperative effort of the YCBA team certainly validates the first part of Ruskin's pronouncement.  

 In terms of fine art, the opening galleries of Unto This Last provide the "show stoppers,"  a sensational oil painting of Venice by J.M.W.Turner, several of Turner's watercolors and an array of Ruskin's own outstanding drawings and watercolors. 

J. M. W. Turner, Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute, ca. 1835

Turner's Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute, painted around 1835, was a favorite of Ruskin, who had a print of the painting in his room at Oxford. Ruskin later collected original works by Turner, especially his watercolors. Not only did Ruskin defend the aging Turner in Modern Painters against his many detractors but he later organized Turner's donation of his vast body of work to the British nation. 

Of the Turner watercolors on view in the exhibition, another depiction of the Grand Canal of Venice shows why the Italian city appealed to and challenged Ruskin's own power of observation.

J. M. W. Turner, Venice, The Mouth of the Grand Canal, ca.1840

Ruskin described Venice as a "ghost upon the sands of the sea, so weak, so quiet, berefit of of all but her loveliness."

The sense of Venice's fading grandeur, indeed its very transience as a place slowly sinking back into the sea, stimulated Ruskin to capture the fabled city in sketches and watercolors of his own. Ruskin's skill as an artist and draftsman, often commented upon by his biographers, still produces astonishment when seeing his actual works. Whether masterfully recording the details of Venetian architecture or simply depicting an oak leaf, as in the introductory illustration to this essay, Ruskin proved himself one of the greatest draftsmen of the nineteenth century.

John Ruskin,

The South Side of the Basilica of St. Mark’s,

 from the Loggia of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, ca. 1850–52

Ruskin wrote in Modern Painters, "If you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world." 

Judging from the examples of Ruskin's work on view in the YCBA exhibition, one gets the impression that he could well have done so himself. That Ruskin did not do so directly relates to the higher purpose to which he set himself, namely to reform society and redeem the world through the power of art.

This brings us to one of the key works of art on view in Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin. Ironically, it is not a painting by Turner or a sketch by Ruskin. Rather it is a print made by a self-taught artist who was also a master-ironmaker from Sheffield in northern England. His name was James Sharples.

Ed Voves, Photo (2019) Dr. Tim Barringer with James Sharples' The Forge, 1859

Dr. Tim Barringer related the fascinating story of how Sharples taught himself to draw and paint and then, incredibly, to engrave his own pictures. Sharples (1825-1893) was a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers which tried - and failed - to resist the use of unskilled labor in iron and steel making. His major work, The Forge, is an accurate, yet idealized depiction of the iron-making process. It shows skilled workers, like Sharples himself, heating a main shaft for a stationary steam engine. It is an exacting, dangerous process - and managed without supervision by factory bureaucrats.

Sharples spent five years engraving The Forge which was finally printed in 1859. Ruskin lavished praise on the self-taught artist and bought ten copies of the print. But the amazing story does not end there. A century later, Barringer focused his research on this little-known Victorian masterpiece and made a tremendous discovery of his own.

With evident excitement still in his voice, Barringer related how he tracked-down Sharples's granddaughter, Marian, then an elderly woman living in a retirement home in England. When Barringer asked her about her grandfather, she reached under her bed and pulled-out the print which we see displayed in the Unto This Last exhibition. Then, from under the bed, came the actual printing plate of The Forge, which she had carefully preserved! 

Dr. Barringer's story shows the living-link between the actual lives of workers like Sharples and Ruskin's ideas and theories in Unto This Last. Ruskin devoted much of his own wealth to funding decent, affordable housing for industrial workers. Ruskin was a man of deeds as well as words, but it is important to include a sample of his writing to show the power of his prose - and of his thought.

Here is a brief excerpt from Unto This Last, in which Ruskin reflects on the work of goldsmiths as symbolical of his ideals for art and industry:

Goldsmith's work is made to last, and made with the man's whole heart and soul in it; true goldsmith's work, when it exists, is generally the means of education of the greatest painters and sculptors of the day... Ghirlandajo was a goldsmith, and was the master of Michael Angelo; Verrocchio was a goldsmith, and was the master of Leonardo da Vinci. Ghiberti was a goldsmith, and beatout the bronze gates which Michael Angelo said might serve for gates of Paradise  But if ever you want work like theirs again, you must keep it, though it should have the misfortune to become old fashioned.

Ruskin's acknowledgment that it might be a "misfortune to become old fashioned" indicates that he was aware of the risks of choosing a tradition-based economic order rather than one based on rapid change. He was no defender of time-honored ways just because this had always been the way. Rather, Ruskin based his approach to "Goldsmith's work" on sincere philosophical principles. He continues:

You must not break it up, nor melt it any more. There is no economy in that; you could not easily waste intellect more grievously. Nature may melt her goldsmith's work at every sunset if she chooses; and beat it out into chased bars again at every sunrise; but you must not. The way to have a truly noble service of plate, is to keep adding to it, not melting it...

Finally, Ruskin concludes:

Gold has been given us, among other things, that we might put beautiful work into its imperishable splendour...

Adriano Cecioni, John Ruskin (Men of the Day, No. 40), Vanity Fair, 1872

Ruskin's comments sounded a much-needed alarm regarding the lives of squalor endured by Britain's working class. Many of the readers of the Unto this Last essays, however, were indignant at his negative comments on the current creed of "Progress" and commercial enterprise. Ruskin challenged the precepts and principles of Liberalism in its nineteenth century form. Later critics have also argued that his controversial views also served to undermine Britain's position as the leading nation of the Western world.

As a counterpoint to the Yale exhibit's celebration of Ruskin as a visionary thinker, a brief reflection is in order to see why Ruskin has been targeted in this countervailing criticism.

For nearly 150 years, Britain led the world in scientific innovation. From 1709, when Abraham Darby perfected the process for smelting iron, to Sir Henry Bessemer's 1856 patent for the Bessemer converter, which refined iron into steel, British technological ingenuity triumphed again and again. Then, beginning in the 1860's, as Ruskin was publishing his Unto This Last essays, Britain's dominant position as an industrial superpower began to be undermined.

The 1860's witnessed the start of the Second Industrial Revolution. Where individual inspiration, "perspiration" and enterprise had been key to Britain's astonishing run of success, corporate organization was the decisive factor in the new phase of industrialism. 

Germany, with its superb education system based on the ideals of Alexander von Humboldt, soon gained the edge in science and industry. Manufacturing firms in the United States pioneered research and development, R&D, as an integral, systematic part of the factory work process.

During the late nineteenth century, British technology began to languish. By World War I, despite the vast expanse of its empire, Britain's industrial power was already in serious decline. 

It would be ludicrous - and manifestly unfair - to blame Ruskin for this reversal of fortune. Ruskin, was greatly concerned about the woeful lack of education among the great mass of Britain's working class, at a time when most of the British ruling elite ignored the problem. A number of Ruskin's concepts on education shared humane and holistic sentiments with Humboldt's influential system.

James Sharples, The Forge, 1859 

As we saw, Ruskin supported master artisans like James Sharples, in opposition to advanced methods of steel-making - and the ruthless management practices of the foundry owners. There are times, however, for innovation, when "breaking", melting, refining and - occasionally - discarding time-honored ideas and techniques are necessary. Ruskin, alas, was not a man for "letting go."

Although I have commented (perhaps overmuch) on the traditionalism of Ruskin's theories, the greater truth about him is that he was an "anti-Victorian." Perhaps this is the reason that Lytton Strachey did not select Ruskin for the cast of characters of Eminent Victorians, the 1918 book which demolished the "all that is noble and good" rhetoric of the Victorian era.

Frederick Hollyer, Portrait of John Ruskin (Datur Hora Quieti), ca. 1894. 

Ruskin was a prophet who pressed his thought close to the limits of human conceptualization. By criticizing the "accepted" in society, by raging against veiling lust for wealth in the garb of pseudo-scientific jargon, Ruskin drove himself to the point of emotional collapse.

The Yale Center for British Art has done a magnificent job in charting Ruskin's innovative contributions to the art and culture of his era. In masterful fashion, the team of curators has seamlessly united the chapters of his wide-ranging life and career into a fascinating tour de force. Young Ruskin of Modern Painters shares the stage with the venerable philosopher who warned of "the storm cloud of the nineteenth century."

Unto this Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin, it should be emphasized, is in no way a "retrospective." The Yale Center for British Art exhibit leaves us with plenty to think about, when we leave the museum and confront the critical issues of the contemporary world. The "storm cloud of the twenty-first century" is there waiting for us, making John Ruskin's life and thoughts very timely indeed.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves. All rights reserved                                                                                           
Images courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art, the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery

Introductory Image: 
John Ruskin (British, 1819-1901) Study of an Oak Leaf, undated. Pen and brown ink with watercolor over graphite, heightened with gouache and gum on paper: 7 9/16 × 6 7/8 inches (19.2 × 17.5 cm) Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. B2014.5.78

John Ruskin (British, 1819-1901) Self-Portrait, in Blue Neckcloth, 1873.  Watercolor and gouache: 13 7/8 x 9 15/16 in. (353 x 253 mm) Watercolor and gouache: 13 7/8 x 9 15/16 in. (353 x 253 mm). Morgan Library and Museum, purchased as gift of the Fellows. #1959.23

Ed Voves, Photo (2019 Gallery view of the Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin exhibition at the Yale Center of British Art. Photo shows John Ruskin’s notebook

Ed Voves, Photo (2019 Gallery view of the Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin exhibition at the Yale Center of British Art. Photo shows a selection of mineral samples collected by John Ruskin.

Reginald Knowles, title page design for Unto This Last and Other Essays on Art and Political Economy, by John Ruskin (London: J. M. Dent, 1907), Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Ed Voves, Photo (2019) From left: Tara Contractor, Judith Stapleton and Victoria Hepburn, curators of the Unto This Last: Two Hundred Years of John Ruskin exhibition at the Yale Center of British Art's preview of the exhibition, September 4, 2019

J. M. W. Turner, Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute, ca. 1835. Oil on canvas: 36 x 48 1/8 in. (91.4 x 122.2 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Cornelius Vanderbilt. #99.31

J. M. W. Turner (British, 1775–1851) Venice, The Mouth of the Grand Canal, ca. 1840. Watercolor on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper: Sheet: 8 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches (22.2 x 31.8 cm).  Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection,  B1977.14.4652

John Ruskin (British, 1819-1901) The South Side of the Basilica of St. Mark’s, From the Loggia of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, ca. 1850–52. Watercolor over pencil, heightened with bodycolor. Private Collection

Ed Voves, Photo (2019) Dr. Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor in the History of Art, Yale University, at the Yale Center of British Art's preview of the Unto This Last exhibition, September 4, 2019

Adriano Cecioni  (Italian, 1836-1886) John Ruskin (Men of the Day, No. 40). Caricature published in Vanity Fair, 17 February 1872. Chromolithograph: 14 1/8 in. x 9 1/2 in. (359 mm x 242 mm). National Portrait Gallery, London.  # D43523

James Sharples (British, 1825-1893) The Forge, 1859. Steel engraving on India laid paper: 17.91 inches x 20.86 inches (455 mm x Width: 530 mm. 'Printed by H. Wilkinson, 93 Charrington Street, London. British Museum collection, 1865,0610.25

Frederick Hollyer (British,1838-1933), Portrait of John Ruskin (Datur Hora Quieti), ca. 1894. Platinum print photograph, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

French and British Drawing Exhibits - Morgan Library and Princeton University Art Museum

      Poussin, Claude & French Drawing in the Classical Age       

     Morgan Library and Museum

June 16 - October 15, 2017

Great British Drawings

Princeton University Art Museum

July 1 – September 17, 2017 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The English Channel is twenty miles wide at its narrowest point between Dover on the British shore and Cap Griz Nez in France. Two remarkable exhibitions of drawings, one at New York's Morgan Library and Museum and the other at the Princeton University Art Museum, show that the cultural gulf between the two nations has often been much wider.

Great British Drawings, a travelling exhibit drawn entirely from the outstanding collection of Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum, charts the course of British art from its post-Reformation awakening in the late 1600's to the mid-twentieth century. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) Great British Drawings at Princeton University Art Museum

Poussin, Claude and French Drawing in the Classical Age at the Morgan is more tightly focused, devoted exclusively to the seventeenth century. The Morgan exhibit is overwhelming composed of drawings from its own, seemingly inexhaustible, holdings, with a few loans from the Metropolitan Museum and several private collections.

These exhibits enable us to see the differing approaches to art which artists from France and Britain followed for much of the modern period. 

The seventeenth century for France was the "splendid century." French art during the 1600's followed the centralizing political agenda of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV. French painters, especially after the foundation of the Académie Royal in 1648, drew support and inspiration from the ideology of France as the "grand nation." 

The annual award of the Prix de Rome, inaugurated in 1663, enabled the lucky winner to study and work in Italy for several years at the expense of the King of France.The prestige of the award insured that the visual arts followed the prescribed religious and classical themes favored by the Royal authorities. Artists were expected to revolve like planets around the Sun King just as the fawning nobles did at the court of Versailles.

Despite occasional attempts to follow the French patronage model, British art was attuned to the fickle dictates of the market place. The "milords" of the eighteenth century, followed by factory owners in the 1800's, bought the kind of art they liked - pictures of themselves and their horses, especially - rather than what King George ordained.

The Morgan exhibit takes its title from from two of the  greatest French artists of all time and from the classical ideal that was the foundation of their work. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) both lived most of their adult lives in Italy. Poussin was ordered home to France by Cardinal Richelieu in 1640, but escaped back to Italy in 1642. Lorrain went to Italy as a pastry chef in the 1620's but found he was better at painting. He was not technically a French subject, which enabled him to avoid the suffocating embrace of the French monarchy.

Both Poussin and Lorrain were masterful draftsmen. Their drawings were clearly intended as the foundation for major oil paintings. To modern eyes, the classical-themed paintings by  Poussin and Lorrain can seem dated and unconvincing. Their drawings are another matter.

Nicholas Poussin, Holy Family on the Steps, 1646-48

Poussin's Holy Family on the Steps is a tour de force of integrating human figures in a believable setting. The scene is superbly accentuated with sharp contrasts of light and shadow. And the fact that facial features are not delineated lets the viewer "finish" the character details in his or her own mind. 

For this work, Poussin used pen and brown ink, with brown and gray wash, over black chalk, on paper. Lorrain often used the same technique with equal effectiveness.

J.M.W. Turner revered Claude Lorrain's oil paintings for their masterly handling of light. Yet, even a brief look at Claude's Landscape with a Procession Crossing a Bridge (1645) and The Sermon on the Mount (1655) opens our eyes to the incredible skill with which the limited range of color is used in these sketches.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Claude's Landscape with a Procession Crossing a Bridge

Less is more. What we see in these drawings is the flowering of organic forms over allegorical references. Nature transcends narrative.

We see that too in the psychological insights of the highest caliber in the portrait drawings on display at the Morgan. The artists of seventeenth century France followed in the footsteps of the Renaissance masters, Jean Clouet (c.1485/90–1540) and François Clouet (c.1515–1572). French portrait sketches from the 1600's clearly show a major advance in depicting both facial features and "interior lives" that rival the more famous Dutch achievements from that era.

Simon Vouet, Study of a Woman Seated on a Step..., ca.1630–35

A superb example of character "formation" is Simon Vouet's Study of a Woman Seated on a Step with Another Study of Her Right Hand, ca. 1630–35. Vouet has depicted a human body in motion, a being whose inner self is stirring to life as well.  

Another masterful achievement is Daniel Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman of the French Court. Created in 1628, during the reign of Louis XIII, this brilliant work is the introductory image for this review.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Detail of Daniel Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman, 1628

Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman immediately calls to mind Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. It is unlikely that the identity of this courtier will ever be revealed. But this stunning portrait probes the psyche of this individual with such amazing perception that we feel we know him for certain.

Great British Drawings begins with a portrait from roughly the same period as Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman. Samuel Cooper, famous for his "warts and all" portrait of Oliver Cromwell, sketched this amazing likeness with black chalk and a bit of white accent. In this case, we know the name of the sitter and his identity raises questions of why Cooper lavished so much skill on it.

Samuel Cooper, Thomas Alcock, ca. 1650

At first glance, Thomas Alcock looks like a "plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows." Such men were the field officers in Cromwell's Puritan army. Looks are deceiving.

In fact, Alcock was a henchman of the libertine Earl of Rochester, notorious for his sexual escapades during the reign of King Charles II. An inscription on the back of the drawing records that Alcock, aged eighteen, commissioned the "famous Mr. Cooper of Covent Garden" to draw his portrait.

Vanity of vanities ... plus a little expendable cash keeps the art market primed!

British art followed a gloriously eccentric and commercial course. Many of the influences which appealed to the French also influenced the British. Italy provided a magnetic appeal during the 1700's - when Britons could get there. 

The frequent wars with France, especially the long Napoleonic Wars, often prevented painters like Turner from travelling to Italy. Unable to sketch and paint Roman ruins or Renaissance churches, British artists depicted ruins on their native shore, usually castles. John Sell Cotman, in a bizarre choice, selected a dilapidated house waiting to be demolished.  

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Christ Church College, Oxford, 1832–33

Turner, with an eye on sales chose the "dreaming spires" of Oxford. Watercolor "drawings" like Turner's 1832 view of Christ Church College, Oxford, served as templates for prints, hugely popular with the growing middle class.

British art during the 1700's and 1800's reacted against the marketplace as well as obeying the call of profit. The Ashmolean drawings on view at Princeton include a rural study by Thomas Gainsborough, created as an antidote to his disgust at painting society portraits. 

John Ruskin, Morning in Spring, with North-east Wind, at Vevey, 1849 or 1869

Another watercolor, sharply in contrast to works with a commercial motivation, is John Ruskin's Morning in Spring, with North-east Wind, at Vevey. Ruskin painted this for the sheer love or art and to satisfy his insatiable quest for a close study of nature.

Ruskin, of course, inherited a large fortune from his indulgent father. But it would be wrong to belabor the issue of economics at the expense of Ruskin's empathy for his fellow human beings and for "truth to nature."

One of the great delights in wide-ranging exhibits like the Morgan and Princeton shows is the opportunity of discovering new artists. Great British Drawings includes a stunning work by an artist I had not heard of previously. Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was both an accomplished artist and an unusual personality. He was obsessed with spiritualism and "automatic" drawing. Spare's pastel depiction, A Dressing Station, 1919, is one of the most striking depictions of the tragic human coast of World War I ever created. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Austin Osman Spare's A Dressing Station,1919

This stunning work recalls John Singer Sargent's Gassed. Every detail is accurate, from the "thousand yard" stares of the wounded soldiers to their muddy boots. Yet, Spare, who did serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps, never reached France until after the war, in 1919. A tremendous emotional leap was necessary for Spare to grasp the horrors of the Western Front and there is no doubt but that he did exactly that.

Great British Drawings ends on a somber note with David Bomberg's Evening in the City of London,1944, and John Piper's The Abbey from the Churchyard, Arbroath,1982. In this work, Piper conflated the actual architecture of the ruined Scottish Church to achieve a ghostly presence of the entire structure and of its long history.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), The Abbey from the Churchyard, Arbroath, 1982

This postwar work is particularly unsettling. Piper had earlier traveled throughout Britain, recording bombed-out buildings. But this ruin is a long-standing one from Scotland's distant past. Or is it a vision of the future? Is this the fate of all human creation, the point where decay reaches a terminal state? 

If so, it needs to be remembered that new life and new social forms will arise to take the place of what has been lost. And with this will come the "moment" for the creation of great art, a renewed opportunity for artists of vision and merit to make their mark. 

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. Images courtesy of Morgan Library and Museum and the Princeton University Art Museum and Anne Lloyd.

Introductory Image:                                                                                                         Daniel Dumonstier (French,1574–1646) Portrait of a Gentleman of the French Court, 1628 Black, red, yellow, and white chalk. The Morgan Library & Museum Purchased as the gift of John M. Crawford, Jr.; 1956.9

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) Exhibition banner for Great British Drawings, Summer 2017, at the Princeton University Art Museum.

Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) The Holy Family on the Steps, 1646–48. Pen and brown ink and wash, with gray wash, over black chalk. The Morgan Library & Museum Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1909; III, 71


Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Detail of Claude Lorrain’s Landscape with a Procession Crossing a Bridge, ca. 1645. Black chalk and graphite, with brush and brown wash, on paper tinted a pinkish brown. The Morgan Library & Museum Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1909; III, 76

Simon Vouet (French, 1590–1649) Study of a Woman Seated on a Step with Another Study of Her Right Hand, ca. 1630–35. Black and white chalk on light brown paper. The Morgan Library & Museum Bequest of Therese Kuhn Straus in memory of her husband, Herbert N. Straus; 1977.59

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Detail of Daniel Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman of the French Court, 1628.

Samuel Cooper, English, (1608–1672), Thomas Alcock, ca. 1650. Black chalk heightened with white on paper. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, (English, 1775–1851), Christ Church College, Oxford, 1832–33. Watercolour and bodycolour over graphite with scratching out, on paper. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

John Ruskin, (English, 1819–1900), Morning in Spring, with North-east Wind, at Vevey, May–June 1849, or 1 May 1869. Watercolour and bodycolour over graphite on pale grey wove paper. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Austin Osman Spare (English, 1886-1956) A Dressing Station, 1919. Pastel on Ingres paper. 52.1 x 39.5 cm Presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Mitchell,  2004. WA 2004.110 © The Estate of Austin Osman Spare

John Piper (English, 1903-1992) The Abbey from the Churchyard, Arbroath, 1982. Brush in Indian ink with watercolor, bodycolor and colored chalks on paper. 57.7 x 67.5 cm Signed: John Piper  Bequeathed by Robert and Rena Lewin, 2004. WA2006.21 © The Piper Estate / DA CS 2015

Art Eyewitness Book Review: Mad Enchantment by Ross King &Turner by Franny Moyle

Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies

 By Ross King 

Bloomsbury/403 pages/$30

Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner 

By Franny Moyle

 Penguin Press/508 pages/$35

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Claude Monet and J.M.W. Turner were long-lived painters whose later years witnessed the creation of some of their greatest works of art. Both were self-centered, occasionally difficult, men who did "not go gentle into that good night..."

The words of Dylan Thomas's famous poem seem to have been written with Monet and Turner in mind. Yet, neither of these "wise men at their end" raged against "the dying of the light."

The aging Monet did battle a variety of eye ailments including cataracts, and Turner was widely considered to be deranged. Instead of raging against the spreading shadows of mortality, these Old Masters glimpsed the dawning of new visions of art.

The  prophetic experiences of Monet and Turner are recounted in two outstanding recent biographies, Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King and Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner by Franny Moyle. 

Mad Enchantment focuses with fascinating detail on Monet's reclusive last years in his garden at Giverny. Moyle's portrait of Turner, by contrast, stretches from his birth to the post-death litigation that was part of his momentous legacy.

Claude Monet (1840-1926) and J.M.W.Turner (1775-1851) have been paired in a number of recent art exhibitions. The comparison is not without its merit. Turner was the premier landscape painter of the first half of the nineteenth century while Monet dominated the latter part of the 1800's. Beyond this timeline relationship, the question of "passing the torch" is exactly that. A question.

Turner was not the "first Impressionist," as some writers assert. He hardly ever painted out-of-doors, even with watercolor of which he was one of the greatest masters in art history. Instead, Turner preferred to take notes of what he observed. 

Moyle vividly recounts the story behind one of Turner's key works, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps. In 1810, Turner observed a storm sweeping over the hills and moors of Yorkshire. He was entranced by the spectacle but declined the offer of a sketch block upon which to make a detailed drawing. A few notes scrawled on the back of a letter were enough.

"There," Turner exclaimed to the young son of his great patron, Walter Fawkes. "Hawkey, in two years you will see this again, and call it Hannibal crossing the Alps."

J.M.W.Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, 1812

Turner was as good as his word. In 1812, he exhibited the finished painting, filled with references to the conflict of empires and to the awesome power of nature.

The creative process behind Snow Storm differed from Monet's approach to painting. Monet did not merely observe the world, but painted directly from nature for much of his life - but not entirely. King notes that Monet was a bit disingenuous when he claimed that he "painted entirely out of doors." Virtually all of Monet's paintings were completed in his studio, "often far from the motif and with much teeth-gnashing labor."

 Monet was, none-the-less, the greatest student of nature among the major painters of his era. Even the vast paintings of water lilies of his last years, painted in his studio, were the result of an obsessive effort of continuous investigation of nature. The fabled nymphéas represent a "dialogue" between man and nature, between Monet and the very stuff of creation, earth, water and air, as revealed by the water garden he created at Giverny.

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1916

Turner's influence on Monet is therefore a matter of controversy. Many commentators claim that Monet's sojourn in England, 1870-71, was a transforming experience, owing to the influence of studying Turner's works on display in London museums. Such a contention is dubious, certainly in terms of artistic technique. Monet, along with Renoir, had already painted the "proto-Impressionist" works at La Grenouillere in 1869. Monet confided to Camille Pissarro in 1871 that Turner's works were "antipathetic because of the exuberant romanticism of his imagination."

So, is there a basis for pairing Monet and Turner in art exhibitions or in a joint book review? The answer, based on the fascinating insights provided by King and Moyle is an emphatic "yes."

There are so many parallels in the life experiences of Monet and Turner that differences in technique might easily be forgotten. Both men loved the sea and rivers, capturing the reflection of light upon water as they navigated their painting boats on the Seine or the Thames. 

Both men also dedicated themselves to grand visionary enterprises. Turner devoted himself to provide a financial endowment for "decayed" artists (later contested by his relatives) and to bequeath a impressive array of his greatest paintings to the British nation. Monet painted works to benefit wounded soldiers during the First World War and labored to create a permanent exhibition of his nymphéas in appreciation of France's trial and triumph in the Great War.

The agonized effort to create the Grand Decoration, as Monet's series of water lilies is called, is the overarching theme of Ross King's Mad Enchantment. It is a story that has few counterparts in art history, except perhaps Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes, about which King has also written a splendid book. 

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1914-26 

This version at MOMA is similar in size to the Grand Decoration in Paris

One of the most notable accomplishments of Mad Enchantment is the gripping descriptions of the herculean efforts involved in painting the cycle of water lily paintings for the Grand Decoration. Far from withdrawing from the world, Monet at Giverny probed to the very essence of nature, just as Turner had done decades before. King writes:

Monet was not, as Cézanne had claimed,"only an eye," for his incredible accuity of vision was combined with an equally adroit hand capable of subtle but masterful techniques... 
Paradoxically for a man who wished to give the impression of the spontaneous capture of a fleeting moment in time, he sometimes used a dozen or more layers of paint on a canvas.

Henri Manuel, Monet at work in his large studio,1920

Monet, as King relates, used every "trick" in the painter's book to create the effect he wanted. Turner had been a kindred spirit in this respect, using varied undercoats of color, thick layers of paint in some instances, stretches of canvas barely painted at other times, rubbing-off paint, applying pigment with brush, palette knife and - in Turner's case at least - the artist's oldest utensil, his fingers.

Both Ross King and Franny Moyle have placed the humanity of their respective protagonists "center stage" in their accounts. These are classic biographies, blessedly free of deconstruction, political agendas and other post-modern baggage. Wide-ranging research, perceptive analysis of the great works of art and compelling narratives make each book a "must" read for art enthusiasts.

The story of how Turner and Monet struggled against the art establishments of Britain and France is, of course, well-known. King and Moyle, however, show that Monet's battle against the Salon and Turner's controversies lasted much longer than generally realized. 

Félix Nadar, Claude Monet, c.1899

Even after Monet's desperate financial woes began to lesson in the 1890's, he still faced criticism over the place of Impressionism in art. Acceptance in some conservative circles came at the expense of dismissal by a number of avant garde critics for being passé.

Monet was fortunate in having a powerful advocate in Georges Clemenceau, the Prime Minister of France who masterminded the Allied victory in 1918. Clemenceau guided, goaded, pampered and encouraged Monet to complete the Grand Decoration. When Monet died in 1926, it was Clemenceau who saw to the installation of the nymphéas in the Orangerie Museum in Paris.

Félix Nadar, Georges Clemenceau, early 20th Century

After a rapid rise to prominence in the 1790's, Turner had to contend with opposition from Sir George Beaumont, co-founder of the National Gallery, who strongly disapproved of the lack of "finish" of Turner's paintings. Beaumont died in 1827 but Turner's reputation had sustained critical, if not mortal, injury.

Richard Doyle, Turner Painting One of His Pictures, 1846

For the rest of his life, Turner faced derisive criticism for allegedly painting with "soap suds and whitewash." 
                                                                                                 
It was Turner's good fortune to find an advocate like Clemenceau - though not as highly-placed in the British establishment. 

 Francis Holl (after George Richmond), John Ruskin, 1857

John Ruskin (1819-1900) championed Turner with his multi-volume work, Modern Painters. And just as Clemenceau handled the details of installing the nymphéas in the Orangerie, Ruskin was the principal executor of the great mass of Turner's works, eventually displayed in the Tate Gallery in London.

There is a further parallel between Turner and Monet that needs to be examined in more detail than King or Moyle were able to do. This task however might best be handled by a psychologist rather than by a biographer. 

Both Turner and Monet were accomplished at depicting  the human figure - early in their careers. Monet in fact started as a caricaturist and a very good one. But he abandoned this celebrity art form to devote himself to landscape. The longer Monet painted, fewer and fewer people appeared in his works, until they disappeared entirely from his garden scenes in Giverny.

Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge, 1899

The young Turner painted a masterful self-portrait in 1799 and never bothered to create a really creditable human likeness again.

Moyle, with her astounding insight into small but significant details, notes that Turner presents himself in the Self-Portrait with powdered hair. This coiffure had gone out of vogue due to the French Revolution. Aristocrats, anxious to keep their heads on their shoulders, affected a more plebian hair style. Turner's father, whom he deeply loved, was a barber and wig-maker. The change-in-style had ruined the business of Turner Senior.

J.M.W.Turner, Self-Portrait, c. 1799

Turner's Self-Portrait was painted around the time he was elected as an associate member of the Royal Academy. The whitened-hair can be interpreted as flattery of the British political establishment in the hope of getting full Royal Academy status, which he achieved in 1802.  But it is more likely to have been a sensitive gesture of a loving son to his proud father.

For the rest of his long life, Turner resorted to populating his paintings with hobbit-like figures or even "stick-men," as in the case of Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps. People just don't seem to have mattered much in Turner's world-view, when compared to the cosmic forces of nature.  A similar emotional process apparently affected Monet as well.

Both Moyle and King  present evidence that some of this blinkered approach to their fellow human beings was due to the very human foibles of Turner and Monet. Turner, for all his generosity of spirit, was so focused on his income that he charged one of his most devoted patrons, Sir John Leicester, a consulting fee to critique an amateur painting by the nobleman. It was an incredible gaffe.

Turner was also so competitive, even when he was a well-established and wealthy artist, that he could not resist turning the "tables" on rival artists. Yet, when David Wilkie died in 1842, Turner painted one of the most affecting memorial works in all of Western art, Peace - Burial at Sea.

J.M.W.Turner, Peace - Burial at Sea, 1842

Turner and Monet certainly had their faults but lack of humanity was not one their shortcomings.  In actuality, people did not shrink in size or disappear from the canvases of Turner and Monet. Instead, these gifted painters placed the viewer, the beholder, in short, us, into the picture. 

When we look at Hannibal's troops cowering under a threatening sky, we become protagonists, no longer spectators, in this drama. We stand in meditative communion with Monet's nymphéas and we are no longer in an art gallery. We are truly one with nature.

Claude Monet, Waterlilies, 1908

In her moving commentary on Turner's last works, Moyle writes:

In these late paintings Turner used every ounce of his painterly virtuosity to depict a complex, mysterious world and contain it within a single holistic emblem. As if encouraging his viewer to peer through a multidimensional telescope, he shows time, science, different worldly planes and natural phenomena in a mysterious kaleidoscope.

Turner, Moyle concludes "sought to communicate the ultimate truth about the world of which he was a part..."

If one really wants to trace the influence of Turner on Monet, this example of seeking  "to communicate the ultimate truth"  is where the trail leads. This "example" rather than painterly technique is the gift that Monet found for the taking during his sojourn in England in 1870-71
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Cherishing "the ultimate truth about the world of which" we are a part is still here - for the taking.  And you don't have to be a Modern Painter to partake of this gift.

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Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Introductory Image: Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies. 2016 (book cover ) Courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

J.M.W.Turner (British, 1775-1851) Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, 1812. Oil on Canvas, Support: 1460 x 2375 mm. Tate Britain. Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest,1856 N00490

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) Water Lilies, 1916. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.  Photograph by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) Water Lilies, 1914-26. Oil on canvas, three panels, each 6' 6 3/4" x 13' 11 1/4" (200 x 424.8 cm), overall 6' 6 3/4" x 41' 10 3/8" (200 x 1276 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, ID # 666.1959.a-c

Henri Manuel (French, 1874-1947), Monet at work in his large studio, 1920. Courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc and Getty Images

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910) Claude Monet, 1899. Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910) Georges Clemenceau, early 20th Century. New York Public Library Digital Gallery: [http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1158342] and Wikimedia Commons

Richard Doyle (British, 1824-1883) Turner Painting One of His Pictures, 1846. Woodcut, 3 3/8 in. x 4 1/8 in., Acquired, 1973. National Portrait Gallery, London, D6996   
  
Francis Holl (British, 1815-1884) John Ruskin, Stipple engraving of portrait by George Richmond, 1857. 21 3/4 in. x 16 in. (551 mm x 407 mm) plate size; 22 1/2 in. x 17 3/4 in. (573 mm x 450 mm) paper size. Given by Mrs C.M. Baker, 1937. National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D33440

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) The Japanese Footbridge, 1899. Oil on canvas,  81.3 x 101.6 cm (32 x 40 in.) framed: 101 x 120.7 x 7.6 cm (39 3/4 x 47 1/2 x 3 in.) Gift of Victoria Nebeker Coberly, in memory of her son John W. Mudd, and Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. No.1992.9.

J.M.W.Turner (British,1775-1851) Self-Portrait, c.1799. Oil paint on canvas, Support: 743 x 584 mm, frame: 985 x 820 x 110 mm. Tate Britain. Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest,1856. N00458

J.M.W.Turner (British,1775-1851) Peace - Burial at Sea, 1842. Oil paint on canvas, Support: 870 x 867 mm framed: 1110 x 1108 x 120 mm. Tate Britain. Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest,1856. N00528

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) Water Lilies, 1908. National Museum Wales, Cardiff. Photograph by  National Museum of Wales Enterprises Limited/Heritage Images/Getty Images