DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0037
‘MODERN PAINTERS’—FIRST VOLUME. 25
got nothing but good, the modern French nothing but
evil, from the study of the antique; but Nicola Pisano
had a God and a character ”; how is this to be taken
as a warning by a student who is not a Frenchman and
who has not abandoned the faith that he too has a
God and a character? Yet it is spoken by Ruskin
as a warning, nearly as a menace. The study of the
dealing of Turner with France, Switzerland, and Italy,
which follows, and of their dealings with his growing
power, is an exquisite one, notwithstanding some cer-
tain paradoxes — exquisite in regard to that beautiful
and diverse Europe, and in regard to the genius. Rus-
kin says, perhaps, too little rather than too much of
the un-Italian spirit of the Italy of Turner’s work : “ I
recollect no instance of Turner’s drawing a cypress
except in general terms.” The man, I may add, who
possessed not, among the many spirits of the woods,
the special spirit of the cypress, assuredly could not
spiritually paint the country of the hill-village, the belfry,
the gold-white simple walls, the pure and remote sky
pricked with delicate and upright forms on the hill-
edge, the country of soft dust and of old colours, the
country of poverty, which is Italy. An opulent and
an elegant Italy of balustrades and gardens, and, if
one may venture to say so, a country of the ideal
past, seems to be Turner’s. Of the poplars, of the
rivers, of the large skies and the flat valleys of France,
Turner became the son by singular sympathy. Ruskin
describes the adoption in a brief and lovely passage
got nothing but good, the modern French nothing but
evil, from the study of the antique; but Nicola Pisano
had a God and a character ”; how is this to be taken
as a warning by a student who is not a Frenchman and
who has not abandoned the faith that he too has a
God and a character? Yet it is spoken by Ruskin
as a warning, nearly as a menace. The study of the
dealing of Turner with France, Switzerland, and Italy,
which follows, and of their dealings with his growing
power, is an exquisite one, notwithstanding some cer-
tain paradoxes — exquisite in regard to that beautiful
and diverse Europe, and in regard to the genius. Rus-
kin says, perhaps, too little rather than too much of
the un-Italian spirit of the Italy of Turner’s work : “ I
recollect no instance of Turner’s drawing a cypress
except in general terms.” The man, I may add, who
possessed not, among the many spirits of the woods,
the special spirit of the cypress, assuredly could not
spiritually paint the country of the hill-village, the belfry,
the gold-white simple walls, the pure and remote sky
pricked with delicate and upright forms on the hill-
edge, the country of soft dust and of old colours, the
country of poverty, which is Italy. An opulent and
an elegant Italy of balustrades and gardens, and, if
one may venture to say so, a country of the ideal
past, seems to be Turner’s. Of the poplars, of the
rivers, of the large skies and the flat valleys of France,
Turner became the son by singular sympathy. Ruskin
describes the adoption in a brief and lovely passage