A picture which is worth buying is also worth seeing. Every noble picture is a manuscript book, of which only one copy exists, or ever can exist. A National Gallery is a great library, of which the books must be read upon their shelves (Ruskin: Arrows of the Chace, i. 71).
There, the long dim galleries threading,
May the artist's eye behold
Breathing from the "deathless canvass"
Records of the years of old:
Pallas there, and Jove, and Juno,
"Take" once more their "walks abroad,"
Under Titian's fiery woodlands
And the saffron skies of Claude:
There the Amazons of Rubens
Lift the failing arm to strike,
And the pale light falls in masses
On the horsemen of Vandyke;
And in Berghem's pools reflected
Hang the cattle's graceful shapes,
And Murillo's soft boy-faces
Laugh amid the Seville grapes;
And all purest, loveliest fancies
That in poet's soul may dwell,
Started into shape and substance
At the touch of Raphael.
Lo! her wan arms folded meekly,
And the glory of her hair,
Falling as a robe around her,
Kneels the Magdalen in prayer;
And the white-robed Virgin-mother
Smiles, as centuries back she smiled,
Half in gladness, half in wonder,
On the calm face of her Child: —
And that mighty Judgment-vision
Tells how men essayed to climb
Up the ladder of the ages,
Past the frontier-walls of Time;
Heard the trumpet-echoes rolling
Thro' the phantom-peopled sky,
And the still Voice bid this mortal
Put on immortality.
PREFACE BY JOHN RUSKIN
So far as I know, there has never yet been compiled, for the illustration of any collection of paintings whatever, a series of notes at once so copious, carefully chosen, and usefully arranged, as this which has been prepared, by the industry and good sense of Mr. Edward T. Cook, to be our companion through the magnificent rooms of our own National Gallery; without question now the most important collection of paintings in Europe for the purposes of the general student. Of course the Florentine School must always be studied in Florence, the Dutch in Holland, and the Roman in Rome; but to obtain a clear knowledge of their relations to each other, and compare with the best advantage the characters in which they severally excel, the thoughtful scholars of any foreign country ought now to become pilgrims to the Dome – (such as it is) – of Trafalgar Square.
We have indeed – be it to our humiliation remembered – small reason to congratulate ourselves on the enlargement of the collection now belonging to the public, by the sale of the former possessions of our nobles. But since the parks and castles which were once the pride, beauty, and political strength of England are doomed by the progress of democracy to be cut up into lots on building leases, and have their libraries and pictures sold at Sotheby's and Christie's, we may at least be thankful that the funds placed by the Government at the disposal of the Trustees for the National Gallery have permitted them to save so much from the wreck of English mansions and Italian monasteries, and enrich the recreations of our metropolis with graceful interludes by Perugino and Raphael.
It will be at once felt by the readers of the following catalogue that it tells them, about every picture and its painter, just the things they wished to know. They may rest satisfied also that it tells them these things on the best historical authorities, and that they have in its concise pages an account of the rise and decline of the arts of the Old Masters, and record of their personal characters and worldly state and fortunes, leaving nothing of authentic tradition, and essential interest, untold.
As a collection of critical remarks by esteemed judges, and of clearly formed opinions by earnest lovers of art, the little book possesses a metaphysical interest quite as great as its historical one. Of course the first persons to be consulted on the merit of a picture are those for whom the artist painted it: with those in after generations who have sympathy with them; one does not ask a Roundhead or a Republican his opinion of the Vandyke at Wilton, nor a Presbyterian minister his impressions of the Sistine Chapel: – but from any one honestly taking pleasure in any sort of painting, it is always worth while to hear the grounds of his admiration, if he can himself analyse them. For those who take no pleasure in painting, or who are offended by its inevitable faults, any form of criticism is insolent. Opinion is only valuable when it
gilds with various rays
These painted clouds that beautify our days.
When I last lingered in the Gallery before my old favourites, I thought them more wonderful than ever before; but as I draw towards the close of life, I feel that the real world is more wonderful yet: that Painting has not yet fulfilled half her mission, – she has told us only of the heroism of men and the happiness of angels: she may perhaps record in future the beauty of a world whose mortal inhabitants are happy, and which angels may be glad to visit.
April 1888.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
WITH SOME
ACCOUNT OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY
Division into Volumes.– In arrangement and, to some degree, in contents the Handbook in its present form differs from the earlier editions. Important changes have been made during the last few years in the constitution and scope of the National Gallery itself. The Gallery now consists of two branches controlled by a single Board of Trustees: (1) the "National Gallery" in Trafalgar Square; and (2) the "Tate Gallery" or, as it is officially called, the "National Gallery of British Art" on the Thames Embankment at Millbank.1 At the former Gallery are hung all the pictures belonging to Foreign Schools. Pictures of the British Schools are hung partly in Trafalgar Square and partly at Millbank, and from time to time pictures are moved from one Gallery to the other. It has therefore been decided to divide the Handbook into volumes according to subject rather than according to position. Volume I. deals with the Foreign Schools (National Gallery); Volume II., with the British Schools (National Gallery and Tate Gallery). By this division the convenience of the books for purposes of reference or use in the Galleries will not be disturbed by future changes in the allocation of British pictures between Trafalgar Square and Millbank respectively.
How to use the Handbook.– The one fixed point in the arrangement of the National Gallery is the numbering of the pictures. The numbers affixed to the frames, and referred to in the Official Reports and Catalogues, are never changed. This is an excellent rule, the observance of which, in the case of some foreign galleries, would have saved no little inconvenience to students and visitors. In the present, as in the preceding editions of the Handbook, advantage has been taken of this fixed system of numbering; and in the pages devoted to the Biographical and Descriptive Catalogue the pictures are enumerated in their numerical order. The introductory remarks on the chief Schools of Painting represented in the Gallery are brought together at the beginning of the book. The visitor who desires to make an historical study of the Collection may, if he will, glance first at the general introduction