2. FROM THE TIMES, MAY 30, 1851

To the Editor of the “Times”

SIR,-Your obliging insertion of my former letter encourages me to trouble you with one or two further notes respecting the pre-Raphaelite pictures. I had intended, in continuation of my first letter, to institute as close an inquiry as I could into the character of the morbid tendencies which prevent these works from favourably arresting the attention of the public; but I believe there are so few pictures in the Academy whose reputation would not be grievously diminished by a deliberate inventory of their errors, that I am disinclined to undertake so ungracious a task with respect to this or that particular work. These points, however, may be noted, partly for the consideration of the painters themselves, partly that forgiveness of them may be asked from the public in consideration of high merits in other respects.

The most painful of these defects is unhappily also the most prominent-the commonness of feature in many of the principal figures. In Mr. Hunt’s “Valentine defending Sylvia,”¹ this is, indeed, almost the only fault. Further examination of this picture has even raised the estimate I had previously formed of its marvellous truth in detail and splendour in colour; nor is its general conception less deserving of praise: the action of Valentine, his arm thrown round Sylvia, and his hand clasping hers at the same instant as she falls at his feet, is most faithful and beautiful, nor

¹ [For other references to this picture-sometimes called “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”-see Stones of Venice, vol. iii. (Vol. XI. p. 217). Academy Notes, 1859, No. 329, and The Art of England, § 6, where Lecture 1 is devoted to the art of “Rossetti and Holman Hunt.” The picture in the collection formed by the late Sir Thomas Fairbairn. See further, Introduction, above, p. xlvii.]

324

[Version 0.04: March 2008]