PRE-RAPHAELITISM 373

Lord Ellesmere’s,¹ by imitation of the former; and from the latter learned a false ideal, which, confirmed by the notions of Greek art prevalent in London in the beginning of this century, has manifested itself in many vulgarities in his composition pictures, vulgarities which may perhaps be best expressed by the general term “Twickenham Classicism,”² as consisting principally in conceptions of ancient or of rural life such as have influenced the erection of most of our suburban villas. From Nicolo Poussin and Loutherbourg he seems to have derived advantage; perhaps also from Wilson; and much in his subsequent travels from far higher men, especially Tintoret and Paul Veronese. I have myself heard him speaking with singular delight of the putting in of the beech leaves in the upper right-hand corner of Titian’s Peter Martyr.³ I cannot in any of his works trace the slightest influence of Salvator; and I am not surprised at it, for though Salvator was a man of far higher powers than either Vandevelde or Claude, he was a wilful and gross caricaturist. Turner would condescend to be helped by feeble men, but could not be corrupted by false men. Besides, he had never himself seen classical life, and Claude was represented to him as competent authority for it. But he had seen mountains and torrents, and knew therefore that Salvator could not paint them.

¹ [“Dutch boats in a gale; fishermen endeavouring to put their fish on board,” exhibited at the Academy in 1801; in the collection at Bridgewater House. See Modern Painters, vol. i. (Vol. III. p. 568), where the picture (which was painted to emulate Vandevelde) is nevertheless spoken of as comparatively “free from the Dutch infection,” though still “somewhat heavy in its forms.” See also Harbours of England, § 39.]

² [In a letter to his father with some remarks on Pope, Ruskin wrote:-

“VENICE, September 14, 1851.-... I have brought my little volume of Pope’s poems with me; which I shall read carefully. I hardly know which is most remarkable, the magnificent power and precision of mind, or the miserable corruption of the entire element in which it is educated, and the flatterings, falsenesses, affectations, and indecencies which divert the purpose and waste the strength of the writer, while his natural perception of truth and his carefully acquired knowledge of humanity still render his works of inestimable value. I see he was first educated by a Roman Catholic, and then in Twickenham classicism. I am glad to find my term is exactly what I wanted it to be. Pope is the purest example, as well as the highest, of the Cockney classic.”]

³ [For Titian’s influence on Turner, see again Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. xviii. For the “Peter Martyr,” see note in Vol. III. p. 28.]

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