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opportunity, or the mind to pursue light and shadow, to cultivate the gifts they possessed, than to endeavour to produce effects which they would never be capable of expressing. Whether or not there was a peculiar character in these people, he did not know; but assuredly it would be better that they should be able to express themselves accurately in pure outline than to follow after effects which they could not realise. With outline it was possible to unite to a certain extent pure colour or pure shadow. Instinctively this might be done. In the Raffaelle sketch which he had exhibited, there was a certain degree of light and shade added to the outline; but when both shadow and colour were added, then a mighty question was opened. Colour varied with every phase-with every turn in the contour of a subject. And if in addition to colour it were desired to express light and shade in its true and subtle connection with colour, a whole lifetime must be devoted to it. Painting was very much like music. A musician for whom he had great respect, who was present at the previous meeting, and from whom he had learned all he knew of the art, Mr. Hullah,¹ had spoken of the difficulty of teaching people to sing and to play, and especially of the skill which was required in the management of an orchestra. There was great similarity between the two arts, painting and music, in this respect. Drawing an outline correctly corresponded very much with plain clear speaking. Drawing in outline with colour corresponded with clear articulation in singing. If to outline they added light and shade, they arrived at something corresponding to clear articulation, coupled with playing upon an instrument. But if upon true outline they gave light and shadow and true colour in their due proportions, that was like the skilful management of the full orchestra. There were not many who could do that.

17. Persons who, commenting on what he had said on the art of illumination, and not understanding the requirements of a great painter, but supposing that from the mere ornamentation of a page, or the clear drawing of an outline, they could go on to imitate the truths of nature in light and shade and colour, were mistaken as to the views which he had expressed. He had shown that the art of illumination was distinct from that of true painting, and had produced examples from missals, showing the falling off in that art, after it had attained its culminating point in the thirteenth century, and attributing its decline to the attempt to introduce more and more light and shadow. Here was a specimen of this (exhibiting a page fully illuminated, containing fruit, scarlet strawberries, flowers, and other things). Had this been put into his hand by the artist, he would have said to him, “You are not going to be an ornamental painter any more, then? You are going to be a painter of fruit: if you want to paint fruit, that is the way to do it (showing a pear painted in water-colours): unless you can paint fruit as well as that, I will have nothing to do with you, and to do that you must paint for six hours every day for forty years.” This was first-rate fruit painting by W. Hunt, of the Old Water-colour Society. It

¹ [John Pyke Hullah (1812-1884), musical composer and teacher, began singing classes on the Tonic Sol-fa system in 1841, and wrote manuals on the method. Ruskin refers to “Mr. Hullah’s admirable observations on the use of the study of music” in a letter of 1857; reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, 1880, i. 39, and included in a later volume of this edition.]

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