A POPULAR HANDBOOK TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY INCLUDING BY SPECIAL PERMISSION NOTES COLLECTED FROM THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN Volume I.—FOREIGN SCHOOLS
Reading edition
COMPILED BY
E. T. COOK
WITH PREFACE BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., D.C.L.
EIGHTH EDITION
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1922
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.
Calverley.
