Notes on Some of the Principal Pictures Exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal Academy

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Smith, Elder, and Company, 65. Cornhill., 1855 - Art criticism
 

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Page 18 - And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab : and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.
Page 60 - The Stones of Venice. Complete in Three Volumes, Imperial 8vo, with Fifty-three Plates and numerous Woodcuts, drawn by the Author. Price 51.
Page 58 - ... clear, idiomatic, forcible, familiar, but never slovenly ; the searching strokes of sarcasm or irony ; the occasional flashes of generous scorn ; the touches of pathos, pity, and tenderness , the morality tempered but never weakened by experience and sympathy ; the felicitous phrases, the striking anecdotes, the passages of wise, practical reflection ; all these lose much less than we could have expected from the absence of the voice, manner, and look of the lecturer.
Page 58 - ... sayings, what wise and earnest writing ! How delightful are their turns of humour; with what a touching effect, in the graver passages, the genuine feeling of the man comes out ; and how vividly the thoughts are painted, as it were, in graphic and characteristic words.
Page 58 - To those who attended the lectures, the book will be a pleasant reminiscence, to others an exciting novelty. The style — clear, idiomatic, forcible, familiar, but never slovenly; the searching strokes of sarcasm or irony ; the occasional flashes of generous scorn ; the touches of pathos, pity, and tenderness; the morality tempered but never weakened by experience and sympathy ; the felicitous phrases, the striking anecdotes, the passages of wise, practical...
Page 5 - PREFACE I AM often asked by my friends to mark for them the pictures in the Exhibitions of the year which appear to me the most interesting, either in their good qualities or their failure. I have determined, at last, to place the circular letter which on such occasions I am obliged to write, within reach of the general public. Twenty years of severe labour,1 devoted exclusively to the study of the principles of Art, have given me the right to speak on the subject with a measure of confidence...
Page 26 - This is a very important and very beautiful picture. It has both sincerity and grace, and is painted on the purest principles of Venetian art — that is to say, on" the calm acceptance of the whole of nature, small and great, as, in its place, deserving of faithful rendering. The great secret of the Venetians was their simplicity. They were great colourists...
Page 28 - Exquisite in every way ; lovely in colour, most subtle in the quivering expression of the lips, and sweetness of the tender face, shaken, like a leaf by winds upon its dew, and hesitating back into peace. A second very disgraceful piece of bad placing* — the thrusting this picture thus aside ! 583.
Page 58 - Mr. Ruskin's chief purpose is to treat the artist's power, and the art itself, as items of the world's wealth, and to show how these may be best evolved, produced, accumulated, and distributed.
Page 18 - But, as it is possible to stoop to victory, it is also possible to climb to defeat ; and I see with consternation that it was not the Parnassian rock which Mr. Millais was ascending, but the Tarpeian. The change in his manner, from the years of "Ophelia" and "Mariana" to 1857, is not merely Fall — it is Catastrophe ; not merely a loss of power, but a reversal of principle : his excellence has been effaced, " as a man wipeth a dish — wiping it, and turning it upside down."1 There may still be...

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