OBITUARY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 3956, 23 January 1900, Page 5

OBITUARY.

JOHN RUSKIN. PRESS ASSOCIATION. LONDON, January 21. Mr John Ruskin, the eminent art critic and author, lias just died, aged eighty-one.

The thing which will cause the name of John Ruskin to be remembered is the stimulus which his writings give to everyone who reads them with sympathy and discernment. Very much more than a passing notice is called for on the death of this remarkable man. The father of John Ruskin was an upright and successful rvine merchant, with an intense love of pictures and a decided religious bias. For business purposes he had to drive every year along the principal country roads of England, Wales and Southern Scotland. On these expeditions tho wine merchant was accompanied by his wife, and when John was four years of ago he also went. Not only was lie thus enabled to see some of the loveliest hits of British scenery, but he also had an opportunity of examining the picture collections in most of the castles and mansions. Thus, nature and art began to teach John Ruskin, while he was quite a child, some _ of their greatest lessons. These drives also brought home to him some political and economic truths which he did not easily forget. “As soon as I could perceive any political truth at all, be says, “I perceived that it was probably much happier to live in a small house and have Warwick Castle to he astonished at than to live in Warwick Castle and have nothing to be astonished at.” Still, these old historic buildings, with their art treasures and literary associations , had a great attraction for him, and he felt “that, at all events, ’it would not make Brunswick square in fbc least more pleasantly habitable to pull Warwick Castle down.”

Rn,skin’s mother was a very pious though severe woman. She dedicated her sou to the Christ I a ministry before he was born, and intended to make his training her life’s mission, regarding him from the first as a “sacred trust, never as a plaything or a pastime.” No child was ever treated more seriously than he, evei’y detail of his education and early influence being the result of deliberate plans. Through this over-carefulness John Ruskin cannot be said to have had a childhood in the ordinary sense of the term. Before Ruskin had entered his teens he was writing descriptions in prose and verso of every scene through winch ho passed, and illustrating them vvith Turner-liko vignettes drawn with a fine crow-quill pen, in imitation of the delicate engravings which were issued with Rogers’s “Italy.”

In due course Buskin went to Oxford. He entered Christ Church as a gentleman commoner, and, as would ho expected from such a youth, paid very diligent heed to his studies. It was while Buskin was a student at Oxford that the art world was startled by the work of'J. M. W. Turner. The whole of Buskin’s after-life and work hangs entirely on the influence of Turner’s pictures upon his mind during his Oxford days. A strongly-worded condemnation of Turner appeared in “Blackwood’s Magazine.” This article Buskin determined to answer. To he as thorough and accurate ns possible in what ho wrote, ho found it necessary to go to the Continental galleries. “Modern Painters” was the outcome, But the careful and elaborate comparisons which Buskin made between the works of artists and the outputs of nature easily grouped themselves under different heads. The Venetian notes were issued as “The Stones of Venice”; the architectural chapters as “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”; the Florentine sketches as “Mornings in Florence” ; and the ■ botanical * notes; chiefly made in English lanes and on Swiss mountains, were brought out under the title of “Proserpina.” The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood managed to attract the attention and secure the enthusiastic advocacy of Buskin. In the first letter which he wrote to “The Times” in their defence he said the Pre-Baphaelites “intend to surrender no advantage which the knowledge and invention of the present time can afford their art. They intend to return to early days in this point only, that, so far as , in them lies, they will draw either what they see or what they suppose might have been the actual facts of the scene they desire to represent, irrespective of any conventional rules of picturemaking, and they have chosen their unfortunate, though not inaccurate, name because all artists did this before Raphael’s time, and after Raphael's time did not this, but sought to paint fair pictures, rather than to represent stem facts, of which the consequence has been that, from Baphael’s time to this day, historical art has been in acknowledged decadence.” Into the merits of the controversy that ensued it is not necessary to enter. “It will be sufficient,” in the words of the late John Underhill, “to remark that the truth lies, as it oftenest does; in the golden mean—in other words, 'that it will be found somewhere between the views put forward by-Mr Buskin "and those which emanate from what has been happily called the ‘Persian carpet’ school of art criticism.” ; Buskin came very early under' the magic spell of Thomas Carlyle. For years this influence had been telling upon him, but when he arrived at the age of forty, so completely was his attitude changed, that he wished he could undo all the'Work; that he had already done and begin afresh on entirely different lines. Until he was forty, Buskin was a writer on art; after that his art was secondary to ethics. Until he was forty he was' a believer in English Protestantism; afterwards he could not reconcile current beliefs with the facts of life as he saw them, and had to reconstruct his creed from the foundations. Until he was forty he was a philanthropist; afterwards he began to see that no tinkering at social breakages was really worth while. Buskin’s father left him £157,000 in hard cash, besides some property in houses and land, and a very valuable collection of pictures. The wealth did not make him happy. But what was to be done? He had possession of the money. So he looked about him, and gave most of it away. ' Amongst his own relatives many thousand pounds were distributed; much of the money went in substantial art and educational gifts to Oxford and Sheffield; and the last £3OOO was spent on those visits to the Continent which proved so useful in his later work. The effect of this distribution of his father’s bequest was that,: Buskin £ntade ; it impossible that he could live without teaching, writing or otherwise working. And, what was more, he sought- to make the sons of the aristocracy who came within the range * of-his influence know what real work meant. Besides road-mak-ing parties for Oxford, he organised gutter-sweeping gangs for St. Giles’s, London, and took part in both demonstrations with broom, hammer and shovel... Ip....his later active years Buskin devoted himself to advocating' the establishment of government, trade and society on sounder and more righteous lines. . His suggestions appear quite rational nowadays, but they

came as a great shock to the readers of 1860. . , ■ , The world knows Ruskin first and foremost as an art critic. It may be asked by some persons—Was he an artist as well as an art critic? An answer in the affirmative (says Lucking Taverner, from whom we quote very freely) comes from everything he has done. He was an artist in every fibre of him. Even when he dealt with political economy the artist was seen in his using the real materials then around him to evolve therefrom, an ideal for the future; and every one of his readers will readily admit that he was a consummate artist in words, while the u ater-colour pictures and pencil drawings he made prove that, if he had done more work of this kind, he would have gone to the front rank iu the painting world. The unique manner of the publication of Ruskin’s books is an experiment notice of which should not be omitted. The author secured for'his publisher Mr George Allen, who had been taught engraving and etching by Mr Le Kenx. Tho printing press and hook-hindery were all established in tho beautiful and quiet village of Orpington, in Kent. Critics laughed at the publishing business “planted in the middle of a country field,” but it became a phenomenal success. Although a London house has been found necessary, the main work of printing and binding the books of Ruskin is still done at Orpington. In 1838 Ruskin wrote “The King of the Golden River” for a pretty Scotch girl with plenty of spirits and vigorous health. She grew up into' a real beauty, and the parents of John thought- she would make a. fit companion for their son. They married; but it was by no means a good match, for the pair were ill-suited. He was thirty-five, and she nineteen. They separated after some years, and the lady afterwards became the wife of a famous painter.

Buskin was once described as “small in .person, careless in-dress, and nervous in manner. He was also said to have “a spare, stooping figure, a rough-hewn, kindly face, a mobile, sensitive mouth, clear, deep eyes, sweet and honest in repose, earnest and eloquent in debate.” Another who knew him said that “he was emotional a-nd ■ nervous, und, his voice, thoiigli rich and sweet had a tendency to sink into a plaintive and hopeless tone. His large light eye was soft and» genial, and' his mouth was thin and severe. The brow was prominent, and the chin receding.” The last years of Buskin’s life were spent at his home on Coriiston shore, in the lovely Lake district. A recent visitor says:—“Brantwood is a fitting place for seclusion and repose, and for the rest, well earned, at the end of a life long and strenuous, far beyond the ordinary. Its windows overlook ‘the shining levels of the lake,’ itself the image of tranquillity and peace. Oonistan Lake is just such a, mere as might have witnessed the Passing of Arthur, and have been the scene of the mystic vision of the gleaming sword. At the upper end it is dominated by the lulls that buttress ; Coniston Old Man, and by the great mass of the Old Man itself. Gradually, towards the south, the hill eminences approach the level of the lake, until, if you have the imagination of a Tennyson, you may conceive that somewhere yond the invisible southern shore may be the ‘happy valley of Avilion’— Deep-shadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown’d with sum. mor sea.”

The principal Turners at -Coniston were in Mr Buskin’s bedroom, a. little cabinet-like place in the northern ■ wirig of the building.. As the great master lay in his bed he could see Turners at his side, at his feet and all around hhn'iT". Perhaps. there was no similar room in England in which so much of value in the shape of pictures was hung. As daylight dawned day by day the light-beams revealed to Buskin those splendid art-dreams, the glory and beauty of which he made famous ail over the world.

THE DUKE OF TECK

(Beceived January 23, 0.50 a.m.) LONDON, January 22. The death is announced of his Highness the Duke of Teck.

The Duke of Teck bore his title through its inheritance by the House of Wurtemburg. He served in the Austrian array during the Italian, campaign of Marshal Wimpffen, and received’ a gold modal for distinguished sendees at the battle of Solferino. He also served under Lord Wolseley in Egypt. The Duke married Princess Mary Adelaide of England, and was the father of Princess Mary of Teck, wife of the Duke of York, who ..is the eldest surviving son of the Prince of Wales. '