Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME
- PART I “LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING” (1854)
- PART II REVIEWS, LETTERS, AND PAMPHLETS ON ART (1844–1854)
- 1 REVIEW OF LORD LINDSAY'S “HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ART” (1847)
- 2 REVIEW OF EASTLAKE'S “HISTORY OF OIL-PAINTING” (1848):–
- 3 SAMUEL PROUT (1849)
- 4 LETTERS ON THE PRE-RAPHAELITE ARTISTS (1851, 1854)
- 5 PRE-RAPHAELITISM (PAMPHLET, 1851)
- 6 LETTERS ON THE NATIONAL GALLERY (1847, 1852)
- 7 THE OPENING OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE, CONSIDERED IN SOME OF ITS RELATIONS TO THE PROSPECTS OF ART (PAMPHLET, 1854)
- APPENDIX TO PART II
- PART III “NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS” (1851)
- APPENDIX TO PART III
- PART IV LETTERS ON POLITICS (1852)
- Plate section
6 - LETTERS ON THE NATIONAL GALLERY (1847, 1852)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME
- PART I “LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING” (1854)
- PART II REVIEWS, LETTERS, AND PAMPHLETS ON ART (1844–1854)
- 1 REVIEW OF LORD LINDSAY'S “HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ART” (1847)
- 2 REVIEW OF EASTLAKE'S “HISTORY OF OIL-PAINTING” (1848):–
- 3 SAMUEL PROUT (1849)
- 4 LETTERS ON THE PRE-RAPHAELITE ARTISTS (1851, 1854)
- 5 PRE-RAPHAELITISM (PAMPHLET, 1851)
- 6 LETTERS ON THE NATIONAL GALLERY (1847, 1852)
- 7 THE OPENING OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE, CONSIDERED IN SOME OF ITS RELATIONS TO THE PROSPECTS OF ART (PAMPHLET, 1854)
- APPENDIX TO PART II
- PART III “NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS” (1851)
- APPENDIX TO PART III
- PART IV LETTERS ON POLITICS (1852)
- Plate section
Summary
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
DANGER TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY
(1847)
To the Editor of the “Times”
1. Sir,—As I am sincerely desirous that a stop may be put to the dangerous process of cleaning lately begun in our National Gallery, and as I believe that what is right is most effectively when most kindly advocated, and what is true most convincingly when least passionately asserted, I was grieved to see the violent attack upon Mr. Eastlake in your columns of Friday last; yet not less surprised at the attempted defence which appeared in them yesterday. The outcry which has arisen upon this subject has been just, but it has been too loud; the injury done is neither so great nor so wilful as has been asserted, and I fear that the respect which might have been paid to remonstrance may be refused to clamour.
2. I was inclined at first to join as loudly as any in the hue and cry. Accustomed, as I have been, to look to England as the refuge of the pictorial as of all other distress, and to hope that, having no high art of her own, she would at least protect what she could not produce, and respect what she could not restore, I could not but look upon the attack which has been made upon the pictures in question as on the violation of a sanctuary.
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- The Works of John Ruskin , pp. 395 - 414Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1903