AN AMERICAN'S INFLUENCE ON JOHN RUSKIN

WILLIAM F. DE MOSS

Every one knows of the more than forty years of intimate friendship between Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard University, and John Ruskin. Every one knows also that Ruskin's influence on Norton was great. Not every

one knows of the remarkable influence which Norton exerted on Ruskin. It is the latter subject that I propose to dis

cuss.

At the outset, an excerpt from Ruskin's well known tribute to Norton is worth quoting. In Praeterita Ruskin describes the beginning, in 1856, of his friendship with Norton, and adds:

And thus I became possessed of my second friend, after Dr. John Brown; and of my first real tutor, Charles Eliot Norton. Charles himself, a man of the highest natural gifts, in their kind; observant and critical rather than imaginative, but with an all-pervading sympathy and sensibility, absolutely free from envy, ambition, or covetousness: a scholar from his cradle, nor only now a man of the world, but a gentleman of the world, whom the highest born and best bred of every nation, from the Red Indian to the White Austrian, would recognize in a moment, as of their caste.

In every branch of classical knowledge he was my superior; knew old English writers better than I,-much more, old French; and had active fellowship and close friendship with the then really progressive leaders of thought in his own country, Longfellow, Lowell, and Emerson

Norton saw all my weaknesses, measured all my narrownesses, and from the first took serenely, and as it seemed of necessity, a kind of paternal authority over me, and a right of guidance, though the younger of the two, and always admitting my full power in its own kind; nor only admitting, but in the prettiest way praising and stimulating. It was almost impossible for him to speak to any one he cared for, without some side-flash of witty compliment; and to me, his infinitely varied and loving praise became a constant

motive to exertion, and aid in effort: yet he never allowed in me the slightest violation of the laws, either of good writing, or social prudence, without instant blame, or warning.

I was entirely conscious of his rectorial power, and affectionately submissive to it; so that he might have done anything with me, but for the unhappy difference in our innate, and unchangeable, political faiths.

This passage is interesting no less because of its high estimate of Norton's culture and judgment than because of its direct testimony to his influence. Of the latter we have a direct corroboration. Norton spent several periods of his life in Europe; and he and Ruskin travelled together, studied together, and planned their work together. On November 10, 1872, Norton, then spending the winter in London, wrote in his journal:

Ruskin was never in a sweeter, less irrational mood than during these days. His reliance on me, his affection for me touch me deeply

At four o'clock I left Oxford, Ruskin with me till the last moment, and most devoted. "I wonder," he said, "why I always feel as if you were so much older than I, and so much wiser." "Good-bye, papa," were his last words, "be sure to take care of yourself."

As a fact, the extent to which Norton's judgment prevailed with Ruskin is extraordinary. An instance of Norton's influencing Ruskin's opinions concerning one of the greatest painters is the following. In 1870, Norton was making his temporary home at Siena, and studying art. About the middle of June, Ruskin joined him; and after spending a day or two at Florence, the two friends travelled together through Italy. Concerning the time spent at Florence, Norton wrote to Miss Gaskell :

In Florence we went, among other places, to the Academy, and I showed him [Ruskin] my favorite Filippo Lippis,-the little Annunciation, and the Coronation of the Virgin. He had had no special knowledge of Lippi, but had taken the common, Vasari story about him as true, had accepted Browning's vigorous but altogether

1 Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, I: 424.

mistaken delineation of him as exact, and had in short fancied him an immoral monk of some native power, turned painter.1

If we needed it, we have proof that Ruskin had had no just appreciation of Lippi, in the fact that in his Stones of Venice, where he divides all artists into three classes-best, medium, and worst-and names the principal men of each class, he does not consider Lippi important enough to be mentioned at all; and in the further fact that prior to 1870 he had mentioned Lippi but a few times, and then only to criticize him adversely, as where he uses his pictures as illustrations of "the degrading effect of the realized decorations and imitated dress."'4 But we do not need such proof. If Norton's statement required any confirmation, we have it in Ruskin's own words. In writing to Mrs. Cowper Temple concerning the time that he and Norton spent together at Florence, Ruskin said:

I have learned much on this journey, and hope to tell things in the autumn at Oxford that will be of great use, having found a Master of the religious schools at Florence, Filippo Lippi, new to me, though often seen by me, without seeing, in old times, though I had eyes even then for some sights. But this Filippo Lippi has brought me into a new world, being a complete monk, yet an entirely noble painter. Luini is lovely, but not monkish. Lippi is an Angelico with Luini's strength, or perhaps more, only of earlier date, and with less knowledge.

Ruskin had already written his mother concerning his new insight into Lippi's works. His letter to her is as follows:

My dearest Mother,-Yesterday on St. John's day I saw a picture of the religious schools by a man whom I never before had much looked at, which is as much beyond all other religious painting as Tintoret is above all secular painting. Curiously enough, St. John Baptist is also the principal figure in it, and I am really beginning,

2 Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, I: 394.

3 The Works of John Ruskin, London, 1904, X: 221–223. Cook & Wedderburn's edition.

Modern Painters, (New York, 1858), II: 215. See also The Works of John Ruskin, (London, 1904), IV: 189, n., and V: 396.

for the first time in my life, to be glad that my name is John. Many thanks for giving it me.

It is clear, not only from this but also from numerous other references, that the picture here described is Lippi's Coronation of the Virgin, one of the paintings which Norton showed Ruskin at Florence-one of the two which Norton described as "my favorite Filippo Lippis".5

In a letter to his wife, written from Prato, whither the two friends went soon after leaving Florence, Norton shows that he and Ruskin were still enjoying Lippi together. He writes: I have hardly words to express my admiration of Filippo Lippi's frescoes in the choir. You must see them next autumn. I left Ruskin in the choir about to draw a noble and refined head of Lippi himself."

A few years later, in his Mornings in Florence, Ruskin recorded the following estimate of Lippi:

All Florentine work of the finest kind-Luca della Robbia's, Ghiberti's, Donatello's, Filippo Lippi's, Botticelli's, Fra Angelico's-is absolutely pure Etruscan.'

About the same time, in a catalogue for the use of Oxford students and visitors, Ruskin wrote of Lippi as follows:

97. The Annunciation. Filippo Lippi. From a small tempera painting in the Academy at Florence

.

98. The Nativity, from a picture by Filippo Lippi, in the Academy at Florence.

These two examples, unimportant as they seem, will, nevertheless, give you a clear idea of the best religious work of Florence, and, therefore, of Europe, and if you quietly and repeatedly compare them with designs by any other masters, you will find their

Cook quotes the first of these two letters of Ruskin's in his Life of Ruskin, II: 205, but without any thought of connecting it with Norton. The letter is also quoted in The Works of John Ruskin, London, 1904, XX: lii. For Ruskin's letter to his mother, see Works, XX: liii.

It happens that these two letters of Ruskin's are dated a few days earlier than Norton's letter to Miss Gaskell; but the letters themselves show, beyond possibility of doubt, that they refer to the same time-the day or two which Norton and Ruskin spent together at Florence. Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, I: 394.

The italics are mine.

beauty manifest itself as unapproachable in its kind. Lippi is as sincere a monk as Fra Angelico, and he is a much stronger painter."

These are, of course, some of the Lippi paintings which Norton showed Ruskin at Florence. It will be noted that the first, the Annunciation, is one of the two which Norton described as "my favorite Filippo Lippis", the companion to the Coronation of the Virgin. Thus Ruskin not only came to agree with Norton about Lippi's works in general, but even about Norton's "favorite Lippis" in particular.

One of the most interesting examples of Norton's influence on Ruskin is the case of Ruskin's heretical lecture on Michael Angelo. In 1870, as we have seen, Norton was in Italy studying art. From Florence, under date of March 31, he wrote Ruskin a letter" which expressed some of the most unorthodox opinions concerning Michael Angelo. Six months later Ruskin was working on his autumn course of Oxford lectures. He then thought enough of the Michael Angelo letter to write Norton of its helpfulness; and this despite the fact that a score of letters had passed between them in the meantime. He said: "A letter you sent me in March on Michael Angelo is of great value. The influence of this letter of Norton's is seen unmistakably in one of the lectures of that year-the one on Michael Angelo, which was the last of the autumn course, and was not given until the succeeding summer. Compare the following excerpts from the letter and from this lecture. Michael Angelo's inability to express himself:

7910

Norton's letter: Mainly I have been studying Dante and Michael Angelo Michael seems to me one of the greatest and awkwardest of mankind. He never could express himself." Had he been able to do so he would have stood fairly and squarely by the side of Dante

Ruskin's lecture:

Nearly every existing work of Michael Angelo

is an attempt to execute something beyond his power."

The Works of John Ruskin, London, 1904, XXI: 124.

Letters of Charles Eliot Norton.

10 Letters of John Ruskin to Charles Eliot Norton, Sept. 9, 1870.

11 Throughout this comparison, the italics are mine.

11 See Aratra Pentelici, 1890, Lecture VII.