Page 23 - Studio International - December 1974

advanced tastes in art were beginning to be University Settlement and then on the Pall Mall Evans and J.H. Whitehouse, 1956-9, p. 777, March 7,
thought of as held by those people whose moral Gazette, to which he appointed E.T. Cook. He 1874.
[6] 'Works', Vol. XX, p. xlii.
respectability was questionable. This is why became the High Commissioner for South
[7] 'Works', Vol. XX, p. xli.
the rather annoyingly healthy Dean of Durham, Africa before the Boer War, was in Lloyd
[8] See Jennifer Sherwood and Nikolaus Pevsner,
G.W. Kitchen, was at pains to insist that Ruskin's George's war cabinet and was subsequently at 'Oxfordshire', 1974, and 'The Victorian History of the
digging had been directed against the aesthetic the Colonial Office. Milner's address on County of Oxford', Vol. 5, pp. 237-9.
stance; 'It was also invented to weed out those Toynbee remarks that in Oxford in their [9] 'Works', Vol. XX, p. xl.
feeble folk — the Postlethwaites and Maudles — undergraduate days there was 'a very striking [10] See J.B. Atlay, 'Henry Acland, A Memoir', 1903.
The epidemic is described and analysed by district in
who caricature the artistic man of genius, and change in the social and political philosophy of
Iceland's 'Memoir on the Cholera in Oxford', 1856.
try to make repartees, and are a compound of the place, which has since reproduced itself The subject concerned Acland all his life. See his
conceit and weakness. These men helped in the larger stage of the world' but his scant 'Health in the Village', 1884.
[11] Nor, apparently, did the Harcourts think highly
largely to convince Mr Ruskin that he must respect for Ruskin would not allow him to
of Ruskin. At a banquet of the Artists' Benevolent
abandon his Oxford preaching, and turn towards acknowledge, as other people would be eager to, Association, Sir William Harcourt won much applause
the working world ...' [28]. that the Professor of Fine Art had played a part for a speech attacking him. See the report in The
Times, May 14, 1877.
Kitchen's belief that the Hincksey diggings in this movement [33].
[12] Fors Clavigera, letter 9, in 'Works', vol. XXVII,
were directed against the social style of Ruskin's intensely individual blend of
p. 160-1.
aestheticism was certainly wrong, since that radicalism and reaction in effect deprived him [13] See the appendix to Fors Clavigera entitled 'The
style was not developed until Wilde left Oxford of a political position, within university politics Duties of Landlords', in 'Works', vol. XXIX, pp. 532--3.
for London, and Postlethwaite and Maudle were or the world at large. An exasperated fellow of [14] Familiar to Ruskin since he began 'Giotto and
His Works in Padua' for the Arundel Society in 1853.
not created by Du Maurier until 1880 [29]. Corpus once said to him 'I think your new
[15] The Times, May 19, 1874.
And he had only an inkling of Ruskin's feelings Toryism is remarkably like my old-fashioned
[16] 'Works', Vol. XX, p.
about what he calls 'the working world'. The radicalism' [34]. There was no coherent system
[17] The Star, January 25, 1900.
Hincksey diggings had established a set of to Ruskin's political beliefs that could have real
[18] See David Newsome, 'Godliness and Good
controversial positions on stewardship — that is, application to the conditions of the day. His Learning', 1961.
the duties of the upper classes — and on mind turned so readily to allegory, or to [19] See Peter McIntosh, 'Physical Education in
education, on the divisions between manual and medieval comparisons, or to quixotically poetic England since 1800', 1968.
[20] Ruskin's mention of 'pet rifles' no doubt refers
cerebral work, on the differences between solutions, that it could never really engage with
to the growing movement to establish military drill in
purposeless and useful physical activity. We problems that required effective action. The public schools. The contrasted imagery of the
might now consider to what extent the Hincksey road diggers who came to breakfast with him, ploughshare and the gun is common in his later writing.
enterprise was philanthropic. Cook and eager to discuss political matters, were not [21] OED gives earlier uses of the word as connected
with foppishness, but not as having a connection with
Wedderburn claim that the diggings had a particularly helped, for while Ruskin's learning
the fine arts. In Sir E.J. Poynter's 'Lectures on Art',
practical effect on social reform. They refer to and imagination could always illuminate the 1897, p. 126, he remarks on'... what Ruskin calls
'that practical interest in social questions which cultural significance of political decisions, he "precious", that is, done as if it were a thing of value
in itself, and not as a mere display of technical skill.'
was to be the next Oxford movement [30]. could not himself consider matters politically.
[22] From Wilde's 'Art and the Handicraftsman',
However, the two diggers they had in mind Occasionally we find records of these breakfast- a lecture printed in Miscellanies, 1908, pp. 306-7.
when making this claim were precisely the ones time conversations. A writer in the Liverpool [23] The 'Letters of Oscar Wilde', ed. Rupert Hart-
who most rapidly and decisively rejected Ruskin's Courier, for instance, looking back on his Davis, 1965, pp. 217-8.
social ideas, however much they respected his student days, recalls that 'Ruskin spoke of the [24] Wilde's review was in The Dublin University
Magazine, July 1877, pp. 118-126, and is reprinted in
personal benevolence. These were two more consummation when his disciples should pull
Miscellanies, 1908, pp. 5-23.
Balliol men, the close friends Arnold Toynbee down the railway embankments which [25] An example of a movement from one camp to
and Alfred Milner. Toynbee's interest in social disfigured small countries like England, the other is in the career of Mrs Mark Pattison (Emilia
questions led him to take up the study of specifying the Vale of Matlock ... the proper Francis Strong) who rejected Ruskin (who had
attempted to influence her studies when she was a girl)
political economy in 1875. Soon after he was principle he thought was that the landlord in favour of a more aesthetic position. He never
teaching the subject, at Balliol, to groups of should receive a fixed salary for his work like attended, as Pater did, her salon in Lincoln College.
men who were about to leave England to run the Queen. The Queen could not sell England She was probably the model for the hostess in W.H.
Mallock's 'The New Republic' (1877). Her excellent
the Indian Civil Service. The sheerly practical to the highest bidder, nor should the landlord
'The Renaissance of Art in France' (1879) is a Paterian
aspects of such instruction were enough to turn be able to do so to his property ... he would work, and daringly commends the lascivious aspects of
Toynbee against the way that Ruskin wished to have the world a museum, and each of us should mannerist art in Fontainebleau. Wilde asked for this
book to be sent to him in prison.
organise the Guild of St George. Furthermore, consider ourselves keepers of the other men and
[26] Bodleian Library, MS Pattison 131, fol. 29,
Toynbee was a fine historian. His book on the beasts in it ... the Master went on to talk of transcribed in 'The Letters of Walter Pater', ed.
Industrial Revolution shows a clear and sensible sudden conversions, of angling, of Scott, and Lawrence Evans, 1970, p. xxxiv.
appreciation of the difficulties of creating social many other topics ...' [35]. It was the negation [27] See Oscar Browning, 'Memories of Sixty Years
at Eton, Cambridge and Elsewhere', 1910, and Evans,
of real politics.
equality in industrial society [31]. This would op. cit., p. xxxiv.
necessarily have turned him against Ruskin, who [28] G.W. Kitchin, 'Ruskin in Oxford and other
Studies', 1904, pp. 45-6.
wished merely to destroy industrial society in
[29] See Leonee Ormond, 'George du Maurier', 1969,
favour of an imaginative feudalism, while
p. 251.
Toynbee's former teacher was most critical of
[30] 'Works' vol. XX, p. xiv.
his sympathy with the co-operative movement [1] Linda Nochlin, 'Realism', 1971, p. 127. [31] 'Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in
and the trades unions. Toynbee died young, in [2] Fors Clavigera, letter 6, in 'The Works of John England', 1884. This edition, published posthumously,
1883, having done much work in the East End, Ruskin', edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander contains a memoir of Toynbee by Jowett.
Wedderburn, 1903-12, vol. XXVII, p. 101; hereafter [32] Alfred Milner, 'Arnold Toynbee, A
culminating in the foundation of the first
referred to as 'Works'. Reminiscence', 1895, p. 37.
University Settlement, in Whitechapel, later to [3] Now in the Ashmolean Museum. The drawing [33] Milner, op. cit., p. 39. Liberal reform in Oxford
be known as Toynbee Hall. A less admirable is catalogued in Luke Herrmann, 'Ruskin and Turner', in the late 19th century is best summarised in W.R.
1968, No. 8. Ward, 'Victorian Oxford', 1969.
personality was Alfred Milner, another Balliol
[4] Now in the Ashmolean Museum, No. 141 of [34] 'J.W.O.' in 'The Pelican Record', June 1894,
road digger who later, in a memorial speech for
the Ruskin Art Collection Rudimentary Series. See p. 104.
Toynbee, dismissed the episode at Hincksey as 'Works', vol. XXI, p. 211.
[35] The Liverpool Courier, February 16, 1900.
'merely a craze' [32]. Milner also worked in the [5] The 'Diaries of John Ruskin', edited by Joan The article is not signed.