Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social ReformBarnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
General
Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform
Barnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class
With the knowledge of the indifference, because of the unhelped and
inevitable ignorance of the town poor in respect to landscape art,
special pains were taken with the descriptions, endeavours being
made to connect the landscape with some idea with which they were
already familiar, or to connect it with some moral association which
would attract notice to its qualities; for instance, Mr. John Brett’s
‘Philory, King of the Cliffs,’ was brought nearer to the spectators by
the suggestion that ‘the coast of England was, like its people, cool
and strong, and not to be hurt by a storm’; and Mr. W. Luker’s picture
of ‘Burnham Beeches,’ lent by Mr. S. Winkworth, gained in interest
because the catalogue said it was ‘A forest near Slough, about eighteen
miles from London, bought by the City of London, and made the property
of the people.’
Mr. W. S. Wyllie’s ‘Antwerp,’ a grey, flat picture, had its idea partly
embodied in ‘Sea and land seemed to end in the cathedral spire’; while
the familiar proverb, ‘It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,’ drew
attention to Mr. W. C. Nakkens’s ‘Harvesting in Holland’; and the
suggestion that ‘the horses are enjoying the wind which is blowing up
the rain, the farmer’s enemy in harvest,’ showed the standpoint from
which the picture could be looked at.
Not that the catalogue was intended to contain exhaustive explanations
of the pictures, but only indications of the lines along which the
people could make their own discoveries. Full, however, as some of the
descriptions were, they were not full enough to prevent misconceptions.
A little copy of Tintoretto, lent by Mr. E. Bale, depicting the visit
and embrace of the Virgin Mary and Elisabeth, simply entered in the
catalogue as the ‘Meeting of Mary and Elisabeth,’ was mistaken for
an interview between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth, and
produced the reflection, ‘I suppose that was before they quarrelled,
then’--a sign that historical had, in this instance, made more mark
than Bible instruction.
Information about Darwin, concerning whose work the catalogue was
silent, was finally volunteered by one of a little group who pronounced
him to be ‘the Monkey Man’; and another knew no more about Gladstone
than that ‘he was the chap that followed Lord Beaconsfield.’
‘Lesbia,’ by Mr. J. Bertrand, explained as ‘A Roman girl musing over
the loss of her pet bird,’ was commented on by, ‘Sorrow for her bird,
is it? I was thinking it was drink that was in her’--a grim indication
of the opinion of the working classes of their ‘betters’; though
another remark on the same picture, ‘Well, I hope she will never
have a worse trouble,’ showed a kindlier spirit and perhaps a sadder
experience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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