The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " WEEKLY DISPATCH " ON PICTURE-FLAYING AT
THE NATIONAL GALLERY.—The value of a public collection
of choice works by renowned painters is obvious. A fine
picture, unlike a great poem, cannot be indefinitely multi-
plied. Its design, it is true, may be disseminated by en-
graving or photography ; but the peculiar quality which
distinguishes it from both sculpture and engraving—the
subtle imitation of nature, by gradation of substance and
harmonious blending of colours, no merely mechanical
process can adequately tender. To the formation, then,
of that accurate perception of beauty in nature and art,
termed "taste," the study of pictures by the great masters
is indispensable ; and it, of necessity, follows that sound
judgment on the part of those deputed by the nation to
purchase and preserve such works is of the very utmost
importance. For fine pictures, from the subtlety of the
method of which they were produced, are peculiarly sus-
ceptible of injury. The person in whose charge they may
be can, if he will, alter them to suit his notion either of
nature or of the artist's intention, and this by the process
termed " cleaning." With regard to this term let us not
be misunderstood. On a picture that has been painted
for centuries dirt to some extent must inevitably ad-
here ; but this, if the work has not been ignorantly
covered with bad varnish or oil, will be so small in
quantity as not to materially interfere either with the
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effect of the work or the pleasure and profit derivable from
it by spectator or student. Still, the removal of this dirt
would unquestionably bo a gain, provided it were done
withcut damage to the paint ; but cleaners almost always
take off, with thedirt, that delicate coat of colour by which
the great painters imparted finish to their works, termed
" glazing." Their process of painting was broadly this. On
a ground more or less dark or transparent they modelled
the picture in tints formed by mixing white lead with co-
loured pigments, thus producing an effect which, as com-
pared with their ultimate intention, was crude, cold, opaque,
and technically speaking, "dead coloured." To this pale
preparation they imparted life, warmth, harmony and rich-
ness of tone by repeated coats or glazings of colours more
or less transparent ; and a picture thus'produced has the
additional and invaluable quality of luminousness, result-
ing from light and opaque tints shining through colour
rich but thin. Now it must be evident that pictures pro-
duced by this complex process can be injured at will. Let
the owner or curator consider lightness or paleness a
merit, and the glazings are at once torn off as "dirt."
Thus were treated a picture by Rubens and two by
Guido in 1844 and 1845. Four more pictures were
flayed in 1846, and so strong were the expressions of
public indignation that in 1847 Sir Charles Eastlake
resigned the keepership and Mr. Unwins took his place.
Till 1852 the pictures had a rest ; then, seized with
a spasm of destructiveness, Mr. Unwins tore off the glaz-
ings from nino fine works. Press and public were roused,
Mr. Morris Moore taking thelead. A Parliamentary com-
mittee examined witnesses of repute, and the opinions
given amounted to 149 condemnatory of the " cleaning,"
and but 45 in its favour, 31 of these being uttered by the
parties implicated. Mr. Uuwins was now deprived of the
keepership, and, strange to say, Sir Charles Eastlake, the
inaugurator of the " cleaning" era was once more placed
over the gallery with a large increase of salary. Warned,
however, by experience, he, from that time till his recent
death, avoided the rock on which he. had wrecked his re-
putation ; but Mr. Boxall, his Successor, is less cautious.
Of the pictures " cleaned" under the direction during the
late vacation and shown to the public when the gallery re-
opened on Monday, Nov. 5, two of the landscapes by
Gaspar Poussin (No. 31) and by Rubens (No. 66), are of
chief importance, though others have been flayed to which

we shall allude hereafter. Through a system of ill-usage,
the nature of which we will presently indicate, the sur-
face of the Poussin had become dull ; but the Rubens was
in fine condition—that is to say, the colouring was rich,
harmonious, and natural, whilst the dirt on it was so
trifling in quantity as not to endure with the general effect.
The dirt is now gone, and with it the master's rich and
transparent glazings. To the cultivated eye the work
is now, compared with what it was, inexpres-
sibly painful. To the young student it is worse than
valueless, for it falsifies Rubens's intention and can only
mislead. To the nation its pecuniary value is materially
diminished. For " cleaning" the Poussin there was more
pretext. Wo remember—for our intimate knowledge of
the National Gallery and matters connected therewith
dates back full twenty years —when this picture was in
good condition, rich in tone, sublimely ideal in massive
breadth of treatment, and worthy its Roman* fame as
" the painter's masterpiece." Mark its decline and fall.
The only varnish that can be applied to the surface of a
picture without ultimate injury to it is that made by
gum mastic dissolved in spirit. It preserves the paint
from discolouration by foul air ; it is subject to
little, if any, change of hue. The gum, when the spirit
has evaporated, can either be revived by allowing it to ab-
sorb more spirit, or it can be removed by gentle friction,
and fresh varnish substituted. This method of treatment,
known and always used by intelligent experts, was not the
one in favour with Mr. Seguier, who, on Sir C. Eastlake's
first accession to office in 1843, and for some years after,
was employed at the gallery and did to the pictures what
he would. In his evidence before the committee of 1353 he
states that " when the pictures first came to the gallery
they were not in a bad state. They were in a fine condi-
tion; there was no oil or dirt upon them;" and he then,
strangely enough, says—" I have been in the habit of var-
nishing pictures (the gallery pictures) with a mixture of
boiled oil and varnish—my gallery varnish'— magylp ;
particularly dark and absorbent pictures. It is my opinion
that this oil varnish has a great tendency to attract dirt,
and that, if it continuo any length of time on a picture, it
will get yollower and blacker from day to day." Worse'.—
he speaks of "occasionally rubbing them up with oil after-
wards"—an operation repeated, too, by certain of his sue
censors. Now; among the pictures thus scandalously used
was the " masterpiece" of Poussin. We have watched
for some years with painful forebodings the gradual en-
croachments on it of superficial obscurity, till at length
the " cleaner" has torn off with the oil varnish all the
painter's finishing work—all that gave the picture truth,
tone, and sublimity ; and has left, only, to our astonished
gaze the cold, dead, opaque preparation. Against this
Vandalism we raise our voice—against this ignorant de-
struction of works which can never bo replaced we pro-
test in the interests of art, of the nation, and of the world.
As Mr. Boxall—in contempt of the overwhelming evidence
against the National Gallery process of "cleaning," given
before the committee of 1853 —in contempt of the facts
then deposed to by Isfr.Motris Moore, Mr. Wm. Coningham,
Sir David Brewster, Mr. David Roberts, RA., and other
competent witnesses with reference to the nature of glaze
and the irreparable injury caused by its ignorant removal—
in contempt of the universal condemnation of the Vandal-
ism of 1852 by the Press—has thought fit to recommence this
method of destruction, thereby not only depreciating the
value of public property to the extent of thousands of pounds,
causing injury which no money can repair ; and as the
" cleaning" is probably still in progress; two pictures—one
termed a warrior adoring the infant Christ (No. 234); the
other a Tintoretto (No. 16), known as " St. George," being
absent from their frames when we visited the Gallery on
Monday last—a proceeding which, the vacation over,
is unusual, nay,we believe, unprecedented--we demand, in
the name of the public that all operations that come under
the head of "cleaning" be at once stayed, and that no more
pictures be removed from public sight until Parliamentary
inquiry has again probed this matter to the root. When
this inquiry takes place evidence of a startling kind will be
brought forward both with regard to the recent flayings
and to the injuries from the use of the "oil varnish," which
has been indiscriminately employed in the Gallery for
more than 20 years.
" THE EXAMINER" ON THE GREATEST OF OUR MANU-
FACTURES.—Every one knows at once that this can mean
no other than the cotton manufacture, the greatest that
the world has ever seen or is likely to see. The raw mate-
rial of this mighty manufacture is nothing more or less
than the pappus or flock of the seed vessel of an exotic
plant which will not grow at all in our climate, nor very
well in any European climate. Greeks and Romans and
men of the middle ages knew nothlugabout it. We ourselves
and the other nations of Europe received the raw material
from the Arabs of Spain, as its name imports, and the Arabs
had it, they knew not by what means or when, from the
Hindus. This is the simple material out of which is pro-
duced the fabric which clothes half the population of the
world, and of which we aro the principal manufacturers.
The sketch we are about to give of the wondrous manu-
facture we take from a paper of great ability and enlighten-
ment, lately read at the social sience meeting held at Man-
chester by Mr. H. Ashworth, late chairman of the Chamber
of Commerce of Manchester, himself an active labourer in
the mighty hive of ingenious and indefatigable industry.
The vastness of the cotton manufacture is founded on the
natural cheapness of the raw material, and its peculiar
adaptation to machinery. A garment of the cheapest
fabric of wool, that is flannel, will cost 35., of linen 2s. 4d.,
but of cotton only 11d., and thus you can easily have two
garments of cotton for one of linen, and three for ono of
wool. But cotton, in the early period of our manufactures,
was as dear as lint, or even wool, but skill in'growth
and economy of transport in time altered all this. Sixty
years ago, a pound of American cotton of an ordinary
quality cost 25., and it fell to 6d., or one-fourth of this,
still paying the planter and the merchant equally well.
Down to the year 1767, barely a century ago, cotton and
other thread or yarn was made by the distaff in every
country of Europe, as it still is in India and China, and as

it ever had been since the time when linen thread was
spun for the weaving of Egyptian mummy cloth. It is in
the preparation of the yarn that the chief economy is pro-
duced in the cotton manufacture. Lancashire is now, and
always has been, the great centre of the trade, and it was
here that sprung up the inventions which have made it
great. In 1767 Hargreaves invented the "Spinning Jenny,,,
Arkwright, two years after, the "Water-frame,"Crompton,
in 1775, the "Mule," so called because it was a combination
of the two previous inventions. Thus, within eight short
years, discoveries were made which had before baffled the
ingenuity of the world, from the day man began first to
clothe himself in a textile fabric. Before then the labour