Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

“Want of talent and want of taste are common lamentations and common excuses, but wonders will be achieved by the lowest ability if assisted by unremitted diligence. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it. There must be an assiduous, ardent devotedness, with a firmness of purpose, absorbing the whole mind; never rambling, but pursuing one determined object. It is the persevering who leave their competitors behind; and those who work the hardest always gain the most.”

Prout’s love was for marine subjects – this can be noticed in all his publications – but the influence of Britton and the advice of Johns prevailed to make him cleave to architecture; and indeed from the first this had ever attracted him, though not so much the great achievements of the art, as its humbler yet lovely creations, the labourer’s cottage, built of moor-stone, and thatched with reed or heather.

His health, always bad at the best of times, grew worse; he became so feeble that a trip to the Continent was recommended to him. “The route by Havre and Rouen,” writes Ruskin, “was chosen, and Prout found himself for the first time in the grotesque labyrinths of the Norman streets. There are few minds so apathetic as to receive no impulse of new delight from their first acquaintance with continental scenery and architecture; and Rouen was, of all the cities of France, the richest in those objects with which the painter’s mind had the profoundest sympathy.” Now all is changed. The great churches stand up by themselves in the midst of modern houses destitute of beauty, islands of loveliness in a sea of vulgarity. Great streets have been driven through the town, picturesque houses have been swept away; that which is old has been barbarously renovated. The cathedral has been furnished with a ridiculous spire. Then “all was at unity with itself, and the city lay under its guarding hills one labyrinth of delight – its grey and fretted towers, misty in their magnificence of height, letting the sky like blue enamel through the foiled spaces of their crowns of open work; the walls and gates of its countless churches wardered by saintly groups of solemn statuary, clasped about by wandering stems of sculptured leafage, and crowned by fretted niche and fairy pediment, meshed, like gossamer, with inextricable tracery, many a quaint monument of past times standing to tell its far-off tale in the place from which it has since perished – in the midst of the throng and murmur of those shadowy streets – all grim with jutting props of ebon woodwork, lightened only here and there by a sunbeam glancing down from the scaly backs and points of pyramids of the Norman roofs, or carried out of its narrow range by the gay progress of some snowy cap or scarlet camisole. The painter’s vocation was fixed from that hour; the first effect upon his mind was irrepressible enthusiasm, with a strong feeling of new-born attachment to art, in a new world of exceeding interest.”

This was the first of many excursions made through France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. How he enjoyed these trips is beyond power of words to describe. He drank in the beauties as he would nectar; they inspired new life into him; it filled his happy soul with delights that made him forget his bodily infirmities. His books of studies sold well – they did more than anything else to form the taste of the public. The fashion set in for sketches of ruins, of old buildings, of cottages. He had many imitators, but no equals. For his water-colour paintings he asked but modest prices, six guineas each.

How Gothic architecture was viewed only seventeen years before Samuel Prout was born may be judged by Matthew Bramble’s account of York Minster in Humphrey Clinker. He writes: “As for the minster, I know not how to distinguish it, except by its great size and the height of its spire, from those other ancient churches in different parts of the kingdom which used to be called monuments of Gothic architecture; but it is now agreed that the style is Saracen – and I suppose it was first imported into England from Spain, greater part of which was under the domination of the Moors. Those British architects who adopted this style don’t seem to have considered the propriety of their adoption. Nothing could be more preposterous than to imitate such a mode of architecture in a country like England, where the climate is cold and the air eternally loaded with vapours. For my part, I never entered the abbey church at Bath but once, and the moment I stepped over the threshold I found myself chilled to the very marrow of my bones. I should be glad to know what offence it would give to tender consciences if the House of God were made more comfortable; and whether it would not be an encouragement to piety, as well as the salvation of many lives, if the place of worship were well floored, wainscotted, warmed, and ventilated.

“The external appearance of an old cathedral cannot but be displeasing to the eye of every man who has any idea of propriety and proportion, even though he may be ignorant of architecture as a science. There is nothing of the Arabic architecture in the Assembly Rooms, which seems to me to have been built upon a design of Palladio, and might be converted into an elegant place of worship.”

In little more than a generation popular taste was completely changed. Augustus Pugin and Le Keux published their Specimens of Architectural Antiquities in Normandy in 1827; Parker his Glossary of Architecture in 1836, which rapidly went through several editions. A. Welby Pugin poured forth the vials of scorn on the taste of his day in his Contrasts, 1841; Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture laid down first principles in 1849; Rickman, the Quaker, had issued his Attempt to Distinguish the Styles of English Architecture as early as 1817, and this also rapidly passed through several editions. But it was not enough to instruct the public: its heart must be touched, its eyes unsealed to the beauties of the so-called Gothic style; and this is what Prout did with his exquisite drawings. There was no technical skill obtruded, no attempt made to distinguish styles: he simply with his pencil brought its charms before the public eye in an engaging form. And the public saw and believed.

Mr. S. C. Hall, writing of Prout’s personal qualities, says: “No member of the profession has ever lived to be more thoroughly respected, we may add beloved, by his fellow artists; no man has ever given more unquestionable evidence of a gentle and generous spirit, or more truly deserved the esteem in which he is so universally held. His always delicate health, instead of souring the temper, made him more thoughtful of the trials of others. Ever ready to assist the young by the counsels of experience, he is a fine example of perseverance and industry combined with suavity of manner and those endearing attributes which invariably blend with admiration of the artist, affection for the man. During the last six or seven years we have sometimes found our way into his quiet studio, where, like a delicate exotic requiring the most careful treatment to retain life within it, he could keep himself warm and snug, as he expressed it. There he might be seen at his easel, throwing his rich and beautiful colouring over a sketch of some old palace in Venice or time-worn cathedral of Flanders; and though suffering much from pain and weakness, ever cheerful, ever thankful that he had still strength enough to carry on his work. He rose late, and could seldom begin his labours before the middle of the day, when, if tolerably free from pain, he would paint till the night was advanced. No man ever bore suffering more meekly. Essentially religious, he submitted with patience and resignation to the Divine will. All the home affections were warm and strong in him. He was of a tender, loving, and truly upright nature.”

He spent some time at Hastings for his health, and when there his parish church was S. Mary’s. He attended this church regularly, and the vicar, the Rev. Mr. Vines, used to say: “I always wait for Prout to come and light up my church.” Indeed, his temper was always sunny, and he was eminently devout. What touched him profoundly was the piety he noticed among the peasantry abroad – how they uncovered for a brief prayer at the sound of the Angelus, and how they made of their churches a veritable home, where they could pour out their hearts in prayer in all sorrows, and in thanksgiving in all joys. But abroad or at home, in his hotel or his studio, his constant companions were his English Bible and Book of Common Prayer, and with them he said that he was satisfied.

As Mr. Hine says beautifully in his Memoirs of Prout: “All the subjects of his pictures point upwards, the lovely street scenes terminating in the tall tower or the divine spire. The doves hover about the highest ridges of his roofs and the loftiest pinnacles of his towers. He had the most implicit faith in the final article of the Nicene Creed – ‘I believe in the life of the world to come’ – and his own pictures are the faint but beautiful symbols of that celestial city which he saw as through a glass, darkly.”

He had been invited with many literary and artistic celebrities to dine with Mr. Ruskin, the elder, on Tuesday, 9 February, 1852, to keep the birthday of John Ruskin, and hear a letter from Venice, from the younger Ruskin, who was then in that city.

Samuel Prout had not been well of late, but he went to the dinner, and returned between ten and eleven, and said to his wife, “I’ve had such a happy evening! The Venice letter was capital.” Then he retired to his studio. Shortly after a tapping sound, often made by him as a summons, was heard. One of his daughters running upstairs found her father lying on the hearthrug in a fit of apoplexy. His open Bible, in which he had been reading one of the Psalms, lay on the table. He was carried to bed, but never spoke again. He died in the sixty-ninth year of his age. “There will never be any more Prout drawings,” said Ruskin sorrowfully.

In the north aisle of St. Andrew’s Church, Plymouth, is a marble tablet to his memory.

“There is one point,” says Ruskin, “in which Turner, Bewick, Hunt, and Prout, all four agree – that they can draw the poor, but not the rich. They acknowledge with affection, whether for principal or accessory subjects of their art, the British farmer, the British sailor, the British market-woman, and the British workman. They agree unanimously in ignoring the British gentleman. Let the British gentleman lay it to heart, and ask himself why.

“The general answer is long and manifold. But, with respect to the separate work of Prout, there is a very precious piece of instruction in it respecting national prosperity and policy, which may be gathered in a few glances.

“You see how all his best pictures depend on figures either crowded in market-places or pausing (lounging, it may be) in quiet streets. You will not find, in the entire series of subjects from his hand, a single figure in a hurry. He ignores not only the British gentleman, but every necessary condition, nowadays, of British business.

“Look again and see if you can find a single figure exerting all its strength. A couple of men rolling a single cask perhaps; here and there a woman with a rather large bundle on her head – any more athletic display than these you seek in vain. His figures are all as quiet as the Cathedral of Chartres. Some of them you can scarcely think are standing still, but they all move quietly. The real reason is that he understood, and we do not, the meaning of the word ‘quiet.’

“He understood it, personally, and for himself; practically, and for others. Take this one fact – of his quiet dealings with men – and think it over.

“The modern fashionable interest in what we suppose to be art had just begun to show itself a few years before Prout’s death, and he was frequently advised to raise his prices. But he never raised them a shilling to his old customers, nor greatly to his new ones. They were supplied with all the drawings they wanted at six guineas each – to the end. A very peaceful method of dealing, and under the true ancient laws ordained by Athena of the Agora, and St. James of the Rialto.

“And learn from your poor wandering painter this lesson – for some of the best he had to give you (it is the Alpha of the laws of true human life) – that no city is prosperous in the sight of Heaven unless the peasant sells in its market; that no city is ever righteous in the sight of Heaven unless the noble walks in its street.”

Prout’s work is divided into two clearly defined periods. In the first he drew only English scenes. In 1819 he made his first tour on the Continent, and thenceforth devoted himself almost entirely to foreign subjects. In this devotion Ruskin lamented the “loss of his first love.” His grand wrecks of Indiamen were instinct with that subtle sense of vastness that the Art Teacher felt.

The authorities for the life of Samuel Prout are: —

“Samuel Prout, Artist,” by J. Hine, in the Transactions of the Plymouth Institution, 1879–80.

Art in Devonshire, by Geo. Pycroft, Exeter, 1883, pp. 106–17.

Royet, History of the Old Water-Colour Society, London, 1891.

Ruskin’s “Notes on Samuel Prout and William Hunt,” new edition in Ruskin on Pictures, London, 1902.

NOTE. – The publisher of this work will esteem it a favour if the possessors of pictures or drawings by Prout will place themselves in communication with him. He is particularly anxious to obtain copies of letters by, or documents about, the artist – in short, any material which may be of use in the preparation of the exhaustive Life which is in progress. All communications should be addressed to Mr. John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, London, W.