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+Project Gutenberg's Modern Painters Volume I (of V), by John Ruskin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Modern Painters Volume I (of V)
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+Release Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #29907]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN PAINTERS VOLUME I (OF V) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they
+  are listed at the end of the text.
+
+  Chapter headings were originally constructed as side-notes. They were
+  placed here at the head of their respective paragraphs, and moved to
+  paragraph's start where given at paragraph's middle. See HTML version
+  for the original headers placement.
+
+
+
+
+                            Library Edition
+
+                          THE COMPLETE WORKS
+
+                                  OF
+
+                             JOHN RUSKIN
+
+                        POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE
+                             SEVEN LAMPS
+                           MODERN PAINTERS
+                              VOLUME I
+
+                     NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
+                     NEW YORK             CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+                          THE COMPLETE WORKS
+
+                                  OF
+
+                             JOHN RUSKIN
+
+                              VOLUME II
+
+                           MODERN PAINTERS
+
+                              VOLUME I
+
+
+
+
+                           MODERN PAINTERS.
+
+                                  BY
+
+                         A GRADUATE OF OXFORD.
+
+                                VOL. I.
+
+                             PART I--II.
+
+
+
+                                 TO
+
+                   THE LANDSCAPE ARTISTS OF ENGLAND
+
+                             This Work
+
+                      IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
+
+                      BY THEIR SINCERE ADMIRER,
+
+                                          _THE AUTHOR_
+
+
+
+
+                    PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
+
+The work now laid before the public originated in indignation at the
+shallow and false criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works
+of the great living artist to whom it principally refers. It was
+intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobating the matter and style of
+those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency, as guides of
+public feeling. But, as point after point presented itself for
+demonstration, I found myself compelled to amplify what was at first a
+letter to the Editor of a Review, into something very like a treatise on
+art, to which I was obliged to give the more consistency and
+completeness, because it advocated opinions which, to the ordinary
+connoisseur, will sound heretical. I now scarcely know whether I should
+announce it is an Essay on Landscape Painting, and apologize for its
+frequent reference to the works of a particular master; or, announcing
+it as a critique on particular works, apologize for its lengthy
+discussion of general principles. But of whatever character the work may
+be considered, the motives which led me to undertake it must not be
+mistaken. No zeal for the reputation of any individual, no personal
+feeling of any kind, has the slightest weight or influence with me. The
+reputation of the great artist to whose works I have chiefly referred,
+is established on too legitimate grounds among all whose admiration is
+honorable, to be in any way affected by the ignorant sarcasms of
+pretension and affectation. But when _public_ taste seems plunging
+deeper and deeper into degradation day by day, and when the press
+universally exerts such power as it possesses to direct the feeling of
+the nation more completely to all that is theatrical, affected, and
+false in art; while it vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted
+truth, and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any other age
+has ever witnessed, it becomes the imperative duty of all who have any
+perception or knowledge of what is really great in art, and any desire
+for its advancement in England, to come fearlessly forward, regardless
+of such individual interests as are likely to be injured by the
+knowledge of what is good and right, to declare and demonstrate,
+wherever they exist, the essence and the authority of the Beautiful and
+the True.
+
+Whatever may seem invidious or partial in the execution of my task is
+dependent not so much on the tenor of the work, as on its
+incompleteness. I have not entered into systematic criticism of all the
+painters of the present day; but I have illustrated each particular
+excellence and truth of art by the works in which it exists in the
+highest degree, resting satisfied that if it be once rightly felt and
+enjoyed in these, it will be discovered and appreciated wherever it
+exists in others. And although I have never suppressed any conviction of
+the superiority of one artist over another, which I believed to be
+grounded on truth, and necessary to the understanding of truth, I have
+been cautious never to undermine positive rank, while I disputed
+relative rank. My uniform desire and aim have been, not that the present
+favorite should be admired less, but that the neglected master should be
+admired more. And I know that an increased perception and sense of truth
+and beauty, though it may interfere with our estimate of the comparative
+rank of painters, will invariably tend to increase our admiration of all
+who are really great; and he who now places Stanfield and Callcott above
+Turner, will admire Stanfield and Callcott more than he does now, when
+he has learned to place Turner far above them both.
+
+In three instances only have I spoken in direct depreciation of the
+works of living artists, and these are all cases in which the reputation
+is so firm and extended, as to suffer little injury from the opinion of
+an individual, and where the blame has been warranted and deserved by
+the desecration of the highest powers.
+
+Of the old masters I have spoken with far greater freedom; but let it be
+remembered that only a portion of the work is now presented to the
+public, and it must not be supposed, because in that particular portion,
+and with reference to particular excellencies, I have spoken in constant
+depreciation, that I have no feeling of other excellencies of which
+cognizance can only be taken in future parts of the work. Let me not be
+understood to mean more than I have said, nor be made responsible for
+conclusions when I have only stated facts. I have said that the old
+masters did not give the truth of Nature; if the reader chooses, thence,
+to infer that they were not masters at all, it is his conclusion, not
+mine.
+
+Whatever I have asserted throughout the work, I have endeavored to
+ground altogether on demonstrations which must stand or fall by their
+own strength, and which ought to involve no more reference to authority
+or character than a demonstration in Euclid. Yet it is proper for the
+public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has been
+devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art.
+
+Whatever has been generally affirmed of the old schools of
+landscape-painting is founded on familiar acquaintance with every
+important work of art, from Antwerp to Naples. But it would be useless,
+where close and immediate comparison with works in our own Academy is
+desirable, to refer to the details of pictures at Rome or Munich; and it
+would be impossible to speak at once with just feeling, as regarded the
+possessor, and just freedom, as regarded the public, of pictures in
+private galleries. Whatever particular references have been made for
+illustration, have been therefore confined, as far as was in my power,
+to works in the National and Dulwich Galleries.
+
+Finally, I have to apologize for the imperfection of a work which I
+could have wished not to have executed, but with years of reflection and
+revisal. It is owing to my sense of the necessity of such revisal, that
+only a portion of the work is now presented to the public; but that
+portion is both complete in itself, and is more peculiarly directed
+against the crying evil which called for instant remedy. Whether I ever
+completely fulfil my intention, will partly depend upon the spirit in
+which the present volume is received. If it be attributed to an
+invidious spirit, or a desire for the advancement of individual
+interests, I could hope to effect little good by farther effort. If, on
+the contrary, its real feeling and intention be understood, I shall
+shrink from no labor in the execution of a task which may tend, however
+feebly, to the advancement of the cause of real art in England, and to
+the honor of those great living Masters whom we now neglect or malign,
+to pour our flattery into the ear of Death, and exalt, with vain
+acclamation, the names of those who neither demand our praise, nor
+regard our gratitude.
+
+                                                             THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+                     PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
+
+It is allowed by the most able writers on naval and military tactics,
+that although the attack by successive divisions absolutely requires in
+the attacking party such an inherent superiority in quality of force,
+and such consciousness of that superiority, as may enable his front
+columns, or his leading ships, to support themselves for a considerable
+period against overwhelming numbers; it yet insures, if maintained with
+constancy, the most total ruin of the opposing force. Convinced of the
+truth, and therefore assured of the ultimate prevalence and victory of
+the principles which I have advocated, and equally confident that the
+strength of the cause must give weight to the strokes of even the
+weakest of its defenders, I permitted myself to yield to a somewhat
+hasty and hot-headed desire of being, at whatever risk, in the thick of
+the fire, and began the contest with a part, and that the weakest and
+least considerable part, of the forces at my disposal. And I now find
+the volume thus boldly laid before the public in a position much
+resembling that of the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, receiving,
+unsupported, the broadsides of half the enemy's fleet, while unforeseen
+circumstances have hitherto prevented, and must yet for a time prevent,
+my heavier ships of the line from taking any part in the action. I
+watched the first moments of the struggle with some anxiety for the
+solitary vessel,--an anxiety which I have now ceased to feel,--for the
+flag of truth waves brightly through the smoke of the battle, and my
+antagonists, wholly intent on the destruction of the leading ship, have
+lost their position, and exposed themselves in defenceless disorder to
+the attack of the following columns.
+
+If, however, I have had no reason to regret my hasty advance, as far as
+regards the ultimate issue of the struggle, I have yet found it to
+occasion much misconception of the character, and some diminution of
+the influence, of the present essay. For though the work has been
+received as only in sanguine moments I had ventured to hope, though I
+have had the pleasure of knowing that in many instances its principles
+have carried with them a strength of conviction amounting to a
+demonstration of their truth, and that, even where it has had no other
+influence, it has excited interest, suggested inquiry, and prompted to a
+just and frank comparison of Art with Nature; yet this effect would have
+been greater still, had not the work been supposed, as it seems to have
+been by many readers, a completed treatise, containing a systematized
+statement of the whole of my views on the subject of modern art.
+Considered as such, it surprises me that the book should have received
+the slightest attention. For what respect could be due to a writer who
+pretended to criticise and classify the works of the great painters of
+landscape, without developing, or even alluding to, one single principle
+of the beautiful or sublime? So far from being a completed essay, it is
+little more than the introduction to the mass of evidence and
+illustration which I have yet to bring forward; it treats of nothing but
+the initiatory steps of art, states nothing but the elementary rules of
+criticism, touches only on merits attainable by accuracy of eye and
+fidelity of hand, and leaves for future consideration every one of the
+eclectic qualities of pictures, all of good that is prompted by feeling,
+and of great that is guided by judgment; and its function and scope
+should the less have been mistaken, because I have not only most
+carefully arranged the subject in its commencement, but have given
+frequent references throughout to the essays by which it is intended to
+be succeeded, in which I shall endeavor to point out the signification
+and the value of those phenomena of external nature which I have been
+hitherto compelled to describe without reference either to their
+inherent beauty, or to the lessons which may be derived from them.
+
+Yet, to prevent such misconception in future, I may perhaps be excused
+for occupying the reader's time with a fuller statement of the feelings
+with which the work was undertaken, of its general plan, and of the
+conclusions and positions which I hope to be able finally to deduce and
+maintain.
+
+Nothing, perhaps, bears on the face of it more appearance of folly,
+ignorance, and impertinence, than any attempt to diminish the honor of
+those to whom the assent of many generations has assigned a throne; for
+the truly great of later times have, almost without exception, fostered
+in others the veneration of departed power which they felt themselves,
+satisfied in all humility to take their seat at the feet of those whose
+honor is brightened by the hoariness of time, and to wait for the period
+when the lustre of many departed days may accumulate on their own heads,
+in the radiance which culminates as it recedes. The envious and
+incompetent have usually been the leaders of attack, content if, like
+the foulness of the earth, they may attract to themselves notice by
+their noisomeness, or, like its insects, exalt themselves by virulence
+into visibility. While, however, the envy of the vicious, and the
+insolence of the ignorant, are occasionally shown in their nakedness by
+_futile_ efforts to degrade the dead, it is worthy of consideration
+whether they may not more frequently escape detection in _successful_
+efforts to degrade the living,--whether the very same malice may not be
+gratified, the very same incompetence demonstrated in the unjust
+lowering of present greatness, and the unjust exaltation of a perished
+power, as, if exerted and manifested in a less safe direction, would
+have classed the critic with Nero and Caligula, with Zoilus and
+Perrault. Be it remembered, that the spirit of detraction is detected
+only when unsuccessful, and receives least punishment where it effects
+the greatest injury; and it cannot but be felt that there is as much
+danger that the rising of new stars should be concealed by the mists
+which are unseen, as that those throned in heaven should be darkened by
+the clouds which are visible.
+
+There is, I fear, so much malice in the hearts of most men, that they
+are chiefly jealous of that praise which can give the greatest pleasure,
+and are then most liberal of eulogium when it can no longer be enjoyed.
+They grudge not the whiteness of the sepulchre, because by no honor they
+can bestow upon it can the senseless corpse be rendered an object of
+envy; but they are niggardly of the reputation which contributes to
+happiness, or advances to fortune. They are glad to obtain credit for
+generosity and humility by exalting those who are beyond the reach of
+praise, and thus to escape the more painful necessity of doing homage to
+a living rival. They are rejoiced to set up a standard of imaginary
+excellence, which may enable them, by insisting on the inferiority of a
+contemporary work to the things that have been, to withdraw the
+attention from its superiority to the things that are. The same
+undercurrent of jealousy operates in our reception of animadversion. Men
+have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that
+which is innocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks
+hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently on the
+grave.
+
+And thus well says the good and deep-minded Richard Hooker: "To the best
+and wisest, while they live, the world is continually a froward
+opposite; and a curious observer of their defects and imperfections,
+their virtues afterwards it as much admireth. And for this cause, many
+times that which deserveth admiration would hardly be able to find
+favor, if they which propose it were not content to profess themselves
+therein scholars and followers of the ancient. For the world will not
+endure to hear that we are wiser than any have been which went
+before."--Book v. ch. vii. 3. He therefore who would maintain the cause
+of contemporary excellence against that of elder time, must have almost
+every class of men arrayed against him. The generous, because they would
+not find matter of accusation against established dignities; the
+envious, because they like not the sound of a living man's praise; the
+wise, because they prefer the opinion of centuries to that of days; and
+the foolish, because they are incapable of forming an opinion of their
+own. Obloquy so universal is not lightly to be risked, and the few who
+make an effort to stem the torrent, as it is made commonly in favor of
+their own works, deserve the contempt which is their only reward. Nor is
+this to be regretted, in its influence on the progress and preservation
+of things technical and communicable. Respect for the ancients is the
+salvation of art, though it sometimes blinds us to its _ends_. It
+increases the power of the painter, though it diminishes his liberty;
+and if it be sometimes an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is
+oftener a protection from the consequences of audacity. The whole system
+and discipline of art, the collected results of the experience of ages,
+might, but for the fixed authority of antiquity, be swept away by the
+rage of fashion, or lost in the glare of novelty; and the knowledge
+which it had taken centuries to accumulate, the principles which mighty
+minds had arrived at only in dying, might be overthrown by the frenzy of
+a faction, and abandoned in the insolence of an hour.
+
+Neither, in its general application, is the persuasion of the
+superiority of former works less just than useful. The greater number
+of them are, and must be, immeasurably nobler than any of the results of
+present effort, because that which is best of the productions of four
+thousand years must necessarily be in its accumulation, beyond all
+rivalry from the works of any given generation; but it should always be
+remembered that it is improbable that many, and impossible that all, of
+such works, though the greatest yet produced, should approach abstract
+perfection; that there is certainly something left for us to carry
+farther, or complete; that any given generation has just the same chance
+of producing some individual mind of first-rate calibre, as any of its
+predecessors; and that if such a mind _should_ arise, the chances are,
+that with the assistance of experience and example, it would, in its
+particular and chosen path, do greater things than had been before done.
+
+We must therefore be cautious not to lose sight of the real use of what
+has been left us by antiquity, nor to take that for a model of
+perfection which is, in many cases, only a guide to it. The picture
+which is looked to for an interpretation of nature is invaluable, but
+the picture which is taken as a substitute for nature, had better be
+burned; and the young artist, while he should shrink with horror from
+the iconoclast who would tear from him every landmark and light which
+has been bequeathed him by the ancients, and leave him in a liberated
+childhood, may be equally certain of being betrayed by those who would
+give him the power and the knowledge of past time, and then fetter his
+strength from all advance, and bend his eyes backward on a beaten
+path--who would thrust canvas between him and the sky, and tradition
+between him and God.
+
+And such conventional teaching is the more to be dreaded, because all
+that is highest in art, all that is creative and imaginative, is formed
+and created by every great master for himself, and cannot be repeated or
+imitated by others. We judge of the excellence of a rising writer, not
+so much by the resemblance of his works to what has been done before, as
+by their difference from it; and while we advise him, in his first
+trials of strength, to set certain models before him with respect to
+inferior points,--one for versification, another for arrangement,
+another for treatment,--we yet admit not his greatness until he has
+broken away from all his models, and struck forth versification,
+arrangement, and treatment of his own.
+
+Three points, therefore, I would especially insist upon as necessary to
+be kept in mind in all criticism of modern art. First, that there are
+few, very few of even the best productions of antiquity, which are not
+visibly and palpably imperfect in some kind or way, and conceivably
+improvable by farther study; that every nation, perhaps every generation,
+has in all probability some peculiar gift, some particular character of
+mind, enabling it to do something different from, or something in some
+sort better than what has been before done; and that therefore, unless
+art be a trick, or a manufacture, of which the secrets are lost, the
+greatest minds of existing nations, if exerted with the same industry,
+passion, and honest aim as those of past time, have a chance in their
+particular walk of doing something as great, or, taking the advantage of
+former example into account, even greater and better. It is difficult to
+conceive by what laws of logic some of the reviewers of the following
+Essay have construed its first sentence into a denial of this
+principle,--a denial such as their own conventional and shallow criticism
+of modern works invariably implies. I have said that "nothing has been
+for centuries consecrated by public admiration without possessing in a
+_high_ degree _some_ species of sterling excellence." Does it thence
+follow that it possesses in the _highest_ degree _every_ species of
+sterling excellence? "Yet thus," says the sapient reviewer, "he admits
+the fact against which he mainly argues,--namely, the superiority of
+these time-honored productions." As if the possession of an abstract
+excellence of some kind necessarily implied the possession of an
+incomparable excellence of every kind! There are few works of man so
+perfect as to admit of no conception of their being excelled,[A]--there
+are thousands which have been for centuries, and will be for centuries
+more, consecrated by public admiration, which are yet imperfect in many
+respects, and have been excelled, and may be excelled again. Do my
+opponents mean to assert that nothing good can ever be bettered, and that
+what is best of past time is necessarily best of all time? Perugino, I
+suppose, possessed some species of sterling excellence, but Perugino was
+excelled by Raffaelle; and so Claude possesses some species of sterling
+excellence, but it follows not that he may not be excelled by Turner.
+
+The second point on which I would insist is that if a mind _were_ to
+arise of such power as to be capable of equalling or excelling some of
+the greatest works of past ages, the productions of such a mind would,
+in all probability, be totally different in manner and matter from all
+former productions; for the more powerful the intellect, the less will
+its works resemble those of other men, whether predecessors or
+contemporaries. Instead of reasoning, therefore, as we commonly do, in
+matters of art, that because such and such a work does not resemble that
+which has hitherto been a canon, therefore it _must_ be inferior and
+wrong in principle; let us rather admit that there is in its very
+dissimilarity an increased chance of its being itself a new, and
+perhaps, a higher canon. If any production of modern art can be shown to
+have the authority of nature on its side, and to be based on eternal
+truths, it is all so much more in its favor, so much farther proof of
+its power, that it is totally different from all that have been before
+seen.[B]
+
+The third point on which I would insist, is that if such a mind were to
+arise, it would necessarily divide the world of criticism into two
+factions; the one, necessarily the largest and loudest, composed of men
+incapable of judging except by precedent, ignorant of general truth, and
+acquainted only with such particular truths as may have been illustrated
+or pointed out to them by former works, which class would of course be
+violent in vituperation, and increase in animosity as the master
+departed farther from their particular and preconceived canons of
+right,--thus wounding their vanity by impugning their judgment; the
+other, necessarily narrow of number, composed of men of general
+knowledge and unbiassed habits of thought, who would recognize in the
+work of the daring innovator a record and illustration of facts before
+unseized, who would justly and candidly estimate the value of the truths
+so rendered, and would increase in fervor of admiration as the master
+strode farther and deeper, and more daringly into dominions before
+unsearched or unknown; yet diminishing in multitude as they increased in
+enthusiasm: for by how much their leader became more impatient in his
+step--more impetuous in his success--more exalted in his research, by so
+much must the number capable of following him become narrower, until at
+last, supposing him never to pause in his advance, he might be left in
+the very culminating moment of his consummate achievement, with but a
+faithful few by his side, his former disciples fallen away, his former
+enemies doubled in numbers and virulence, and the evidence of his
+supremacy only to be wrought out by the devotion of men's lives to the
+earnest study of the new truths he had discovered and recorded.
+
+Such a mind has arisen in our days. It has gone on from strength to
+strength, laying open fields of conquest peculiar to itself. It has
+occasioned such schism in the schools of criticism as was beforehand to
+be expected, and it is now at the zenith of its power, and,
+_consequently_, in the last phase of declining popularity.
+
+This I know, and can prove. No man, says Southey, was ever yet convinced
+of any momentous truth without feeling in himself the power, as well as
+the desire of communicating it. In asserting and demonstrating the
+supremacy of this great master, I shall both do immediate service to the
+cause of right art, and shall be able to illustrate many principles of
+landscape painting which are of general application, and have hitherto
+been unacknowledged.
+
+For anything like immediate effect on the public mind, I do not hope.
+"We mistake men's diseases," says Richard Baxter, "when we think there
+needeth nothing to cure them of their errors but the evidence of truth.
+Alas! there are many distempers of mind to be removed before they
+receive that evidence." Nevertheless, when it is fully laid before them,
+my duty will be done. Conviction will follow in due time. I do not
+consider myself as in any way addressing, or having to do with, the
+ordinary critics of the press. Their writings are not the guide, but the
+expression, of public opinion. A writer for a newspaper naturally and
+necessarily endeavors to meet, as nearly as he can, the feelings of the
+majority of his readers; his bread depends on his doing so. Precluded by
+the nature of his occupations from gaining any knowledge of art, he is
+sure that he can gain credit for it by expressing the opinions of his
+readers. He mocks the picture which the public pass, and bespatters with
+praise the canvas which a crowd concealed from him.
+
+Writers like the present critic of Blackwood's Magazine[C] deserve more
+respect--the respect due to honest, hopeless, helpless imbecility. There
+is something exalted in the innocence of their feeblemindedness: one
+cannot suspect them of partiality, for it implies feeling; nor of
+prejudice, for it implies some previous acquaintance with their subject.
+I do not know that even in this age of charlatanry, I could point to a
+more barefaced instance of imposture on the simplicity of the public,
+than the insertion of these pieces of criticism in a respectable
+periodical. We are not insulted with opinions on music from persons
+ignorant of its notes; nor with treatises on philology by persons
+unacquainted with the alphabet; but here is page after page of
+criticism, which one may read from end to end, looking for something
+which the writer knows, and finding nothing. Not his own language, for
+he has to look in his dictionary, by his own confession, for a word[D]
+occurring in one of the most important chapters of his Bible; not the
+commonest traditions of the schools, for he does not know why Poussin
+was called "learned;"[E] not the most simple canons of art, for he
+prefers Lee to Gainsborough;[F] not the most ordinary facts of nature,
+for we find him puzzled by the epithet "silver," as applied to the
+orange blossom,--evidently never having seen anything silvery about an
+orange in his life, except a spoon. Nay, he leaves us not to conjecture
+his calibre from internal evidence; he candidly tells us (Oct. 1842)
+that he has been studying trees only for the last week, and bases his
+critical remarks chiefly on his practical experience of birch. More
+disinterested than our friend Sancho, he would disenchant the public
+from the magic of Turner by virtue of his own flagellation;
+Xanthias-like, he would rob his master of immortality by his own powers
+of endurance. What is Christopher North about? Does he receive his
+critiques from Eaton or Harrow--based on the experience of a week's
+birds'-nesting and its consequences? How low must art and its interests
+sink, when the public mind is inadequate to the detection of this
+effrontery of incapacity! In all kindness to Maga, we warn her, that,
+though the nature of this work precludes us from devoting space to the
+exposure, there may come a time when the public shall be themselves able
+to distinguish ribaldry from reasoning, and may require some better and
+higher qualifications in their critics of art, than the experience of a
+school-boy, and the capacities of a buffoon.
+
+It is not, however, merely to vindicate the reputation of those whom
+writers like these defame, which would but be to anticipate by a few
+years the natural and inevitable reaction of the public mind, that I am
+devoting years of labor to the development of the principles on which
+the great productions of recent art are based. I have a higher end in
+view--one which may, I think, justify me, not only in the sacrifice of
+my own time, but in calling on my readers to follow me through an
+investigation far more laborious than could be adequately rewarded by
+mere insight into the merits of a particular master, or the spirit of a
+particular age.
+
+It is a question which, in spite of the claims of Painting to be
+called the Sister of Poetry, appears to me to admit of considerable
+doubt, whether art has ever, except in its earliest and rudest stages,
+possessed anything like efficient moral influence on mankind. Better the
+state of Rome when "magnorum artificum frangebat pocula miles, ut
+phaleris gauderet equus," than when her walls flashed with the marble
+and the gold, "nec cessabat luxuria id agere, ut quam plurimum incendiis
+perdat." Better the state of religion in Italy, before Giotto had broken
+on one barbarism of the Byzantine schools, than when the painter of the
+Last Judgment, and the sculptor of the Perseus, sat revelling side by
+side. It appears to me that a rude symbol is oftener more efficient than
+a refined one in touching the heart, and that as pictures rise in rank
+as works of art, they are regarded with less devotion and more
+curiosity.
+
+But, however this may be, and whatever influence we may be disposed to
+admit in the great works of sacred art, no doubt can, I think, be
+reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility of all that has been
+hitherto accomplished by the painters of landscape. No moral end has
+been answered, no permanent good effected, by any of their works. They
+may have amused the intellect, or exercised the ingenuity, but they
+never have spoken to the heart. Landscape art has never taught us one
+deep or holy lesson; it has not recorded that which is fleeting, nor
+penetrated that which was hidden, nor interpreted that which was
+obscure; it has never made us feel the wonder, nor the power, nor the
+glory, of the universe; it has not prompted to devotion, nor touched
+with awe; its power to move and exalt the heart has been fatally abused,
+and perished in the abusing. That which ought to have been a witness to
+the omnipotence of God, has become an exhibition of the dexterity of
+man, and that which should have lifted our thoughts to the throne of the
+Deity, has encumbered them with the inventions of his creatures.
+
+If we stand for a little time before any of the more celebrated works of
+landscape, listening to the comments of the passers-by, we shall hear
+numberless expressions relating to the skill of the artist, but very few
+relating to the perfection of nature. Hundreds will be voluble in
+admiration, for one who will be silent in delight. Multitudes will laud
+the composition, and depart with the praise of Claude on their
+lips,--not one will feel as if it were _no_ composition, and depart
+with the praise of God in his heart.
+
+These are the signs of a debased, mistaken, and false school of
+painting. The skill of the artist, and the perfection of his art, are
+never proved until both are forgotten. The artist has done nothing till
+he has concealed himself,--the art is imperfect which is visible,--the
+feelings are but feebly touched, if they permit us to reason on the
+methods of their excitement. In the reading of a great poem, in the
+hearing of a noble oration, it is the subject of the writer, and not his
+skill,--his passion, not his power, on which our minds are fixed. We see
+as he sees, but we see not him. We become part of him, feel with him,
+judge, behold with him; but we think _of_ him as little as of ourselves.
+Do we think of Ęschylus while we wait on the silence of Cassandra,[G] or
+of Shakspeare, while we listen to the wailing of Lear? Not so. The power
+of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation. It is commensurate
+with the degree in which they themselves appear not in their work. The
+harp of the minstrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it
+records. Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding the mind
+far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his creation, and the
+knowledge which is past his finding out.
+
+And must it ever be otherwise with painting, for otherwise it has ever
+been. Her subjects have been regarded as mere themes on which the
+artist's power is to be displayed; and that power, be it of imitation,
+composition, idealization, or of whatever other kind, is the chief
+object of the spectator's observation. It is man and his fancies, man
+and his trickeries, man and his inventions,--poor, paltry, weak,
+self-sighted man,--which the connoisseur forever seeks and worships.
+Among potsherds and dunghills, among drunken boors and withered
+beldames, through every scene of debauchery and degradation, we follow
+the erring artist, not to receive one wholesome lesson, not to be
+touched with pity, nor moved with indignation, but to watch the
+dexterity of the pencil, and gloat over the glittering of the hue.
+
+I speak not only of the works of the Flemish School--I wage no war with
+their admirers; they may be left in peace to count the spiculę of
+haystacks and the hairs of donkeys--it is also of works of real mind
+that I speak,--works in which there are evidences of genius and workings
+of power,--works which have been held up as containing all of the
+beautiful that art can reach or man conceive. And I assert with sorrow,
+that all hitherto done in landscape, by those commonly conceived its
+masters, has never prompted one holy thought in the minds of nations. It
+has begun and ended in exhibiting the dexterities of individuals, and
+conventionalities of systems. Filling the world with the honor of Claude
+and Salvator, it has never once tended to the honor of God.
+
+Does the reader start in reading these last words, as if they were those
+of wild enthusiasm,--as if I were lowering the dignity of religion by
+supposing that its cause could be advanced by such means? His surprise
+proves my position. It _does_ sound like wild, like absurd enthusiasm,
+to expect any definite moral agency in the painters of landscape; but
+ought it so to sound? Are the gorgeousness of the visible hue, the glory
+of the realized form, instruments in the artist's hand so ineffective,
+that they can answer no nobler purpose than the amusement of curiosity,
+or the engagement of idleness? Must it not be owing to gross neglect or
+misapplication of the means at his command, that while words and tones
+(means of representing nature surely less powerful than lines and
+colors) can kindle and purify the very inmost souls of men, the painter
+can only hope to entertain by his efforts at expression, and must remain
+forever brooding over his incommunicable thoughts?
+
+The cause of the evil lies, I believe, deep-seated in the system of
+ancient landscape art; it consists, in a word, in the painter's taking
+upon him to modify God's works at his pleasure, casting the shadow of
+himself on all he sees, constituting himself arbiter where it is honor
+to be a disciple, and exhibiting his ingenuity by the attainment of
+combinations whose highest praise is that they are impossible. We shall
+not pass through a single gallery of old art, without hearing this topic
+of praise confidently advanced. The sense of artificialness, the
+absence of all appearance of reality, the clumsiness of combination by
+which the meddling of man is made evident, and the feebleness of his
+hand branded on the inorganization of his monstrous creature, is
+advanced as a proof of inventive power, as an evidence of abstracted
+conception;--nay, the violation of specific form, the utter abandonment
+of all organic and individual character of object, (numberless examples
+of which from the works of the old masters are given in the following
+pages,) is constantly held up by the unthinking critic as the foundation
+of the grand or historical style, and the first step to the attainment
+of a pure ideal. Now, there is but one grand style, in the treatment of
+all subjects whatsoever, and that style is based on the _perfect_
+knowledge, and consists in the simple, unencumbered rendering, of the
+specific characters of the given object, be it man, beast, or flower.
+Every change, caricature, or abandonment of such specific character, is
+as destructive of grandeur as it is of truth, of beauty as of propriety.
+Every alteration of the features of nature has its origin either in
+powerless indolence or blind audacity, in the folly which forgets, or
+the insolence which desecrates, works which it is the pride of angels to
+know, and their privilege to love.
+
+We sometimes hear such infringement of universal laws justified on the
+plea, that the frequent introduction of mythological abstractions into
+ancient landscape requires an imaginary character of form in the
+material objects with which they are associated. Something of this kind
+is hinted in Reynolds's 14th Discourse; but nothing can be more false
+than such reasoning. If there be any truth or beauty in the original
+conception of the spiritual being so introduced, there must be a true
+and real connection between that abstract idea[H] and the features of
+nature as she was and is. The woods and waters which were peopled by the
+Greek with typical life were not different from those which now wave and
+murmur by the ruins of his shrines. With their visible and actual forms
+was his imagination filled, and the beauty of its incarnate creatures
+can only be understood among the pure realities which originally
+modelled their conception. If divinity be stamped upon the features, or
+apparent in the form of the spiritual creature, the mind will not be
+shocked by its appearing to ride upon the whirlwind, and trample on the
+storm; but if mortality, no violation of the characters of the earth
+will forge one single link to bind it to the heaven.
+
+Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal character of landscape?
+Undoubtedly; and Sir Joshua, with the great master of this character,
+Nicolo Poussin, present to his thoughts, ought to have arrived at more
+true conclusions respecting its essence than, as we shall presently see,
+are deducible from his works. The true ideal of landscape is precisely
+the same as that of the human form; it is the expression of the
+specific--not the individual, but the specific--characters of every
+object, in their perfection; there is an ideal form of every herb,
+flower, and tree: it is that form to which every individual of the
+species has a tendency to arrive, freed from the influence of accident
+or disease. Every landscape painter should know the specific characters
+of every object he has to represent, rock, flower, or cloud; and in his
+highest ideal works, all their distinctions will be perfectly expressed,
+broadly or delicately, slightly or completely, according to the nature
+of the subject, and the degree of attention which is to be drawn to the
+particular object by the part it plays in the composition. Where the
+sublime is aimed at, such distinctions will be indicated with severe
+simplicity, as the muscular markings in a colossal statue; where beauty
+is the object, they must be expressed with the utmost refinement of
+which the hand is capable.
+
+This may sound like a contradiction of principles advanced by the
+highest authorities; but it is only a contradiction of a particular and
+most mistaken application of them. Much evil has been done to art by
+the remarks of historical painters on landscape. Accustomed themselves
+to treat their backgrounds slightly and boldly, and feeling (though, as
+I shall presently show, only in consequence of their own deficient
+powers) that any approach to completeness of detail therein, injures
+their picture by interfering with its principal subject, they naturally
+lose sight of the peculiar and intrinsic beauties of things which to
+them are injurious, unless subordinate. Hence the frequent advice given
+by Reynolds and others, to neglect _specific_ form in landscape, and
+treat its materials in large masses, aiming only at general truths,--the
+flexibility of foliage, but not its kind; the rigidity of rock, but not
+its mineral character. In the passage more especially bearing on this
+subject (in the eleventh lecture of Sir J. Reynolds), we are told that
+"the landscape painter works not for the virtuoso or the naturalist, but
+for the general observer of life and nature." This is true, in precisely
+the same sense that the sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but
+for the common observer of life and nature. Yet the sculptor is not, for
+this reason, permitted to be wanting either in knowledge or expression
+of anatomical detail; and the more refined that expression can be
+rendered, the more perfect is his work. That which, to the anatomist, is
+the end,--is, to the sculptor, the means. The former desires details,
+for their own sake; the latter, that by means of them, he may kindle his
+work with life, and stamp it with beauty. And so in landscape;--botanical
+or geological details are not to be given as matter of curiosity or
+subject of search, but as the ultimate elements of every species of
+expression and order of loveliness.
+
+In his observations on the foreground of the St. Pietro Martire, Sir
+Joshua advances, as matter of praise, that the plants are discriminated
+"just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more." Had this
+foreground been occupied by a group of animals, we should have been
+surprised to be told that the lion, the serpent, and the dove, or
+whatever other creatures might have been introduced, were distinguished
+from each other just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more.
+Yet is it to be supposed that the distinctions of the vegetable world
+are less complete, less essential, or less divine in origin, than those
+of the animal? If the distinctive forms of animal life are meant for our
+reverent observance, is it likely that those of vegetable life are made
+merely to be swept away? The latter are indeed less obvious and less
+obtrusive; for which very reason there is less excuse for omitting them,
+because there is less danger of their disturbing the attention or
+engaging the fancy.
+
+But Sir Joshua is as inaccurate in fact, as false in principle. He
+himself furnishes a most singular instance of the very error of which he
+accuses Vaseni,--the seeing what he expects; or, rather, in the present
+case, not seeing what he does not expect. The great masters of Italy,
+almost without exception, and Titian perhaps more than any, (for he had
+the highest knowledge of landscape,) are in the constant habit of
+rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the most laborious
+botanical fidelity: witness the "Bacchus and Ariadne," in which the
+foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia, and the
+wild rose; _every stamen_ of which latter is given, while the blossoms
+and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have been
+studied with the most exquisite accuracy. The foregrounds of Raffaelle's
+two cartoons,--"The Miraculous Draught of Fishes" and "The Charge to
+Peter,"--are covered with plants of the common sea colewort, (_crambe
+maritima_,) of which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would
+have exhausted the patience of any other artist; but have appeared
+worthy of prolonged and thoughtful labor to the great mind of Raffaelle.
+
+It appears then, not only from natural principles, but from the highest
+of all authority, that thorough knowledge of the lowest details is
+necessary and full expression of them right, even in the highest class
+of historical painting; that it will not take away from, nor interfere
+with, the interest of the figures; but, rightly managed, must add to and
+elucidate it; and, if further proof be wanting, I would desire the
+reader to compare the background of Sir Joshua's "Holy Family," in the
+National Gallery, with that of Nicolo Poussin's "Nursing of Jupiter," in
+the Dulwich Gallery. The first, owing to the utter neglect of all
+botanical detail, has lost every atom of ideal character, and reminds us
+of nothing but an English fashionable flower garden;--the formal
+pedestal adding considerably to the effect. Poussin's, in which every
+vine leaf is drawn with consummate skill and untiring diligence,
+produces not only a tree group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but
+one which, in its pure and simple truth, belongs to every age of nature,
+and adapts itself to the history of all time. If, then, such entire
+rendering of specific character be necessary to the historical painter,
+in cases where these lower details are entirely subordinate to his human
+subject, how much more must it be necessary in landscape, where they
+themselves constitute the subject, and where the undivided attention is
+to be drawn to them.
+
+There is a singular sense in which the child may peculiarly be said to
+be father of the man. In many arts and attainments, the first and last
+stages of progress--the infancy and the consummation--have many features
+in common; while the intermediate stages are wholly unlike either, and
+are farthest from the right. Thus it is in the progress of a painter's
+handling. We see the perfect child,--the absolute beginner, using of
+necessity a broken, imperfect, inadequate line, which, as he advances,
+becomes gradually firm, severe, and decided. Yet before he becomes a
+perfect artist, this severity and decision will again be exchanged for a
+light and careless stroke, which in many points will far more resemble
+that of his childhood than of his middle age--differing from it only by
+the consummate effect wrought out by the apparently inadequate means. So
+it is in many matters of opinion. Our first and last coincide, though on
+different grounds; it is the middle stage which is farthest from the
+truth. Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers, which the
+grasp of manhood cannot retain,--which it is the pride of utmost age to
+recover.
+
+Perhaps this is in no instance more remarkable than in the opinion we
+form upon the subject of detail in works of art. Infants in judgment, we
+look for specific character, and complete finish--we delight in the
+faithful plumage of the well-known bird--in the finely drawn leafage of
+the discriminated flower. As we advance in judgment, we scorn such
+detail altogether; we look for impetuosity of execution, and breadth of
+effect. But, perfected in judgment, we return in a great measure to our
+early feelings, and thank Raffaelle for the shells upon his sacred
+beach, and for the delicate stamens of the herbage beside his inspired
+St. Catherine.[I]
+
+Of those who take interest in art, nay, even of artists themselves,
+there are an hundred in the middle stage of judgment, for one who is in
+the last; and this not because they are destitute of the power to
+discover, or the sensibility to enjoy the truth, but because the truth
+bears so much semblance of error--the last stage of the journey to the
+first,--that every feeling which guides to it is checked in its origin.
+The rapid and powerful artist necessarily looks with such contempt on
+those who seek minutię of detail _rather_ than grandeur of impression,
+that it is almost impossible for him to conceive of the great last step
+in art, by which both become compatible. He has so often to dash the
+delicacy out of the pupil's work, and to blot the details from his
+encumbered canvas; so frequently to lament the loss of breadth and
+unity, and so seldom to reprehend the imperfection of minutię, that he
+necessarily looks upon complete _parts_ as the very sign of error,
+weakness, and ignorance. Thus, frequently to the latest period of his
+life, he separates, like Sir Joshua, as chief enemies, the details and
+the whole, which an artist cannot be great unless he reconciles; and
+because details alone, and unreferred to a final purpose, are the sign
+of a tyro's work, he loses sight of the remoter truth, that details
+perfect in unity, and, contributing to a final purpose, are the sign of
+the production of a consummate master.
+
+It is not, therefore, detail sought for its own sake,--not the
+calculable bricks of the Dutch house-painters, nor the numbered hairs
+and mapped wrinkles of Denner, which constitute great art,--they are the
+lowest and most contemptible art; but it is detail referred to a great
+end,--sought for the sake of the inestimable beauty which exists in the
+slightest and least of God's works, and treated in a manly, broad, and
+impressive manner. There may be as much greatness of mind, as much
+nobility of manner in a master's treatment of the smallest features, as
+in his management of the most vast; and this greatness of manner chiefly
+consists in seizing the specific character of the object, together with
+all the great qualities of beauty which it has in common with higher
+orders of existence,[J] while he utterly rejects the meaner beauties
+which are accidentally peculiar to the object, and yet not specifically
+characteristic of it. I cannot give a better instance than the painting
+of the flowers in Titian's picture above mentioned. While every stamen
+of the rose is given, because this was necessary to mark the flower, and
+while the curves and large characters of the leaves are rendered with
+exquisite fidelity, there is no vestige of particular texture, of moss,
+bloom, moisture, or any other accident--no dew-drops, nor flies, nor
+trickeries of any kind; nothing beyond the simple forms and hues of the
+flowers,--even those hues themselves being simplified and broadly
+rendered. The varieties of aquilegia have, in reality, a grayish and
+uncertain tone of color; and, I believe, never attain the intense purity
+of blue with which Titian has gifted his flower. But the master does not
+aim at the particular color of individual blossoms; he seizes the type
+of all, and gives it with the utmost purity and simplicity of which
+color is capable.
+
+These laws being observed, it will not only be in the power, it will be
+the duty,--the imperative duty,--of the landscape painter, to descend to
+the lowest details with undiminished attention. Every herb and flower of
+the field has its specific, distinct, and perfect beauty; it has its
+peculiar habitation, expression, and function. The highest art is that
+which seizes this specific character, which develops and illustrates it,
+which assigns to it its proper position in the landscape, and which, by
+means of it, enhances and enforces the great impression which the
+picture is intended to convey. Nor is it of herbs and flowers alone that
+such scientific representation is required. Every class of rock, every
+kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied with equal industry,
+and rendered with equal precision. And thus we find ourselves
+unavoidably led to a conclusion directly opposed to that constantly
+enunciated dogma of the parrot-critic, that the features of nature must
+be "generalized,"--a dogma whose inherent and broad absurdity would long
+ago have been detected, if it had not contained in its convenient
+falsehood an apology for indolence, and a disguise for incapacity.
+Generalized! As if it were possible to generalize things generically
+different. Of such common cant of criticism I extract a characteristic
+passage from one of the reviews of this work, that in this year's
+Athenęum for February 10th: "He (the author) would have geological
+landscape painters, dendrologic, meteorologic, and doubtless
+entomologic, ichthyologic, every kind of physiologic painter united in
+the same person; yet, alas, for true poetic art among all these learned
+Thebans! No; landscape painting must not be reduced to mere portraiture
+of inanimate substances, Denner-like portraiture of the earth's face.
+*  *  *  *  *  Ancient landscapists took a broader, deeper, higher view
+of their art; they neglected particular traits, and gave only general
+features. Thus they attained mass and force, harmonious union and simple
+effect, the elements of grandeur and beauty."
+
+To all such criticism as this (and I notice it only because it expresses
+the feelings into which many sensible and thoughtful minds have been
+fashioned by infection) the answer is simple and straightforward. It is
+just as impossible to generalize granite and slate, as it is to
+generalize a man and a cow. An animal must be either one animal or
+another animal; it cannot be a general animal, or it is no animal; and
+so a rock must be either one rock or another rock; it cannot be a
+general rock, or it is no rock. If there were a creature in the
+foreground of a picture, of which he could not decide whether it were a
+pony or a pig, the Athenęum critic would perhaps affirm it to be a
+generalization of pony and pig, and consequently a high example of
+"harmonious union and simple effect." But _I_ should call it simple bad
+drawing. And so when there are things in the foreground of Salvator of
+which I cannot pronounce whether they be granite or slate, or tufa, I
+affirm that there is in them neither harmonious union nor simple effect,
+but simple monstrosity. There is no grandeur, no beauty of any sort or
+kind; nothing but destruction, disorganization, and ruin, to be obtained
+by the violation of natural distinctions. The elements of brutes can
+only mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic nature only in
+annihilation. We may, if we choose, put together centaur monsters; but
+they must still be half man, half horse; they cannot be both man and
+horse, nor either man or horse. And so, if landscape painters choose,
+they may give us rocks which shall be half granite and half slate; but
+they cannot give us rocks which shall be either granite or slate, nor
+which shall be both granite and slate. Every attempt to produce that
+which shall be _any_ rock, ends in the production of that which is _no_
+rock.
+
+It is true that the distinctions of rocks and plants and clouds are less
+conspicuous, and less constantly subjects of observation than those of
+the animal creation; but the difficulty of observing them proves not
+the merit of overlooking them. It only accounts for the singular fact,
+that the world has never yet seen anything like a perfect school of
+landscape. For just as the highest historical painting is based on
+perfect knowledge of the workings of the human form, and human mind, so
+must the highest landscape painting be based on perfect cognizance of
+the form, functions, and system of every organic or definitely
+structured existence which it has to represent. This proposition is
+self-evident to every thinking mind; and every principle which appears
+to contradict it is either misstated or misunderstood. For instance, the
+Athenęum critic calls the right statement of generic difference
+"_Denner_-like portraiture." If he can find anything like Denner in what
+I have advanced as the utmost perfection of landscape art--the recent
+works of Turner--he is welcome to his discovery and his theory. No;
+Denner-like portraiture would be the endeavor to paint the separate
+crystals of quartz and felspar in the granite, and the separate flakes
+of mica in the mica slate,--an attempt just as far removed from what I
+assert to be great art, (the bold rendering of the generic characters of
+form in both rocks,) as modern sculpture of lace and button-holes is
+from the Elgin marbles. Martin has attempted this Denner-like
+portraiture of sea-foam with the assistance of an acre of canvas--with
+what success, I believe the critics of his last year's Canute had, for
+once, sense enough to decide.
+
+Again, it does not follow that because such accurate knowledge is
+_necessary_ to the painter that it should constitute the painter, nor
+that such knowledge is valuable in itself, and without reference to high
+ends. Every kind of knowledge may be sought from ignoble motives, and
+for ignoble ends; and in those who so possess it, it is ignoble
+knowledge; while the very same knowledge is in another mind an
+attainment of the highest dignity, and conveying the greatest blessing.
+This is the difference between the mere botanist's knowledge of plants,
+and the great poet's or painter's knowledge of them. The one notes their
+distinctions for the sake of swelling his herbarium, the other, that he
+may render them vehicles of expression and emotion. The one counts the
+stamens, and affixes a name, and is content; the other observes every
+character of the plant's color and form; considering each of its
+attributes as an element of expression, he seizes on its lines of grace
+or energy, rigidity or repose; notes the feebleness or the vigor, the
+serenity or tremulousness of its hues; observes its local habits, its
+love or fear of peculiar places, its nourishment or destruction by
+particular influences; he associates it in his mind with all the
+features of the situations it inhabits, and the ministering agencies
+necessary to its support. Thenceforward the flower is to him a living
+creature, with histories written on its leaves, and passions breathing
+in its motion. Its occurrence in his picture is no mere point of color,
+no meaningless spark of light. It is a voice rising from the earth,--a
+new chord of the mind's music,--a necessary note in the harmony of his
+picture, contributing alike to its tenderness and its dignity, nor less
+to its loveliness than its truth.
+
+The particularization of flowers by Shakspeare and Shelley affords us
+the most frequent examples of the exalted use of these inferior details.
+It is true that the painter has not the same power of expressing the
+thoughts with which his symbols are connected; he is dependent in some
+degree on the knowledge and feeling of the spectator; but, by the
+destruction of such details, his foreground is not rendered more
+intelligible to the ignorant, although it ceases to have interest for
+the informed. It is no excuse for illegible writing that there are
+persons who could not have read it had it been plain.
+
+I repeat then, generalization, as the word is commonly understood, is
+the act of a vulgar, incapable, and unthinking mind. To see in all
+mountains nothing but similar heaps of earth; in all rocks, nothing but
+similar concretions of solid matter; in all trees, nothing but similar
+accumulations of leaves, is no sign of high feeling or extended thought.
+The more we know, and the more we feel, the more we separate; we
+separate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the thoughts of the
+peasant, lie as they do on his field, one is like another, and there is
+no connection between any of them. The geologist distinguishes, and in
+distinguishing connects them. Each becomes different from its fellow,
+but in differing from, assumes a relation to its fellow; they are no
+more each the repetition of the other,--they are parts of a system, and
+each implies and is connected with the existence of the rest. That
+generalization then is right, true, and noble, which is based on the
+knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relations of
+individual kinds. That generalization is wrong, false, and contemptible,
+which is based on ignorance of the one, and disturbance of the other.
+It is indeed no generalization, but confusion and chaos; it is the
+generalization of a defeated army into indistinguishable impotence--the
+generalization of the elements of a dead carcass into dust.
+
+Let us, then, without farther notice of the dogmata of the schools of
+art, follow forth those conclusions to which we are led by observance of
+the laws of nature.
+
+I have just said that every class of rock, earth and cloud, must be
+known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic accuracy.[K] Nor is
+this merely for the sake of obtaining the character of these minor
+features themselves, but more especially for the sake of reaching that
+simple, earnest, and consistent character which is visible in the
+_whole_ effect of every natural landscape. Every geological formation
+has features entirely peculiar to itself; definite lines of fracture,
+giving rise to fixed resultant forms of rock and earth; peculiar
+vegetable products, among which still farther distinctions are wrought
+out by variations of climate and elevation. From such modifying
+circumstances arise the infinite varieties of the orders of landscape,
+of which each one shows perfect harmony among its several features, and
+possesses an ideal beauty of its own; a beauty not distinguished merely
+by such peculiarities as are wrought on the human form by change of
+climate, but by generic differences the most marked and essential; so
+that its classes cannot be generalized or amalgamated by any expedients
+whatsoever. The level marshes and rich meadows of the tertiary, the
+rounded swells and short pastures of the chalk, the square-built cliffs
+and cloven dells of the lower limestone, the soaring peaks and ridgy
+precipices of the primaries, having nothing in common among
+them--nothing which is not distinctive and incommunicable. Their very
+atmospheres are different--their clouds are different--their humors of
+storm and sunshine are different--their flowers, animals and forests are
+different. By each order of landscape--and its orders, I repeat, are
+infinite in number, corresponding not only to the several species of
+rock, but to the particular circumstances of the rocks' deposition or
+after treatment, and to the incalculable varieties of climate, aspect,
+and human interference:--by each order of landscape, I say, peculiar
+lessons are intended to be taught, and distinct pleasures to be
+conveyed; and it is as utterly futile to talk of generalizing their
+impressions into an ideal landscape, as to talk of amalgamating all
+nourishment into one ideal food, gathering all music into one ideal
+movement, or confounding all thought into one ideal idea.
+
+There is, however, such a thing as composition of different orders of
+landscape, though there can be no generalization of them. Nature herself
+perpetually brings together elements of various expression. Her barren
+rocks stoop through wooded promontories to the plain; and the wreaths of
+the vine show through their green shadows the wan light of unperishing
+snow.
+
+The painter, therefore, has the choice of either working out the
+isolated character of some one distinct class of scene, or of bringing
+together a multitude of different elements, which may adorn each other
+by contrast.
+
+I believe that the simple and uncombined landscape, if wrought out with
+due attention to the ideal beauty of the features it includes, will
+always be the most powerful in its appeal to the heart. Contrast
+increases the splendor of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds
+to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power. On this subject I shall
+have much to say hereafter; at present I merely wish to suggest the
+possibility, that the single-minded painter, who is working out on broad
+and simple principles, a piece of unbroken, harmonious landscape
+character, may be reaching an end in art quite as high as the more
+ambitious student who is always "within five minutes' walk of
+everywhere," making the ends of the earth contribute to his pictorial
+guazzetto;[L] and the certainty, that unless the composition of the
+latter be regulated by severe judgment, and its members connected by
+natural links, it must become more contemptible in its motley, than an
+honest study of roadside weeds.
+
+Let me, at the risk of tediously repeating what is universally known,
+refer to the common principles of historical composition, in order that
+I may show their application to that of landscape. The merest tyro in
+art knows that every figure which is unnecessary to his picture, is an
+encumbrance to it, and that every figure which does not sympathize with
+the action, interrupts it. He that gathereth not with me,
+scattereth,--is, or ought to be, the ruling principle of his plan: and
+the power and grandeur of his result will be exactly proportioned to the
+unity of feeling manifested in its several parts, and to the propriety
+and simplicity of the relations in which they stand to each other.
+
+All this is equally applicable to the materials of inanimate nature.
+Impressiveness is destroyed by a multitude of contradictory facts, and
+the accumulation, which is not harmonious, is discordant. He who
+endeavors to unite simplicity with magnificence, to guide from solitude
+to festivity, and to contrast melancholy with mirth, must end by the
+production of confused inanity. There is a peculiar spirit; possessed by
+every kind of scene; and although a point of contrast may sometimes
+enhance and exhibit this particular feeling more intensely, it must be
+only a point, not an equalized opposition. Every introduction of new and
+different feeling weakens the force of what has already been impressed,
+and the mingling of all emotions must conclude in apathy, as the
+mingling of all colors in white.
+
+Let us test by these simple rules one of the "ideal" landscape
+compositions of Claude, that known to the Italians as "Il Mulino."
+
+The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery,
+with a dance of peasants by a brookside; quite enough subject to form,
+in the hands of a master, an impressive and complete picture. On the
+other side of the brook, however, we have a piece of pastoral life, a
+man with some bulls and goats tumbling headforemost into the water,
+owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this
+group is one too many; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock
+so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle.
+But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive a
+sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance, amidst things
+pastoral and musical, of the military: a number of Roman soldiers riding
+in on hobby-horses, with a leader on foot, apparently encouraging them
+to make an immediate and decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the
+soldiers is a circular temple, in exceedingly bad repair, and close
+beside it, built against its very walls, a neat water-mill in full work.
+By the mill flows a large river, with a weir all across it. The weir has
+not been made for the mill, (for that receives its water from the hills
+by a trough carried over the temple,) but it is particularly ugly and
+monotonous in its line of fall, and the water below forms a dead-looking
+pond, on which some people are fishing in punts. The banks of this river
+resemble in contour the later geological formations around London,
+constituted chiefly of broken pots and oyster-shells. At an inconvenient
+distance from the water-side stands a city, composed of twenty-five
+round towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge; beyond
+the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of aqueducts; beyond
+the Campagna, the chain of the Alps; on the left, the cascades of
+Tivoli.
+
+This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an "ideal
+landscape," _i.e._, a group of the artist's studies from nature,
+individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as may
+insure their neutralizing each other's effect, and united with
+sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association to insure their
+producing a general sensation of the impossible. Let us analyze the
+separate subjects a little in this ideal work of Claude's.
+
+Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary
+extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader
+imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the
+living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The
+earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly,
+for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of
+the bones of men.[M] The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in
+the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along
+the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of
+mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were
+struggling in their sleep; scattered blocks of black stone, four-square,
+remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to
+keep them down. A dull purple, poisonous haze stretches level along the
+desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the
+red light rests like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the
+Alban mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet
+sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the
+promontories, of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains, the
+shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like
+shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, passing from a
+nation's grave.
+
+Let us, with Claude, make a few "ideal" alterations in this landscape.
+First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices of the Apennines to
+four sugar-loaves. Secondly, we will remove the Alban mount, and put a
+large dust-heap in its stead. Next, we will knock down the greater part
+of the aqueducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of
+length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist
+and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with round
+white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant ruins in the
+foreground; we will plant some handsome trees therein, we will send for
+some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and a picnic party.
+
+It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species of
+improvement is made on the materials which Claude had ready to his hand.
+The descending slopes of the city of Rome, towards the pyramid of Caius
+Cestius, supply not only lines of the most exquisite variety and beauty,
+but matter for contemplation and reflection in every fragment of their
+buildings. This passage has been idealized by Claude into a set of
+similar round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that
+they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached, beyond
+the difficulty of conjecturing what they could have been built for. The
+ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive by the juxtaposition of
+the water-mill, and inexplicable by the introduction of the Roman
+soldiers. The glide of the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and
+Anio through the Campagna, is impressive in itself, but altogether
+ceases to be so, when we disturb their stillness of motion by a weir,
+adorn their neglected flow with a handsome bridge, and cover their
+solitary surface with punts, nets, and fishermen.
+
+It cannot, I think, be expected, that landscapes like this should have
+any effect on the human heart, except to harden or to degrade it; to
+lead it from the love of what is simple, earnest and pure, to what is as
+sophisticated and corrupt in arrangement, as erring and imperfect in
+detail. So long as such works are held up for imitation, landscape
+painting must be a manufacture, its productions must be toys, and its
+patrons must be children.
+
+My purpose then, in the present work, is to demonstrate the utter
+falseness both of the facts and principles; the imperfection of
+material, and error of arrangement, on which works such as these are
+based; and to insist on the necessity, as well as the dignity, of an
+earnest, faithful, loving, study of nature as she is, rejecting with
+abhorrence all that man has done to alter and modify her. And the praise
+which, in this first portion of the work, is given to many English
+artists, would be justifiable on this ground only, that although
+frequently with little power and desultory effort, they have yet, in an
+honest and good heart, received the word of God from clouds, and leaves,
+and waves, and kept it,[N] and endeavored in humility to render to the
+world that purity of impression which can alone render the result of
+art an instrument of good, or its labor deserving of gratitude.
+
+If, however, I shall have frequent occasion to insist on the necessity
+of this heartfelt love of, and unqualified submission to, the teaching
+of nature, it will be no less incumbent upon me to reprobate the
+careless rendering of casual impression, and the mechanical copyism of
+unimportant subject, which are too frequently visible in our modern
+school.[O] Their lightness and desultoriness of intention, their
+meaningless multiplication of unstudied composition, and their want of
+definiteness and loftiness of aim, bring discredit on their whole system
+of study, and encourage in the critic the unhappy prejudice that the
+field and the hill-side are less fit places of study than the gallery
+and the garret. Not every casual idea caught from the flight of a shower
+or the fall of a sunbeam, not every glowing fragment of harvest light,
+nor every flickering dream of copsewood coolness, is to be given to the
+world as it came, unconsidered, incomplete, and forgotten by the artist
+as soon as it has left his easel. That only should be considered a
+picture, in which the spirit, (not the materials, observe,) but the
+animating emotion of many such studies is concentrated, and exhibited by
+the aid of long-studied, painfully-chosen forms; idealized in the right
+sense of the word, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of degrading
+God's works which man calls his "imagination," but by perfect assertion
+of entire knowledge of every part and character and function of the
+object, and in which the details are completed to the last line
+compatible with the dignity and simplicity of the whole, wrought out
+with that noblest industry which concentrates profusion into point, and
+transforms accumulation into structure; neither must this labor be
+bestowed on every subject which appears to afford a capability of good,
+but on chosen subjects in which nature has prepared to the artist's hand
+the purest sources of the impression he would convey. These may be
+humble in their order, but they must be perfect of their kind. There is
+a perfection of the hedgerow and cottage, as well as of the forest and
+the palace, and more ideality in a great artist's selection and
+treatment of roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles, than in all the
+struggling caricature of the meaner mind which heaps its foreground with
+colossal columns, and heaves impossible mountains into the encumbered
+sky. Finally, these chosen subjects must not be in any way repetitions
+of one another, but each founded on a new idea, and developing a totally
+distinct train of thought; so that the work of the artist's life should
+form a consistent series of essays, rising through the scale of creation
+from the humblest scenery to the most exalted; each picture being a
+necessary link in the chain, based on what preceded, introducing to what
+is to follow, and all, in their lovely system, exhibiting and drawing
+closer the bonds of nature to the human heart. Since, then, I shall
+have to reprobate the absence of study in the moderns nearly as much as
+its false direction in the ancients, my task will naturally divide
+itself into three portions. In the first, I shall endeavor to
+investigate and arrange the facts of nature with scientific accuracy;
+showing as I proceed, by what total neglect of the very first base and
+groundwork of their art the idealities of some among the old masters are
+produced. This foundation once securely laid, I shall proceed, in the
+second portion of the work, to analyze and demonstrate the nature of the
+emotions of the Beautiful and Sublime; to examine the particular
+characters of every kind of scenery, and to bring to light, as far as
+may be in my power, that faultless, ceaseless, inconceivable,
+inexhaustible loveliness, which God has stamped upon all things, if man
+will only receive them as He gives them. Finally, I shall endeavor to
+trace the operation of all this on the hearts and minds of men; to
+exhibit the moral function and end of art, to prove the share which it
+ought to have in the thoughts, and influence on the lives of all of us;
+to attach to the artist the responsibility of a preacher, and to kindle
+in the general mind that regard which such an office must demand.
+
+It must be evident that the first portion of this task, which is all
+that I have yet been enabled to offer to the reader, cannot but be the
+least interesting and the most laborious, especially because it is
+necessary that it should be executed without reference to any principles
+of beauty or influences of emotion. It is the hard, straightforward
+classification of material things, not the study of thought or passion;
+and therefore let me not be accused of the feelings which I choose to
+repress. The consideration of the high qualities of art must not be
+interrupted by the work of the hammer and the eudiometer.
+
+Again, I would request that the frequent passages of reference to the
+great masters of the Italian school may not be looked upon as mere modes
+of conventional expression. I think there is enough in the following
+pages to prove that I am not likely to be carried away by the celebrity
+of a name; and therefore that the devoted love which I profess for the
+works of the great historical and sacred painters is sincere and
+well-grounded. And indeed every principle of art which I may advocate, I
+shall be able to illustrate by reference to the works of men universally
+allowed to be the masters of masters; and the public, so long as my
+teaching leads them to higher understanding and love of the works of
+Buonaroti, Leonardo, Raffaelle, Titian, and Cagliari, may surely concede
+to me without fear, the right of striking such blows as I may deem
+necessary to the establishment of my principles, at Gasper Poussin, or
+Vandevelde.
+
+Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the present day,
+for advocacy of Michael Angelo against the pettiness of the moderns, as
+there is for support of Turner against the conventionalities of the
+ancients. For, though the names of the fathers of sacred art are on all
+our lips, our faith in them is much like that of the great world in its
+religion--nominal, but dead. In vain our lecturers sound the name of
+Raffaelle in the ears of their pupils, while their own works are visibly
+at variance with every principle deducible from his. In vain is the
+young student compelled to produce a certain number of school copies of
+Michael Angelo, when his bread must depend on the number of gewgaws he
+can crowd into his canvas. And I could with as much zeal exert myself
+against the modern system of English historical art, as I have in favor
+of our school of landscape, but that it is an ungrateful and painful
+task to attack the works of living painters, struggling with adverse
+circumstances of every kind, and especially with the false taste of a
+nation which regards matters of art either with the ticklishness of an
+infant, or the stolidity of a Megatherium.
+
+I have been accused, in the execution of this first portion of my work,
+of irreverent and scurrile expression towards the works which I have
+depreciated. Possibly I may have been in some degree infected by reading
+those criticisms of our periodicals, which consist of nothing else; but
+I believe in general that my words will be found to have sufficient
+truth in them to excuse their familiarity; and that no other weapons
+could have been used to pierce the superstitious prejudice with which
+the works of certain painters are shielded from the attacks of reason.
+My answer is that given long ago to a similar complaint, uttered under
+the same circumstances by the foiled sophist:--"[Greek: (Hos d'estin ho
+anthrōpos; hōs apaideutos tis, os ouiō phaula onomata onomazein tolma en
+semnō pragmati.) Toioutos tis, ō Hippia, ouden allo phrontizōn ź to
+alźthes]."
+
+It is with more surprise that I have heard myself accused of thoughtless
+severity with respect to the works of contemporary painters, for I fully
+believe that whenever I attack them, I give myself far more pain than I
+can possibly inflict; and, in many instances, I have withheld
+reprobation which I considered necessary to the full understanding of my
+work, in the fear of grieving or injuring men of whose feelings and
+circumstances I was ignorant. Indeed, the apparently false and
+exaggerated bias of the whole book in favor of modern art, is in great
+degree dependent on my withholding the animadversions which would have
+given it balance, and keeping silence where I cannot praise. But I had
+rather be a year or two longer in effecting my purposes, than reach them
+by trampling on men's hearts and hearths; and I have permitted myself to
+express unfavorable opinions only where the popularity and favor of the
+artist are so great as to render the opinion of an individual a matter
+of indifference to him.
+
+And now--but one word more. For many a year we have heard nothing with
+respect to the works of Turner but accusations of their want of _truth_.
+To every observation on their power, sublimity, or beauty, there has
+been but one reply: They are not like nature. I therefore took my
+opponents on their own ground, and demonstrated, by thorough
+investigation of actual facts, that Turner _is_ like nature, and paints
+more of nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition
+(the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been disputed with
+desperate struggles, and that I should have had to fight my way to my
+position inch by inch. Not at all. My opponents yield me the field at
+once. One (the writer for the Athenęum) has no other resource than the
+assertion, that "he disapproves the natural style in painting. If people
+want to see _nature_, let them go and look at herself. Why should they
+see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other, (Blackwood,)
+still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more remarkable
+line of defence. "It is not," he says, "what things in all respects
+really are, but how they are convertible by the mind into what they are
+_not_, that we have to consider." (October, 1843, p. 485.) I leave
+therefore the reader to choose whether, with Blackwood and his fellows,
+he will proceed to consider how things are convertible by the mind into
+what they are _not_, or whether, with me, he will undergo the harder,
+but perhaps on the whole more useful, labor of ascertaining--What they
+are.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [A] One or two fragments of Greek sculpture, the works of Michael
+    Angelo, considered with reference to their general conception and
+    power, and the Madonna di St. Sisto, are all that I should myself
+    put into such a category, not that even these are without defect,
+    but their defects are such as mortality could never hope to rectify.
+
+  [B] This principle is dangerous, but not the less true, and
+    necessary to be kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does
+    not admit of being wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny
+    the desirableness of originality, because men may err in seeking for
+    it, or because a pretence to it may be made, by presumption, a cloak
+    for its incompetence. Nevertheless, originality is never to be
+    sought for its own sake--otherwise it will be mere aberration--it
+    should arise naturally out of hard, independent study of nature; and
+    it should be remembered that in many things technical, it is
+    impossible to alter without being inferior, for therein, as says
+    Spencer, "Truth is one, and right is ever one;" but wrongs are
+    various and multitudinous. "Vice," says Byron, in Marino Faliero,
+    "must have variety; but Virtue stands like the sun, and all which
+    rolls around drinks life from her aspect."
+
+  [C] It is with regret that, in a work of this nature, I take notice
+    of criticisms, which, after all, are merely intended to amuse the
+    careless reader, and be forgotten as soon as read; but I do so in
+    compliance with wishes expressed to me since the publication of this
+    work, by persons who have the interests of art deeply at heart, and
+    who, I find, attach more importance to the matter than I should have
+    been disposed to do. I have, therefore, marked two or three passages
+    which _may_ enable the public to judge for themselves of the quality
+    of these critiques; and this I think a matter of justice to those
+    who might otherwise have been led astray by them--more than this I
+    cannot consent to do. I should have but a hound's office if I had to
+    tear the tabard from every Rouge Sanglier of the arts--with bell and
+    bauble to back him.
+
+  [D] Chrysoprase, (Vide No. for October, 1843, p. 502.)
+
+  [E] Every school-boy knows that this epithet was given to Poussin in
+    allusion to the profound classical knowledge of the painter. The
+    reviewer, however, (September, 1841,) informs us that the expression
+    refers to his skill in "Composition."
+
+  [F] Critique on Royal Academy, 1842. "He" (Mr. Lee) "often reminds
+    us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is _superior_ to him always
+    in subject, composition, and variety."--Shade of
+    Gainsborough!--deep-thoughted, solemn Gainsborough,--forgive us for
+    re-writing this sentence; we do so to gibbet its perpetrator
+    forever,--and leave him swinging in the winds of the Fool's
+    Paradise. It is with great pain that I ever speak with severity of
+    the works of living masters, especially when, like Mr. Lee's, they
+    are well-intentioned, simple, free from affectation or imitation,
+    and evidently painted with constant reference to nature. But I
+    believe that these qualities will always secure him that admiration
+    which he deserves--that there will be many unsophisticated and
+    honest minds always ready to follow his guidance, and answer his
+    efforts with delight; and therefore, that I need not fear to point
+    out in him the want of those technical qualities which are more
+    especially the object of an artist's admiration. Gainsborough's
+    power of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift)
+    is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens; he is the purest
+    colorist--Sir Joshua himself not excepted--of the whole English
+    school; with him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part
+    die, and exists not now in Europe. Evidence enough will be seen in
+    the following pages of my devoted admiration of Turner; but I
+    hesitate not to say, that in management and quality of single and
+    particular tint, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is
+    a child of Gainsborough. Now, Mr. Lee never aims at color; he does
+    not make it his object in the slightest degree--the spring green of
+    vegetation is all that he desires; and it would be about as rational
+    to compare his works with studied pieces of coloring, as the
+    modulation of the Calabrian pipe to the harmony of a full orchestra.
+    Gainsborough's hand is as light as the sweep of a cloud--as swift as
+    the flash of a sunbeam; Lee's execution is feeble and spotty.
+    Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division in heaven
+    of light from darkness; Lee's (perhaps necessarily, considering the
+    effects of flickering sunlight at which he aims) are as fragmentary
+    as his leaves, and as numerous. Gainsborough's forms are grand,
+    simple, and ideal; Lee's are small, confused, and unselected.
+    Gainsborough never loses sight of his picture as a whole; Lee is but
+    too apt to be shackled by its parts. In a word, Gainsborough is an
+    immortal painter; and Lee, though on the right road, is yet in the
+    early stages of his art; and the man who could imagine any
+    resemblance or point of comparison between them, is not only a
+    novice in art, but has not capacity ever to be anything more. He may
+    be pardoned for not comprehending Turner, for long preparation and
+    discipline are necessary before the abstract and profound philosophy
+    of that artist can be met; but Gainsborough's excellence is based on
+    principles of art long acknowledged, and facts of nature universally
+    apparent; and I insist more particularly on the reviewer's want of
+    feeling for his works, because it proves a truth of which the public
+    ought especially to be assured that those who lavish abuse on the
+    great men of modern times, are equally incapable of perceiving the
+    real excellence of established canons, are ignorant of the commonest
+    and most acknowledged principia of the art, blind to the most
+    palpable and comprehensible of its beauties, incapable of
+    distinguishing, if left to themselves, a master's work from the
+    vilest school copy, and founding their applause of those great works
+    which they praise, either in pure hypocrisy, or in admiration of
+    their defects.
+
+  [G] There is a fine touch in the Frogs in Aristophanes, alluding
+    probably to this part of the Agamemnon. "[Greek: Ego d' hechairon tź
+    siōpź kai me tout' heterpeu ouk hźttou ź nun hoi lalountes]." The
+    same remark might be well applied to the seemingly vacant or
+    incomprehensible portions of Turner's canvas. In their mysterious,
+    and intense fire, there is much correspondence between the mind of
+    Ęschylus and that of our great painter. They share at least one
+    thing in common--unpopularity. [Greek: 'Ho dźmos aneboa krisin
+    poiein, XA. o tōn panourgōn; Ai. nź Di, ouranion g' hoson. XA. met'
+    Aischylou ho ouk źsan heteroi symmachoi; AI. oligon to chrźston
+    estin].
+
+  [H] I do not know any passage in ancient literature in which this
+    connection is more exquisitely illustrated than in the lines,
+    burlesque though they be, descriptive of the approach of the chorus
+    in the Clouds of Aristophanes,--a writer, by the way, who, I
+    believe, knew and felt more of the noble landscape character of his
+    country than any whose works have come down to us except Homer. The
+    individuality and distinctness of conception--the visible cloud
+    character which every word of this particular passage brings out
+    into more dewy and bright existence, are to me as refreshing as the
+    real breathing of mountain winds. The line "[Greek: dia tōn koilōn
+    kai tōn daseōn, plagiai]," could have been written by none but an
+    ardent lover of hill scenery--one who had watched, hour after hour,
+    the peculiar oblique, sidelong action of descending clouds, as they
+    form along the hollows and ravines of the hills. There are no
+    lumpish solidities--no pillowy protuberances here. All is melting,
+    drifting, evanescent,--full of air, and light, and dew.
+
+  [I] Let not this principle be confused with Fuseli's, "love for what
+    is called deception in painting marks either the infancy or
+    decrepitude of a nation's taste." Realization to the mind
+    necessitates not deception of the eye.
+
+  [J] I shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are
+    principles of universal beauty common to all the creatures of God;
+    and that it is by the greater or less share of these that one form
+    becomes nobler or meaner than another.
+
+  [K] Is not this--it may be asked--demanding more from him than life
+    can accomplish? Not one whit. Nothing more than knowledge of
+    external characteristics is absolutely required; and even if, which
+    were more desirable, thorough scientific knowledge had to be
+    attained, the time which our artists spend in multiplying crude
+    sketches, or finishing their unintelligent embryos of the study,
+    would render them masters of every science that modern
+    investigations have organized, and familiar with every form that
+    Nature manifests. Martin, if the time which he must have spent on
+    the abortive bubbles of his Canute had been passed in working on the
+    seashore, might have learned enough to enable him to produce, with a
+    few strokes, a picture which would have smote like the sound of the
+    sea, upon men's hearts forever.
+
+  [L]         "A green field is a sight which makes us pardon
+               The absence of that more sublime construction
+               Which mixes up vines, olive, precipices,
+               Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices."
+
+                                                  _Don Juan._
+
+  [M] The vegetable soil of the Campagna is chiefly formed by
+    decomposed lavas, and under it lies a bed of white pumice, exactly
+    resembling remnants of bones.
+
+  [N] The feelings of Constable with respect to his art might be
+    almost a model for the young student, were it not that they err a
+    little on the other side, and are perhaps in need of chastening and
+    guiding from the works of his fellow-men. We should use pictures not
+    as authorities, but as comments on nature, just as we use divines,
+    not as authorities, but as comments on the Bible. Constable, in his
+    dread of saint-worship, excommunicates himself from all benefit of
+    the Church, and deprives himself of much instruction from the
+    Scripture to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the
+    reading of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beaumont,
+    on the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes given of him in
+    Constable's life, a melancholy instance of the degradation into
+    which the human mind may fall, when it suffers human works to
+    interfere between it and its Master. The recommending the color of
+    an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and the
+    vapid inquiry of the conventionalist, "Where do you put your brown
+    tree?" show a prostration of intellect so laughable and lamentable,
+    that they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery,
+    a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile
+    indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous
+    extremes to be shunned,--forgetfulness of the Scripture, and scorn
+    of the divine--slavery on the one hand, free-thinking on the other.
+    The mean is nearly as difficult to determine or keep in art as in
+    religion, but the great danger is on the side of superstition. He
+    who walks humbly with Nature will seldom be in danger of losing
+    sight of Art. He will commonly find in all that is truly great of
+    man's works, something of their original, for which he will regard
+    them with gratitude, and sometimes follow them with respect; while
+    he who takes Art for his authority may entirely lose sight of all
+    that it interprets, and sink at once into the sin of an idolater,
+    and the degradation of a slave.
+
+  [O] I should have insisted more on this fault (for it is a fatal
+    one) in the following Essay, but the cause of it rests rather with
+    the public than with the artist, and in the necessities of the
+    public as much as in their will. Such pictures as artists themselves
+    would wish to paint, could not be executed under very high prices;
+    and it must always be easier, in the present state of society, to
+    find ten purchasers of ten-guinea sketches, than one purchaser for a
+    hundred-guinea picture. Still, I have been often both surprised and
+    grieved to see that any effort on the part of our artists to rise
+    above manufacture--any struggle to something like completed
+    conception--was left by the public to be its own reward. In the
+    water-color exhibition of last year there was a noble work of David
+    Cox's, ideal in the right sense--a forest hollow with a few sheep
+    crushing down through its deep fern, and a solemn opening of evening
+    sky above its dark masses of distance. It was worth all his little
+    bits on the walls put together. Yet the public picked up all the
+    little bits--blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn--all
+    that was clever and petite; and the real picture--the full
+    development of the artist's mind--was left on his hands. How can I,
+    or any one else, with a conscience, advise him after this to aim at
+    anything more than may be struck out by the cleverness of a quarter
+    of an hour. Cattermole, I believe, is earthed and shackled in the
+    same manner. He began his career with finished and studied pictures,
+    which, I believe, never paid him--he now prostitutes his fine talent
+    to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his way to
+    emolument and oblivion. There is commonly, however, fault on both
+    sides; in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank
+    tricks of the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the
+    knowledge and labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he
+    has himself formed in his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a
+    common actor will oftentimes render apparently vapid the finished
+    touches of perfect nature; and in the public, for taking less real
+    pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate, the various
+    powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate the excellence
+    of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer.
+
+
+
+
+                       PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
+
+It is with much regret, and partly against my own judgment, that I
+republish the following chapters in their present form. The particular
+circumstances (stated in the first preface) under which they were
+originally written, have rendered them so unfit for the position they
+now hold as introductory to a serious examination of the general
+functions of art, that I should have wished first to complete the
+succeeding portions of the essay, and then to write another introduction
+of more fitting character. But as it may be long before I am able to do
+this, and as I believe what I have already written may still be of some
+limited and partial service, I have suffered it to reappear, trusting to
+the kindness of the reader to look to its intention rather than its
+temper, and forgive its inconsideration in its earnestness.
+
+Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever I have
+found a passage which I thought required modification or explanation, I
+have cut it out; what I have left, however imperfect, cannot I think be
+dangerously misunderstood: something I have added, not under the idea of
+rendering the work in any wise systematic or complete, but to supply
+gross omissions, answer inevitable objections, and give some substance
+to passages of mere declamation.
+
+Whatever inadequacy or error there may be, throughout, in materials or
+modes of demonstration, I have no doubt of the truth and necessity of
+the main result; and though the reader may, perhaps, find me frequently
+hereafter showing other and better grounds for what is here affirmed,
+yet the point and bearing of the book, its determined depreciation of
+Claude, Salvator, Gaspar, and Canaletto, and its equally determined
+support of Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of
+Turner's recent works as his finest, are good and right; and if the
+prevalence throughout of attack and eulogium be found irksome or
+offensive, let it be remembered that my object thus far has not been
+either the establishment or the teaching of any principles of art, but
+the vindication, most necessary to the prosperity of our present
+schools, of the uncomprehended rank of their greatest artist, and the
+diminution, equally necessary as I think to the prosperity of our
+schools, of the unadvised admiration of the landscape of the seventeenth
+century. For I believe it to be almost impossible to state in terms
+sufficiently serious and severe the depth and extent of the evil which
+has resulted (and that not in art alone, but in all other matters with
+which the contemplative faculties are concerned) from the works of those
+elder men. On the continent all landscape art has been utterly
+annihilated by them, and with it all sense of the power of nature. We in
+England have only done better because our artists have had strength of
+mind enough to form a school withdrawn from their influence.
+
+These points are somewhat farther developed in the general sketch of
+ancient and modern landscape, which I have added to the first section of
+the second part. Some important additions have also been made to the
+chapters on the painting of sea. Throughout the rest of the text, though
+something is withdrawn, little is changed; and the reader may rest
+assured that if I were now to bestow on this feeble essay the careful
+revision which it much needs, but little deserves, it would not be to
+alter its tendencies, or modify its conclusions, but to prevent
+indignation from appearing virulence on the one side, and enthusiasm
+partisanship on the other.
+
+
+
+
+                 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION (1873).
+
+I have been lately so often asked by friends on whose judgment I can
+rely, to permit the publication of another edition of "Modern Painters"
+in its original form, that I have at last yielded, though with some
+violence to my own feelings; for many parts of the first and second
+volumes are written in a narrow enthusiasm, and the substance of their
+metaphysical and religious speculation is only justifiable on the ground
+of its absolute honesty. Of the third, fourth, and fifth volumes I
+indeed mean eventually to rearrange what I think of permanent interest,
+for the complete edition of my works, but with fewer and less elaborate
+illustrations: nor have I any serious grounds for refusing to allow the
+book once more to appear in the irregular form which it took as it was
+written, since of the art-teaching and landscape description it contains
+I have little to retrench, and nothing to retract.
+
+This final edition must, however, be limited to a thousand copies, for
+some of the more delicate plates are already worn, that of the Mill
+Stream in the fifth volume, and of the Loire Side very injuriously;
+while that of the Shores of Wharfe had to be retouched by an engraver
+after the removal of the mezzotint for reprinting. But Mr. Armytage's,
+Mr. Cousen's, and Mr. Cuff's magnificent plates are still in good state,
+and my own etchings, though injured, are still good enough to answer
+their purpose.
+
+
+
+
+                      SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
+
+                            PART I.
+
+                   OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
+
+
+                           SECTION I.
+
+           OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Introductory.
+                                                                      PAGE
+  §  1. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long
+          periods of time.                                               1
+  §  2. And therefore obstinate when once formed.                        4
+  §  3. The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances.    5
+  §  4. But only on points capable of demonstration.                     5
+  §  5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable.               6
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Definition of Greatness in Art.
+
+  §  1. Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and
+          technical knowledge.                                           8
+  §  2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language.                8
+  §  3. "Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier."                  9
+  §  4. Example in a painting of E. Landseer's.                          9
+  §  5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and
+          thought.                                                       9
+  §  6. Distinction between decorative and expressive language.         10
+  §  7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools.                10
+  §  8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself.       11
+  §  9. The definition.                                                 12
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of Ideas of Power.
+
+  §  1. What classes of ideas are conveyable by art.                    13
+  §  2. Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity.                   13
+  §  3. But are received from whatever has been the subject of
+          power. The meaning of the word "excellence."                  14
+  §  4. What is necessary to the distinguishing of excellence.          15
+  §  5. The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right.     16
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of Ideas of Imitation.
+
+  §  1. False use of the term "imitation" by many writers on art.       17
+  §  2. Real meaning of the term.                                       18
+  §  3. What is requisite to the sense of imitation.                    18
+  §  4. The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible
+          that can be derived from art.                                 19
+  §  5. Imitation is only of contemptible subjects.                     19
+  §  6. Imitation is contemptible because it is easy.                   20
+  §  7. Recapitulation.                                                 20
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Of Ideas of Truth.
+
+  §  1. Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art.                  21
+  §  2. First difference between truth and imitation.                   21
+  §  3. Second difference.                                              21
+  §  4. Third difference.                                               22
+  §  5. No accurate truths necessary to imitation.                      22
+  §  6. Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation.        24
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Of Ideas of Beauty.
+
+  §  1. Definition of the term "beautiful."                             26
+  §  2. Definition of the term "taste."                                 26
+  §  3. Distinction between taste and judgment.                         27
+  §  4. How far beauty may become intellectual.                         27
+  §  5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty.                  28
+  §  6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."                             28
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.--Of Ideas of Relation.
+
+  §  1. General meaning of the term.                                    29
+  §  2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it.                     29
+  §  3. The exceeding nobility of these ideas.                          30
+  §  4. Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary.        31
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                                  OF POWER.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--General Principles respecting Ideas of Power.
+
+  §  1. No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation.          32
+  §  2. Nor for separate study of ideas of power.                       32
+  §  3. Except under one particular form.                               33
+  §  4. There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly
+          inconsistent.                                                 33
+  §  5. First reason of the inconsistency.                              33
+  §  6. Second reason for the inconsistency.                            34
+  §  7. The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art. 34
+  §  8. Instances in pictures of modern artists.                        35
+  §  9. Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution.       35
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Ideas of Power, as they are dependent upon Execution.
+
+  §  1. Meaning of the term "execution."                                36
+  §  2. The first quality of execution is truth.                        36
+  §  3. The second, simplicity.                                         36
+  §  4. The third, mystery.                                             37
+  §  5. The fourth, inadequacy; and the fifth, decision.                37
+  §  6. The sixth, velocity.                                            37
+  §  7. Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution.    37
+  §  8. Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are
+          inconsistent with each other.                                 38
+  §  9. And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the
+          lowest.                                                       39
+  § 10. Therefore perilous.                                             40
+  § 11. Recapitulation.                                                 40
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of the Sublime.
+
+  §  1. Sublimity is the effect upon the mind of anything above it.     41
+  §  2. Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and why. 41
+  §  3. Danger is sublime, but not the fear of it.                      42
+  §  4. The highest beauty is sublime.                                  42
+  §  5. And generally whatever elevates the mind.                       42
+  §  6. The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient.     42
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART II.
+
+                                OF TRUTH.
+
+
+                                SECTION I.
+
+                GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Ideas of Truth in their connection with those of
+            Beauty and Relation.
+
+  §  1. The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation
+          of facts and thoughts.                                        44
+  §  2. They induce a different choice of material subjects.            45
+  §  3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and
+          repetition.                                                   45
+  §  4. The second necessitating variety.                               45
+  §  5. Yet the first is delightful to all.                             46
+  §  6. The second only to a few.                                       46
+  §  7. The first necessary to the second.                              47
+  §  8. The exceeding importance of truth.                              48
+  §  9. Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth.                    48
+  § 10. How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art.        48
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--That the Truth of Nature is not to be discerned by the
+            Uneducated Senses.
+
+  §  1. The common self-deception of men with respect to their
+          power of discerning truth.                                    50
+  §  2. Men usually see little of what is before their eyes.            51
+  §  3. But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to
+          what is beautiful.                                            52
+  §  4. Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling.                52
+  §  5. And of the intellectual powers.                                 53
+  §  6. How sight depends upon previous knowledge.                      54
+  §  7. The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature.    55
+  §  8. We recognize objects by their least important attributes.
+          Compare Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4.                             55
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of the Relative Importance of Truths:--First, that
+            Particular Truths are more important than General Ones.
+
+  §  1. Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths.     58
+  §  2. Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more
+          important than particular ones."                              58
+  §  3. Falseness of this maxim, taken without explanation.             59
+  §  4. Generality important in the subject, particularity in the
+          predicate.                                                    59
+  §  5. The importance of truths of species is not owing to their
+          generality.                                                   60
+  §  6. All truths valuable as they are characteristic.                 61
+  §  7. Otherwise truths of species are valuable, because beautiful.    61
+  §  8. And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable
+          in connection with others.                                    62
+  §  9. Recapitulation.                                                 63
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of the Relative Importance of Truths:--Secondly, that
+            Rare Truths are more important than Frequent Ones.
+
+  §  1. No accidental violation of nature's principles should be
+          represented.                                                  64
+  §  2. But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly
+          exemplified.                                                  65
+  §  3. Which are comparatively rare.                                   65
+  §  4. All repetition is blamable.                                     65
+  §  5. The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher.      66
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Of the Relative Importance of Truths:--Thirdly, that
+            Truths of Color are the least important of all Truths.
+
+  §  1. Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies.   67
+  §  2. The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so.  67
+  §  3. Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than
+          form.                                                         68
+  §  4. Color no distinction between objects of the same species.       68
+  §  5. And different in association from what it is alone.             69
+  §  6. It is not certain whether any two people see the same colors
+          in things.                                                    69
+  §  7. Form, considered as an element of landscape, includes light
+          and shade.                                                    69
+  §  8. Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of
+          bodies, and unimportance of color.                            70
+  §  9. Recapitulation.                                                 71
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Recapitulation.
+
+  §  1. The importance of historical truths.                            72
+  §  2. Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths.
+        Tone, light, and color, are secondary.                          72
+  §  3. And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.                    73
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.--General Application of the Foregoing Principles.
+
+  §  1. The different selection of facts consequent on the several aims
+          at imitation or at truth.                                     74
+  §  2. The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation.              74
+  §  3. What truths they gave.                                          75
+  §  4. The principles of selection adopted by modern artists.          76
+  §  5. General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted
+          with the freedom and vastness of nature.                      77
+  §  6. Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret.             78
+  §  7. Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools.          79
+  §  8. The value of inferior works of art, how to be estimated.        80
+  §  9. Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its
+          completion.                                                   81
+  § 10. Finish, and the want of it, how right--and how wrong.           82
+  § 11. The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain
+          drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione. 84
+  § 12. Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.                               86
+  § 13. Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna.                        88
+  § 14. Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins.                             89
+  § 15. German and Flemish landscape.                                   90
+  § 16. The lower Dutch schools.                                        92
+  § 17. English school, Wilson and Gainsborough.                        93
+  § 18. Constable, Callcott.                                            94
+  § 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.                          95
+  § 20. G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style."               95
+  § 21. Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color.                    97
+  § 22. Beauty of mountain foreground.                                  99
+  § 23. De Wint.                                                       101
+  § 24. Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding.                         101
+  § 25. Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient.   103
+  § 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.              104
+  § 27. Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of
+          detail.                                                      106
+  § 28. Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor
+          Carpaccio.                                                   107
+  § 29. And of the Venetians generally.                                109
+  § 30. Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto.          110
+  § 31. Expression of the effects of age on Architecture by S. Prout.  112
+  § 32. His excellent composition and color.                           114
+  § 33. Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole.        115
+  § 34. The evil in an archęological point of view of misapplied
+          invention, in architectural subject.                         117
+  § 35. Works of David Roberts: their fidelity and grace.              118
+  § 36. Clarkson Stanfield.                                            121
+  § 37. J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great
+          painters.                                                    123
+  § 38. Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject.  125
+  § 39. Its peculiar manifestation in Turner.                          125
+  § 40. The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.                  127
+  § 41. Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter
+          deficient.                                                   129
+  § 42. His rendering of Italian character still less successful. His
+          large compositions how failing                               130
+  § 43. His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant
+          quantity.                                                    133
+  § 44. Changes introduced by him in the received system of art.       133
+  § 45. Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies.      134
+  § 46. Reflection of his very recent works.                           137
+  § 47. Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects.                  139
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                             OF GENERAL TRUTHS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Truth of Tone.
+
+  §  1. Meanings of the word "tone:"--First, the right relation of
+          objects in shadow to the principal light.                    140
+  §  2. Secondly, the quality of color by which it is felt to owe part
+          of its brightness to the hue of light upon it.               140
+  §  3. Difference between tone in its first sense and aerial
+          perspective.                                                 141
+  §  4. The pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle
+          tints to light.                                              141
+  §  5. And consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to
+          darkness.                                                    141
+  §  6. General falsehood of such a system.                            143
+  §  7. The principle of Turner in this respect.                       143
+  §  8. Comparison of N. Poussin's "Phocion."                          144
+  §  9. With Turner's "Mercury and Argus."                             145
+  § 10. And with the "Datur Hora Quieti."                              145
+  § 11. The second sense of the word "tone."                           146
+  § 12. Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings
+          and drawings of Turner.                                      146
+  § 13. Not owing to want of power over the material                   146
+  § 14. The two distinct qualities of light to be considered           147
+  § 15. Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality
+          in light.                                                    148
+  § 16. Turner will not use such means.                                148
+  § 17. But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice.                 148
+  § 18. The second quality of light.                                   148
+  § 19. The perfection of Cuyp in this respect interfered with by
+          numerous solecisms.                                          150
+  § 20. Turner is not so perfect in parts--far more so in the whole.   151
+  § 21. The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones.              152
+  § 22. Recapitulation.                                                153
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Truth of Color.
+
+  §  1. Observations on the color of G. Poussin's La Riccia.           155
+  §  2. As compared with the actual scene.                             155
+  §  3. Turner himself is inferior in brilliancy to nature.            157
+  §  4. Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian.                         157
+  §  5. Poussin, and Claude.                                           158
+  §  6. Turner's translation of colors.                                160
+  §  7. Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even
+          approach that of reality.                                    161
+  §  8. Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect
+          to their representation                                      162
+  §  9. Color of the Napoleon.                                         163
+  § 10. Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of
+          color and light.                                             164
+  § 11. This discrepancy less in Turner than in other colorists.       165
+  § 12. Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens.          165
+  § 13. Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid color.                 166
+  § 14. The basis of gray, under all his vivid hues.                   167
+  § 15. The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones.         168
+  § 16. Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature.   168
+  § 17. His dislike of purple, and fondness for the opposition of
+          yellow and black. The principles of nature in this respect.  169
+  § 18. His early works are false in color.                            170
+  § 19. His drawings invariably perfect.                               171
+  § 20. The subjection of his system of color to that of chiaroscuro.  171
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of Truth of Chiaroscuro.
+
+  §  1. We are not at present to examine particular effects of light.  174
+  §  2. And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means
+          of expressing vividness of light.                            175
+  §  3. Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian
+          school.                                                      175
+  §  4. And partial absence in the Dutch.                              176
+  §  5. The perfection of Turner's works in this respect.              177
+  §  6. The effect of his shadows upon the light.                      178
+  §  7. The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the
+          ancient and modern schools.                                  179
+  §  8. Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and
+          deep shadow are used in equal quantity, and only in points.  180
+  §  9. Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art.  180
+  § 10. And consequent misguiding of the student.                      181
+  § 11. The great value of a simple chiaroscuro.                       182
+  § 12. The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle tint.  182
+  § 13. The truth of Turner.                                           183
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of Truth of Space:--First, as Dependent on the Focus of
+             the Eye.
+
+  §  1. Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than
+          by their hue.                                                185
+  §  2. It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances
+          distinctly at one moment.                                    186
+  §  3. Especially such as are both comparatively near.                186
+  §  4. In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must
+          be partially sacrificed.                                     187
+  §  5. Which not being done by the old masters, they could not
+          express space.                                               187
+  §  6. But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying out this
+          principle.                                                   188
+  §  7. Especially of Turner.                                          189
+  §  8. Justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures.      189
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Of Truth of Space:--Secondly, as its Appearance is
+            dependent on the Power of the Eye.
+
+  §  1. The peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of
+          objects from the eye.                                        191
+  §  2. Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details.             191
+  §  3. Instances in various objects.                                  192
+  §  4. Two great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct,
+          and never vacant.                                            193
+  §  5. Complete violation of both these principles by the old
+          masters. They are either distinct or vacant.                 193
+  §  6. Instances from Nicholas Poussin.                               194
+  §  7. From Claude.                                                   194
+  §  8. And G. Poussin.                                                195
+  §  9. The imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness
+          and finish.                                                  196
+  § 10. Breadth is not vacancy.                                        197
+  § 11. The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances.                 198
+  § 12. Farther illustrations in architectural drawing.                199
+  § 13. In near objects as well as distances.                          199
+  § 14. Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto.                            200
+  § 15. Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds.     200
+  § 16. Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by
+          vacancy.                                                     202
+  § 17. Swift execution best secures perfection of details.            202
+  § 18. Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical
+          subjects.                                                    202
+  § 19. Recapitulation of the section.                                 203
+
+
+
+
+                                  SECTION III.
+
+                               OF TRUTH OF SKIES.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of the Open Sky.
+
+  §  1. The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and
+          teaching of man.                                             204
+  §  2. The carelessness with which its lessons are received.          205
+  §  3. The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest.          205
+  §  4. Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional.              205
+  §  5. Nature, and essential qualities of the open blue.              206
+  §  6. Its connection with clouds.                                    207
+  §  7. Its exceeding depth.                                           207
+  §  8. These qualities are especially given by modern masters.        207
+  §  9. And by Claude.                                                 208
+  § 10. Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his
+          general treatment of open sky.                               208
+  § 11. Errors of Cuyp in graduation of color.                         209
+  § 12. The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and
+          Dutch schools. Their qualities are unattainable in modern
+          times.                                                       210
+  § 13. Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause.         211
+  § 14. They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky
+          is free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds.           211
+  § 15. Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by
+          the old masters.                                             212
+  § 16. The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be
+          represented.                                                 213
+  § 17. The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more
+          delicate phenomena of rays.                                  213
+  § 18. The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the
+          works of the old masters.                                    213
+  § 19. Truth of the skies of modern drawings.                         214
+  § 20. Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in
+          _quality_, inimitable, but in rendering of various truth,
+          childish.                                                    215
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Truth of Clouds:--First, of the Region of the Cirrus.
+
+  §  1. Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds
+          consists.                                                    216
+  §  2. Variation of their character at different elevations. The
+          three regions to which they may conveniently be considered
+          as belonging.                                                216
+  §  3. Extent of the upper region.                                    217
+  §  4. The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds.                     217
+  §  5. Their exceeding delicacy.                                      218
+  §  6. Their number.                                                  218
+  §  7. Causes of their peculiarly delicate coloring.                  219
+  §  8. Their variety of form.                                         219
+  §  9. Total absence of even the slightest effort at their
+          representation, in ancient landscape.                        220
+  § 10. The intense and constant study of them by Turner.              221
+  § 11. His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea.                              222
+  § 12. His use of the cirrus in expressing mist.                      223
+  § 13. His consistency in every minor feature.                        224
+  § 14. The color of the upper clouds.                                 224
+  § 15. Recapitulation.                                                225
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of  Truth of Clouds:--Secondly, of the Central Cloud
+              Region.
+
+  §  1. Extent and typical character of the central cloud region.      226
+  §  2. Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought
+          for their representation, are therefore favorite subjects
+          with the old masters.                                        226
+  §  3. The clouds of Salvator and Poussin.                            227
+  §  4. Their essential characters.                                    227
+  §  5. Their angular forms and general decision of outline.           228
+  §  6. The composition of their minor curves.                         229
+  §  7. Their characters, as given by S. Rosa.                         230
+  §  8. Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian school
+          generally.                                                   230
+  §  9. Vast size of congregated masses of cloud.                      231
+  § 10. Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges.               231
+  § 11. And consequent divisions and varieties of feature.             232
+  § 12. Not lightly to be omitted.                                     232
+  § 13. Imperfect conceptions of this size and extent in ancient
+          landscape.                                                   233
+  § 14. Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of
+          ancient landscape.                                           234
+  § 15. Farther proof of their deficiency in space.                    235
+  § 16. Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon.      236
+  § 17. And in his Pools of Solomon.                                   237
+  § 18. Truths of outline and character in his Como.                   237
+  § 19. Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus.              238
+  § 20. The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of
+          Geneva.                                                      238
+  § 21. Farther principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.    239
+  § 22. Reasons for insisting on the _infinity_ of Turner's works.
+          Infinity is almost an unerring test of _all_ truth.          239
+  § 23. Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator.    240
+  § 24. And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The
+          conclusions which may be arrived at from it.                 240
+  § 25. The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will
+          not give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of
+          novices.                                                     241
+  § 26. Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner.     242
+  § 27. The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield.              242
+  § 28. The average standing of the English school.                    243
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of Truth of Clouds:--Thirdly, of the Region of the
+             Rain-Cloud.
+
+  §  1. The apparent difference in character between the lower and
+          central clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity.            244
+  §  2. Their marked differences in color.                             244
+  §  3. And in definiteness of form.                                   245
+  §  4. They are subject to precisely the same great laws.             245
+  §  5. Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud.                      246
+  §  6. The old masters have not left a single instance of the
+          painting of the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it.
+          Gaspar Poussin's storms.                                     247
+  §  7. The great power of the moderns in this respect.                248
+  §  8. Works of Copley Fielding.                                      248
+  §  9. His peculiar truth.                                            248
+  § 10. His weakness, and its probable cause.                          249
+  § 11. Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from
+          engravings.                                                  250
+  § 12. His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges. 250
+  § 13. Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of
+          smoke and steam.                                             250
+  § 14. Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony.                      251
+  § 15. And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch
+          Coriskin.                                                    252
+  § 16. The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End.            253
+  § 17. The individual character of its parts.                         253
+  § 18. Deep-studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry.         254
+  § 19. Compared with forms given by Salvator.                         254
+  § 20. Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and
+          circumstances in the Coventry.                               255
+  § 21. Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose.       255
+  § 22. The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky
+          only seen after rain, and how seen.                          256
+  § 23. Absence of this effect in the works of the old masters.        256
+  § 24. Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it
+          by Turner.                                                   257
+  § 25. Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works. 257
+  § 26. Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and
+          Ęneas.                                                       258
+  § 27. Turner's power of rendering mist.                              258
+  § 28. His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once
+          understood, they can no more be explained or reasoned on
+          than nature herself.                                         259
+  § 29. Various instances.                                             259
+  § 30. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered
+          by engravers.                                                260
+  § 31. General system of landscape engraving.                         260
+  § 32. The storm in the Stonehenge.                                   260
+  § 33. General character of such effects as given by Turner. His
+          expression of falling rain.                                  261
+  § 34. Recapitulation of the section.                                 261
+  § 35. Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole,
+          compared with the works of Turner and of the old masters.
+          Morning on the plains.                                       262
+  § 36. Noon with gathering storms.                                    263
+  § 37. Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight.                            264
+  § 38. And sunrise on the Alps.                                       264
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Effects of Light rendered by Modern Art.
+
+  §  1. Reasons for merely, at present, naming, without examining the
+          particular effects of light rendered by Turner.              266
+  §  2. Hopes of the author for assistance in the future investigation
+          of them.                                                     266
+
+
+
+
+                                   SECTION IV.
+
+                               OF TRUTH OF EARTH.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of General Structure.
+
+  §  1. First laws of the organization of the earth, and their
+          importance in art.                                           270
+  §  2. The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful
+          study by modern artists.                                     271
+  §  3. General structure of the earth. The hills are its action, the
+          plains its rest.                                             271
+  §  4. Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their
+          support.                                                     272
+  §  5. Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when
+          deposited by quiet water.                                    273
+  §  6. Illustrated by Turner's Marengo.                               273
+  §  7. General divisions of formation resulting from this
+          arrangement. Plan of investigation.                          274
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of the Central Mountains.
+
+  §  1. Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the
+          world.                                                       275
+  §  2. Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical
+          fissures.                                                    275
+  §  3. Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose.        276
+  §  4. The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps
+          at Daybreak.                                                 276
+  §  5. Vignette of the Andes and others.                              277
+  §  6. Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such
+          mountains.                                                   277
+  §  7. Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art. 278
+  §  8. Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of
+          Claude.                                                      278
+  §  9. Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance.             279
+  § 10. And violation of specific form.                                280
+  § 11. Even in his best works.                                        280
+  § 12. Farther illustration of the distant character of mountain
+          chains.                                                      281
+  § 13. Their excessive appearance of transparency.                    281
+  § 14. Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The
+          Borromean Islands of the latter.                             282
+  § 15. Turner's Arona.                                                283
+  § 16. Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by
+          very sharp outline.                                          283
+  § 17. Want of this decision in Claude.                               284
+  § 18. The perpetual rendering of it by Turner.                       285
+  § 19. Effects of snow, how imperfectly studied.                      285
+  § 20. General principles of its forms on the Alps.                   287
+  § 21. Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has
+          scarcely yet been caught.                                    289
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of the Inferior Mountains.
+
+  §  1. The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central, by
+          being divided into beds.                                     290
+  §  2. Farther division of these beds by joints.                      290
+  §  3. And by lines of lamination.                                    291
+  §  4. Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are
+          manifested.                                                  291
+  §  5. The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin.      292
+  §  6. Glencoe and other works.                                       293
+  §  7. Especially the Mount Lebanon.                                  293
+  §  8. Compared with the work of Salvator.                            294
+  §  9. And of Poussin.                                                295
+  § 10. Effects of external influence on mountain form.                296
+  § 11. The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion.                297
+  § 12. And the effect of the action of torrents.                      297
+  § 13. The exceeding simplicity of contour caused by these
+          influences.                                                  298
+  § 14. And multiplicity of feature.                                   299
+  § 15. Both utterly neglected in ancient art.                         299
+  § 16. The fidelity of treatment in Turner's Daphne and Leucippus.    300
+  § 17. And in the Avalanche and Inundation.                           300
+  § 18. The rarity among secondary hills of steep slopes or high
+          precipices.                                                  301
+  § 19. And consequent expression of horizontal distance in their
+          ascent.                                                      302
+  § 20. Full statement of all these facts in various works of
+          Turner.--Caudebec, etc.                                      302
+  § 21. The use of considering geological truths.                      303
+  § 22. Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the
+          work of Claude.                                              304
+  § 23. The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher
+          hills.                                                       304
+  § 24. The peculiar difficulty of investigating the more essential
+          truths of hill outline.                                      305
+  § 25. Works of other modern artists.--Clarkson Stanfield.            305
+  § 26. Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing. 306
+  § 27. Works of Copley Fielding. His high feeling.                    307
+  § 28. Works of J. D. Harding and others.                             308
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of the Foreground.
+
+  §  1. What rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape
+          foreground.                                                  309
+  §  2. Salvator's limestones. The real characters of the rock. Its
+          fractures, and obtuseness of angles.                         309
+  §  3. Salvator's acute angles caused by the meeting of concave
+          curves.                                                      310
+  §  4. Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of
+          nature.                                                      311
+  §  5. Peculiar confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator.           311
+  §  6. And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness.   311
+  §  7. Instances in particular pictures.                              312
+  §  8. Compared with the works of Stanfield.                          312
+  §  9. Their absolute opposition in every particular.                 313
+  § 10. The rocks of J. D. Harding.                                    313
+  § 11. Characters of loose earth and soil.                            314
+  § 12. Its exceeding grace and fulness of feature.                    315
+  § 13. The ground of Teniers.                                         315
+  § 14. Importance of these minor parts and points.                    316
+  § 15. The observance of them is the real distinction between the
+          master and the novice.                                       316
+  § 16. Ground of Cuyp.                                                317
+  § 17. And of Claude.                                                 317
+  § 18. The entire weakness and childishness of the latter.            318
+  § 19. Compared with the work of Turner.                              318
+  § 20. General features of Turner's foreground.                       319
+  § 21. Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees.     319
+  § 22. Their convex surfaces and fractured edges.                     319
+  § 23. And perfect unity.                                             320
+  § 24. Various parts whose history is told us by the details of the
+          drawing.                                                     321
+  § 25. Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the
+          Llanthony.                                                   321
+  § 26. Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone.        322
+  § 27. And of complicated foreground.                                 323
+  § 28. And of loose soil.                                             323
+  § 29. The unison of all in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy
+          pictures.                                                    324
+  § 30. And the great lesson to be received from all.                  324
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION V.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF WATER.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Water, as Painted by the Ancients.
+
+  §  1. Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water.          325
+  §  2. The ease with which a common representation of it may be
+          given. The impossibility of a faithful one.                  325
+  §  3. Difficulty of properly dividing the subject.                   326
+  §  4. Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among all painters.        326
+  §  5. Difficulty of treating this part of the subject.               328
+  §  6. General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, The
+          imperfection of its reflective surface.                      329
+  §  7. The inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does
+          not affect right ones.                                       330
+  §  8. Water takes no shadow.                                         331
+  §  9. Modification of dark reflections by shadow.                    332
+  § 10. Examples on the waters of the Rhone.                           333
+  § 11. Effect of ripple on distant water.                             335
+  § 12. Elongation of reflections by moving water.                     335
+  § 13. Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images.     336
+  § 14. To what extent reflection is visible from above.               336
+  § 15. Deflection of images on agitated water.                        337
+  § 16. Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science. Licenses, how
+          taken by great men.                                          337
+  § 17. Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp,
+          Vandevelde.                                                  339
+  § 18. And Canaletto.                                                 341
+  § 19. Why unpardonable.                                              342
+  § 20. The Dutch painters of sea.                                     343
+  § 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator.                                344
+  § 22. Nicolo Poussin.                                                345
+  § 23. Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion.                         346
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Water, as Painted by the Moderns.
+
+  §  1. General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. The
+          lakes of Fielding.                                           348
+  §  2. The calm rivers of De Wint, J. Holland, &c.                    348
+  §  3. The character of bright and violent falling water.             349
+  §  4. As given by Nesfield.                                          349
+  §  5. The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding.                  350
+  §  6. His color; and painting of sea.                                350
+  §  7. The sea of Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity.  351
+  §  8. Its high aim at character.                                     351
+  §  9. But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays.              352
+  § 10. Variety of the grays of nature.                                352
+  § 11. Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power.           353
+  § 12. But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern
+          art.                                                         353
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of Water, as Painted by Turner.
+
+  §  1. The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water.              355
+  §  2. Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by
+          which the reflected rays are perceived.                      355
+  §  3. Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by
+          distinctness of reflections.                                 356
+  §  4. How avoided by Turner.                                         357
+  §  5. All reflections on distant water are distinct.                 357
+  §  6. The error of Vandevelde.                                       358
+  §  7. Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected
+          object and its image.                                        359
+  §  8. Illustrated from the works of Turner.                          359
+  §  9. The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it.       360
+  § 10. The _texture_ of surface in Turner's painting of calm water.   361
+  § 11. Its united qualities.                                          361
+  § 12. Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, &c., by
+          the most trifling incidents, as in the Cowes.                363
+  § 13. In scenes on the Loire and Seine.                              363
+  § 14. Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore.      364
+  § 15. Various other instances.                                       364
+  § 16. Turner's painting of distant expanses of water.--Calm,
+          interrupted by ripple.                                       365
+  § 17. And rippled, crossed by sunshine.                              365
+  § 18. His drawing of distant rivers.                                 366
+  § 19. And of surface associated with mist.                           367
+  § 20. His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of
+          weight.                                                      367
+  § 21. The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by
+          him.                                                         368
+  § 22. Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when
+          interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of
+          its bed.                                                     369
+  § 23. But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.          370
+  § 24. Its exquisite curved lines.                                    370
+  § 25. Turner's careful choice of the historical truth.               370
+  § 26. His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the
+          Llanthony Abbey.                                             371
+  § 27. And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus.       372
+  § 28. Various cases.                                                 372
+  § 29. Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.        373
+  § 30. Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible.               374
+  § 31. Their effect how injured when seen from the shore.             375
+  § 32. Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea.                      376
+  § 33. With peculiar expression of weight.                            376
+  § 34. Peculiar action of recoiling waves.                            377
+  § 35. And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore.                   377
+  § 36. General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in
+          the Land's End.                                              378
+  § 37. Open seas of Turner's earlier time.                            379
+  § 38. Effect of sea after prolonged storm.                           380
+  § 39. Turner's noblest work, the painting of the deep open sea in
+          the Slave Ship.                                              382
+  § 40. Its united excellences and perfection as a whole.              383
+
+
+
+
+                                SECTION VI.
+
+                   OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.--CONCLUSION.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Truth of Vegetation.
+
+  §  1. Frequent occurrence of foliage in the works of the old
+          masters.                                                     384
+  §  2. Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not taper,
+          but only divide.                                             385
+  §  3. Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds.                385
+  §  4. And care of nature to conceal the parallelism.                 386
+  §  5. The degree of tapering which may be represented as continuous. 386
+  §  6. The trees of Gaspar Poussin.                                   386
+  §  7. And of the Italian school generally, defy this law.            387
+  §  8. The truth, as it is given by J. D. Harding.                    387
+  §  9. Boughs, in consequence of this law, _must_ diminish where they
+          divide. Those of the old masters often do not.               388
+  § 10. Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old
+          masters do not.                                              389
+  § 11. Bough-drawing of Salvator.                                     390
+  § 12. All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches, and
+          concentrated in a work of G. Poussin's.                      391
+  § 13. Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them
+          by wind.                                                     392
+  § 14. Bough-drawing of Titian.                                       392
+  § 15. Bough-drawing of Turner.                                       394
+  § 16. Leafage. Its variety and symmetry.                             394
+  § 17. Perfect regularity of Poussin.                                 395
+  § 18. Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage.                       396
+  § 19. How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin.           396
+  § 20. How followed by Creswick.                                      397
+  § 21. Perfect unity in nature's foliage.                             398
+  § 22. Total want of it in Both and Hobbima.                          398
+  § 23. How rendered by Turner.                                        399
+  § 24. The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good.     399
+  § 25. Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves.          400
+  § 26. Altogether unobserved by the old masters. Always given by
+          Turner.                                                      401
+  § 27. Foliage painting on the Continent.                             401
+  § 28. Foliage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies.                    402
+  § 29. His brilliancy of execution too manifest.                      403
+  § 30. His bough-drawing, and choice of form.                         404
+  § 31. Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with
+          what advantage.                                              404
+  § 32. Opposition between great manner and great knowledge.           406
+  § 33. Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattermole.                      406
+  § 34. Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of
+          light, and offensive if otherwise.                           407
+  § 35. Conclusion. Works of J. Linnel and S. Palmer.                  407
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--General remarks respecting the Truth of Turner.
+
+  §  1. No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural
+          truth.                                                       409
+  §  2. Extreme difficulty of illustrating or explaining the highest
+          truth.                                                       410
+  §  3. The _positive_ rank of Turner is in no degree shown in the
+          foregoing pages, but only his relative rank.                 410
+  §  4. The exceeding refinement of his truth.                         411
+  §  5. There is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without
+          knowledge.                                                   411
+  §  6. And nothing which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy.       412
+  §  7. His former rank and progress.                                  412
+  §  8. Standing of his present works. Their mystery is the
+          consequence of their fulness.                                413
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Conclusion.--Modern Art and Modern Criticism.
+
+  §  1. The entire prominence hitherto given to the works of one
+          artist caused only by our not being able to take
+          cognizance of _character_.                                   414
+  §  2. The feelings of different artists are incapable of full
+          comparison.                                                  415
+  §  3. But the fidelity and truth of each are capable of real
+          comparison.                                                  415
+  §  4. Especially because they are equally manifested in the
+          treatment of all subjects.                                   415
+  §  5. No man draws one thing well, if he can draw nothing else.      416
+  §  6. General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation. 417
+  §  7. Truth, a standard of all excellence.                           417
+  §  8. Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste.               418
+  §  9. Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment.              418
+  § 10. Duty of the press.                                             418
+  § 11. Qualifications necessary for discharging it.                   418
+  § 12. General incapability of modern critics.                        419
+  § 13. And inconsistency with themselves.                             419
+  § 14. How the press may really advance the cause of art.             420
+  § 15. Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works.       420
+  § 16. By which the public defraud themselves.                        421
+  § 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves.            421
+  § 18. Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly.                 421
+  § 19. _Sketches_ not sufficiently encouraged.                        422
+  § 20. Brilliancy of execution or efforts at invention not to be
+          tolerated in young artists.                                  422
+  § 21. The duty and after privileges of all students.                 423
+  § 22. Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of aim. 423
+  § 23. What should be their general aim.                              425
+  § 24. Duty of the press with respect to the works of Turner.         427
+
+
+
+
+                       LIST OF PLATES TO VOLUME I.
+
+                                                                   _Page._
+
+  Casa Contarini Fasan, Venice                                         110
+                       From a drawing by Ruskin.
+
+  The Dogana, and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice                     136
+                       From a painting by Turner.
+
+  Okehampton Castle                                                    258
+                       From a painting by Turner.
+
+  Port Ruysdael                                                        376
+                       From a painting by Turner.
+
+
+
+
+                             MODERN PAINTERS.
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART I
+
+                         OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
+
+                               SECTION I.
+
+              OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                             INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+§ 1. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long
+       periods of time.
+
+If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing has been
+for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing in a
+high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is not because the
+average intellect and feeling of the majority of the public are
+competent in any way to distinguish what is really excellent, but
+because all erroneous opinion is inconsistent, and all ungrounded
+opinion transitory; so that while the fancies and feelings which deny
+deserved honor and award what is undue have neither root nor strength
+sufficient to maintain consistent testimony for a length of time, the
+opinions formed on right grounds by those few who are in reality
+competent judges, being necessarily stable, communicate themselves
+gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend wider,
+until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by absolute authority, even
+where the grounds and reasons for them cannot be understood. On this
+gradual victory of what is consistent over what is vacillating, depends
+the reputation of all that is highest in art and literature. For It is
+an insult to what is really great in either, to suppose that it in any
+way addresses itself to mean or uncultivated faculties. It is a matter
+of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but
+by his equal or superior. His inferior may over-estimate him in
+enthusiasm; or, as is more commonly the case, degrade him, in ignorance;
+but he cannot form a grounded and just estimate. Without proving this,
+however--which it would take more space to do than I can spare--it is
+sufficiently evident that there is no process of amalgamation by which
+opinions, wrong individually, can become right merely by their
+multitude.[1] If I stand by a picture in the Academy, and hear twenty
+persons in succession admiring some paltry piece of mechanism or
+imitation in the lining of a cloak, or the satin of a slipper, it is
+absurd to tell me that they reprobate collectively what they admire
+individually: or, if they pass with apathy by a piece of the most noble
+conception or most perfect truth, because it has in it no tricks of the
+brush nor grimace of expression, it is absurd to tell me that they
+collectively respect what they separately scorn, or that the feelings
+and knowledge of such judges, by any length of time or comparison of
+ideas, could come to any right conclusion with respect to what is really
+high in art. The question is not decided by them, but for them;--decided
+at first by few: by fewer in proportion as the merits of the work are of
+a higher order. From these few the decision is communicated to the
+number next below them in rank of mind, and by these again to a wider
+and lower circle; each rank being so far cognizant of the superiority of
+that above it, as to receive its decision with respect; until, in
+process of time, the right and consistent opinion is communicated to
+all, and held by all as a matter of faith, the more positively in
+proportion as the grounds of it are less perceived.[2]
+
+
+§ 2. And therefore obstinate when once formed.
+
+§ 3. The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances.
+
+§ 4. But only on points capable of demonstration.
+
+But when this process has taken place, and the work has become sanctified
+by time in the minds of men, it is impossible that any new work of equal
+merit can be impartially compared with it, except by minds not only
+educated and generally capable of appreciating merit, but strong enough
+to shake off the weight of prejudice and association, which invariably
+incline them to the older favorite. It is much easier, says Barry, to
+repeat the character recorded of Phidias, than to investigate the merits
+of Agasias. And when, as peculiarly in the case of painting, much
+knowledge of what is technical and practical is necessary to a right
+judgment, so that those alone are competent to pronounce a true verdict
+who are themselves the persons to be judged, and who therefore can give
+no opinion, centuries may elapse before fair comparison can be made
+between two artists of different ages; while the patriarchal excellence
+exercises during the interval a tyrannical--perhaps, even a blighting,
+influence over the minds, both of the public and of those to whom,
+properly understood, it should serve for a guide and example. In no city
+of Europe where art is a subject of attention, are its prospects so
+hopeless, or its pursuits so resultless, as in Rome; because there, among
+all students, the authority of their predecessors in art is supreme and
+without appeal, and the mindless copyist studies Raffaelle, but not what
+Raffaelle studied. It thus becomes the duty of every one capable of
+demonstrating any definite points of superiority in modern art, and who
+is in a position in which his doing so will not be ungraceful, to
+encounter without hesitation whatever opprobrium may fall upon him from
+the necessary prejudice even of the most candid minds, and from the far
+more virulent opposition of those who have no hope of maintaining their
+own reputation for discernment but in the support of that kind of
+consecrated merit which may be applauded without an inconvenient
+necessity for reasons. It is my purpose, therefore, believing that there
+are certain points of superiority in modern artists, and especially in
+one or two of their number, which have not yet been fully understood,
+except by those who are scarcely in a position admitting the declaration
+of their conviction, to institute a close comparison between the great
+works of ancient and modern landscape art, to raise, as far as possible,
+the deceptive veil of imaginary light through which we are accustomed to
+gaze upon the patriarchal work, and to show the real relations, whether
+favorable or otherwise, subsisting between it and our own. I am fully
+aware that this is not to be done lightly or rashly; that it is the part
+of every one proposing to undertake such a task strictly to examine, with
+prolonged doubt and severe trial, every opinion in any way contrary to
+the sacred verdict of time, and to advance nothing which does not, at
+least in his own conviction, rest on surer ground than mere feeling or
+taste. I have accordingly advanced nothing in the following pages but
+with accompanying demonstration, which may indeed be true or
+false--complete or conditional, but which can only be met on its own
+grounds, and can in no way be borne down or affected by mere authority of
+great names. Yet even thus I should scarcely have ventured to speak so
+decidedly as I have, but for my full conviction that we ought not to
+class the historical painters of the fifteenth, and landscape painters of
+the seventeenth, centuries, together, under the general title of "old
+masters," as if they possessed anything like corresponding rank in their
+respective walks of art. I feel assured that the principles on which they
+worked are totally opposed, and that the landscape painters have been
+honored only because they exhibited in mechanical and technical qualities
+some semblance of the manner of the nobler historical painters, whose
+principles of conception and composition they entirely reversed. The
+course of study which has led me reverently to the feet of Michael Angelo
+and Da Vinci, has alienated me gradually from Claude and Gaspar--I cannot
+at the same time do homage to power and pettiness--to the truth of
+consummate science, and the mannerism of undisciplined imagination. And
+let it be understood that whenever hereafter I speak depreciatingly of
+the old masters as a body, I refer to none of the historical painters,
+for whom I entertain a veneration, which though I hope reasonable in its
+grounds, is almost superstitious in degree. Neither, unless he be
+particularly mentioned, do I intend to include Nicholas Poussin, whose
+landscapes have a separate and elevated character, which renders it
+necessary to consider them apart from all others. Speaking generally of
+the older masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa,
+Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers, (in his landscapes,) P.
+Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van somethings, and Back somethings,
+more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea.
+
+It will of course be necessary for me in the commencement of the work to
+state briefly those principles on which I conceive all right judgment of
+art must be founded. These introductory chapters I should wish to be
+read carefully, because all criticism must be useless when the terms or
+grounds of it are in any degree ambiguous; and the ordinary language of
+connoisseurs and critics, granting that they understand it themselves,
+is usually mere jargon to others, from their custom of using technical
+terms, by which everything is meant, and nothing is expressed.
+
+
+§ 5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable.
+
+And if, in the application of these principles, in spite of my endeavor
+to render it impartial, the feeling and fondness which I have for some
+works of modern art escape me sometimes where it should not, let it be
+pardoned as little more than a fair counterbalance to that peculiar
+veneration with which the work of the older master, associated as it has
+ever been in our ears with the expression of whatever is great or
+perfect, must be usually regarded by the reader. I do not say that this
+veneration is wrong, nor that we should be less attentive to the
+repeated words of time: but let us not forget, that if honor be for the
+dead, gratitude can only be for the living. He who has once stood beside
+the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever
+closed, feeling how impotent _there_ are the wild love, or the keen
+sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone
+in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness,
+will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart, which can
+only be discharged to the dust. But the lesson which men receive as
+individuals, they do not learn as nations. Again and again they have
+seen their noblest descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to
+garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow, and to pay the
+honor to the ashes, which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not
+displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of
+their busy life, to listen for the few voices, and watch for the few
+lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that
+they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by
+their decay.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [1] The opinion of a majority is right only when it is more probable
+    with each individual that he should be right than that he should be
+    wrong, as in the case of a jury. Where it is more probable, with
+    respect to each individual, that he should be wrong than right, the
+    opinion of the minority is the true one. Thus it is in art.
+
+  [2] There are, however, a thousand modifying circumstances which
+    render this process sometimes unnecessary,--sometimes rapid and
+    certain--sometimes impossible. It is unnecessary in rhetoric and the
+    drama, because the multitude is the only proper judge of those arts
+    whose end is to move the multitude (though more is necessary to a
+    fine play than is essentially dramatic, and it is only of the
+    dramatic part that the multitude are cognizant). It is unnecessary,
+    when, united with the higher qualities of a work, there are appeals
+    to universal passion, to all the faculties and feelings which are
+    general in man as an animal. The popularity is then as sudden as it
+    is well grounded,--it is hearty and honest in every mind, but it is
+    based in every mind on a different species of excellence. Such will
+    often be the case with the noblest works of literature. Take Don
+    Quixote for example. The lowest mind would find in it perpetual and
+    brutal amusement in the misfortunes of the knight, and perpetual
+    pleasure in sympathy with the squire. A mind of average feeling
+    would perceive the satirical meaning and force of the book, would
+    appreciate its wit, its elegance, and its truth. But only elevated
+    and peculiar minds discover, in addition to all this, the full moral
+    beauty of the love and truth which are the constant associates of
+    all that is even most weak and erring in the character of its hero,
+    and pass over the rude adventure and scurrile jest in haste--perhaps
+    in pain, to penetrate beneath the rusty corselet, and catch from the
+    wandering glance the evidence and expression of fortitude,
+    self-devotion, and universal love. So, again, with the works of
+    Scott and Byron; popularity was as instant as it was deserved,
+    because there is in them an appeal to those passions which are
+    universal in all men, as well as an expression of such thoughts as
+    can be received only by the few. But they are admired by the
+    majority of their advocates for the weakest parts of their works, as
+    a popular preacher by the majority of his congregation for the worst
+    part of his sermon.
+
+    The process is rapid and certain, when, though there may be little
+    to catch the multitude at once, there is much which they can enjoy
+    when their attention is authoritatively directed to it. So rests the
+    reputation of Shakspeare. No ordinary mind can comprehend wherein
+    his undisputed superiority consists, but there is yet quite as much
+    to amuse, thrill, or excite,--quite as much of what is, in the
+    strict sense of the word, dramatic, in his works as in any one
+    else's. They were received, therefore, when first written, with
+    average approval, as works of common merit: but when the high
+    decision was made, and the circle spread, the public took up the hue
+    and cry conscientiously enough. Let them have daggers, ghosts,
+    clowns, and kings, and with such real and definite sources of
+    enjoyment, they will take the additional trouble to learn half a
+    dozen quotations, without understanding them, and admit the
+    superiority of Shakspeare without further demur. Nothing, perhaps,
+    can more completely demonstrate the total ignorance of the public of
+    all that is great or valuable in Shakspeare than their universal
+    admiration of Maclise's Hamlet.
+
+    The process is impossible when there is in the work nothing to
+    attract and something to disgust the vulgar mind. Neither their
+    intrinsic excellence, nor the authority of those who can judge of
+    it, will ever make the poems of Wordsworth or George Herbert
+    popular, in the sense in which Scott and Byron are popular, because
+    it is to the vulgar a labor instead of a pleasure to read them; and
+    there are parts in them which to such judges cannot but be vapid or
+    ridiculous. Most works of the highest art,--those of Raffaelle, M.
+    Angelo, or Da Vinci,--stand as Shakspeare does,--that which is
+    commonplace and feeble in their excellence being taken for its
+    essence by the uneducated, imagination assisting the impression,
+    (for we readily fancy that we feel, when feeling is a matter of
+    pride or conscience,) and affectation and pretension increasing the
+    noise of the rapture, if not its degree. Giotto, Orgagna, Angelico,
+    Perugino, stand, like George Herbert, only with the few. Wilkie
+    becomes popular, like Scott, because he touches passions which all
+    feel, and expresses truths which all can recognize.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                       DEFINITION OF GREATNESS IN ART.
+
+
+§ 1. Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and technical
+       knowledge.
+
+In the 15th Lecture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, incidental notice is taken
+of the distinction between those excellences in the painter which belong
+to him _as such_, and those which belong to him in common with all men
+of intellect, the general and exalted powers of which art is the
+evidence and expression, not the subject. But the distinction is not
+there dwelt upon as it should be, for it is owing to the slight
+attention ordinarily paid to it, that criticism is open to every form of
+coxcombry, and liable to every phase of error. It is a distinction on
+which depend all sound judgment of the rank of the artist, and all just
+appreciation of the dignity of art.
+
+
+§ 2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language.
+
+Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its technicalities,
+difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive
+language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing.
+He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of
+painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object
+faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts
+are to be expressed. He has done just as much towards being that which
+we ought to respect as a great painter, as a man who has learned how to
+express himself grammatically and melodiously has towards being a great
+poet. The language is, indeed, more difficult of acquirement in the one
+case than in the other, and possesses more power of delighting the
+sense, while it speaks to the intellect, but it is, nevertheless,
+nothing more than language, and all those excellences which are peculiar
+to the painter as such, are merely what rhythm, melody, precision and
+force are in the words of the orator and the poet, necessary to their
+greatness, but not the tests of their greatness. It is not by the mode
+of representing and saying, but by what is represented and said, that
+the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be
+finally determined.
+
+
+§ 3. "Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier."
+
+Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we should call a man a great
+painter only as he excelled in precision and force in the language of
+lines, and a great versifier, as he excelled in precision or force in
+the language of words. A great poet would then be a term strictly, and
+in precisely the same sense applicable to both, if warranted by the
+character of the images or thoughts which each in their respective
+languages convey.
+
+
+§ 4. Example in a painting of E. Landseer's.
+
+Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the
+words as synonymous) which modern times have seen:--the "Old Shepherd's
+Chief-mourner." Here the exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp
+hair of the dog, the bright sharp touching of the green bough beside it,
+the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the
+blanket, are language--language clear and expressive in the highest
+degree. But the close pressure of the dog's breast against the wood, the
+convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the
+trestle, the total powerlessness of the head laid, close and motionless,
+upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter
+hopelessness, the rigidity of repose which marks that there has been no
+motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck
+on the coffin-lid, the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the
+spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating
+how lonely has been the life--how unwatched the departure of him who is
+now laid solitary in his sleep;--these are all thoughts--thoughts by
+which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as
+far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, and
+stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or
+the fold of a drapery, but as the Man of Mind.
+
+
+§ 5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought.
+
+It is not, however, always easy, either in painting or literature, to
+determine where the influence of language stops, and where that of
+thought begins. Many thoughts are so dependent upon the language in
+which they are clothed, that they would lose half their beauty if
+otherwise expressed. But the highest thoughts are those which are least
+dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to
+which it is entitled, are in exact proportion to its independency of
+language or expression. A composition is indeed usually most perfect,
+when to such intrinsic dignity is added all that expression can do to
+attract and adorn; but in every case of supreme excellence this all
+becomes as nothing. We are more gratified by the simplest lines or words
+which can suggest the idea in its own naked beauty, than by the robe or
+the gem which conceal while they decorate; we are better pleased to feel
+by their absence how little they would bestow, than by their presence
+how much they can destroy.
+
+
+§ 6. Distinction between decorative and expressive language.
+
+There is therefore a distinction to be made between what is ornamental
+in language and what is expressive. That part of it which is necessary
+to the embodying and conveying the thought is worthy of respect and
+attention as necessary to excellence, though not the test of it. But
+that part of it which is decorative has little more to do with the
+intrinsic excellence of the picture than the frame or the varnishing of
+it. And this caution in distinguishing between the ornamental and the
+expressive is peculiarly necessary in painting; for in the language of
+words it is nearly impossible for that which is not expressive to be
+beautiful, except by mere rhythm or melody, any sacrifice to which is
+immediately stigmatized as error. But the beauty of mere language in
+painting is not only very attractive and entertaining to the spectator,
+but requires for its attainment no small exertion of mind and devotion
+of time by the artist. Hence, in art, men have frequently fancied that
+they were becoming rhetoricians and poets when they were only learning
+to speak melodiously, and the judge has over and over again advanced to
+the honor of authors those who were never more than ornamental
+writing-masters.
+
+
+§ 7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools.
+
+Most pictures of the Dutch school, for instance, and excepting always
+those of Rubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt, are ostentatious exhibitions of
+the artist's power of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of
+useless and senseless words: while the early efforts of Cimabue and
+Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the
+stammering lips of infants. It is not by ranking the former as more than
+mechanics, or the latter as less than artists, that the taste of the
+multitude, always awake to the lowest pleasures which art can bestow,
+and blunt to the highest, is to be formed or elevated. It must be the
+part of the judicious critic carefully to distinguish what is language,
+and what is thought, and to rank and praise pictures chiefly for the
+latter, considering the former as a totally inferior excellence, and one
+which cannot be compared with nor weighed against thought in any way nor
+in any degree whatsoever. The picture which has the nobler and more
+numerous ideas, however awkwardly expressed, is a greater and a better
+picture than that which has the less noble and less numerous ideas,
+however beautifully expressed. No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of
+execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought. Three
+penstrokes of Raffaelle are a greater and a better picture than the most
+finished work that ever Carlo Dolci polished into inanity. A finished
+work of a great artist is only better than its sketch, if the sources of
+pleasure belonging to color and realization--valuable in
+themselves,--are so employed as to increase the impressiveness of the
+thought. But if one atom of thought has vanished, all color, all finish,
+all execution, all ornament, are too dearly bought. Nothing but thought
+can pay for thought, and the instant that the increasing refinement or
+finish of the picture begins to be paid for by the loss of the faintest
+shadow of an idea, that instant all refinement or finish is an
+excrescence, and a deformity.
+
+
+§ 8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself.
+
+§ 9. The definition.
+
+Yet although in all our speculations on art, language is thus to be
+distinguished from, and held subordinate to, that which it conveys, we
+must still remember that there are certain ideas inherent in language
+itself, and that strictly speaking, every pleasure connected with art
+has in it some reference to the intellect. The mere sensual pleasure of
+the eye, received from the most brilliant piece of coloring, is as
+nothing to that which it receives from a crystal prism, except as it
+depends on our perception of a certain meaning and intended arrangement
+of color, which has been the subject of intellect. Nay, the term idea,
+according to Locke's definition of it, will extend even to the sensual
+impressions themselves as far as they are "things which the mind
+occupies itself about in thinking," that is, not as they are felt by the
+eye only, but as they are received by the mind through the eye. So that,
+if I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of
+the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a
+definition which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure
+which art is capable of conveying. If I were to say, on the contrary,
+that the best picture was that which most closely imitated nature, I
+should assume that art could only please by imitating nature, and I
+should cast out of the pale of criticism those parts of works of art
+which are not imitative, that is to say, intrinsic beauties of color and
+form, and those works of art wholly, which, like the arabesques of
+Raffaelle in the Loggias, are not imitative at all. Now I want a
+definition of art wide enough to include all its varieties of aim: I do
+not say therefore that the art is greatest which gives most pleasure,
+because perhaps there is some art whose end is to teach, and not to
+please. I do not say that the art is greatest which teaches us most,
+because perhaps there is some art whose end is to please, and not to
+teach. I do not say that the art is greatest which imitates best,
+because perhaps there is some art whose end is to create, and not to
+imitate. But I say that the art is greatest, which conveys to the mind
+of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the
+greatest ideas, and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received
+by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in
+occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received.
+
+If this then be the definition of great art, that of a great artist
+naturally follows. He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the
+sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER III.
+
+                        OF IDEAS OF POWER.
+
+
+The definition of art which I have just given, requires me to determine
+what kinds of ideas can be received from works of art, and which of
+these are the greatest, before proceeding to any practical application
+of the test.
+
+
+§ 1. What classes of ideas are conveyable by art.
+
+I think that all the sources of pleasure, or any other good, to be
+derived from works of art, may be referred to five distinct heads.
+
+    I. Ideas of Power.--The perception or conception of the mental or
+         bodily powers by which the work has been produced.
+
+   II. Ideas of Imitation.--The perception that the thing produced
+         resembles something else.
+
+  III. Ideas of Truth.--The perception of faithfulness in a statement
+         of facts by the thing produced.
+
+   IV. Ideas of Beauty.--The perception of beauty, either in the thing
+         produced, or in what it suggests or resembles.
+
+    V. Ideas of Relation.--The perception of intellectual relations, in
+         the thing produced, or in what it suggests or resembles.
+
+I shall briefly distinguish the nature and effects of each of these
+classes of ideas.
+
+
+§ 2. Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity.
+
+I. Ideas of Power.--These are the simple perception of the mental or
+bodily powers exerted in the production of any work of art. According to
+the dignity and degree of the power perceived is the dignity of the
+idea; but the whole class of ideas is received by the intellect, and
+they excite the best of the moral feelings, veneration, and the desire
+of exertion. As a species, therefore, they are one of the noblest
+connected with art; but the differences in degree of dignity among
+themselves are infinite, being correspondent with every order of
+power,--from that of the fingers to that of the most exalted intellect.
+Thus, when we see an Indian's paddle carved from the handle to the
+blade, we have a conception of prolonged manual labor, and are gratified
+in proportion to the supposed expenditure of time and exertion. These
+are, indeed, powers of a low order, yet the pleasure arising from the
+conception of them enters very largely indeed into our admiration of all
+elaborate ornament, architectural decoration, etc. The delight with
+which we look on the fretted front of Rouen Cathedral depends in no
+small degree on the simple perception of time employed and labor
+expended in its production. But it is a right, that is, an ennobling
+pleasure, even in this its lowest phase; and even the pleasure felt by
+those persons who praise a drawing for its "finish," or its "work,"
+which is one precisely of the same kind, would be right, if it did not
+imply a want of perception of the higher powers which render work
+unnecessary. If to the evidence of labor be added that of strength or
+dexterity, the sensation of power is yet increased; if to strength and
+dexterity be added that of ingenuity and judgment, it is multiplied
+tenfold, and so on, through all the subjects of action of body or mind,
+we receive the more exalted pleasure from the more exalted power.
+
+
+§ 3. But are received from whatever has been the subject of power. The
+       meaning of the word "excellence."
+
+So far the nature and effects of ideas of power cannot but be admitted
+by all. But the circumstance which I wish especially to insist upon,
+with respect to them, is one which may not, perhaps, be so readily
+allowed, namely, that they are independent of the nature or worthiness
+of the object from which they are received, and that whatever has been
+the subject of a great power, whether there be intrinsic and apparent
+worthiness in itself or not, bears with it the evidence of having been
+so, and is capable of giving the ideas of power, and the consequent
+pleasures, in their full degree. For observe, that a thing is not
+properly said to have been the result of a great power, on which only
+some part of that power has been expended. A nut may be cracked by a
+steam-engine, but it has not, in being so, been the subject of the power
+of the engine. And thus it is falsely said of great men, that they waste
+their lofty powers on unworthy objects: the object may be dangerous or
+useless, but, as far as the phrase has reference to difficulty of
+performance, it cannot be unworthy of the power which it brings into
+exertion, because nothing can become a subject of action to a greater
+power which can be accomplished by a less, any more than bodily strength
+can be exerted where there is nothing to resist it.
+
+So then, men may let their great powers lie dormant, while they employ
+their mean and petty powers on mean and petty objects; but it is
+physically impossible to employ a great power, except on a great object.
+Consequently, wherever power of any kind or degree has been exerted, the
+marks and evidence of it are stamped upon its results: it is impossible
+that it should be lost or wasted, or without record, even in the
+"estimation of a hair:" and therefore, whatever has been the subject of
+a great power bears about with it the image of that which created it,
+and is what is commonly called "excellent." And this is the true meaning
+of the word excellent, as distinguished from the terms, "beautiful,"
+"useful," "good," etc.; and we shall always, in future, use the word
+excellent, as signifying that the thing to which it is applied required
+a great power for its production.[3]
+
+
+§ 4. What is necessary to the distinguishing of excellence.
+
+The faculty of perceiving what powers are required for the production of
+a thing, is the faculty of perceiving excellence. It is this faculty in
+which men, even of the most cultivated taste, must always be wanting,
+unless they have added practice to reflection; because none can estimate
+the power manifested in victory, unless they have personally measured
+the strength to be overcome. Though, therefore, it is possible, by the
+cultivation of sensibility and judgment, to become capable of
+distinguishing what is beautiful, it is totally impossible, without
+practice and knowledge, to distinguish or feel what is excellent. The
+beauty or the truth of Titian's flesh-tint may be appreciated by all;
+but it is only to the artist, whose multiplied hours of toil have not
+reached the slightest resemblance of one of its tones, that its
+_excellence_ is manifest.
+
+
+§ 5. The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right.
+
+Wherever, then, difficulty has been overcome, there is excellence: and
+therefore, in order to prove excellent, we have only to prove the
+difficulty of its production: whether it be useful or beautiful is
+another question; its excellence depends on its difficulty alone. For is
+it a false or diseased taste which looks for the overcoming of
+difficulties, and has pleasure in it, even without any view to resultant
+good. It has been made part of our moral nature that we should have a
+pleasure in encountering and conquering opposition, for the sake of the
+struggle and the victory, not for the sake of any after result; and not
+only our own victory, but the perception of that of another, is in all
+cases the source of pure and ennobling pleasure. And if we often hear it
+said, and truly said, that an artist has erred by seeking rather to show
+his skill in overcoming technical difficulties, than to reach a great
+end, be it observed that he is only blamed because he has sought to
+conquer an inferior difficulty rather than a great one; for it is much
+easier to overcome technical difficulties than to reach a great end.
+Whenever the visible victory over difficulties is found painful or in
+false taste, it is owing to the preference of an inferior to a great
+difficulty, or to the false estimate of what is difficult and what is
+not. It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far
+more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper
+place, than to expend both indiscriminately. We shall find, in the
+course of our investigation, that beauty and difficulty go together; and
+that they are only mean and paltry difficulties which it is wrong or
+contemptible to wrestle with. Be it remembered then--Power is never
+wasted. Whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in
+proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of
+perceiving this exertion, and appreciating this dignity, is the faculty
+of perceiving excellence.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [3] Of course the word "excellent" is primarily a mere synonym with
+    "surpassing," and when applied to persons, has the general meaning
+    given by Johnson--"the state of abounding in any good quality." But
+    when applied to things it has always reference to the power by which
+    they are produced. We talk of excellent music or poetry, because it
+    is difficult to compose or write such, but never of excellent
+    flowers, because all flowers being the result of the same power,
+    must be equally excellent. We distinguish them only as beautiful or
+    useful, and therefore, as there is no other one word to signify that
+    quality of a thing produced by which it pleases us merely as the
+    result of power, and as the term "excellent" is more frequently used
+    in this sense than in any other, I choose to limit it at once to
+    this sense, and I wish it, when I use it in future, to be so
+    understood.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+                           OF IDEAS OF IMITATION.
+
+
+§ 1. False use of the term "imitation" by many writers of art.
+
+Fuseli, in his lectures, and many other persons of equally just and
+accurate habits of thought, (among others, S. T. Coleridge,) make a
+distinction between imitation and copying, representing the first as the
+legitimate function of art--the latter as its corruption; but as such a
+distinction is by no means warranted, or explained by the common meaning
+of the words themselves, it is not easy to comprehend exactly in what
+sense they are used by those writers. And though, reasoning from the
+context, I can understand what ideas those words stand for in their
+minds, I cannot allow the terms to be properly used as symbols of those
+ideas, which (especially in the case of the word Imitation) are
+exceedingly complex, and totally different from what most people would
+understand by the term. And by men of less accurate thought, the word is
+used still more vaguely or falsely. For instance, Burke (Treatise on the
+Sublime, part i. sect. 16) says, "When the object represented in poetry
+or painting is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality,
+then we may be sure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the
+power of _imitation_." In which case the real pleasure may be in what we
+have been just speaking of, the dexterity of the artist's hand; or it
+may be in a beautiful or singular arrangement of colors, or a thoughtful
+chiaroscuro, or in the pure beauty of certain forms which art forces on
+our notice, though we should not have observed them in the reality; and
+I conceive that none of these sources of pleasure are in any way
+expressed or intimated by the term "imitation."
+
+But there is one source of pleasure in works of art totally different
+from all these, which I conceive to be properly and accurately expressed
+by the word "imitation:" one which, though constantly confused in
+reasoning, because it is always associated in fact, with other means of
+pleasure, is totally separated from them in its nature, and is the real
+basis of whatever complicated or various meaning may be afterwards
+attached to the word in the minds of men.
+
+
+§ 2. Real meaning of the term.
+
+§ 3. What is requisite to the sense of imitation.
+
+I wish to point out this distinct source of pleasure clearly at once,
+and only to use the word "imitation" in reference to it. Whenever
+anything looks like what it is not, the resemblance being so great as
+_nearly_ to deceive, we feel a kind of pleasurable surprise, an
+agreeable excitement of mind, exactly the same in its nature as that
+which we receive from juggling. Whenever we perceive this in something
+produced by art, that is to say, whenever the work is seen to resemble
+something which we know it is not, we receive what I call an idea of
+imitation. _Why_ such ideas are pleasing, it would be out of our present
+purpose to inquire; we only know that there is no man who does not feel
+pleasure in his animal nature from gentle surprise, and that such
+surprise can be excited in no more distinct manner than by the evidence
+that a thing is not what it appears to be.[4] Now two things are
+requisite to our complete and more pleasurable perception of this:
+first, that the resemblance be so perfect as to amount to a deception;
+secondly, that there be some means of proving at the same moment that it
+_is_ a deception. The most perfect ideas and pleasures of imitation are,
+therefore, when one sense is contradicted by another, both bearing as
+positive evidence on the subject as each is capable of alone; as when
+the eye says a thing is round, and the finger says it is flat; they are,
+therefore, never felt in so high a degree as in painting, where
+appearance of projection, roughness, hair, velvet, etc., are given with
+a smooth surface, or in wax-work, where the first evidence of the senses
+is perpetually contradicted by their experience; but the moment we come
+to marble, our definition checks us, for a marble figure does not look
+like what it is not: it looks like marble, and like the form of a man,
+but then it _is_ marble, and it _is_ the form of a man. It does not look
+like a man, which it is not, but like the form of a man, which it is.
+Form is form, _bona fide_ and actual, whether in marble or in
+flesh--not an imitation or resemblance of form, but real form. The chalk
+outline of the bough of a tree on paper, is not an imitation; it looks
+like chalk and paper--not like wood, and that which it suggests to the
+mind is not properly said to be _like_ the form of a bough, it _is_ the
+form of a bough. Now, then, we see the limits of an idea of imitation;
+it extends only to the sensation of trickery and deception occasioned by
+a thing's intentionally seeming different from what it is; and the
+degree of the pleasure depends on the degree of difference and the
+perfection of the resemblance, not on the nature of the thing resembled.
+The simple pleasure in the imitation would be precisely of the same
+degree, (if the accuracy could be equal,) whether the subject of it were
+the hero or his horse. There are other collateral sources of pleasure,
+which are necessarily associated with this, but that part of the
+pleasure which depends on the imitation is the same in both.
+
+
+§ 4. The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible that
+       can be derived from art.
+
+Ideas of imitation, then, act by producing the simple pleasure of
+surprise, and that not of surprise in its higher sense and function, but
+of the mean and paltry surprise which is felt in jugglery. These ideas
+and pleasures are the most contemptible which can be received from art;
+first, because it is necessary to their enjoyment that the mind should
+reject the impression and address of the thing represented, and fix
+itself only upon the reflection that it is not what it seems to be. All
+high or noble emotion or thought are thus rendered physically
+impossible, while the mind exults in what is very like a strictly
+sensual pleasure. We may consider tears as a result of agony or of art,
+whichever we please, but not of both at the same moment. If we are
+surprised by them as an attainment of the one, it is impossible we can
+be moved by them as a sign of the other.
+
+
+§ 5. Imitation is only of contemptible subjects.
+
+Ideas of imitation are contemptible in the second place, because not
+only do they preclude the spectator from enjoying inherent beauty in the
+subject, but they can only be received from mean and paltry subjects,
+because it is impossible to imitate anything really great. We can "paint
+a cat or a fiddle, so that they look as if we could take them up;" but
+we cannot imitate the ocean, or the Alps. We can imitate fruit, but not
+a tree; flowers, but not a pasture; cut-glass, but not the rainbow. All
+pictures in which deceptive powers of imitation are displayed are
+therefore either of contemptible subjects, or have the imitation shown
+in contemptible parts of them, bits of dress, jewels, furniture, etc.
+
+
+§ 6. Imitation is contemptible because it is easy.
+
+Thirdly, these ideas are contemptible, because no ideas of power are
+associated with them; to the ignorant, imitation, indeed, seems
+difficult, and its success praiseworthy, but even they can by no
+possibility see more in the artist than they do in a juggler, who
+arrives at a strange end by means with which they are unacquainted. To
+the instructed, the juggler is by far the more respectable artist of the
+two, for they know sleight of hand to be an art of immensely more
+difficult acquirement, and to imply more ingenuity in the artist than a
+power of deceptive imitation in painting, which requires nothing more
+for its attainment than a true eye, a steady hand, and moderate
+industry--qualities which in no degree separate the imitative artist
+from a watch-maker, pin-maker, or any other neat-handed artificer. These
+remarks do not apply to the art of the Diorama, or the stage, where the
+pleasure is not dependent on the imitation, but is the same which we
+should receive from nature herself, only far inferior in degree. It is a
+noble pleasure; but we shall see in the course of our investigation,
+both that it is inferior to that which we receive when there is no
+deception at all, and why it is so.
+
+
+§ 7. Recapitulation.
+
+Whenever then in future, I speak of ideas of imitation, I wish to be
+understood to mean the immediate and present perception that something
+produced by art is not what it seems to be. I prefer saying "that it is
+not what it seems to be," to saying "that it seems to be what it is
+not," because we perceive at once what it seems to be, and the idea of
+imitation, and the consequent pleasure, result from the subsequent
+perception of its being something else--flat, for instance, when we
+thought it was round.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [4] [Greek: syllogismos ettig, hoti touto ekeino].--Arist. Rhet. 1,
+    11, 23.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+                             OF IDEAS OF TRUTH.
+
+The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement,
+either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature.
+
+
+§ 1. Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art.
+
+We receive an idea of truth, then, when we perceive the faithfulness of
+such a statement.
+
+The difference between ideas of truth and of imitation lies chiefly in
+the following points.
+
+
+§ 2. First difference between truth and imitation.
+
+First,--Imitation can only be of something material, but truth has
+reference to statements both of the qualities of material things, and of
+emotions, impressions, and thoughts. There is a moral as well as
+material truth,--a truth of impression as well as of form,--of thought
+as well as of matter; and the truth of impression and thought is a
+thousand times the more important of the two. Hence, truth is a term of
+universal application, but imitation is limited to that narrow field of
+art which takes cognizance only of material things.
+
+
+§ 3. Second difference.
+
+Secondly,--Truth may be stated by any signs or symbols which have a
+definite signification in the minds of those to whom they are addressed,
+although such signs be themselves no image nor likeness of anything.
+Whatever can excite in the mind the conception of certain facts, can
+give ideas of truth, though it be in no degree the imitation or
+resemblance of those facts. If there be--we do not say there is--but if
+there be in painting anything which operates, as words do, not by
+resembling anything, but by being taken as a symbol and substitute for
+it, and thus inducing the effect of it, then this channel of
+communication can convey uncorrupted truth, though it do not in any
+degree resemble the facts whose conception it induces. But ideas of
+imitation, of course, require the likeness of the object. They speak to
+the perceptive faculties only: truth to the conceptive.
+
+
+§ 4. Third difference.
+
+Thirdly,--And in consequence of what is above stated, an idea of truth
+exists in the statement of _one_ attribute of anything, but an idea of
+imitation requires the resemblance of as many attributes as we are
+usually cognizant of in its real presence. A pencil outline of the bough
+of a tree on white paper is a statement of a certain number of facts of
+form. It does not yet amount to the imitation of anything. The idea of
+that form is not given in nature by lines at all, still less by black
+lines with a white space between them. But those lines convey to the
+mind a distinct impression of a certain number of facts, which it
+recognizes as agreeable with its previous impressions of the bough of a
+tree; and it receives, therefore, an idea of truth. If, instead of two
+lines, we give a dark form with the brush, we convey information of a
+certain relation of shade between the bough and sky, recognizable for
+another idea of truth; but we have still no imitation, for the white
+paper is not the least like air, nor the black shadow like wood. It is
+not until after a certain number of ideas of truth have been collected
+together, that we arrive at an idea of imitation.
+
+
+§ 5. No accurate truths necessary to imitation.
+
+Hence it might at first sight appear, that an idea of imitation,
+inasmuch as several ideas of truth were united in it, was nobler than a
+simple idea of truth. And if it were necessary that the ideas of truth
+should be perfect, or should be subjects of contemplation _as such_, it
+would be so. But, observe, we require to produce the effect of imitation
+only so many and such ideas of truth as the _senses_ are usually
+cognizant of. Now the senses are not usually, nor unless they be
+especially devoted to the service, cognizant, with accuracy, of any
+truths but those of space and projection. It requires long study and
+attention before they give certain evidence of even the simplest truths
+of form. For instance, the quay on which the figure is sitting, with his
+hand at his eyes, in Claude's seaport, No. 14, in the National Gallery,
+is egregiously out of perspective. The eye of this artist, with all his
+study, had thus not acquired the power of taking cognizance of the
+apparent form even of a simple parallelopiped. How much less of the
+complicated forms of boughs, leaves, or limbs? Although, therefore,
+something resembling the real form is necessary to deception, this
+something is not to be called a _truth_ of form; for, strictly speaking,
+there are no degrees of truth, there are only degrees of approach to it;
+and an approach to it, whose feebleness and imperfection would instantly
+offend and give pain to a mind really capable of distinguishing truth,
+is yet quite sufficient for all the purposes of deceptive imagination.
+It is the same with regard to color. If we were to paint a tree
+sky-blue, or a dog rose-pink, the discernment of the public would be
+keen enough to discover the falsehood; but, so that there be just so
+much approach to truth of color as may come up to the common idea of it
+in men's minds, that is to say, if the trees be all bright green, and
+flesh unbroken buff, and ground unbroken brown, though all the real and
+refined truths of color be wholly omitted, or rather defied and
+contradicted, there is yet quite enough for all purposes of imitation.
+The only facts then, which we are usually and certainly cognizant of,
+are those of distance and projection, and if these be tolerably given,
+with something like truth of form and color to assist them, the idea of
+imitation is complete. I would undertake to paint an arm, with every
+muscle out of its place, and every bone of false form and dislocated
+articulation, and yet to observe certain coarse and broad resemblances
+of true outline, which, with careful shading, would induce deception,
+and draw down the praise and delight of the discerning public. The other
+day at Bruges, while I was endeavoring to set down in my note-book
+something of the ineffable expression of the Madonna in the cathedral, a
+French amateur came up to me, to inquire if I had seen the modern French
+pictures in a neighboring church. I had not, but felt little inclined to
+leave my marble for all the canvas that ever suffered from French
+brushes. My apathy was attacked with gradually increasing energy of
+praise. Rubens never executed--Titian never colored anything like them.
+I thought this highly probable, and still sat quiet. The voice continued
+at my ear. "Parbleu, Monsieur, Michel Ange n'a rien produit de plus
+beau!" "De plus _beau_?" repeated I, wishing to know what particular
+excellences of Michael Angelo were to be intimated by this expression.
+"Monsieur, on ne pent plus--c'est un tableau admirable--inconcevable:
+Monsieur," said the Frenchman, lifting up his hands to heaven, as he
+concentrated in one conclusive and overwhelming proposition the qualities
+which were to outshine Rubens and overpower Buonaroti--"Monsieur, IL
+SORT!"
+
+This gentleman could only perceive two truths--flesh color and
+projection. These constituted his notion of the perfection of painting;
+because they unite all that is necessary for deception. He was not
+therefore cognizant of many ideas of truth, though perfectly cognizant
+of ideas of imitation.
+
+
+§ 6. Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation.
+
+We shall see, in the course of our investigation of ideas of truth, that
+ideas of imitation not only do not imply their presence, but even are
+inconsistent with it; and that pictures which imitate so as to deceive,
+are never true. But this is not the place for the proof of this; at
+present we have only to insist on the last and greatest distinction
+between ideas of truth and of imitation--that the mind, in receiving one
+of the former, dwells upon its own conception of the fact, or form, or
+feeling stated, and is occupied only with the qualities and character of
+that fact or form, considering it as real and existing, being all the
+while totally regardless of the signs or symbols by which the notion of
+it has been conveyed. These signs have no pretence, nor hypocrisy, nor
+legerdemain about them;--there is nothing to be found out, or sifted, or
+surprised in them;--they bear their message simply and clearly, and it
+is that message which the mind takes from them and dwells upon,
+regardless of the language in which it is delivered. But the mind, in
+receiving an idea of imitation, is wholly occupied in finding out that
+what has been suggested to it is not what it appears to be: it does not
+dwell on the suggestion, but on the perception that it is a false
+suggestion: it derives its pleasure, not from the contemplation of a
+truth, but from the discovery of a falsehood. So that the moment ideas
+of truth are grouped together, so as to give rise to an idea of
+imitation, they change their very nature--lose their essence as ideas of
+truth--and are corrupted and degraded, so as to share in the treachery
+of what they have produced. Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the
+foundation, and ideas of imitation the destruction, of all art. We shall
+be better able to appreciate their relative dignity after the
+investigation which we propose of the functions of the former; but we
+may as well now express the conclusion to which we shall then be
+led--that no picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for
+the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VI.
+
+                             OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY.
+
+
+§ 1. Definition of the term "beautiful."
+
+Any material object which can give us pleasure in the simple
+contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct and definite
+exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, or in some degree,
+beautiful. Why we receive pleasure from some forms and colors, and not
+from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar
+and dislike wormwood. The utmost subtilty of investigation will only
+lead us to ultimate instincts and principles of human nature, for which
+no farther reason can be given than the simple will of the Deity that we
+should be so created. We may, indeed, perceive, as far as we are
+acquainted with His nature, that we have been so constructed as, when in
+a healthy and cultivated state of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever
+things are illustrative of that nature; but we do not receive pleasure
+from them _because_ they are illustrative of it, nor from any perception
+that they are illustrative of it, but instinctively and necessarily, as
+we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose. On these primary
+principles of our nature, education and accident operate to an unlimited
+extent; they may be cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted
+by right guidance with the most acute and faultless sense, or subjected
+by neglect to every phase of error and disease. He who has followed up
+these natural laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more
+authoritative by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always
+from that which God originally intended should give him pleasure, and
+who derives the greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object,
+is a man of taste.
+
+
+§ 2. Definition of the term "taste."
+
+This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect taste is
+the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those
+material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity
+and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these sources,
+wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false
+or bad taste.
+
+
+§ 3. Distinction between taste and judgment.
+
+And it is thus that the term "taste" is to be distinguished from that of
+"judgment," with which it is constantly confounded. Judgment is a
+general term, expressing definite action of the intellect, and
+applicable to every kind of subject which can be submitted to it. There
+may be judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, judgment of justice,
+and judgment of difficulty and excellence. But all these exertions of
+the intellect are totally distinct from taste, properly so called, which
+is the instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to
+another without any obvious reason, except that it is proper to human
+nature in its perfection so to do.
+
+
+§ 4. How far beauty may become intellectual.
+
+Observe, however, I do not mean by excluding direct exertion of the
+intellect from ideas of beauty, to assert that beauty has no effect upon
+nor connection with the intellect. All our moral feelings are so
+in-woven with our intellectual powers, that we cannot affect the one
+without in some degree addressing the other; and in all high ideas of
+beauty, it is more than probable that much of the pleasure depends on
+delicate and untraceable perceptions of fitness, propriety, and
+relation, which are purely intellectual, and through which we arrive at
+our noblest ideas of what is commonly and rightly called "intellectual
+beauty." But there is yet no immediate _exertion_ of the intellect; that
+is to say, if a person receiving even the noblest ideas of simple beauty
+be asked _why_ he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able to
+give any distinct reason, nor to trace in his mind any formed thought,
+to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. He will say that the
+thing gratifies, fills, hallows, exalts his mind, but he will not be
+able to say why, or how. If he can, and if he can show that he perceives
+in the object any expression of distinct thought, he has received more
+than an idea of beauty--it is an idea of relation.
+
+
+§ 5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty.
+
+Ideas of beauty are among the noblest which can be presented to the
+human mind, invariably exalting and purifying it according to their
+degree; and it would appear that we are intended by the Deity to be
+constantly under their influence, because there is not one single object
+in nature which is not capable of conveying them, and which, to the
+rightly perceiving mind, does not present an incalculably greater number
+of beautiful than of deformed parts; there being in fact scarcely
+anything, in pure, undiseased nature, like positive deformity, but only
+degrees of beauty, or such slight and rare points of permitted contrast
+as may render all around them more valuable by their opposition, spots
+of blackness in creation, to make its colors felt.
+
+
+§ 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."
+
+But although everything in nature is more or less beautiful, every
+species of object has its own kind and degree of beauty; some being in
+their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any,
+individuals possessing the utmost degree of beauty of which the species
+is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily
+coexistent with the utmost perfection of the object in other respects,
+is the ideal of the object.
+
+Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral, but
+not of intellectual perception. By the investigation of them we shall be
+led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VII.
+
+                            OF IDEAS OF RELATION.
+
+
+§ 1. General meaning of the term.
+
+I use this term rather as one of convenience than as adequately
+expressive of the vast class of ideas which I wish to be comprehended
+under it, namely, all those conveyable by art, which are the subjects of
+distinct intellectual perception and action, and which are therefore
+worthy of the name of thoughts. But as every thought, or definite
+exertion of intellect, implies two subjects, and some connection or
+relation inferred between them, the term "ideas of relation" is not
+incorrect, though it is inexpressive.
+
+
+§ 2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it.
+
+Under this head must be arranged everything productive of expression,
+sentiment, and character, whether in figures or landscapes, (for there
+may be as much definite expression and marked carrying out of particular
+thoughts in the treatment of inanimate as of animate nature,) everything
+relating to the conception of the subject and to the congruity and
+relation of its parts; not as they enhance each other's beauty by known
+and constant laws of composition, but as they give each other expression
+and meaning, by particular application, requiring distinct thought to
+discover or to enjoy: the choice, for instance, of a particular lurid or
+appalling light, to illustrate an incident in itself terrible, or of a
+particular tone of pure color to prepare the mind for the expression of
+refined and delicate feeling; and, in a still higher sense, the
+invention of such incidents and thoughts as can be expressed in words as
+well as on canvas, and are totally independent of any means of art but
+such as may serve for the bare suggestion of them. The principal object
+in the foreground of Turner's "Building of Carthage" is a group of
+children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as
+expressive of the ruling passion, which was to be the source of future
+greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming
+soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is
+seen,--it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a
+scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the
+intellect as much as the elaborate realizations of color. Such a thought
+as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest
+order. Claude, in subjects of the same kind, commonly introduces people
+carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and dwells, with infantine
+delight, on the lustre of the leather and the ornaments of the iron. The
+intellect can have no occupation here; we must look to the imitation or
+to nothing. Consequently, Turner rises above Claude in the very first
+instant of the conception of his picture, and acquires an intellectual
+superiority which no powers of the draughtsman or the artist (supposing
+that such existed in his antagonist) could ever wrest from him.
+
+
+§ 3. The exceeding nobility of these ideas.
+
+Such are the function and force of ideas of relation. They are what I
+have asserted in the second chapter of this section to be the noblest
+subjects of art. Dependent upon it only for expression, they cause all
+the rest of its complicated sources of pleasure to take, in comparison
+with them, the place of mere language or decoration; nay, even the
+noblest ideas of beauty sink at once beside these into subordination and
+subjection. It would add little to the influence of Landseer's picture
+above instanced, Chap. II., § 4, that the form of the dog should be
+conceived with every perfection of curve and color which its nature was
+capable of, and that the ideal lines should be carried out with the
+science of a Praxiteles; nay, the instant that the beauty so obtained
+interfered with the impression of agony and desolation, and drew the
+mind away from the feeling of the animal to its outward form, that
+instant would the picture become monstrous and degraded. The utmost
+glory of the human body is a mean subject of contemplation, compared to
+the emotion, exertion and character of that which animates it; the
+lustre of the limbs of the Aphrodite is faint beside that of the brow of
+the Madonna; and the divine form of the Greek god, except as it is the
+incarnation and expression of divine mind, is degraded beside the
+passion and the prophecy of the vaults of the Sistine.
+
+
+§ 4. Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary.
+
+Ideas of relation are of course, with respect to art generally, the most
+extensive as the most important source of pleasure; and if we proposed
+entering upon the criticism of historical works, it would be absurd to
+attempt to do so without further subdivision and arrangement. But the
+old landscape painters got over so much canvas without either exercise
+of, or appeal to, the intellect, that we shall be little troubled with
+the subject as far as they are concerned; and whatever subdivision we
+may adopt, as it will therefore have particular reference to the works
+of modern artists, will be better understood when we have obtained some
+knowledge of them in less important points.
+
+By the term "ideas of relation," then, I mean in future to express all
+those sources of pleasure, which involve and require, at the instant of
+their perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                                  OF POWER.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF POWER.
+
+
+§ 1. No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation.
+
+We have seen in the last section, what classes of ideas may be conveyed
+by art, and we have been able so far to appreciate their relative worth
+as to see, that from the list, as it is to be applied to the purposes of
+legitimate criticism, we may at once throw out the ideas of imitation;
+first, because, as we have shown, they are unworthy the pursuit of the
+artist; and secondly, because they are nothing more than the result of a
+particular association of ideas of truth. In examining the truth of art,
+therefore, we shall be compelled to take notice of those particular
+truths, whose association gives rise to the ideas of imitation. We shall
+then see more clearly the meanness of those truths, and we shall find
+ourselves able to use them as tests of vice in art, saying of a
+picture,--"It deceives, therefore it must be bad."
+
+
+§ 2. Nor for separate study of ideas of power.
+
+Ideas of power, in the same way, cannot be completely viewed as a
+separate class; not because they are mean or unimportant, but because
+they are almost always associated with, or dependent upon, some of the
+higher ideas of truth, beauty, or relation, rendered with decision or
+velocity. That power which delights us in the chalk sketch of a great
+painter is not one of the fingers, not like that of the writing-master,
+mere dexterity of hand. It is the accuracy and certainty of the
+knowledge, rendered evident by its rapid and fearless expression, which
+is the real source of pleasure; and so upon each difficulty of art,
+whether it be to know, or to relate, or to invent, the sensation of
+power is attendant, when we see that difficulty totally and swiftly
+vanquished. Hence, as we determine what is otherwise desirable in art,
+we shall gradually develop the sources of the ideas of power; and if
+there be anything difficult which is not otherwise desirable, it must be
+afterwards considered separately.
+
+
+§ 3. Except under one particular form.
+
+But it will be necessary at present to notice a particular form of the
+ideas of power, which is partially independent of knowledge of truth, or
+difficulty, and which is apt to corrupt the judgment of the critic, and
+debase the work of the artist. It is evident that the conception of
+power which we receive from a calculation of unseen difficulty, and an
+estimate of unseen strength, can never be so impressive as that which we
+receive from the present sensation or sight of the one resisting, and
+the other overwhelming. In the one case the power is imagined, and in
+the other felt.
+
+
+§ 4. There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly
+       inconsistent.
+
+There are thus two modes in which we receive the conception of power;
+one, the most just, when by a perfect knowledge of the difficulty to be
+overcome, and the means employed, we form a right estimate of the
+faculties exerted; the other, when without possessing such intimate and
+accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a sensation of power in visible
+action. If these two modes of receiving the impression agree in the
+result, and if the sensation be equal to the estimate, we receive the
+utmost possible idea of power. But this is the case perhaps with the
+works of only one man out of the whole circle of the fathers of art, of
+him to whom we have just referred, Michael Angelo. In others, the
+estimate and the sensation are constantly unequal, and often
+contradictory.
+
+
+§ 5. First reason of the inconsistency.
+
+The first reason of this inconsistency is, that in order to receive a
+_sensation_ of power, we must see it in operation. Its victory,
+therefore, must not be achieved, but achieving, and therefore imperfect.
+Thus we receive a greater sensation of power from the half-hewn limbs of
+the Twilight to the Day of the Cappella de' Medici, than even from the
+divine inebriety of the Bacchus in the gallery--greater from the life
+dashed out along the Friezes of the Parthenon, than from the polished
+limbs of the Apollo,--greater from the ink sketch of the head of
+Raffaelle's St. Catherine, than from the perfection of its realization.
+
+
+§ 6. Second reason for the inconsistency.
+
+Another reason of the inconsistency is, that the sensation of power is
+in proportion to the apparent inadequacy of the means to the end; so
+that the impression is much greater from a partial success attained with
+slight effort, than from perfect success attained with greater
+proportional effort. Now, in all art, every touch or effort does
+individually less in proportion as the work approaches perfection. The
+first five chalk touches bring a head into existence out of nothing. No
+five touches in the whole course of the work will ever do so much as
+these, and the difference made by each touch is more and more
+imperceptible as the work approaches completion. Consequently, the ratio
+between the means employed and the effect produced is constantly
+decreasing, and therefore the least sensation of power is received from
+the most perfect work.
+
+
+§ 7. The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art.
+
+It is thus evident that there are sensations of power about imperfect
+art, so that it be right art as far as it goes, which must always be
+wanting in its perfection; and that there are sources of pleasure in the
+hasty sketch and rough hewn block, which are partially wanting in the
+tinted canvas and the polished marble. But it is nevertheless wrong to
+prefer the sensation of power to the intellectual perception of it.
+There is in reality greater power in the completion than in the
+commencement; and though it be not so manifest to the senses, it ought
+to have higher influence on the mind; and therefore in praising pictures
+for the ideas of power they convey, we must not look to the keenest
+sensation, but to the highest estimate, accompanied with as much of the
+sensation as is compatible with it; and thus we shall consider those
+pictures as conveying the highest ideas of power which attain the most
+_perfect_ end with the slightest possible means; not, observe, those in
+which, though much has been done with little, all has not been done, but
+from the picture, in which _all_ has been done, and yet not a touch
+thrown away. The quantity of work in the sketch is necessarily less in
+proportion to the effect obtained than in the picture; but yet the
+picture involves the greater power, if out of all the additional labor
+bestowed on it, not a touch has been lost.
+
+
+§ 8. Instances in pictures of modern artists.
+
+For instance, there are few drawings of the present day that involve
+greater sensations of power than those of Frederick Tayler. Every dash
+tells, and the quantity of effect obtained is enormous, in proportion to
+the apparent means. But the effect obtained is not complete. Brilliant,
+beautiful, and right, as a sketch, the work is still far from
+perfection, as a drawing. On the contrary, there are few drawings of the
+present day that bear evidence of more labor bestowed, or more
+complicated means employed, than those of John Lewis. The result does
+not, at first, so much convey an impression of inherent power as of
+prolonged exertion; but the result is complete. Water-color drawing can
+be carried no farther; nothing has been left unfinished or untold. And
+on examination of the means employed, it is found and felt that not one
+touch out of the thousands employed has been thrown away;--that not one
+dot nor dash could be spared without loss of effect;--and that the
+exertion has been as swift as it has been prolonged--as bold as it has
+been persevering. The power involved in such a picture is of the highest
+order, and the enduring pleasure following on the estimate of it pure.
+
+
+§ 9. Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution.
+
+But there is still farther ground for caution in pursuing the sensation
+of power, connected with the particular characters and modes of
+execution. This we shall be better able to understand by briefly
+reviewing the various excellences which may belong to execution, and
+give pleasure in it; though the full determination of what is desirable
+in it, and the critical examination of the execution of different
+artists, must be deferred, as will be immediately seen, until we are
+more fully acquainted with the principles of truth.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+           OF IDEAS OF POWER, AS THEY ARE DEPENDENT UPON EXECUTION.
+
+
+§ 1. Meaning of the term "execution."
+
+By the term "execution," I understand the right mechanical use of the
+means of art to produce a given end.
+
+
+§ 2. The first quality of execution is truth.
+
+All qualities of execution, properly so called, are influenced by, and
+in a great degree dependent on, a far higher power than that of mere
+execution,--knowledge of truth. For exactly in proportion as an artist
+is certain of his end, will he be swift and simple in his means; and, as
+he is accurate and deep in his knowledge, will he be refined and precise
+in his touch. The first merit of manipulation, then, is that delicate
+and ceaseless expression of refined truth which is carried out to the
+last touch, and shadow of a touch, and which makes every hairsbreadth of
+importance, and every gradation full of meaning. It is not, properly
+speaking, execution; but it is the only source of difference between the
+execution of a commonplace and of a perfect artist. The lowest
+draughtsman, if he have spent the same time in handling the brush, may
+be equal to the highest in the other qualities of execution (in
+swiftness, simplicity, and decision;) but not in truth. It is in the
+perfection and precision of the instantaneous line that the claim to
+immortality is laid. And if this truth of truths be present, all the
+other qualities of execution may well be spared; and to those artists
+who wish to excuse their ignorance and inaccuracy by a species of
+execution which is a perpetual proclamation, "qu'ils n'ont demeuré qu'un
+quart d'heure a le faire," we may reply with the truthful Alceste,
+"Monsieur, le temps ne fait rien a l'affaire."
+
+
+§ 3. The second, simplicity.
+
+The second quality of execution is simplicity. The more unpretending,
+quiet, and retiring the means, the more impressive their effect. Any
+ostentation, brilliancy, or pretension of touch,--any exhibition of
+power or quickness, merely as such, above all, any attempt to render
+lines attractive at the expense of their meaning, is vice.
+
+
+§ 4. The third mystery.
+
+The third is mystery. Nature is always mysterious and secret in the use
+of her means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.
+That execution which is the most incomprehensible, and which therefore
+defies imitation, (other qualities being supposed alike,) is the best.
+
+
+§ 5. The fourth, inadequacy; and the fifth, decision.
+
+The fourth is inadequacy. The less sufficient the means appear to the
+end, the greater (as has been already noticed) will be the sensation of
+power.
+
+The fifth is decision: the appearance, that is, that whatever is done,
+has been done fearlessly and at once; because this gives us the
+impression that both the fact to be represented, and the means necessary
+to its representation, were perfectly known.
+
+
+§ 6. The sixth, velocity.
+
+The sixth is velocity. Not only is velocity, or the appearance of it,
+agreeable as decision is, because it gives ideas of power and knowledge;
+but of two touches, as nearly as possible the same in other respects,
+the quickest will invariably be the best. Truth being supposed equally
+present in the shape and direction of both, there will be more evenness,
+grace and variety, in the quick one than in the slow one. It will be
+more agreeable to the eye as a touch or line, and will possess more of
+the qualities of the lines of nature--gradation, uncertainty, and unity.
+
+
+§ 7. Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution.
+
+These six qualities are the only perfectly legitimate sources of
+pleasure in execution; but I might have added a seventh--strangeness,
+which in many cases is productive of a pleasure not altogether mean or
+degrading, though scarcely right. Supposing the other higher qualities
+first secured, it adds in no small degree to our impression of the
+artist's knowledge, if the means used be such as we should never have
+thought of, or should have thought adapted to a contrary effect. Let us,
+for instance, compare the execution of the bull's head in the left hand
+lowest corner of the Adoration of the Magi, in the Museum at Antwerp,
+with that in Berghem's landscape, No. 132 in the Dulwich Gallery. Rubens
+first scratches horizontally over his canvas a thin grayish brown,
+transparent and even, very much the color of light wainscot; the
+horizontal strokes of the bristles being left so evident, that the whole
+might be taken for an imitation of wood, were it not for its
+transparency. On this ground the eye, nostril, and outline of the cheek
+are given with two or three rude, brown touches, (about three or four
+minutes' work in all,) though the head is colossal. The background is
+then laid in with thick, solid, warm white, actually projecting all
+round the head, leaving it in dark intaglio. Finally, five thin and
+scratchy strokes of very cold bluish white are struck for the high light
+on the forehead and nose, and the head is complete. Seen within a yard
+of the canvas, it looks actually transparent--a flimsy, meaningless,
+distant shadow; while the background looks solid, projecting and near.
+From the right distance, (ten or twelve yards off, whence alone the
+whole of the picture can be seen,) it is a complete, rich, substantial,
+and living realization of the projecting head of the animal; while the
+background falls far behind. Now there is no slight nor mean pleasure in
+perceiving such a result attained by means so strange. By Berghem, on
+the other hand, a dark background is first laid in with exquisite
+delicacy and transparency, and on this the cow's head is actually
+modelled in luminous white, the separate locks of hair projecting from
+the canvas. No surprise, nor much pleasure of any kind, would be
+attendant on this execution, even were the result equally successful;
+and what little pleasure we had in it, vanishes, when on retiring from
+the picture, we find the head shining like a distant lantern, instead of
+substantial or near. Yet strangeness is not to be considered as a
+legitimate source of pleasure. That means which is most conducive to the
+end, should always be the most pleasurable; and that which is most
+conducive to the end, can be strange only to the ignorance of the
+spectator. This kind of pleasure is illegitimate, therefore, because it
+implies and requires, in those who feel it, ignorance of art.
+
+
+§ 8. Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are
+       inconsistent with each other.
+
+§ 9. And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the
+       lowest.
+
+§ 10. Therefore perilous.
+
+The legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are therefore truth,
+simplicity, mystery, inadequacy, decision, and velocity. But of these,
+be it observed, some are so far inconsistent with others, that they
+cannot be united in high degrees. Mystery with inadequacy, for
+instance; since to see that the means are inadequate, we must see what
+they are. Now the first three are the great qualities of execution, and
+the last three are the attractive ones, because on them are chiefly
+attendant the ideas of power. By the first three the attention is
+withdrawn from the means and fixed on the result: by the last three,
+withdrawn from the result and fixed on the means. To see that execution
+is swift or that it is decided, we must look away from its creation to
+observe it in the act of creating; we must think more of the pallet than
+of the picture, but simplicity and mystery compel the mind to leave the
+means and fix itself on the conception. Hence the danger of too great
+fondness for those sensations of power which are associated with the
+three last qualities of execution; for although it is most desirable
+that these should be present as far as they are consistent with the
+others, and though their visible absence is always painful and wrong,
+yet the moment the higher qualities are sacrificed to them in the least
+degree, we have a brilliant vice. Berghem and Salvator Rosa are good
+instances of vicious execution dependent on too great fondness for
+sensations of power, vicious because intrusive and attractive in itself,
+instead of being subordinate to its results and forgotten in them. There
+is perhaps no greater stumbling-block in the artist's way, than the
+tendency to sacrifice truth and simplicity to decision and velocity,[5]
+captivating qualities, easy of attainment, and sure to attract attention
+and praise, while the delicate degree of truth which is at first
+sacrificed to them is so totally unappreciable by the majority of
+spectators, so difficult of attainment to the artist, that it is no
+wonder that efforts so arduous and unrewarded should be abandoned. But
+if the temptation be once yielded to, its consequences are fatal; there
+is no pause in the fall. I could name a celebrated modern artist--once a
+man of the highest power and promise, who is a glaring instance of the
+peril of such a course. Misled by the undue popularity of his swift
+execution, he has sacrificed to it, first precision, and then truth, and
+her associate, beauty. What was first neglect of nature, has become
+contradiction of her; what was once imperfection, is now falsehood; and
+all that was meritorious in his manner, is becoming the worst, because
+the most attractive of vices; decision without a foundation, and
+swiftness without an end.
+
+
+§ 11. Recapitulation.
+
+Such are the principal modes in which the ideas of power may become a
+dangerous attraction to the artist--a false test to the critic. But in
+all cases where they lead us astray it will be found that the error is
+caused by our preferring victory over a small _apparent_ difficulty to
+victory over a great, but concealed one; and so that we keep this
+distinction constantly in view, (whether with reference to execution or
+to any other quality of art,) between the sensation and the intellectual
+estimate of power, we shall always find the ideas of power a just and
+high source of pleasure in every kind and grade of art.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [5] I have here noticed only noble vices, the sacrifices of one
+    excellence to another legitimate but inferior one. There are, on the
+    other hand, qualities of execution which are often sought for and
+    praised, though scarcely by the class of persons for whom I am
+    writing, in which everything is sacrificed to illegitimate and
+    contemptible sources of pleasure, and these are vice throughout, and
+    have no redeeming quality nor excusing aim. Such is that which is
+    often thought so desirable in the Drawing-master, under the title of
+    boldness, meaning that no touch is ever to be made less than the
+    tenth of an inch broad; such, on the other hand, the softness and
+    smoothness which are the great attraction of Carlo Dolci, and such
+    the exhibition of particular powers and tricks of the hand and
+    fingers, in total forgetfulness of any end whatsoever to be attained
+    thereby, which is especially characteristic of modern engraving.
+    Compare Sect. II. Chap. II. § 21. Note.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                               OF THE SUBLIME.
+
+It may perhaps be wondered that in the division we have made of our
+subject, we have taken no notice of the sublime in art, and that in our
+explanation of that division we have not once used the word.
+
+
+§ 1. Sublimity is the effect upon the mind of anything above it.
+
+The fact is, that sublimity is not a specific term,--not a term
+descriptive of the effect of a particular class of ideas. Anything which
+elevates the mind is sublime, and elevation of mind is produced by the
+contemplation of greatness of any kind; but chiefly, of course, by the
+greatness of the noblest things. Sublimity is, therefore, only another
+word for the effect of greatness upon the feelings. Greatness of matter,
+space, power, virtue, or beauty, are thus all sublime; and there is
+perhaps no desirable quality of a work of art, which in its perfection
+is not, in some way or degree, sublime.
+
+
+§ 2. Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and why.
+
+§ 3. Danger is sublime, but not the fear of it.
+
+§ 4. The highest beauty is sublime.
+
+§ 5. And generally whatever elevates the mind.
+
+I am fully prepared to allow of much ingenuity in Burke's theory of the
+sublime, as connected with self-preservation. There are few things so
+great as death; and there is perhaps nothing which banishes all
+littleness of thought and feeling in an equal degree with its
+contemplation. Everything, therefore, which in any way points to it,
+and, therefore, most dangers and powers over which we have little
+control, are in some degree sublime. But it is not the fear, observe,
+but the contemplation of death; not the instinctive shudder and struggle
+of self-preservation, but the deliberate measurement of the doom, which
+are really great or sublime in feeling. It is not while we shrink, but
+while we defy, that we receive or convey the highest conceptions of the
+fate. There is no sublimity in the agony of terror. Whether do we trace
+it most in the cry to the mountains, "fall on us," and to the hills,
+"cover us," or in the calmness of the prophecy--"And though after my
+skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God?" A little
+reflection will easily convince any one, that so far from the feelings
+of self-preservation being necessary to the sublime, their greatest
+action is totally destructive of it; and that there are few feelings
+less capable of its perception than those of a coward. But the simple
+conception or idea of greatness of suffering or extent of destruction is
+sublime, whether there be any connection of that idea with ourselves or
+not. If we were placed beyond the reach of all peril or pain, the
+perception of these agencies in their influence on others would not be
+less sublime, not because peril or pain are sublime in their own nature,
+but because their contemplation, exciting compassion or fortitude,
+elevates the mind, and renders meanness of thought impossible. Beauty is
+not so often felt to be sublime; because, in many kinds of purely
+material beauty there is some truth in Burke's assertion, that
+"littleness" is one of its elements. But he who has not felt that there
+may be beauty without littleness, and that such beauty is a source of
+the sublime, is yet ignorant of the meaning of the ideal in art. I do
+not mean, in tracing the source of the sublime to greatness, to hamper
+myself with any fine-spun theory. I take the widest possible ground of
+investigation, that sublimity is found wherever anything elevates the
+mind; that is, wherever it contemplates anything above itself, and
+perceives it to be so. This is the simple philological signification of
+the word derived from _sublimis_; and will serve us much more easily,
+and be a far clearer and more evident ground of argument, than any mere
+metaphysical or more limited definition, while the proof of its justness
+will be naturally developed by its application to the different branches
+of art.
+
+
+§ 6. The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient.
+
+As, therefore, the sublime is not distinct from what is beautiful, nor
+from other sources of pleasure in art, but is only a particular mode and
+manifestation of them, my subject will divide itself into the
+investigation of ideas of truth, beauty, and relation; and to each of
+these classes of ideas I destine a separate part of the work. The
+investigation of ideas of truth will enable us to determine the
+relative rank of artists as followers and historians of nature.
+
+That of ideas of beauty will lead us to compare them in their
+attainment, first of what is agreeable in technical matters, then in
+color and composition, finally and chiefly, in the purity of their
+conceptions of the ideal.
+
+And that of ideas of relation will lead us to compare them as
+originators of just thought.
+
+
+
+
+                                  PART II.
+
+                                 OF TRUTH.
+
+                                 SECTION I.
+
+                GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+  OF IDEAS OF TRUTH IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH THOSE OF BEAUTY AND RELATION.
+
+
+§ 1. The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation of
+       facts and thoughts.
+
+It cannot but be evident from the above division of the ideas conveyable
+by art, that the landscape painter must always have two great and
+distinct ends; the first, to induce in the spectator's mind the faithful
+conception of any natural objects whatsoever; the second, to guide the
+spectator's mind to those objects most worthy of its contemplation, and
+to inform him of the thoughts and feelings with which these were
+regarded by the artist himself.
+
+In attaining the first end, the painter only places the spectator where
+he stands himself; he sets him before the landscape and leaves him. The
+spectator is alone. He may follow out his own thoughts as he would in
+the natural solitude, or he may remain untouched, unreflecting and
+regardless, as his disposition may incline him. But he has nothing of
+thought given to him, no new ideas, no unknown feelings, forced on his
+attention or his heart. The artist is his conveyance, not his
+companion,--his horse, not his friend. But in attaining the second end,
+the artist not only _places_ the spectator, but _talks_ to him; makes
+him a sharer in his own strong feelings and quick thoughts; hurries him
+away in his own enthusiasm; guides him to all that is beautiful;
+snatches him from all that is base, and leaves him more than
+delighted,--ennobled and instructed, under the sense of having not only
+beheld a new scene, but of having held communion with a new mind, and
+having been endowed for a time with the keen perception and the
+impetuous emotion of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence.
+
+
+§ 2. They induce a different choice of material subjects.
+
+Each of these different aims of art will necessitate a different system
+of choice of objects to be represented. The first does not indeed imply
+choice at all, but it is usually united with the selection of such
+objects as may be naturally and constantly pleasing to all men, at all
+times; and this selection, when perfect and careful, leads to the
+attainment of the pure ideal. But the artist aiming at the second end,
+selects his objects for their meaning and character, rather than for
+their beauty; and uses them rather to throw light upon the particular
+thought he wishes to convey, than as in themselves objects of
+unconnected admiration.
+
+
+§ 3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition.
+
+Now, although the first mode of selection, when guided by deep
+reflection, may rise to the production of works possessing a noble and
+ceaseless influence on the human mind, it is likely to degenerate into,
+or rather, in nine cases out of ten, it never goes beyond, a mere appeal
+to such parts of our animal nature as are constant and common--shared by
+all, and perpetual in all; such, for instance, as the pleasure of the
+eye in the opposition of a cold and warm color, or of a massy form with
+a delicate one. It also tends to induce constant repetition of the same
+ideas, and reference to the same principles; it gives rise to those
+_rules_ of art which properly excited Reynolds's indignation when
+applied to its higher efforts; it is the source of, and the apology for,
+that host of technicalities and absurdities which in all ages have been
+the curse of art and the crown of the connoisseur.
+
+
+§ 4. The second necessitating variety.
+
+But art, in its second and highest aim, is not an appeal to constant
+animal feelings, but an expression and awakening of individual thought:
+it is therefore as various and as extended in its efforts as the
+compass and grasp of the directing mind; and we feel, in each of its
+results, that we are looking, not at a specimen of a tradesman's wares,
+of which he is ready to make us a dozen to match, but at one coruscation
+of a perpetually active mind, like which there has not been, and will
+not be another.
+
+
+§ 5. Yet the first is delightful to all.
+
+§ 6. The second only to a few.
+
+Hence, although there can be no doubt which of these branches of art is
+the highest, it is equally evident that the first will be the most
+generally felt and appreciated. For the simple statement of the truths
+of nature must in itself be pleasing to every order of mind; because
+every truth of nature is more or less beautiful; and if there be just
+and right selection of the more important of these truths--based, as
+above explained, on feelings and desires common to all mankind--the
+facts so selected must, in some degree, be delightful to all, and their
+value appreciable by all: more or less, indeed, as their senses and
+instinct have been rendered more or less acute and accurate by use and
+study; but in some degree by all, and in the same way by all. But the
+highest art, being based on sensations of peculiar minds, sensations
+occurring to _them_ only at particular times, and to a plurality of
+mankind perhaps never, and being expressive of thoughts which could only
+rise out of a mass of the most extended knowledge, and of dispositions
+modified in a thousand ways by peculiarity of intellect--can only be met
+and understood by persons having some sort of sympathy with the high and
+solitary minds which produced it--sympathy only to be felt by minds in
+some degree high and solitary themselves. He alone can appreciate the
+art, who could comprehend the conversation of the painter, and share in
+his emotion, in moments of his most fiery passion and most original
+thought. And whereas the true meaning and end of his art must thus be
+sealed to thousands, or misunderstood by them; so also, as he is
+sometimes obliged, in working out his own peculiar end, to set at
+defiance those constant laws which have arisen out of our lower and
+changeless desires, that whose purpose is unseen, is frequently in its
+means and parts displeasing.
+
+
+§ 7. The first necessary to the second.
+
+§ 8. The exceeding importance of truth.
+
+But this want of extended influence in high art, be it especially
+observed, proceeds from no want of truth in the art itself, but from a
+want of sympathy in the spectator with those feelings in the artist
+which prompt him to the utterance of one truth rather than of another.
+For (and this is what I wish at present especially to insist upon)
+although it is possible to reach what I have stated to be the first end
+of art, the representation of facts, without reaching the second, the
+representation of thoughts, yet it is altogether impossible to reach the
+second without having previously reached the first. I do not say that a
+man cannot think, having false basis and material for thought; but that
+a false thought is worse than the want of thought, and therefore is not
+art. And this is the reason why, though I consider the second as the
+real and only important end of all art, I call the representation of
+facts the first end; because it is necessary to the other, and must be
+attained before it. It is the foundation of all art; like real
+foundations it may be little thought of when a brilliant fabric is
+raised on it; but it must be there: and as few buildings are beautiful
+unless every line and column of their mass have reference to their
+foundation, and are suggestive of its existence and strength, so nothing
+can be beautiful in art which does not in all its parts suggest and
+guide to the foundation, even where no undecorated portion of it is
+visible; while the noblest edifices of art are built of such pure and
+fine crystal that the foundation may all be seen through them; and then
+many, while they do not see what is built upon that first story, yet
+much admire the solidity of its brickwork; thinking they understand all
+that is to be understood of the matter; while others stand beside them,
+looking not at the low story, but up into the heaven at that building of
+crystal in which the builder's spirit is dwelling. And thus, though we
+want the thoughts and feelings of the artist as well as the truth, yet
+they must be thoughts arising out of the knowledge of truth, and
+feelings raising out of the contemplation of truth. We do not want his
+mind to be as badly blown glass, that distorts what we see through it;
+but like a glass of sweet and strange color, that gives new tones to
+what we see through it; and a glass of rare strength and clearness too,
+to let us see more than we could ourselves, and bring nature up to us
+and near to us. Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most
+brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling,
+(supposing that feeling _could_ be pure and false at the same time;) not
+the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of
+intellect, can make amends for the want of truth, and that for two
+reasons; first, because falsehood is in itself revolting and degrading;
+and secondly, because nature is so immeasurably superior to all that the
+human mind can conceive, that every departure from her is a fall beneath
+her, so that there can be no such thing as an ornamental falsehood. All
+falsehood must be a blot as well as a sin, an injury as well as a
+deception.
+
+
+§ 9. Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth.
+
+We shall, in consequence, find that no artist can be graceful,
+imaginative, or original, unless he be truthful; and that the pursuit of
+beauty, instead of leading us away from truth, increases the desire for
+it and the necessity of it tenfold; so that those artists who are really
+great in imaginative power, will be found to have based their boldness
+of conception on a mass of knowledge far exceeding that possessed by
+those who pride themselves on its accumulation without regarding its
+use. Coldness and want of passion in a picture, are not signs of the
+accuracy, but of the paucity of its statements; true vigor and
+brilliancy are not signs of audacity, but of knowledge.
+
+
+§ 10. How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art.
+
+Hence it follows that it is in the power of all, with care and time, to
+form something like a just judgment of the relative merits of artists;
+for although with respect to the feeling and passion of pictures, it is
+often as impossible to criticise as to appreciate, except to such as are
+in some degree equal in powers of mind, and in some respects the same in
+modes of mind, with those whose works they judge; yet, with respect to
+the representation of facts, it is possible for all, by attention, to
+form a right judgment of the respective powers and attainments of every
+artist. Truth is a bar of comparison at which they may all be examined,
+and according to the rank they take in this examination, will almost
+invariably be that which, if capable of appreciating them in every
+respect, we should be just in assigning them; so strict is the
+connection, so constant the relation between the sum of knowledge and
+the extent of thought, between accuracy of perception and vividness of
+idea.
+
+I shall endeavor, therefore, in the present portion of the work, to
+enter with care and impartiality into the investigation of the claims of
+the schools of ancient and modern landscape to faithfulness in
+representing nature. I shall pay no regard whatsoever to what may be
+thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative. I shall look only for
+truth; bare, clear, downright statement of facts; showing in each
+particular, as far as I am able, what the truth of nature is, and then
+seeking for the plain expression of it, and for that alone. And I shall
+thus endeavor, totally regardless of fervor of imagination or brilliancy
+of effect, or any other of their more captivating qualities, to examine
+and to judge the works of the great living painter, who is, I believe,
+imagined by the majority of the public to paint more falsehood and less
+fact than any other known master. We shall see with what reason.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+      THAT THE TRUTH OF NATURE IS NOT TO BE DISCERNED BY THE UNEDUCATED
+                                  SENSES.
+
+
+§ 1. The common self-deception of men with respect to their power of
+       discerning truth.
+
+It may be here inquired by the reader, with much appearance of reason,
+why I think it necessary to devote a separate portion of the work to the
+showing of what is truthful in art. "Cannot we," say the public, "see
+what nature is with our own eyes, and find out for ourselves what is
+like her?" It will be as well to determine this question before we go
+farther, because if this were possible, there would be little need of
+criticism or teaching with respect to art.
+
+Now I have just said that it is possible for all men, by care and
+attention, to form a just judgment of the fidelity of artists to nature.
+To do this, no peculiar powers of mind are required, no sympathy with
+particular feelings, nothing which every man of ordinary intellect does
+not in some degree possess,--powers, namely, of observation and
+intelligence, which by cultivation may be brought to a high degree of
+perfection and acuteness. But until this cultivation has been bestowed,
+and until the instrument thereby perfected has been employed in a
+consistent series of careful observation, it is as absurd as it is
+audacious to pretend to form any judgment whatsoever respecting the
+truth of art: and my first business, before going a step farther, must
+be to combat the nearly universal error of belief among the thoughtless
+and unreflecting, that they know either what nature is, or what is like
+her, that they can discover truth by instinct, and that their minds are
+such pure Venice glass as to be shocked by all treachery. I have to
+prove to them that there are more things in heaven and earth than are
+dreamed of in their philosophy, and that the truth of nature is a part
+of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness, as it
+is to him who does, infinity.
+
+
+§ 2. Men usually see little of what is before their eyes.
+
+The first great mistake that people make in the matter, is the
+supposition that they must _see_ a thing if it be before their eyes.
+They forget the great truth told them by Locke, Book ii. chap. 9, §
+3:--"This is certain, that whatever alterations are made in the body, if
+they reach not the mind, whatever impressions are made on the outward
+parts, if they are not taken notice of within, there is no perception.
+Fire may burn our bodies, with no other effect than it does a billet,
+unless the motion be continued to the brain, and there the sense of heat
+or idea of pain be produced in the mind, wherein consists actual
+perception. How often may a man observe in himself, that while his mind
+is intently employed in the contemplation of some subjects and curiously
+surveying some ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions
+of sounding bodies, made upon the organ of hearing, with the same
+attention that uses to be for the producing the ideas of sound! A
+sufficient impulse there may be on the organ, but it not reaching the
+observation of the mind, there follows no perception, and though the
+motion that uses to produce the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no
+sound is heard." And what is here said, which all must feel by their own
+experience to be true, is more remarkably and necessarily the case with
+sight than with any other of the senses, for this reason, that the ear
+is not accustomed to exercise constantly its functions of hearing; it is
+accustomed to stillness, and the occurrence of a sound of any kind
+whatsoever is apt to awake attention, and be followed with perception,
+in proportion to the degree of sound; but the eye, during our waking
+hours, exercises constantly its function of seeing; it is its constant
+habit; we always, as far as the _bodily_ organ is concerned, see
+something, and we always see in the same degree, so that the occurrence
+of sight, as such, to the eye, is only the continuance of its necessary
+state of action, and awakes no attention whatsoever, except by the
+particular nature and quality of the sight. And thus, unless the minds
+of men are particularly directed to the impressions of sight, objects
+pass perpetually before the eyes without conveying any impression to the
+brain at all; and so pass actually unseen, not merely unnoticed, but in
+the full, clear sense of the word, unseen. And numbers of men being
+pre-occupied with business or care of some description, totally
+unconnected with the impressions of sight, such is actually the case
+with them, they receiving from nature only the inevitable sensations of
+blueness, redness, darkness, light, etc., and except at particular and
+rare moments, no more whatsoever.
+
+
+§ 3. But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to what
+       is beautiful.
+
+§ 4. Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling.
+
+The degree of ignorance of external nature in which men may thus remain,
+depends, therefore, partly on the number and character of the subjects
+with which their minds may be otherwise occupied, and partly on a
+natural want of sensibility to the power of beauty of form, and the
+other attributes of external objects. I do not think that there is ever
+such absolute incapacity in the eye for distinguishing and receiving
+pleasure from certain forms and colors, as there is in persons who are
+technically said to have no ear, for distinguishing notes, but there is
+naturally every degree of bluntness and acuteness, both for perceiving
+the truth of form, and for receiving pleasure from it when perceived.
+And although I believe even the lowest degree of these faculties can be
+expanded almost unlimitedly by cultivation, the pleasure received
+rewards not the labor necessary, and the pursuit is abandoned. So that
+while in those whose sensations are naturally acute and vivid, the call
+of external nature is so strong that it must be obeyed, and is ever
+heard louder as the approach to her is nearer,--in those whose
+sensations are naturally blunt, the call is overpowered at once by other
+thoughts, and their faculties of perception, weak originally, die of
+disuse. With this kind of bodily sensibility to color and form is
+intimately connected that higher sensibility which we revere as one of
+the chief attributes of all noble minds, and as the chief spring of real
+poetry. I believe this kind of sensibility may be entirely resolved into
+the acuteness of bodily sense of which I have been speaking, associated
+with love, love I mean in its infinite and holy functions, as it
+embraces divine and human and brutal intelligences, and hallows the
+physical perception of external objects by association, gratitude,
+veneration, and other pure feelings of our moral nature. And although
+the discovery of truth is in itself altogether intellectual, and
+dependent merely on our powers of physical perception and abstract
+intellect, wholly independent of our moral nature, yet these
+instruments (perception and judgment) are so sharpened and brightened,
+and so far more swiftly and effectively used, when they have the energy
+and passion of our moral nature to bring them into action--perception is
+so quickened by love, and judgment so tempered by veneration, that,
+practically, a man of deadened moral sensation is always dull in his
+perception of truth, and thousands of the highest and most divine truths
+of nature are wholly concealed from him, however constant and
+indefatigable may be his intellectual search. Thus, then, the farther we
+look, the more we are limited in the number of those to whom we should
+choose to appeal as judges of truth, and the more we perceive how great
+a number of mankind may be partially incapacitated from either
+discovering or feeling it.
+
+
+§ 5. And of the intellectual powers.
+
+§ 6. How sight depends upon previous knowledge.
+
+Next to sensibility, which is necessary for the perception of facts,
+come reflection and memory, which are necessary for the retention of
+them, and recognition of their resemblances. For a man may receive
+impression after impression, and that vividly and with delight, and yet,
+if he take no care to reason upon those impressions and trace them to
+their sources, he may remain totally ignorant of the facts that produced
+them; nay, may attribute them to facts with which they have no
+connection, or may coin causes for them that have no existence at all.
+And the more sensibility and imagination a man possesses, the more
+likely will he be to fall into error; for then he will see whatever he
+expects, and admire and judge with his heart, and not with his eyes. How
+many people are misled, by what has been said and sung of the serenity
+of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more _blue_ than the skies of
+the north, and think that they see them so; whereas, the sky of Italy is
+far more dull and gray in color than the skies of the north, and is
+distinguished only by its intense repose of light. And this is confirmed
+by Benvenuto Cellini, who, I remember, on his first entering France, is
+especially struck with the clearness of the sky, as contrasted with the
+_mist_ of Italy. And what is more strange still, when people see in a
+painting what they suppose to have been the source of their impressions,
+they will affirm it to be truthful, though they feel no such impression
+resulting from it. Thus, though day after day they may have been
+impressed by the tone and warmth of an Italian sky, yet not having
+traced the feeling to its source, and supposing themselves impressed by
+its _blueness_, they will affirm a blue sky in a painting to be
+truthful, and reject the most faithful rendering of all the real
+attributes of Italy as cold or dull. And this influence of the
+imagination over the senses, is peculiarly observable in the perpetual
+disposition of mankind to suppose that they _see_ what they _know_, and
+_vice versa_ in their not seeing what they do not know. Thus, if a child
+be asked to draw the corner of a house, he will lay down something in
+the form of the letter T. He has no conception that the two lines of the
+roof, which he knows to be level, produce on his eye the impression of a
+slope. It requires repeated and close attention before he detects this
+fact, or can be made to feel that the lines on his paper are false. And
+the Chinese, children in all things, suppose a good perspective drawing
+to be as false as we feel their plate patterns to be, or wonder at the
+strange buildings which come to a point at the end. And all the early
+works, whether of nations or of men, show, by their want of _shade_, how
+little the eye, without knowledge, is to be depended upon to discover
+truth. The eye of a Red Indian, keen enough to find the trace of his
+enemy or his prey, even in the unnatural turn of a trodden leaf, is yet
+so blunt to the impressions of shade, that Mr. Catlin mentions his once
+having been in great danger from having painted a portrait with the face
+in half-light, which the untutored observers imagined and affirmed to be
+the painting of half a face. Barry, in his sixth lecture, takes notice
+of the same want of actual _sight_ in the early painters of Italy. "The
+imitations," he says, "of early art are like those of children--nothing
+is seen in the spectacle before us, unless it be previously known and
+sought for; and numberless observable differences between the age of
+ignorance and that of knowledge, show how much the contraction or
+extension of our sphere of vision depends upon other considerations than
+the mere returns of our natural optics." And the deception which takes
+place so broadly in cases like these, has infinitely greater influence
+over our judgment of the more intricate and less tangible truths of
+nature. We are constantly supposing that we see what experience only
+has shown us, or can show us, to have existence, constantly missing the
+sight of what we do not know beforehand to be visible: and painters, to
+the last hour of their lives, are apt to fall in some degree into the
+error of painting what exists, rather than what they can see. I shall
+prove the extent of this error more completely hereafter.
+
+
+§ 7. The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature.
+
+Be it also observed, that all these difficulties would lie in the way,
+even if the truths of nature were always the same, constantly repeated
+and brought before us. But the truths of nature are one eternal
+change--one infinite variety. There is no bush on the face of the globe
+exactly like another bush;--there are no two trees in the forest whose
+boughs bend into the same network, nor two leaves on the same tree which
+could not be told one from the other, nor two waves in the sea exactly
+alike. And out of this mass of various, yet agreeing beauty, it is by
+long attention only that the conception of the constant character--the
+ideal form--hinted at by all, yet assumed by none, is fixed upon the
+imagination for its standard of truth.
+
+It is not singular, therefore, nor in any way disgraceful, that the
+majority of spectators are totally incapable of appreciating the truth
+of nature, when fully set before them; but it is both singular and
+disgraceful that it is so difficult to convince them of their own
+incapability. Ask the connoisseur, who has scampered over all Europe,
+the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that
+he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every
+painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid, and pretend to tell you
+whether they are like nature or not. Ask an enthusiastic chatterer in
+the Sistine Chapel how many ribs he has, and you get no answer; but it
+is odds that you do not get out of the door without his informing you
+that he considers such and such a figure badly drawn!
+
+
+§ 8. We recognize objects by their least important attributes. Compare
+       Part I., Sect. I., Chap. 4.
+
+A few such interrogations as these might indeed convict, if not convince
+the mass of spectators of incapability, were it not for the universal
+reply, that they can recognize what they cannot describe, and feel what
+is truthful, though they do not know what is truth. And this is, to a
+certain degree, true: a man may recognize the portrait of his friend,
+though he cannot, if you ask him apart, tell you the shape of his nose
+or the height of his forehead; and every one could tell nature herself
+from an imitation; why not then, it will be asked, what is like her from
+what is not? For this simple reason, that we constantly recognize things
+by their least important attributes, and by help of very few of those,
+and if these attributes exist not in the imitation, though there may be
+thousands of others far higher and more valuable, yet if those be
+wanting, or imperfectly rendered, by which we are accustomed to
+recognize the object, we deny the likeness; while if these be given,
+though all the great and valuable and important attributes may be
+wanting, we affirm the likeness. Recognition is no proof of real and
+intrinsic resemblance. We recognize our books by their bindings, though
+the true and essential characteristics lie inside. A man is known to his
+dog by the smell--to his tailor by the coat--to his friend by the smile:
+each of these know him, but how little, or how much, depends on the
+dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed
+characteristic of the man, is known only to God. One portrait of a man
+may possess exact accuracy of feature, and no atom of expression; it may
+be, to use the ordinary terms of admiration bestowed on such portraits
+by those whom they please, "as like as it can stare." Everybody, down to
+his cat, would know this. Another portrait may have neglected or
+misrepresented the features, but may have given the flash of the eye,
+and the peculiar radiance of the lip, seen on him only in his hours of
+highest mental excitement. None but his friends would know this. Another
+may have given none of his ordinary expressions, but one which he wore
+in the most excited instant of his life, when all his secret passions
+and all his highest powers were brought into play at once. None but
+those who had then seen him might recognize _this_ as like. But which
+would be the most truthful portrait of the _man_? The first gives the
+accidents of body--the sport of climate, and food, and time--which
+corruption inhabits, and the worm waits for. The second gives the stamp
+of the soul upon the flesh; but it is the soul seen in the emotions
+which it shares with many--which may not be characteristic of its
+essence--the results of habit, and education, and accident--a gloze,
+whether purposely worn or unconsciously assumed, perhaps totally
+contrary to all that is rooted and real in the mind that it conceals.
+The third has caught the trace of all that was most hidden and most
+mighty, when all hypocrisy, and all habit, and all petty and passing
+emotion--the ice, and the bank, and the foam of the immortal river--were
+shivered, and broken, and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward
+strength; when the call and claim of some divine motive had brought into
+visible being those latent forces and feelings which the spirit's own
+volition could not summon, nor its consciousness comprehend; which God
+only knew, and God only could awaken, the depth and the mystery of its
+peculiar and separating attributes. And so it is with external Nature:
+she has a body and a soul like man; but her soul is the Deity. It is
+possible to represent the body without the spirit; and this shall be
+like to those whose senses are only cognizant of body. It is possible to
+represent the spirit in its ordinary and inferior manifestations; and
+this shall be like to those who have not watched for its moments of
+power. It is possible to represent the spirit in its secret and high
+operations; and this shall be like only to those to whose watching they
+have been revealed. All these are truth; but according to the dignity of
+the truths he can represent or feel, is the power of the painter,--the
+justice of the judge.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+    OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:--FIRST, THAT PARTICULAR TRUTHS
+                     ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GENERAL ONES.
+
+
+§ 1. Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths.
+
+I have in the last chapter affirmed that we usually recognize objects by
+their least essential characteristics. This very naturally excites the
+inquiry what I consider their important characteristics, and why I call
+one truth more important than another. And this question must be
+immediately determined, because it is evident, that in judging of the
+truth of painters, we shall have to consider not only the accuracy with
+which individual truths are given, but the relative importance of the
+truths themselves; for as it constantly happens that the powers of art
+are unable to render _all_ truths, that artist must be considered the
+most truthful who has preserved the most important at the expense of the
+most trifling.
+
+
+§ 2. Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more important
+       than particular ones."
+
+§ 3. Falseness of this maxim taken without explanation.
+
+§ 4. Generality important in the subject, particularity in the
+       predicate.
+
+Now if we are to begin our investigation in Aristotle's way, and look at
+the [Greek: phainomena] of the subject, we shall immediately stumble
+over a maxim which is in everybody's mouth, and which, as it is
+understood in practice, is true and useful, as it is usually applied in
+argument, false and misleading. "General truths are more important than
+particular ones." Often, when in conversation, I have been praising
+Turner for his perpetual variety, and for giving so particular and
+separate a character to each of his compositions, that the mind of the
+painter can only be estimated by seeing all that he has ever done, and
+that nothing can be prophesied of a picture coming into existence on his
+easel, but that it will be totally different in idea from all that he
+has ever done before; and when I have opposed this inexhaustible
+knowledge or imagination, whichever it may be, to the perpetual
+repetition of some half-dozen conceptions by Claude and Poussin, I have
+been met by the formidable objection, enunciated with much dignity and
+self-satisfaction on the part of my antagonist--"That is not painting
+general truths, that is painting particular truths." Now there must be
+something wrong in that application of a principle which would make the
+variety and abundance which we look for as the greatest sign of
+intellect in the writer, the greatest sign of error in the painter; and
+we shall accordingly see, by an application of it to other matters,
+that, taken without limitation, the whole proposition is utterly false.
+For instance, Mrs. Jameson somewhere mentions the exclamation of a lady
+of her acquaintance, more desirous to fill a pause in conversation than
+abundant in sources of observation: "What an excellent book the Bible
+is!" This was a very general truth indeed, a truth predicable of the
+Bible in common with many other books, but it certainly is neither
+striking nor important. Had the lady exclaimed--"How evidently is the
+Bible a divine revelation!" she would have expressed a particular truth,
+one predicable of the Bible only; but certainly far more interesting and
+important. Had she, on the contrary, informed us that the Bible was a
+book, she would have been still more general, and still less
+entertaining. If I ask any one who somebody else is, and receive for
+answer that he is a man, I get little satisfaction for my pains; but if
+I am told that he is Sir Isaac Newton, I immediately thank my neighbor
+for his information. The fact is, and the above instances may serve at
+once to prove it if it be not self-evident, that generality gives
+importance to the _subject_, and limitation or particularity to the
+_predicate_. If I say that such and such a man in China is an
+opium-eater, I say nothing very interesting, because my subject (such a
+man) is particular. If I say that all men in China are opium-eaters, I
+say something interesting, because my subject (all men) is general. If I
+say that all men in China eat, I say nothing interesting, because my
+predicate (eat) is general. If I say that all men in China eat opium, I
+say something interesting, because my predicate (eat opium) is
+particular.
+
+Now almost everything which (with reference to a given subject) a
+painter has to ask himself whether he shall represent or not, is a
+predicate. Hence in art, particular truths are usually more important
+than general ones.
+
+How is it then that anything so plain as this should be contradicted by
+one of the most universally received aphorisms respecting art? A little
+reflection will show us under what limitations this maxim may be true in
+practice.
+
+
+§ 5. The importance of truths of species is not owing to their
+       generality.
+
+§ 6. All truths valuable as they are characteristic.
+
+It is self-evident that when we are painting or describing anything,
+those truths must be the most important which are most characteristic of
+what is to be told or represented. Now that which is first and most
+broadly characteristic of a thing, is that which distinguishes its
+genus, or which makes it what it is. For instance, that which makes
+drapery _be_ drapery, is not its being made of silk or worsted or flax,
+for things are made of all these which are not drapery, but the ideas
+peculiar to drapery; the properties which, when inherent in a thing,
+make it drapery, are extension, non-elastic flexibility, unity and
+comparative thinness. Everything which has these properties, a
+waterfall, for instance, if united and extended, or a net of weeds over
+a wall, is drapery, as much as silk or woollen stuff is. So that these
+ideas separate drapery in our minds from everything else; they are
+peculiarly characteristic of it, and therefore are the most important
+group of ideas connected with it; and so with everything else, that
+which makes the thing what it is, is the most important idea, or group
+of ideas connected with the thing. But as this idea must necessarily be
+common to all individuals of the species it belongs to, it is a general
+idea with respect to that species; while other ideas, which are not
+characteristic of the species, and are therefore in reality general, (as
+black or white are terms applicable to more things than drapery,) are
+yet particular with respect to that species, being predicable only of
+certain individuals of it. Hence it is carelessly and falsely said, that
+general ideas are more important than particular ones; carelessly and
+falsely, I say, because the so-called general idea is important, not
+because it is common to all the individuals of that species, but because
+it separates that species from everything else. It is the
+distinctiveness, not the universality of the truth, which renders it
+important. And the so-called particular idea is unimportant, not
+because it is not predicable of the whole species, but because it _is_
+predicable of things out of that species. It is not its individuality,
+but its generality which renders it unimportant. So, then, truths are
+important just in proportion as they are characteristic, and are
+valuable, primarily, as they separate the species from all other created
+things secondarily, as they separate the individuals of that species
+from one another: thus "silken" or "woollen" are unimportant ideas with
+respect to drapery, because they neither separate the species from other
+things, nor even the individuals of that species from one another,
+since, though not common to the whole of it, they are common to
+indefinite numbers of it; but the particular folds into which any piece
+of drapery may happen to fall, being different in many particulars from
+those into which any other piece of drapery will fall, are expressive
+not only of the characters of the species, flexibility, (non-elasticity,
+etc.,) but of individuality and definite character in the case
+immediately observed, and are consequently most important and necessary
+ideas. So in a man, to be short-legged or long-nosed or anything else of
+accidental quality, does not distinguish him from other short-legged or
+long-nosed animals; but the important truths respecting a man are,
+first, the marked development of that distinctive organization which
+separates him as man from other animals, and secondly, that group of
+qualities which distinguish the individual from all other men, which
+make him Paul or Judas, Newton or Shakspeare.
+
+
+§ 7. Otherwise truths of species are valuable because beautiful.
+
+Such are the real sources of importance in truths as far as they are
+considered with reference merely to their being general, or particular;
+but there are other sources of importance which give farther weight to
+the ordinary opinion of the greater value of those which are general,
+and which render this opinion right in practice; I mean the intrinsic
+beauty of the truths themselves, a quality which it is not here the
+place to investigate, but which must just be noticed, as invariably
+adding value to truths of species rather than to those of individuality.
+The qualities and properties which characterize man or any other animal
+as a species, are the perfection of his or its form of mind, almost all
+individual differences arising from imperfections; hence a truth of
+species is the more valuable to art, because it must always be a beauty,
+while a truth of individuals is commonly, in some sort or way, a defect.
+
+
+§ 8. And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in
+       connection with others.
+
+Again, a truth which may be of great interest, when an object is viewed
+by itself, may be objectionable when it is viewed in relation to other
+objects. Thus if we were painting a piece of drapery as our whole
+subject, it would be proper to give in it every source of entertainment,
+which particular truths could supply, to give it varied color and
+delicate texture; but if we paint this same piece of drapery, as part of
+the dress of a Madonna, all these ideas of richness or texture become
+thoroughly contemptible, and unfit to occupy the mind at the same moment
+with the idea of the Virgin. The conception of drapery is then to be
+suggested by the simplest and slightest means possible, and all notions
+of texture and detail are to be rejected with utter reprobation; but
+this, observe, is not because they are particular or general or anything
+else, with respect to the drapery itself, but because they draw the
+attention to the dress instead of the saint, and disturb and degrade the
+imagination and the feelings; hence we ought to give the conception of
+the drapery in the most unobtrusive way possible, by rendering those
+essential qualities distinctly, which are necessary to the very
+existence of drapery, and not one more.
+
+With these last two sources of the importance of truths, we have nothing
+to do at present, as they are dependent upon ideas of beauty and
+relation: I merely allude to them now, to show that all that is alleged
+by Sir J. Reynolds and other scientific writers respecting the kind of
+truths proper to be represented by the painter or sculptor is perfectly
+just and right; while yet the principle on which they base their
+selection (that general truths are more important than particular ones)
+is altogether false. Canova's Perseus in the Vatican is entirely spoiled
+by an unlucky _tassel_ in the folds of the mantle (which the next
+admirer of Canova who passes would do well to knock off;) but it is
+spoiled not because this is a particular truth, but because it is a
+contemptible, unnecessary, and ugly truth. The button which fastens the
+vest of the Sistine Daniel is as much a particular truth as this, but
+it is a necessary one, and the idea of it is given by the simplest
+possible means; hence it is right and beautiful.
+
+
+§ 9. Recapitulation.
+
+Finally, then, it is to be remembered that all truths as far as their
+being particular or general affects their value at all, are valuable in
+proportion as they are particular, and valueless in proportion as they
+are general; or to express the proposition in simpler terms, every truth
+is valuable in proportion as it is characteristic of the thing of which
+it is affirmed.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+        OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:--SECONDLY, THAT RARE TRUTHS
+                     ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN FREQUENT ONES.
+
+
+§ 1. No accidental violation of nature's principles should be
+       represented.
+
+It will be necessary next for us to determine how far frequency or
+rarity can affect the importance of truths, and whether the artist is to
+be considered the most truthful who paints what is common or what is
+unusual in nature.
+
+Now the whole determination of this question depends upon whether the
+unusual fact be a violation of nature's general principles, or the
+application of some of those principles in a peculiar and striking way.
+Nature sometimes, though very rarely, violates her own principles; it is
+her principle to make everything beautiful, but now and then, for an
+instant, she permits what, compared with the rest of her works, might be
+called ugly; it is true that even these rare blemishes are permitted, as
+I have above said, for a good purpose, (Part I. Sec. I. Chap. 5,) they
+are valuable in nature, and used as she uses them, are equally valuable
+(as instantaneous discords) in art; but the artist who should seek after
+these exclusively, and paint nothing else, though he might be able to
+point to something in nature as the original of every one of his
+uglinesses, would yet be, in the strict sense of the word, false,--false
+to nature, and disobedient to her laws. For instance, it is the practice
+of nature to give character to the outlines of her clouds, by perpetual
+angles and right lines. Perhaps once in a month, by diligent watching,
+we might be able to see a cloud altogether rounded and made up of
+curves; but the artist who paints nothing but curved clouds must yet be
+considered thoroughly and inexcusably false.
+
+
+§ 2. But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly
+       exemplified.
+
+§ 3. Which are comparatively rare.
+
+§ 4. All repetition is blamable.
+
+§ 5. The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher.
+
+But the case is widely different, when instead of a principle violated,
+we have one extraordinarily carried out or manifested under unusual
+circumstances. Though nature is constantly beautiful, she does not
+exhibit her highest powers of beauty constantly, for then they would
+satiate us and pall upon our senses. It is necessary to their
+appreciation that they should be rarely shown. Her finest touches are
+things which must be watched for; her most perfect passages of beauty
+are the most evanescent. She is constantly doing something beautiful for
+us, but it is something which she has not done before and will not do
+again; some exhibition of her general powers in particular circumstances
+which, if we do not catch at the instant it is passing, will not be
+repeated for us. Now they are these evanescent passages of perfected
+beauty, these perpetually varied examples of utmost power, which the
+artist ought to seek for and arrest. No supposition can be more absurd
+than that effects or truths frequently exhibited are more characteristic
+of nature than those which are equally necessary by her laws, though
+rarer in occurrence. Both the frequent and the rare are parts of the
+same great system; to give either exclusively is imperfect truth, and to
+repeat the same effect or thought in two pictures is wasted life. What
+should we think of a poet who should keep all his life repeating the
+same thought in different words? and why should we be more lenient to
+the parrot-painter who has learned one lesson from the page of nature,
+and keeps stammering it out with eternal repetition without turning the
+leaf? Is it less tautology to describe a thing over and over again with
+lines, than it is with words? The teaching of nature is as varied and
+infinite as it is constant; and the duty of the painter is to watch for
+every one of her lessons, and to give (for human life will admit of
+nothing more) those in which she has manifested each of her principles
+in the most peculiar and striking way. The deeper his research and the
+rarer the phenomena he has noted, the more valuable will his works be;
+to repeat himself, even in a single instance, is treachery to nature,
+for a thousand human lives would not be enough to give one instance of
+the perfect manifestation of each of her powers; and as for combining or
+classifying them, as well might a preacher expect in one sermon to
+express and explain every divine truth which can be gathered out of
+God's revelation, as a painter expect in one composition to express and
+illustrate every lesson which can be received from God's creation. Both
+are commentators on infinity, and the duty of both is to take for each
+discourse one essential truth, seeking particularly and insisting
+especially on those which are less palpable to ordinary observation, and
+more likely to escape an indolent research; and to impress that, and
+that alone, upon those whom they address, with every illustration that
+can be furnished by their knowledge, and every adornment attainable by
+their power. And the real truthfulness of the painter is in proportion
+to the number and variety of the facts he has so illustrated; those
+facts being always, as above observed, the realization, not the
+violation of a general principle. The quantity of truth is in proportion
+to the number of such facts, and its value and instructiveness in
+proportion to their rarity. All really great pictures, therefore,
+exhibit the general habits of nature, manifested in some peculiar, rare,
+and beautiful way.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+         OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:--THIRDLY, THAT TRUTHS OF
+                 COLOR ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT OF ALL TRUTHS.
+
+
+§ 1. Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies.
+
+In the two last chapters, we have pointed out general tests of the
+importance of all truths, which will be sufficient at once to
+distinguish certain classes of properties in bodies, as more necessary
+to be told than others, because more characteristic, either of the
+particular thing to be represented, or of the principles of nature.
+
+According to Locke, Book ii. chap. 8, there are three sorts of qualities
+in bodies: first, the "bulk, figure, number, situation, and motion or
+rest of their solid parts: those that are in them, whether we perceive
+them or not." These he calls primary qualities. Secondly, "the power
+that is in any body to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our
+senses," (sensible qualities.) And thirdly, "the power that is in any
+body to make such a change in another body as that it shall operate on
+our senses differently from what it did before: these last being usually
+called _powers_."
+
+
+§ 2. The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so.
+
+Hence he proceeds to prove that those which he calls primary qualities
+are indeed part of the essence of the body, and characteristic of it;
+but that the two other kinds of qualities which together he calls
+secondary, are neither of them more than _powers_ of producing on other
+objects, or in us, certain effects and sensations. Now a power of
+influence is always equally characteristic of two objects--the active
+and passive; for it is as much necessary that there should be a power in
+the object suffering to receive the impression, as in the object acting
+to give the impression. (Compare Locke, Book ii. chap. 21, sect. 2.) For
+supposing two people, as is frequently the case, perceive different
+scents in the same flower, it is evident that the power in the flower
+to give this or that depends on the nature of their nerves, as well as
+on that of its own particles; and that we are as correct in saying it is
+a power in us to perceive, as in the object to impress. Every power,
+therefore, being characteristic of the nature of two bodies, is
+imperfectly and incompletely characteristic of either separately; but
+the primary qualities, being characteristic only of the body in which
+they are inherent, are the most important truths connected with it. For
+the question, what the thing _is_, must precede, and be of more
+importance than the question, what can it do.
+
+
+§ 3. Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than form.
+
+Now by Locke's definition above given, only bulk, figure, situation, and
+motion or rest of solid parts, are primary qualities. Hence all truths
+of color sink at once into the second rank. He, therefore, who has
+neglected a truth of form for a truth of color, has neglected a greater
+truth for a less one.
+
+
+§ 4. Color no distinction between objects of the same species.
+
+And that color is indeed a most unimportant characteristic of objects,
+will be farther evident on the slightest consideration. The color of
+plants is constantly changing with the season, and of everything with
+the quality of light falling on it; but the nature and essence of the
+thing are independent of these changes. An oak is an oak, whether green
+with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be
+yellow or crimson; and if some monster-hunting botanist should ever
+frighten the flower blue, still it will be a dahlia; but let one curve
+of the petals--one groove of the stamens be wanting, and the flower
+ceases to be the same. Let the roughness of the bark and the angles of
+the boughs be smoothed or diminished, and the oak ceases to be an oak;
+but let it retain its inward structure and outward form, and though its
+leaves grew white, or pink, or blue, or tri-color, it would be a white
+oak, or a pink oak, or a republican oak, but an oak still. Again, color
+is hardly ever even a _possible_ distinction between two objects of the
+same species. Two trees, of the same kind, at the same season, and of
+the same age, are of absolutely the same color; but they are not of the
+same form, nor anything like it. There can be no difference in the color
+of two pieces of rock broken from the same place; but it is impossible
+they should be of the same form. So that form is not only the chief
+characteristic of species, but the only characteristic of individuals of
+a species.
+
+
+§ 5. And different in association from what it is alone.
+
+Again, a color, in association with other colors, is different from the
+same color seen by itself. It has a distinct and peculiar power upon the
+retina dependent on its association. Consequently, the color of any
+object is not more dependent upon the nature of the object itself, and
+the eye beholding it, than on the color of the objects near it; in this
+respect also, therefore, it is no characteristic.
+
+
+§ 6. It is not certain whether any two people see the same color in
+       things.
+
+And so great is the uncertainty with respect to those qualities or
+powers which depend as much on the nature of the object suffering as of
+the object acting, that it is totally impossible to prove that one man
+sees in the same thing the same color that another does though he may
+use the same name for it. One man may see yellow where another sees
+blue, but as the effect is constant, they agree in the term to be used
+for it, and both call it blue, or both yellow, having yet totally
+different ideas attached to the term. And yet neither can be said to see
+falsely, because the color is not in the thing, but in the thing and
+them together. But if they see forms differently, one must see falsely,
+because the form is positive in the object. My friend may see boars blue
+for anything I know, but it is impossible he should see them with paws
+instead of hoofs, unless his eyes or brain are diseased. (Compare Locke,
+Book ii. chap. xxxii. § 15.) But I do not speak of this uncertainty as
+capable of having any effect on art, because, though perhaps Landseer
+sees dogs of the color which I should call blue, yet the color he puts
+on the canvas, being in the same way blue to him, will still be brown or
+dog-color to me; and so we may argue on points of color just as if all
+men saw alike, as indeed in all probability they do; but I merely
+mention this uncertainty to show farther the vagueness and unimportance
+of color as a characteristic of bodies.
+
+
+§ 7. Form considered as an element of landscape, includes light and
+       shade.
+
+§ 8. Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of bodies
+       and unimportance of color.
+
+Before going farther, however, I must explain the sense in which I have
+used the word "form," because painters have a most inaccurate and
+careless habit of confining the term to the _outline_ of bodies, whereas
+it necessarily implies light and shade. It is true that the outline and
+the chiaroscuro must be separate subjects of investigation with the
+student; but no form whatsoever can be known to the eye in the slightest
+degree without its chiaroscuro; and, therefore, in speaking of form
+generally as an element of landscape, I mean that perfect and harmonious
+unity of outline with light and shade, by which all the parts and
+projections and proportions of a body are fully explained to the eye,
+being nevertheless perfectly independent of sight or power in other
+objects, the presence of light upon a body being a positive existence,
+whether we are aware of it or not, and in no degree dependent upon our
+senses. This being understood, the most convincing proof of the
+unimportance of color lies in the accurate observation of the way in
+which any material object impresses itself on the mind. If we look at
+nature carefully, we shall find that her colors are in a state of
+perpetual confusion and indistinctness, while her forms, as told by
+light and shade, are invariably clear, distinct, and speaking. The
+stones and gravel of the bank catch green reflections from the boughs
+above; the bushes receive grays and yellows from the ground; every
+hairbreadth of polished surface gives a little bit of the blue of the
+sky or the gold of the sun, like a star upon the local color; this local
+color, changeful and uncertain in itself, is again disguised and
+modified by the hue of the light, or quenched in the gray of the shadow;
+and the confusion and blending of tint is altogether so great, that were
+we left to find out what objects were by their colors only, we would
+scarcely in places distinguish the boughs of a tree from the air beyond
+them, or the ground beneath them. I know that people unpractised in art
+will not believe this at first; but if they have accurate powers of
+observation, they may soon ascertain it for themselves; they will find
+that, while they can scarcely ever determine the _exact_ hue of
+anything, except when it occurs in large masses, as in a green field or
+the blue sky, the form, as told by light and shade, is always decided
+and evident, and the source of the chief character of every object.
+Light and shade indeed so completely conquer the distinctions of local
+color, that the difference in hue between the illumined parts of a white
+and black object is not so great as the difference (in sunshine) between
+the illumined and dark side of either separately.
+
+
+§ 9. Recapitulation.
+
+We shall see hereafter, in considering ideas of beauty, that color, even
+as a source of pleasure, is feeble compared to form; but this we cannot
+insist upon at present; we have only to do with simple truth, and the
+observations we have made are sufficient to prove that the artist who
+sacrifices or forgets a truth of form in the pursuit of a truth of
+color, sacrifices what is definite to what is uncertain, and what is
+essential to what is accidental.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VI.
+
+                               RECAPITULATION.
+
+
+§ 1. The importance of historical truths.
+
+It ought farther to be observed respecting truths in general, that those
+are always most valuable which are most historical, that is, which tell
+us most about the past and future states of the object to which they
+belong. In a tree, for instance, it is more important to give the
+appearance of energy and elasticity in the limbs which is indicative of
+growth and life, than any particular character of leaf, or texture of
+bough. It is more important that we should feel that the uppermost
+sprays are creeping higher and higher into the sky, and be impressed
+with the current of life and motion which is animating every fibre, than
+that we should know the exact pitch of relief with which those fibres
+are thrown out against the sky. For the first truths tell us tales about
+the tree, about what it has been, and will be, while the last are
+characteristic of it only in its present state, and are in no way
+talkative about themselves. Talkative facts are always more interesting
+and more important than silent ones. So again the lines in a crag which
+mark its stratification, and how it has been washed and rounded by
+water, or twisted and drawn out in fire, are more important, because
+they tell more than the stains of the lichens which change year by year,
+and the accidental fissures of frost or decomposition; not but that both
+of these are historical, but historical in a less distinct manner, and
+for shorter periods.
+
+
+§ 2. Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths.
+       Tone, light and color are secondary.
+
+Hence in general the truths of specific form are the first and most
+important of all; and next to them, those truths of chiaroscuro which
+are necessary to make us understand every quality and part of forms, and
+the relative distances of objects among each other, and in consequence
+their relative bulks. Altogether lower than these, as truths, though
+often most important as beauties, stand all effects of chiaroscuro which
+are productive merely of imitations of light and tone, and all effects
+of color. To make us understand the _space_ of the sky, is an end worthy
+of the artist's highest powers; to hit its particular blue or gold is an
+end to be thought of when we have accomplished the first, and not till
+then.
+
+
+§ 3. And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.
+
+Finally, far below all these come those particular accuraciesor tricks
+of chiaroscuro which cause objects to look projecting from the canvas,
+not worthy of the name of truths, because they require for their
+attainment the sacrifice of all others; for not having at our disposal
+the same intensity of light by which nature illustrates her objects, we
+are obliged, if we would have perfect deception in one, to destroy its
+relation to the rest. (Compare Sect. II. chap. V.) And thus he who
+throws one object out of his picture, never lets the spectator into it.
+Michael Angelo bids you follow his phantoms into the abyss of heaven,
+but a modern French painter drops his hero out of the picture frame.
+
+This solidity or projection then, is the very lowest truth that art can
+give; it is the painting of mere matter, giving that as food for the eye
+which is properly only the subject of touch; it can neither instruct nor
+exalt, nor please except as jugglery; it addresses no sense of beauty
+nor of power; and wherever it characterizes the general aim of a
+picture, it is the sign and the evidence of the vilest and lowest
+mechanism which art can be insulted by giving name to.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VII.
+
+              GENERAL APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES.
+
+
+§ 1. The different selection of facts consequent on the several aims at
+       imitation or at truth.
+
+We have seen, in the preceding chapters, some proof of what was before
+asserted, that the truths necessary for deceptive imitation are not only
+few, but of the very lowest order. We thus find painters ranging
+themselves into two great classes; one aiming at the development of the
+exquisite truths of specific form, refined color, and ethereal space,
+and content with the clear and impressive suggestion of any of these, by
+whatsoever means obtained; and the other casting all these aside, to
+attain those particular truths of tone and chiaroscuro, which may trick
+the spectator into a belief of reality. The first class, if they have to
+paint a tree, are intent upon giving the exquisite designs of
+intersecting undulation in its boughs, the grace of its leafage, the
+intricacy of its organization, and all those qualities which make it
+lovely or affecting of its kind. The second endeavor only to make you
+believe that you are looking at wood. They are totally regardless of
+truths or beauties of form; a stump is as good as a trunk for all their
+purposes, so that they can only deceive the eye into the supposition
+that it _is_ a stump and not canvas.
+
+
+§ 2. The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation.
+
+§ 3. What truths they gave.
+
+To which of these classes the great body of the old landscape painters
+belonged, may be partly gathered from the kind of praise which is
+bestowed upon them by those who admire them most, which either refers to
+technical matters, dexterity of touch, clever oppositions of color,
+etc., or is bestowed on the power of the painter to _deceive_. M. de
+Marmontel, going into a connoisseur's gallery, pretends to mistake a
+fine Berghem for a window. This, he says, was affirmed by its possessor
+to be the greatest praise the picture had ever received. Such is indeed
+the notion of art which is at the bottom of the veneration usually felt
+for the old landscape painters; it is of course the palpable, first idea
+of ignorance; it is the only notion which people unacquainted with art
+can by any possibility have of its ends; the only test by which people
+unacquainted with nature can pretend to form anything like judgment of
+art. It is strange that, with the great historical painters of Italy
+before them, who had broken so boldly and indignantly from the trammels
+of this notion, and shaken the very dust of it from their feet, the
+succeeding landscape painters should have wasted their lives in
+jugglery: but so it is, and so it will be felt, the more we look into
+their works, that the deception of the senses was the great and first
+end of all their art. To attain this they paid deep and serious
+attention to effects of light and tone, and to the exact degree of
+relief which material objects take against light and atmosphere; and
+sacrificing every other truth to these, not necessarily, but because
+they required no others for deception, they succeeded in rendering these
+particular facts with a fidelity and force which, in the pictures that
+have come down to us uninjured, are as yet unequalled, and never can be
+surpassed. They painted their foregrounds with laborious industry,
+covering them with details so as to render them deceptive to the
+ordinary eye, regardless of beauty or truth in the details themselves;
+they painted their trees with careful attention to their pitch of shade
+against the sky, utterly regardless of all that is beautiful or
+essential in the anatomy of their foliage and boughs: they painted their
+distances with exquisite use of transparent color and aerial tone,
+totally neglectful of all facts and forms which nature uses such color
+and tone to relieve and adorn. They had neither love of nature, nor
+feeling of her beauty; they looked for her coldest and most commonplace
+effects, because they were easiest to imitate; and for her most vulgar
+forms, because they were most easily to be recognized by the untaught
+eyes of those whom alone they could hope to please; they did it, like
+the Pharisee of old, to be seen of men, and they had their reward. They
+do deceive and delight the unpractised eye; they will to all ages, as
+long as their colors endure, be the standards of excellence with all,
+who, ignorant of nature, claim to be thought learned in art. And they
+will to all ages be, to those who have thorough love and knowledge of
+the creation which they libel, instructive proofs of the limited number
+and low character of the truths which are necessary, and the accumulated
+multitude of pure, broad, bold falsehoods which are admissible in
+pictures meant only to deceive.
+
+There is of course more or less accuracy of knowledge and execution
+combined with this aim at effect, according to the industry and
+precision of eye possessed by the master, and more or less of beauty in
+the forms selected, according to his natural taste; but both the beauty
+and truth are sacrificed unhesitatingly where they interfere with the
+great effort at deception. Claude had, if it had been cultivated, a fine
+feeling for beauty of form, and is seldom ungraceful in his foliage; but
+his picture, when examined with reference to essential truth, is one
+mass of error from beginning to end. Cuyp, on the other hand, could
+paint close truth of everything, except ground and water, with decision
+and success, but he has no sense of beauty. Gaspar Poussin, more
+ignorant of truth than Claude, and almost as dead to beauty as Cuyp, has
+yet a perception of the feeling and moral truth of nature which often
+redeems the picture; but yet in all of them, everything that they can do
+is done for deception, and nothing for the sake or love of what they are
+painting.
+
+
+§ 4. The principles of selection adopted by modern artists.
+
+Modern landscape painters have looked at nature with totally different
+eyes, seeking not for what is easiest to imitate, but for what is most
+important to tell. Rejecting at once all idea of _bona fide_ imitation,
+they think only of conveying the impression of nature into the mind of
+the spectator. And there is, in consequence, a greater sum of valuable,
+essential, and impressive truth in the works of two or three of our
+leading modern landscape painters, than in those of all the old masters
+put together, and of truth too, nearly unmixed with definite or
+avoidable falsehood; while the unimportant and feeble truths of the old
+masters are choked with a mass of perpetual defiance of the most
+authoritative laws of nature.
+
+
+§ 5. General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted
+       with the freedom and vastness of nature.
+
+I do not expect this assertion to be believed at present; it must rest
+for demonstration on the examination we are about to enter upon; yet,
+even without reference to any intricate or deep-laid truths, it appears
+strange to me, that any one familiar with nature, and fond of her,
+should not grow weary and sick at heart among the melancholy and
+monotonous transcripts of her which alone can be received from the old
+school of art. A man accustomed to the broad, wild seashore, with its
+bright breakers, and free winds, and sounding rocks, and eternal
+sensation of tameless power, can scarcely but be angered when Claude
+bids him stand still on some paltry, chipped and chiselled quay with
+porters and wheelbarrows running against him, to watch a weak, rippling
+bound and barriered water, that has not strength enough in one of its
+waves to upset the flower-pots on the wall, or even to fling one jet of
+spray over the confining stone. A man accustomed to the strength and
+glory of God's mountains, with their soaring and radiant pinnacles, and
+surging sweeps of measureless distance, kingdoms in their valleys, and
+climates upon their crests, can scarcely but be angered when Salvator
+bids him stand still under some contemptible fragment of splintery crag,
+which an Alpine snow-wreath would smother in its first swell, with a
+stunted bush or two growing out of it, and a volume of manufactory smoke
+for a sky. A man accustomed to the grace and infinity of nature's
+foliage, with every vista a cathedral, and every bough a revelation, can
+scarcely but be angered when Poussin mocks him with a black round mass
+of impenetrable paint, diverging into feathers instead of leaves, and
+supported on a stick instead of a trunk. The fact is, there is one thing
+wanting in all the doing of these men, and that is the very virtue by
+which the work of human mind chiefly rises above that of the
+Daguerreotype or Calotype, or any other mechanical means that ever have
+been or may be invented, Love: There is no evidence of their ever having
+gone to nature with any thirst, or received from her such emotion as
+could make them, even for an instant, lose sight of themselves; there is
+in them neither earnestness nor humility; there is no simple or honest
+record of any single truth; none of the plain words nor straight efforts
+that men speak and make when they once feel.
+
+
+§ 6. Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret.
+
+Nor is it only by the professed landscape painters that the great
+verities of the material world are betrayed: Grand as are the motives
+of landscape in the works of the earlier and mightier men, there is yet
+in them nothing approaching to a general view nor complete rendering of
+natural phenomena; not that they are to be blamed for this; for they
+took out of nature that which was fit for their purpose, and their
+mission was to do no more; but we must be cautious to distinguish that
+imaginative abstraction of landscape which alone we find in them, from
+the entire statement of truth which has been attempted by the moderns. I
+have said in the chapter on symmetry in the second volume, that all
+landscape grandeur vanishes before that of Titian and Tintoret; and this
+is true of whatever these two giants touched;--but they touched little.
+A few level flakes of chestnut foliage; a blue abstraction of hill forms
+from Cadore or the Euganeans; a grand mass or two of glowing ground and
+mighty herbage, and a few burning fields of quiet cloud were all they
+needed; there is evidence of Tintoret's having felt more than this, but
+it occurs only in secondary fragments of rock, cloud, or pine, hardly
+noticed among the accumulated interest of his human subject. From the
+window of Titian's house at Venice, the chain of the Tyrolese Alps is
+seen lifted in spectral power above the tufted plain of Treviso; every
+dawn that reddens the towers of Murano lights also a line of pyramidal
+fires along that colossal ridge; but there is, so far as I know, no
+evidence in any of the master's works of his ever having beheld, much
+less felt, the majesty of their burning. The dark firmament and saddened
+twilight of Tintoret are sufficient for their end; but the sun never
+plunges behind San Giorgio in Aliga without such retinue of radiant
+cloud, such rest of zoned light on the green lagoon, as never received
+image from his hand. More than this, of that which they loved and
+rendered much is rendered conventionally; by noble conventionalities
+indeed, but such nevertheless as would be inexcusable if the landscape
+became the principal subject instead of an accompaniment. I will
+instance only the San Pietro Martire, which, if not the most perfect, is
+at least the most popular of Titian's landscapes; in which, to obtain
+light on the flesh of the near figures the sky is made as dark as deep
+sea, the mountains are laid in with violent and impossible blue, except
+one of them on the left, which, to connect the distant light with the
+foreground, is thrown into light relief, unexplained by its materials,
+unlikely in its position, and in its degree impossible under any
+circumstances.
+
+
+§ 7. Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools.
+
+I do not instance these as faults in the picture: there are no works of
+very powerful color which are free from conventionality concentrated or
+diffused, daring or disguised; but as the conventionality of this whole
+picture is mainly thrown into the landscape, it is necessary, while we
+acknowledge the virtue of this distance as a part of the great
+composition, to be on our guard against the license it assumes and the
+attractiveness of its overcharged color. Fragments of far purer truth
+occur in the works of Tintoret; and in the drawing of foliage, whether
+rapid or elaborate, of masses or details, the Venetian painters, taken
+as a body, may be considered almost faultless models. But the whole
+field of what they have done is so narrow, and therein is so much of
+what is only relatively right, and in itself false or imperfect, that
+the young and inexperienced painter could run no greater risk than the
+too early taking them for teachers; and to the general spectator their
+landscape is valuable rather as a means of peculiar and solemn emotion
+than as ministering to, or inspiring the universal love of nature. Hence
+while men of serious mind, especially those whose pursuits have brought
+them into continued relations with the peopled rather than the lonely
+world, will always look to the Venetian painters as having touched those
+simple chords of landscape harmony which are most in unison with earnest
+and melancholy feeling; those whose philosophy is more cheerful and more
+extended, as having been trained and colored among simple and solitary
+nature, will seek for a wider and more systematic circle of teaching:
+they may grant that the barred horizontal gloom of the Titian sky, and
+the massy leaves of the Titian forest are among the most sublime of the
+conceivable forms of material things; but they know that the virtue of
+these very forms is to be learned only by right comparison of them with
+the cheerfulness, fulness and comparative inquietness of other hours and
+scenes; that they are not intended for the continual food, but the
+occasional soothing of the human heart; that there is a lesson of not
+less value in its place, though of less concluding and sealing
+authority, in every one of the more humble phases of material things:
+and that there are some lessons of equal or greater authority which
+these masters neither taught nor received. And until the school of
+modern landscape arose Art had never noted the links of this mighty
+chain; it mattered not that a fragment lay here and there, no heavenly
+lightning could descend by it; the landscape of the Venetians was
+without effect on any contemporary in subsequent schools; it still
+remains on the continent as useless as if it had never existed; and at
+this moment German and Italian landscapes, of which no words are
+scornful enough to befit the utter degradation, hang in the Venetian
+Academy in the next room to the Desert of Titian and the Paradise of
+Tintoret.[6]
+
+
+§ 8. The value of inferior works of art how to be estimated.
+
+That then which I would have the reader inquire respecting every work of
+art of undetermined merit submitted to his judgment, is not whether it
+be a work of especial grandeur, importance, or power; but whether it
+have _any_ virtue or substance as a link in this chain of truth, whether
+it have recorded or interpreted anything before unknown, whether it have
+added one single stone to our heaven-pointing pyramid, cut away one dark
+bough, or levelled one rugged hillock in our path. This, if it be an
+honest work of art, it must have done, for no man ever yet worked
+honestly without giving some such help to his race. God appoints to
+every one of his creatures a separate mission, and if they discharge it
+honorably, if they quit themselves like men and faithfully follow that
+light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching
+influence, there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its
+appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service
+constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but
+the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is
+peculiar to him, and which worthily used will be a gift also to his
+race forever--
+
+"Fool not," says George Herbert,
+
+                                   "For all may have,
+       If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave."
+
+If, on the contrary, there be nothing of this freshness achieved, if
+there be neither purpose nor fidelity in what is done, if it be an
+envious or powerless imitation of other men's labors, if it be a display
+of mere manual dexterity or curious manufacture, or if in any other mode
+it show itself as having its origin in vanity,--Cast it out. It matters
+not what powers of mind may have been concerned or corrupted in it, all
+have lost their savor, it is worse than worthless;--perilous--Cast it
+out.
+
+Works of art are indeed always of mixed kind, their honesty being more
+or less corrupted by the various weaknesses of the painter, by his
+vanity, his idleness, or his cowardice; (the fear of doing right has far
+more influence on art than is commonly thought,) that only is altogether
+to be rejected which is altogether vain, idle, and cowardly. Of the rest
+the rank is to be estimated rather by the purity of their metal than the
+coined value of it.
+
+
+§ 9. Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its completion.
+
+Keeping these principles in view, let us endeavor to obtain something
+like a general view of the assistance which has been rendered to our
+study of nature by the various occurrences of landscape in elder art,
+and by the more exclusively directed labors of modern schools.
+
+To the ideal landscape of the early religious painters of Italy I have
+alluded in the concluding chapter of the second volume. It is absolutely
+right and beautiful in its peculiar application; but its grasp of nature
+is narrow and its treatment in most respects too severe and conventional
+to form a profitable example when the landscape is to be alone the
+subject of thought. The great virtue of it is its entire, exquisite, and
+humble realization of those objects it selects; in this respect
+differing from such German imitations of it as I have met with, that
+there is no effort of any fanciful or ornamental modifications, but
+loving fidelity to the thing studied. The foreground plants are usually
+neither exaggerated nor stiffened; they do not form arches or frames or
+borders; their grace is unconfined, their simplicity undestroyed. Cima
+da Conegliano, in his picture in the church of the Madonna dell' Orto at
+Venice, has given us the oak, the fig, the beautiful "Erba della
+Madonna" on the wall, precisely such a bunch of it as may be seen
+growing at this day on the marble steps of that very church; ivy and
+other creepers, and a strawberry plant in the foreground, with a blossom
+and a berry just set, and one half ripe and one ripe, all patiently and
+innocently painted from the real thing, and therefore most divine. Fra
+Angelico's use of the oxalis acetosella is as faithful in representation
+as touching in feeling.[7] The ferns that grow on the walls of Fiesole
+may be seen in their simple verity on the architecture of Ghirlandajo.
+The rose, the myrtle, and the lily, the olive and orange, pomegranate
+and vine, have received their fairest portraiture where they bear a
+sacred character; even the common plantains and mallows of the waysides
+are touched with deep reverence by Raffaelle; and indeed for the perfect
+treatment of details of this kind, treatment as delicate and
+affectionate as it is elevated and manly, it is to the works of these
+schools alone that we can refer. And on this their peculiar excellence I
+should the more earnestly insist, because it is of a kind altogether
+neglected by the English school, and with most unfortunate result, many
+of our best painters missing their deserved rank solely from the want of
+it, as Gainsborough; and all being more or less checked in their
+progress or vulgarized in their aim.
+
+
+§ 10. Finish, and the want of it, how right and how wrong.
+
+It is a misfortune for all honest critics, that hardly any quality of
+art is independently to be praised, and without reference to the motive
+from which it resulted, and the place in which it appears; so that no
+principle can be simply enforced but it shall seem to countenance a
+vice; while the work of qualification and explanation both weakens the
+force of what is said, and is not perhaps always likely to be with
+patience received: so also those who desire to misunderstand or to
+oppose have it always in their power to become obtuse listeners or
+specious opponents. Thus I hardly dare insist upon the virtue of
+completion, lest I should be supposed a defender of Wouvermans or Gerard
+Dow; neither can I adequately praise the power of Tintoret, without
+fearing to be thought adverse to Holbein or Perugino. The fact is, that
+both finish and impetuosity, specific minuteness, or large abstraction,
+may be the signs of passion, or of its reverse; may result from
+affection or indifference, intellect or dulness. Some men finish from
+intense love of the beautiful in the smallest parts of what they do;
+others in pure incapability of comprehending anything but parts; others
+to show their dexterity with the brush, and prove expenditure of time.
+Some are impetuous and bold in their handling, from having great
+thoughts to express which are independent of detail; others because they
+have bad taste or have been badly taught; others from vanity, and others
+from indolence. (Compare Vol. II. Chap. IX. § 8.) Now both the finish
+and incompletion are right where they are the signs of passion or of
+thought, and both are wrong, and I think the finish the more
+contemptible of the two, when they cease to be so. The modern Italians
+will paint every leaf of a laurel or rose-bush without the slightest
+feeling of their beauty or character; and without showing one spark of
+intellect or affection from beginning to end. Anything is better than
+this; and yet the very highest schools _do_ the same thing, or nearly
+so, but with totally different motives and perceptions, and the result
+is divine. On the whole, I conceive that the extremes of good and evil
+lie with the finishers, and that whatever glorious power we may admit in
+men like Tintoret, whatever attractiveness of method to Rubens,
+Rembrandt, or, though in far less degree, our own Reynolds, still the
+thoroughly great men are those who have done everything thoroughly, and
+who, in a word, have never despised anything, however small, of God's
+making. And this is the chief fault of our English landscapists, that
+they have not the intense all-observing penetration of well-balanced
+mind; they have not, except in one or two instances, anything of that
+feeling which Wordsworth shows in the following lines:--
+
+           "So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive;--
+            Would that the little flowers were born to live
+            Conscious of half the pleasure which they give.
+            That to this mountain daisy's self were known
+            _The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown
+            On the smooth surface of this naked stone._"
+
+That is a little bit of good, downright, foreground painting--no mistake
+about it; daisy, and shadow, and stone texture and all. Our painters
+must come to this before they have done their duty; and yet, on the
+other hand, let them beware of finishing, for the sake of finish, all
+over their picture. The ground is not to be all over daisies, nor is
+every daisy to have its star-shaped shadow; there is as much finish in
+the right concealment of things as in the right exhibition of them; and
+while I demand this amount of specific character where nature shows it,
+I demand equal fidelity to her where she conceals it. To paint mist
+rightly, space rightly, and light rightly, it may be often necessary to
+paint nothing else rightly, but the rule is simple for all that; if the
+artist is painting something that he knows and loves, as he knows it
+because he loves it, whether it be the fair strawberry of Cima, or the
+clear sky of Francia, or the blazing incomprehensible mist of Turner, he
+is all right; but the moment he does anything as he thinks it ought to
+be, because he does not care about it, he is all wrong. He has only to
+ask himself whether he cares for anything except himself; so far as he
+does he will make a good picture; so far as he thinks of himself a vile
+one. This is the root of the viciousness of the whole French school.
+Industry they have, learning they have, power they have, feeling they
+have, yet not so much feeling as ever to force them to forget themselves
+even for a moment; the ruling motive is invariably vanity, and the
+picture therefore an abortion.
+
+
+§ 11. The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain
+        drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione.
+
+Returning to the pictures of the religious schools, we find that their
+open skies are also of the highest value. Their preciousness is such
+that no subsequent schools can by comparison be said to have painted sky
+at all, but only clouds, or mist, or blue canopies. The golden sky of
+Marco Basaiti in the Academy of Venice altogether overpowers and renders
+valueless that of Titian beside it. Those of Francia in the gallery of
+Bologna are even more wonderful, because cooler in tone and behind
+figures in full light. The touches of white light in the horizon of
+Angelico's Last Judgment are felt and wrought with equal truth. The
+dignified and simple forms of cloud in repose are often by these
+painters sublimely expressed, but of changeful cloud form they show no
+examples. The architecture, mountains, and water of these distances are
+commonly conventional; motives are to be found in them of the highest
+beauty, and especially remarkable for quantity and meaning of incident;
+but they can only be studied or accepted in the particular feeling that
+produced them. It may generally be observed that whatever has been the
+result of strong emotion is ill seen unless through the medium of such
+emotion, and will lead to conclusions utterly false and perilous, if it
+be made a subject of cold-hearted observance, or an object of systematic
+imitation. One piece of genuine mountain drawing, however, occurs in the
+landscape of Masaccio's Tribute Money. It is impossible to say what
+strange results might have taken place in this particular field of art,
+or how suddenly a great school of landscape might have arisen, had the
+life of this great painter been prolonged. Of this particular fresco I
+shall have much to say hereafter. The two brothers Bellini gave a marked
+and vigorous impulse to the landscape of Venice, of Gentile's
+architecture I shall speak presently. Giovanni's, though in style less
+interesting and in place less prominent, occurring chiefly as a kind of
+frame to his pictures, connecting them with the architecture of the
+churches for which they were intended, is in refinement of realization,
+I suppose, quite unrivalled, especially in passages requiring pure
+gradation, as the hollows of vaultings. That of Veronese would look
+ghostly beside it; that of Titian lightless. His landscape is
+occasionally quaint and strange like Giorgione's, and as fine in color,
+as that behind the Madonna in the Brera gallery at Milan; but a more
+truthful fragment occurs in the picture in San Francesco della Vigna at
+Venice; and in the picture of St. Jerome in the church of San
+Grisostomo, the landscape is as perfect and beautiful as any background
+may legitimately be, and finer, as far as it goes, than anything of
+Titian's. It is remarkable for the absolute truth of its sky, whose
+blue, clear as crystal, and though deep in tone bright as the open air,
+is gradated to the horizon with a cautiousness and finish almost
+inconceivable; and to obtain light at the horizon without contradicting
+the system of chiaroscuro adopted in the figures which are lighted from
+the right hand, it is barred across with some glowing white cirri which,
+in their turn, are opposed by a single dark horizontal line of lower
+cloud; and to throw the whole farther back, there is a wreath of rain
+cloud of warmer color floating above the mountains, lighted on its under
+edge, whose faithfulness to nature, both in hue and in its light and
+shattering form, is altogether exemplary; the wandering of the light
+among the hills is equally studied, and the whole is crowned by the
+grand realization of the leaves of the fig-tree alluded to (Vol. II.
+Part III. Chap. 5,) as well as of the herbage upon the rocks.
+Considering that with all this care and completeness in the background,
+there is nothing that is not of meaning and necessity in reference to
+the figures, and that in the figures themselves the dignity and
+heavenliness of the highest religious painters are combined with a force
+and purity of color, greater I think than Titian's, it is a work which
+may be set before the young artist as in every respect a nearly
+faultless guide. Giorgione's landscape is inventive and solemn, but
+owing to the rarity even of his nominal works I dare not speak of it in
+general terms. It is certainly conventional, and is rather, I imagine,
+to be studied for its color and its motives than its details.
+
+
+§ 12. Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.
+
+Of Titian and Tintoret I have spoken already. The latter is every way
+the greater master, never indulging in the exaggerated color of Titian,
+and attaining far more perfect light; his grasp of nature is more
+extensive, and his view of her more imaginative, (incidental notices of
+his landscape will be found in the chapter on Imagination penetrative,
+of the second volume,) but he is usually too impatient to carry his
+thoughts as far out, or to realize with as much substantiality as
+Titian. In the St. Jerome of the latter in the gallery of the Brera,
+there is a superb example of the modes in which the objects of landscape
+may be either suggested or elaborated according to their place and
+claim. The larger features of the ground, foliage, and drapery, as well
+as the lion in the lower angle, are executed with a slightness which
+admits not of close examination, and which, if not in shade, would be
+offensive to the generality of observers. But on the rock above the
+lion, where it turns towards the light, and where the eye is intended to
+dwell, there is a wreath of ivy of which every leaf is separately drawn
+with the greatest accuracy and care, and beside it a lizard, studied
+with equal earnestness, yet always with that right grandeur of manner to
+which I have alluded in the preface. Tintoret seldom reaches or attempts
+the elaboration in substance and color of these objects, but he is even
+more truth-telling and certain in his rendering of all the great
+characters of specific form, and as the painter of Space he stands
+altogether alone among dead masters; being the first who introduced the
+slightness and confusion of touch which are expressive of the effects of
+luminous objects seen through large spaces of air, and the principles of
+aerial color which have been since carried out in other fields by
+Turner. I conceive him to be the most powerful painter whom the world
+has seen, and that he was prevented from being also the most perfect,
+partly by untoward circumstances in his position and education, partly
+by the very fulness and impetuosity of his own mind, partly by the want
+of religious feeling and its accompanying perception of beauty; for his
+noble treatment of religious subject, of which I have given several
+examples in the third part, appears to be the result only of that grasp
+which a great and well-toned intellect necessarily takes of any subject
+submitted to it, and is wanting in the signs of the more withdrawn and
+sacred sympathies.
+
+But whatever advances were made by Tintoret in modes of artistical
+treatment, he cannot be considered as having enlarged the sphere of
+landscape conception. He took no cognizance even of the materials and
+motives, so singularly rich in color, which were forever around him in
+his own Venice. All portions of Venetian scenery introduced by him are
+treated conventionally and carelessly; the architectural characters lost
+altogether, the sea distinguished from the sky only by a darker green,
+while of the sky itself only those forms were employed by him which had
+been repeated again and again for centuries, though in less tangibility
+and completion. Of mountain scenery he has left, I believe, no example
+so far carried as that of John Bellini above instanced.
+
+
+§ 13. Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna.
+
+The Florentine and Ambrian schools supply us with no examples of
+landscape, except that introduced by their earliest masters, gradually
+overwhelmed under renaissance architecture.
+
+Leonardo's landscape has been of unfortunate effect on art, so far as it
+has had effect at all. In realization of detail he verges on the
+ornamental, in his rock outlines he has all the deficiencies and little
+of the feeling of the earlier men. Behind the "Sacrifice for the
+Friends" of Giotto at Pisa, there is a sweet piece of rock incident, a
+little fountain breaking out at the mountain foot, and trickling away,
+its course marked by branches of reeds, the latter formal enough
+certainly, and always in triplets, but still with a sense of nature
+pervading the whole which is utterly wanting to the rocks of Leonardo in
+the Holy Family in the Louvre. The latter are grotesque without being
+ideal, and extraordinary without being impressive. The sketch in the
+Uffizii of Florence has some fine foliage, and there is of course a
+certain virtue in all the work of a man like Leonardo which I would not
+depreciate, but our admiration of it in this particular field must be
+qualified, and our following cautious.
+
+No advances were made in landscape, so far as I know, after the time of
+Tintoret; the power of art ebbed gradually away from the derivative
+schools; various degrees of cleverness or feeling being manifested in
+more or less brilliant conventionalism. I once supposed there was some
+life in the landscape of Domenichino, but in this I must have been
+wrong. The man who painted the Madonna del Rosario and Martyrdom of St.
+Agnes in the gallery of Bologna, is palpably incapable of doing anything
+good, great, or right in any field, way, or kind, whatsoever.[8]
+
+
+§ 14. Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins.
+
+Though, however, at this period the general grasp of the schools was
+perpetually contracting, a gift was given to the world by Claude, for
+which we are perhaps hardly enough grateful, owing to the very frequency
+of our after enjoyment of it. He set the sun in heaven, and was, I
+suppose, the first who attempted anything like the realization of actual
+sunshine in misty air. He gives the first example of the study of nature
+for her own sake, and allowing for the unfortunate circumstances of his
+education, and for his evident inferiority of intellect, more could
+hardly have been expected from him. His false taste, forced composition,
+and ignorant rendering of detail have perhaps been of more detriment to
+art than the gift he gave was of advantage. The character of his own
+mind is singular; I know of no other instance of a man's working from
+nature continually with the desire of being true, and never attaining
+the power of drawing so much as a bough of a tree rightly. Salvator, a
+man originally endowed with far higher power of mind than Claude, was
+altogether unfaithful to his mission, and has left us, I believe, no
+gift. Everything that he did is evidently for the sake of exhibiting his
+own dexterity; there is no love of any kind for anything; his choice of
+landscape features is dictated by no delight in the sublime, but by mere
+animal restlessness or ferocity, guided by an imaginative power of which
+he could not altogether deprive himself. He has done nothing which
+others have not done better, or which it would not have been better not
+to have done; in nature, he mistakes distortion for energy, and
+savageness for sublimity; in man, mendicity for sanctity, and conspiracy
+for heroism.
+
+The landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows much power, and is usually
+composed and elaborated on right principles, (compare preface to second
+edition,) but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or
+peculiar excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found
+in other masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to
+Leonardo's, in invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace
+to Raffaelle's. The landscapes of Gaspar have serious feeling and often
+valuable and solemn color; virtueless otherwise, they are full of the
+most degraded mannerism, and I believe the admiration of them to have
+been productive of extensive evil among recent schools.
+
+
+§ 15. German and Flemish landscape.
+
+The development of landscape north of the Alps, presents us with the
+same general phases under modifications dependent partly on less
+intensity of feeling, partly on diminished availableness of landscape
+material. That of the religious painters is treated with the same
+affectionate completion; but exuberance of fancy sometimes diminishes
+the influence of the imagination, and the absence of the Italian force
+of passion admits of more patient and somewhat less intellectual
+elaboration. A morbid habit of mind is evident in many, seeming to lose
+sight of the balance and relations of things, so as to become intense in
+trifles, gloomily minute, as in Albert Durer; and this mingled with a
+feverish operation of the fancy, which appears to result from certain
+habitual conditions of bodily health rather than of mental culture, (and
+of which the sickness without the power is eminently characteristic of
+the modern Germans;) but with all this there are virtues of the very
+highest order in those schools, and I regret that my knowledge is
+insufficient to admit of my giving any detailed account of them.
+
+In the landscape of Rembrandt and Rubens, we have the northern parallel
+to the power of the Venetians. Among the etchings and drawings of
+Rembrandt, landscape thoughts may be found not unworthy of Titian, and
+studies from nature of sublime fidelity; but his system of chiaroscuro
+was inconsistent with the gladness, and his peculiar modes of feeling
+with the grace, of nature; nor from my present knowledge can I name any
+work on canvas in which he has carried out the dignity of his etched
+conceptions, or exhibited any perceptiveness of new truths.
+
+Not so Rubens, who perhaps furnishes us with the first instances of
+complete unconventional unaffected landscape. His treatment is healthy,
+manly, and rational, not very affectionate, yet often condescending to
+minute and multitudinous detail; always as far as it goes pure,
+forcible, and refreshing, consummate in composition, and marvellous in
+color. In the Pitti palace, the best of its two Rubens landscapes has
+been placed near a characteristic and highly-finished Titian, the
+marriage of St. Catherine. But for the grandeur of line and solemn
+feeling in the flock of sheep, and the figures of the latter work, I
+doubt if all its glow and depth of tone could support its overcharged
+green and blue against the open breezy sunshine of the Fleming. I do not
+mean to rank the art of Rubens with that of Titian, but it is always to
+be remembered that Titian hardly ever paints sunshine, but a certain
+opalescent twilight which has as much of human emotion as of imitative
+truth in it,--
+
+         "The clouds that gather round the setting sun
+          Do take a sober coloring from an eye
+          That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality:"
+
+and that art of this kind must always be liable to some appearance of
+failure when compared with a less pathetic statement of facts.
+
+It is to be noted, however, that the licenses taken by Rubens in
+particular instances are as bold as his general statements are sincere.
+In the landscape just instanced the horizon is an oblique line; in the
+Sunset of our own gallery many of the shadows fall at right angles to
+the light; and in a picture in the Dulwich gallery a rainbow is seen by
+the spectator at the side of the sun.
+
+These bold and frank licenses are not to be considered as detracting
+from the rank of the painter; they are usually characteristic of those
+minds whose grasp of nature is so certain and extensive as to enable
+them fearlessly to sacrifice a truth of actuality to a truth of feeling.
+Yet the young artist must keep in mind that the painter's greatness
+consists not in his taking, but in his atoning for them.
+
+
+§ 16. The lower Dutch schools.
+
+Among the professed landscapists of the Dutch school, we find much
+dexterous imitation of certain kinds of nature, remarkable usually for
+its persevering rejection of whatever is great, valuable, or affecting
+in the object studied. Where, however, they show real desire to paint
+what they saw as far as they saw it, there is of course much in them
+that is instructive, as in Cuyp and in the etchings of Waterloo, which
+have even very sweet and genuine feeling; and so in some of their
+architectural painters. But the object of the great body of them is
+merely to display manual dexterities of one kind or another, and their
+effect on the public mind is so totally for evil, that though I do not
+deny the advantage an artist of real judgment may derive from the study
+of some of them, I conceive the best patronage that any monarch could
+possibly bestow upon the arts, would be to collect the whole body of
+them into a grand gallery and burn it to the ground.
+
+
+§ 17. English school, Wilson and Gainsborough.
+
+Passing to the English school, we find a connecting link between them
+and the Italians formed by Richard Wilson. Had this artist studied under
+favorable circumstances, there is evidence of his having possessed power
+enough to produce an original picture; but, corrupted by study of the
+Poussins, and gathering his materials chiefly in their field, the
+district about Rome--a district especially unfavorable, as exhibiting no
+pure or healthy nature, but a diseased and overgrown Flora among
+half-developed volcanic rocks, loose calcareous concretions, and
+mouldering wrecks of buildings--and whose spirit, I conceive, to be
+especially opposed to the natural tone of the English mind, his
+originality was altogether overpowered, and, though he paints in a manly
+way and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of color, as in the small
+and very precious picture belonging to Mr. Rogers, and sometimes
+manifests some freshness of feeling, as in the Villa of Męcenas of our
+National Gallery, yet his pictures are in general mere diluted
+adaptations from Poussin and Salvator, without the dignity of the one or
+the fire of the other.
+
+Not so Gainsborough, a great name his whether of the English or any
+other school. The greatest colorist since Rubens, and the last, I think,
+of legitimate colorists; that is to say, of those who were fully
+acquainted with the power of their material; pure in his English
+feeling, profound in his seriousness, graceful in his gayety, there are
+nevertheless certain deductions to be made from his worthiness which yet
+I dread to make, because my knowledge of his landscape works is not
+extensive enough to justify me in speaking of them decisively; but this
+is to be noted of all that I know, that they are rather motives of
+feeling and color than earnest studies; that their execution is in some
+degree mannered, and always hasty; that they are altogether wanting in
+the affectionate detail of which I have already spoken; and that their
+color is in some measure dependent on a bituminous brown and
+conventional green which have more of science than of truth in them.
+These faults may be sufficiently noted in the magnificent picture
+presented by him to the Royal Academy, and tested by a comparison of it
+with the Turner (Llanberis,) in the same room. Nothing can be more
+attractively luminous or aerial than the distance of the Gainsborough,
+nothing more bold or inventive than the forms of its crags and the
+diffusion of the broad distant light upon them, where a vulgar artist
+would have thrown them into dark contrast. But it will be found that the
+light of the distance is brought out by a violent exaggeration of the
+gloom in the valley; that the forms of the green trees which bear the
+chief light are careless and ineffective; that the markings of the crags
+are equally hasty; and that no object in the foreground has realization
+enough to enable the eye to rest upon it. The Turner, a much feebler
+picture in its first impression, and altogether inferior in the quality
+and value of its individual hues, will yet be found to the end more
+forcible, because unexaggerated; its gloom is moderate and aerial, its
+light deep in tone, its color entirely unconventional, and the forms of
+its rocks studied with the most devoted care. With Gainsborough
+terminates the series of painters connected with the elder schools. By
+whom, among those yet living or lately lost, the impulse was first given
+to modern landscape, I attempt not to decide. Such questions are rather
+invidious than interesting; the particular tone or direction of any
+school seems to me always to have resulted rather from certain phases
+of national character, limited to particular periods, than from
+individual teaching; and, especially among moderns, what has been good
+in each master has been commonly original.
+
+
+§ 18. Constable, Calcott.
+
+I have already alluded to the simplicity and earnestness of the mind of
+Constable; to its vigorous rupture with school laws, and to its
+unfortunate error on the opposite side. Unteachableness seems to have
+been a main feature of his character, and there is corresponding want of
+veneration in the way he approaches nature herself. His early education
+and associations were also against him; they induced in him a morbid
+preference of subjects of a low order. I have never seen any work of his
+in which there were any signs of his being able to draw, and hence even
+the most necessary details are painted by him inefficiently. His works
+are also eminently wanting both in rest and refinement, and Fuseli's
+jesting compliment is too true; for the showery weather in which the
+artist delights, misses alike the majesty of storm and the loveliness of
+calm weather: it is great-coat weather, and nothing more. There is
+strange want of depth in the mind which has no pleasure in sunbeams but
+when piercing painfully through clouds, nor in foliage but when shaken
+by the wind, nor in light itself but when flickering, glistening,
+restless, and feeble. Yet, with all these deductions, his works are to
+be deeply respected as thoroughly original, thoroughly honest, free from
+affectation, manly in manner, frequently successful in cool color, and
+especially realizing certain motives of English scenery with perhaps as
+much affection as such scenery, unless when regarded through media of
+feeling derived from higher sources, is calculated to inspire.
+
+On the works of Calcott, high as his reputation stands, I should look
+with far less respect; I see not any preference or affection in the
+artist; there is no tendency in him with which we can sympathize, nor
+does there appear any sign of aspiration, effort, or enjoyment in any
+one of his works. He appears to have completed them methodically, to
+have been content with them when completed, to have thought them good,
+legitimate, regular pictures; perhaps in some respects better than
+nature. He painted everything tolerably, and nothing excellently; he
+has given us no gift, struck for us no light, and though he has
+produced one or two valuable works, of which the finest I know is the
+Marine in the possession of Sir J. Swinburne, they will, I believe, in
+future have no place among those considered representative of the
+English school.
+
+
+§ 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.
+
+Throughout the range of elder art it will be remembered we have found no
+instance of the faithful painting of mountain scenery, except in a faded
+background of Masaccio's: nothing more than rocky eminences, undulating
+hills, or fantastic crags, and even these treated altogether under
+typical forms. The more specific study of mountains seems to have
+coincided with the most dexterous practice of water-color; but it admits
+of doubt whether the choice of subject has been directed by the vehicle,
+or whether, as I rather think, the tendency of national feeling has been
+followed in the use of the most appropriate means. Something is to be
+attributed to the increased demand for slighter works of art, and much
+to the sense of the quality of objects now called picturesque, which
+appears to be exclusively of modern origin. From what feeling the
+character of middle-age architecture and costume arose, or with what
+kind of affection their forms were regarded by the inventors, I am
+utterly unable to guess; but of this I think we may be assured, that the
+natural instinct and child-like wisdom of those days were altogether
+different from the modern feeling, which appears to have taken its
+origin in the absence of such objects, and to be based rather on the
+strangeness of their occurrence than on any real affection for them; and
+which is certainly so shallow and ineffective as to be instantly and
+always sacrificed by the majority to fashion, comfort, or economy. Yet I
+trust that there is a healthy though feeble love of nature mingled with
+it, nature pure, separate, felicitous, which is also peculiar to the
+moderns; and as signs of this feeling, or ministers to it, I look with
+veneration upon many works which, in a technical point of view, are of
+minor importance.
+
+
+§ 20. G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style."
+
+I have been myself indebted for much teaching and more delight to those
+of the late G. Robson. Weaknesses there are in them manifold, much bad
+drawing, much forced color, much over finish, little of what artists
+call composition; but there is thorough affection for the thing drawn;
+they are serious and quiet in the highest degree, certain qualities of
+atmosphere and texture in them have never been excelled, and certain
+facts of mountain scenery never but by them expressed, as, for instance,
+the stillness and depth of the mountain tarns, with the reversed imagery
+of their darkness signed across by the soft lines of faintly touching
+winds; the solemn flush of the brown fern and glowing heath under
+evening light; the purple mass of mountains far removed, seen against
+clear still twilight. With equal gratitude I look to the drawings of
+David Cox, which, in spite of their loose and seemingly careless
+execution, are not less serious in their meaning, nor less important in
+their truth. I must, however, in reviewing those modern works in which
+certain modes of execution are particularly manifested, insist
+especially on this general principle, applicable to all times of art;
+that what is usually called the style or manner of an artist is, in all
+good art, nothing but the best means of getting at the particular truth
+which the artist wanted; it is not a mode peculiar to himself of getting
+at the same truths as other men, but the _only_ mode of getting the
+particular facts he desires, and which mode, if others had desired to
+express those facts, they also must have adopted. All habits of
+execution persisted in under no such necessity, but because the artist
+has invented them, or desires to show his dexterity in them, are utterly
+base; for every good painter finds so much difficulty in reaching the
+end he sees and desires, that he has no time nor power left for playing
+tricks on the road to it; he catches at the easiest and best means he
+can get; it is possible that such means may be singular, and then it
+will be said that his _style_ is strange; but it is not a style at all,
+it is the saying of a particular thing in the only way in which it
+possibly can be said. Thus the reed pen outline and peculiar touch of
+Prout, which are frequently considered as mere manner, are in fact the
+only means of expressing the crumbling character of stone which the
+artist loves and desires. That character never has been expressed except
+by him, nor will it ever be expressed except by his means. And it is of
+the greatest importance to distinguish this kind of necessary and
+virtuous manner from the conventional manners very frequent in
+derivative schools, and always utterly to be contemned, wherein an
+artist, desiring nothing and feeling nothing, executes everything in his
+own particular mode, and teaches emulous scholars how to do with
+difficulty what might have been done with ease. It is true that there
+are sometimes instances in which great masters have employed different
+means of getting at the same end, but in these cases their choice has
+been always of those which to them appeared the shortest and most
+complete; their practice has never been prescribed by affectation or
+continued from habit, except so far as must be expected from such
+weakness as is common to all men; from hands that necessarily do most
+readily what they are most accustomed to do, and minds always liable to
+prescribe to the hands that which they can do most readily.
+
+The recollection of this will keep us from being offended with the loose
+and blotted handling of David Cox. There is no other means by which his
+object could be attained. The looseness, coolness, and moisture of his
+herbage; the rustling crumpled freshness of his broad-leaved weeds; the
+play of pleasant light across his deep heathered moor or plashing sand;
+the melting of fragments of white mist into the dropping blue above; all
+this has not been fully recorded except by him, and what there is of
+accidental in his mode of reaching it, answers gracefully to the
+accidental part of nature herself. Yet he is capable of more than this,
+and if he suffers himself uniformly to paint beneath his capability,
+that which began in feeling must necessarily end in manner. He paints
+too many small pictures, and perhaps has of late permitted his peculiar
+execution to be more manifest than is necessary. Of this, he is himself
+the best judge. For almost all faults of this kind the public are
+answerable, not the painter. I have alluded to one of his grander
+works--such as I should wish always to see him paint--in the preface;
+another, I think still finer, a red sunset on distant hills, almost
+unequalled for truth and power of color, was painted by him several
+years ago, and remains, I believe, in his own possession.
+
+
+§ 21. Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color.
+
+The deserved popularity of Copley Fielding has rendered it less
+necessary for me to allude frequently to his works in the following
+pages than it would otherwise have been, more especially as my own
+sympathies and enjoyments are so entirely directed in the channel which
+his art has taken, that I am afraid of trusting them too far. Yet I
+may, perhaps, be permitted to speak of myself so far as I suppose my own
+feelings to be representative of those of a class; and I suppose that
+there are many who, like myself, at some period of their life have
+derived more intense and healthy pleasure from the works of this painter
+than of any other whatsoever; healthy, because always based on his
+faithful and simple rendering of nature, and that of very lovely and
+impressive nature, altogether freed from coarseness, violence, or
+vulgarity. Various references to that which he has attained will be
+found subsequently: what I am now about to say respecting what he has
+_not_ attained, is not in depreciation of what he has accomplished, but
+in regret at his suffering powers of a high order to remain in any
+measure dormant.
+
+He indulges himself too much in the use of crude color. Pure cobalt,
+violent rose, and purple, are of frequent occurrence in his distances;
+pure siennas and other browns in his foregrounds, and that not as
+expressive of lighted but of local color. The reader will find in the
+following chapters that I am no advocate for subdued coloring; but crude
+color is not bright color, and there was never a noble or brilliant work
+of color yet produced, whose real form did not depend on the subduing of
+its tints rather than the elevation of them.
+
+It is perhaps one of the most difficult lessons to learn in art, that
+the warm colors of distance, even the most glowing, are subdued by the
+air so as in no wise to resemble the same color seen on a foreground
+object; so that the rose of sunset on clouds or mountains has a gray in
+it which distinguishes it from the rose color of the leaf of a flower;
+and the mingling of this gray of distance, without in the slightest
+degree taking away the expression of the intense and perfect purity of
+the color in and by itself, is perhaps the last attainment of the great
+landscape colorist. In the same way the blue of distance, however
+intense, is not the blue of a bright blue flower, and it is not
+distinguished from it by different texture merely, but by a certain
+intermixture and under current of warm color, which is altogether
+wanting in many of the blues of Fielding's distances; and so of every
+bright distant color; while in foreground where colors may be, and ought
+to be, pure, yet that any of them are expressive of light is only to be
+felt where there is the accurate fitting of them to their relative
+shadows which we find in the works of Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret,
+Veronese, Turner, and all other great colorists in proportion as they
+are so. Of this fitting of light to shadow Fielding is altogether
+regardless, so that his foregrounds are constantly assuming the aspect
+of overcharged local color instead of sunshine, and his figures and
+cattle look transparent.
+
+
+§ 22. Beauty of mountain foreground.
+
+Again, the finishing of Fielding's foregrounds, as regards their
+drawing, is minute without accuracy, multitudinous without thought, and
+confused without mystery. Where execution is seen to be in measure
+accidental, as in Cox, it may be received as representative of what is
+accidental in nature; but there is no part of Fielding's foreground that
+is accidental; it is evidently worked and reworked, dotted, rubbed, and
+finished with great labor, and where the virtue, playfulness, and
+freedom of accident are thus removed, one of two virtues must be
+substituted for them. Either we must have the deeply studied and
+imaginative foreground, of which every part is necessary to every other,
+and whose every spark of light is essential to the well-being of the
+whole, of which the foregrounds of Turner in the Liber Studiorum are the
+most eminent examples I know, or else we must have in some measure the
+botanical faithfulness and realization of the early masters. Neither of
+these virtues is to be found in Fielding's. Its features, though grouped
+with feeling, are yet scattered and inessential. Any one of them might
+be altered in many ways without doing harm; there is no proportioned,
+necessary, unalterable relation among them; no evidence of invention or
+of careful thought, while on the other hand there is no botanical or
+geological accuracy, nor any point on which the eye may rest with
+thorough contentment in its realization.
+
+It seems strange that to an artist of so quick feeling the details of a
+mountain foreground should not prove irresistibly attractive, and entice
+him to greater accuracy of study. There is not a fragment of its living
+rock, nor a tuft of its heathery herbage, that has not adorable
+manifestations of God's working thereupon. The harmonies of color among
+the native lichens are better than Titian's; the interwoven bells of
+campanula and heather are better than all the arabesques of the Vatican;
+they need no improvement, arrangement, nor alteration, nothing but love,
+and every combination of them is different from every other, so that a
+painter need never repeat himself if he will only be true; yet all these
+sources of power have been of late entirely neglected by Fielding; there
+is evidence through all his foregrounds of their being mere home
+inventions, and like all home inventions they exhibit perpetual
+resemblances and repetitions; the painter is evidently embarrassed
+without his rutted road in the middle, and his boggy pool at the side,
+which pool he has of late painted in hard lines of violent blue: there
+is not a stone, even of the nearest and most important, which has its
+real lichens upon it, or a studied form or anything more to occupy the
+mind than certain variations of dark and light browns. The same faults
+must be found with his present painting of foliage, neither the stems
+nor leafage being ever studied from nature; and this is the more to be
+regretted, because in the earlier works of the artist there was much
+admirable drawing, and even yet his power is occasionally developed in
+his larger works, as in a Bolton Abbey on canvas, which was,--I cannot
+say, exhibited,--but was in the rooms of the Royal Academy in 1843.[9] I
+should have made the preceding remarks with more hesitation and
+diffidence, but that, from a comparison of works of this kind with the
+slighter ornaments of the water-color rooms, it seems evident that the
+painter is not unaware of the deficiencies of these latter, and concedes
+something of what he would himself desire to what he has found to be the
+feeling of a majority of his admirers. This is a dangerous modesty, and
+especially so in these days when the judgment of the many is palpably as
+artificial as their feeling is cold.
+
+
+§ 23. De Wint.
+
+There is much that is instructive and deserving of high praise in the
+sketches of De Wint. Yet it is to be remembered that even the pursuit of
+truth, however determined, will have results limited and imperfect when
+its chief motive is the pride of being true; and I fear that these
+works, sublime as many of them have unquestionably been, testify more
+accuracy of eye and experience of color than exercise of thought. Their
+truth of effect is often purchased at too great an expense by the loss
+of all beauty of form, and of the higher refinements of color;
+deficiencies, however, on which I shall not insist, since the value of
+the sketches, as far as they go, is great; they have done good service
+and set good example, and whatever their failings may be, there is
+evidence in them that the painter has always done what he believed to be
+right.
+
+
+§ 24. Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding.
+
+The influence of the masters of whom we have hitherto spoken is confined
+to those who have access to their actual works, since the particular
+qualities in which they excel, are in no wise to be rendered by the
+engraver. Those of whom we have next to speak are known to the public in
+a great measure by the help of the engraver; and while their influence
+is thus very far extended, their modes of working are perhaps, in some
+degree modified by the habitual reference to the future translation into
+light and shade; reference which is indeed beneficial in the care it
+induces respecting the arrangement of the chiaroscuro and the
+explanation of the forms, but which is harmful, so far as it involves a
+dependence rather on quantity of picturesque material than on
+substantial color or simple treatment, and as it admits of indolent
+diminution of size and slightness of execution.
+
+We should not be just to the present works of J. D. Harding unless we
+took this influence into account. Some years back none of our artists
+realized more laboriously, nor obtained more substantial color and
+texture; a large drawing in the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq., of
+Tottenham, is of great value as an example of his manner at the period;
+a manner not only careful, but earnest, and free from any kind of
+affectation. Partly from the habit of making slight and small drawings
+for engravers, and partly also, I imagine, from an overstrained seeking
+after appearances of dexterity in execution, his drawings have of late
+years become both less solid and less complete; not, however, without
+attaining certain brilliant qualities in exchange which are very
+valuable in the treatment of some of the looser portions of subject. Of
+the extended knowledge and various powers of this painter, frequent
+instances are noted in the following pages. Neither, perhaps, are
+rightly estimated among artists, owing to a certain coldness of
+sentiment in his choice of subject, and a continual preference of the
+picturesque to the impressive; proved perhaps in nothing so distinctly
+as in the little interest usually attached to his skies, which, if
+aerial and expressive of space and movement, content him, though
+destitute of story, power, or character: an exception must be made in
+favor of the very grand sunrise on the Swiss Alps, exhibited in 1844,
+wherein the artist's real power was in some measure displayed, though I
+am convinced he is still capable of doing far greater things. So in his
+foliage he is apt to sacrifice the dignity of his trees to their
+wildness, and lose the forest in the copse, neither is he at all
+accurate enough in his expression of species or realization of near
+portions. These are deficiencies, be it observed, of sentiment, not of
+perception, as there are few who equal him in rapidity of seizure of
+material truth.
+
+
+§ 25. Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient.
+
+Very extensive influence in modern art must be attributed to the works
+of Samuel Prout; and as there are some circumstances belonging to his
+treatment of architectural subject which it does not come within the
+sphere of the following chapters to examine, I shall endeavor to note
+the more important of them here.
+
+Let us glance back for a moment to the architectural drawing of earlier
+times. Before the time of the Bellinis at Venice, and of Ghirlandajo at
+Florence, I believe there are no examples of anything beyond
+conventional representation of architecture, often rich, quaint, and
+full of interest, as Memmi's abstract of the Duomo at Florence at S^ta.
+Maria Novella; but not to be classed with any genuine efforts at
+representation. It is much to be regretted that the power and custom of
+introducing well-drawn architecture should have taken place only when
+architectural taste had been itself corrupted, and that the architecture
+introduced by Bellini, Ghirlandajo, Francia, and the other patient and
+powerful workmen of the fifteenth century, is exclusively of the
+renaissance styles; while their drawing of it furnishes little that is
+of much interest to the architectural draughtsman as such, being always
+governed by a reference to its subordinate position, so that all
+forceful shadow and play of color are (most justly) surrendered for
+quiet and uniform hues of gray and chiaroscuro of extreme simplicity.
+Whatever they chose to do they did with consummate grandeur, (note
+especially the chiaroscuro of the square window of Ghirlandajo's which
+so much delighted Vasari in S^ta. Maria Novella; and the daring
+management of a piece of the perspective in the Salutation, opposite
+where he has painted a flight of stairs descending in front, though the
+picture is twelve feet above the eye); and yet this grandeur, in all
+these men, results rather from the general power obtained in their
+drawing of the figure than from any definite knowledge respecting the
+things introduced in these accessory parts; so that while in some points
+it is impossible for any painter to equal these accessories, unless he
+were in all respects as great as Ghirlandajo or Bellini, in others it is
+possible for him, with far inferior powers, to attain a representation
+both more accurate and more interesting.
+
+In order to arrive at the knowledge of these, we must briefly take note
+of a few of the modes in which architecture itself is agreeable to the
+mind, especially of the influence upon the character of the building
+which is to be attributed to the signs of age.
+
+
+§ 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.
+
+It is evident, first, that if the design of the building be originally
+bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be in signs of antiquity.
+All that in this world enlarges the sphere of affection or imagination
+is to be reverenced, and all those circumstances enlarge it which
+strengthen our memory or quicken our conception of the dead; hence it is
+no light sin to destroy anything that is old, more especially because,
+even with the aid of all obtainable records of the past, we, the living,
+occupy a space of too large importance and interest in our own eyes; we
+look upon the world too much as our own, too much as if we had possessed
+it and should possess it forever, and forget that it is a mere hostelry,
+of which we occupy the apartments for a time, which others better than
+we have sojourned in before, who are now where we should desire to be
+with them. Fortunately for mankind, as some counterbalance to that
+wretched love of novelty which originates in selfishness, shallowness,
+and conceit, and which especially characterizes all vulgar minds, there
+is set in the deeper places of the heart such affection for the signs of
+age that the eye is delighted even by injuries which are the work of
+time; not but that there is also real and absolute beauty in the forms
+and colors so obtained, for which the original lines of the
+architecture, unless they have been very grand indeed, are well
+exchanged, so that there is hardly any building so ugly but that it may
+be made an agreeable object by such appearances. It would not be easy,
+for instance, to find a less pleasing piece of architecture than the
+portion of the front of Queen's College, Oxford, which has just been
+restored; yet I believe that few persons could have looked with total
+indifference on the mouldering and peeled surface of the oolite
+limestone previous to its restoration. If, however, the character of the
+building consist in minute detail or multitudinous lines, the evil or
+good effect of age upon it must depend in great measure on the kind of
+art, the material, and the climate. The Parthenon, for instance, would
+be injured by any markings which interfered with the contours of its
+sculptures; and any lines of extreme purity, or colors of original
+harmony and perfection are liable to injury, and are ill exchanged for
+mouldering edges or brown weatherstains.
+
+But as all architecture is, or ought to be, meant to be durable, and to
+derive part of its glory from its antiquity, all art that is liable to
+mortal injury from effects of time is therein out of place, and this is
+another reason for the principle I have asserted in the second part,
+page 204. I do not at this instant recollect a single instance of any
+very fine building which is not improved up to a certain period by all
+its signs of age, after which period, like all other human works, it
+necessarily declines, its decline being in almost all ages and countries
+accelerated by neglect and abuse in its time of beauty, and alteration
+or restoration in its time of age.
+
+Thus I conceive that all buildings dependent on color, whether of mosaic
+or painting, have their effect improved by the richness of the
+subsequent tones of age; for there are few arrangements of color so
+perfect but that they are capable of improvement by some softening and
+blending of this kind: with mosaic, the improvement may be considered as
+proceeding almost so long as the design can be distinctly seen; with
+painting, so long as the colors do not change or chip off.
+
+Again, upon all forms of sculptural ornament, the effect of time is
+such, that if the design be poor, it will enrich it; if overcharged,
+simplify it; if harsh and violent, soften it; if smooth and obscure,
+exhibit it; whatever faults it may have are rapidly disguised, whatever
+virtue it has still shines and steals out in the mellow light; and this
+to such an extent, that the artist is always liable to be tempted to the
+drawing of details in old buildings as of extreme beauty, which look
+cold and hard in their architectural lines; and I have never yet seen
+any restoration or cleaned portion of a building whose effect was not
+inferior to the weathered parts, even to those of which the design had
+in some parts almost disappeared. On the front of the church of San
+Michele at Lucca, the mosaics have fallen out of half the columns, and
+lie in weedy ruin beneath; in many, the frost has torn large masses of
+the entire coating away, leaving a scarred unsightly surface. Two of the
+shafts of the upper star window are eaten entirely away by the sea wind,
+the rest have lost their proportions, the edges of the arches are hacked
+into deep hollows, and cast indented shadows on the weed-grown wall.
+The process has gone too far, and yet I doubt not but that this building
+is seen to greater advantage now than when first built, always with
+exception of one circumstance, that the French shattered the lower wheel
+window, and set up in front of it an escutcheon with "Libertas" upon it,
+which abomination of desolation, the Lucchese have not yet had
+human-heartedness enough to pull down.
+
+Putting therefore the application of architecture as an accessory out of
+the question, and supposing our object to be the exhibition of the most
+impressive qualities of the building itself, it is evidently the duty of
+the draughtsman to represent it under those conditions, and with that
+amount of age-mark upon it which may best exalt and harmonize the
+sources of its beauty: this is no pursuit of mere picturesqueness, it is
+true following out of the ideal character of the building; nay, far
+greater dilapidation than this may in portions be exhibited, for there
+are beauties of other kinds, not otherwise attainable, brought out by
+advanced dilapidation; but when the artist suffers the mere love of
+ruinousness to interfere with his perception of the _art_ of the
+building, and substitutes rude fractures and blotting stains for all its
+fine chiselling and determined color, he has lost the end of his own
+art.
+
+
+§ 27. Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail.
+
+So far of aging; next of effects of light and color. It is, I believe,
+hardly enough observed among architects that the same decorations are of
+totally different effect according to their position and the time of
+day. A moulding which is of value on a building facing south, where it
+takes deep shadows from steep sun, may be utterly ineffective if placed
+west or east; and a moulding which is chaste and intelligible in shade
+on a north side, may be grotesque, vulgar, or confused when it takes
+black shadows on the south. Farther, there is a time of day in which
+every architectural decoration is seen to best advantage, and certain
+times in which its peculiar force and character are best explained; of
+these niceties the architect takes little cognizance, as he must in some
+sort calculate on the effect of ornament at all times; but to the artist
+they are of infinite importance, and especially for this reason, that
+there is always much detail on buildings which cannot be drawn as such,
+which is too far off, or too minute, and which must consequently be set
+down in short-hand of some kind or another; and, as it were, an
+abstract, more or less philosophical, made of its general heads. Of the
+style of this abstract, of the lightness, confusion, and mystery
+necessary in it, I have spoken elsewhere; at present I insist only on
+the arrangement and matter of it. All good ornament and all good
+architecture are capable of being put into short-hand; that is, each has
+a perfect system of parts, principal and subordinate, of which, even
+when the complemental details vanish in distance, the system and anatomy
+yet remain visible so long as anything is visible; so that the divisions
+of a beautiful spire shall be known as beautiful even till their last
+line vanishes in blue mist, and the effect of a well-designed moulding
+shall be visibly disciplined, harmonious, and inventive, as long as it
+is seen to be a moulding at all. Now the power of the artist of marking
+this character depends not on his complete knowledge of the design, but
+on his experimental knowledge of its salient and bearing parts, and of
+the effects of light and shadow, by which their saliency is best told.
+He must therefore be prepared, according to his subject, to use light,
+steep or level, intense or feeble, and out of the resulting chiaroscuro
+select those peculiar and hinging points on which the rest are based,
+and by which all else that is essential may be explained.
+
+The thoughtful command of all these circumstances constitutes the real
+architectural draughtsman; the habits of executing everything either
+under one kind of effect or in one manner, or of using unintelligible
+and meaningless abstracts of beautiful designs, are those which must
+commonly take the place of it and are the most extensively esteemed.[10]
+
+
+§ 28. Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio;
+
+Let us now proceed with our review of those artists who have devoted
+themselves more peculiarly to architectural subject.
+
+Foremost among them stand Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio, to whom
+we are indebted for the only existing faithful statements of the
+architecture of Old Venice, and who are the only authorities to whom we
+can trust in conjecturing the former beauty of those few desecrated
+fragments, the last of which are now being rapidly swept away by the
+idiocy of modern Venetians.
+
+Nothing can be more careful, nothing more delicately finished, or more
+dignified in feeling than the works of both these men; and as
+architectural evidence they are the best we could have had, all the
+gilded parts being gilt in the picture, so that there can be no mistake
+or confusion of them with yellow color or light, and all the frescoes or
+mosaics given with the most absolute precision and fidelity. At the same
+time they are by no means examples of perfect architectural drawing;
+there is little light and shade in them of any kind, and none whatever
+of the thoughtful observance of temporary effect of which we have just
+been speaking; so that, in rendering the character of the relieved
+parts, their solidity, depth, or gloom, the representation fails
+altogether, and it is moreover lifeless from its very completion, both
+the signs of age and the effects of use and habitation being utterly
+rejected; rightly so, indeed, in these instances, (all the architecture
+of these painters being in background to religious subject,) but wrongly
+so, if we look to the architecture alone. Neither is there anything like
+aerial perspective attempted; the employment of actual gold in the
+decoration of all the distances, and the entire realization of their
+details, as far as is possible on the scale compelled by perspective,
+being alone sufficient to prevent this, except in the hands of painters
+far more practised in effect than either Gentile or Carpaccio. But with
+all these discrepancies, Gentile Bellini's church of St. Mark's is the
+best church of St. Mark's that has ever been painted, so far as I know;
+and I believe the reconciliation of true aerial perspective and
+chiaroscuro with the splendor and dignity obtained by the real gilding
+and elaborate detail, is a problem yet to be accomplished. With the help
+of the Daguerreotype, and the lessons of color given by the later
+Venetians, we ought now to be able to accomplish it, more especially as
+the right use of gold has been shown us by the greatest master of effect
+whom Venice herself produced, Tintoret, who has employed it with
+infinite grace on the steps ascended by the young Madonna, in his large
+picture in the church of the Madonna dell' Orto. Perugino uses it also
+with singular grace, often employing it for golden light on distant
+trees, and continually on the high light of hair, and that without
+losing relative distances.
+
+
+§ 29. And of the Venetians generally.
+
+The great group of Venetian painters who brought landscape art, for that
+time, to its culminating point, have left, as we have already seen,
+little that is instructive in architectural painting. The causes of this
+I cannot comprehend, for neither Titian nor Tintoret appears to despise
+anything that affords them either variety of form or of color, the
+latter especially condescending to very trivial details,--as in the
+magnificent carpet painting of the Doge Mocenigo; so that it might have
+been expected that in the rich colors of St. Mark's, and the magnificent
+and fantastic masses of the Byzantine palaces, they would have found
+where-upon to dwell with delighted elaboration. This is, however, never
+the case, and although frequently compelled to introduce portions of
+Venetian locality in their backgrounds, such portions are always treated
+in a most hasty and faithless manner, missing frequently all character
+of the building, and never advanced to realization. In Titian's picture
+of Faith, the view of Venice below is laid in so rapidly and slightly,
+the houses all leaning this way and that, and of no color, the sea a
+dead gray green, and the ship-sails mere dashes of the brush, that the
+most obscure of Turner's Venices would look substantial beside it; while
+in the very picture of Tintoret in which he has dwelt so elaborately on
+the carpet, he has substituted a piece of ordinary renaissance
+composition for St. Mark's, and in the background has chosen the
+Sansovino side of the Piazzetta, treating even that so carelessly as to
+lose all the proportion and beauty of its design, and so flimsily that
+the line of the distant sea which has been first laid in, is seen
+through all the columns. Evidences of magnificent power of course exist
+in whatever he touches, but his full power is never turned in this
+direction. More space is allowed to his architecture by Paul Veronese,
+but it is still entirely suggestive, and would be utterly false except
+as a frame or background for figures. The same may be said with respect
+to Raffaelle and the Roman school.
+
+
+§ 30. Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto.
+
+If, however, these men laid architecture little under contribution to
+their own art, they made their own art a glorious gift to architecture,
+and the walls of Venice, which before, I believe, had received color
+only in arabesque patterns, were lighted with human life by Giorgione,
+Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese. Of the works of Tintoret and Titian,
+nothing now, I believe, remains; two figures of Giorgione's are still
+traceable on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, one of which, singularly
+uninjured, is seen from far above and below the Rialto, flaming like the
+reflection of a sunset. Two figures of Veronese were also traceable till
+lately, the head and arms of one still remain, and some glorious
+olive-branches which were beside the other; the figure having been
+entirely effaced by an inscription in large black letters on a whitewash
+tablet which we owe to the somewhat inopportunely expressed enthusiasm
+of the inhabitants of the district in favor of their new pastor.[11]
+Judging, however, from the rate at which destruction is at present
+advancing, and seeing that, in about seven or eight years more, Venice
+will have utterly lost every external claim to interest, except that
+which attaches to the group of buildings immediately around St. Mark's
+place, and to the larger churches, it may be conjectured that the
+greater part of her present degradation has taken place, at any rate,
+within the last forty years. Let the reader with such scraps of evidence
+as may still be gleaned from under the stucco and paint of the Italian
+committees of taste, and from among the drawing-room innovations of
+English and German residents restore Venice in his imagination to
+some resemblance of what she must have been before her fall. Let him,
+looking from Lido or Fusina, replace in the forest of towers those of
+the hundred and sixty-six churches which the French threw down; let him
+sheet her walls with purple and scarlet, overlay her minarets with
+gold,[12] cleanse from their pollution those choked canals which are now
+the drains of hovels, where they were once vestibules of palaces, and
+fill them with gilded barges and bannered ships; finally, let him
+withdraw from this scene, already so brilliant, such sadness and stain
+as had been set upon it by the declining energies of more than half a
+century, and he will see Venice as it was seen by Canaletto; whose
+miserable, virtueless, heartless mechanism, accepted as the
+representation of such various glory, is, both in its existence and
+acceptance, among the most striking signs of the lost sensation and
+deadened intellect of the nation at that time; a numbness and darkness
+more without hope than that of the grave itself, holding and wearing yet
+the sceptre and the crown like the corpses of the Etruscan kings, ready
+to sink into ashes at the first unbarring of the door of the sepulchre.
+
+[Illustration: CASA CONTARINI FASAN, VENICE.
+                 From a drawing by Ruskin.]
+
+The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole
+range of art. Professing the most servile and mindless imitation, it
+imitates nothing but the blackness of the shadows; it gives no one
+single architectural ornament, however near, so much form as might
+enable us even to guess at its actual one; and this I say not rashly,
+for I shall prove it by placing portions of detail accurately copied
+from Canaletto side by side with engravings from the Daguerreotype; it
+gives the buildings neither their architectural beauty nor their
+ancestral dignity, for there is no texture of stone nor character of age
+in Canaletto's touch; which is invariably a violent, black, sharp, ruled
+penmanlike line, as far removed from the grace of nature as from her
+faintness and transparency; and for his truth of color, let the single
+fact of his having omitted _all record, whatsoever, of the frescoes_
+whose wrecks are still to be found at least on one half of the
+unrestored palaces, and, with still less excusableness, all record of
+the magnificent colored marbles of many whose greens and purples are
+still undimmed upon the Casa Dario, Casa Bianca Capello, and multitudes
+besides, speak for him in this respect.
+
+Let it be observed that I find no fault with Canaletto, for his want of
+poetry, of feeling, of artistical thoughtfulness in treatment, or of the
+various other virtues which he does not so much as profess. He professes
+nothing but colored Daguerreotypeism. Let us have it: most precious and
+to be revered it would be: let us have fresco where fresco was, and that
+copied faithfully; let us have carving where carving is, and that
+architecturally true. I have seen Daguerreotypes in which every figure
+and rosette, and crack and stain, and fissure are given on a scale of an
+inch to Canaletto's three feet. What excuse is there to be offered for
+his omitting, on that scale, as I shall hereafter show, all statement of
+such ornament whatever? Among the Flemish schools, exquisite imitations
+of architecture are found constantly, and that not with Canaletto's
+vulgar, black exaggeration of shadow, but in the most pure and silvery
+and luminous grays. I have little pleasure in such pictures; but I blame
+not those who have more; they are what they profess to be, and they are
+wonderful and instructive, and often graceful, and even affecting, but
+Canaletto possesses no virtue except that of dexterous imitation of
+commonplace light and shade, and perhaps, with the exception of
+Salvator, no artist has ever fettered his unfortunate admirers more
+securely from all healthy or vigorous perception of truth, or been of
+more general detriment to all subsequent schools.
+
+
+§ 31. Expression of the effects of age on architecture by S. Prout.
+
+Neither, however, by the Flemings, nor by any other of the elder
+schools, was the effect of age or of human life upon architecture ever
+adequately expressed. What ruins they drew looked as if broken down on
+purpose, what weeds they put on seemed put on for ornament. Their
+domestic buildings had never any domesticity, the people looked out of
+their windows evidently to be drawn, or came into the street only to
+stand there forever. A peculiar studiousness infected all accident;
+bricks fell out methodically, windows opened and shut by rule; stones
+were chipped at regular intervals; everything that happened seemed to
+have been expected before; and above all, the street had been washed and
+the houses dusted expressly to be painted in their best. We owe to
+Prout, I believe, the first perception, and certainly the only existing
+expression of precisely the characters which were wanting to old art, of
+that feeling which results from the influence among the noble lines of
+architecture, of the rent and the rust, the fissure, the lichen, and the
+weed, and from the writing upon the pages of ancient walls of the
+confused hieroglyphics of human history. I suppose, from the deserved
+popularity of the artist, that the strange pleasure which I find myself
+in the deciphering of these is common to many; the feeling has been
+rashly and thoughtlessly contemned as mere love of the picturesque;
+there is, as I have above shown, a deeper moral in it, and we owe much,
+I am not prepared to say how much, to the artist by whom pre-eminently
+it has been excited. For, numerous as have been his imitators, extended
+as his influence, and simple as his means and manner, there has yet
+appeared nothing at all to equal him; there is _no_ stone drawing, _no_
+vitality of architecture like Prout's. I say not this rashly, I have
+Mackenzie in my eye and many other capital imitators; and I have
+carefully reviewed the Architectural work of the Academicians, often
+most accurate and elaborate. I repeat, there is nothing but the work of
+Prout which is true, living, or right in its general impression, and
+nothing, therefore, so inexhaustibly agreeable. Faults he has, manifold,
+easily detected, and much declaimed against by second-rate artists; but
+his excellence no one has ever touched, and his lithographic work,
+(Sketches in Flanders and Germany,) which was, I believe, the first of
+the kind, still remains the most valuable of all, numerous and elaborate
+as its various successors have been. The second series (in Italy and
+Switzerland) was of less value, the drawings seemed more laborious, and
+had less of the life of the original sketches, being also for the most
+part of subjects less adapted for the development of the artist's
+peculiar powers; but both are fine, and the Brussels, Louvain, Cologne,
+and Nuremberg, subjects of the one, together with the Tours, Amboise,
+Geneva, and Sion of the other, exhibit substantial qualities of stone
+and wood drawing, together with an ideal appreciation of the present
+active vital being of the cities, such as nothing else has ever
+approached. Their value is much increased by the circumstance of their
+being drawn by the artist's own hand upon the stone, and by the
+consequent manly recklessness of subordinate parts, (in works of this
+kind, be it remembered, much _is_ subordinate,) which is of all
+characters of execution the most refreshing. Note the scrawled middle
+tint of the wall behind the Gothic well at Ratisbonne, and compare this
+manly piece of work with the wretched smoothness of recent lithography.
+Let it not be thought that there is any inconsistency between what I say
+here and what I have said respecting finish. This piece of dead wall is
+as much finished in relation to its _function_ as a wall of
+Ghirlandajo's or Leonardo's in relation to theirs, and the refreshing
+quality is the same in both, and manifest in _all_ great masters,
+without exception, that of the utter regardlessness of the means so that
+their end be reached. The same kind of scrawling occurs often in the
+shade of Raffaelle.
+
+
+§ 32. His excellent composition and color.
+
+It is not only, however, by his peculiar stone touch nor perception of
+human character that he is distinguished. He is the most dexterous of
+all our artists in a certain kind of composition. No one can place
+figures like him, except Turner. It is one thing to know where a piece
+of blue or white is wanted, and another to make the wearer of the blue
+apron or white cap come there, and not look as if it were against her
+will. Prout's streets are the only streets that are accidentally
+crowded, his markets are the only markets where one feels inclined to
+get out of the way. With others we feel the figures so right where they
+are, that we have no expectation of their going anywhere else, and
+approve of the position of the man with the wheelbarrow, without the
+slightest fear of his running against our legs. One other merit he has,
+far less generally acknowledged than it should be: he is among our most
+sunny and substantial colorists. Much conventional color occurs in his
+inferior pictures (for he is very unequal) and some in all; but portions
+are always to be found of quality so luminous and pure that I have found
+these works the only ones capable of bearing juxtaposition with Turner
+and Hunt, who invariably destroy everything else that comes within
+range of them. His most beautiful tones occur in those drawings in which
+there is prevalent and powerful warm gray, his most failing ones in
+those of sandy red. On his deficiencies I shall not insist, because I am
+not prepared to say how far it is possible for him to avoid them. We
+have never seen the reconciliation of the peculiar characters he has
+obtained with the accurate following out of architectural detail. With
+his present modes of execution, farther fidelity is impossible, nor has
+any other mode of execution yet obtained the same results; and though
+much is unaccomplished by him in certain subjects, and something of
+over-mannerism may be traced in his treatment of others, as especially
+in his mode of expressing the decorative parts of Greek or Roman
+architecture, yet in his own peculiar Gothic territory, where the spirit
+of the subject itself is somewhat rude and grotesque, his abstract of
+decoration has more of the spirit of the reality than far more laborious
+imitation. The spirit of the Flemish Hotel de Ville and decorated street
+architecture has never been even in the slightest degree felt or
+conveyed except by him, and by him, to my mind, faultlessly and
+absolutely; and though his interpretation of architecture that contains
+more refined art in its details is far less satisfactory, still it is
+impossible, while walking on his favorite angle of the Piazzetta at
+Venice, either to think of any other artist than Prout or _not_ to think
+of _him_.
+
+
+§ 33. Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole.
+
+Many other dexterous and agreeable architectural artists we have of
+various degrees of merit, but of all of whom, it may be generally said,
+that they draw hats, faces, cloaks, and caps much better than Prout, but
+figures not so well; that they draw walls and windows but not cities,
+mouldings and buttresses but not cathedrals. Joseph Nash's work on the
+architecture of the middle ages is, however, valuable, and I suppose
+that Haghe's works may be depended on for fidelity. But it appears very
+strange that a workman capable of producing the clever drawings he has,
+from time to time, sent to the New Society of Painters in Water Colors,
+should publish lithographs so conventional, forced, and lifeless.
+
+It is not without hesitation, that I mention a name respecting which
+the reader may already have been surprised at my silence, that of G.
+Cattermole. There are signs in his works of very peculiar gifts, and
+perhaps also of powerful genius; their deficiencies I should willingly
+attribute to the advice of ill-judging friends, and to the applause of a
+public satisfied with shallow efforts, if brilliant; yet I cannot but
+think it one necessary characteristic of all true genius to be misled by
+no such false fires. The Antiquarian feeling of Cattermole is pure,
+earnest, and natural; and I think his imagination originally vigorous,
+certainly his fancy, his grasp of momentary passion considerable, his
+sense of action in the human body vivid and ready. But no original
+talent, however brilliant, can sustain its energy when the demands upon
+it are constant, and all legitimate support and food withdrawn. I do not
+recollect in any, even of the most important of Cattermole's works, so
+much as a fold of drapery studied out from nature. Violent
+conventionalism of light and shade, sketchy forms continually less and
+less developed, the walls and the faces drawn with the same stucco
+color, alike opaque, and all the shades on flesh, dress, or stone, laid
+in with the same arbitrary brown, forever tell the same tale of a mind
+wasting its strength and substance in the production of emptiness, and
+seeking, by more and more blindly hazarded handling, to conceal the
+weakness which the attempt at finish would betray.
+
+This tendency of late, has been painfully visible in his architecture.
+Some drawings made several years ago for an annual illustrative of
+Scott's works were for the most part pure and finely felt--(though
+irrelevant to our present subject, a fall of the Clyde should be
+noticed, admirable for breadth and grace of foliage, and for the bold
+sweeping of the water, and another subject of which I regret that I can
+only judge by the engraving; Glendearg at twilight--the monk Eustace
+chased by Christie of the Clint hill--which I think must have been one
+of the sweetest pieces of simple Border hill feeling ever painted)--and
+about that time his architecture, though always conventionally brown in
+the shadows, was generally well drawn, and always powerfully conceived.
+
+Since then, he has been tending gradually through exaggeration to
+caricature, and vainly endeavoring to attain by inordinate bulk of
+decorated parts, that dignity which is only to be reached by purity of
+proportion and majesty of line.
+
+
+§ 34. The evil in an archęological point of view of misapplied invention
+        in architectural subject.
+
+It has pained me deeply, to see an artist of so great original power
+indulging in childish fantasticism and exaggeration, and substituting
+for the serious and subdued work of legitimate imagination, monstre
+machicolations and colossal cusps and crockets. While there is so much
+beautiful architecture daily in process of destruction around us, I
+cannot but think it treason to _imagine_ anything; at least, if we must
+have composition, let the design of the artist be such as the architect
+would applaud. But it is surely very grievous, that while our idle
+artists are helping their vain inventions by the fall of sponges on
+soiled paper, glorious buildings with the whole intellect and history of
+centuries concentrated in them, are suffered to fall into unrecorded
+ruin. A day does not now pass in Italy without the destruction of some
+mighty monument; the streets of all her cities echo to the hammer, half
+of her fair buildings lie in separate stones about the places of their
+foundation; would not time be better spent in telling us the truth about
+these perishing remnants of majestic thought, than in perpetuating the
+ill-digested fancies of idle hours? It is, I repeat, treason to the
+cause of art for any man to invent, unless he invents something better
+than has been invented before, or something differing in kind. There is
+room enough for invention in the pictorial treatment of what exists.
+There is no more honorable exhibition of imaginative power, than in the
+selection of such place, choice of such treatment, introduction of such
+incident, as may produce a noble picture without deviation from one line
+of the actual truth; and such I believe to be, indeed, in the end the
+most advantageous, as well as the most modest direction of the
+invention, for I recollect no single instance of architectural
+composition by any men except such as Leonardo or Veronese, who could
+design their architecture thoroughly before they painted it, which has
+not a look of inanity and absurdity. The best landscapes and the best
+architectural studies have been views; and I would have the artist take
+shame to himself in the exact degree in which he finds himself obliged
+in the production of his picture to lose any, even of the smallest parts
+or most trivial hues which bear a part in the great impression made by
+the reality. The difference between the drawing of the architect and
+artist[13] ought never to be, as it now commonly is, the difference
+between lifeless formality and witless license; it ought to be between
+giving the mere lines and measures of a building, and giving those lines
+and measures with the impression and soul of it besides. All artists
+should be ashamed of themselves when they find they have not the power
+of being true; the right wit of drawing is like the right wit of
+conversation, not hyperbole, not violence, not frivolity, only well
+expressed, laconic truth.
+
+
+§ 35. Works of David Roberts: their fidelity and grace.
+
+Among the members of the Academy, we have at present only one
+professedly architectural draughtsman of note, David Roberts, whose
+reputation is probably farther extended on the continent than that of
+any other of our artists, except Landseer. I am not certain, however,
+that I have any reason to congratulate either of my countrymen upon this
+their European estimation; for I think it exceedingly probable that in
+both instances it is exclusively based on their defects; and in the case
+of Mr. Roberts, in particular, there has of late appeared more ground
+for it than is altogether desirable in a smoothness and over-finish of
+texture which bears dangerous fellowship with the work of our Gallic
+neighbors.
+
+The fidelity of intention and honesty of system of Roberts have,
+however, always been meritorious; his drawing of architecture is
+dependent on no unintelligible lines, or blots, or substituted types:
+the main lines of the real design are always there, and its hollowness
+and undercuttings given with exquisite feeling; his sense of solidity of
+form is very peculiar, leading him to dwell with great delight on the
+roundings of edges and angles; his execution is dexterous and delicate,
+singularly so in oil, and his sense of chiaroscuro refined. But he has
+never done himself justice, and suffers his pictures to fall below the
+rank they should assume, by the presence of several marring characters,
+which I shall name, because it is perfectly in his power to avoid them.
+In looking over the valuable series of drawing of the Holy Land, which
+we owe to Mr. Roberts, we cannot but be amazed to find how frequently
+it has happened that there was something very white immediately in the
+foreground, and something very black exactly behind it. The same thing
+happens perpetually with Mr. Roberts's pictures; a white column is
+always coming out of a blue mist, or a white stone out of a green pool,
+or a white monument out of a brown recess, and the artifice is not
+always concealed with dexterity. This is unworthy of so skilful a
+composer, and it has destroyed the impressiveness as well as the color
+of some of his finest works. It shows a poverty of conception, which
+appears to me to arise from a deficient habit of study. It will be
+remembered that of the sketches for this work, several times exhibited
+in London, every one was executed in the same manner, and with about the
+same degree of completion: being all of them accurate records of the
+main architectural lines, the shapes of the shadows, and the remnants of
+artificial color, obtained, by means of the same grays, throughout, and
+of the same yellow (a singularly false and cold though convenient color)
+touched upon the lights. As far as they went, nothing could be more
+valuable than these sketches, and the public, glancing rapidly at their
+general and graceful effects, could hardly form anything like an
+estimate of the endurance and determination which must have been
+necessary in such a climate to obtain records so patient, entire, and
+clear, of details so multitudinous as (especially) the hieroglyphics of
+the Egyptian temples; an endurance which perhaps only artists can
+estimate, and for which we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Roberts most
+difficult to discharge. But if these sketches were all that the artist
+brought home, whatever value is to be attached to them as statements of
+fact, they are altogether insufficient for the producing of pictures. I
+saw among them no single instance of a downright study; of a study in
+which the real hues and shades of sky and earth had been honestly
+realized or attempted; nor were there, on the other hand, any of those
+invaluable-blotted-five-minutes works which record the unity of some
+single and magnificent impressions. Hence the pictures which have been
+painted from these sketches have been as much alike in their want of
+impressiveness as the sketches themselves, and have never borne the
+living aspect of the Egyptian light; it has always been impossible to
+say whether the red in them (not a pleasant one) was meant for hot
+sunshine or for red sandstone--their power has been farther destroyed by
+the necessity the artist seems to feel himself under of eking out their
+effect by points of bright foreground color, and thus we have been
+encumbered with caftans, pipes, scymetars, and black hair, when all that
+we wanted was a lizard, or an ibis. It is perhaps owing to this want of
+earnestness in study rather than to deficiency of perception, that the
+coloring of this artist is commonly untrue. Some time ago when he was
+painting Spanish subjects, his habit was to bring out his whites in
+relief from transparent bituminous browns, which though not exactly
+right in color, were at any rate warm and agreeable; but of late his
+color has become cold, waxy, and opaque, and in his deep shades he
+sometimes permits himself the use of a violent black which is altogether
+unjustifiable. A picture of Roslin Chapel exhibited in 1844, showed this
+defect in the recess to which the stairs descend, in an extravagant
+degree; and another exhibited in the British Institution, instead of
+showing the exquisite crumbling and lichenous texture of the Roslin
+stone, was polished to as vapid smoothness as every French historical
+picture. The general feebleness of the effect is increased by the
+insertion of the figures as violent pieces of local color unaffected by
+the light and unblended with the hues around them, and bearing evidence
+of having been painted from models or draperies in the dead light of a
+room instead of sunshine. On these deficiencies I should not have
+remarked, but that by honest and determined painting from and of nature,
+it is perfectly in the power of the artist to supply them; and it is
+bitterly to be regretted that the accuracy and elegance of his work
+should not be aided by that genuineness of hue and effect which can only
+be given by the uncompromising effort to paint not a fine picture but an
+impressive and known _verity_.
+
+The two artists whose works it remains for us to review, are men who
+have presented us with examples of the treatment of every kind of
+subject, and among the rest with portions of architecture which the best
+of our exclusively architectural draughtsmen could not excel.
+
+
+§ 36. Clarkson Stanfield.
+
+The frequent references made to the works of Clarkson Stanfield
+throughout the subsequent pages render it less necessary for me to
+speak of him here at any length. He is the leader of the English
+Realists, and perhaps among the more remarkable of his characteristics
+is the look of common-sense and rationality which his compositions will
+always bear when opposed to any kind of affectation. He appears to think
+of no other artist. What he has learned, has been from his own
+acquaintance with and affection for the steep hills and the deep sea;
+and his modes of treatment are alike removed from sketchiness or
+incompletion, and from exaggeration or effort. The somewhat over-prosaic
+tone of his subjects is rather a condescension to what he supposes to be
+public feeling, than a sign of want of feeling in himself; for in some
+of his sketches from nature or from fancy, I have seen powers and
+perceptions manifested of a far higher order than any that are traceable
+in his Academy works, powers which I think him much to be blamed for
+checking. The portion of his pictures usually most defective in this
+respect is the sky, which is apt to be cold and uninventive, always well
+drawn, but with a kind of hesitation in the clouds whether it is to be
+fair or foul weather; they having neither the joyfulness of rest, nor
+the majesty of storm. Their color is apt also to verge on a morbid
+purple, as was eminently the case in the large picture of the wreck on
+the coast of Holland exhibited in 1844, a work in which both his powers
+and faults were prominently manifested, the picture being full of good
+painting, but wanting in its entire appeal. There was no feeling of
+wreck about it; and, but for the damage about her bowsprit, it would
+have been impossible for a landsman to say whether the hull was meant
+for a wreck or a guardship. Nevertheless, it is always to be
+recollected, that in subjects of this kind it is probable that much
+escapes us in consequence of our want of knowledge, and that to the eye
+of the seaman much may be of interest and value which to us appears
+cold. At all events, this healthy and rational regard of things is
+incomparably preferable to the dramatic absurdities which weaker artists
+commit in matters marine; and from copper-colored sunsets on green waves
+sixty feet high, with cauliflower breakers, and ninepin rocks; from
+drowning on planks, and starving on rafts, and lying naked on beaches,
+it is really refreshing to turn to a surge of Stanfield's true salt,
+serviceable, unsentimental sea. It would be well, however, if he would
+sometimes take a higher flight. The castle of Ischia gave him a grand
+subject, and a little more invention in the sky, a little less muddiness
+in the rocks, and a little more savageness in the sea, would have made
+it an impressive picture; it just misses the sublime, yet is a fine
+work, and better engraved than usual by the Art Union.
+
+One fault we cannot but venture to find, even in our own extreme
+ignorance, with Mr. Stanfield's boats; they never look weather-beaten.
+There is something peculiarly precious in the rusty, dusty,
+tar-trickled, fishy, phosphorescent brown of an old boat, and when this
+has just dipped under a wave and rises to the sunshine it is enough to
+drive Giorgione to despair. I have never seen any effort at this by
+Stanfield; his boats always look new painted and clean; witness
+especially the one before the ship in the wreck picture above noticed;
+and there is some such absence of a right sense of color in other
+portions of his subject; even his fishermen have always clean jackets
+and unsoiled caps, and his very rocks are lichenless. And, by the way,
+this ought to be noted respecting modern painters in general, that they
+have not a proper sense of the value of dirt; cottage children never
+appear but in fresh got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed beggars
+excite compassion in unexceptionable rags. In reality, almost all the
+colors of things associated with human life derive something of their
+expression and value from the tones of impurity, and so enhance the
+value of the entirely pure tints of nature herself. Of Stanfield's rock
+and mountain drawing enough will be said hereafter. His foliage is
+inferior; his architecture admirably drawn, but commonly wanting in
+color. His picture of the Doge's palace at Venice was quite clay-cold
+and untrue. Of late he has shown a marvellous predilection for the
+realization, even to actually relieved texture, of old worm-eaten wood;
+we trust he will not allow such fancies to carry him too far.
+
+
+§ 37. J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great painters.
+
+The name I have last to mention is that of J. M. W. Turner. I do not
+intend to speak of this artist at present in general terms, because my
+constant practice throughout this work is to say, when I speak of an
+artist at all, the very truth of what I believe and feel respecting him;
+and the truth of what I believe and feel respecting Turner would appear
+in this place, unsupported by any proof, mere rhapsody. I shall
+therefore here confine myself to a rapid glance at the relations of his
+past and present works, and to some notice of what he has failed of
+accomplishing: the greater part of the subsequent chapters will be
+exclusively devoted to the examination of the new fields over which he
+has extended the range of landscape art.
+
+It is a fact more universally acknowledged than enforced or acted upon,
+that all great painters, of whatever school, have been great only in
+their rendering of what they had seen and felt from early childhood; and
+that the greatest among them have been the most frank in acknowledging
+this their inability to treat anything successfully but that with which
+they had been familiar. The Madonna of Raffaelle was born on the Urbino
+mountains, Ghirlandajo's is a Florentine, Bellini's a Venetian; there is
+not the slightest effort on the part of any one of these great men to
+paint her as a Jewess. It is not the place here to insist farther on a
+point so simple and so universally demonstrable. Expression, character,
+types of countenance, costume, color, and accessories are with all great
+painters whatsoever those of their native land, and that frankly and
+entirely, without the slightest attempt at modification; and I assert
+fearlessly that it is impossible that it should ever be otherwise, and
+that no man ever painted or ever will paint well anything but what he
+has early and long seen, early and long felt, and early and long loved.
+How far it is possible for the mind of one nation or generation to be
+healthily modified and taught by the work of another, I presume not to
+determine; but it depends upon whether the energy of the mind which
+receives the instruction be sufficient, while it takes out of what it
+feeds upon that which is universal and common to all nature, to resist
+all warping from national or temporary peculiarities. Nino Pisano got
+nothing but good, the modern French nothing but evil, from the study of
+the antique; but Nino Pisano had a God and a character. All artists who
+have attempted to assume, or in their weakness have been affected by,
+the national peculiarities of other times and countries, have instantly,
+whatever their original power, fallen to third-rate rank, or fallen
+altogether, and have invariably lost their birthright and blessing,
+lost their power over the human heart, lost all capability of teaching
+or benefiting others. Compare the hybrid classification of Wilson with
+the rich English purity of Gainsborough; compare the recent exhibition
+of middle-age cartoons for the Houses of Parliament with the works of
+Hogarth; compare the sickly modern German imitations of the great
+Italians with Albert Durer and Holbein; compare the vile classicality of
+Canova and the modern Italians with Mino da Fiesole, Luca della Robbia,
+and Andrea del Verrocchio. The manner of Nicolo Poussin is said to be
+Greek--it may be so; this only I know, that it is heartless and
+profitless. The severity of the rule, however, extends not in full force
+to the nationality, but only to the visibility of things; for it is very
+possible for an artist of powerful mind to throw himself well into the
+feeling of foreign nations of his own time. Thus John Lewis has been
+eminently successful in his seizing of Spanish character. Yet it may be
+doubted if the seizure be such as Spaniards themselves would
+acknowledge; it is probably of the habits of the people more than their
+hearts; continued efforts of this kind, especially if their subjects be
+varied, assuredly end in failure; Lewis, who seemed so eminently
+penetrative in Spain, sent nothing from Italy but complexions and
+costumes, and I expect no good from his stay in Egypt. English artists
+are usually entirely ruined by residence in Italy, but for this there
+are collateral causes which it is not here the place to examine. Be this
+as it may, and whatever success may be attained in pictures of slight
+and unpretending aim, of genre, as they are called, in the rendering of
+foreign character, of this I am certain, that whatever is to be truly
+great and affecting must have on it the strong stamp of the native land;
+not a law this, but a necessity, from the intense hold on their country
+of the affections of all truly great men; all classicality, all
+middle-age patent reviving, is utterly vain and absurd; if we are now to
+do anything great, good, awful, religious, it must be got out of our own
+little island, and out of this year 1846, railroads and all: if a
+British painter, I say this in earnest seriousness, cannot make
+historical characters out of the British House of Peers, he cannot paint
+history; and if he cannot make a Madonna of a British girl of the
+nineteenth century, he cannot paint one at all.
+
+
+§ 38. Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject.
+
+The rule, of course, holds in landscape; yet so far less
+authoritatively, that the material nature of all countries and times is
+in many points actually, and in all, in principle, the same; so that
+feelings educated in Cumberland, may find their food in Switzerland, and
+impressions first received among the rocks of Cornwall, be recalled upon
+the precipices of Genoa. Add to this actual sameness, the power of every
+great mind to possess itself of the spirit of things once presented to
+it, and it is evident, that little limitation can be set to the
+landscape painter as to the choice of his field; and that the law of
+nationality will hold with him only so far as a certain joyfulness and
+completion will be by preference found in those parts of his subject
+which remind him of his own land. But if he attempt to impress on his
+landscapes any other spirit than that he has felt, and to make them
+landscapes of other times, it is all over with him, at least, in the
+degree in which such reflected moonshine takes place of the genuine
+light of the present day.
+
+The reader will at once perceive how much trouble this simple principle
+will save both the painter and the critic; it at once sets aside the
+whole school of common composition, and exonerates us from the labor of
+minutely examining any landscape which has nymphs or philosophers in it.
+
+It is hardly necessary for us to illustrate this principle by any
+reference to the works of early landscape painters, as I suppose it is
+universally acknowledged with respect to them; Titian being the most
+remarkable instance of the influence of the native air on a strong mind,
+and Claude, of that of the classical poison on a weak one; but it is
+very necessary to keep it in mind in reviewing the works of our great
+modern landscape painter.
+
+
+§ 39. Its peculiar manifestation in Turner.
+
+I do not know in what district of England Turner first or longest
+studied, but the scenery whose influence I can trace most definitely
+throughout his works, varied as they are, is that of Yorkshire. Of all
+his drawings, I think, those of the Yorkshire series have the most heart
+in them, the most affectionate, simple, unwearied, serious finishing of
+truth. There is in them little seeking after effect, but a strong love
+of place, little exhibition of the artist's own powers or peculiarities,
+but intense appreciation of the smallest local minutię. These drawings
+have unfortunately changed hands frequently, and have been abused and
+ill treated by picture dealers and cleaners; the greater number of them,
+are now mere wrecks. I name them not as instances, but as proofs of the
+artist's study in this district; for the affection to which they owe
+their excellence, must have been grounded long years before. It is to be
+traced, not only in these drawings of the places themselves, but in the
+peculiar love of the painter for rounded forms of hills; not but that he
+is right in this on general principles, for I doubt not, that, with his
+peculiar feeling for beauty of line, his hills would have been rounded
+still, even if he had studied first among the peaks of Cadore; but
+rounded to the same extent and with the same delight in their roundness,
+they would not have been. It is, I believe, to those broad wooded steeps
+and swells of the Yorkshire downs that we in part owe the singular
+massiveness that prevails in Turner's mountain drawing, and gives it one
+of its chief elements of grandeur. Let the reader open the Liber
+Studiorum, and compare the painter's enjoyment of the lines in the Ben
+Arthur, with his comparative uncomfortableness among those of the
+aiguilles about the Mer de Glace. Great as he is, those peaks would have
+been touched very differently by a Savoyard as great as he.
+
+I am in the habit of looking to the Yorkshire drawings, as indicating
+one of the culminating points in Turner's career. In these he attained
+the highest degree of what he had up to that time attempted, namely,
+finish and quantity of form united with expression of atmosphere, and
+light without color. His early drawings are singularly instructive in
+this definiteness and simplicity of aim. No complicated or brilliant
+color is ever thought of in them; they are little more than exquisite
+studies in light and shade, very green blues being used for the shadows,
+and golden browns for the lights. The difficulty and treachery of color
+being thus avoided, the artist was able to bend his whole mind upon the
+drawing, and thus to attain such decision, delicacy, and completeness as
+have never in any wise been equalled, and as might serve him for a
+secure foundation in all after experiments. Of the quantity and
+precision of his details, the drawings made for Hakewill's Italy, are
+singular examples. The most perfect gem in execution is a little bit on
+the Rhine, with reeds in the foreground, in the possession of B. G.
+Windus, Esq., of Tottenham; but the Yorkshire drawings seem to be on the
+whole the most noble representatives of his art at this period.
+
+About the time of their production, the artist seems to have felt that
+he had done either all that could be done, or all that was necessary, in
+that manner, and began to reach after something beyond it. The element
+of color begins to mingle with his work, and in the first efforts to
+reconcile his intense feeling for it with his careful form, several
+anomalies begin to be visible, and some unfortunate or uninteresting
+works necessarily belong to the period. The England drawings, which are
+very characteristic of it, are exceedingly unequal,--some, as the
+Oakhampton, Kilgarren, Alnwick, and Llanthony, being among his finest
+works; others, as the Windsor from Eton, the Eton College, and the
+Bedford, showing coarseness and conventionality.
+
+
+§ 40. The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.
+
+I do not know at what time the painter first went abroad, but among the
+earliest of the series of the Liber Studiorum (dates 1808, 1809,) occur
+the magnificent Mont St. Gothard, and little Devil's Bridge. Now it is
+remarkable that after his acquaintance with this scenery, so congenial
+in almost all respects with the energy of his mind, and supplying him
+with materials of which in these two subjects, and in the Chartreuse,
+and several others afterwards, he showed both his entire appreciation
+and command, the proportion of English to foreign subjects should in the
+rest of the work be more than two to one; and that those English
+subjects should be--many of them--of a kind peculiarly simple, and of
+every-day occurrence, such as the Pembury Mill, the Farm Yard
+Composition with the White Horse, that with the Cocks and Pigs, Hedging
+and Ditching, Watercress Gatherers (scene at Twickenham,) and the
+beautiful and solemn rustic subject called a Watermill; and that the
+architectural subjects instead of being taken, as might have been
+expected of an artist so fond of treating effects of extended space,
+from some of the enormous continental masses are almost exclusively
+British; Rivaulx, Holy Island, Dumblain, Dunstanborough, Chepstow, St.
+Catherine's, Greenwich Hospital, an English Parish Church, a Saxon Ruin,
+and an exquisite Reminiscence of the English Lowland Castle in the
+pastoral, with the brook, wooden bridge, and wild duck, to all of which
+we have nothing foreign to oppose but three slight, ill-considered, and
+unsatisfactory subjects, from Basle, Lauffenbourg, and another Swiss
+village; and, further, not only is the preponderance of subject British,
+but of affection also; for it is strange with what fulness and
+completion the home subjects are treated in comparison with the greater
+part of the foreign ones. Compare the figures and sheep in the Hedging
+and Ditching, and the East Gate Winchelsea, together with the near
+leafage, with the puzzled foreground and inappropriate figures of the
+Lake of Thun; or the cattle and road of the St. Catherine's Hill, with
+the foreground of the Bonneville; or the exquisite figure with the sheaf
+of corn, in the Watermill, with the vintages of the Grenoble subject.
+
+In his foliage the same predilections are remarkable. Reminiscences of
+English willows by the brooks, and English forest glades mingle even
+with the heroic foliage of the Ęsacus and Hesperie, and the Cephalus;
+into the pine, whether of Switzerland or the glorious Stone, he cannot
+enter, or enters at his peril, like Ariel. Those of the Valley of
+Chamounix are fine masses, better pines than other people's, but not a
+bit like pines for all that; he feels his weakness, and tears them off
+the distant mountains with the mercilessness of an avalanche. The Stone
+pines of the two Italian compositions are fine in their arrangement, but
+they are very pitiful pines; the glory of the Alpine rose he never
+touches; he munches chestnuts with no relish; never has learned to like
+olives; and, by the vine, we find him in the foreground of the Grenoble
+Alps laid utterly and incontrovertibly on his back.
+
+I adduce these evidences of Turner's nationality (and innumerable others
+might be given if need were) not as proofs of weakness but of power; not
+so much as testifying want of perception in foreign lands, as strong
+hold on his own will; for I am sure that no artist who has not this hold
+upon his own will ever get good out of any other. Keeping this principle
+in mind, it is instructive to observe the depth and solemnity which
+Turner's feeling received from the scenery of the continent, the keen
+appreciation up to a certain point of all that is locally
+characteristic, and the ready seizure for future use of all valuable
+material.
+
+
+§ 41. Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter
+        deficient.
+
+Of all foreign countries he has most entirely entered into the spirit of
+France; partly because here he found more fellowship of scene with his
+own England, partly because an amount of thought which will miss of
+Italy or Switzerland, will fathom France; partly because there is in the
+French foliage and forms of ground, much that is especially congenial
+with his own peculiar choice of form. To what cause it is owing I cannot
+tell, nor is it generally allowed or felt; but of the fact I am certain,
+that for grace of stem and perfection of form in their transparent
+foliage, the French trees are altogether unmatched; and their modes of
+grouping and massing are so perfectly and constantly beautiful that I
+think of all countries for educating an artist to the perception of
+grace, France bears the bell; and that not romantic nor mountainous
+France, not the Vosges, nor Auvergne, nor Provence, but lowland France,
+Picardy and Normandy, the valleys of the Loire and Seine, and even the
+district, so thoughtlessly and mindlessly abused by English travellers,
+as uninteresting, traversed between Calais and Dijon; of which there is
+not a single valley but is full of the most lovely pictures, nor a mile
+from which the artist may not receive instruction; the district
+immediately about Sens being perhaps the most valuable from the grandeur
+of its lines of poplars and the unimaginable finish and beauty of the
+tree forms in the two great avenues without the walls. Of this kind of
+beauty Turner was the first to take cognizance, and he still remains the
+only, but in himself the sufficient painter of French landscape. One of
+the most beautiful examples is the drawing of trees engraved for the
+Keepsake, now in the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq.; the drawings made
+to illustrate the scenery of the Rivers of France supply instances of
+the most varied character.
+
+The artist appears, until very lately, rather to have taken from
+Switzerland thoughts and general conceptions of size and of grand form
+and effect to be used in his after compositions, than to have attempted
+the seizing of its actual character. This was beforehand to be expected
+from the utter physical impossibility of rendering certain effects of
+Swiss scenery, and the monotony and unmanageableness of others. The
+Valley of Chamounix in the collection of Walter Fawkes, Esq., I have
+never seen; it has a high reputation; the Hannibal passing the Alps in
+its present state exhibits nothing but a heavy shower and a crowd of
+people getting wet; another picture in the artist's gallery of a
+land-fall is most masterly and interesting, but more daring than
+agreeable. The Snowstorm, avalanche, and inundation, is one of his
+mightiest works, but the amount of mountain drawing in it is less than
+of cloud and effect; the subjects in the Liber Studiorum are on the
+whole the most intensely felt, and next to them the vignettes to
+Rogers's Poems and Italy. Of some recent drawings of Swiss subject I
+shall speak presently.
+
+
+§ 42. His rendering of Italian character still less successful. His
+        large compositions how failing.
+
+The effect of Italy upon his mind is very puzzling. On the one hand, it
+gave him the solemnity and power which are manifested in the historical
+compositions of the Liber Studiorum, more especially the Rizpah, the
+Cephalus, the scene from the Fairy Queen, and the Ęsacus and Hesperie:
+on the other, he seems never to have entered thoroughly into the spirit
+of Italy, and the materials he obtained there were afterwards but
+awkwardly introduced in his large compositions.
+
+Of these there are very few at all worthy of him; none but the Liber
+Studiorum subjects are thoroughly great, and these are great because
+there is in them the seriousness without the materials of other
+countries and times. There is nothing particularly indicative of
+Palestine in the Barley Harvest of the Rizpah, nor in those round and
+awful trees; only the solemnity of the south in the lifting of the near
+burning moon. The rocks of the Jason may be seen in any quarry of
+Warwickshire sandstone. Jason himself has not a bit of Greek about
+him--he is a simple warrior of no period in particular, nay, I think
+there is something of the nineteenth century about his legs. When local
+character of this classical kind is attempted, the painter is visibly
+cramped: awkward resemblances to Claude testify the want of his usual
+forceful originality: in the tenth Plague of Egypt, he makes us think of
+Belzoni rather than of Moses; the fifth is a total failure, the pyramids
+look like brick-kilns, and the fire running along the ground bears
+brotherly resemblance to the burning of manure. The realization of the
+tenth plague now in his gallery is finer than the study, but still
+uninteresting; and of the large compositions which have much of Italy in
+them, the greater part are overwhelmed with quantity and deficient in
+emotion. The Crossing the Brook is one of the best of these hybrid
+pictures; incomparable in its tree drawing, it yet leaves us doubtful
+where we are to look and what we are to feel; it is northern in its
+color, southern in its foliage, Italy in its details, and England in its
+sensations, without the grandeur of the one, or the healthiness of the
+other.
+
+The two Carthages are mere rationalizations of Claude, one of them
+excessively bad in color, the other a grand thought, and yet one of the
+kind which does no one any good, because everything in it is
+reciprocally sacrificed; the foliage is sacrificed to the architecture,
+the architecture to the water, the water is neither sea, nor river, nor
+lake, nor brook, nor canal, and savors of Regent's Park; the foreground
+is uncomfortable ground,--let on building leases. So the Caligula's
+Bridge, Temple of Jupiter, Departure of Regulus, Ancient Italy, Cicero's
+Villa, and such others, come they from whose hand they may, I class
+under the general head of "nonsense pictures." There never can be any
+wholesome feeling developed in these preposterous accumulations, and
+where the artist's feeling fails, his art follows; so that the worst
+possible examples of Turner's color are found in pictures of this class;
+in one or two instances he has broken through the conventional rules,
+and then is always fine, as in the Hero and Leander; but in general the
+picture rises in value as it approaches to a view, as the Fountain of
+Fallacy, a piece of rich northern Italy, with some fairy waterworks;
+this picture was unrivalled in color once, but is now a mere wreck. So
+the Rape of Proserpine, though it is singular that in his Academy
+pictures even his simplicity fails of reaching ideality; in this picture
+of Proserpine the nature is not the grand nature of all time, it is
+indubitably modern,[14] and we are perfectly electrified at anybody's
+being carried away in the corner except by people with spiky hats and
+carabines. This is traceable to several causes; partly to the want of
+any grand specific form, partly to the too evident middle-age character
+of the ruins crowning the hills, and to a multiplicity of minor causes
+which we cannot at present enter into.
+
+
+§ 43. His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant quantity.
+
+Neither in his actual views of Italy has Turner ever caught her true
+spirit, except in the little vignettes to Rogers's Poems. The Villa of
+Galileo, the nameless composition with stone pines, the several villa
+moonlights, and the convent compositions in the Voyage of Columbus, are
+altogether exquisite; but this is owing chiefly to their simplicity and
+perhaps in some measure to their smallness of size. None of his large
+pictures at all equal them; the Bay of Baię is encumbered with
+material, it contains ten times as much as is necessary to a good
+picture, and yet is so crude in color as to look unfinished. The
+Palestrina is fall of raw white, and has a look of Hampton Court about
+its long avenue; the modern Italy is purely English in its near foliage;
+it is composed from Tivoli material enriched and arranged most
+dexterously, but it has the look of a rich arrangement, and not the
+virtue of the real thing. The early Tivoli, a large drawing taken from
+below the falls, was as little true, and still less fortunate, the trees
+there being altogether affected and artificial. The Florence engraved in
+the Keepsake is a glorious drawing, as far as regards the passage with
+the bridge and sunlight on the Arno, the Cascine foliage, and distant
+plain, and the towers of the fortress on the left; but the details of
+the duomo and the city are entirely missed, and with them the majesty of
+the whole scene. The vines and melons of the foreground are disorderly,
+and its cypresses conventional; in fact, I recollect no instance of
+Turner's drawing a cypress except in general terms.
+
+The chief reason of these failures I imagine to be the effort of the
+artist to put joyousness and brilliancy of effect upon scenes eminently
+pensive, to substitute radiance for serenity of light, and to force the
+freedom and breadth of line which he learned to love on English downs
+and Highland moors, out of a country dotted by campaniles and square
+convents, bristled with cypresses, partitioned by walls, and gone up and
+down by steps.
+
+In one of the cities of Italy he had no such difficulties to encounter.
+At Venice he found freedom of space, brilliancy of light, variety of
+color, massy simplicity of general form; and to Venice we owe many of
+the motives in which his highest powers of color have been displayed
+after that change in his system of which we must now take note.
+
+
+§ 44. Changes introduced by him in the received system of art.
+
+Among the earlier paintings of Turner, the culminating period, marked by
+the Yorkshire series in his drawings, is distinguished by great
+solemnity and simplicity of subject, prevalent gloom in light and shade,
+and brown in the hue, the drawing manly but careful, the minutię
+sometimes exquisitely delicate. All the finest works of this period are,
+I believe, without exception, views, or quiet single thoughts. The
+Calder Bridge, belonging to E. Bicknell, Esq., is a most pure and
+beautiful example. The Ivy Bridge I imagine to be later, but its rock
+foreground is altogether unrivalled and remarkable for its delicacy of
+detail; a butterfly is seen settled on one of the large brown stones in
+the midst of the torrent. Two paintings of Bonneville, in Savoy, one in
+the possession of Abel Allnutt, Esq., the other, and, I think, the
+finest, in a collection at Birmingham, show more variety of color than
+is usual with him at the period, and are in every respect magnificent
+examples. Pictures of this class are of peculiar value, for the larger
+compositions of the same period are all poor in color, and most of them
+much damaged, but the smaller works have been far finer originally, and
+their color seems secure. There is nothing in the range of landscape art
+equal to them in their way, but the full character and capacity of the
+painter is not in them. Grand as they are in their sobriety, they still
+leave much to be desired; there is great heaviness in their shadows, the
+material is never thoroughly vanquished, (though this partly for a very
+noble reason, that the painter is always thinking of and referring to
+nature, and indulges in no artistical conventionalities,) and sometimes
+the handling appears feeble. In warmth, lightness, and transparency they
+have no chance against Gainsborough; in clear skies and air tone they
+are alike unfortunate when they provoke comparison with Claude; and in
+force and solemnity they can in no wise stand with the landscape of the
+Venetians.
+
+The painter evidently felt that he had farther powers, and pressed
+forward into the field where alone they could be brought into play. It
+was impossible for him, with all his keen and long-disciplined
+perceptions, not to feel that the real color of nature had never been
+attempted by any school; and that though conventional representations
+had been given by the Venetians of sunlight and twilight, by invariably
+rendering the whites golden and the blues green, yet of the actual,
+joyous, pure, roseate hues of the external world no record had ever been
+given. He saw also that the finish and specific grandeur of nature had
+been given, but her fulness, space, and mystery never; and he saw that
+the great landscape painters had always sunk the lower middle tints of
+nature in extreme shade, bringing the entire melody of color as many
+degrees down as their possible light was inferior to nature's; and that
+in so doing a gloomy principle had influenced them even in their choice
+of subject.
+
+For the conventional color he substituted a pure straightforward
+rendering of fact, as far as was in his power; and that not of such fact
+as had been before even suggested, but of all that is _most_ brilliant,
+beautiful, and inimitable; he went to the cataract for its iris, to the
+conflagration for its flames, asked of the sea its intensest azure, of
+the sky its clearest gold. For the limited space and defined forms of
+elder landscape, he substituted the quantity and the mystery of the
+vastest scenes of earth; and for the subdued chiaroscuro he substituted
+first a balanced diminution of oppositions throughout the scale, and
+afterwards, in one or two instances, attempted the reverse of the old
+principle, taking the lowest portion of the scale truly, and merging the
+upper part in high light.
+
+
+§ 45. Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies.
+
+Innovations so daring and so various could not be introduced without
+corresponding peril: the difficulties that lay in his way were more than
+any human intellect could altogether surmount. In his time there has
+been no one system of color generally approved; every artist has his own
+method and his own vehicle; how to do what Gainsborough did, we know
+not; much less what Titian; to invent a new system of color can hardly
+be expected of those who cannot recover the old. To obtain perfectly
+satisfactory results in color under the new conditions introduced by
+Turner, would at least have required the exertion of all his energies in
+that sole direction. But color has always been only his second object.
+The effects of space and form, in which he delights, often require the
+employment of means and method totally at variance with those necessary
+for the obtaining of pure color. It is physically impossible, for
+instance, rightly to draw certain forms of the upper clouds with the
+brush; nothing will do it but the pallet knife with loaded white after
+the blue ground is prepared. Now it is impossible that a cloud so drawn,
+however glazed afterwards, should have the virtue of a thin warm tint of
+Titian's, showing the canvas throughout. So it happens continually. Add
+to these difficulties, those of the peculiar subjects attempted, and to
+these again, all that belong to the altered system of chiaroscuro, and
+it is evident that we must not be surprised at finding many deficiencies
+or faults in such works, especially in the earlier of them, nor even
+suffer ourselves to be withdrawn by the pursuit of what seems censurable
+from our devotion to what is mighty.
+
+Notwithstanding, in some chosen examples of pictures of this kind, I
+will name three: Juliet and her Nurse; the Old Temeraire, and the Slave
+Ship: I do not admit that there are at the time of their first appearing
+on the walls of the Royal Academy, any demonstrably avoidable faults. I
+do not deny that there may be, nay, that it is likely there are; but
+there is no living artist in Europe whose judgment might safely be taken
+on the subject, or who could without arrogance affirm of any part of
+such a picture, that it was _wrong_; I am perfectly willing to allow,
+that the lemon yellow is not properly representative of the yellow of
+the sky, that the loading of the color is in many places disagreeable,
+that many of the details are drawn with a kind of imperfection different
+from what they would have in nature, and that many of the parts fail of
+imitation, especially to an uneducated eye. But no living authority is
+of weight enough to prove that the virtues of the picture could have
+been obtained at a less sacrifice, or that they are not worth the
+sacrifice; and though it is perfectly possible that such may be the
+case, and that what Turner has done may hereafter in some respects be
+done better, I believe myself that these works are at the time of their
+first appearing as perfect as those of Phidias or Leonardo; that is to
+say, incapable in their way, of any improvement conceivable by human
+mind.
+
+Also, it is only by comparison with such that we are authorized to
+affirm definite faults in any of his others, for we should have been
+bound to speak, at least for the present, with the same modesty
+respecting even his worst pictures of this class, had not his more noble
+efforts given us canons of criticism.
+
+But, as was beforehand to be expected from the difficulties he grappled
+with, Turner is exceedingly unequal; he appears always as a champion in
+the thick of fight, sometimes with his foot on his enemies' necks,
+sometimes staggered or struck to his knee; once or twice altogether
+down. He has failed most frequently, as before noticed, in elaborate
+compositions, from redundant quantity; sometimes, like most other men,
+from over-care, as very signally in a large and most labored drawing of
+Bamborough; sometimes, unaccountably, his eye for color seeming to fail
+him for a time, as in a large painting of Rome from the Forum, and in
+the Cicero's Villa, Building of Carthage, and the picture of this year
+in the British Institution; and sometimes I am sorry to say, criminally,
+from taking licenses which he must know to be illegitimate, or indulging
+in conventionalities which he does not require.
+
+[Illustration: THE DOGANA, AND SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE.
+                 From a painting by Turner.]
+
+
+§ 46. Reflection of his very recent works.
+
+On such instances I shall not insist, for the finding fault with Turner
+is not, I think, either decorous in myself or like to be beneficial to
+the reader.[15] The greater number of failures took place in the
+transition period, when the artist was feeling for the new qualities,
+and endeavoring to reconcile them with more careful elaboration of form
+than was properly consistent with them. Gradually his hand became more
+free, his perception and grasp of the new truths more certain, and his
+choice of subject more adapted to the exhibition of them. But his powers
+did not attain their highest results till towards the year 1840, about
+which period they did so suddenly, and with a vigor and concentration
+which rendered his pictures at that time almost incomparable with those
+which had preceded them. The drawings of Nemi, and Oberwesel, in the
+possession of B. G. Windus, Esq., were among the first evidences of this
+sudden advance; only the foliage in both of these is inferior; and it is
+remarkable that in this phase of his art, Turner has drawn little
+foliage, and that little badly--the great characteristic of it being
+its power, beauty, and majesty of color, and its abandonment of all
+littleness and division of thought to a single impression. In the year
+1842, he made some drawings from recent sketches in Switzerland; these,
+with some produced in the following years, all of Swiss subject, I
+consider to be, on the whole, the most characteristic and perfect works
+he has ever produced. The Academy pictures were far inferior to them;
+but among these examples of the same power were not wanting, more
+especially in the smaller pictures of Venice. The Sun of Venice, going
+to sea; the San Benedetto, looking towards Fusina; and a view of Murano,
+with the Cemetery, were all faultless: another of Venice, seen from near
+Fusina, with sunlight and moonlight mixed (1844) was, I think, when I
+first saw it, (and it still remains little injured,) the most perfectly
+_beautiful_ piece of color of all that I have seen produced by human
+hands, by any means, or at any period. Of the exhibition of 1845, I have
+only seen a small Venice, (still I believe in the artist's possession,)
+and the two whaling subjects. The Venice is a second-rate work, and the
+two others altogether unworthy of him.
+
+In conclusion of our present sketch of the course of landscape art, it
+may be generally stated that Turner is the only painter, so far as I
+know, who has ever drawn the sky, (not the clear sky, which we before
+saw belonged exclusively to the religious schools, but the various forms
+and phenomena of the cloudy heavens,) all previous artists having only
+represented it typically or partially; but he absolutely and
+universally: he is the only painter who has ever drawn a mountain, or a
+stone; no other man ever having learned their organization, or possessed
+himself of their spirit, except in part and obscurely, (the one or two
+stones noted of Tintoret's, (Vol. II., Part III. Ch. 3,) are perhaps
+hardly enough on which to found an exception in his favor.) He is the
+only painter who ever drew the stem of a tree, Titian having come the
+nearest before him, and excelling him in the muscular development of the
+larger trunks, (though sometimes losing the woody strength in a
+serpent-like flaccidity,) but missing the grace and character of the
+ramifications. He is the only painter who has ever represented the
+surface of calm, or the force of agitated water; who has represented the
+effects of space on distant objects, or who has rendered the abstract
+beauty of natural color. These assertions I make deliberately, after
+careful weighing and consideration, in no spirit of dispute, or
+momentary zeal; but from strong and convinced feeling, and with the
+consciousness of being able to prove them.
+
+
+§ 47. Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects.
+
+This proof is only partially and incidentally attempted in the present
+portion of this work, which was originally written, as before explained,
+for a temporary purpose, and which, therefore, I should have gladly
+cancelled, but that, relating as it does only to simple matters of fact
+and not to those of feeling, it may still, perhaps, be of service to
+some readers who would be unwilling to enter into the more speculative
+fields with which the succeeding sections are concerned. I leave,
+therefore, nearly as it was originally written, the following
+examination of the relative truthfulness of elder and of recent art;
+always requesting the reader to remember, as some excuse for the
+inadequate execution, even of what I have here attempted, how difficult
+it is to express or explain, by language only, those delicate qualities
+of the object of sense, on the seizing of which all refined truth of
+representation depends. Try, for instance, to explain in language the
+exact qualities of the lines on which depend the whole truth and beauty
+of expression about the half-opened lips of Raffaelle's St. Catherine.
+There is, indeed, nothing in landscape so ineffable as this; but there
+is no part nor portion of God's works in which the delicacy appreciable
+by a cultivated eye, and necessary to be rendered in art, is not beyond
+all expression and explanation; I cannot tell it you, if you do not see
+it. And thus I have been entirely unable, in the following pages, to
+demonstrate clearly anything of really deep and perfect truth; nothing
+but what is coarse and commonplace, in matters to be judged of by the
+senses, is within the reach of argument. How much or how little I have
+done must be judged of by the reader: how much it is impossible to do I
+have more fully shown in the concluding section.
+
+I shall first take into consideration those general truths, common to
+all the objects of nature, which are productive of what is usually
+called "effect," that is to say, truths of tone, general color, space,
+and light. I shall then investigate the truths of specific form and
+color, in the four great component parts of landscape--sky, earth,
+water, and vegetation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [6] Not the large Paradise, but the Fall of Adam, a small picture
+    chiefly in brown and gray, near Titian's Assumption. Its companion,
+    the Death of Abel, is remarkable as containing a group of trees
+    which Turner, I believe accidentally, has repeated nearly mass for
+    mass in the "Marly." Both are among the most noble works of this or
+    any other master, whether for preciousness of color or energy of
+    thought.
+
+  [7] The triple leaf of this plant, and white flower, stained purple,
+    probably gave it strange typical interest among the Christian
+    painters. Angelico, in using its leaves mixed with daisies in the
+    foreground of his Crucifixion had, I imagine, a view also to its
+    chemical property.
+
+  [8] This is no rash method of judgment, sweeping and hasty as it may
+    appear. From the weaknesses of an artist, or failures, however
+    numerous, we have no right to conjecture his total inability; a time
+    may come when he may rise into sudden strength, or an instance occur
+    when his efforts shall be successful. But there are some pictures
+    which rank not under the head of failures, but of perpetrations or
+    commissions; some things which a man cannot do nor say without
+    sealing forever his character and capacity. The angel holding the
+    cross with his finger in his eye, the roaring red-faced children
+    about the crown of thorns, the blasphemous (I speak deliberately and
+    determinedly) head of Christ upon the handkerchief, and the mode in
+    which the martyrdom of the saint is exhibited (I do not choose to
+    use the expressions which alone could characterize it) are perfect,
+    sufficient, incontrovertible proofs that whatever appears good in
+    any of the doings of such a painter must be deceptive, and that we
+    may be assured that our taste is corrupted and false whenever we
+    feel disposed to admire him. I am prepared to support this position,
+    however uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted into a gross
+    sin by passion, and forgiven; and yet there are some kinds of sins
+    into which only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which
+    cannot be forgiven. It should be added, however, that the artistical
+    qualities of these pictures are in every way worthy of the
+    conceptions they realize; I do not recollect any instances of color
+    or execution so coarse and feelingless.
+
+  [9] It appears not to be sufficiently understood by those artists
+    who complain acrimoniously of their positions on the Academy walls,
+    that the Academicians have in their own rooms a right to the line
+    and the best places near it; in their taking this position there is
+    no abuse nor injustice; but the Academicians should remember that
+    with their rights they have their duties, and their duty is to
+    determine among the works of artists not belonging to their body
+    those which are most likely to advance public knowledge and
+    judgment, and to give these the best places next their own; neither
+    would it detract from their dignity if they occasionally ceded a
+    square even of their own territory, as they did gracefully and
+    rightly, and, I am sorry to add, disinterestedly, to the picture of
+    Paul de la Roche in 1844. Now the Academicians know perfectly well
+    that the mass of portrait which encumbers their walls at half height
+    is worse than useless, seriously harmful to the public taste, and it
+    was highly criminal (I use the word advisedly) that the valuable and
+    interesting work of Fielding, of which I have above spoken, should
+    have been placed where it was, above three rows of eye-glasses and
+    waistcoats. A very beautiful work of Harding's was treated either in
+    the same or the following exhibition with still greater injustice.
+    Fielding's was merely put out of sight; Harding's where its faults
+    were conspicuous and its virtues lost. It was an Alpine scene, of
+    which the foreground, rocks, and torrents were painted with
+    unrivalled fidelity and precision; the foliage was dexterous, the
+    aerial gradations of the mountains tender and multitudinous, their
+    forms carefully studied and very grand. The blemish of the picture
+    was a buff-colored tower with a red roof; singularly meagre in
+    detail, and conventionally relieved from a mass of gloom. The
+    picture was placed where nothing but this tower could be seen.
+
+  [10] I have not given any examples in this place, because it is
+    difficult to explain such circumstances of effect without diagrams:
+    I purpose entering into fuller discussion of the subject with the
+    aid of illustration.
+
+  [11] The inscription is to the following effect,--a pleasant thing
+    to see upon the walls, were it but more innocently placed:--
+
+                        CAMPO. DI. S. MAURIZIO
+                                ______
+
+                                D I O
+                            CONSERVI A NOI.
+                              LUNGAMENTE
+                       LO ZELANTIS. E. REVERENDIS
+                           D. LUIGI. PICCINI.
+                                 NOSTRO
+                     N O V E L L O  P I E V A N O.
+                                ______
+
+                       G L I  E S U L T A N T.
+                             PARROCCHIANI
+
+  [12] The quantity of gold with which the decorations of Venice were
+    once covered could not now be traced or credited without reference
+    to the authority of Gentile Bellini. The greater part of the marble
+    mouldings have been touched with it in lines and points, the
+    minarets of St. Mark's, and all the florid carving of the arches
+    entirely sheeted. The Casa d'Oro retained it on its lions until the
+    recent commencement of its Restoration.
+
+  [13] Indeed there should be no such difference at all. Every
+    architect ought to be an artist; every very great artist is
+    necessarily an architect.
+
+  [14] This passage seems at variance with what has been said of the
+    necessity of painting present times and objects. It is not so. A
+    great painter makes out of that which he finds before him something
+    which is independent of _all_ time. He can only do this out of the
+    materials ready to his hand, but that which he builds has the
+    dignity of dateless age. A little painter is annihilated by an
+    anachronism, and is conventionally antique, and involuntarily
+    modern.
+
+  [15] One point, however, it is incumbent upon me to notice, being no
+    question of art but of material. The reader will have observed that
+    I strictly limited the perfection of Turner's works to the time of
+    their first appearing on the walls of the Royal Academy. It bitterly
+    grieves me to have to do this, but the fact is indeed so. No
+    _picture_ of Turner's is seen in perfection a month after it is
+    painted. The Walhalla cracked before it had been eight days in the
+    Academy rooms; the vermilions frequently lose lustre long before the
+    exhibition is over; and when all the colors begin to get hard a year
+    or two after the picture is painted, a painful deadness and opacity
+    comes over them, the whites especially becoming lifeless, and many
+    of the warmer passages settling into a hard valueless brown, even if
+    the paint remains perfectly firm, which is far from being always the
+    case. I believe that in some measure these results are unavoidable,
+    the colors being so peculiarly blended and mingled in Turner's
+    present manner as almost to necessitate their irregular drying; but
+    that they are not necessary to the extent in which they sometimes
+    take place, is proved by the comparative safety of some even of the
+    more brilliant works. Thus the Old Temeraire is nearly safe in
+    color, and quite firm; while the Juliet and her Nurse is now the
+    ghost of what it was; the Slaver shows no cracks, though it is
+    chilled in some of the darker passages, while the Walhalla and
+    several of the recent Venices cracked in the Royal Academy. It is
+    true that the damage makes no further progress after the first year
+    or two, and that even in its altered state the picture is always
+    valuable and records its intention; but it is bitterly to be
+    regretted that so great a painter should not leave a single work by
+    which in succeeding ages he might be estimated. The fact of his
+    using means so imperfect, together with that of his utter neglect of
+    the pictures in his own gallery, are a phenomenon in human mind
+    which appears to me utterly inexplicable; and both are without
+    excuse. If the effects he desires cannot be to their full extent
+    produced except by these treacherous means, one picture only should
+    be painted each year as an exhibition of immediate power, and the
+    rest should be carried out, whatever the expense of labor and time
+    in safe materials, even at the risk of some deterioration of
+    immediate effect. That which is greatest in him is entirely
+    independent of means; much of what he now accomplishes
+    illegitimately might without doubt be attained in securer
+    modes--what cannot should without hesitation be abandoned.
+    Fortunately the drawings appear subject to no such deterioration.
+    Many of them are now almost destroyed, but this has been I think
+    always through ill treatment, or has been the case only with very
+    early works. I have myself known no instance of a drawing properly
+    protected, and not rashly exposed to light suffering the slightest
+    change. The great foes of Turner, as of all other great colorists
+    especially, are the picture cleaner and the mounter.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                             OF GENERAL TRUTHS.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF TONE.
+
+
+§ 1. Meaning of the word "tone:" First, the right relation of objects in
+       shadow to the principal light.
+
+As I have already allowed, that in effects of tone, the old masters have
+never yet been equalled; and as this is the first, and nearly the last,
+concession I shall have to make to them, I wish it at once to be
+thoroughly understood how far it extends.
+
+
+§ 2. Secondly, the quality of color by which it is felt to owe part of
+       its brightness to the hue of light upon it.
+
+I understand two things by the word "tone:"--first, the exact relief and
+relation of objects against and to each other in substance and darkness,
+as they are nearer or more distant, and the perfect relation of the
+shades of all of them to the chief light of the picture, whether that be
+sky, water, or anything else. Secondly, the exact relation of the colors
+to the shadows to the colors of the lights, so that they may be at once
+felt to be merely different degrees of the same light; and the accurate
+relation among the illuminated parts themselves, with respect to the
+degree in which they are influenced by the color of the light itself,
+whether warm or cold; so that the whole of the picture (or, where
+several tones are united, those parts of it which are under each,) may
+be felt to be in one climate, under one kind of light, and in one kind
+of atmosphere; this being chiefly dependent on that peculiar and
+inexplicable quality of each color laid on, which makes the eye feel
+both what is the actual color of the object represented, and that it is
+raised to its apparent pitch by illumination. A very bright brown, for
+instance, out of sunshine, may be precisely of the same shade of color
+as a very dead or cold brown in sunshine, but it will be totally
+different in _quality_; and that quality by which the illuminated dead
+color would be felt in nature different from the unilluminated bright
+one, is what artists are perpetually aiming at, and connoisseurs talking
+nonsense about, under the name of "tone." The want of tone in pictures
+is caused by objects looking bright in their own positive hue, and not
+by illumination, and by the consequent want of sensation of the raising
+of their hues by light.
+
+
+§ 3. Difference between tone in its first sense and aerial perspective.
+
+The first of these meanings of the word "tone" is liable to be
+confounded with what is commonly called "aerial perspective." But aerial
+perspective is the expression of space, by any means whatsoever,
+sharpness of edge, vividness of color, etc., assisted by greater pitch
+of shadow, and requires only that objects should be detached from each
+other, by degrees of intensity in _proportion_ to their distance,
+without requiring that the difference between the farthest and nearest
+should be in positive quantity the same that nature has put. But what I
+have called "tone" requires that there should be the same sum of
+difference, as well as the same division of differences.
+
+
+§ 4. The pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle tints
+       to light.
+
+Now the finely toned pictures of the old masters are, in this respect,
+some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves below her key;
+the dark objects in the middle distance having precisely the same
+relation to the light of the sky which they have in nature, but the
+light being necessarily infinitely lowered, and the mass of the shadow
+deepened in the same degree. I have often been struck, when looking at a
+camera-obscuro on a dark day, with the exact resemblance the image bore
+to one of the finest pictures of the old masters; all the foliage coming
+dark against the sky, and nothing being seen in its mass but here and
+there the isolated light of a silvery stem or an unusually illumined
+cluster of leafage.
+
+
+§ 5. And consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to
+       darkness.
+
+Now if this could be done consistently, and all the notes of nature
+given in this way an octave or two down, it would be right and necessary
+so to do: but be it observed, not only does nature surpass us in power
+of obtaining light as much as the sun surpasses white paper, but she
+also infinitely surpasses us in her power of shade. Her deepest shades
+are void spaces from which no light whatever is reflected to the eye;
+ours are black surfaces from which, paint as black as we may, a great
+deal of light is still reflected, and which, placed against one of
+nature's deep bits of gloom, would tell as distinct light. Here we are
+then, with white paper for our highest light, and visible illumined
+surface for our deepest shadow, set to run the gauntlet against nature,
+with the sun for her light, and vacuity for her gloom. It is evident
+that _she_ can well afford to throw her material objects dark against
+the brilliant aerial tone of her sky, and yet give in those objects
+themselves a thousand intermediate distances and tones before she comes
+to black, or to anything like it--all the illumined surfaces of her
+objects being as distinctly and vividly brighter than her nearest and
+darkest shadows, as the sky is brighter than those illumined surfaces.
+But if we, against our poor, dull obscurity of yellow paint, instead of
+sky, insist on having the same relation of shade in material objects, we
+go down to the bottom of our scale at once; and what in the world are we
+to do then? Where are all our intermediate distances to come from?--how
+are we to express the aerial relations among the parts themselves, for
+instance, of foliage, whose most distant boughs are already almost
+black?--how are we to come up from this to the foreground, and when we
+have done so, how are we to express the distinction between its solid
+parts, already as dark as we can make them, and its vacant hollows,
+which nature has marked sharp and clear and black, among its lighted
+surfaces? It cannot but be evident at a glance, that if to any one of
+the steps from one distance to another, we give the same quantity of
+difference in pitch of shade which nature does, we must pay for this
+expenditure of our means by totally missing half a dozen distances, not
+a whit less important or marked, and so sacrifice a multitude of truths,
+to obtain one. And this, accordingly was the means by which the old
+masters obtained their (truth?) of tone. They chose those steps of
+distance which are the most conspicuous and noticeable--that for
+instance from sky to foliage, or from clouds to hills--and they gave
+these their precise pitch of difference in shade with exquisite accuracy
+of imitation. Their means were then exhausted, and they were obliged to
+leave their trees flat masses of mere filled-up outline, and to omit
+the truths of space in every individual part of their picture by the
+thousand. But this they did not care for; it saved them trouble; they
+reached their grand end, imitative effect; they thrust home just at the
+places where the common and careless eye looks for imitation, and they
+attained the broadest and most faithful appearance of truth of tone
+which art can exhibit.
+
+
+§ 6. General falsehood of such a system.
+
+But they are prodigals, and foolish prodigals, in art; they lavish their
+whole means to get one truth, and leave themselves powerless when they
+should seize a thousand. And is it indeed worthy of being called a
+truth, when we have a vast history given us to relate, to the fulness of
+which neither our limits nor our language are adequate, instead of
+giving all its parts abridged in the order of their importance, to omit
+or deny the greater part of them, that we may dwell with verbal fidelity
+on two or three? Nay, the very truth to which the rest are sacrificed is
+rendered falsehood by their absence, the relation of the tree to the sky
+is marked as an impossibility by the want of relation of its parts to
+each other.
+
+
+§ 7. The principle of Turner in this respect.
+
+Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle. He
+boldly takes pure white (and justly, for it is the sign of the most
+intense sunbeams) for his highest light, and lampblack for his deepest
+shade; and between these he makes every degree of shade indicative of
+separate degree of distance,[16] giving each step of approach, not the
+exact difference in pitch which it would have in nature, but a
+difference bearing the same proportion to that which his sum of possible
+shade bears to the sum of nature's shade; so that an object half way
+between his horizon and his foreground, will be exactly in half tint of
+force, and every minute division of intermediate space will have just
+its proportionate share of the lesser sum, and no more. Hence where the
+old masters expressed one distance, he expresses a hundred; and where
+they said furlongs, he says leagues. Which of these modes of procedure
+be most agreeable with truth, I think I may safely leave the reader to
+decide for himself. He will see in this very first instance, one proof
+of what we above asserted, that the deceptive imitation of nature is
+inconsistent with real truth; for the very means by which the old
+masters attained the apparent accuracy of tone which is so satisfying to
+the eye, compelled them to give up all idea of real relations of
+retirement, and to represent a few successive and marked stages of
+distance, like the scenes of a theatre, instead of the imperceptible,
+multitudinous, symmetrical retirement of nature, who is not more careful
+to separate her nearest bush from her farthest one, than to separate the
+nearest bough of that bush from the one next to it.
+
+
+§ 8. Comparison of N. Poussin's "Phocion,"
+
+Take for instance, one of the finest landscapes that ancient art has
+produced--the work of a really great and intellectual mind, the quiet
+Nicholas Poussin, in our own National Gallery, with the traveller
+washing his feet. The first idea we receive from this picture is, that
+it is evening, and all the light coming from the horizon. Not so. It is
+full moon, the light coming steep from the left, as is shown by the
+shadow of the stick on the right-hand pedestal,--(for if the sun were
+not very high, that shadow could not lose itself half way down, and if
+it were not lateral, the shadow would slope, instead of being vertical.)
+Now, ask yourself, and answer candidly, if those black masses of
+foliage, in which scarcely any form is seen but the outline, be a true
+representation of trees under noonday sunlight, sloping from the left,
+bringing out, as it necessarily would do, their masses into golden
+green, and marking every leaf and bough with sharp shadow and sparkling
+light. The only truth in the picture is the exact pitch of relief
+against the sky of both trees and hills, and to this the organization of
+the hills, the intricacy of the foliage, and everything indicative
+either of the nature of the light, or the character of the objects, are
+unhesitatingly sacrificed. So much falsehood does it cost to obtain two
+apparent truths of tone. Or take, as a still more glaring instance, No.
+260 in the Dulwich Gallery, where the trunks of the trees, even of those
+farthest off, on the left, are as black as paint can make them, and
+there is not, and cannot be, the slightest increase of force, or any
+marking whatsoever of distance by color, or any other means, between
+them and the foreground.
+
+
+§ 9. With Turner's "Mercury and Argus."
+
+Compare with these, Turner's treatment of his materials in the Mercury
+and Argus. He has here his light actually coming from the distance, the
+sun being nearly in the centre of the picture, and a violent relief of
+objects against it would be far more justifiable than in Poussin's case.
+But this dark relief is used in its full force only with the nearest
+_leaves_ of the nearest group of foliage overhanging the foreground
+from the left; and between these and the more distant members of the
+same group, though only three or four yards separate, distinct aerial
+perspective and intervening mist and light are shown; while the large
+tree in the centre, though very dark, as being very near, compared with
+all the distance, is much diminished in intensity of shade from this
+nearest group of leaves, and is faint compared with all the foreground.
+It is true that this tree has not, in consequence, the actual pitch of
+shade against the sky which it would have in nature; but it has
+precisely as much as it possibly can have, to leave it the same
+proportionate relation to the objects near at hand. And it cannot but be
+evident to the thoughtful reader, that whatever trickery or deception
+may be the result of a contrary mode of treatment, this is the only
+scientific or essentially truthful system, and that what it loses in
+tone it gains in aerial perspective.
+
+
+§ 10. And with the "Datur Hora Quieti."
+
+Compare again the last vignette in Rogers's Poems, the "Datur Hora
+Quieti," where everything, even the darkest parts of the trees, is kept
+pale and full of graduation; even the bridge where it crosses the
+descending stream of sunshine, rather lost in the light than relieved
+against it, until we come up to the foreground, and then the vigorous
+local black of the plough throws the whole picture into distance and
+sunshine. I do not know anything in art which can for a moment be set
+beside this drawing for united intensity of light and repose.
+
+Observe, I am not at present speaking of the beauty or desirableness of
+the system of the old masters; it may be sublime, and affecting, and
+ideal, and intellectual, and a great deal more; but all I am concerned
+with at present is, that it is not _true_; while Turner's is the
+closest and most studied approach to truth of which the materials of art
+admit.
+
+
+§ 11. The second sense of the word "tone."
+
+§ 12. Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings and
+        drawings of Turner.
+
+§ 13. Not owing to want of power over the material.
+
+It was not, therefore, with reference to this division of the subject
+that I admitted inferiority in our great modern master to Claude or
+Poussin, but with reference to the second and more usual meaning of the
+word "tone"--the exact relation and fitness of shadow and light, and of
+the hues of all objects under them; and more especially that precious
+quality of each color laid on, which makes it appear a quiet color
+illuminated, not a bright color in shade. But I allow this inferiority
+only with respect to the paintings of Turner, not to his drawings. I
+could select from among the works named in Chap. VI. of this section,
+pieces of tone absolutely faultless and perfect, from the coolest grays
+of wintry dawn to the intense fire of summer noon. And the difference
+between the prevailing character of these and that of nearly all the
+paintings, (for the early oil pictures of Turner are far less perfect in
+tone than the most recent,) it is difficult to account for, but on the
+supposition that there is something in the material which modern artists
+in general are incapable of mastering, and which compels Turner himself
+to think less of tone in oil color, than of other and more important
+qualities. The total failures of Callcott, whose struggles after tone
+ended so invariably in shivering winter or brown paint, the misfortune
+of Landseer with his evening sky in 1842, the frigidity of Stanfield,
+and the earthiness and opacity which all the magnificent power and
+admirable science of Etty are unable entirely to conquer, are too fatal
+and convincing proofs of the want of knowledge of means, rather than of
+the absence of aim, in modern artists as a body. Yet, with respect to
+Turner, however much the want of tone in his early paintings (the Fall
+of Carthage, for instance, and others painted at a time when he was
+producing the most exquisite hues of light in water-color) might seem to
+favor such a supposition, there are passages in his recent works (such,
+for instance, as the sunlight along the sea, in the Slaver) which
+directly contradict it, and which prove to us that where he now errs in
+tone, (as in the Cicero's Villa,) it is less owing to want of power to
+reach it, than to the pursuit of some different and nobler end. I shall
+therefore glance at the particular modes in which Turner manages his
+tone in his present Academy pictures; the early ones must be given up at
+once. Place a genuine untouched Claude beside the Crossing the Brook,
+and the difference in value and tenderness of tone will be felt in an
+instant, and felt the more painfully because all the cool and
+transparent qualities of Claude would have been here desirable, and in
+their place, and appear to have been aimed at. The foreground of the
+Building of Carthage, and the greater part of the architecture of the
+Fall, are equally heavy and evidently paint, if we compare them with
+genuine passages of Claude's sunshine. There is a very grand and simple
+piece of tone in the possession of J. Allnutt, Esq., a sunset behind
+willows, but even this is wanting in refinement of shadow, and is crude
+in its extreme distance. Not so with the recent Academy pictures; many
+of their passages are absolutely faultless; all are refined and
+marvellous, and with the exception of the Cicero's Villa, we shall find
+few pictures painted within the last ten years which do not either
+present us with perfect tone, or with some higher beauty, to which it is
+necessarily sacrificed. If we glance at the requirements of nature, and
+her superiority of means to ours, we shall see why and how it is
+sacrificed.
+
+
+§ 14. The two distinct qualities of light to be considered.
+
+Light, with reference to the tone it induces on objects, is either to be
+considered as neutral and white, bringing out local colors with
+fidelity; or colored, and consequently modifying these local tints, with
+its own. But the power of pure white light to exhibit local color is
+strangely variable. The morning light of about nine or ten is usually
+very pure; but the difference of its effect on different days,
+independently of mere brilliancy, is as inconceivable as inexplicable.
+Every one knows how capriciously the colors of a fine opal vary from day
+to day, and how rare the lights are which bring them fully out. Now the
+expression of the strange, penetrating, deep, neutral light, which,
+while it _alters_ no color, brings every color up to the highest
+possible pitch and key of pure, harmonious intensity, is the chief
+attribute of finely-toned pictures by the great _colorists_ as opposed
+to pictures of equally high tone, by masters who, careless of color, are
+content, like Cuyp, to lose local tints in the golden blaze of absorbing
+light.
+
+
+§ 15. Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality in
+        light.
+
+Falsehood, in this neutral tone, if it may be so called, is a matter far
+more of feeling than of proof, for any color is _possible_ under such
+lights; it is meagreness and feebleness only which are to be avoided;
+and these are rather matters of sensation than of reasoning. But it is
+yet easy enough to prove by what exaggerated and false means the
+pictures most celebrated for this quality are endowed with their
+richness and solemnity of color. In the Bacchus and Ariadne of Titian,
+it is difficult to imagine anything more magnificently impossible than
+the blue of the distant landscape;--impossible, not from its vividness,
+but because it is not faint and aerial enough to account for its purity
+of color; it is too dark and blue at the same time; and there is indeed
+so total a want of atmosphere in it, that, but for the difference of
+form, it would be impossible to tell the mountains (intended to be ten
+miles off) from the robe of Ariadne close to the spectator. Yet make
+this blue faint, aerial, and distant--make it in the slightest degree to
+resemble the truth of nature's color--and all the tone of the picture,
+all its intensity and splendor, will vanish on the instant. So again, in
+the exquisite and inimitable little bit of color, the Europa in the
+Dulwich Gallery; the blue of the dark promontory on the left is
+thoroughly absurd and impossible, and the warm tones of the clouds
+equally so, unless it were sunset; but the blue especially, because it
+is nearer than several points of land which are equally in shadow, and
+yet are rendered in warm gray. But the whole value and tone of the
+picture would be destroyed if this blue were altered.
+
+
+§ 16. Turner will not use such means.
+
+§ 17. But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice.
+
+§ 18. The second quality of light.
+
+Now, as much of this kind of richness of tone is always given by Turner
+as is compatible with truth of aerial effect; but he will not sacrifice
+the higher truths of his landscape to mere pitch of color as Titian
+does. He infinitely prefers having the power of giving extension of
+space, and fulness of form, to that of giving deep melodies of tone; he
+feels too much the incapacity of art, with its feeble means of light, to
+give the abundance of nature's gradations; and therefore it is, that
+taking pure white for his highest expression of light, that even pure
+yellow may give him one more step in the scale of shade, he becomes
+necessarily inferior in richness of effect to the old masters of tone,
+(who always used a golden highest light,) but gains by the sacrifice a
+thousand more essential truths. For, though we all know how much more
+like light, in the abstract, a finely-toned warm hue will be to the
+feelings than white, yet it is utterly impossible to mark the same
+number of gradations between such a sobered high light and the deepest
+shadow, which we can between this and white; and as these gradations are
+absolutely necessary to give the facts of form and distance, which, as
+we have above shown, are more important than any truths of tone,[17]
+Turner sacrifices the richness of his picture to its completeness--the
+manner of the statement to its matter. And not only is he right in doing
+this for the sake of space, but he is right also in the abstract
+question of color; for as we observed above (Sect. 14,) it is only the
+white light--the perfect unmodified group of rays--which will bring out
+local color perfectly; and if the picture, therefore, is to be complete
+in its system of color, that is, if it is to have each of the three
+primitives in their purity, it _must_ have white for its highest light,
+otherwise the purity of one of them at least will be impossible. And
+this leads us to notice the second and more frequent quality of light,
+(which is assumed if we make our highest representation of it yellow,)
+the positive hue, namely, which it may itself possess, of course
+modifying whatever local tints it exhibits, and thereby rendering
+certain colors necessary, and certain colors impossible. Under the
+direct yellow light of a descending sun, for instance, pure white and
+pure blue are both impossible; because the purest whites and blues that
+nature could produce would be turned in some degree into gold or green
+by it; and when the sun is within half a degree of the horizon, if the
+sky be clear, a rose light supersedes the golden one, still more
+overwhelming in its effect on local color. I have seen the pale fresh
+green of spring vegetation in the gardens of Venice, on the Lido side,
+turned pure russet, or between that and crimson, by a vivid sunset of
+this kind, every particle of green color being absolutely annihilated.
+And so under all colored lights, (and there are few, from dawn to
+twilight, which are not slightly tinted by some accident of
+atmosphere,) there is a change of local color, which, when in a picture
+it is so exactly proportioned that we feel at once both what the local
+colors are in themselves, and what is the color and strength of the
+light upon them, gives us truth of tone.
+
+
+§ 19. The perfection of Cuyp in this respect interfered with by numerous
+        solecisms.
+
+For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out
+of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art. But
+I much doubt if there be a single _bright_ Cuyp in the world, which,
+taken as a whole, does not present many glaring solecisms in tone. I
+have not seen many fine pictures of his, which were not utterly spoiled
+by the vermilion dress of some principal figure, a vermilion totally
+unaffected and unwarmed by the golden hue of the rest of the picture;
+and, what is worse, with little distinction, between its own illumined
+and shaded parts, so that it appears altogether out of sunshine, the
+color of a bright vermilion in dead, cold daylight. It is possible that
+the original color may have gone down in all cases, or that these parts
+may have been villanously repainted: but I am the rather disposed to
+believe them genuine, because even throughout the best of his pictures
+there are evident recurrences of the same kind of solecism in other
+colors--greens for instance--as in the steep bank on the right of the
+largest picture in the Dulwich Gallery; and browns, as in the lying cow
+in the same picture, which is in most visible and painful contrast with
+the one standing beside it, the flank of the standing one being bathed
+in breathing sunshine, and the reposing one laid in with as dead,
+opaque, and lifeless brown as ever came raw from a novice's pallet. And
+again, in that marked 83, while the figures on the right are walking in
+the most precious light, and those just beyond them in the distance
+leave a furlong or two of pure visible sunbeams between us and them, the
+cows in the centre are entirely deprived, poor things, of both light and
+air. And these failing parts, though they often escape the eye when we
+are near the picture and able to dwell upon what is beautiful in it, yet
+so injure its whole effect that I question if there be many Cuyps in
+which vivid colors occur, which will not lose their effect, and become
+cold and flat at a distance of ten or twelve paces, retaining their
+influence only when the eye is close enough to rest on the right parts
+without including the whole. Take, for instance, the large one in our
+National Gallery, seen from the opposite door, where the black cow
+appears a great deal nearer than the dogs, and the golden tones of the
+distance look like a sepia drawing rather than like sunshine, owing
+chiefly to the utter want of aerial grays indicated through them.
+
+
+§ 20. Turner is not so perfect in parts--far more so in the whole.
+
+Now, there is no instance in the works of Turner of anything so faithful
+and imitative of sunshine as the best parts of Cuyp; but at the same
+time, there is not a single vestige of the same kind of solecism. It is
+true, that in his fondness for color, Turner is in the habit of allowing
+excessively cold fragments in big warmest pictures; but these are never,
+observe, warm colors with no light upon them, useless as contrasts while
+they are discords in the tone; but they are bits of the very coolest
+tints, partially removed from the general influence, and exquisitely
+valuable as color, though, with all deference be it spoken, I think them
+sometimes slightly destructive of what would otherwise be perfect tone.
+For instance, the two blue and white stripes on the drifting flag of the
+Slave Ship, are, I think, the least degree too purely cool. I think both
+the blue and white would be impossible under such a light; and in the
+same way the white parts of the dress of the Napoleon interfered by
+their coolness with the perfectly managed warmth of all the rest of the
+picture. But both these lights are reflexes, and it is nearly impossible
+to say what tones may be assumed even by the warmest light reflected
+from a cool surface; so that we cannot actually convict these parts of
+falsehood, and though we should have liked the _tone_ of the picture
+better had they been slightly warmer, we cannot but like the _color_ of
+the picture better with them as they are; while Cuyp's failing portions
+are not only evidently and demonstrably false, being in direct light,
+but are as disagreeable in color as false in tone, and injurious to
+everything near them. And the best proof of the grammatical accuracy of
+the tones of Turner is in the perfect and unchanging influence of all
+his pictures at any distance. We approach only to follow the sunshine
+into every cranny of the leafage, and retire only to feel it diffused
+over the scene, the whole picture glowing like a sun or star at
+whatever distance we stand, and lighting the air between us and it;
+while many even of the best pictures of Claude must be looked close into
+to be felt, and lose light every foot that we retire. The smallest of
+the three seaports in the National Gallery is valuable and right in tone
+when we are close to it; but ten yards off, it is all brick-dust,
+offensively and evidently false in its whole hue.
+
+
+§ 21. The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones.
+
+The comparison of Turner with Cuyp and Claude may sound strange in most
+ears; but this is chiefly because we are not in the habit of analyzing
+and dwelling upon those difficult and daring passages of the modern
+master which do not at first appeal to our ordinary notions of truth,
+owing to his habit of uniting two, three, or even more separate tones in
+the same composition. In this also he strictly follows nature, for
+wherever climate changes, tone changes, and the climate changes with
+every 200 feet of elevation, so that the upper clouds are always
+different in tone from the lower ones, these from the rest of the
+landscape, and in all probability, some part of the horizon from the
+rest. And when nature allows this in a high degree, as in her most
+gorgeous effects she always will, she does not herself impress at once
+with intensity of tone, as in the deep and quiet yellows of a July
+evening, but rather with the magnificence and variety of associated
+color, in which, if we give time and attention to it, we shall gradually
+find the solemnity and the depth of twenty tones instead of one. Now in
+Turner's power of associating cold with warm light, no one has ever
+approached, or even ventured into the same field with him. The old
+masters, content with one simple tone, sacrificed to its unity all the
+exquisite gradations and varied touches of relief and change by which
+nature unites her hours with each other. They gave the warmth of the
+sinking sun, overwhelming all things in its gold; but they did not give
+those gray passages about the horizon where, seen through its dying
+light, the cool and the gloom of night gather themselves for their
+victory. Whether it was in them impotence or judgment, it is not for me
+to decide. I have only to point to the daring of Turner in this respect,
+as something to which art affords no matter of comparison, as that in
+which the mere attempt is, in itself, superiority. Take the evening
+effect with the Temeraire. That picture will not, at the first glance,
+deceive as a piece of actual sunlight; but this is because there is in
+it more than sunlight, because under the blazing veil of vaulted fire
+which lights the vessel on her last path, there is a blue, deep,
+desolate hollow of darkness, out of which you can hear the voice of the
+night wind, and the dull boom of the disturbed sea; because the cold,
+deadly shadows of the twilight are gathering through every sunbeam, and
+moment by moment as you look, you will fancy some new film and faintness
+of the night has risen over the vastness of the departing form.
+
+
+§ 22. Recapitulation.
+
+And if, in effects of this kind, time be taken to dwell upon the
+individual tones, and to study the laws of their reconcilement, there
+will be found in the recent Academy pictures of this great artist a mass
+of various truth to which nothing can be brought for comparison, which
+stands not only unrivalled, but uncontended with, and which, when in
+carrying out it may be inferior to some of the picked passages of the
+old masters, is so through deliberate choice rather to suggest a
+multitude of truths than to imitate one, and through a strife with
+difficulties of effect of which art can afford no parallel example. Nay,
+in the next chapter, respecting color, we shall see farther reason for
+doubting the truth of Claude, Cuyp, and Poussin, in tone,--reason so
+palpable that if these were all that were to be contended with, I should
+scarcely have allowed any inferiority in Turner whatsoever;[18] but I
+allow it, not so much with reference to the deceptive imitations of
+sunlight, wrought out with desperate exaggerations of shade, of the
+professed landscape painters, as with reference to the glory of Rubens,
+the glow of Titian, the silver tenderness of Cagliari, and perhaps more
+than all to the precious and pure passages of intense feeling and
+heavenly light, holy and undefiled, and glorious with the changeless
+passion of eternity, which sanctify with their shadeless peace the deep
+and noble conceptions of the early school of Italy,--of Fra Bartolomeo,
+Perugino, and the early mind of Raffaelle.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [16] Of course I am not speaking here of treatment of chiaroscuro,
+    but of that quantity of depth of shade by which, _coeteris
+    paribus_, a near object will exceed a distant one. For the truth of
+    the systems of Turner and the old masters, as regards chiaroscuro,
+    vide Chapter III. of this Section, § 8.
+
+  [17] More important, observe, _as matters of truth or fact_. It may
+    often chance that, as a matter of feeling, the tone is the more
+    important of the two; but with this we have here no concern.
+
+  [18] We must not leave the subject of tone without alluding to the
+    works of the late George Barrett, which afford glorious and exalted
+    passages of light; and John Varley, who, though less truthful in his
+    aim, was frequently deep in his feeling. Some of the sketches of De
+    Wint are also admirable in this respect. As for our oil pictures,
+    the less that is said about them the better. Callcott has the truest
+    aim; but not having any eye for color, it is impossible for him to
+    succeed in tone.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF COLOR.
+
+
+§ 1. Observations on the color of G. Poussin's La Riccia.
+
+There is, in the first room of the National Gallery, a landscape
+attributed to Gaspar Poussin, called sometimes Aricia, sometimes Le or
+La Riccia, according to the fancy of catalogue printers. Whether it can
+be supposed to resemble the ancient Aricia, now La Riccia, close to
+Albano, I will not take upon me to determine, seeing that most of the
+towns of these old masters are quite as like one place as another; but,
+at any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes,
+of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of leaves
+each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque brown,
+becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and discover in one
+place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature have been cool and
+gray beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being
+moreover completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted
+of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick-red, the only thing like
+color in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road, which in order
+to make allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in
+light, and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vegetation usually
+present on carriage-roads, is given in a very cool green gray, and the
+truth of the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the
+right, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown.
+
+
+§ 2. As compared with the actual scene.
+
+Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage-road,
+the first turn after you leave Albano, not a little impeded by the
+worthy successors of the ancient prototypes of Veiento.[19] It had been
+wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds
+were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and
+breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct lighting up the
+infinity of its arches like the bridge of chaos. But as I climbed the
+long slope of the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and
+the noble outline of the domes of Albano and graceful darkness of its
+ilex grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the
+upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in
+deep, palpitating azure, half ether and half dew. The noonday sun came
+slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled
+and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure
+of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot
+call it color, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet,
+like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the
+valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant
+and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the
+sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of
+the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of
+some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks
+for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around
+them, breaking over the gray walls of rock into a thousand separate
+stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let
+them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven,
+opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as
+sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of
+dark rock--dark though flushed with scarlet lichen,--casting their quiet
+shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them
+filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over
+all--the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that
+have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless
+intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines,
+passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the
+measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea.
+
+
+§ 3. Turner himself is inferior in brilliancy to nature.
+
+Tell me who is likest this, Poussin or Turner? Not in his most daring
+and dazzling efforts could Turner himself come near it; but you could
+not at the time have thought or remembered the work of any other man as
+having the remotest hue or resemblance of what you saw. Nor am I
+speaking of what is uncommon or unnatural; there is no climate, no
+place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color
+which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial
+pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and
+lightless beside her living color; the green of a growing leaf, the
+scarlet of a fresh flower, no art nor expedient can reach; but in
+addition to this, nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of
+sunlight which trebles their brilliancy, while the painter, deprived of
+this splendid aid, works still with what is actually a gray shadow
+compared to the force of nature's color. Take a blade of grass and a
+scarlet flower, and place them so as to receive sunlight beside the
+brightest canvas that ever left Turner's easel, and the picture will be
+extinguished. So far from out-facing nature, he does not, as far as mere
+vividness of color goes, one-half reach her;--but does he use this
+brilliancy of color on objects to which it does not properly belong? Let
+us compare his works in this respect with a few instances from the old
+masters.
+
+
+§ 4. Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian;
+
+There is, on the left hand side of Salvator's Mercury and the Woodman in
+our National Gallery, something, without doubt intended for a rocky
+mountain, in the middle distance, near enough for all its fissures and
+crags to be distinctly visible, or, rather, for a great many awkward
+scratches of the brush over it to be visible, which, though not
+particularly representative either of one thing or another, are without
+doubt intended to be symbolical of rocks. Now no mountain in full light,
+and near enough for its details of crag to be seen, is without great
+variety of delicate color. Salvator has painted it throughout without
+one instant of variation; but this, I suppose, is simplicity and
+generalization;--let it pass: but what is the color? _Pure sky blue_,
+without one grain of gray, or any modifying hue whatsoever;--the same
+brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more
+loaded at the same part of the pallet, and the whole mountain thrown in
+with unmitigated ultramarine. Now mountains only can become pure blue
+when there is so much air between us and them that they become mere
+flat, dark shades, every detail being totally lost: they become blue
+when they become air, and not till then. Consequently this part of
+Salvator's painting, being of hills perfectly clear and near, with all
+their details visible, is, as far as color is concerned, broad, bold
+falsehood--the direct assertion of direct impossibility.
+
+In the whole range of Turner's works, recent or of old date, you will
+not find an instance of anything near enough to have details visible,
+painted in sky blue. Wherever Turner gives blue, there he gives
+atmosphere; it is air, not object. Blue he gives to his sea; so does
+nature;--blue he gives, sapphire-deep, to his extreme distance; so does
+nature;--blue he gives to the misty shadows and hollows of his hills; so
+does nature: but blue he gives _not_, where detail and illumined surface
+are visible; as he comes into light and character, so he breaks into
+warmth and varied hue; nor is there in one of his works, and I speak of
+the Academy pictures especially, one touch of cold color which is not to
+be accounted for, and proved right and full of meaning.
+
+I do not say that Salvator's distance is not artist-like; both in that,
+and in the yet more glaringly false distances of Titian above alluded
+to, and in hundreds of others of equal boldness of exaggeration, I can
+take delight, and perhaps should be sorry to see them other than they
+are; but it is somewhat singular to hear people talking of Turner's
+exquisite care and watchfulness in color as false, while they receive
+such cases of preposterous and audacious fiction with the most generous
+and simple credulity.
+
+
+§ 5. Poussin, and Claude.
+
+Again, in the upper sky of the picture of Nicolas Poussin, before
+noticed, the clouds are of a very fine clear olive-green, about the same
+tint as the brightest parts of the trees beneath them. They cannot have
+altered, (or else the trees must have been painted in gray,) for the hue
+is harmonious and well united with the rest of the picture, and the blue
+and white in the centre of the sky are still fresh and pure. Now a green
+sky in open and illumined distance is very frequent, and very beautiful;
+but rich olive-green clouds, as far as I am acquainted with nature, are
+a piece of color in which she is not apt to indulge. You will be
+puzzled to show me such a thing in the recent works of Turner.[20]
+Again, take any important group of trees, I do not care whose--Claude's,
+Salvator's, or Poussin's--with lateral light (that in the Marriage of
+Isaac and Rebecca, or Gaspar's sacrifice of Isaac, for instance:) Can it
+be seriously supposed that those murky browns and melancholy greens are
+representative of the tints of leaves under full noonday sun? I know
+that you cannot help looking upon all these pictures as pieces of dark
+relief against a light wholly proceeding from the distances; but they
+are nothing of the kind--they are noon and morning effects with full
+lateral light. Be so kind as to match the color of a leaf in the sun
+(the darkest you like) as nearly as you can, and bring your matched
+color and set it beside one of these groups of trees, and take a blade
+of common grass, and set it beside any part of the fullest light of
+their foregrounds, and then talk about the truth of color of the old
+masters!
+
+And let not arguments respecting the sublimity or fidelity of
+_impression_ be brought forward here. I have nothing whatever to do with
+this at present. I am not talking about what is sublime, but about what
+is true. People attack Turner on this ground;--they never speak of
+beauty or sublimity with respect to him, but of nature and truth, and
+let them support their own favorite masters on the same grounds. Perhaps
+I may have the very deepest veneration for the _feeling_ of the old
+masters, but I must not let it influence me now--my business is to match
+colors, not to talk sentiment. Neither let it be said that I am going
+too much into details, and that general truths may be obtained by local
+falsehood. Truth is only to be measured by close comparison of actual
+facts; we may talk forever about it in generals, and prove nothing. We
+cannot tell what effect falsehood may produce on this or that person,
+but we can very well tell what is false and what is not, and if it
+produce on our senses the effect of truth, that only demonstrates their
+imperfection and inaccuracy, and need of cultivation. Turner's color is
+glaring to one person's sensations, and beautiful to another's. This
+proves nothing. Poussin's color is right to one, soot to another. This
+proves nothing. There is no means of arriving at any conclusion but
+close comparison of both with the known and demonstrable hues of nature,
+and this comparison will invariably turn Claude or Poussin into
+blackness, and even Turner into gray.
+
+Whatever depth of gloom may seem to invest the objects of a real
+landscape, yet a window with that landscape seen through it, will
+invariably appear a broad space of light as compared with the shade of
+the room walls; and this single circumstance may prove to us both the
+intensity and the diffusion of daylight in open air, and the necessity,
+if a picture is to be truthful in effect of color, that it should tell
+as a broad space of graduated illumination--not, as do those of the old
+masters, as a patch-work of black shades. Their works are nature in
+mourning weeds,--[Greek: oud hen hźliō katharō tethrammenoi, all hypo
+symmigei skia].
+
+
+§ 6. Turner's translation of colors.
+
+It is true that there are, here and there, in the Academy pictures,
+passages in which Turner has translated the unattainable intensity of
+one tone of color, into the attainable pitch of a higher one: the golden
+green for instance, of intense sunshine on verdure, into pure yellow,
+because he knows it to be impossible, with any mixture of blue
+whatsoever, to give faithfully its relative intensity of light, and
+Turner always will have his light and shade right, whatever it costs him
+in color. But he does this in rare cases, and even then over very small
+spaces; and I should be obliged to his critics if they would go out to
+some warm, mossy green bank in full summer sunshine, and try to reach
+its tone; and when they find, as find they will, Indian yellow and
+chrome look dark beside it, let them tell me candidly which is nearest
+truth, the gold of Turner, or the mourning and murky olive browns and
+verdigris greens in which Claude, with the industry and intelligence of
+a Sevres china painter, drags the laborious bramble leaves over his
+childish foreground.
+
+
+§ 7. Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even approach
+       that of reality.
+
+§ 8. Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect to
+       their representation.
+
+§ 9. Color of the Napoleon.
+
+But it is singular enough that the chief attacks on Turner for
+overcharged brilliancy, are made, not when there could by any
+possibility be any chance of his outstepping nature, but when he has
+taken subjects which no colors of earth could ever vie with or reach,
+such, for instance, as his sunsets among the high clouds. When I come to
+speak of skies, I shall point out what divisions, proportioned to their
+elevation, exist in the character of clouds. It is the highest
+region,--that exclusively characterized by white, filmy, multitudinous,
+and quiet clouds, arranged in bars, or streaks, or flakes, of which I
+speak at present, a region which no landscape painters have ever made
+one effort to represent, except Rubens and Turner--the latter taking it
+for his most favorite and frequent study. Now we have been speaking
+hitherto of what is constant and necessary in nature, of the ordinary
+effects of daylight on ordinary colors, and we repeat again, that no
+gorgeousness of the pallet can reach even these. But it is a widely
+different thing when nature herself takes a coloring fit, and does
+something extraordinary, something really to exhibit her power. She has
+a thousand ways and means of rising above herself, but incomparably the
+noblest manifestations of her capability of color are in these sunsets
+among the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment before the sun
+sinks, when his light turns pure rose-color, and when this light falls
+upon a zenith covered with countless cloud-forms of inconceivable
+delicacy, threads and flakes of vapor, which would in common daylight be
+pure snow white, and which give therefore fair field to the tone of
+light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check to the
+intensity of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the zenith to the
+horizon becomes one molten, mantling sea of color and fire; every black
+bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied,
+shadowless, crimson, and purple, and scarlet, and colors for which there
+are no words in language, and no ideas in the mind,--things which can
+only be conceived while they are visible,--the intense hollow blue of
+the upper sky melting through it all,--showing here deep, and pure, and
+lightless, there, modulated by the filmy, formless body of the
+transparent vapor, till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and
+gold. Now there is no connection, no one link of association or
+resemblance, between those skies and the work of any mortal hand but
+Turner's. He alone has followed nature in these her highest efforts; he
+follows her faithfully, but far behind; follows at such a distance below
+her intensity that the Napoleon of last year's exhibition, and the
+Temeraire of the year before, would look colorless and cold if the eye
+came upon them after one of nature's sunsets among the high clouds. But
+there are a thousand reasons why this should not be believed. The
+concurrence of circumstances necessary to produce the sunsets of which I
+speak does not take place above five or six times in the summer, and
+then only for a space of from five to ten minutes, just as the sun
+reaches the horizon. Considering how seldom people think of looking for
+sunset at all, and how seldom, if they do, they are in a position from
+which it can be fully seen, the chances that their attention should be
+awake, and their position favorable, during these few flying instants of
+the year, is almost as nothing. What can the citizen, who can see only
+the red light on the canvas of the wagon at the end of the street, and
+the crimson color of the bricks of his neighbor's chimney, know of the
+flood of fire which deluges the sky from the horizon to the zenith? What
+can even the quiet inhabitant of the English lowlands, whose scene for
+the manifestation of the fire of heaven is limited to the tops of
+hayricks, and the rooks' nests in the old elm-trees, know of the mighty
+passages of splendor which are tossed from Alp to Alp over the azure of
+a thousand miles of champaign? Even granting the constant vigor of
+observation, and supposing the possession of such impossible knowledge,
+it needs but a moment's reflection to prove how incapable the memory is
+of retaining for any time the distinct image of the sources even of its
+most vivid impressions. What recollection have we of the sunsets which
+delighted us last year? We may know that they were magnificent, or
+glowing, but no distinct image of color or form is retained--nothing of
+whose _degree_ (for the great difficulty with the memory is to retain,
+not facts, but _degrees_ of fact) we could be so certain as to say of
+anything now presented to us, that it is like it. If we did say so, we
+should be wrong; for we may be quite certain that the energy of an
+impression fades from the memory, and becomes more and more indistinct
+every day; and thus we compare a faded and indistinct image with the
+decision and certainty of one present to the senses. How constantly do
+we affirm that the thunder-storm of last week was the most terrible one
+we ever saw in our lives, because we compare it, not with the
+thunder-storm of last year, but with the faded and feeble recollection
+of it. And so, when we enter an exhibition, as we have no definite
+standard of truth before us, our feelings are toned down and subdued to
+the quietness of color which is all that human power can ordinarily
+attain to; and when we turn to a piece of higher and closer truth,
+approaching the pitch of the color of nature, but to which we are not
+guided, as we should be in nature, by corresponding gradations of light
+everywhere around us, but which is isolated and cut off suddenly by a
+frame and a wall, and surrounded by darkness and coldness, what can we
+expect but that it should surprise and shock the feelings? Suppose,
+where the Napoleon hung in the Academy last year, there could have been
+left, instead, an opening in the wall, and through that opening, in the
+midst of the obscurity of the dim room and the smoke-laden atmosphere,
+there could suddenly have been poured the full glory of a tropical
+sunset, reverberated from the sea: How would you have shrunk, blinded,
+from its scarlet and intolerable lightnings! What picture in the room
+would not have been blackness after it? And why then do you blame Turner
+because he dazzles you? Does not the falsehood rest with those who do
+_not_? There was not one hue in this whole picture which was not far
+below what nature would have used in the same circumstances, nor was
+there one inharmonious or at variance with the rest;--the stormy
+blood-red of the horizon, the scarlet of the breaking sunlight, the rich
+crimson browns of the wet and illumined sea-weed; the pure gold and
+purple of the upper sky, and, shed through it all, the deep passage of
+solemn blue, where the cold moonlight fell on one pensive spot of the
+limitless shore--all were given with harmony as perfect as their color
+was intense; and if, instead of passing, as I doubt not you did, in the
+hurry of your unreflecting prejudice, you had paused but so much as one
+quarter of an hour before the picture, you would have found the sense of
+air and space blended with every line, and breathing in every cloud, and
+every color instinct and radiant with visible, glowing, absorbing light.
+
+
+§ 10. Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of color
+        and light.
+
+It is to be observed, however, in general, that wherever in brilliant
+effects of this kind, we approach to anything like a true statement of
+nature's color, there must yet be a distinct difference in the
+impression we convey, because we cannot approach her _light_. All such
+hues are usually given by her with an accompanying intensity of sunbeams
+which dazzles and overpowers the eye, so that it cannot rest on the
+actual colors, nor understand what they are; and hence in art, in
+rendering all effects of this kind, there must be a want of the ideas of
+_imitation_, which are the great source of enjoyment to the ordinary
+observer; because we can only give one series of truths, those of color,
+and are unable to give the accompanying truths of light, so that the
+more true we are in color, the greater, ordinarily, will be the
+discrepancy felt between the intensity of hue and the feebleness of
+light. But the painter who really loves nature will not, on this
+account, give you a faded and feeble image, which indeed may appear to
+you to be right, because your feelings can detect no discrepancy in its
+parts, but which he knows to derive its apparent truth from a
+systematized falsehood. No; he will make you understand and feel that
+art _cannot_ imitate nature--that where it appears to do so, it must
+malign her, and mock her. He will give you, or state to you, such truths
+as are in his power, completely and perfectly; and those which he cannot
+give, he will leave to your imagination. If you are acquainted with
+nature, you will know all he has given to be true, and you will supply
+from your memory and from your heart that light which he cannot give. If
+you are unacquainted with nature, seek elsewhere for whatever may happen
+to satisfy your feelings; but do not ask for the truth which you would
+not acknowledge and could not enjoy.
+
+
+§ 11. This discrepancy less in Turner than in other colorists.
+
+§ 12. Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens.
+
+Nevertheless the aim and struggle of the artist must always be to do
+away with this discrepancy as far as the powers of art admit, not by
+lowering his color, but by increasing his light. And it is indeed by
+this that the works of Turner are peculiarly distinguished from those of
+all other colorists, by the dazzling intensity, namely, of the light
+which he sheds through every hue, and which, far more than their
+brilliant color, is the real source of their overpowering effect upon
+the eye, an effect so _reasonably_ made the subject of perpetual
+animadversion, as if the sun which they represent were quite a quiet,
+and subdued, and gentle, and manageable luminary, and never dazzled
+anybody, under any circumstances whatsoever. I am fond of standing by a
+bright Turner in the Academy, to listen to the unintentional compliments
+of the crowd--"What a glaring thing!" "I declare I can't look at it!"
+"Don't it hurt your eyes?"--expressed as if they were in the constant
+habit of looking the sun full in the face, with the most perfect comfort
+and entire facility of vision. It is curious after hearing people malign
+some of Turner's noble passages of light, to pass to some really
+ungrammatical and false picture of the old masters, in which we have
+color given _without_ light. Take, for instance, the landscape
+attributed to Rubens, No. 175, in the Dulwich Gallery. I never have
+spoken, and I never will speak of Rubens but with the most reverential
+feeling; and whatever imperfections in his art may have resulted from
+his unfortunate want of seriousness and incapability of true passion,
+his calibre of mind was originally such that I believe the world may see
+another Titian and another Raffaelle, before it sees another Rubens. But
+I have before alluded to the violent license he occasionally assumes;
+and there is an instance of it in this picture apposite to the immediate
+question. The sudden streak and circle of yellow and crimson in the
+middle of the sky of that picture, being the occurrence of a fragment of
+a sunset color in pure daylight, and in perfect isolation, while at the
+same time it is rather darker, when translated into light and shade,
+than brighter than the rest of the sky, is a case of such bold
+absurdity, come from whose pencil it may, that if every error which
+Turner has fallen into in the whole course of his life were concentrated
+into one, that one would not equal it; and as our connoisseurs gaze upon
+this with never-ending approbation, we must not be surprised that the
+accurate perceptions which thus take delight in pure fiction, should
+consistently be disgusted by Turner's fidelity and truth.
+
+
+§ 13. Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid color.
+
+Hitherto, however, we have been speaking of vividness of pure color, and
+showing that it is used by Turner only where nature uses it, and in no
+less degree. But we have hitherto, therefore, been speaking of a most
+limited and uncharacteristic portion of his works; for Turner, like all
+great colorists, is distinguished not more for his power of dazzling and
+overwhelming the eye with intensity of effect, than for his power of
+doing so by the use of subdued and gentle means. There is no man living
+more cautious and sparing in the use of pure color than Turner. To say
+that he never perpetrates anything like the blue excrescences of
+foreground, or hills _shot_ like a housekeeper's best silk gown, with
+blue and red, which certain of our celebrated artists consider the
+essence of the sublime, would be but a poor compliment. I might as well
+praise the portraits of Titian because they have not the grimace and
+paint of a clown in a pantomime; but I do say, and say with confidence,
+that there is scarcely a landscape artist of the present day, however
+sober and lightless their effects may look, who does not employ more
+pure and raw color than Turner; and that the ordinary tinsel and trash,
+or rather vicious and perilous stuff, according to the power of the mind
+producing it, with which the walls of our Academy are half covered,
+disgracing, in weak hands, or in more powerful, degrading and corrupting
+our whole school of art, is based on a system of color beside which
+Turner's is as Vesta to Cotytto--the chastity of fire to the foulness of
+earth. Every picture of this great colorist has, in one or two parts of
+it, (key-notes of the whole,) points where the system of each individual
+color is concentrated by a single stroke, as pure as it can come from
+the pallet; but throughout the great space and extent of even the most
+brilliant of his works, there will not be found a raw color; that is to
+say, there is no warmth which has not gray in it, and no blue which has
+not warmth in it; and the tints in which he most excels and distances
+all other men, the most cherished and inimitable portions of his color,
+are, as with all perfect colorists they must be, his grays.
+
+It is instructive in this respect, to compare the sky of the Mercury
+and Argus with the various illustrations of the serenity, space, and
+sublimity naturally inherent in blue and pink, of which every year's
+exhibition brings forward enough and to spare. In the Mercury and Argus,
+the pale and vaporous blue of the heated sky is broken with gray and
+pearly white, the gold color of the light warming it more or less as it
+approaches or retires from the sun; but throughout, there is not a grain
+of pure blue; all is subdued and warmed at the same time by the mingling
+gray and gold, up to the very zenith, where, breaking through the flaky
+mist, the transparent and deep azure of the sky is expressed with a
+single crumbling touch; the key-note of the whole is given, and every
+part of it passes at once far into glowing and aerial space. The reader
+can scarcely fail to remember at once sundry works in contradistinction
+to this, with great names attached to them, in which the sky is a sheer
+piece of plumber's and glazier's work, and should be valued per yard,
+with heavy extra charge for ultramarine.
+
+
+§ 14. The basis of gray, under all his vivid hues.
+
+Throughout the works of Turner, the same truthful principle of delicate
+and subdued color is carried out with a care and labor of which it is
+difficult to form a conception. He gives a dash of pure white for his
+highest light; but all the other whites of his picture are pearled down
+with gray or gold. He gives a fold of pure crimson to the drapery of his
+nearest figure; but all his other crimsons will be deepened with black,
+or warmed with yellow. In one deep reflection of his distant sea, we
+catch a trace of the purest blue; but all the rest is palpitating with a
+varied and delicate gradation of harmonized tint, which indeed looks
+vivid blue as a mass, but is only so by opposition. It is the most
+difficult, the most rare thing, to find in his works a definite space,
+however small, of unconnected color; that is, either of a blue which has
+nothing to connect it with the warmth, or of a warm color which has
+nothing to connect it with the grays of the whole; and the result is,
+that there is a general system and undercurrent of gray pervading the
+whole of his color, out of which his highest lights, and those local
+touches of pure color, which are, as I said before, the key-notes of the
+picture, flash with the peculiar brilliancy and intensity in which he
+stands alone.
+
+
+§ 15. The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones.
+
+§ 16. Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature.
+
+Intimately associated with this toning down and connection of the colors
+actually used, is his inimitable power of varying and blending them, so
+as never to give a quarter of an inch of canvas without a change in it,
+a melody as well as a harmony of one kind or another. Observe, I am not
+at present speaking of this as artistical or desirable in itself, not as
+a characteristic of the great colorist, but as the aim of the simple
+follower of nature. For it is strange to see how marvellously nature
+varies the most general and simple of her tones. A mass of mountain seen
+against the light, may, at first, appear all of one blue; and so it is,
+blue as a whole, by comparison with other parts of the landscape. But
+look how that blue is made up. There are black shadows in it under the
+crags, there are green shadows along the turf, there are gray
+half-lights upon the rocks, there are faint touches of stealthy warmth
+and cautious light along their edges; every bush, every stone, every
+tuft of moss has its voice in the matter, and joins with individual
+character in the universal will. Who is there who can do this as Turner
+will? The old masters would have settled the matter at once with a
+transparent, agreeable, but monotonous gray. Many among the moderns
+would probably be equally monotonous with absurd and false colors.
+Turner only would give the uncertainty--the palpitating, perpetual
+change--the subjection of all to a great influence, without one part or
+portion being lost or merged in it--the unity of action with infinity of
+agent. And I wish to insist on this the more particularly, because it is
+one of the eternal principles of nature, that she will not have one line
+nor color, nor one portion nor atom of space without a change in it.
+There is not one of her shadows, tints, or lines that is not in a state
+of perpetual variation: I do not mean in time, but in space. There is
+not a leaf in the world which has the _same color_ visible over its
+whole surface; it has a white high light somewhere; and in proportion as
+it curves to or from that focus, the color is brighter or grayer. Pick
+up a common flint from the roadside, and count, if you can, its changes
+and hues of color. Every bit of bare ground under your feet has in it a
+thousand such--the gray pebbles, the warm ochre, the green of incipient
+vegetation, the grays and blacks of its reflexes and shadows, might
+keep a painter at work for a month, if he were obliged to follow them
+touch for touch: how much more, when the same infinity of change is
+carried out with vastness of object and space. The extreme of distance
+may appear at first monotonous; but the least examination will show it
+to be full of every kind of change--that its outlines are perpetually
+melting and appearing again--sharp here, vague there--now lost
+altogether, now just hinted and still confused among each other--and so
+forever in a state and necessity of change. Hence, wherever in a
+painting we have unvaried color extended even over a small space, there
+is falsehood. Nothing can be natural which is monotonous; nothing true
+which only tells one story. The brown foreground and rocks of Claude's
+Sinon before Priam are as false as color can be: first, because there
+never was such a brown under sunlight, for even the sand and cinders
+(volcanic tufa) about Naples, granting that he had studied from these
+ugliest of all formations, are, where they are fresh fractured, golden
+and lustrous in full light compared to these ideals of crag, and become,
+like all other rocks, quiet and gray when weathered; and secondly,
+because no rock that ever nature stained is without its countless
+breaking tints of varied vegetation. And even Stanfield, master as he is
+of rock form, is apt in the same way to give us here and there a little
+bit of mud, instead of stone.
+
+
+§ 17. His dislike of purple and fondness for the opposition of yellow and
+        black. The principles of nature in this respect.
+
+What I am next about to say with respect to Turner's color, I should
+wish to be received with caution, as it admits of dispute. I think that
+the first approach to viciousness of color in any master is commonly
+indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple, and an absence of yellow. I
+think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues, never, or
+very rarely, using red without it, but frequently using yellow with
+scarcely any red; and I believe it will be in consequence found that her
+favorite opposition, that which generally characterizes and gives tone
+to her color, is yellow and black, passing, as it retires, into white
+and blue. It is beyond dispute that the great fundamental opposition of
+Rubens is yellow and black; and that on this, concentrated in one part
+of the picture, and modified in various grays throughout, chiefly depend
+the tones of all his finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far
+greater tendency to the purple than in Rubens, I believe no red is ever
+mixed with the pure blue, or glazed over it, which has not in it a
+modifying quantity of yellow. At all events, I am nearly certain that
+whatever rich and pure purples are introduced locally, by the great
+colorists, nothing is so destructive of all fine color as the slightest
+tendency to purple in general tone; and I am equally certain that Turner
+is distinguished from all the vicious colorists of the present day, by
+the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and the
+intermediate grays, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is
+invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples. So fond indeed is Turner
+of black and yellow, that he has given us more than one composition,
+both drawings and paintings, based on these two colors alone, of which
+the magnificent Quilleboeuf, which I consider one of the most perfect
+pieces of simple color existing, is a most striking example; and I think
+that where, as in some of the late Venices, there has been something
+like a marked appearance of purple tones, even though exquisitely
+corrected by vivid orange and warm green in the foreground, the general
+color has not been so perfect or truthful: my own feelings would always
+guide me rather to the warm grays of such pictures as the Snow Storm, or
+the glowing scarlet and gold of the Napoleon and Slave Ship. But I do
+not insist at present on this part of the subject, as being perhaps more
+proper for future examination, when we are considering the ideal of
+color.
+
+
+§ 18. His early works are false in color.
+
+The above remarks have been made entirely with reference to the recent
+Academy pictures, which have been chiefly attacked for their color. I by
+no means intend them to apply to the early works of Turner, those which
+the enlightened newspaper critics are perpetually talking about as
+characteristic of a time when Turner was "really great." He is, and was,
+really great, from the time when he first could hold a brush, but he
+never was so great as he is now. The Crossing the Brook, glorious as it
+is as a composition, and perfect in all that is most desirable and most
+ennobling in art, is scarcely to be looked upon as a piece of color; it
+is an agreeable, cool, gray rendering of space and form, but it is not
+color; if it be regarded as such, it is thoroughly false and vapid, and
+very far inferior to the tones of the same kind given by Claude. The
+reddish brown in the foreground of the Fall of Carthage, with all
+diffidence be it spoken, is, as far as my feelings are competent to
+judge, crude, sunless, and in every way wrong; and both this picture and
+the Building of Carthage, though this latter is far the finer of the
+two, are quite unworthy of Turner as a colorist.
+
+
+§ 19. His drawings invariably perfect.
+
+Not so with the drawings; these, countless as they are, from the
+earliest to the latest, though presenting an unbroken chain of
+increasing difficulty overcome, and truth illustrated, are all,
+according to their aim, equally faultless as to color. Whatever we have
+hitherto said, applies to them in its fullest extent; though each, being
+generally the realization of some effect actually seen, and realized but
+once, requires almost a separate essay. As a class, they are far quieter
+and chaster than the Academy pictures, and, were they better known,
+might enable our connoisseurs to form a somewhat more accurate judgment
+of the intense study of nature on which all Turner's color is based.
+
+
+§ 20. The subjection of his system of color to that of chiaroscuro.
+
+One point only remains to be noted respecting his system of color
+generally--its entire subordination to light and shade, a subordination
+which there is no need to prove here, as every engraving from his
+works--and few are unengraved--is sufficient demonstration of it. I have
+before shown the inferiority and unimportance in nature of color, as a
+truth, compared with light and shade. That inferiority is maintained and
+asserted by all really great works of color; but most by Turner's as
+their color is most intense. Whatever brilliancy he may choose to
+assume, is subjected to an inviolable law of chiaroscuro, from which
+there is no appeal. No richness nor depth of tint is considered of value
+enough to atone for the loss of one particle of arranged light. No
+brilliancy of hue is permitted to interfere with the depth of a
+determined shadow. And hence it is, that while engravings from works far
+less splendid in color are often vapid and cold, because the little
+color employed has not been rightly based on light and shade, an
+engraving from Turner is always beautiful and forcible in proportion as
+the color of the original has been intense, and never in a single
+instance has failed to express the picture as a perfect
+composition.[21] Powerful and captivating and faithful as his color is,
+it is the least important of all his excellences, because it is the
+least important feature of nature. He paints in color, but he thinks in
+light and shade; and were it necessary, rather than lose one line of his
+forms, or one ray of his sunshine, would, I apprehend, be content to
+paint in black and white to the end of his life. It is by mistaking the
+shadow for the substance, and aiming at the brilliancy and the fire,
+without perceiving of what deep-studied shade and inimitable form
+it is at once the result and the illustration, that the host of his
+imitators sink into deserved disgrace. With him, as with all the
+greatest painters, and in Turner's more than all, the hue is a beautiful
+auxiliary in working out the great impression to be conveyed, but is not
+the source nor the essence of that impression; it is little more than a
+visible melody, given to raise and assist the mind in the reception of
+nobler ideas--as sacred passages of sweet sound, to prepare the feelings
+for the reading of the mysteries of God.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [19]             "Cęcus adulator--
+                    Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes,
+                    Blandaque devexę iactaret basia rhedę."
+
+  [20] There is perhaps nothing more characteristic of a great
+    colorist than his power of using greens in strange places without
+    their being felt as such, or at least than a constant preference of
+    green gray to purple gray. And this hue of Poussin's clouds would
+    have been perfectly agreeable and allowable, had there been gold or
+    crimson enough in the rest of the picture to have thrown it into
+    gray. It is only because the lower clouds are pure white and blue,
+    and because the trees are of the same color as the clouds, that the
+    cloud color becomes false. There is a fine instance of a sky, green
+    in itself, but turned gray by the opposition of warm color, in
+    Turner's Devonport with the Dockyards.
+
+  [21] This is saying too much; for it not unfrequently happens that
+    the light and shade of the original is lost in the engraving, the
+    effect of which is afterwards partially recovered, with the aid of
+    the artist himself, by introductions of new features. Sometimes,
+    when a drawing depends chiefly on color, the engraver gets
+    unavoidably embarrassed, and must be assisted by some change or
+    exaggeration of the effect; but the more frequent case is, that the
+    engraver's difficulties result merely from his inattention to, or
+    wilful deviations from his original; and that the artist is obliged
+    to assist him by such expedients as the error itself suggests.
+
+    Not unfrequently in reviewing a plate, as very constantly in
+    reviewing a picture after some time has elapsed since its
+    completion, even the painter is liable to make unnecessary or
+    hurtful changes. In the plate of the Old Temeraire, lately published
+    in Finden's gallery, I do not know whether it was Turner or the
+    engraver who broke up the water into sparkling ripple, but it was a
+    grievous mistake, and has destroyed the whole dignity and value of
+    the conception. The flash of lightning in the Winchelsea of the
+    England series does not exist in the original; it is put in to
+    withdraw the attention of the spectator from the sky which the
+    engraver destroyed.
+
+    There is an unfortunate persuasion among modern engravers that color
+    can be expressed by particular characters of line; and in the
+    endeavor to distinguish by different lines, different colors of
+    equal depth, they frequently lose the whole system of light and
+    shade. It will hardly be credited that the piece of foreground on
+    the left of Turner's Modern Italy, represented in the Art-Union
+    engraving as nearly coal black, is in the original of a pale warm
+    gray, hardly darker than the sky. All attempt to record color in
+    engraving, is heraldry out of its place: the engraver has no power
+    beyond that of expressing transparency or opacity by greater or less
+    openness of line, (for the same depth of tint is producible by lines
+    with very different intervals.)
+
+    Texture of surface is only in a measure in the power of the steel,
+    and ought not to be laboriously sought after; nature's surfaces are
+    distinguished more by form than texture; a stone is often smoother
+    than a leaf; but if texture is to be given, let the engraver at
+    least be sure that he knows what the texture of the object actually
+    is, and how to represent it. The leaves in the foreground of the
+    engraved Mercury and Argus have all of them three or four black
+    lines across them. What sort of leaf texture is supposed to be
+    represented by these? The stones in the foreground of Turner's
+    Llanthony received from the artist the powdery texture of sandstone;
+    the engraver covered them with contorted lines and turned them into
+    old timber.
+
+    A still more fatal cause of failure is the practice of making out or
+    finishing what the artist left incomplete. In the England plate of
+    Dudley, there are two offensive blank windows in the large building
+    with the chimney on the left. These _are_ engraver's improvements;
+    in the original they are barely traceable, their lines being
+    excessively faint and tremulous as with the movement of heated air
+    between them and the spectator: their vulgarity is thus taken away,
+    and the whole building left in one grand unbroken mass. It is almost
+    impossible to break engravers of this unfortunate habit. I have even
+    heard of their taking journeys of some distance in order to obtain
+    knowledge of the details which the artist intentionally omitted; and
+    the evil will necessarily continue until they receive something like
+    legitimate artistical education. In one or two instances, however,
+    especially in small plates, they have shown great feeling; the
+    plates of Miller (especially those of the Turner illustrations to
+    Scott) are in most instances perfect and beautiful interpretations
+    of the originals; so those of Goodall in Rogers's works, and
+    Cousens's in the Rivers of France; those of the Yorkshire series are
+    also very valuable, though singularly inferior to the drawings. But
+    none even of these men appear capable of producing a large plate.
+    They have no knowledge of the means of rendering their lines vital
+    or valuable; cross-hatching stands for everything; and inexcusably,
+    for though we cannot expect every engraver to etch like Rembrandt or
+    Albert Durer, or every wood-cutter to draw like Titian, at least
+    something of the system and power of the grand works of those men
+    might be preserved, and some mind and meaning stolen into the
+    reticulation of the restless modern lines.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                          OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO.
+
+
+§ 1. We are not at present to examine particular effects of light.
+
+It is not my intention to enter, in the present portion of the work,
+upon any examination of Turner's particular effects of light. We must
+know something about what is beautiful before we speak of these.
+
+At present I wish only to insist upon two great principles of
+chiaroscuro, which are observed throughout the works of the great modern
+master, and set at defiance by the ancients--great general laws, which
+may, or may not, be sources of beauty, but whose observance is
+indisputably necessary to truth.
+
+Go out some bright sunny day in winter, and look for a tree with a broad
+trunk, having rather delicate boughs hanging down on the sunny side,
+near the trunk. Stand four or five yards from it, with your back to the
+sun. You will find that the boughs between you and the trunk of the tree
+are very indistinct, that you confound them in places with the trunk
+itself, and cannot possibly trace one of them from its insertion to its
+extremity. But the shadows which they cast upon the trunk, you will find
+clear, dark, and distinct, perfectly traceable through their whole
+course, except when they are interrupted by the crossing boughs. And if
+you retire backwards, you will come to a point where you cannot see the
+intervening boughs at all, or only a fragment of them here and there,
+but can still see their shadows perfectly plain. Now, this may serve to
+show you the immense prominence and importance of shadows where there is
+anything like bright light. They are, in fact, commonly far more
+conspicuous than the thing which casts them, for being as large as the
+casting object, and altogether made up of a blackness deeper than the
+darkest part of the casting object, (while that object is also broken up
+with positive and reflected lights,) their large, broad, unbroken
+spaces, tell strongly on the eye, especially as all form is rendered
+partially, often totally invisible within them, and as they are suddenly
+terminated by the sharpest lines which nature ever shows. For no outline
+of objects whatsoever is so sharp as the edge of a close shadow. Put
+your finger over a piece of white paper in the sun, and observe the
+difference between the softness of the outline of the finger itself and
+the decision of the edge of the shadow. And note also the excessive
+gloom of the latter. A piece of black cloth, laid in the light, will not
+attain one-fourth of the blackness of the paper under the shadow.
+
+
+§ 2. And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means of
+       expressing vividness of light.
+
+§ 3. Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian
+       school.
+
+§ 4. And partial absence in the Dutch.
+
+Hence shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most
+conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights. All forms
+are understood and explained chiefly by their agency: the roughness of
+the bark of a tree, for instance, is not seen in the light, nor in the
+shade: it is only seen between the two, where the shadows of the ridges
+explain it. And hence, if we have to express vivid light, our very first
+aim must be to get the shadows sharp and visible; and this is not to be
+done by blackness, (though indeed chalk on white paper is the only thing
+which comes up to the intensity of real shadows,) but by keeping them
+perfectly flat, keen, and even. A very pale shadow, if it be quite
+flat--if it conceal the details of the objects it crosses--if it be gray
+and cold compared to their color, and very sharp edged, will be far more
+conspicuous, and make everything out of it look a great deal more like
+sunlight, than a shadow ten times its depth, shaded off at the edge, and
+confounded with the color of the objects on which it falls. Now the old
+masters of the Italian school, in almost all of their works, directly
+reverse this principle: they blacken their shadows till the picture
+becomes quite appalling, and everything in it invisible; but they make a
+point of losing their edges, and carrying them off by gradation; in
+consequence utterly destroying every appearance of sunlight. All their
+shadows are the faint, secondary darknesses of mere _daylight_; the sun
+has nothing whatever to do with them. The shadow between the pages of
+the book which you hold in your hand is distinct and visible enough,
+(though you are, I suppose, reading it by the ordinary daylight of your
+room,) out of the sun; and this weak and secondary shadow is all that we
+ever find in the Italian masters, as indicative of sunshine. Even Cuyp
+and Berghem, though they know thoroughly well what they are about in
+their foregrounds, forget the principle in their distances; and though
+in Claude's seaports, where he has plain architecture to deal with, he
+gives us something like real shadows along the stones, the moment we
+come to ground and foliage with lateral light, away go the shadows and
+the sun together. In the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, in our own
+gallery, the trunks of the trees between the water-wheel and the white
+figure in the middle distance, are dark and visible; but their shadows
+are scarcely discernible on the ground, and are quite vague and lost in
+the building. In nature, every bit of the shadow would have been darker
+than the darkest part of the trunks, and both on the ground and building
+would have been defined and conspicuous; while the trunks themselves
+would have been faint, confused, and indistinguishable, in their
+illumined parts, from the grass or distance. So in Poussin's Phocion,
+the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded
+off and lost, while you see the stick plain all the way. In nature's
+sunlight it would have been the direct reverse--you would have seen the
+shadow black and sharp all the way down, but you would have had to look
+for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have
+been confused with the stone behind it.
+
+And so throughout the works of Claude, Poussin, and Salvator, we shall
+find, especially in their conventional foliage, and unarticulated
+barbarisms of rock, that their whole sum and substance of chiaroscuro is
+merely the gradation and variation which nature gives in the _body_ of
+her shadows, and that all which they do to express sunshine, she does to
+vary shade. They take only one step, while she always takes two;
+marking, in the first place, with violent decision, the great transition
+from sun to shade, and then varying the shade itself with a thousand
+gentle gradations and double shadows, in themselves equivalent, and more
+than equivalent, to all that the old masters did for their entire
+chiaroscuro.
+
+
+§ 5. The perfection of Turner's works in this respect.
+
+Now if there be one principle, or secret more than another, on which
+Turner depends for attaining brilliancy of light, it is his clear and
+exquisite drawing of the _shadows_. Whatever is obscure, misty, or
+undefined in his objects or his atmosphere, he takes care that the
+shadows be sharp and clear--and then he knows that the light will take
+care of itself, and he makes them clear, not by blackness, but by
+excessive evenness, unity, and sharpness of edge. He will keep them
+clear and distinct, and make them felt as shadows, though they are so
+faint, that, but for their decisive forms, we should not have observed
+them for darkness at all. He will throw them one after another like
+transparent veils, along the earth and upon the air, till the whole
+picture palpitates with them, and yet the darkest of them will be a
+faint gray, imbued and penetrated with light. The pavement on the left
+of the Hero and Leander, is about the most thorough piece of this kind
+of sorcery that I remember in art; but of the general principle, not one
+of his works is without constant evidence. Take the vignette of the
+garden opposite the title-page of Rogers's Poems, and note the drawing
+of the nearest balustrade on the right. The balusters themselves are
+faint and misty, and the light through them feeble; but the shadows of
+them are sharp and dark, and the intervening light as intense as it can
+be left. And see how much more distinct the shadow of the running figure
+is on the pavement, than the checkers of the pavement itself. Observe
+the shadows on the trunk of the tree at page 91, how they conquer all
+the details of the trunk itself, and become darker and more conspicuous
+than any part of the boughs or limbs, and so in the vignette to
+Campbell's Beechtree's Petition. Take the beautiful concentration of all
+that is most characteristic of Italy as she is, at page 168 of Rogers's
+Italy, where we have the long shadows of the trunks made by far the most
+conspicuous thing in the whole foreground, and hear how Wordsworth, the
+keenest-eyed of all modern poets for what is deep and essential in
+nature, illustrates Turner here, as we shall find him doing in all other
+points.
+
+                                          "At the root
+           Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
+           And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
+           Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,
+           Traced faintly in the greensward."
+
+                                              EXCURSION, Book VI
+
+
+§ 6. The effect of his shadows upon the light.
+
+So again in the Rhymer's Glen, (Illustrations to Scott,) note the
+intertwining of the shadows across the path, and the checkering of the
+trunks by them; and again on the bridge in the Armstrong's Tower; and
+yet more in the long avenue of Brienne, where we have a length of two or
+three miles expressed by the playing shadows alone, and the whole
+picture filled with sunshine by the long lines of darkness cast by the
+figures on the snow. The Hampton Court in the England series, is another
+very striking instance. In fact, the general system of execution
+observable in all Turner's drawings, is to work his grounds richly and
+fully, sometimes stippling, and giving infinity of delicate, mysterious,
+and ceaseless detail; and on the ground so prepared to cast his shadows
+with one dash of the brush, leaving an excessively sharp edge of watery
+color. Such at least is commonly the case in such coarse and broad
+instances as those I have above given. Words are not accurate enough,
+nor delicate enough to express or trace the constant, all-pervading
+influence of the finer and vaguer shadows throughout his works, that
+thrilling influence which gives to the light they leave, its passion and
+its power. There is not a stone, not a leaf, not a cloud, over which
+light is not felt to be actually passing and palpitating before our
+eyes. There is the motion, the actual wave and radiation of the darted
+beam--not the dull universal daylight, which falls on the landscape
+without life, or direction, or speculation, equal on all things and dead
+on all things; but the breathing, animated, exulting light, which feels,
+and receives, and rejoices, and acts--which chooses one thing and
+rejects another--which seeks, and finds, and loses again--leaping from
+rock to rock, from leaf to leaf, from wave to wave,--glowing, or
+flashing, or scintillating, according to what it strikes, or in its
+holier moods, absorbing and enfolding all things in the deep fulness of
+its repose, and then again losing itself in bewilderment, and doubt, and
+dimness; or perishing and passing away, entangled in drifting mist, or
+melted into melancholy air, but still,--kindling, or declining,
+sparkling or still, it is the living light, which breathes in its
+deepest, most entranced rest, which sleeps, but never dies.
+
+
+§ 7. The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the
+       ancient and modern schools.
+
+I need scarcely insist farther on the marked distinction between the works
+of the old masters and those of the great modern landscape-painters in
+this respect. It is one which the reader can perfectly well work out for
+himself, by the slightest systematic attention,--one which he will find
+existing, not merely between this work and that, but throughout the whole
+body of their productions, and down to every leaf and line. And a little
+careful watching of nature, especially in her foliage and foregrounds,
+and comparison of her with Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator, will
+soon show him that those artists worked entirely on conventional
+principles, not representing what they saw, but what they thought would
+make a handsome picture; and even when they went to nature, which I
+believe to have been a very much rarer practice with them than their
+biographers would have us suppose, they copied her like children, drawing
+what they knew to be there, but not what they saw there.[22] I believe
+you may search the foregrounds of Claude, from one end of Europe to
+another, and you will not find the shadow of one leaf cast upon another.
+You will find leaf after leaf painted more or less boldly or brightly out
+of the black ground, and you will find dark leaves defined in perfect
+form upon the light; but you will not find the form of a single leaf
+disguised or interrupted by the shadow of another. And Poussin and
+Salvator are still farther from anything like genuine truth. There is
+nothing in their pictures which might not be manufactured in their
+painting-room, with a branch or two of brambles and a bunch or two of
+weeds before them, to give them the form of the leaves. And it is
+refreshing to turn from their ignorant and impotent repetitions of
+childish conception, to the clear, close, genuine studies of modern
+artists; for it is not Turner only, (though here, as in all other points,
+the first,) who is remarkable for fine and expressive decision of
+chiaroscuro. Some passages by J. D. Harding are thoroughly admirable in
+this respect, though this master is getting a little too much into a
+habit of general keen execution, which prevents the parts which ought to
+be especially decisive from being felt as such, and which makes his
+pictures, especially the large ones, look a little thin. But some of his
+later passages of rock foreground have, taken in the abstract, been
+beyond all praise, owing to the exquisite forms and firm expressiveness
+of their shadows. And the chiaroscuro of Stanfield is equally deserving
+of the most attentive study.
+
+
+§ 8. Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and deep
+       shadow are used in equal quantity and only in points.
+
+The second point to which I wish at present to direct attention has
+reference to the _arrangement_ of light and shade. It is the constant
+habit of nature to use both her highest lights and deepest shadows in
+exceedingly small quantity; always in points, never in masses. She will
+give a large mass of tender light in sky or water, impressive by its
+quantity, and a large mass of tender shadow relieved against it, in
+foliage, or hill, or building; but the light is always subdued if it be
+extensive--the shadow always feeble if it be broad. She will then fill
+up all the rest of her picture with middle tints and pale grays of some
+sort or another, and on this quiet and harmonious whole, she will touch
+her high lights in spots--the foam of an isolated wave--the sail of a
+solitary vessel--the flash of the sun from a wet roof--the gleam of a
+single whitewashed cottage--or some such sources of local brilliancy,
+she will use so vividly and delicately as to throw everything else into
+definite shade by comparison. And then taking up the gloom, she will use
+the black hollows of some overhanging bank, or the black dress of some
+shaded figure, or the depth of some sunless chink of wall or window, so
+sharply as to throw everything else into definite light by comparison;
+thus reducing the whole mass of her picture to a delicate middle tint,
+approaching, of course, here to light, and there to gloom; but yet
+sharply separated from the utmost degrees either of the one or the
+other.
+
+
+§ 9. Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art.
+
+§ 10. And consequent misguiding of the student.
+
+Now it is a curious thing that none of our writers on art seem to have
+noticed the great principle of nature in this respect. They all talk of
+deep shadow as a thing that may be given in quantity,--one fourth of the
+picture, or, in certain effects, much more. Barry, for instance, says
+that the practice of the great painters, who "best understood the
+effects of chiaroscuro," was, for the most part, to make the mass of
+middle tint larger than the light, and the mass of dark larger than the
+masses of light and middle tint together, _i.e._, occupying more than
+one-half of the picture. Now I do not know what we are to suppose is
+meant by "understanding chiaroscuro." If it means being able to
+manufacture agreeable patterns in the shape of pyramids, and crosses,
+and zigzags, into which arms and legs are to be persuaded, and passion
+and motion arranged, for the promotion and encouragement of the cant of
+criticism, such a principle may be productive of the most advantageous
+results. But if it means, being acquainted with the deep, perpetual,
+systematic, unintrusive simplicity and unwearied variety of nature's
+chiaroscuro--if it means the perception that blackness and sublimity are
+not synonymous, and that space and light may possibly be
+coadjutors--then no man, who ever advocated or dreamed of such a
+principle, is anything more than a novice, blunderer and trickster in
+chiaroscuro. And my firm belief is, that though color is inveighed
+against by all artists, as the great Circe of art--the great transformer
+of mind into sensuality--no fondness for it, no study of it, is half so
+great a peril and stumbling-block to the young student, as the
+admiration he hears bestowed on such artificial, false, and juggling
+chiaroscuro, and the instruction he receives, based on such principles
+as that given us by Fuseli--that "mere natural light and shade, however
+separately or individually true, is not always legitimate chiaroscuro in
+art." It may not always be _agreeable_ to a sophisticated, unfeeling,
+and perverted mind; but the student had better throw up his art at once,
+than proceed on the conviction that any other can ever be _legitimate_.
+I believe I shall be perfectly well able to prove, in following parts of
+the work, that "mere natural light and shade" is the only fit and
+faithful attendant of the highest art; and that all tricks--all visible,
+intended arrangement--all extended shadows and narrow lights--everything
+in fact, in the least degree artificial, or tending to make the mind
+dwell upon light and shade as such, is an injury, instead of an aid, to
+conceptions of high ideal dignity. I believe I shall be able also to
+show, that nature manages her chiaroscuro a great deal more neatly and
+cleverly than people fancy;--that "mere natural light and shade" is a
+very much finer thing than most artists can put together, and that none
+think they can improve upon it but those who never understood it.
+
+
+§ 11. The great value of a simple chiaroscuro.
+
+But however this may be, it is beyond dispute that every permission
+given to the student to amuse himself with painting one figure all
+black, and the next all white, and throwing them out with a background
+of nothing--every permission given to him to spoil his pocketbook with
+sixths of sunshine and sevenths of shade, and other such fractional
+sublimities, is so much more difficulty laid in the way of his ever
+becoming a master; and that none are in the right road to real
+excellence, but those who are struggling to render the simplicity,
+purity, and inexhaustible variety of nature's own chiaroscuro in open,
+cloudless daylight, giving the expanse of harmonious light--the
+speaking, decisive shadow--and the exquisite grace, tenderness, and
+grandeur of aerial opposition of local color and equally illuminated
+lines. No chiaroscuro is so difficult as this; and none so noble,
+chaste, or impressive. On this part of the subject, however, I must not
+enlarge at present. I wish now only to speak of those great principles
+of chiaroscuro, which nature observes, even when she is most working for
+effect--when she is playing with thunder-clouds and sunbeams, and
+throwing one thing out and obscuring another, with the most marked
+artistical feeling and intention;--even then, she never forgets her
+great rule, to give precisely the same quantity of deepest shade which
+she does of highest light, and no more; points of the one answering to
+points of the other, and both vividly conspicuous and separated from all
+the rest of the landscape.
+
+
+§ 12. The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle tint.
+
+And it is most singular that this separation, which is the great source
+of brilliancy in nature, should not only be unobserved, but absolutely
+forbidden by our great writers on art, who are always talking about
+connecting the light with the shade by _imperceptible gradations_. Now
+so surely as this is done, all sunshine is lost, for imperceptible
+gradation from light to dark is the characteristic of objects seen out
+of sunshine, in what is, in landscape, shadow. Nature's principle of
+getting light is the direct reverse. She will cover her whole landscape
+with middle tint, in which she will have as many gradations as you
+please, and a great many more than you can paint; but on this middle
+tint she touches her extreme lights, and extreme darks, isolated and
+sharp, so that the eye goes to them directly, and feels them to be
+key-notes of the whole composition. And although the dark touches are
+less attractive than the light ones, it is not because they are less
+distinct, but because they exhibit nothing; while the bright touches are
+in parts where everything is seen, and where in consequence the eye goes
+to rest. But yet the high lights do not exhibit anything in themselves,
+they are too bright and dazzle the eye; and having no shadows in them,
+cannot exhibit form, for form can only be seen by shadow of some kind or
+another. Hence the highest lights and deepest darks agree in this, that
+nothing is seen in either of them; that both are in exceedingly small
+quantity, and both are marked and distinct from the middle tones of the
+landscape--the one by their brilliancy, the other by their sharp edges,
+even though many of the more energetic middle tints may approach their
+intensity very closely.
+
+
+§ 13. The truth of Turner.
+
+I need scarcely do more than tell you to glance at any one of the works
+of Turner, and you will perceive in a moment the exquisite observation
+of all these principles; the sharpness, decision, conspicuousness, and
+excessively small quantity, both of extreme light and extreme shade, all
+the mass of the picture being graduated and delicate middle tint. Take
+up the Rivers of France, for instance, and turn over a few of the plates
+in succession.
+
+  1. Chateau Gaillard (vignette.)--Black figures and boats, points of
+shade; sun-touches on castle, and wake of boat, of light. See how the
+eye rests on both, and observe how sharp and separate all the lights
+are, falling in spots, edged by shadow, but not melting off into it.
+
+  2. Orleans.--The crowded figures supply both points of shade and light.
+Observe the delicate middle tint of both in the whole mass of buildings,
+and compare this with the blackness of Canaletto's shadows, against
+which neither figures nor anything else can ever tell, as points of
+shade.
+
+  3. Blois.--White figures in boats, buttresses of bridge, dome of church
+on the right, for light; woman on horseback, heads of boats, for shadow.
+Note especially the isolation of the light on the church dome.
+
+  4. Chateau de Blois.--Torches and white figures for light, roof of
+chapel and monks' dresses for shade.
+
+  5. Beaugency.--Sails and spire opposed to buoy and boats. An exquisite
+instance of brilliant, sparkling, isolated touches of morning light.
+
+  6. Amboise.--White sail and clouds; cypresses under castle.
+
+  7. Chateau of Amboise.--The boat in the centre, with its reflections,
+needs no comment. Note the glancing lights under the bridge. This is a
+very glorious and perfect instance.
+
+  8. St. Julien, Tours.--Especially remarkable for its preservation of
+deep points of gloom, because the whole picture is one of extended
+shade.
+
+I need scarcely go on. The above instances are taken as they happen to
+come, without selection. The reader can proceed for himself. I may,
+however, name a few cases of chiaroscuro more especially deserving of
+his study. Scene between Quilleboeuf and Villequier,--Honfleur,--Light
+Towers of the Héve,--On the Seine between Mantes and Vernon,--The
+Lantern at St. Cloud,--Confluence of Seine and Marne,--Troyes,--the
+first and last vignette, and those at pages 36, 63, 95, 184, 192, 203,
+of Rogers's poems; the first and second in Campbell, St. Maurice in the
+Italy, where note the black stork; Brienne, Skiddaw, Mayburgh, Melrose,
+Jedburgh, in the illustrations to Scott, and the vignettes to Milton,
+not because these are one whit superior to others of his works, but
+because the laws of which we have been speaking are more strikingly
+developed in them, and because they have been well engraved. It is
+impossible to reason from the larger plates, in which half the
+chiaroscuro is totally destroyed by the haggling, blackening, and
+"making out" of the engravers.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [22] Compare Sect. II. Chap. II. § 6.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+   OF TRUTH OF SPACE:--FIRST AS DEPENDENT ON THE FOCUS OF THE EYE.[23]
+
+
+§ 1. Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than by
+       their hue.
+
+In the first chapter of this section I noticed the distinction between
+real aerial perspective, and that overcharged contrast of light and
+shade by which the old masters obtained their deceptive effect; and I
+showed that, though inferior to them in the precise quality or tone of
+aerial color, our great modern master is altogether more truthful in the
+expression of the proportionate relation of all his distances to one
+another. I am now about to examine those modes of expressing space, both
+in nature and art by far the most important, which are dependent, not on
+the relative hues of objects, but on the _drawing_ of them: by far the
+most important, I say, because the most constant and certain; for nature
+herself is not always aerial. Local effects are frequent which interrupt
+and violate the laws of aerial tone, and induce strange deception in our
+ideas of distance. I have often seen the summit of a snowy mountain look
+nearer than its base, owing to the perfect clearness of the upper air.
+But the _drawing_ of objects, that is to say, the degree in which their
+details and parts are distinct or confused, is an unfailing and certain
+criterion of their distance; and if this be rightly rendered in a
+painting, we shall have genuine truth of space, in spite of many errors
+in aerial tone; while, if this be neglected, all space will be
+destroyed, whatever dexterity of tint may be employed to conceal the
+defective drawing.
+
+
+§ 2. It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances distinctly at
+       one moment.
+
+First, then, it is to be noticed, that the eye, like any other lens,
+must have its focus altered, in order to convey a distinct image of
+objects at different distances; so that it is totally impossible to see
+distinctly, at the same moment, two objects, one of which is much
+farther off than another. Of this, any one may convince himself in an
+instant. Look at the bars of your window-frame, so as to get a clear
+image of their lines and form, and you cannot, while your eye is fixed
+on them, perceive anything but the most indistinct and shadowy images of
+whatever objects may be visible beyond. But fix your eyes on those
+objects, so as to see them clearly, and though they are just beyond and
+apparently beside the window-frame, that frame will only be felt or seen
+as a vague, flitting, obscure interruption to whatever is perceived
+beyond it. A little attention directed to this fact will convince every
+one of its universality, and prove beyond dispute that objects at
+unequal distances cannot be seen together, not from the intervention of
+air or mist, but from the impossibility of the rays proceeding from
+both, converging to the same focus, so that the whole impression, either
+of one or the other, must necessarily be confused, indistinct, and
+inadequate.
+
+
+§ 3. Especially such as are both comparatively near.
+
+But, be it observed (and I have only to request that whatever I say may
+be tested by immediate experiment,) the difference of focus necessary is
+greatest within the first five hundred yards, and therefore, though it
+is totally impossible to see an object ten yards from the eye, and one a
+quarter of a mile beyond it, at the same moment, it is perfectly
+possible to see one a quarter of a mile off, and one five miles beyond
+it, at the same moment. The consequence of this is, practically, that in
+a real landscape, we can see the whole of what would be called the
+middle distance and distance together, with facility and clearness; but
+while we do so we can see nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and
+indistinct arrangement of lines and colors; and that if, on the
+contrary, we look at any foreground object, so as to receive a distinct
+impression of it, the distance and middle distance become all disorder
+and mystery.
+
+
+§ 4. In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must be
+       partially sacrificed.
+
+And therefore, if in a painting our foreground is anything, our distance
+must be nothing, and _vice versa_; for if we represent our near and
+distant objects as giving both at once that distinct image to the eye,
+which we receive in nature from each, when we look at them
+separately;[24] and if we distinguish them from each other only by the
+air-tone; and indistinctness dependent on positive distance, we violate
+one of the most essential principles of nature; we represent that as
+seen at once which can only be seen by two separate acts of seeing, and
+tell a falsehood as gross as if we had represented four sides of a cubic
+object visible together.
+
+
+§ 5. Which not being done by the old masters, they could not express
+       space.
+
+§ 6. But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying out this
+       principle.
+
+§ 7. Especially of Turner.
+
+Now, to this fact and principle, no landscape painter of the old school,
+as far as I remember, ever paid the slightest attention. Finishing their
+foregrounds clearly and sharply, and with vigorous impression on the
+eye, giving even the leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge
+and shape, they proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what
+they could see of its details--they gave all that the eye can perceive
+in a distance, when it is fully and entirely devoted to it, and
+therefore, though masters of aerial tone, though employing every
+expedient that art could supply to conceal the intersection of lines,
+though caricaturing the force and shadow of near objects to throw them
+close upon the eye, they _never_ succeeded in truly representing space.
+Turner introduced a new era in landscape art, by showing that the
+foreground might be sunk for the distance, and that it was possible to
+express immediate proximity to the spectator, without giving anything
+like completeness to the forms of the near objects. This is not done by
+slurred or soft lines, observe, (always the sign of vice in art,) but by
+a decisive imperfection, a firm, but partial assertion of form, which
+the eye feels indeed to be close home to it, and yet cannot rest upon,
+or cling to, nor entirely understand, and from which it is driven away
+of necessity, to those parts of distance on which it is intended to
+repose. And this principle, originated by Turner, though fully carried
+out by him only, has yet been acted on with judgment and success by
+several less powerful artists of the English school. Some six years ago,
+the brown moorland foregrounds of Copley Fielding were very instructive
+in this respect. Not a line in them was made out, not a single object
+clearly distinguishable. Wet broad sweeps of the brush, sparkling,
+careless, and accidental as nature herself, always truthful as far as
+they went, implying knowledge, though not expressing it, suggested
+everything, while they represented nothing. But far off into the
+mountain distance came the sharp edge and the delicate form; the whole
+intention and execution of the picture being guided and exerted where
+the great impression of space and size was to be given. The spectator
+was compelled to go forward into the waste of hills--there, where the
+sun broke wide upon the moor, he must walk and wander--he could not
+stumble and hesitate over the near rocks, nor stop to botanize on the
+first inches of his path.[25] And the impression of these pictures was
+always great and enduring, as it was simple and truthful. I do not know
+anything in art which has expressed more completely the force and
+feeling of nature in these particular scenes. And it is a farther
+illustration[26] of the principle we are insisting upon, that where, as
+in some of his later works, he has bestowed more labor on the
+foreground, the picture has lost both in space and sublimity. And among
+artists in general, who are either not aware of the principle, or fear
+to act upon it, (for it requires no small courage, as well as skill, to
+treat a foreground with that indistinctness and mystery which they have
+been accustomed to consider as characteristic of distance,) the
+foreground is not only felt, as every landscape painter will confess, to
+be the most embarrassing and unmanageable part of the picture, but, in
+ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, will go near to destroy the effect
+of the rest of the composition. Thus Callcott's Trent is severely
+injured by the harsh group of foreground figures; and Stanfield very
+rarely gets through an Academy picture without destroying much of its
+space, by too much determination of near form; while Harding constantly
+sacrifices his distance, and compels the spectator to dwell on the
+foreground altogether, though indeed, with such foregrounds as he gives
+us, we are most happy so to do. But it is in Turner only that we see a
+bold and decisive choice of the distance and middle distance, as his
+great object of attention; and by him only that the foreground is united
+and adapted to it, not by any want of drawing, or coarseness, or
+carelessness of execution, but by the most precise and beautiful
+indication or suggestion of just so much of even the minutest forms as
+the eye can see when its focus is not adapted to them. And herein is
+another reason for the vigor and wholeness of the effect of Turner's
+works at any distance; while those of almost all other artists are sure
+to lose space as soon as we lose sight of the details.
+
+
+§ 8. Justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures.
+
+And now we see the reason for the singular, and to the ignorant in art,
+the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert
+that there is any reason whatsoever, for _bad_ drawing, (though in
+landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but that there is both reason
+and necessity for that _want_ of drawing which gives even the nearest
+figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and
+four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally
+impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding
+from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the
+distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and
+features of near figures than Turner gives. And how absolutely necessary
+to the faithful representation of space this indecision really is, might
+be proved with the utmost ease by any one who had veneration enough for
+the artist to sacrifice one of his pictures to his fame; who would take
+some one of his works in which the figures were most incomplete, and
+have them painted in by any of our delicate and first-rate
+figure-painters, absolutely preserving every color and shade of Turner's
+group, so as not to lose one atom of the composition, but giving eyes
+for the pink spots, and feet for the white ones. Let the picture be so
+exhibited in the Academy, and even novices in art would feel at a glance
+that its truth of space was gone, that every one of its beauties and
+harmonies had undergone decomposition, that it was now a grammatical
+solecism, a painting of impossibilities, a thing to torture the eye, and
+offend the mind.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [23] I have left this chapter in its original place, because I am
+    more than ever convinced of the truth of the position advanced in
+    the 8th paragraph; nor can I at present assign any other cause, than
+    that here given, for what is there asserted; and yet I cannot but
+    think that I have allowed far too much influence to a change so
+    slight as that which we insensibly make in the focus of the eye; and
+    that the real justification of Turner's practice, with respect to
+    some of his foregrounds, is to be elsewhere sought. I leave the
+    subject, therefore, to the reader's consideration.
+
+  [24] This incapacity of the eye must not be confounded with its
+    incapability to comprehend a large portion of _lateral_ space at
+    once. We indeed can see, at any one moment, little more than one
+    point, the objects beside it being confused and indistinct; but we
+    need pay no attention to this in art, because we can see just as
+    little of the picture as we can of the landscape without turning the
+    eye, and hence any slurring or confusing of one part of it,
+    laterally, more than another, is not founded on any truth of nature,
+    but is an expedient of the artist--and often an excellent and
+    desirable one--to make the eye rest where he wishes it. But as the
+    touch expressive of a distant object is as near upon the canvas as
+    that expressive of a near one, both are seen distinctly and with the
+    same focus of the eye, and hence an immediate contradiction of
+    nature results, unless one or other be given with an artificial and
+    increased indistinctness, expressive of the appearance peculiar to
+    the unadapted focus. On the other hand, it must be noted that the
+    greater part of the effect above described is consequent not on
+    variation of focus, but on the different angle at which near objects
+    are seen by each of the two eyes, when both are directed towards the
+    distance.
+
+  [25] There is no inconsistency, observe, between this passage and
+    what was before asserted respecting the necessity of botanical
+    fidelity--where the foreground is the object of attention. Compare
+    Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. § 10:--"To paint mist rightly, space
+    rightly, and light rightly, it may be often necessary to paint
+    _nothing else_ rightly."
+
+  [26] Hardly. It would have been so only had the recently finished
+    foregrounds been as accurate in detail as they are abundant: they
+    are painful, I believe, not from their finish, but their falseness.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+      OF TRUTH OF SPACE:--SECONDLY, AS ITS APPEARANCE IS DEPENDENT ON
+                            THE POWER OF THE EYE.
+
+
+§ 1. The peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of objects
+       from the eye.
+
+In the last chapter, we have seen how indistinctness of individual
+distances becomes necessary in order to express the adaptation of the
+eye to one or other of them; we have now to examine that kind of
+indistinctness which is dependent on real retirement of the object even
+when the focus of the eye is fully concentrated upon it. The first kind
+of indecision is that which belongs to all objects which the eye is not
+adapted to, whether near or far off: the second is that consequent upon
+the want of power in the eye to receive a clear image of objects at a
+great distance from it, however attentively it may regard them.
+
+Draw on a piece of white paper, a square and a circle, each about a
+twelfth or eighth of an inch in diameter, and blacken them so that their
+forms may be very distinct; place your paper against the wall at the end
+of the room, and retire from it a greater or less distance according as
+you have drawn the figures larger or smaller. You will come to a point
+where, though you can see both the spots with perfect plainness, you
+cannot tell which is the square and which the circle.
+
+
+§ 2. Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details.
+
+Now this takes place of course with every object in a landscape, in
+proportion to its distance and size. The definite forms of the leaves of
+a tree, however sharply and separately they may appear to come against
+the sky, are quite indistinguishable at fifty yards off, and the form of
+everything becomes confused before we finally lose sight of it. Now if
+the character of an object, say the front of a house, be explained by a
+variety of forms in it, as the shadows in the tops of the windows, the
+lines of the architraves, the seams of the masonry, etc.; these lesser
+details, as the object falls into distance, become confused and
+undecided, each of them losing their definite forms, but all being
+perfectly visible as something, a white or a dark spot or stroke, not
+lost sight of, observe, but yet so seen that we cannot tell what they
+are. As the distance increases, the confusion becomes greater, until at
+last the whole front of the house becomes merely a flat, pale space, in
+which, however, there is still observable a kind of richness and
+checkering, caused by the details in it, which, though totally merged
+and lost in the mass, have still an influence on the texture of that
+mass; until at last the whole house itself becomes a mere light or dark
+spot which we can plainly see, but cannot tell what it is, nor
+distinguish it from a stone or any other object.
+
+
+§ 3. Instances in various objects.
+
+Now what I particularly wish to insist upon, is the state of vision in
+which all the details of an object are seen, and yet seen in such
+confusion and disorder that we cannot in the least tell what they are,
+or what they mean. It is not mist between us and the object, still less
+is it shade, still less is it want of character; it is a confusion, a
+mystery, an interfering of undecided lines with each other, not a
+diminution of their number; window and door, architrave and frieze, all
+are there: it is no cold and vacant mass, it is full and rich and
+abundant, and yet you cannot see a single form so as to know what it is.
+Observe your friend's face as he is coming up to you; first it is
+nothing more than a white spot; now it is a face, but you cannot see the
+two eyes, nor the mouth, even as spots; you see a confusion of lines, a
+something which you know from experience to be indicative of a face, and
+yet you cannot tell how it is so. Now he is nearer, and you can see the
+spots for the eyes and mouth, but they are not blank spots neither;
+there is detail in them; you cannot see the lips, nor the teeth, nor the
+brows, and yet you see more than mere spots; it is a mouth and an eye,
+and there is light and sparkle and expression in them, but nothing
+distinct. Now he is nearer still, and you can see that he is like your
+friend, but you cannot tell whether he is or not; there is a vagueness
+and indecision of line still. Now you are sure, but even yet there are a
+thousand things in his face which have their effect in inducing the
+recognition, but which you cannot see so as to know what they are.
+
+
+§ 4. Two great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct, and
+       never vacant.
+
+Changes like these, and states of vision corresponding to them, take
+place with each and all of the objects of nature, and two great
+principles of truth are deducible from their observation. First, place
+an object as close to the eye as you like, there is always something in
+it which you _cannot_ see, except in the hinted and mysterious manner
+above described. You can see the texture of a piece of dress, but you
+cannot see the individual threads which compose it, though they are all
+felt, and have each of them influence on the eye. Secondly, place an
+object as far from the eye as you like, and until it becomes itself a
+mere spot, there is always something in it which you _can_ see, though
+only in the hinted manner above described. Its shadows and lines and
+local colors are not lost sight of as it retires; they get mixed and
+indistinguishable, but they are still there, and there is a difference
+always perceivable between an object possessing such details and a flat
+or vacant space. The grass blades of a meadow a mile off, are so far
+discernible that there will be a marked difference between its
+appearance and that of a piece of wood painted green. And thus nature is
+never distinct and never vacant, she is always mysterious, but always
+abundant; you always see something, but you never see all.
+
+And thus arise that exquisite finish and fulness which God has appointed
+to be the perpetual source of fresh pleasure to the cultivated and
+observant eye,--a finish which no distance can render invisible, and no
+nearness comprehensible; which in every stone, every bough, every cloud,
+and every wave is multiplied around us, forever presented, and forever
+exhaustless. And hence in art, every space or touch in which we can see
+everything, or in which we can see nothing, is false. Nothing can be
+true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does
+not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which
+represents nothing.
+
+
+§ 5. Complete violation of both these principles by the old masters.
+       They are either distinct or vacant.
+
+Now, I would not wish for any more illustrative or marked examples of
+the total contradiction of these two great principles, than the
+landscape works of the old masters, taken as a body:--the Dutch masters
+furnishing the cases of seeing everything, and the Italians of seeing
+nothing. The rule with both is indeed the same, differently applied.
+"You shall see the bricks in the wall, and be able to count them, or you
+shall see nothing but a dead flat;" but the Dutch give you the bricks,
+and the Italians the flat. Nature's rule being the precise reverse--"You
+shall never be able to count the bricks, but you shall never see a dead
+space."
+
+
+§ 6. Instances from Nicholas Poussin.
+
+Take, for instance, the street in the centre of the really great
+landscape of Poussin (great in feeling at least) marked 260 in the
+Dulwich Gallery. The houses are dead square masses with a light side and
+a dark side, and black touches for windows. There is no suggestion of
+anything in any of the spaces, the light wall is dead gray, the dark
+wall dead gray, and the windows dead black. How differently would nature
+have treated us. She would have let us see the Indian corn hanging on
+the walls, and the image of the Virgin at the angles, and the sharp,
+broken, broad shadows of the tiled eaves, and the deep ribbed tiles with
+the doves upon them, and the carved Roman capital built into the wall,
+and the white and blue stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the
+windows, and the flapping corners of the mat blinds. All would have been
+there; not as such, not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not to be
+comprehended nor understood, but a confusion of yellow and black spots
+and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow, microscopic in
+its minuteness, and filling every atom and part of space with mystery,
+out of which would have arranged itself the general impression of truth
+and life.
+
+
+§ 7. From Claude.
+
+Again, take the distant city on the right bank of the river in Claude's
+Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, in the National Gallery. I have seen many
+cities in my life, and drawn not a few; and I have seen many
+fortifications, fancy ones included, which frequently supply us with
+very new ideas indeed, especially in matters of proportion; but I do not
+remember ever having met with either a city or a fortress _entirely_
+composed of round towers of various heights and sizes, all facsimiles of
+each other, and absolutely agreeing in the number of battlements. I
+have, indeed, some faint recollection of having delineated such an one
+in the first page of a spelling-book when I was four years old; but,
+somehow or other, the dignity and perfection of the ideal were not
+appreciated, and the volume was not considered to be increased in value
+by the frontispiece. Without, however, venturing to doubt the entire
+sublimity of the same ideal as it occurs in Claude, let us consider how
+nature, if she had been fortunate enough to originate so perfect a
+conception, would have managed it in its details. Claude has permitted
+us to see every battlement, and the first impulse we feel upon looking
+at the picture is to count how many there are. Nature would have given
+us a peculiar confused roughness of the upper lines, a multitude of
+intersections and spots, which we should have known from experience was
+indicative of battlements, but which we might as well have thought of
+creating as of counting. Claude has given you the walls below in one
+dead void of uniform gray. There is nothing to be seen, nor felt, nor
+guessed at in it; it is gray paint or gray shade, whichever you may
+choose to call it, but it is nothing more. Nature would have let you
+see, nay, would have compelled you to see, thousands of spots and lines,
+not one to be absolutely understood or accounted for, but yet all
+characteristic and different from each other; breaking lights on
+shattered stones, vague shadows from waving vegetation, irregular stains
+of time and weather, mouldering hollows, sparkling casements--all would
+have been there--none, indeed, seen as such, none comprehensible or like
+themselves, but all visible; little shadows, and sparkles, and
+scratches, making that whole space of color a transparent, palpitating,
+various infinity.
+
+
+§ 8. And G. Poussin.
+
+Or take one of Poussin's extreme distances, such as that in the
+Sacrifice of Isaac. It is luminous, retiring, delicate and perfect in
+tone, and is quite complete enough to deceive and delight the careless
+eye to which all distances are alike; nay, it is perfect and masterly,
+and absolutely right if we consider it as a sketch,--as a first plan of
+a distance, afterwards to be carried out in detail. But we must remember
+that all these alternate spaces of gray and gold are not the landscape
+itself, but the treatment of it--not its substance, but its light and
+shade. They are just what nature would cast over it, and write upon it
+with every cloud, but which she would cast in play, and without
+carefulness, as matters of the very smallest possible importance. All
+her work and her attention would be given to bring out from underneath
+this, and through this, the forms and the material character which this
+can only be valuable to illustrate, not to conceal. Every one of those
+broad spaces she would linger over in protracted delight, teaching you
+fresh lessons in every hairsbreadth of it, and pouring her fulness of
+invention into it, until the mind lost itself in following her,--now
+fringing the dark edge of the shadow with a tufted line of level
+forest--now losing it for an instant in a breath of mist--then breaking
+it with the white gleaming angle of a narrow brook--then dwelling upon
+it again in a gentle, mounded, melting undulation, over the other side
+of which she would carry you down into a dusty space of soft, crowded
+light, with the hedges, and the paths, and the sprinkled cottages and
+scattered trees mixed up and mingled together in one beautiful,
+delicate, impenetrable mystery--sparkling and melting, and passing away
+into the sky, without one line of distinctness, or one instant of
+vacancy.
+
+
+§ 9. The imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness and
+       finish.
+
+Now it is, indeed, impossible for the painter to follow all this--he
+cannot come up to the same degree and order of infinity--but he can give
+us a lesser kind of infinity. He has not one-thousandth part of the
+space to occupy which nature has; but he can, at least, leave no part of
+that space vacant and unprofitable. If nature carries out her minutię
+over miles, he has no excuse for generalizing in inches. And if he will
+only give us all he can, if he will give us a fulness as complete and as
+mysterious as nature's, we will pardon him for its being the fulness of
+a cup instead of an ocean. But we will not pardon him, if, because he
+has not the mile to occupy, he will not occupy the inch, and because he
+has fewer means at his command, will leave half of those in his power
+unexerted. Still less will we pardon him for mistaking the sport of
+nature for her labor, and for following her only in her hour of rest,
+without observing how she has worked for it. After spending centuries in
+raising the forest, and guiding the river, and modelling the mountain,
+she exults over her work in buoyancy of spirit, with playful sunbeam and
+flying cloud; but the painter must go through the same labor, or he must
+not have the same recreation. Let him chisel his rock faithfully, and
+tuft his forest delicately, and then we will allow him his freaks of
+light and shade, and thank him for them; but we will not be put off with
+the play before the lesson--with the adjunct instead of the
+essence--with the illustration instead of the fact.
+
+
+§ 10. Breadth is not vacancy.
+
+I am somewhat anticipating my subject here, because I can scarcely help
+answering the objections which I know must arise in the minds of most
+readers, especially of those who are _partially_ artistical, respecting
+"generalization," "breadth," "effect," etc. It were to be wished that
+our writers on art would not dwell so frequently on the necessity of
+breadth, without explaining what it means; and that we had more constant
+reference made to the principle which I can only remember having seen
+once clearly explained and insisted on,--that breadth is not vacancy.
+Generalization is unity, not destruction of parts; and composition is
+not annihilation, but arrangement of materials. The breadth which unites
+the truths of nature with her harmonies, is meritorious and beautiful;
+but the breadth which annihilates those truths by the million, is not
+painting nature, but painting over her. And so the masses which result
+from right concords and relations of details, are sublime and
+impressive; but the masses which result from the eclipse of details are
+contemptible and painful.[27] And we shall show, in following parts of
+the work, that distances like those of Poussin are mere meaningless
+tricks of clever execution, which, when once discovered, the artist may
+repeat over and over again, with mechanical contentment and perfect
+satisfaction, both to himself and to his superficial admirers, with no
+more exertion of intellect nor awakening of feeling than any tradesman
+has in multiplying some ornamental pattern of furniture. Be this as it
+may, however, (for we cannot enter upon the discussion of the question
+here,) the falsity and imperfection of such distances admit of no
+dispute. Beautiful and ideal they may be; true they are not: and in the
+same way we might go through every part and portion of the works of the
+old masters, showing throughout, either that you have every leaf and
+blade of grass staring defiance to the mystery of nature, or that you
+have dead spaces of absolute vacuity, equally determined in their
+denial of her fulness. And even if we ever find (as here and there, in
+their better pictures, we do) changeful passages of agreeable playing
+color, or mellow and transparent modulations of mysterious atmosphere,
+even here the touches, though satisfactory to the eye, are suggestive of
+nothing,--they are characterless,--they have none of the peculiar
+expressiveness and meaning by which nature maintains the variety and
+interest even of what she most conceals. She always tells a story,
+however hintedly and vaguely; each of her touches is different from all
+the others; and we feel with every one, that though we cannot tell what
+it is, it cannot be _anything_; while even the most dexterous distances
+of the old masters pretend to secrecy without having anything to
+conceal, and are ambiguous, not from the concentration of meaning, but
+from the want of it.
+
+
+§ 11. The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances.
+
+And now, take up one of Turner's distances, it matters not which, or of
+what kind,--drawing or painting, small or great, done thirty years ago,
+or for last year's Academy, as you like; say that of the Mercury and
+Argus, and look if every fact which I have just been pointing out in
+nature be not carried out in it. Abundant, beyond the power of the eye
+to embrace or follow, vast and various, beyond the power of the mind to
+comprehend, there is yet not one atom in its whole extent and mass which
+does not suggest more than it represents; nor does it suggest vaguely,
+but in such a manner as to prove that the conception of each individual
+inch of that distance is absolutely clear and complete in the master's
+mind, a separate picture fully worked out: but yet, clearly and fully as
+the idea is formed, just so much of it is given, and no more, as nature
+would have allowed us to feel or see; just so much as would enable a
+spectator of experience and knowledge to understand almost every minute
+fragment of separate detail, but appears, to the unpractised and
+careless eye, just what a distance of nature's own would appear, an
+unintelligible mass. Not one line out of the millions there is without
+meaning, yet there is not one which is not affected and disguised by the
+dazzle and indecision of distance. No form is made out, and yet no form
+is unknown.
+
+
+§ 12. Farther illustrations in architectural drawing.
+
+Perhaps the truth of this system of drawing is better to be understood
+by observing the distant character of rich architecture, than of any
+other object. Go to the top of Highgate Hill on a clear summer morning
+at five o'clock, and look at Westminster Abbey. You will receive an
+impression of a building enriched with multitudinous vertical lines. Try
+to distinguish one of those lines all the way down from the one next to
+it: You cannot. Try to count them: You cannot. Try to make out the
+beginning or end of any one of them: You cannot. Look at it generally,
+and it is all symmetry and arrangement. Look at in its parts, and it is
+all inextricable confusion. Am not I, at this moment, describing a piece
+of Turner's drawing, with the same words by which I describe nature? And
+what would one of the old masters have done with such a building as this
+in his distance? Either he would only have given the shadows of the
+buttresses, and the light and dark sides of the two towers, and two dots
+for the windows; or if more ignorant and more ambitious, he had
+attempted to render some of the detail, it would have been done by
+distinct lines,--would have been broad caricature of the delicate
+building, felt at once to be false, ridiculous, and offensive. His most
+successful effort would only have given us, through his carefully toned
+atmosphere, the effect of a colossal parish church, without one line of
+carving on its economic sides. Turner, and Turner only, would follow and
+render on the canvas that mystery of decided line,--that distinct,
+sharp, visible, but unintelligible and inextricable richness, which,
+examined part by part, is to the eye nothing but confusion and defeat,
+which, taken as a whole, is all unity, symmetry, and truth.[28]
+
+
+§ 13. In near objects as well as distances.
+
+§ 14. Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto.
+
+Nor is this mode of representation true only with respect to distances.
+Every object, however near the eye, has something about it which you
+cannot see, and which brings the mystery of distance even into every
+part and portion of what we suppose ourselves to see most distinctly.
+Stand in the Piazza di St. Marco at Venice, as close to the church as
+you can, without losing sight of the top of it. Look at the capitals of
+the columns on the second story. You see that they are exquisitely rich,
+carved all over. Tell me their patterns: You cannot. Tell me the
+direction of a single line in them: You cannot. Yet you see a multitude
+of lines, and you have so much feeling of a certain tendency and
+arrangement in those lines, that you are quite sure the capitals are
+beautiful, and that they are all different from each other. But I defy
+you to make out one single line in any one of them. Now go to
+Canaletto's painting of this church, in the Palazzo Manfrini, taken from
+the very spot on which you stood. How much has he represented of all
+this? A black dot under each capital for the shadow, and a yellow one
+above it for the light. There is not a vestige nor indication of carving
+or decoration of any sort or kind.
+
+Very different from this, but erring on the other side, is the ordinary
+drawing of the architect, who gives the principal lines of the design
+with delicate clearness and precision, but with no uncertainty or
+mystery about them; which mystery being removed, all space and size are
+destroyed with it, and we have a drawing of a model, not of a building.
+But in the capital lying on the foreground in Turner's Daphne hunting
+with Leucippus, we have the perfect truth. Not one jag of the acanthus
+leaves is absolutely visible, the lines are all disorder, but you feel
+in an instant that all are there. And so it will invariably be found
+through every portion of detail in his late and most perfect works.
+
+
+§ 15. Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds.
+
+But if there be this mystery and inexhaustible finish merely in the more
+delicate instances of architectural decoration, how much more in the
+ceaseless and incomparable decoration of nature. The detail of a single
+weedy bank laughs the carving of ages to scorn. Every leaf and stalk has
+a design and tracery upon it,--every knot of grass an intricacy of shade
+which the labor of years could never imitate, and which, if such labor
+could follow it out even to the last fibres of the leaflets, would yet
+be falsely represented, for, as in all other cases brought forward, it
+is not clearly seen, but confusedly and mysteriously. That which is
+nearness for the bank, is distance for its details; and however near it
+may be, the greater part of those details are still a beautiful
+incomprehensibility.[29]
+
+
+§ 16. Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by
+        vacancy.
+
+Hence, throughout the picture, the expression of space and size is
+dependent upon obscurity, united with, or rather resultant from,
+exceeding fulness. We destroy both space and size, either by the
+vacancy, which affords us no measure of space, or by the distinctness,
+which gives us a false one. The distance of Poussin, having no
+indication of trees, nor of meadows, nor of character of any kind, may
+be fifty miles off, or may be five; we cannot tell--we have no measure,
+and in consequence, no vivid impression. But a middle distance of
+Hobbima's involves a contradiction in terms; it states a distance by
+perspective, which it contradicts by distinctness of detail.
+
+
+§ 17. Swift execution best secures perfection of details.
+
+§ 18. Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical
+        subjects.
+
+A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is more truly expressive of the
+infinity of foliage, than the niggling of Hobbima could have rendered
+his canvas, if he had worked on it till doomsday. What Sir J. Reynolds
+says of the misplaced labor of his Roman acquaintance on separate leaves
+of foliage, and the certainty he expresses that a man who attended to
+general character would in five minutes produce a more faithful
+representation of a tree, than the unfortunate mechanist in as many
+years, is thus perfectly true and well founded; but this is not because
+details are undesirable, but because they are best given by swift
+execution, and because, individually, they cannot be given at all. But
+it should be observed (though we shall be better able to insist upon
+this point in future) that much of harm and error has arisen from the
+supposition and assertions of swift and brilliant historical painters,
+that the same principles of execution are entirely applicable to
+landscape, which are right for the figure. The artist who falls into
+extreme detail in drawing the human form, is apt to become disgusting
+rather than pleasing. It is more agreeable that the general outline and
+soft hues of flesh should alone be given, than its hairs, and veins, and
+lines of intersection. And even the most rapid and generalizing
+expression of the human body, if directed by perfect knowledge, and
+rigidly faithful in drawing, will commonly omit very little of what is
+agreeable or impressive. But the exclusively generalizing landscape
+painter omits the whole of what is valuable in his subject,--omits
+thoughts, designs, and beauties by the million, everything, indeed,
+which can furnish him with variety or expression. A distance in
+Lincolnshire, or in Lombardy, might both be generalized into such blue
+and yellow stripes as we see in Poussin; but whatever there is of beauty
+or character in either, depends altogether on our understanding the
+details, and feeling the difference between the morasses and ditches of
+the one, and the rolling sea of mulberry trees of the other. And so in
+every part of the subject. I have no hesitation in asserting that it is
+_impossible_ to go too fine, or think too much about details in
+landscape, so that they be rightly arranged and rightly massed; but that
+it is equally impossible to render anything like the fulness or the
+space of nature, except by that mystery and obscurity of execution which
+she herself uses, and in which Turner only has followed her.
+
+
+§ 19. Recapitulation of the section.
+
+We have now rapidly glanced at such general truths of nature as can be
+investigated without much knowledge of what is beautiful. Questions of
+arrangement, massing, and generalization, I prefer leaving untouched,
+until we know something about details, and something about what is
+beautiful. All that is desirable, even in these mere technical and
+artificial points, is based upon truths and habits of nature; but we
+cannot understand those truths until we are acquainted with the specific
+forms and minor details which they affect, or out of which they arise. I
+shall, therefore, proceed to examine the invaluable and essential truths
+of specific character and form--briefly and imperfectly, indeed, as
+needs must be, but yet at length sufficient to enable the reader to
+pursue, if he will, the subject for himself.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [27] Of course much depends upon the kind of detail so lost. An
+    artist may generalize the trunk of a tree, where he only loses lines
+    of bark, and do us a kindness; but he must not generalize the
+    details of a champaign, in which there is a history of creation. The
+    full discussion of the subject belongs to a future part of our
+    investigation.
+
+  [28] Vide, for illustration, Fontainebleau, in the Illustrations to
+    Scott; Vignette at opening of Human Life, in Rogers's Poems; Venice,
+    in the Italy; Chateau de Blois; the Rouen, and Pont Neuf, Paris, in
+    the Rivers of France. The distances of all the Academy pictures of
+    Venice, especially the Shylock, are most instructive.
+
+  [29] It is to be remembered, however, that these truths present
+    themselves in all probability under very different phases to
+    individuals of different powers of vision. Many artists who appear
+    to generalize rudely or rashly are perhaps faithfully endeavoring to
+    render the appearance which nature bears to sight of limited range.
+    Others may be led by their singular keenness of sight into
+    inexpedient detail. Works which are painted for effect at a certain
+    distance must be always seen at disadvantage by those whose sight is
+    of different range from the painter's. Another circumstance to which
+    I ought above to have alluded is the scale of the picture; for there
+    are different degrees of generalization, and different necessities
+    of symbolism, belonging to every scale: the stipple of the miniature
+    painter would be offensive on features of the life size, and the
+    leaves with Tintoret may articulate on a canvas of sixty feet by
+    twenty-five, must be generalized by Turner on one of four by three.
+    Another circumstance of some importance is the assumed distance of
+    the foreground; many landscape painters seem to think their nearest
+    foreground is always equally near, whereas its distance from the
+    spectator varies not a little, being always at least its own
+    calculable breadth from side to side as estimated by figures or any
+    other object of known size at the nearest part of it. With Claude
+    almost always; with Turner often, as in the Daphne and Leucippus,
+    this breadth is forty or fifty yards; and as the nearest foreground
+    object _must_ then be at least that distance removed, and _may_ be
+    much more, it is evident that no completion of close detail is in
+    such cases allowable, (see here another proof of Claude's erroneous
+    practice;) with Titian and Tintoret, on the contrary, the foreground
+    is rarely more than five or six yards broad, and its objects
+    therefore being only five or six yards distant are entirely
+    detailed.
+
+    None of these circumstances, however, in any wise affect the great
+    principle, the confusion of detail taking place sooner or later in
+    all cases. I ought to have noted, however, that many of the pictures
+    of Turner in which the confused drawing has been least understood,
+    have been luminous _twilights_; and that the uncertainty of twilight
+    is therefore added to that of general distance. In the evenings of
+    the south it not unfrequently happens that objects touched with the
+    reflected light of the western sky, continue even for the space of
+    half an hour after sunset, glowing, ruddy, and intense in color, and
+    almost as bright as if they were still beneath actual sunshine, even
+    till the moon begins to cast a shadow: but in spite of this
+    brilliancy of color all the details become ghostly and ill-defined.
+    This is a favorite moment of Turner's, and he invariably
+    characterizes it, not by gloom, but by uncertainty of detail. I have
+    never seen the effect of clear twilight thoroughly rendered by art;
+    that effect in which all details are lost, while intense clearness
+    and light are still felt in the atmosphere, in which nothing is
+    distinctly seen, and yet it is not darkness, far less mist, that is
+    the cause of concealment. Turner's efforts at rendering this effect
+    (as the Wilderness of Engedi, Assos, Chateau de Blois,
+    Caerlaverock, and others innumerable,) have always some slight
+    appearance of mistiness, owing to the indistinctness of details; but
+    it remains to be shown that any closer approximation to the effect
+    is possible.
+
+
+
+
+                                SECTION III.
+
+                              OF TRUTH OF SKIES.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                              OF THE OPEN SKY.
+
+
+§ 1. The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and teaching of
+       man.
+
+§ 2. The carelessness with which its lessons are received.
+
+§ 3. The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest.
+
+§ 4. Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional.
+
+It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky.
+It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of
+pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him
+and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the
+part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other
+works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere
+pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but
+every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be
+answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great ugly black rain
+cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so
+all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a film of morning and
+evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any
+day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene,
+picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such
+exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is
+quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual
+pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources
+of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest
+scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended
+that man should live always in the midst of them, he injures them by his
+presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them; but the sky
+is for all; bright as it is, it is not "too bright, nor good, for human
+nature's daily food;" it is fitted in all its functions for the
+perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and
+purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes
+capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together;
+almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost
+divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as
+distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is
+mortal is essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a
+subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations; we
+look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes, upon
+all which bears witness to the intention of the Supreme, that we are to
+receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we
+share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless
+and monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a
+moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of
+utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource,
+which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says it has been wet, and
+another it has been windy, and another it has been warm. Who, among the
+whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of
+the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon
+yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south, and
+smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust
+of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight
+left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like
+withered leaves? All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy
+be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or
+what is extraordinary; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce
+manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail,
+nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the
+sublime are developed. God is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire,
+but in the still small voice. They are but the blunt and the low
+faculties of our nature, which can only be addressed through lampblack
+and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive
+majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual,--that which must be
+sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood,--things which
+the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally, which are
+never wanting, and never repeated, which are to be found always yet each
+found but once; it is through these that the lesson of devotion is
+chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given. These are what the
+artist of highest aim must study; it is these, by the combination of
+which his ideal is to be created; these, of which so little notice is
+ordinarily taken by common observers, that I fully believe, little as
+people in general are concerned with art, more of their ideas of sky are
+derived from pictures than from reality, and that if we could examine
+the conception formed in the minds of most educated persons when we talk
+of clouds, it would frequently be found composed of fragments of blue
+and white reminiscences of the old masters.
+
+I shall enter upon the examination of what is true in sky at greater
+length, because it is the only part of a picture of which all, if they
+will, may be competent judges. What I may have to assert respecting the
+rocks of Salvator, or the boughs of Claude, I can scarcely prove, except
+to those whom I can immure for a month or two in the fastnesses of the
+Apennines, or guide in their summer walks again and again through the
+ravines of Sorrento. But what I say of the sky can be brought to an
+immediate test by all, and I write the more decisively, in the hope that
+it may be so.
+
+
+§ 5. Nature and essential qualities of the open blue.
+
+§ 6. Its connection with clouds.
+
+§ 7. Its exceeding depth.
+
+§ 8. These qualities are especially given by modern masters.
+
+§ 9. And by Claude.
+
+§ 10. Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his general
+        treatment of open sky.
+
+§ 11. Errors of Cuyp in graduation of color.
+
+Let us begin then with the simple open blue of the sky. This is of
+course the color of the pure atmospheric air, not the aqueous vapor, but
+the pure azote and oxygen, and it is the total color of the whole mass
+of that air between us and the void of space. It is modified by the
+varying quantity of aqueous vapor suspended in it, whose color, in its
+most imperfect, and therefore most visible, state of solution, is pure
+white, (as in steam,) which receives, like any other white, the warm
+hues of the rays of the sun, and, according to its quantity and
+imperfect solution, makes the sky paler, and at the same time more or
+less gray, by mixing warm tones with its blue. This gray aqueous vapor,
+when very decided, becomes mist, and when local, cloud. Hence the sky is
+to be considered as a transparent blue liquid, in which, at various
+elevations, clouds are suspended, those clouds being themselves only
+particular visible spaces of a substance with which the whole mass of
+this liquid is more or less impregnated. Now, we all know this perfectly
+well, and yet we so far forget it in practice, that we little notice the
+constant connection kept up by nature between her blue and her clouds,
+and we are not offended by the constant habit of the old masters, of
+considering the blue sky as totally distinct in its nature, and far
+separated from the vapors which float in it. With them, cloud is cloud,
+and blue is blue, and no kind of connection between them is ever hinted
+at. The sky is thought of as a clear, high material dome, the clouds as
+separate bodies, suspended beneath it, and in consequence, however
+delicate and exquisitely removed in tone their skies may be, you always
+look _at_ them, not _through_ them. Now, if there be one characteristic
+of the sky more valuable or necessary to be rendered than another, it is
+that which Wordsworth has given in the second book of the Excursion:--
+
+                     "The chasm of sky above my head
+           Is Heaven's profoundest azure. No domain
+           For fickle, short-lived clouds, to occupy,
+           Or to pass through;--but rather an _abyss_
+           In which the everlasting stars abide,
+           And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt
+           The curious eye to look for them by day."
+
+And, in his American Notes, I remember Dickens notices the same truth,
+describing himself as lying drowsily on the barge deck, looking not at,
+but _through_ the sky. And if you look intensely at the pure blue of a
+serene sky, you will see that there is a variety and fulness in its very
+repose. It is not flat dead color, but a deep, quivering, transparent
+body of penetrable air, in which you trace or imagine short, falling
+spots of deceiving light, and dim shades, faint, veiled vestiges of dark
+vapor; and it is this trembling transparency which our great modern
+master has especially aimed at and given. His blue is never laid on in
+smooth coats, but in breaking, mingling, melting hues, a quarter of an
+inch of which, cut off from all the rest of the picture, is still
+_spacious_, still infinite and immeasurable in depth. It is a painting
+of the air, something into which you can see, through the parts which
+are near you into those which are far off; something which has no
+surface, and through which we can plunge far and farther, and without
+stay or end, into the profundity of space;--whereas, with all the old
+landscape painters, except Claude, you may indeed go a long way before
+you come to the sky, but you will strike hard against it at last. A
+perfectly genuine and untouched sky of Claude is indeed most perfect,
+and beyond praise, in all qualities of air; though even with him, I
+often feel rather that there is a great deal of pleasant air between me
+and the firmament, than that the firmament itself is only air. I do not
+mean, however, to say a word against such skies as that of the Enchanted
+Castle, or that marked 30 in the National Gallery, or one or two which I
+remember at Rome; but how little and by how few these fine passages of
+Claude are appreciated, is sufficiently proved by the sufferance of such
+villainous and unpalliated copies as we meet with all over Europe, like
+the Marriage of Isaac, in our own Gallery, to remain under his name. In
+fact, I do not remember above ten pictures of Claude's, in which the
+skies, whether repainted or altogether copies, or perhaps from Claude's
+hand, but carelessly laid in, like that marked 241, Dulwich Gallery,
+were not fully as feelingless and false as those of other masters;
+while, with the Poussins, there are no favorable exceptions. Their skies
+are systematically wrong; take, for instance, the sky of the Sacrifice
+of Isaac. It is here high noon, as is shown by the shadow of the
+figures; and what sort of color is the sky at the top of the picture? Is
+it pale and gray with heat, full of sunshine, and unfathomable in depth?
+On the contrary, it is of a pitch of darkness which, except on the Mont
+Blanc or Chimborazo, is as purely impossible as color can be. He might
+as well have painted it coal black; and it is laid on with a dead coat
+of flat paint, having no one quality or resemblance of sky about it. It
+cannot have altered, because the land horizon is as delicate and tender
+in tone as possible, and is evidently unchanged; and to complete the
+absurdity of the whole thing, this color holds its own, without
+graduation or alteration, to within three or four degrees of the
+horizon, where it suddenly becomes bold and unmixed yellow. Now the
+horizon at noon may be yellow when the whole sky is covered with dark
+clouds, and only _one_ open streak of light left in the distance from
+which the whole light proceeds; but with a clear, open sky, and opposite
+the sun, at noon, such a yellow horizon as this is physically
+impossible. Even supposing that the upper part of the sky were pale and
+warm, and that the transition from the one hue to the other were
+effected imperceptibly and gradually, as is invariably the case in
+reality, instead of taking place within a space of two or three
+degrees;--even then, this gold yellow would be altogether absurd; but as
+it is, we have in this sky (and it is a fine picture--one of the best of
+Gaspar's that I know,) a notable example of the truth of the old
+masters--two impossible colors impossibly united! Find such a color in
+Turner's noonday zenith as the blue at the top, or such a color at a
+noonday horizon as the yellow at the bottom, or such a connection of any
+colors whatsoever as that in the centre, and then you may talk about his
+being false to nature if you will. Nor is this a solitary instance; it
+is Gaspar Poussin's favorite and characteristic effect. I remember
+twenty such, most of them worse than this, in the downright surface and
+opacity of blue. Again, look at the large Cuyp in the Dulwich Gallery,
+which Mr. Hazlitt considers the "finest in the world," and of which he
+very complimentarily says, "The tender green of the valleys, the
+gleaming lake, the purple light of the hills, have an effect like the
+_down_ on an unripe nectarine!" I ought to have apologized before now,
+for not having studied sufficiently in Covent Garden to be provided with
+terms of correct and classical criticism. One of my friends begged me to
+observe, the other day, that Claude was "pulpy;" another added the yet
+more gratifying information that he was "juicy;" and it is now happily
+discovered that Cuyp is "downy." Now I dare say that the sky of this
+first-rate Cuyp is very like an unripe nectarine: all that I have to say
+about it is, that it is exceedingly unlike a sky. The blue remains
+unchanged and ungraduated over three-fourths of it, down to the horizon;
+while the sun, in the left-hand corner, is surrounded with a halo, first
+of yellow, and then of crude pink, both being separated from each other,
+and the last from the blue, as sharply as the belts of a rainbow, and
+both together not ascending ten degrees in the sky. Now it is difficult
+to conceive how any man calling himself a painter could impose such a
+thing on the public, and still more how the public can receive it, as a
+representation of that sunset purple which invariably extends its
+influence to the zenith, so that there is no pure blue anywhere, but a
+purple increasing in purity gradually down to its point of greatest
+intensity, (about forty-five degrees from the horizon,) and then melting
+imperceptibly into the gold, the three colors extending their influence
+over the whole sky; so that throughout the whole sweep of the heaven,
+there is no one spot where the color is not in an equal state of
+transition--passing from gold into orange, from that into rose, from
+that into purple, from that into blue, with absolute equality of change,
+so that in no place can it be said, "here it changes," and in no place,
+"here it is unchanging." This is invariably the case. There is no such
+thing--there never was, and never will be such a thing, while God's
+heaven remains as it is made--as a serene, sunset sky, with its purple
+and rose in _belts_ about the sun.
+
+
+§ 12. The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and Dutch
+        schools. Their qualities are unattainable in modern times.
+
+Such bold, broad examples of ignorance as these would soon set aside all
+the claims of the professed landscape painters to truth, with whatever
+delicacy of color or manipulation they may be disguised. But there are
+some skies, of the Dutch school, in which clearness and coolness have
+been aimed at, instead of depth; and some introduced merely as
+backgrounds to the historical subjects of the older Italians, which
+there is no matching in modern times; one would think angels had painted
+them, for all is now clay and oil in comparison. It seems as if we had
+totally lost the art, for surely otherwise, however little our painters
+might aim at it or feel it, they would touch the chord sometimes by
+accident; but they never do, and the mechanical incapacity is still more
+strongly evidenced by the muddy struggles of the unhappy Germans, who
+have the feeling, partially strained, artificial, and diseased, indeed,
+but still genuine enough to bring out the tone, if they had the
+mechanical means and technical knowledge. But, however they were
+obtained, the clear tones of this kind of the older Italians are
+glorious and enviable in the highest degree; and we shall show, when we
+come to speak of the beautiful, that they are one of the most just
+grounds of the fame of the old masters.
+
+
+§ 13. Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause.
+
+But there is a series of phenomena connected with the open blue of the
+sky, which we must take especial notice of, as it is of constant
+occurrence in the works of Turner and Claude, the effects, namely, of
+visible sunbeams. It will be necessary for us thoroughly to understand
+the circumstances under which such effects take place.
+
+Aqueous vapor or mist, suspended in the atmosphere, becomes visible
+exactly as dust does in the air of a room. In the shadows you not only
+cannot see the dust itself, because unillumined, but you can see other
+objects through the dust without obscurity, the air being thus actually
+rendered more transparent by a deprivation of light. Where a sunbeam
+enters, every particle of dust becomes visible, and a palpable
+interruption to the sight, so that a transverse sunbeam is a real
+obstacle to the vision, you cannot see things clearly through it.
+
+In the same way, wherever vapor is illuminated by transverse rays, there
+it becomes visible as a whiteness more or less affecting the purity of
+the blue, and destroying it exactly in proportion to the degree of
+illumination. But where vapor is in shade, it has very little effect on
+the sky, perhaps making it a little deeper and grayer than it otherwise
+would be, but not itself, unless very dense, distinguishable or felt as
+mist.
+
+
+§ 14. They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky is
+        free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds.
+
+The appearance of mist or whiteness in the blue of the sky, is thus a
+circumstance which more or less accompanies sunshine, and which,
+supposing the quantity of vapor constant, is greatest in the brightest
+sunlight. When there are no clouds in the sky, the whiteness, as it
+affects the whole sky equally, is not particularly noticeable. But when
+there are clouds between us and the sun, the sun being low, those clouds
+cast shadows along and through the mass of suspended vapor. Within the
+space of these shadows, the vapor, as above stated, becomes transparent
+and invisible, and the sky appears of a pure blue. But where the
+sunbeams strike, the vapor becomes visible in the form of the beams,
+occasioning those radiating shafts of light which are one of the most
+valuable and constant accompaniments of a low sun. The denser the mist,
+the more distinct and sharp-edged will these rays be; when the air is
+very clear, they are mere vague, flushing, gradated passages of light;
+when it is very thick, they are keen-edged and decisive in a high
+degree.
+
+We see then, first, that a quantity of mist dispersed through the whole
+space of the sky, is necessary to this phenomenon; and secondly, that
+what we usually think of as beams of greater brightness than the rest of
+the sky, are in reality only a part of that sky in its natural state of
+illumination, cut off and rendered brilliant by the shadows from the
+clouds,--that these shadows are in reality the source of the appearance
+of beams,--that, therefore, no part of the sky can present such an
+appearance, except when there are broken clouds between it and the sun;
+and lastly, that the shadows cast from such clouds are not necessarily
+gray or dark, but very nearly of the natural pure blue of a sky
+destitute of vapor.
+
+
+§ 15. Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by the
+        old masters.
+
+§ 16. The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be
+        represented.
+
+§ 17. The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more delicate
+        phenomena of rays.
+
+§ 18. The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the works
+        of the old masters.
+
+Now, as it has been proved that the appearance of beams can only take
+place in a part of the sky which has clouds between it and the sun, it
+is evident that no appearance of beams can ever begin from the orb
+itself, except when there is a cloud or solid body of some kind between
+us and it; but that such appearances will almost invariably begin on the
+dark side of some of the clouds around it, the orb itself remaining the
+centre of a broad blaze of united light. Wordsworth has given us in two
+lines, the only circumstances under which rays can ever appear to have
+origin in the orb itself:--
+
+                                     "But rays of light,
+             Now _suddenly_ diverging from the orb,
+             _Retired behind the mountain tops, or veiled
+             By the dense air_, shot upwards."
+
+                                           EXCURSION, Book IX.
+
+And Turner has given us the effect magnificently in the Dartmouth of the
+River Scenery. It is frequent among the old masters, and constant in
+Claude; though the latter, from drawing his beams too fine, represents
+the effect upon the dazzled eye rather than the light which actually
+exists, and approximates very closely to the ideal which we see in the
+sign of the Rising Sun; nay, I am nearly sure that I remember cases in
+which he has given us the diverging beam, without any cloud or hill
+interfering with the orb. It may, perhaps, be somewhat difficult to say
+how far it is allowable to represent that kind of ray which is seen by
+the dazzled eye. It is very certain that we never look towards a bright
+sun without seeing glancing rays issue from it; but it is equally
+certain that those rays are no more real existences than the red and
+blue circles which we see after having been so dazzled, and that if we
+are to represent the rays we ought also to cover our sky with pink and
+blue circles. I should on the whole consider it utterly false in
+principle to represent the visionary beam, and that we ought only to
+show that which has actual existence. Such we find to be the constant
+practice of Turner. Even where, owing to interposed clouds, he has beams
+appearing to issue from the orb itself, they are broad bursts of light,
+not spiky rays; and his more usual practice is to keep all near the sun
+in one simple blaze of intense light, and from the first clouds to throw
+beams to the zenith, though he often does not permit any appearance of
+rays until close to the zenith itself. Open at the 80th page of the
+Illustrated edition of Rogers's poems. You have there a sky blazing with
+sunbeams; but they all begin a long way from the sun, and they are
+accounted for by a mass of dense clouds surrounding the orb itself. Turn
+to the 7th page. Behind the old oak, where the sun is supposed to be,
+you have only a blaze of undistinguished light; but up on the left, over
+the edge of the cloud, on its dark side, the sunbeam. Turn to page
+192,--blazing rays again, but all beginning where the clouds do, not one
+can you trace to the sun; and observe how carefully the long shadow on
+the mountain is accounted for by the dim dark promontory projecting out
+near the sun. I need not multiply examples; you will find various
+modifications and uses of these effects throughout his works. But you
+will not find a single trace of them in the old masters. They give you
+the rays issuing from behind black clouds, and because they are a coarse
+and common effect which could not possibly escape their observation, and
+because they are easily imitated. They give you the spiky shafts
+issuing from the orb itself, because these are partially symbolical of
+light, and assist a tardy imagination, as two or three rays scratched
+round the sun with a pen would, though they would be rays of darkness
+instead of light.[30] But of the most beautiful phenomenon of all, the
+appearance of the delicate ray far in the sky, threading its way among
+the thin, transparent clouds, while all around the sun is unshadowed
+fire, there is no record nor example whatsoever in their works. It was
+too delicate and spiritual for them; probably their blunt and
+feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature, and their untaught
+imaginations were not likely to originate it in the study.
+
+
+§ 19. Truth of the skies of modern drawings.
+
+Little is to be said of the skies of our other landscape artists. In
+paintings, they are commonly toneless, crude, and wanting in depth and
+transparency; but in drawings, some very perfect and delicate examples
+have been produced by various members of the old water color Society,
+and one or two others; but with respect to the qualities of which we are
+at present speaking, it is not right to compare drawings with paintings,
+as the wash or spunging, or other artifices peculiar to water color, are
+capable of producing an appearance of quality which it needs much higher
+art to produce in oils.
+
+
+§ 20. Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in quality,
+        inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish.
+
+Taken generally, the open skies of the moderns are inferior in quality
+to picked and untouched skies of the greatest of the ancients, but far
+superior to the average class of pictures which we have every day
+fathered upon their reputation. Nine or ten skies of Claude might be
+named which are not to be contended with, in their way, and as many of
+Cuyp. Teniers has given some very wonderful passages, and the clearness
+of the early Italian and Dutch schools is beyond all imitation. But the
+common blue daubing which we hear every day in our best galleries
+attributed to Claude and Cuyp, and the genuine skies of Salvator, and of
+both the Poussins, are not to be compared for an instant with the best
+works of modern times, even in quality and transparency; while in all
+matters requiring delicate observation or accurate science,--in all
+which was not attainable by technicalities of art, and which depended
+upon the artist's knowledge and understanding of nature, all the works
+of the ancients are alike the productions of mere children, sometimes
+manifesting great sensibility, but proving at the same time, feebly
+developed intelligence and ill-regulated observation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [30] I have left this passage as it stood originally, because it is
+    right as far as it goes; yet it speaks with too little respect of
+    symbolism, which is often of the highest use in religious art, and
+    in some measure is allowable in all art. In the works of almost all
+    the greatest masters there are portions which are explanatory rather
+    than representative, and typical rather than imitative; nor could
+    these be parted with but at infinite loss. Note, with respect to the
+    present question, the daring black sunbeams of Titian, in his
+    woodcut of St. Francis receiving the stigmata, and compare here Part
+    III. Sect. II. Chap. IV. § 18; Chap. V. § 13. And though I believe
+    that I am right in considering all such symbolism as out of place in
+    pure landscape, and in attributing that of Claude to ignorance or
+    inability, and not to feeling, yet I praise Turner not so much for
+    his absolute refusal to represent the spiky ray about the sun, as
+    for his perceiving and rendering that which Claude never perceived,
+    the multitudinous presence of radiating light in the upper sky and
+    on all its countless ranks of subtile cloud.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+          OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS:--FIRST, OF THE REGION OF THE CIRRUS.
+
+
+§ 1. Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds consists.
+
+Our next subject of investigation must be the specific character of
+clouds, a species of truth which is especially neglected by artists;
+first, because as it is within the limits of possibility that a cloud
+may assume almost any form, it is difficult to point out and not always
+easy to feel, where in error consists; and secondly, because it is
+totally impossible to study the forms of clouds from nature with care
+and accuracy, as a change in the subject takes place between every touch
+of the following pencil, and parts of an outline sketched at different
+instants cannot harmonize, nature never having intended them to come
+together. Still if artists were more in the habit of sketching clouds
+rapidly, and as accurately as possible in the outline, from nature,
+instead of daubing down what they call "effects" with the brush, they
+would soon find there is more beauty about their forms than can be
+arrived at by any random felicity of invention, however brilliant, and
+more essential character than can be violated without incurring the
+charge of falsehood,--falsehood as direct and definite, though not as
+traceable as error in the less varied features of organic form.
+
+
+§ 2. Variation of their character at different elevations. The three
+       regions to which they may conveniently be considered as
+       belonging.
+
+The first and most important character of clouds, is dependent on the
+different altitudes at which they are formed. The atmosphere may be
+conveniently considered as divided into three spaces, each inhabited by
+clouds of specific character altogether different, though, in reality
+there is no distinct limit fixed between them by nature, clouds being
+formed at _every_ altitude, and partaking according to their altitude,
+more or less of the characters of the upper or lower regions. The
+scenery of the sky is thus formed of an infinitely graduated series of
+systematic forms of cloud, each of which has its own region in which
+alone it is formed, and each of which has specific characters which can
+only be properly determined by comparing them as they are found clearly
+distinguished by intervals of considerable space. I shall therefore
+consider the sky as divided into three regions--the upper region, or
+region of the cirrus; the central region, or region of the stratus; the
+lower region, or the region of the rain-cloud.
+
+
+§ 3. Extent of the upper region.
+
+§ 4. The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds.
+
+The clouds which I wish to consider as included in the upper region,
+never touch even the highest mountains of Europe, and may therefore be
+looked upon as never formed below an of at least 15,000 feet; they are
+the motionless multitudinous lines of delicate vapor with which the blue
+of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several days of
+fine weather. I must be pardoned for giving a detailed description of
+their specific characters as they are of constant occurrence in the
+works of modern artists, and I shall have occasion to speak frequently
+of them in future parts of the work. Their chief characters are--first,
+Symmetry: They are nearly always arranged in some definite and evident
+order, commonly in long ranks reaching sometimes from the zenith to the
+horizon, each rank composed of an infinite number of transverse bars of
+about the same length, each bar thickest in the middle, and terminating
+in a traceless vaporous point at each side; the ranks are in the
+direction of the wind, and the bars of course at right angles to it;
+these latter are commonly slightly bent in the middle. Frequently two
+systems of this kind, indicative of two currents of wind, at different
+altitudes intersect one another, forming a network. Another frequent
+arrangement is in groups of excessively fine, silky, parallel fibres,
+commonly radiating, or having a tendency to radiate, from one of their
+extremities, and terminating in a plumy sweep at the other:--these are
+vulgarly known as "mares' tails." The plumy and expanded extremity of
+these is often bent upwards, sometimes back and up again, giving an
+appearance of great flexibility and unity at the same time, as if the
+clouds were tough, and would hold together however bent. The narrow
+extremity is invariably turned to the wind, and the fibres are parallel
+with its direction. The upper clouds always fall into some modification
+of one or other of these arrangements. They thus differ from all other
+clouds, in having a plan and system; whereas other clouds, though there
+are certain laws which they cannot break, have yet perfect freedom from
+anything like a relative and general system of government. The upper
+clouds are to the lower, what soldiers on parade are to a mixed
+multitude; no men walk on their heads or their hands, and so there are
+certain laws which no clouds violate; but there is nothing except in the
+upper clouds resembling symmetrical discipline.
+
+
+§ 5. Their exceeding delicacy.
+
+Secondly, Sharpness of Edge: The edges of the bars of the upper clouds
+which are turned to the wind, are often the sharpest which the sky
+shows; no outline whatever of any other kind of cloud, however marked
+and energetic, ever approaches the delicate decision of these edges. The
+outline of a black thunder-cloud is striking, from the great energy of
+the color or shade of the general mass; but as a line, it is soft and
+indistinct, compared with the edge of the cirrus, in a clear sky with a
+brisk breeze. On the other hand, the edge of the bar turned away from
+the wind is always soft, often imperceptible, melting into the blue
+interstice between it and its next neighbor. Commonly the sharper one
+edge is, the softer is the other, and the clouds look flat, and as if
+they slipped over each other like the scales of a fish. When both edges
+are soft, as is always the case when the sky is clear and windless, the
+cloud looks solid, round, and fleecy.
+
+
+§ 6. Their number.
+
+Thirdly, Multitude: The delicacy of these vapors is sometimes carried
+into such an infinity of division, that no other sensation of number
+that the earth or heaven can give is so impressive. Number is always
+most felt when it is symmetrical, (vide Burke on "Sublime," Part ii.
+sect. 8,) and, therefore, no sea-waves nor fresh leaves make their
+number so evident or so impressive as these vapors. Nor is nature
+content with an infinity of bars or lines alone--each bar is in its turn
+severed into a number of small undulatory masses, more or less connected
+according to the violence of the wind. When this division is merely
+effected by undulation, the cloud exactly resembles sea-sand ribbed by
+the tide; but when the division amounts to real separation we have the
+mottled or mackerel skies. Commonly, the greater the division of its
+bars, the broader and more shapeless is the rank or field, so that in
+the mottled sky it is lost altogether, and we have large irregular
+fields of equal size, masses like flocks of sheep; such clouds are three
+or four thousand feet below the legitimate cirrus. I have seen them cast
+a shadow on the Mont Blanc at sunset, so that they must descend nearly
+to within fifteen thousand feet of the earth.
+
+
+§ 7. Causes of their peculiarly delicate coloring.
+
+Fourthly, Purity of Color: The nearest of these clouds--those over the
+observer's head, being at least three miles above him, and nearly all
+entering the ordinary sphere of vision, farther from him still,--their
+dark sides are much grayer and cooler than those of other clouds, owing
+to their distance. They are composed of the purest aqueous vapor, free
+from all foulness of earthy gases, and of this in the lightest and most
+ethereal state in which it can be, to be visible. Farther, they receive
+the light of the sun in a state of far greater intensity than lower
+objects, the beams being transmitted to them through atmospheric air far
+less dense, and wholly unaffected by mist, smoke, or any other impurity.
+Hence their colors are more pure and vivid, and their white less sullied
+than those of any other clouds.
+
+
+§ 8. Their variety of form.
+
+Lastly, Variety: Variety is never so conspicuous, as when it is united
+with symmetry. The perpetual change of form in other clouds, is
+monotonous in its very dissimilarity, nor is difference striking where
+no connection is implied; but if through a range of barred clouds,
+crossing half the heaven, all governed by the same forces and falling
+into one general form, there be yet a marked and evident dissimilarity
+between each member of the great mass--one more finely drawn, the next
+more delicately moulded, the next more gracefully bent--each broken into
+differently modelled and variously numbered groups, the variety is
+doubly striking, because contrasted with the perfect symmetry of which
+it forms a part. Hence, the importance of the truth, that nature never
+lets one of the members of even her most disciplined groups of cloud be
+like another; but though each is adapted for the same function, and in
+its great features resembles all the others, not one, out of the
+millions with which the sky is checkered, is without a separate beauty
+and character, appearing to have had distinct thought occupied in
+its conception, and distinct forces in its production; and in addition
+to this perpetual invention, visible in each member of each system, we
+find systems of separate cloud intersecting one another, the sweeping
+lines mingled and interwoven with the rigid bars, these in their turn
+melting into banks of sand-like ripple and flakes of drifted and
+irregular foam; under all, perhaps the massy outline of some lower cloud
+moves heavily across the motionless buoyancy of the upper lines, and
+indicates at once their elevation and their repose.
+
+
+§ 9. Total absence of even the slightest effort at their representation,
+       in ancient landscape.
+
+Such are the great attributes of the upper cloud region; whether they
+are beautiful, valuable, or impressive, it is not our present business
+to decide, nor to endeavor to discover the reason of the somewhat
+remarkable fact, that the whole field of ancient landscape art affords,
+as far as we remember, but one instance of any effort whatever to
+represent the character of this cloud region. That one instance is the
+landscape of Rubens in our own gallery, in which the mottled or fleecy
+sky is given with perfect truth and exquisite beauty. To this should
+perhaps be added, some of the backgrounds of the historical painters,
+where horizontal lines were required, and a few level bars of white or
+warm color cross the serenity of the blue. These, as far as they go, are
+often very perfect, and the elevation and repose of their effect might,
+we should have thought, have pointed out to the landscape painters that
+there was something (I do not say much, but certainly something) to be
+made out of the high clouds. Not one of them, however, took the hint. To
+whom, among them all, can we look for the slightest realization of the
+fine and faithful descriptive passage of the "Excursion," already
+alluded to:--
+
+                           "But rays of light,
+          Now suddenly diverging from the orb,
+          Retired behind the mountain tops, or veiled
+          By the dense air, shot upwards to the crown
+          Of the blue firmament--aloft--and wide:
+          And multitudes of little floating clouds,
+          Ere we, who saw, of change were conscious, pierced
+          Through their ethereal texture, had become
+          Vivid as fire,--Clouds separately poised,
+          Innumerable multitude of forms
+          Scattered through half the circle of the sky;
+          And giving back, and shedding each on each,
+          With prodigal communion, the bright hues
+          Which from the unapparent fount of glory
+          They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive.
+          That which the heavens displayed the liquid deep
+          Repeated, but with unity sublime."
+
+
+§ 10. The intense and constant study of them by Turner.
+
+There is but one master whose works we can think of while we read this;
+one alone has taken notice of the neglected upper sky; it is his
+peculiar and favorite field; he has watched its every modification, and
+given its every phase and feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has
+followed its passions and its changes, and has brought down and laid
+open to the world another apocalypse of heaven.
+
+There is scarcely a painting of Turner's, in which serenity of sky and
+intensity of light are aimed at together, in which these clouds are not
+used, though there are not two cases in which they are used altogether
+alike. Sometimes they are crowded together in masses of mingling light,
+as in the Shylock; every part and atom sympathizing in that continuous
+expression of slow movement which Shelley has so beautifully touched:--
+
+                    "Underneath the young gray dawn
+        A multitude of dense, white fleecy clouds,
+        Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,
+        _Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind_."
+
+At other times they are blended with the sky itself, felt only here and
+there by a ray of light calling them into existence out of its misty
+shade, as in the Mercury and Argus; sometimes, where great repose is to
+be given, they appear in a few detached, equal, rounded flakes, which
+seem to hang motionless, each like the shadow of the other, in the deep
+blue of the zenith, as in the Acro-Corinth; sometimes they are scattered
+in fiery flying fragments, each burning with separate energy, as in the
+Temeraire; sometimes woven together with fine threads of intermediate
+darkness, melting into the blue as in the Napoleon. But in all cases the
+exquisite manipulation of the master gives to each atom of the multitude
+its own character and expression. Though they be countless as leaves,
+each has its portion of light, its shadow, its reflex, its peculiar and
+separating form.
+
+
+§ 11. His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea.
+
+Take for instance the illustrated edition of Rogers's Poems,[31] and
+open it at the 80th page, and observe how every attribute which I have
+pointed out in the upper sky, is there rendered with the faithfulness of
+a mirror; the long lines of parallel bars, the delicate curvature from
+the wind, which the inclination of the sail shows you to be from the
+west; the excessive sharpness of every edge which is turned to the wind,
+the faintness of every opposite one, the breaking up of each bar into
+rounded masses, and finally, the inconceivable variety with which
+individual form has been given to every member of the multitude, and not
+only individual form, but roundness and substance even where there is
+scarcely a hairbreadth of cloud to express it in. Observe, above
+everything, the varying indication of space and depth in the whole, so
+that you may look through and through from one cloud to another, feeling
+not merely how they retire to the horizon, but how they melt back into
+the recesses of the sky; every interval being filled with absolute air,
+and all its spaces so melting and fluctuating, and fraught with change
+as with repose, that as you look, you will fancy that the rays shoot
+higher and higher into the vault of light, and that the pale streak of
+horizontal vapor is melting away from the cloud that it crosses. Now
+watch for the next barred sunrise, and take this vignette to the window,
+and test it by nature's own clouds, among which you will find forms and
+passages, I do not say merely _like_, but apparently the actual
+originals of parts of this very drawing. And with whom will you do this,
+except with Turner? Will you do it with Claude, and set that blank
+square yard of blue, with its round, white, flat fixtures of similar
+cloud, beside the purple infinity of nature, with her countless
+multitude of shadowy lines, and flaky waves, and folded veils of
+variable mist? Will you do it with Poussin, and set those massy steps of
+unyielding solidity, with the chariot-and-four driving up them, by the
+side of the delicate forms which terminate in threads too fine for the
+eye to follow them, and of texture so thin woven that the earliest stars
+shine through them? Will you do it with Salvator, and set that volume of
+violent and restless manufactory smoke beside those calm and quiet bars,
+which pause in the heaven as if they would never leave it more?
+
+
+§ 12. His use of the cirrus in expressing mist.
+
+Now we have just seen how Turner uses the sharp-edged cirri when he aims
+at giving great transparency of air. But it was shown in the preceding
+chapter that sunbeams, or the appearance of them, are always sharper in
+their edge in proportion as the air is more misty, as they are most
+defined in a room where there is most dust flying about in it.
+Consequently, in the vignette we have been just noticing, where
+transparency is to be given, though there is a blaze of light, its beams
+are never edged; a tendency to rays is visible, but you cannot in any
+part find a single marked edge of a rising sunbeam, the sky is merely
+more flushed in one place than another. Now let us see what Turner does
+when he wants mist. Turn to the Alps at Daybreak, page 193, in the same
+book. Here we have the cirri used again, but now they have no sharp
+edges, they are all fleecy and mingling with each other, though every
+one of them has the most exquisite indication of individual form, and
+they melt back, not till they are lost in exceeding light, as in the
+other plate, but into a mysterious, fluctuating, shadowy sky, of which,
+though the light penetrates through it all, you perceive every part to
+be charged with vapor. Notice particularly the half-indicated forms even
+where it is most serene, behind the snowy mountains. And now, how are
+the sunbeams drawn? no longer indecisive, flushing, palpitating, every
+one is sharp and clear, and terminated by definite shadow; note
+especially the marked lines on the upper cloud; finally, observe the
+difference in the mode of indicating the figures, which are here misty
+and indistinguishable, telling only as shadows, though they are near and
+large, while those in the former vignette came clear upon the eye,
+though they were so far off as to appear mere points.
+
+
+§ 13. His consistency in every minor feature.
+
+Now is this perpetual consistency in all points, this concentration of
+every fact which can possibly bear upon what we are to be told, this
+watchfulness of the entire meaning and system of nature, which fills
+every part and space of the picture with coincidences of witness, which
+come out upon us, as they would from the reality, more fully and deeply
+in proportion to the knowledge we possess and the attention we give,
+admirable or not? I could go on writing page after page on every sky of
+Turner's, and pointing out fresh truths in every one. In the Havre, for
+instance, of the Rivers of France we have a new fact pointed out to us
+with respect to these cirri, namely, their being so faint and
+transparent as not to be distinguishable from the blue of the sky, (a
+frequent case,) except in the course of a sunbeam, which, however, does
+not illumine their edges, they being not solid enough to reflect light,
+but penetrates their whole substance, and renders them flat, luminous
+forms in its path, instantly and totally lost at its edge. And thus a
+separate essay would be required by every picture, to make fully
+understood the new phenomena which it treated and illustrated. But after
+once showing what are the prevailing characteristics of these clouds, we
+can only leave it to the reader to trace them wherever they occur. There
+are some fine and characteristic passages of this kind of cloud given by
+Stanfield, though he dares not use them in multitude, and is wanting in
+those refined qualities of form which it is totally impossible to
+explain in words, but which, perhaps, by simple outlines, on a large
+scale, selected from the cloud forms of various artists, I may in
+following portions of the work illustrate with the pencil.
+
+
+§ 14. The color of the upper clouds.
+
+Of the colors of these clouds I have spoken before, (Sec. I. Chap. II.;)
+but though I then alluded to their purity and vividness, I scarcely took
+proper notice of their variety; there is indeed in nature variety in all
+things, and it would be absurd to insist on it in each case, yet the
+colors of these clouds are so marvellous in their changefulness, that
+they require particular notice. If you watch for the next sunset, when
+there are a considerable number of these cirri in the sky, you will see,
+especially at the zenith, that the sky does not remain of the same color
+for two inches together; one cloud has a dark side of cold blue, and a
+fringe of milky white; another, above it, has a dark side of purple and
+an edge of red; another, nearer the sun, has an under-side of orange
+and an edge of gold; these you will find mingled with, and passing into
+the blue of the sky, which in places you will not be able to distinguish
+from the cool gray of the darker clouds, and which will be itself full
+of gradation, now pure and deep, now faint and feeble; and all this is
+done, not in large pieces, nor on a large scale, but over and over again
+in every square yard, so that there is no single part nor portion of the
+whole sky which has not in itself variety of color enough for a separate
+picture, and yet no single part which is like another, or which has not
+some peculiar source of beauty, and some peculiar arrangement of color
+of its own. Now, instead of this, you get in the old masters--Cuyp, or
+Claude, or whoever they may be--a field of blue, delicately,
+beautifully, and uniformly shaded down to the yellow sun, with a certain
+number of similar clouds, each with a dark side of the same gray, and an
+edge of the same yellow. I do not say that nature never does anything
+like this, but I say that her _principle_ is to do a great deal more,
+and that what she does more than this,--what I have above described, and
+what you may see in nine sunsets out of ten,--has been observed,
+attempted, and rendered by Turner only, and by him with a fidelity and
+force which presents us with more essential truth, and more clear
+expression and illustration of natural laws, in every wreath of vapor,
+than composed the whole stock of heavenly information, which lasted Cuyp
+and Claude their lives.
+
+
+§ 15. Recapitulation.
+
+We close then our present consideration of the upper clouds, to return
+to them when we know what is beautiful; we have at present only to
+remember that of these clouds, and the truths connected with them, none
+before Turner had taken any notice whatsoever; that had they therefore
+been even feebly and imperfectly represented by him, they would yet have
+given him a claim to be considered more extended and universal in his
+statement of truths than any of his predecessors; how much more when we
+find that deep fidelity in his studied and perfect skies which opens new
+sources of delight to every advancement of our knowledge, and to every
+added moment of our contemplation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [31] I use this work frequently for illustration, because it is the
+    only one I know in which the engraver has worked with delicacy
+    enough to give the real forms and touches of Turner. I can reason
+    from these plates, (in questions of form only,) nearly as well as I
+    could from the drawings.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+          OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS:--SECONDLY, OF THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGION.
+
+
+§ 1. Extent and typical character of the central cloud region.
+
+We have next to investigate the character of the Central Cloud Region,
+which I consider as including all clouds which are the usual
+characteristic of ordinary serene weather, and which touch and envelop
+the mountains of Switzerland, but never affect those of our own island;
+they may therefore be considered as occupying a space of air ten
+thousand feet in height, extending from five to fifteen thousand feet
+above the sea.
+
+
+§ 2. Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought for
+       their representation, are therefore favorite subjects with the
+       old masters.
+
+These clouds, according to their elevation, appear with great variety of
+form, often partaking of the streaked or mottled character of the higher
+region, and as often, when the precursors of storm, manifesting forms
+closely connected with the lowest rain clouds; but the species
+especially characteristic of the central region is a white, ragged,
+irregular, and scattered vapor, which has little form and less color,
+and of which a good example may be seen in the largest landscape of
+Cuyp, in the Dulwich Gallery. When this vapor collects into masses, it
+is partially rounded, clumsy, and ponderous, as if it would tumble out
+of the sky, shaded with a dull gray, and totally devoid of any
+appearance of energy or motion. Even in nature, these clouds are
+comparatively uninteresting, scarcely worth raising our heads to look
+at; and on canvas, valuable only as a means of introducing light, and
+breaking the monotony of blue; yet they are, perhaps, beyond all others
+the favorite clouds of the Dutch masters. Whether they had any motive
+for the adoption of such materials, beyond the extreme facility with
+which acres of canvas might thus be covered without any troublesome
+exertion of thought; or any temptation to such selections beyond the
+impossibility of error where nature shows no form, and the
+impossibility of deficiency where she shows no beauty, it is not here
+the place to determine. Such skies are happily beyond the reach of
+criticism, for he who tells you nothing cannot tell you a falsehood. A
+little flake-white, glazed with a light brush over the carefully toned
+blue, permitted to fall into whatever forms chance might determine, with
+the single precaution that their edges should be tolerably irregular,
+supplied, in hundreds of instances, a sky quite good enough for all
+ordinary purposes--quite good enough for cattle to graze, or boors to
+play at nine-pins under--and equally devoid of all that could gratify,
+inform, or offend.
+
+
+§ 3. The clouds of Salvator and Poussin.
+
+But although this kind of cloud is, as I have said, typical of the
+central region, it is not one which nature is fond of. She scarcely ever
+lets an hour pass without some manifestation of finer forms, sometimes
+approaching the upper cirri, sometimes the lower cumulus. And then in
+the lower outlines, we have the nearest approximation which nature ever
+presents to the clouds of Claude, Salvator, and Poussin, to the
+characters of which I must request especial attention, as it is here
+only that we shall have a fair opportunity of comparing their skies with
+those of the modern school. I shall, as before, glance rapidly at the
+great laws of specific form, and so put it in the power of the reader to
+judge for himself of the truth of representation.
+
+
+§ 4. Their essential characters.
+
+§ 5. Their angular forms and general decision of outline.
+
+Clouds, it is to be remembered, are not so much local vapor, as vapor
+rendered locally visible by a fall of temperature. Thus a cloud, whose
+parts are in constant motion, will hover on a snowy mountain, pursuing
+constantly the same track upon its flanks, and yet remaining of the same
+size, the same form, and in the same place, for half a day together. No
+matter how violent or how capricious the wind may be, the instant it
+approaches the spot where the chilly influence of the snow extends, the
+moisture it carries becomes visible, and then and there the cloud forms
+on the instant, apparently maintaining its form against the wind, though
+the careful and keen eye can see all its parts in the most rapid motion
+across the mountain. The outlines of such a cloud are of course not
+determined by the irregular impulses of the wind, but by the fixed lines
+of radiant heat which regulate the temperature of the atmosphere of the
+mountain. It is terminated, therefore, not by changing curves, but by
+steady right lines of more or less decision, often exactly correspondent
+with the outline of the mountain on which it is formed, and falling
+therefore into grotesque peaks and precipices. I have seen the marked
+and angular outline of the Grandes Jorasses, at Chamounix, mimicked in
+its every jag by a line of clouds above it. Another resultant phenomenon
+is the formation of cloud in the calm air to leeward of a steep summit;
+cloud whose edges are in rapid motion, where they are affected by the
+current of the wind above, and stream from the peak like the smoke of a
+volcano, yet always vanish at a certain distance from it as steam
+issuing from a chimney. When wet weather of some duration is
+approaching, a small white spot of cloud will sometimes appear low on
+the hill flanks; it will not move, but will increase gradually for some
+little time, then diminish, still without moving; disappear altogether,
+reappear ten minutes afterwards, exactly in the same spot; increase to a
+greater extent than before, again disappear, again return, and at last
+permanently; other similar spots of cloud forming simultaneously, with
+various fluctuations, each in its own spot, and at the same level on the
+hill-side, until all expand, join together, and form an unbroken veil of
+threatening gray, which darkens gradually into storm. What in such cases
+takes place palpably and remarkably, is more or less a law of formation
+in all clouds whatsoever; they being bounded rather by lines expressive
+of changes of temperature in the atmosphere, than by the impulses of the
+currents of wind in which those changes take place. Even when in rapid
+and visible motion across the sky, the variations which take place in
+their outlines are not so much alterations of position and arrangement
+of parts, as they are the alternate formation and disappearance of
+parts. There is, therefore, usually a parallelism and consistency in
+their great outlines, which give system to the smaller curves of which
+they are composed; and if these great lines be taken, rejecting the
+minutię of variation, the resultant form will almost always be angular,
+and full of character and decision. In the flock-like fields of equal
+masses, each individual mass has the effect, not of an ellipse or
+circle, but of a rhomboid; the sky is crossed and checkered, not
+honeycombed; in the lower cumuli, even though the most rounded of all
+clouds, the groups are not like balloons or bubbles, but like towers or
+mountains. And the result of this arrangement in masses more or less
+angular, varied with, and chiefly constructed of, curves of the utmost
+freedom and beauty, is that appearance of exhaustless and fantastic
+energy which gives every cloud a marked character of its own, suggesting
+resemblances to the specific outlines of organic objects. I do not say
+that such accidental resemblances are a character to be imitated; but
+merely that they bear witness to the originality and vigor of separate
+conception in cloud forms, which give to the scenery of the sky a force
+and variety no less delightful than that of the changes of mountain
+outline in a hill district of great elevation; and that there is added
+to this a spirit-like feeling, a capricious, mocking imagery of passion
+and life, totally different from any effects of inanimate form that the
+earth can show.
+
+
+§ 6. The composition of their minor curves.
+
+The minor contours, out of which the larger outlines are composed, are
+indeed beautifully curvilinear; but they are never monotonous in their
+curves. First comes a concave line, then a convex one, then an angular
+jag, breaking off into spray, then a downright straight line, then a
+curve again, then a deep gap, and a place where all is lost and melted
+away, and so on; displaying in every inch of the form renewed and
+ceaseless invention, setting off grace with rigidity, and relieving
+flexibility with force, in a manner scarcely less admirable, and far
+more changeful than even in the muscular forms of the human frame. Nay,
+such is the exquisite composition of all this, that you may take any
+single fragment of any cloud in the sky, and you will find it put
+together as if there had been a year's thought over the plan of it,
+arranged with the most studied inequality--with the most delicate
+symmetry--with the most elaborate contrast, a picture in itself. You may
+try every other piece of cloud in the heaven, and you will find them
+every one as perfect, and yet not one in the least like another.
+
+
+§ 7. Their characters, as given by S. Rosa.
+
+Now it may perhaps, for anything we know, or have yet proved, be highly
+expedient and proper, in art, that this variety, individuality, and
+angular character should be changed into a mass of convex curves, each
+precisely like its neighbor in all respects, and unbroken from beginning
+to end;--it may be highly original, masterly, bold, whatever you choose
+to call it; but it is _false_. I do not take upon me to assert that the
+clouds which in ancient Germany were more especially and peculiarly
+devoted to the business of catching princesses off desert islands, and
+carrying them to enchanted castles, might not have possessed something
+of the pillowy organization which we may suppose best adapted for
+functions of such delicacy and dispatch. But I do mean to say that the
+clouds which God sends upon his earth as the ministers of dew, and rain,
+and shade, and with which he adorns his heaven, setting them in its
+vault for the thrones of his spirits, have not in one instant or atom of
+their existence, one feature in common with such conceptions and
+creations. And there are, beyond dispute, more direct and unmitigated
+falsehoods told, and more laws of nature set at open defiance in _one_
+of the "rolling" skies of Salvator, such as that marked 159 in the
+Dulwich Gallery, than were ever attributed, even by the ignorant and
+unfeeling, to all the wildest flights of Turner put together.
+
+
+§ 8. Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian School
+       generally.
+
+And it is not as if the error were only occasional. It is systematic and
+constant in all the Italian masters of the seventeenth century, and in
+most of the Dutch. They looked at clouds as at everything else which did
+not particularly help them in their great end of deception, with utter
+carelessness and bluntness of feeling,--saw that there were a great many
+rounded passages in them,--found it much easier to sweep circles than to
+design beauties, and sat down in their studies, contented with perpetual
+repetitions of the same spherical conceptions, having about the same
+relation to the clouds of nature, that a child's carving of a turnip has
+to the head of the Apollo. Look at the round things about the sun in the
+bricky Claude, the smallest of the three Seaports in the National
+Gallery. They are a great deal more like half-crowns than clouds. Take
+the ropy, tough-looking wreath in the Sacrifice of Isaac, and find one
+part of it, if you can, which is not the repetition of every other part
+of it, all together being as round and vapid as the brush could draw
+them; or take the two cauliflower-like protuberances in No. 220 of the
+Dulwich Gallery, and admire the studied similarity between them; you
+cannot tell which is which; or take the so-called Nicholas Poussin, No.
+212, Dulwich Gallery, in which, from the brown trees to the right-hand
+side of the picture, there is not one line which is not physically
+impossible.
+
+
+§ 9. Vast size of congregated masses of cloud.
+
+§ 10. Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges.
+
+But it is not the outline only which is thus systematically false. The
+drawing of the solid form is worse still, for it is to be remembered
+that although clouds of course arrange themselves more or less into
+broad masses, with a light side and dark side, both their light and
+shade are invariably composed of a series of divided masses, each of
+which has in its outline as much variety and character as the great
+outline of the cloud; presenting, therefore, a thousand times repeated,
+all that I have described as characteristic of the general form. Nor are
+these multitudinous divisions a truth of slight importance in the
+character of sky, for they are dependent on, and illustrative of, a
+quality which is usually in a great degree overlooked,--the enormous
+retiring spaces of solid clouds. Between the illumined edge of a heaped
+cloud, and that part of its body which turns into shadow, there will
+generally be a clear distance of several miles, more or less of course,
+according to the general size of the cloud, but in such large masses as
+in Poussin and others of the old masters, occupy the fourth or fifth of
+the visible sky; the clear illumined breadth of vapor, from the edge to
+the shadow, involves at least a distance of five or six miles. We are
+little apt, in watching the changes of a mountainous range of cloud, to
+reflect that the masses of vapor which compose it, are huger and higher
+than any mountain range of the earth; and the distances between mass and
+mass are not yards of air traversed in an instant by the flying form,
+but valleys of changing atmosphere leagues over; that the slow motion of
+ascending curves, which we can scarcely trace, is a boiling energy of
+exulting vapor rushing into the heaven a thousand feet in a minute; and
+that the toppling angle whose sharp edge almost escapes notice in the
+multitudinous forms around it, is a nodding precipice of storms, 3000
+feet from base to summit. It is not until we have actually compared the
+forms of the sky with the hill ranges of the earth, and seen the soaring
+Alp overtopped and buried in one surge of the sky, that we begin to
+conceive or appreciate the colossal scale of the phenomena of the
+latter. But of this there can be no doubt in the mind of any one
+accustomed to trace the forms of clouds among hill ranges--as it is
+there a demonstrable and evident fact, that the space of vapor visibly
+extended over an ordinarily cloudy sky, is not less, from the point
+nearest to the observer to the horizon, than twenty leagues; that the
+size of every mass of separate form, if it be at all largely divided, is
+to be expressed in terms of _miles_; and that every boiling heap of
+illuminated mist in the nearer sky, is an enormous mountain, fifteen or
+twenty thousand feet in height, six or seven miles over an illuminated
+surface, furrowed by a thousand colossal ravines, torn by local tempests
+into peaks and promontories, and changing its features with the majestic
+velocity of the volcano.
+
+
+§ 11. And consequent divisions and varieties of feature.
+
+To those who have once convinced themselves of these proportions of the
+heaven, it will be immediately evident, that though we might, without
+much violation of truth, omit the minor divisions of a cloud four yards
+over, it is the veriest audacity of falsehood to omit those of masses
+where for yards we have to read miles; first, because it is physically
+impossible that such a space should be without many and vast divisions;
+secondly, because divisions at such distances must be sharply and
+forcibly marked by aerial perspective, so that not only they must be
+there, but they must be visible and evident to the eye; and thirdly,
+because these multitudinous divisions are absolutely necessary, in order
+to express this space and distance, which cannot but be fully and
+imperfectly felt, even with every aid and evidence that art can give of
+it.
+
+
+§ 12. Not lightly to be omitted.
+
+Now if an artist taking for his subject a chain of vast mountains,
+several leagues long, were to unite all their varieties of ravine, crag,
+chasm, and precipice, into one solid, unbroken mass, with one light side
+and one dark side, looking like a white ball or parallelopiped two yards
+broad, the words "breadth," "boldness," or, "generalization," would
+scarcely be received as a sufficient apology for a proceeding so
+glaringly false, and so painfully degrading. But when, instead of the
+really large and simple forms of mountains, united, as they commonly
+are, by some great principle of common organization, and so closely
+resembling each other as often to correspond in line, and join in
+effect; when instead of this, we have to do with spaces of cloud twice
+as vast, broken up into a multiplicity of forms necessary to, and
+characteristic of, their very nature--those forms subject to a thousand
+local changes, having no association with each other, and rendered
+visible in a thousand places by their own transparency or cavities,
+where the mountain forms would be lost in shade,--that this far greater
+space, and this far more complicated arrangement, should be all summed
+up into one round mass, with one swell of white, and one flat side of
+unbroken gray, is considered an evidence of the sublimest powers in the
+artist of generalization and breadth. Now it may be broad, it may be
+grand, it may be beautiful, artistical, and in every way desirable. I
+don't say it is not--I merely say it is a concentration of every kind of
+falsehood: it is depriving heaven of its space, clouds of their
+buoyancy, winds of their motion, and distance of its blue.
+
+
+§ 13. Imperfect conceptions of this size and extent in ancient
+        landscape.
+
+This is done, more or less, by all the old masters, without an
+exception.[32] Their idea of clouds was altogether similar; more or less
+perfectly carried out, according to their power of hand and accuracy of
+eye, but universally the same in conception. It was the idea of a
+comparatively small, round, puffed-up white body, irregularly associated
+with other round and puffed-up white bodies, each with a white light
+side, and a gray dark side, and a soft reflected light, floating a great
+way below a blue dome. Such is the idea of a cloud formed by most
+people; it is the first, general, uncultivated notion of what we see
+every day. People think of the clouds as about as large as they
+look--forty yards over, perhaps; they see generally that they are solid
+bodies subject to the same laws as other solid bodies, roundish,
+whitish, and apparently suspended a great way under a high blue
+concavity. So that these ideas be tolerably given with smooth paint,
+they are content, and call it nature. How different it is from anything
+that nature ever did, or ever will do, I have endeavored to show; but I
+cannot, and do not, expect the contrast to be fully felt, unless the
+reader will actually go out on days when, either before or after rain,
+the clouds arrange themselves into vigorous masses, and after arriving
+at something like a conception of their distance and size, from the mode
+in which they retire over the horizon, will for himself trace and watch
+their varieties of form and outline, as mass rises over mass in their
+illuminated bodies. Let him climb from step to step over their craggy
+and broken slopes, let him plunge into the long vistas of immeasurable
+perspective, that guide back to the blue sky; and when he finds his
+imagination lost in their immensity, and his senses confused with their
+multitude, let him go to Claude, to Salvator, or to Poussin, and ask
+them for a like space, or like infinity.
+
+
+§ 14. Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of
+        ancient landscape.
+
+But perhaps the most grievous fault of all, in the clouds of these
+painters, is the utter want of transparency. Not in her most ponderous
+and lightless masses will nature ever leave us without some evidence of
+transmitted sunshine; and she perpetually gives us passages in which the
+vapor becomes visible only by the sunshine which it arrests and holds
+within itself, not caught on its surface, but entangled in its
+mass--floating fleeces, precious with the gold of heaven; and this
+translucency is especially indicated on the dark sides even of her
+heaviest wreaths, which possess opalescent and delicate hues of partial
+illumination, far more dependent upon the beams which pass through them
+than on those which are reflected upon them. Nothing, on the contrary,
+can be more painfully and ponderously opaque than the clouds of the old
+masters universally. However far removed in aerial distance, and however
+brilliant in light, they never appear filmy or evanescent, and their
+light is always on them, not in them. And this effect is much increased
+by the positive and persevering determination on the part of their
+outlines not to be broken in upon, nor interfered with in the slightest
+degree, by any presumptuous blue, or impertinent winds. There is no
+inequality, no variation, no losing or disguising of line, no melting
+into nothingness, nor shattering into spray; edge succeeds edge with
+imperturbable equanimity, and nothing short of the most decided
+interference on the part of tree-tops, or the edge of the picture,
+prevents us from being able to follow them all the way round, like the
+coast of an island.
+
+
+§ 15. Farther proof of their deficiency in space.
+
+§ 16. Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon.
+
+And be it remembered that all these faults and deficiencies are to be
+found in their drawing merely of the separate masses of the solid
+cumulus, the easiest drawn of all clouds. But nature scarcely ever
+confines herself to such masses; they form but the thousandth part of
+her variety of effect. She builds up a pyramid of their boiling volumes,
+bars this across like a mountain with the gray cirrus, envelops it in
+black, ragged, drifting vapor, covers the open part of the sky with
+mottled horizontal fields, breaks through these with sudden and long
+sunbeams, tears up their edges with local winds, scatters over the gaps
+of blue the infinity of multitude of the high cirri, and melts even the
+unoccupied azure into palpitating shades. And all this is done over and
+over again in every quarter of a mile. Where Poussin or Claude have
+three similar masses, nature has fifty pictures, made up each of
+millions of minor thoughts--fifty aisles penetrating through angelic
+chapels to the Shechinah of the blue--fifty hollow ways among bewildered
+hills--each with their own nodding rocks, and cloven precipices, and
+radiant summits, and robing vapors, but all unlike each other, except in
+beauty, all bearing witness to the unwearied, exhaustless operation of
+the Infinite Mind. Now, in cases like these especially, as we observed
+before of general nature, though it is altogether hopeless to follow out
+in the space of any one picture this incalculable and inconceivable
+glory, yet the painter can at least see that the space he has at his
+command, narrow and confined as it is, is made complete use of, and that
+no part of it shall be without entertainment and food for thought. If he
+could subdivide it by millionths of inches, he could not reach the
+multitudinous majesty of nature; but it is at least incumbent upon him
+to make the most of what he has, and not, by exaggerating the
+proportions, banishing the variety and repeating the forms of his
+clouds, to set at defiance the eternal principles of the
+heavens--fitfulness and infinity. And now let us, keeping in memory what
+we have seen of Poussin and Salvator, take up one of Turner's skies,
+and see whether _he_ is as narrow in his conception, or as niggardly in
+his space. It does not matter which we take, his sublime Babylon[33] is
+a fair example for our present purpose. Ten miles away, down the
+Euphrates, where it gleams last along the plain, he gives us a drift of
+dark elongated vapor, melting beneath into a dim haze which embraces the
+hills on the horizon. It is exhausted with its own motion, and broken up
+by the wind in its own body into numberless groups of billowy and
+tossing fragments, which, beaten by the weight of storm down to the
+earth, are just lifting themselves again on wearied wings, and perishing
+in the effort. Above these, and far beyond them, the eye goes back to a
+broad sea of white, illuminated mist, or rather cloud melted into rain,
+and absorbed again before that rain has fallen, but penetrated
+throughout, whether it be vapor or whether it be dew, with soft
+sunshine, turning it as white as snow. Gradually as it rises, the rainy
+fusion ceases, you cannot tell where the film of blue on the left
+begins--but it is deepening, deepening still,--and the cloud, with its
+edge first invisible, then all but imaginary, then just felt when the
+eye is _not_ fixed on it, and lost when it is, at last rises, keen from
+excessive distance, but soft and mantling in its body, as a swan's bosom
+fretted by faint wind, heaving fitfully against the delicate deep blue,
+with white waves, whose forms are traced by the pale lines of opalescent
+shadow, shade only because the light is within it, and not upon it, and
+which break with their own swiftness into a driven line of level spray,
+winnowed into threads by the wind, and flung before the following vapor
+like those swift shafts of arrowy water which a great cataract shoots
+into the air beside it, trying to find the earth. Beyond these, again,
+rises a colossal mountain of gray cumulus, through whose shadowed sides
+the sunbeams penetrate in dim, sloping, rain-like shafts; and over which
+they fall in a broad burst of streaming light, sinking to the earth, and
+showing through their own visible radiance the three successive ranges
+of hills which connect its desolate plain with space. Above, the edgy
+summit of the cumulus, broken into fragments, recedes into the sky,
+which is peopled in its serenity with quiet multitudes of the white,
+soft, silent cirrus; and under these again, drift near the zenith,
+disturbed and impatient shadows of a darker spirit, seeking rest and
+finding none.
+
+
+§ 17. And in his Pools of Solomon.
+
+Now this is nature! It is the exhaustless living energy with which the
+universe is filled; and what will you set beside it of the works of
+other men? Show me a single picture, in the whole compass of ancient
+art, in which I can pass from cloud to cloud, from region to region,
+from first to second and third heaven, as I can here, and you may talk
+of Turner's want of truth. Turn to the Pools of Solomon, and walk
+through the passages of mist as they melt on the one hand into those
+stormy fragments of fiery cloud, or, on the other, into the cold
+solitary shadows that compass the sweeping hill, and when you find an
+inch without air and transparency, and a hairbreadth without
+changefulness and thought; and when you can count the torn waves of
+tossing radiance that gush from the sun, as you can count the fixed,
+white, insipidities of Claude; or when you can measure the modulation
+and the depth of that hollow mist, as you can the flourishes of the
+brush upon the canvas of Salvator, talk of Turner's want of truth!
+
+But let us take up simpler and less elaborate works, for there is too
+much in these to admit of being analyzed.
+
+
+§ 18. Truths of outline and character in his Como.
+
+In the vignette of the Lake of Como, in Rogers's Italy, the space is so
+small that the details have been partially lost by the engraver; but
+enough remain to illustrate the great principles of cloud from which we
+have endeavored to explain. Observe first the general angular outline of
+the volumes on the left of the sun. If you mark the points where the
+direction of their outline changes, and connect those points by right
+lines, the cloud will touch, but will not cut, those lines throughout.
+Yet its contour is as graceful as it is full of character--toppling,
+ready to change--fragile as enormous--evanescent as colossal. Observe
+how, where it crosses the line of the sun, it becomes luminous,
+illustrating what has been observed of the visibility of mist in
+sunlight. Observe, above all, the multiplicity of its solid form, the
+depth of its shadows in perpetual transition: it is not round and
+swelled, half light and half dark, but full of breaking irregular
+shadow and transparency--variable as the wind, and melting
+imperceptibly above into the haziness of the sunlighted atmosphere,
+contrasted in all its vast forms with the delicacy and the multitude of
+the brightly touched cirri. Nothing can surpass the truth of this; the
+cloud is as gigantic in its simplicity as the Alp which it opposes; but
+how various, how transparent, how infinite in its organization!
+
+
+§ 19. Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus.
+
+I would draw especial attention, both here and in all other works of
+Turner, to the beautiful use of the low horizontal bars or fields of
+cloud, (cirrostratus,) which associate themselves so frequently--more
+especially before storms--with the true cumulus, floating on its flanks,
+or capping it, as if it were a mountain, and seldom mingling with its
+substance, unless in the very formation of rain. They supply us with one
+of those beautiful instances of natural composition, by which the artist
+is superseded and excelled--for, by the occurrence of these horizontal
+flakes, the rolling form of the cumulus is both opposed in its principal
+lines, and gifted with an apparent solidity and vastness, which no other
+expedient could have exhibited, and which far exceed in awfulness the
+impression of the noblest mountains of the earth. I have seen in the
+evening light of Italy, the Alps themselves out-towered by ranges of
+these mighty clouds, alternately white in the starlight, and inhabited
+by fire.
+
+
+§ 20. The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of Geneva.
+
+Turn back to the first vignette in the Italy. The angular outlines and
+variety of modulation in the clouds above the sail, and the delicate
+atmosphere of morning into which they are dissolved about the breathing
+hills, require no comment; but one part of this vignette demands
+especial notice; it is the repetition of the outline of the snowy
+mountain by the light cloud above it. The cause of this I have already
+explained (vide page 228,) and its occurrence here is especially
+valuable as bearing witness to the thorough and scientific knowledge
+thrown by Turner into his slightest works. The thing cannot be seen once
+in six months; it would not have been noticed, much less introduced by
+an ordinary artist, and to the public it is a dead letter, or an
+offence. Ninety-nine persons in a hundred would not have observed this
+pale wreath of parallel cloud above the hill, and the hundredth in all
+probability says it is unnatural. It requires the most intimate and
+accurate knowledge of the Alps before such a piece of refined truth can
+be understood.
+
+
+§ 21. Further principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.
+
+At the 216th page we have another and a new case, in which clouds in
+perfect repose, unaffected by wind, or any influence but that of their
+own elastic force, boil, rise, and melt in the heaven with more approach
+to globular form than under any other circumstances is possible. I name
+this vignette, not only because it is most remarkable for the buoyancy
+and elasticity of inward energy, indicated through the most ponderous
+forms, and affords us a beautiful instance of the junction of the
+cirrostratus with the cumulus, of which we have just been speaking (§
+19,) but because it is a characteristic example of Turner's use of one
+of the facts of nature not hitherto noticed, that the edge of a
+partially transparent body is often darker than its central surface,
+because at the edge the light penetrates and passes through, which from
+the centre is reflected to the eye. The sharp, cutting edge of a wave,
+if not broken into foam, frequently appears for an instant almost black;
+and the outlines of these massy clouds, where their projecting forms
+rise in relief against the light of their bodies, are almost always
+marked clearly and firmly by very dark edges. Hence we have frequently,
+if not constantly, multitudinous forms indicated only by outline, giving
+character and solidity to the great masses of light, without taking away
+from their breadth. And Turner avails himself of these boldly and
+constantly,--outlining forms with the brush of which no other indication
+is given. All the grace and solidity of the white cloud on the
+right-hand side of the vignette before us, depends upon such outlines.
+
+
+§ 22. Reasons for insisting on the _infinity_ of Turner's works.
+        Infinity is almost an unerring test of _all_ truth.
+
+As I before observed of mere execution, that one of the best tests of
+its excellence was the expression of _infinity_; so it may be noticed
+with respect to the painting of details generally, that more difference
+lies between one artist and another, in the attainment of this quality,
+than in any other of the efforts of art; and that if we wish, without
+reference to beauty of composition, or any other interfering
+circumstances, to form a judgment of the truth of painting, perhaps the
+very first thing we should look for, whether in one thing or
+another--foliage, or clouds, or waves--should be the expression of
+_infinity_ always and everywhere, in all parts and divisions of parts.
+For we may be quite sure that what is not infinite, cannot be true; it
+does not, indeed, follow that what is infinite, always is true, but it
+cannot be altogether false, for this simple reason; that it is
+impossible for mortal mind to compose an infinity of any kind for
+itself, or to form an idea of perpetual variation, and to avoid all
+repetition, merely by its own combining resources. The moment that we
+trust to ourselves, we repeat ourselves, and therefore the moment we see
+in a work of any kind whatsoever, the expression of infinity, we may be
+certain that the workman has gone to nature for it; while, on the other
+hand, the moment we see repetition, or want of infinity, we may be
+certain that the workman has _not_ gone to nature for it.
+
+
+§ 23. Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator.
+
+§ 24. And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The
+        conclusions which may be arrived at from it.
+
+§ 25. The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will not
+        give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices.
+
+For instance, in the picture of Salvator before noticed, No. 220 in the
+Dulwich Gallery, as we see at once that the two masses of cloud
+absolutely repeat each other in every one of their forms, and that each
+is composed of about twelve white sweeps of the brush, all forming the
+same curve, and all of the same length; and as we can count these, and
+measure their common diameter, and by stating the same to anybody else,
+convey to him a full and perfect idea and knowledge of that sky in all
+its parts and proportions,--as we can do this, we may be absolutely
+certain, without reference to the real sky, or to any other part of
+nature, without even knowing what the white things were intended for, we
+may be certain that they cannot possibly resemble _anything_; that
+whatever they were meant for, they can be nothing but a violent
+contradiction of all nature's principles and forms. When, on the other
+hand, we take up such a sky as that of Turner's Rouen, seen from St.
+Catherine's Hill, in the Rivers of France, and find, in the first place,
+that he has given us a distance over the hills in the horizon, into
+which, when we are tired of penetrating, we must turn and come back
+again, there being not the remotest chance of getting to the end of it;
+and when we see that from this measureless distance up to the zenith,
+the whole sky is one ocean of alternate waves of cloud and light, so
+blended together that the eye cannot rest on any one without being
+guided to the next, and so to a hundred more, till it is lost over and
+over again in every wreath--that if it divides the sky into quarters of
+inches, and tries to count or comprehend the component parts of any
+single one of those divisions, it is still as utterly defied and
+defeated by the part as by the whole--that there is not one line out of
+the millions there which repeats another, not one which is unconnected
+with another, not one which does not in itself convey histories of
+distance and space, and suggest new and changeful form; then we may be
+all but certain, though these forms are too mysterious and too delicate
+for us to analyze--though all is so crowded and so connected that it is
+impossible to test any single part by particular laws--yet without any
+such tests, we may be sure that this infinity can only be based on
+truth--that it _must_ be nature, because man could not have originated
+it, and that every form must be faithful, because none is like another.
+And therefore it is that I insist so constantly on this great quality of
+landscape painting, as it appears in Turner; because it is not merely a
+constant and most important truth in itself, but it almost amounts to a
+demonstration of every other truth. And it will be found a far rarer
+attainment in the works of other men than is commonly supposed, and the
+sign, wherever it is really found, of the very highest art. For we are
+apt to forget that the greatest _number_ is no nearer infinity than the
+least, if it be definite number; and the vastest bulk is no nearer
+infinity than the most minute, if it be definite bulk; so that a man may
+multiply his objects forever and ever, and be no nearer infinity than he
+had reached with one, if he do not vary them and confuse them; and a man
+may reach infinity in every touch and line, and part, and unit, if in
+these he be truthfully various and obscure. And we shall find, the more
+we examine the works of the old masters, that always, and in all parts,
+they are totally wanting in every feeling of infinity, and therefore in
+_all_ truth: and even in the works of the moderns, though the aim is far
+more just, we shall frequently perceive an erroneous choice of means,
+and a substitution of mere number or bulk for real infinity.
+
+
+§ 26. Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner.
+
+And therefore, in concluding our notice of the central cloud region, I
+should wish to dwell particularly on those skies of Turner's, in which
+we have the whole space of the heaven covered with the delicate dim
+flakes of gathering vapor, which are the intermediate link between the
+central region and that of the rain-cloud, and which assemble and grow
+out of the air; shutting up the heaven with a gray interwoven veil,
+before the approach of storm, faint, but universal, letting the light of
+the upper sky pass pallidly through their body, but never rending a
+passage for the ray. We have the first approach and gathering of this
+kind of sky most gloriously given in the vignette at page 115 of
+Rogers's Italy, which is one of the most perfect pieces of feeling (if I
+may transgress my usual rules for an instant) extant in art, owing to
+the extreme grandeur and stern simplicity of the strange and ominous
+forms of level cloud behind the building. In that at page 223, there are
+passages of the same kind, of exceeding perfection. The sky through
+which the dawn is breaking in the Voyage of Columbus, and that with the
+Moonlight under the Rialto, in Rogers's Poems, the skies of the
+Bethlehem, and the Pyramids in Finden's Bible series, and among the
+Academy pictures, that of the Hero and Leander, and Flight into Egypt,
+are characteristic and noble examples, as far as any individual works
+can be characteristic of the universality of this mighty mind. I ought
+not to forget the magnificent solemnity and fulness of the wreaths of
+gathering darkness in the Folkestone.
+
+
+§ 27. The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield.
+
+§ 28. The average standing of the English school.
+
+We must not pass from the consideration of the central cloud region
+without noticing the general high quality of the cloud-drawing of
+Stanfield. He is limited in his range, and is apt in extensive
+compositions to repeat himself, neither is he ever very refined; but his
+cloud-form is firmly and fearlessly chiselled, with perfect knowledge,
+though usually with some want of feeling. As far as it goes, it is very
+grand and very tasteful, beautifully developed in the space of its solid
+parts and full of action. Next to Turner, he is incomparably the noblest
+master of cloud-form of all our artists; in fact, he is the only one
+among them who really can _draw_ a cloud. For it is a very different
+thing to rub out an irregular white space neatly with the handkerchief,
+or to leave a bright little bit of paper in the middle of a wash, and
+to give the real anatomy of cloud-form with perfect articulation of
+chiaroscuro. We have multitudes of painters who can throw a light bit of
+straggling vapor across their sky, or leave in it delicate and tender
+passages of breaking light; but this is a very different thing from
+taking up each of those bits or passages, and giving it structure, and
+parts, and solidity. The eye is satisfied with exceedingly little, as an
+indication of cloud, and a few clever sweeps of the brush on wet paper
+may give all that it requires; but this is not _drawing_ clouds, nor
+will it ever appeal fully and deeply to the mind, except when it occurs
+only as a part of a higher system. And there is not one of our modern
+artists, except Stanfield, who can do much more than this. As soon as
+they attempt to lay detail upon their clouds, they appear to get
+bewildered, forget that they are dealing with forms regulated by
+precisely the same simple laws of light and shade as more substantial
+matter, overcharge their color, confuse their shadows and dark sides,
+and end in mere ragged confusion. I believe the evil arises from their
+never attempting to render clouds except with the brush; other objects,
+at some period of study, they take up with the chalk or lead, and so
+learn something of their form; but they appear to consider clouds as
+altogether dependent on cobalt and camel's hair, and so never understand
+anything of their real anatomy. But whatever the cause, I cannot point
+to any central clouds of the moderns, except those of Turner and
+Stanfield, as really showing much knowledge of, or feeling for, nature,
+though _all_ are superior to the conventional and narrow conceptions of
+the ancients. We are all right as far as we go, our work may be
+incomplete, but it is not false; and it is far better, far less
+injurious to the mind, that we should be little attracted to the sky,
+and taught to be satisfied with a light suggestion of truthful form,
+than that we should be drawn to it by violently pronounced outline and
+intense color, to find in its finished falsehood everything to displease
+or to mislead--to hurt our feelings, if we have foundation for them, and
+corrupt them, if we have none.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [32] Here I include even the great ones--even Titian and
+    Veronese,--excepting only Tintoret and the religious schools.
+
+  [33] Engraved in Findel's Bible Illustrations.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+        OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: THIRDLY, OF THE REGION OF THE RAIN-CLOUD.
+
+
+§ 1. The apparent difference in character between the lower and central
+       clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity.
+
+The clouds which I wish to consider as characteristic of the lower, or
+rainy region, differ not so much in their real nature from those of the
+central and uppermost regions, as in appearance, owing to their greater
+nearness. For the central clouds, and perhaps even the high cirri,
+deposit moisture, if not distinctly rain, as is sufficiently proved by
+the existence of snow on the highest peaks of the Himaleh; and when, on
+any such mountains, we are brought into close contact with the central
+clouds,[34] we find them little differing from the ordinary rain-cloud
+of the plains, except by being slightly less dense and dark. But the
+apparent differences, dependent on proximity, are most marked and
+important.
+
+
+§ 2. Their marked difference in color.
+
+In the first place, the clouds of the central region have, as has been
+before observed, pure and aerial grays for their dark sides, owing to
+their necessary distance from the observer; and as this distance permits
+a multitude of local phenomena capable of influencing color, such as
+accidental sunbeams, refractions, transparencies, or local mists and
+showers, to be collected into a space comparatively small, the colors of
+these clouds are always changeful and palpitating; and whatever degree
+of gray or of gloom may be mixed with them is invariably pure and
+aerial. But the nearness of the rain-cloud rendering it impossible for a
+number of phenomena to be at once visible, makes its hue of gray
+monotonous, and (by losing the blue of distance) warm and brown compared
+to that of the upper clouds. This is especially remarkable on any part
+of it which may happen to be illumined, which is of a brown, bricky,
+ochreous tone, never bright, always coming in dark outline on the lights
+of the central clouds. But it is seldom that this takes place, and when
+it does, never over large spaces, little being usually seen of the
+rain-cloud but its under and dark side. This, when the cloud above is
+dense, becomes of an inky and cold gray, and sulphureous and lurid if
+there be thunder in the air.
+
+
+§ 3. And in definiteness of form.
+
+§ 4. They are subject to precisely the same great laws.
+
+With these striking differences in color, it presents no fewer nor less
+important in form, chiefly from losing almost all definiteness of
+character and outline. It is sometimes nothing more than a thin mist,
+whose outline cannot be traced, rendering the landscape locally
+indistinct or dark; if its outline be visible, it is ragged and torn;
+rather a spray of cloud, taken off its edge and sifted by the wind, than
+an edge of the cloud itself. In fact, it rather partakes of the nature,
+and assumes the appearance, of real water in the state of spray, than of
+elastic vapor. This appearance is enhanced by the usual presence of
+formed rain, carried along with it in a columnar form, ordinarily, of
+course, reaching the ground like a veil, but very often suspended with
+the cloud, and hanging from it like a jagged fringe, or over it in
+light, rain being always lighter than the cloud it falls from. These
+columns, or fringes, of rain are often waved and bent by the wind, or
+twisted, sometimes even swept upwards from the cloud. The velocity of
+these vapors, though not necessarily in reality greater than that of the
+central clouds, appears greater, owing to their proximity, and, of
+course, also to the usual presence of a more violent wind. They are also
+apparently much more in the power of the wind, having less elastic force
+in themselves; but they are precisely subject to the same great laws of
+form which regulate the upper clouds. They are not solid bodies borne
+about with the wind, but they carry the wind with them, and cause it.
+Every one knows, who has ever been out in a storm, that the time when it
+rains heaviest is precisely the time when he cannot hold up his
+umbrella; that the wind is carried with the cloud, and lulls when it has
+passed. Every one who has ever seen rain in a hill country, knows that
+a rain-cloud, like any other, may have all its parts in rapid motion,
+and yet, as a whole, remain in one spot. I remember once, when in
+crossing the Tźte Noire, I had turned up the valley towards Trient, I
+noticed a rain-cloud forming on the Glacier de Trient. With a west wind,
+it proceeded towards the Col de Balme, being followed by a prolonged
+wreath of vapor, always forming exactly at the same spot over the
+glacier. This long, serpent-like line of cloud went on at a great rate
+till it reached the valley leading down from the Col de Balme, under the
+slate rocks of the Croix de Fer. There it turned sharp round, and came
+down this valley, at right angles to its former progress, and finally
+directly contrary to it, till it came down within five hundred feet of
+the village, where it disappeared; the line behind always advancing, and
+always disappearing, at the same spot. This continued for half an hour,
+the long line describing the curve of a horseshoe; always coming into
+existence, and always vanishing at exactly the same places; traversing
+the space between with enormous swiftness. This cloud, ten miles off,
+would have looked like a perfectly motionless wreath, in the form of a
+horseshoe, hanging over the hills.
+
+
+§ 5. Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud.
+
+§ 6. The old masters have not left a single instance of the painting of
+       the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it. Gaspar Poussin's
+       storms.
+
+To the region of the rain-cloud belong also all those phenomena of
+drifted smoke, heat-haze, local mists in the morning or evening; in
+valleys, or over water, mirage, white steaming vapor rising in
+evaporation from moist and open surfaces, and everything which visibly
+affects the condition of the atmosphere without actually assuming the
+form of cloud. These phenomena are as perpetual in all countries as they
+are beautiful, and afford by far the most effective and valuable means
+which the painter possesses, for modification of the forms of fixed
+objects. The upper clouds are distinct and comparatively opaque, they do
+not modify, but conceal; but through the rain-cloud, and its accessory
+phenomena, all that is beautiful may be made manifest, and all that is
+hurtful concealed; what is paltry may be made to look vast, and what is
+ponderous, aerial; mystery may be obtained without obscurity, and
+decoration without disguise. And, accordingly, nature herself uses it
+constantly, as one of her chief means of most perfect effect; not in one
+country, nor another, but everywhere--everywhere; at least, where there
+is anything worth calling landscape. I cannot answer for the desert of
+the Sahara, but I know that there can be no greater mistake, than
+supposing that delicate and variable effects of mist and rain-cloud are
+peculiar to northern climates. I have never seen in any place or country
+effects of mist more perfect than in the Campagna of Rome, and among the
+hills of Sorrento. It is therefore matter of no little marvel to me, and
+I conceive that it can scarcely be otherwise to any reflecting person,
+that throughout the whole range of ancient landscape art, there occurs
+no instance of the painting of a real rain-cloud, still less of any of
+the more delicate phenomena characteristic of the region. "Storms"
+indeed, as the innocent public persist in calling such abuses of nature
+and abortions of art as the two windy Gaspars in our National Gallery,
+are common enough; massive concretions of ink and indigo, wrung and
+twisted very hard, apparently in a vain effort to get some moisture out
+of them; bearing up courageously and successfully against a wind, whose
+effects on the trees in the foreground can be accounted for only on the
+supposition that they are all of the India-rubber species. Enough of
+this in all conscience, we have, and to spare; but for the legitimate
+rain-cloud, with its ragged and spray-like edge, its veilly
+transparency, and its columnar burden of blessing, neither it, nor
+anything like it, or approaching it, occurs in any painting of the old
+masters that I have ever seen; and I have seen enough to warrant my
+affirming that if it occur anywhere, it must be through accident rather
+than intention. Nor is there stronger evidence of any perception, on the
+part of these much respected artists, that there were such things in the
+world as mists or vapors. If a cloud under their direction ever touches
+a mountain, it does it effectually and as if it meant to do it. There is
+no mystifying the matter; here is a cloud, and there is a hill; if it is
+to come on at all, it comes on to some purpose, and there is no hope of
+its ever going off again. We have, therefore, little to say of the
+efforts of the old masters, in any scenes which might naturally have
+been connected with the clouds of the lowest region, except that the
+faults of form specified in considering the central clouds, are, by way
+of being energetic or sublime, more glaringly and audaciously committed
+in their "storms;" and that what is a wrong form among clouds possessing
+form, is there given with increased generosity of fiction to clouds
+which have no form at all.
+
+
+§ 7. The great power of the moderns in this respect.
+
+§ 8. Works of Copley Fielding.
+
+§ 9. His peculiar truth.
+
+§ 10. His weakness and its probable cause.
+
+Supposing that we had nothing to show in modern art, of the region of
+the rain-cloud, but the dash of Cox, the blot of de Wint, or even the
+ordinary stormy skies of the body of our inferior water-color painters,
+we might yet laugh all efforts of the old masters to utter scorn. But
+one among our water-color artists, deserves especial notice--before we
+ascend the steps of the solitary throne--as having done in his peculiar
+walk, what for faithful and pure truth, truth indeed of a limited range
+and unstudied application, but yet most faithful and most pure, will
+remain unsurpassed if not unrivalled,--Copley Fielding. We are well
+aware how much of what he has done depends in a great degree upon
+particular tricks of execution, or on a labor somewhat too mechanical to
+be meritorious; that it is rather the _texture_ than the _plan_ of his
+sky which is to be admired, and that the greater part of what is
+pleasurable in it will fall rather under the head of dexterous imitation
+than of definite thought. But whatever detractions from his merit we may
+be compelled to make on these grounds, in considering art as the
+embodying of beauty, or the channel of mind, it is impossible, when we
+are speaking of truth only, to pass by his down scenes and moorland
+showers, of some years ago, in which he produced some of the most
+perfect and faultless passages of mist and rain-cloud which art has ever
+seen. Wet, transparent, formless, full of motion, felt rather by their
+shadows on the hills than by their presence in the sky, becoming dark
+only through increased depth of space, most translucent where most
+sombre, and light only through increased buoyancy of motion, letting the
+blue through their interstices, and the sunlight through their chasms,
+with the irregular playfulness and traceless gradation of nature
+herself, his skies will remain, as long as their colors stand, among the
+most simple, unadulterated, and complete transcripts of a particular
+nature which art can point to. Had he painted five instead of five
+hundred such, and gone on to other sources of beauty, he might, there
+can be little doubt, have been one of our greatest artists. But it often
+grieves us to see how his power is limited to a particular moment, to
+that easiest moment for imitation, when knowledge of form may be
+superseded by management of the brush, and the judgment of the colorist
+by the manufacture of a color; the moment when all form is melted down
+and drifted away in the descending veil of rain, and when the variable
+and fitful colors of the heaven are lost in the monotonous gray of its
+storm tones.[35] We can only account for this by supposing that there is
+something radically wrong in his method of study; for a man of his
+evident depth of feeling and pure love of truth ought not to be, cannot
+be, except from some strange error in his mode of out-of-door practice,
+thus limited in his range, and liable to decline of power. We have
+little doubt that almost all such failures arise from the artist's
+neglecting the use of the chalk, and supposing that either the power of
+drawing forms, or the sense of their beauty, can be maintained
+unweakened or unblunted, without constant and laborious studies in
+simple light and shade, of form only. The brush is at once the artist's
+greatest aid and enemy; it enables him to make his power available, but
+at the same time, it undermines his power, and unless it be constantly
+rejected for the pencil, never can be rightly used. But whatever the
+obstacle be, we do not doubt that it is one which, once seen, may be
+overcome or removed; and we are in the constant hope of seeing this
+finely-minded artist shake off his lethargy, break the shackles of
+habit, seek in extended and right study the sources of real power, and
+become, what we have full faith in his capability of being, one of the
+leading artists of his time.
+
+
+§ 11. Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from
+        engravings.
+
+In passing to the works of our greatest modern master, it must be
+premised that the qualities which constitute a most essential part of
+the truth of the rain-cloud, are in no degree to be rendered by
+engraving. Its indefiniteness of torn and transparent form is far beyond
+the power of even our best engravers: I do not say beyond their
+_possible_ power, if they would make themselves artists as well as
+workmen, but far beyond the power they actually possess; while the depth
+and delicacy of the grays which Turner employs or produces, as well as
+the refinement of his execution, are, in the nature of things, utterly
+beyond all imitation by the opaque and lifeless darkness of the steel.
+What we say of his works, therefore, must be understood as referring
+only to the original drawings; though we may name one or two instances
+in which the engraver has, to a certain degree, succeeded in distantly
+following the intention of the master.
+
+
+§ 12. His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges.
+
+§ 13. Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of smoke
+        and steam.
+
+Jumieges, in the Rivers of France, ought perhaps, after what we have
+said of Fielding, to be our first object of attention, because it is a
+rendering by Turner of Fielding's particular moment, and the only one
+existing, for Turner never repeats himself. One picture is allotted to
+one truth; the statement is perfectly and gloriously made, and he passes
+on to speak of a fresh portion of God's revelation.[36] The haze of
+sunlit rain of this most magnificent picture, the gradual retirement of
+the dark wood into its depth, and the sparkling and evanescent light
+which sends its variable flashes on the abbey, figures, foliage, and
+foam, require no comment--they speak home at once. But there is added to
+this noble composition an incident which may serve us at once for a
+farther illustration of the nature and forms of cloud, and for a final
+proof how deeply and philosophically Turner has studied them.
+
+We have on the right of the picture, the steam and the smoke of a
+passing steamboat. Now steam is nothing but an artificial cloud in the
+process of dissipation; it is as much a cloud as those of the sky
+itself, that is, a quantity of moisture rendered visible in the air by
+imperfect solution. Accordingly, observe how exquisitely irregular and
+broken are its forms, how sharp and spray-like; but with all the facts
+observed which were pointed out in Chap. II. of this Section, the convex
+side to the wind, the sharp edge on that side, the other soft and lost.
+Smoke, on the contrary, is an actual substance existing independently in
+the air, a solid opaque body, subject to no absorption nor dissipation
+but that of tenuity. Observe its volumes; there is no breaking up nor
+disappearing here; the wind carries its elastic globes before it, but
+does not dissolve nor break them.[37] Equally convex and void of angles
+on all sides, they are the exact representatives of the clouds of the
+old masters, and serve at once to show the ignorance and falsehood of
+these latter, and the accuracy of study which has guided Turner to the
+truth.
+
+
+§ 14. Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony.
+
+From this picture we should pass to the Llanthony,[38] which is the
+rendering of the moment immediately following that given in the
+Jumieges. The shower is here half exhausted, half passed by, the last
+drops are rattling faintly through the glimmering hazel boughs, the
+white torrent, swelled by the sudden storm, flings up its hasty jets of
+springing spray to meet the returning light; and these, as if the heaven
+regretted what it had given, and were taking it back, pass, as they
+leap, into vapor, and fall not again, but vanish in the shafts of the
+sunlight[39]--hurrying, fitful, wind-woven sunlight--which glides
+through the thick leaves, and paces along the pale rocks like rain;
+half conquering, half quenched by the very mists which it summons itself
+from the lighted pastures as it passes, and gathers out of the drooping
+herbage and from the streaming crags; sending them with messages of
+peace to the far summits of the yet unveiled mountains whose silence is
+still broken by the sound of the rushing rain.
+
+
+§ 15. And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch Coriskin.
+
+With this noble work we should compare one of which we can better judge
+by the engraving--the Loch Coriskin, in the illustrations to Scott,
+because it introduces us to another and a most remarkable instance of
+the artist's vast and varied knowledge. When rain falls on a mountain
+composed chiefly of barren rocks, their surfaces, being violently heated
+by the sun, whose most intense warmth always precedes rain, occasion
+sudden and violent evaporation, actually converting the first shower
+into steam. Consequently, upon all such hills, on the commencement of
+rain, white volumes of vapor are instantaneously and universally formed,
+which rise, are absorbed by the atmosphere, and again descend in rain,
+to rise in fresh volumes until the surfaces of the hills are cooled.
+Where there is grass or vegetation, this effect is diminished; where
+there is foliage it scarcely takes place at all. Now this effect has
+evidently been especially chosen by Turner for Loch Coriskin, not only
+because it enabled him to relieve its jagged forms with veiling vapor,
+but to tell the tale which no pencilling could, the story of its utter
+absolute barrenness of unlichened, dead, desolated rock:--
+
+            "The wildest glen, but this, can show
+             Some touch of nature's genial glow,
+             On high Benmore green mosses grow,
+             And heath-bells bud in deep Glencoe.
+             And copse on Cruchan Ben;
+             But here, above, around, below,
+             On mountain, or in glen,
+             Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower,
+             Nor aught of vegetative power,
+             The wearied eye may ken;
+             But all its rocks at random thrown,
+             Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone."
+
+                                       LORD OF THE ISLES, Canto III
+
+Here, again, we see the absolute necessity of scientific and entire
+acquaintance with nature, before this great artist can be understood.
+That which, to the ignorant, is little more than an unnatural and
+meaningless confusion of steam-like vapor, is to the experienced such a
+full and perfect expression of the character of the spot, as no means of
+art could have otherwise given.
+
+
+§ 16. The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End.
+
+§ 17. The individual character of its parts.
+
+In the Long Ships Lighthouse, Land's End, we have clouds without
+rain--at twilight--enveloping the cliffs of the coast, but concealing
+nothing, every outline being visible through their gloom; and not only
+the outline--for it is easy to do this--but the _surface_. The bank of
+rocky coast approaches the spectator inch by inch, felt clearer and
+clearer as it withdraws from the garment of cloud--not by edges more and
+more defined, but by a surface more and more unveiled. We have thus the
+painting, not of a mere transparent veil, but of a solid body of cloud,
+every inch of whose increasing distance is marked and felt. But the
+great wonder of the picture is the intensity of gloom which is attained
+in pure warm gray, without either blackness or blueness. It is a gloom,
+dependent rather on the enormous space and depth indicated, than on
+actual pitch of color, distant by real drawing, without a grain of blue,
+dark by real substance, without a stroke of blackness; and with all
+this, it is not formless, but full of indications of character, wild,
+irregular, shattered, and indefinite--full of the energy of storm, fiery
+in haste, and yet flinging back out of its motion the fitful swirls of
+bounding drift, of tortured vapor tossed up like men's hands, as in
+defiance of the tempest, the jets of resulting whirlwind, hurled back
+from the rocks into the face of the coming darkness; which, beyond all
+other characters, mark the raised passion of the elements. It is this
+untraceable, unconnected, yet perpetual form--this fulness of character
+absorbed in the universal energy--which distinguish nature and Turner
+from all their imitators. To roll a volume of smoke before the wind, to
+indicate motion or violence by monotonous similarity of line and
+direction, is for the multitude; but to mark the independent passion,
+the tumultuous separate existence of every wreath of writhing vapor, yet
+swept away and overpowered by one omnipotence of storm, and thus to bid
+us
+
+               "Be as a Presence or a motion--one
+                Among the many there----while the mists
+                Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes
+                And phantoms from the crags and solid earth,
+                As fast as a musician scatters sounds
+                Out of an instrument,"--
+
+this belongs only to nature and to him.
+
+
+§ 18. Deep studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry.
+
+§ 19. Compared with forms given by Salvator.
+
+The drawing of Coventry may be particularized as a farther example of
+this fine suggestion of irregularity and fitfulness, through very
+constant parallelism of direction, both in rain and clouds. The great
+mass of cloud, which traverses the whole picture, is characterized
+throughout by severe right lines, nearly parallel with each other, into
+which every one of its wreaths has a tendency to range itself; but no
+one of these right lines is actually and entirely parallel to any other,
+though all have a certain tendency, more or less defined in each, which
+impresses the mind with the most distinct _idea_ of parallelism. Neither
+are any of the lines actually straight and unbroken; on the contrary,
+they are all made up of the most exquisite and varied curves, and it is
+the imagined line which joins the apices of these--a tangent to them
+all, which is in reality straight.[40] They are suggested, not
+represented, right lines; but the whole volume of cloud is visibly and
+totally bounded by them; and, in consequence, its whole body is felt to
+be dragged out and elongated by the force of the tempest which it
+carries with it, and every one of its wreaths to be (as was before
+explained) not so much something borne _before_ or _by_ the wind, as the
+visible form and presence of the wind itself. We could not possibly
+point out a more magnificent piece of drawing as a contrast to such
+works of Salvator as that before alluded to (159 Dulwich Gallery). Both
+are rolling masses of connected cloud; but in Turner's, there is not one
+curve that repeats another, nor one curve in itself monotonous, nor
+without character, and yet every part and portion of the cloud is
+rigidly subjected to the same forward, fierce, inevitable influence of
+storm. In Salvator's, every curve repeats its neighbor, every curve is
+monotonous in itself, and yet the whole cloud is curling about hither
+and thither, evidently without the slightest notion where it is going
+to, and unregulated by any general influence whatsoever. I could not
+bring together two finer or more instructive examples, the one of
+everything that is perfect, the other of everything that is childish or
+abominable, in the representation of the same facts.
+
+
+§ 20. Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and circumstances
+        in the Coventry.
+
+But there is yet more to be noticed in this noble sky of Turner's. Not
+only are the lines of the rolling cloud thus irregular in their
+parallelism, but those of the falling rain are equally varied in their
+direction, indicating the gusty changefulness of the wind, and yet kept
+so straight and stern in their individual descent, that we are not
+suffered to forget its strength. This impression is still farther
+enhanced by the drawing of the smoke, which blows every way at once, yet
+turning perpetually in each of its swirls back in the direction of the
+wind, but so suddenly and violently, as almost to assume the angular
+lines of lightning. Farther, to complete the impression, be it observed
+that all the cattle, both upon the near and distant hill-side, have left
+off grazing, and are standing stock still and stiff, with their heads
+down and their backs to the wind; and finally, that we may be told not
+only what the storm is, but what it has been, the gutter at the side of
+the road is gushing in a complete torrent, and particular attention is
+directed to it by the full burst of light in the sky being brought just
+above it, so that all its waves are bright with the reflection.
+
+
+§ 21. Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose.
+
+But I have not quite done with this noble picture yet. Impetuous clouds,
+twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and
+oppressed cattle, all speak the same story of tumult, fitfulness, power,
+and velocity. Only one thing is wanted, a passage of repose to contrast
+with it all, and it is given. High and far above the dark volumes of the
+swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left, through their opening, the
+quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the highest cirrus, resting in the
+repose of the deep sky. Of all else that we have noticed in this
+drawing, some faint idea can be formed from the engraving: but not the
+slightest of the delicate and soft forms of these pausing vapors, and
+still less of the exquisite depth and palpitating tenderness of the blue
+with which they are islanded. Engravers, indeed, invariably lose the
+effect of all passages of cold color, under the mistaken idea that it is
+to be kept _pale_ in order to indicate distance; whereas it ought
+commonly to be darker than the rest of the sky.
+
+
+§ 22. The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky only
+        seen after rain, and how seen.
+
+§ 23. Absence of this effect in the works of the old masters.
+
+To appreciate the full truth of this passage, we must understand another
+effect peculiar to the rain-cloud, that its openings exhibit the purest
+blue which the sky ever shows. For, as we saw in the first chapter of
+this section, that aqueous vapor always turns the sky more or less gray,
+it follows that we never can see the azure so intense as when the
+greater part of this vapor has just fallen in rain. Then, and then only,
+pure blue sky becomes visible in the first openings, distinguished
+especially by the manner in which the clouds melt into it; their edges
+passing off in faint white threads and fringes, through which the blue
+shines more and more intensely, till the last trace of vapor is lost in
+its perfect color. It is only the upper white clouds, however, which do
+this, or the last fragments of rain-clouds, becoming white as they
+disappear, so that the blue is never _corrupted_ by the cloud, but only
+paled and broken with pure white, the purest white which the sky ever
+shows. Thus we have a melting and palpitating color, never the same for
+two inches together, deepening and broadening here and there into
+intensity of perfect azure, then drifted and dying away through every
+tone of pure pale sky, into the snow white of the filmy cloud. Over this
+roll the determined edges of the rain-clouds, throwing it all far back,
+as a retired scene, into the upper sky. Of this effect the old masters,
+as far as I remember, have taken no cognizance whatsoever; all with them
+is, as we partially noticed before, either white cloud or pure blue:
+they have no notion of any double-dealing or middle measures. They bore
+a hole in the sky, and let you up into a pool of deep, stagnant blue,
+marked off by the clear round edges of imperturbable, impenetrable cloud
+on all sides--beautiful in positive color, but totally destitute of that
+exquisite gradation and change, that fleeting, panting, hesitating
+effort, with which the first glance of the natural sky is shed through
+the turbulence of the earth-storm.
+
+
+§ 24. Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it by
+        Turner.
+
+They have some excuse, however, for not attempting this, in the nature
+of their material, as one accidental dash of the brush with water-color
+on a piece of wet or damp paper, will come nearer the truth and
+transparency of this rain-blue than the labor of a day in oils; and the
+purity and felicity of some of the careless, melting water-color skies
+of Cox and Tayler may well make us fastidious in all effects of this
+kind. It is, however, only in the drawings of Turner that we have this
+perfect transparency and variation of blue, given in association with
+the perfection of considered form. In Tayler and Cox the forms are
+always partially accidental and unconsidered, often essentially bad, and
+always incomplete; in Turner the dash of the brush is as completely
+under the rule of thought and feeling as its slowest line; all that it
+does is perfect, and could not be altered, even in a hairbreadth,
+without injury; in addition to this, peculiar management and execution
+are used in obtaining quality in the color itself, totally different
+from the manipulation of any other artist; and none, who have ever spent
+so much as one hour of their lives over his drawing, can forget those
+dim passages of dreamy blue, barred and severed with a thousand delicate
+and soft and snowy forms, which, gleaming in their patience of hope
+between the troubled rushing of the racked earth-cloud, melt farther and
+farther back into the height of heaven, until the eye is bewildered and
+the heart lost in the intensity of their peace. I do not say that this
+is beautiful--I do not say it is ideal, nor refined--I only ask you to
+watch for the first opening of the clouds after the next south rain, and
+tell me if it be not _true_?
+
+
+§ 25. Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works.
+
+§ 26. Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and Ęneas.
+
+The Gosport affords us an instance more exquisite even than the passage
+above named in the Coventry, of the use of this melting and dewy blue,
+accompanied by two distances of rain-cloud, one towering over the
+horizon, seen blue with excessive distance through crystal atmosphere;
+the other breaking overhead in the warm, sulphurous fragments of spray,
+whose loose and shattering transparency, being the most essential
+characteristic of the near rain-cloud, is precisely that which the old
+masters are sure to contradict. Look, for instance, at the wreaths of
+_cloud_? in the Dido and Ęneas of Gaspar Poussin, with their unpleasant
+edges cut as hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick black paint
+can make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail badly
+reefed; or look at the agreeable transparency and variety of the
+cloud-edge where it cuts the Mountain in N. Poussin's Phocion, and
+compare this with the wreaths which float across the precipice in the
+second vignette in Campbell, or which gather around the Ben Lomond, the
+white rain gleaming beneath their dark transparent shadows; or which
+drift up along the flanks of the wooded hills, called from the river by
+the morning light, in the Oakhampton; or which island the crags of
+Snowdon in the Llanberis, or melt along the Cumberland hills, while
+Turner leads us across the sands of Morecambe Bay. This last drawing
+deserves especial notice; it is of an evening in spring, when the south
+rain has ceased at sunset, and through the lulled and golden air, the
+confused and fantastic mists float up along the hollows of the
+mountains, white and pure, the resurrection in spirit of the new-fallen
+rain, catching shadows from the precipices, and mocking the dark peaks
+with their own mountain-like but melting forms till the solid mountains
+seem in motion like those waves of cloud, emerging and vanishing as the
+weak wind passes by their summits; while the blue, level night advances
+along the sea, and the surging breakers leap up to catch the last light
+from the path of the sunset.
+
+[Illustration: OKEHAMPTON CASTLE.
+                 From a painting by Turner.]
+
+
+§ 27. Turner's power of rendering mist.
+
+§ 28. His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once understood,
+        they can no more be explained or reasoned on than nature
+        herself.
+
+I need not, however, insist upon Turner's peculiar power of rendering
+_mist_, and all those passages of intermediate mystery, between earth
+and air, when the mountain is melting into the cloud, or the horizon
+into the twilight; because his supremacy in these points is altogether
+undisputed, except by persons to whom it would be impossible to prove
+anything which did not fall under the form of a Rule of Three. Nothing
+is more natural than that the studied form and color of this great
+artist should be little understood, because they require for the full
+perception of their meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as
+not one in a thousand possesses, or can bestow; but yet the truth of
+them for that very reason is capable of demonstration, and there is hope
+of our being able to make it in some degree felt and comprehended even
+by those to whom it is now a dead letter, or an offence. But the
+aerial and misty effects of landscape, being matters of which the eye
+should be simply cognizant, and without effort of thought, as it is of
+light, must, where they are exquisitely rendered, either be felt at
+once, or prove that degree of blindness and bluntness in the feelings of
+the observer which there is little hope of ever conquering. Of course
+for persons who have never seen in their lives a cloud vanishing on a
+mountain-side, and whose conceptions of mist or vapor are limited to
+ambiguous outlines of spectral hackney-coaches and bodiless lamp-posts,
+discern through a brown combination of sulphur, soot, and gaslight,
+there is yet some hope; we cannot, indeed, tell them what the morning
+mist is like in mountain air, but far be it from us to tell them that
+they are incapable of feeling its beauty if they will seek it for
+themselves. But if you have ever in your life had one opportunity with
+your eyes and heart open, of seeing the dew rise from a hill-pasture, or
+the storm gather on a sea-cliff, and if you have yet no feeling for the
+glorious passages of mingled earth and heaven which Turner calls up
+before you into breathing, tangible being, there is indeed no hope for
+your apathy--art will never touch you, nor nature inform.
+
+
+§ 29. Various instances.
+
+It would be utterly absurd, among the innumerable passages of this kind
+given throughout his works, to point to one as more characteristic or
+more perfect than another. The Simmer Lake, near Askrig, for expression
+of mist pervaded with sunlight,--the Lake Lucerne, a recent and
+unengraved drawing, for the recession of near mountain form, not into
+dark, but into _luminous_ cloud, the most difficult thing to do in
+art,--the Harlech, for expression of the same phenomena, shown over vast
+spaces in distant ranges of hills, the Ehrenbreitstein, a recent
+drawing, for expression of mist, rising from the surface of water at
+sunset,--and, finally, the glorious Oberwesel and Nemi,[41] for passages
+of all united, may, however, be named, as noble instances, though in
+naming five works I insult five hundred.
+
+
+§ 30. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by
+        engravers.
+
+§ 31. General system of landscape engraving.
+
+§ 32. The storm in the Stonehenge.
+
+One word respecting Turner's more violent storms, for we have hitherto
+been speaking only of the softer rain-clouds, associated with gusty
+tempest, but not of the thunder-cloud and the whirlwind. If there be any
+one point in which engravers disgrace themselves more than in another,
+it is in their rendering of dark and furious storm. It appears to be
+utterly impossible to force it into their heads, that an artist does
+_not_ leave his color with a sharp edge and an angular form by accident,
+or that they may have the pleasure of altering it and improving upon it;
+and equally impossible to persuade them that energy and gloom may in
+_some_ circumstances be arrived at without any extraordinary expenditure
+of ink. I am aware of no engraver of the present day whose ideas of a
+storm-cloud are not comprised under two heads, roundness and blackness;
+and, indeed, their general principles of translation (as may be
+distinctly gathered from their larger works) are the following: 1. Where
+the drawing is gray, make the paper black. 2. Where the drawing is
+white, cover the page with zigzag lines. 3. Where the drawing has
+particularly tender tones, cross-hatch them. 4. Where any outline is
+particularly angular, make it round. 5. Where there are vertical
+reflections in water, express them with very distinct horizontal lines.
+6. Where there is a passage of particular simplicity, treat it in
+sections. 7. Where there is anything intentionally concealed, make it
+out. Yet, in spite of the necessity which all engravers impose upon
+themselves, of rigidly observing this code of general laws, it is
+difficult to conceive how such pieces of work, as the plates of
+Stonehenge and Winchelsea, can ever have been presented to the public,
+as in any way resembling, or possessing even the most fanciful relation
+to the Turner drawings of the same subjects. The original of the
+Stonehenge is perhaps the standard of storm-drawing, both for the
+overwhelming power and gigantic proportions and spaces of its
+cloud-forms, and for the tremendous qualities of lurid and sulphurous
+colors which are gained in them. All its forms are marked with violent
+angles, as if the whole muscular energy--so to speak--of the cloud, were
+writhing in every fold, and their fantastic and fiery volumes have a
+peculiar horror--an awful life--shadowed out in their strange, swift,
+fearful outlines, which oppress the mind more than even the threatening
+of their gigantic gloom. The white lightning, not as it is drawn by less
+observant or less capable painters, in zigzag fortifications, but in its
+own dreadful irregularity of streaming fire, is brought down, not merely
+over the dark clouds, but through the full light of an illumined opening
+to the blue, which yet cannot abate the brilliancy of its white line;
+and the track of the last flash along the ground is fearfully marked by
+the dog howling over the fallen shepherd, and the ewe pressing her head
+upon the body of her dead lamb.
+
+
+§ 33. General character of such effects given by Turner. His expression
+        of falling rain.
+
+I have not space, however, to enter into examination of Turner's
+storm-drawing; I can only warn the public against supposing that its
+effect is ever rendered by engravers. The great principles of Turner are
+angular outline, vastness and energy of form, infinity of gradation, and
+depth without blackness. The great principles of the engravers (_vide_
+Pęstum, in Rogers's Italy, and the Stonehenge, above alluded to) are
+rounded outline, no edges, want of character, equality of strength, and
+blackness without depth.
+
+
+§ 34. Recapitulation of the section.
+
+I have scarcely, I see, on referring to what I have written,
+sufficiently insisted on Turner's rendering of the rainy _fringe_,
+whether in distances, admitting or concealing more or less of the
+extended plain, as in the Waterloo, and Richmond (with the girl and dog
+in the foreground,) or as in the Dunstaffnage, Glencoe, St. Michael's
+Mount, and Slave Ship, not reaching the earth, but suspended in waving
+and twisted lines from the darkness of the zenith. But I have no time
+for farther development of particular points; I must defer discussion of
+them until we take up each picture to be viewed as a whole; for the
+division of the sky which I have been obliged to make, in order to
+render fully understood the peculiarities of character in the separate
+cloud regions, prevents my speaking of any one work with justice to its
+concentration of various truth. Be it always remembered that we pretend
+not, at present, to give any account or idea of the sum of the works of
+any painter, much less of the universality of Turner's; but only to
+explain in what real truth, as far as it is explicable, consists, and to
+illustrate it by those pictures in which it most distinctly occurs, or
+from which it is most visibly absent. And it will only be in the full
+and separate discussion of individual works, when we are acquainted also
+with what is beautiful, that we shall be completely able to prove or
+disprove the presence of the truth of nature.
+
+The conclusion, then, to which we are led by our present examination of
+the truth of clouds, is, that the old masters attempted the
+representation of only one among the thousands of their systems of
+scenery, and were altogether false in the little they attempted; while
+we can find records in modern art of every form or phenomenon of the
+heavens, from the highest film that glorifies the ether to the wildest
+vapor that darkens the dust, and in all these records we find the most
+clear language and close thought, firm words, and true message,
+unstinted fulness and unfailing faith.
+
+
+§ 35. Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole, compared
+        with the works of Turner and of the old masters. Morning on the
+        plains.
+
+§ 36. Noon with gathering storms.
+
+§ 37. Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight.
+
+§ 38. And sunrise on the Alps.
+
+And indeed it is difficult for us to conceive how, even without such
+laborious investigation as we have gone through, any person can go to
+nature for a single day or hour, when she is really at work in any of
+her nobler spheres of action, and yet retain respect for the old
+masters; finding, as find he will, that every scene which rises, rests,
+or departs before him, bears with it a thousand glories of which there
+is not one shadow, one image, one trace or line, in any of their works;
+but which will illustrate to him, at every new instant, some passage
+which he had not before understood in the high works of modern art.
+Stand upon the peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, when the
+night mists first rise from off the plains, and watch their white and
+lake-like fields as they float in level bays and winding gulfs about the
+islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn,
+colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight;
+watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels, how the
+foam of their undulating surface parts and passes away; and down under
+their depths, the glittering city and green pasture lie like Atlantis,
+between the white paths of winding rivers; the flakes of light falling
+every moment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed
+surges break and vanish above them, and the confused crests and ridges
+of the dark hills shorten their gray shadows upon the plain. Has Claude
+given this? Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered
+mists rallying in the ravines, and floating up towards you, along the
+winding valleys, till they couch in quiet masses, iridescent with the
+morning light,[42] upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, whose
+leagues of massy undulation will melt back and back into that robe of
+material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear
+again above, in the serene heaven, like a wild, bright, impossible
+dream, foundationless and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in
+the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below.[43] Has
+Claude given this? Wait yet a little longer, and you shall see those
+mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand like fortresses
+along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piled with every
+instant higher and higher into the sky,[44] and casting longer shadows
+athwart the rocks; and out of the pale blue of the horizon you will see
+forming and advancing a troop of narrow, dark, pointed vapors,[45] which
+will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their gray network, and take the
+light off the landscape with an eclipse which will stop the singing of
+the birds and the motion of the leaves together; and then you will see
+horizontal bars of black shadow forming under them, and lurid wreaths
+create themselves, you know not how, along the shoulders of the hills;
+you never see them form, but when you look back to a place which was
+clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it, hanging by the precipices,
+as a hawk pauses over his prey.[46] Has Claude given this? And then you
+will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and you will see those
+watch-towers of vapor swept away from their foundations, and waving
+curtains of opaque rain let down to the valleys, swinging from the
+burdened clouds in black, bending fringes,[47] or pacing in pale columns
+along the lake level, grazing its surface into foam as they go. And
+then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm drift for an instant
+from on the hills, leaving their broad sides smoking, and loaded yet
+with snow-white torn, steam-like rags of capricious vapor, now gone, now
+gathered again;[48] while the smouldering sun, seeming not far away, but
+burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it,
+plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall,
+as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with
+blood.[49] Has Claude given this? And then you shall hear the fainting
+tempest die in the hollow of the night, and you shall see a green halo
+kindling on the summit of the eastern hills,[50] brighter--brighter yet,
+till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the
+barred clouds,[51] step by step, line by line; star after star she
+quenches with her kindling light, setting in their stead an army of
+pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give light upon the
+earth, which move together, hand in hand, company by company, troop by
+troop, so measured in their unity of motion, that the whole heaven seems
+to roll with them, and the earth to reel under them. Ask Claude, or his
+brethren, for that. And then wait yet for one hour until the east again
+becomes purple,[52] and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in
+darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory
+of its burning; watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths
+about the mountains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire; watch the
+columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm by chasm,
+each in itself a new morning; their long avalanches cast down in keen
+streams brighter than the lightning, sending each his tribute of driven
+snow, like altar-smoke, up to the heaven; the rose-light of their silent
+domes flushing that heaven about them and above them, piercing with
+purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new
+glory on every wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven--one
+scarlet canopy,--is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and tossing,
+vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of
+angels; and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when you
+are bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of this, tell me
+who has best delivered this His message unto men!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [34] I am unable to say to what height the real rain-cloud may
+    extend; perhaps there are no mountains which rise altogether above
+    storm. I have never been in a violent storm at a greater height than
+    between 8000 and 9000 feet above the level of the sea. There the
+    rain-cloud is exceedingly light, compared to the ponderous darkness
+    of the lower air.
+
+  [35] I ought here, however, to have noted another effect of the
+    rain-cloud, which, so far as I know, has been rendered only by
+    Copley Fielding. It is seen chiefly in clouds gathering for rain,
+    when the sky is entirely covered with a gray veil rippled or waved
+    with pendent swells of soft texture, but excessively hard and liny
+    in their edges. I am not sure that this is an agreeable or
+    impressive form of the rain-cloud, but it is a frequent one, and it
+    is often most faithfully given by Fielding; only in some cases the
+    edges becoming a little doubled and harsh have given a look of
+    failure or misadventure to some even of the best studied passages;
+    and something of the same hardness of line is occasionally visible
+    in his drawing of clouds by whose nature it is not warranted.
+
+  [36] Compare Sect. I. Chap. IV. § 5.
+
+  [37] It does not do so until the volumes lose their density by
+    inequality of motion, and by the expansion of the warm air which
+    conveys them. They are then, of course, broken into forms resembling
+    those of clouds.
+
+  [38] No conception can be formed of this picture from the engraving.
+    It is perhaps the most marvellous piece of execution and of gray
+    color existing, except perhaps the drawing presently to be noticed,
+    Land's End. Nothing else can be set beside it, even of Turner's own
+    works--much less of any other man's.
+
+    [39] I know no effect more strikingly characteristic of the
+    departure of a storm than the _smoking_ of the mountain torrents.
+    The exhausted air is so thirsty of moisture, that every jet of spray
+    is seized upon by it, and converted into vapor as it springs; and
+    this vapor rises so densely from the surface of the stream as to
+    give it the exact appearance of boiling water. I have seen the whole
+    course of the Arve at Chamonix one line of dense cloud, dissipating
+    as soon as it had risen ten or twelve feet from the surface, but
+    entirely concealing the water from an observer placed above it.
+
+  [40] Note especially the dark uppermost outline of the mass.
+
+  [41] In the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq. of Tottenham.
+
+  [42] I have often seen the white thin, morning cloud, edged with the
+    seven colors of the prism. I am not aware of the cause of this
+    phenomenon, for it takes place not when we stand with our backs to
+    the sun, but in clouds near the sun itself, irregularly and over
+    indefinite spaces, sometimes taking place in the body of the cloud.
+    The colors are distinct and vivid, but have a kind of metallic
+    lustre upon them.
+
+  [43] Lake Lucerne.
+
+  [44] St. Maurice (Rogers's Italy).
+
+  [45] Vignette, the Great St. Bernard.
+
+  [46] Vignette of the Andes.
+
+  [47] St. Michael's Mount--England series.
+
+  [48] Illustration to the Antiquary. Goldeau, a recent drawing of the
+    highest order.
+
+  [49] Vignette to Campbell's Last Man.
+
+  [50] Caerlaverock.
+
+  [51] St. Denis.
+
+  [52] Alps at Daybreak (Rogers's Poems:) Delphi, and various
+    vignettes.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+                  EFFECTS OF LIGHT RENDERED BY MODERN ART.
+
+
+§ 1. Reasons for merely at present naming, without examining the
+       particular effects of light rendered by Turner.
+
+§ 2. Hopes of the author for assistance in the future investigation of
+       them.
+
+I have before given my reasons (Sect. II. Chap. III.) for not wishing at
+present to enter upon the discussion of particular effects of light. Not
+only are we incapable of rightly viewing them, or reasoning upon them,
+until we are acquainted with the principles of the beautiful; but, as I
+distinctly limited myself, in the present portion of the work, to the
+examination of _general_ truths, it would be out of place to take
+cognizance of the particular phases of light, even if it were possible
+to do so, before we have some more definite knowledge of the material
+objects which they illustrate. I shall therefore, at present, merely set
+down a rough catalogue of the effects of light at different hours of the
+day, which Turner has represented: naming a picture or two, as an
+example of each, which we will hereafter take up one by one, and
+consider the physical science and the feeling together. And I do this,
+in the hope that, in the mean time, some admirer of the old masters will
+be kind enough to select from the works of any one of them, a series of
+examples of the same effects, and to give me a reference to the
+pictures, so that I may be able to compare each with each; for, as my
+limited knowledge of the works of Claude or Poussin does not supply me
+with the requisite variety of effect, I shall be grateful for
+assistance.
+
+The following list, of course, does not name the hundredth part of the
+effects of light given by Turner; it only names those which are
+distinctly and markedly separate from each other, and representative
+each of an entire class. Ten or twelve examples, often many more, might
+be given of each; every one of which would display the effects of the
+same hour and light, modified by different circumstances of weather,
+situation, and character of objects subjected to them, and especially by
+the management of the sky; but it will be generally sufficient for our
+purposes to examine thoroughly one good example of each.
+
+The prefixed letters express the direction of the light. F. front light
+(the sun in the centre, or near the top of the picture;) L. lateral
+light, the sun out of the picture on the right or left of the spectator;
+L. F. the light partly lateral, partly fronting the spectator, as when
+he is looking south, with the sun in the south-west; L. B. light partly
+lateral, partly behind the spectator, as when he is looking north, with
+the sun in the south-west.
+
+                                       MORNING.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                        NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  L.   An hour before sunrise in winter. Violent    | Lowestoffe, Suffolk.
+         storm, with rain, on the sea. Light-houses |
+         seen through it.                           |
+                                                    |
+  F.   An hour before sunrise. Serene sky, with     | Vignette to Voyage
+         light clouds. Dawn in the distance.        |   of Columbus.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Ten minutes before sunrise. Violent          | Fowey Harbor.
+         storm. Torchlight.                         |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sunrise. Sun only half above the horizon.    | Vignette to Human
+         Clear sky, with light cirri.               |   Life.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun just disengaged from horizon. Misty,     | Alps at Daybreak.
+         with light cirri.                          |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun a quarter of an hour risen. Sky covered  | Castle Upnor.
+         with scarlet clouds.                       |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Serene sky. Sun emerging from a bank         | Orford, Suffolk.
+         of cloud on horizon, a quarter of an hour  |
+         risen.                                     |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Same hour. Light mists in flakes on          | Skiddaw.
+          hill-sides. Clear air.                    |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Light flying rain-clouds gathering in        | Oakhampton.
+          valleys. Same hour.                       |
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. A night storm rising off the      | Lake of Geneva.
+         mountains. Dead calm.                      |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Sun half an hour risen. Cloudless sky.       | Beaugency.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Light mists lying in the valleys. | Kirby Lonsdale.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Bright cirri. Sun dimly seen      | Hohenlinden.
+         through battle smoke, with conflagration.  |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Sun an hour risen. Cloudless and clear.      | Buckfastleigh.
+
+
+                              NOON AND AFTERNOON.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                       NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  L.B. Midday. Dead calm, with heat. Cloudless.     | Corinth.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Serene and bright, with           | Lantern at
+         streaky clouds.                            |   St. Cloud.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Serene, with multitudes of        | Shylock, and other
+         the high cirrus.                           |   Venices.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Bright sun, with light wind and clouds.      | Richmond, Middlesex.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Two o'clock. Clouds gathering for rain, with | Warwick. Blenheim.
+         heat.                                      |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Rain beginning, with light clouds and wind.  | Piacenza.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Soft rain, with heat.                        | Caldron Snout Fall.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Great heat. Thunder gathering.               | Malvern.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Thunder breaking down, after intense heat,   | Winchelsea.
+         with furious wind.                         |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Violent rain and wind, but cool.             | Llamberis, Coventry,
+                                                    |    &c.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Furious storm, with thunder.                 | Stonehenge, Pęstum,
+                                                    |   &c.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Thunder retiring, with rainbow. Dead calm,   | Nottingham.
+         with heat.                                 |
+                                                    |
+  L.   About three o'clock, summer. Air very        | Bingen.
+         cool and clear. Exhausted thunder-clouds   |
+         low on hills.                              |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Descending sunbeams through soft clouds,     | Carew Castle.
+         after rain.                                |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Afternoon, very clear, after rain. A few     | Saltash.
+         clouds still on horizon. Dead calm.        |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Afternoon of cloudless day, with heat.       | Mercury and Argus.
+                                                    |   Oberwesel. Nemi.
+
+
+                                      EVENING.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                       NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  L.   An hour before sunset. Cloudless.            | Trematon Castle.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Half an hour before sunset. Light clouds.    | Lake Albano.
+         Misty air.                                 |   Florence.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Within a quarter of an hour of sunset.       | Dater Hora Quieti.
+         Mists rising. Light cirri.                 |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Ten minutes before sunset. Quite cloudless.  | Durham.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Tumultuous spray of illumined     | Solomon's Pools.
+         rain-cloud.                                |   Slave ship.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Five minutes before sunset. Sky covered      | Temeraire. Napoleon.
+         with illumined cirri.                      |   Various vignettes.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. Serene sky. Full moon rising.     | Kenilworth.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun setting. Detached light cirri and clear  | Amboise.
+         air.                                       |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Cloudless. New moon.              | Troyes.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Same hour. Heavy storm clouds. Moonrise.     | First vignette.
+                                                    |   Pleasures of
+                                                    |   Memory.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Sun just set. Sky covered with clouds. New   | Caudebec.
+         moon setting.                              |
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Sun five minutes set. Strong twilight,       | Wilderness of Engedi.
+         with storm clouds. Full moonrise.          |   Assos.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. Serene, with light clouds.        | Montjan.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. Serene. New moon.                 | Pyramid of Caius
+                                                    |   Cestius.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Sun a quarter of an hour set. Cloudless.     | Chateau de Blois.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Sun half an hour set. Light cirri.           | Clairmont.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Dead calm at sea. New moon and    | Cowes.
+         evening star.                              |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun three quarters of an hour set. Moon      | Folkestone.
+         struggling through storm clouds, over      |
+         heavy sea.                                 |
+
+
+                                       NIGHT.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                       NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  F.   An hour after sunset. No moon. Torchlight.   | St. Julien. Tours.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Moon rising. Fire from furnaces.  | Dudley.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Same hour, with storm clouds. Moon           | Nantes.
+         rising.                                    |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour, with light of rockets and fire.   | Juliet and her Nurse.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Midnight. Moonless, with light-houses.       | Calais.
+         Same hour, with fire-light.                | Burning of
+                                                    |   Parliament Houses.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto. Full moon. Clear air, with delicate   | Towers of the Hevé.
+         clouds. Light-houses.                      |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto, with conflagration, battle smoke, and | Waterloo.
+         storm.                                     |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto. Moonlight through mist. Buildings     | Vignette. St.
+         illuminated in interior.                   |    Herbert's Isle.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto. Full moon with halo. Light            | St. Denis.
+         rain-clouds.                               |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Full moon. Perfectly serene. Sky covered     | Alnwick. Vignette of
+         with white cirri.                          |   Rialto, and Bridge.
+                                                    |   of Sighs
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION IV.
+
+                              OF TRUTH OF EARTH.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                           OF GENERAL STRUCTURE.
+
+
+§ 1. First laws of the organization of the earth, and their importance
+       in art.
+
+By truth of earth, we mean the faithful representation of the facts and
+forms of the bare ground, considered as entirely divested of vegetation,
+through whatever disguise, or under whatever modification the clothing
+of the landscape may occasion. Ground is to the landscape painter what
+the naked human body is to the historical. The growth of vegetation, the
+action of water, and even of clouds upon it and around it, are so far
+subject and subordinate to its forms, as the folds of the dress and the
+fall of the hair are to the modulation of the animal anatomy. Nor is
+this anatomy always so concealed, but in all sublime compositions,
+whether of nature or art, it must be seen in its naked purity. The laws
+of the organization of the earth are distinct and fixed as those of the
+animal frame, simpler and broader, but equally authoritative and
+inviolable. Their results may be arrived at without knowledge of the
+interior mechanism; but for that very reason ignorance of them is the
+more disgraceful, and violation of them more unpardonable. They are in
+the landscape the foundation of all other truths--the most necessary,
+therefore, even if they were not in themselves attractive; but they are
+as beautiful as they are essential, and every abandonment of them by the
+artist must end in deformity as it begins in falsehood.
+
+
+§ 2. The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study
+       by modern artists.
+
+That such abandonment is constant and total in the works of the old
+masters, has escaped detection, only because of persons generally
+cognizant of art, few have spent time enough in hill countries to
+perceive the certainty of the laws of hill anatomy; and because few,
+even of those who possess such opportunities, ever think of the common
+earth beneath their feet, as anything possessing specific form, or
+governed by steadfast principles. That such abandonment should have
+taken place cannot be surprising, after what we have seen of their
+fidelity to skies. Those artists who, day after day, could so falsely
+represent what was forever before their eyes, when it was to be one of
+the most important and attractive parts of their picture, can scarcely
+be expected to give with truth what they could see only partially and at
+intervals, and what was only to be in their picture a blue line in the
+horizon, or a bright spot under the feet of their figures.
+
+That such should be all the space allotted by the old landscape painters
+to the most magnificent phenomena of nature; that the only traces of
+those Apennines, which in Claude's walks along the brow of the Pincian,
+forever bounded his horizon with their azure wall, should, in his
+pictures, be a cold white outline in the extreme of his tame distance;
+and that Salvator's sojourns among their fastnesses should only have
+taught him to shelter his banditti with such paltry morsels of crag as
+an Alpine stream would toss down before it like a foam-globe; though it
+may indeed excite our surprise, will, perhaps, when we have seen how
+these slight passages are executed, be rather a subject of
+congratulation than of regret. It might, indeed, have shortened our
+labor in the investigation of mountain truth, had not modern artists
+been so vast, comprehensive, and multitudinous in their mountain
+drawings, as to compel us, in order to form the slightest estimate of
+their knowledge, to enter into some examination of every variety of hill
+scenery. We shall first gain some general notion of the broad
+organization of large masses, and then take those masses to pieces,
+until we come down to the crumbling soil of the foreground.
+
+
+§ 3. General structure of the earth. The hills are its action, the
+       plains its rest.
+
+Mountains are, to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent
+muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its
+anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with fierce and convulsive
+energy, full of expression, passion, and strength; the plains and the
+lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, when
+its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty,
+yet ruling those lines in their every undulation. This, then, is the
+first grand principle of the truth of the earth. The spirit of the hills
+is action; that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to
+be found every variety of motion and of rest; from the inactive plain,
+sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks,
+which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with the clouds drifting
+like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to
+Heaven, saying, "I live forever!"
+
+
+§ 4. Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their
+       support.
+
+But there is this difference between the action of the earth, and that
+of a living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and
+tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh
+altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the bones
+of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its
+anatomy which in the plains lie buried under five and twenty thousand
+feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in
+the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their garment
+of earth away from them on each side. The masses of the lower hills are
+laid over and against their sides, like the masses of lateral masonry
+against the skeleton arch of an unfinished bridge, except that they
+slope up to and lean against the central ridge: and, finally, upon the
+slopes of these lower hills are strewed the level beds of sprinkled
+gravel, sand, and clay, which form the extent of the champaign. Here
+then is another grand principle of the truth of earth, that the
+mountains must come from under all, and be the support of all; and that
+everything else must be laid in their arms, heap above heap, the plains
+being the uppermost. Opposed to this truth is every appearance of the
+hills being laid upon the plains, or built upon them. Nor is this a
+truth only of the earth on a large scale, for every minor rock (in
+position) comes out from the soil about it as an island out of the sea,
+lifting the earth near it like waves beating on its sides.
+
+
+§ 5. Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when
+       deposited by quiet water.
+
+Such being the structure of the framework of the earth, it is next to be
+remembered that all soil whatsoever, wherever it is accumulated in
+greater quantity than is sufficient to nourish the moss of the
+wallflower, has been so, either by the direct transporting agency of
+water, or under the guiding influence and power of water. All plains
+capable of cultivation are deposits from some kind of water--some from
+swift and tremendous currents, leaving their soil in sweeping banks and
+furrowed ridges--others, and this is in mountain districts almost
+invariably the case, by slow deposit from a quiet lake in the mountain
+hollow, which has been gradually filled by the soil carried into it by
+streams, which soil is of course finally left spread at the exact level
+of the surface of the former lake, as level as the quiet water itself.
+Hence we constantly meet with plains in hill districts, which fill the
+hollows of the hills with as perfect and faultless a level as water, and
+out of which the steep rocks rise at the edge with as little previous
+disturbance, or indication of their forms beneath, as they do from the
+margin of a quiet lake. Every delta--and there is one at the head of
+every lake in every hill-district--supplies an instance of this. The
+rocks at Altorf plunge beneath the plain, which the lake has left, at as
+sharp an angle as they do into the lake itself beside the chapel of
+Tell. The plain of the Arve, at Sallenche, is terminated so sharply by
+the hills to the south-east, that I have seen a man sleeping with his
+back supported against the mountain, and his legs stretched on the
+plain; the slope which supported his back rising 5000 feet above him,
+and the couch of his legs stretched for five miles before him. In
+distant effect these champaigns lie like deep, blue, undisturbed water,
+while the mighty hills around them burst out from beneath, raging and
+tossing like a tumultuous sea. The valleys of Meyringen, Interlachen,
+Altorf, Sallenche, St. Jean de Maurienne; the great plain of Lombardy
+itself, as seen from Milan or Padua, under the Alps, the Euganeans, and
+the Apennines; and the Campo Felice under Vesuvius, are a few, out of
+the thousand instances, which must occur at once to the mind of every
+traveller.
+
+
+§ 6. Illustrated by Turner's Marengo.
+
+Let the reader now open Rogers's Italy, at the seventeenth page, and
+look at the vignette which heads it of the battle of Marengo. It needs
+no comment. It cannot but carry with it, after what has been said, the
+instant conviction that Turner is as much of a geologist as he is of a
+painter. It is a summary of all we have been saying, and a summary so
+distinct and clear, that without any such explanation it must have
+forced upon the mind the impression of such facts--of the plunging of
+the hills underneath the plain--of the perfect level and repose of this
+latter laid in their arms, and of the tumultuous action of the emergent
+summits.
+
+
+§ 7. General divisions of formation resulting from this arrangement.
+       Plan of investigation.
+
+We find, according to this its internal structure, which, I believe,
+with the assistance of Turner, can scarcely now be misunderstood, that
+the earth may be considered as divided into three great classes of
+formation, which geology has already named for us. Primary--the rocks,
+which, though in position lower than all others, rise to form the
+central peaks, or interior nuclei of all mountain ranges. Secondary--the
+rocks which are laid in beds above these, and which form the greater
+proportion of all hill scenery. Tertiary--the light beds of sand,
+gravel, and clay, which are strewed upon the surface of all, forming
+plains and habitable territory for man. We shall find it convenient, in
+examining the truth of art, to adopt, with a little modification, the
+geological arrangement, considering first, the formation and character
+of the highest or central peaks; then the general structure of the lower
+mountains, including in this division those composed of the various
+slates which a geologist would call primary; and, lastly, the minutię
+and most delicate characters of the beds of these hills, when they are
+so near as to become foreground objects, and the structure of the common
+soil which usually forms the greater space of an artist's foreground.
+Hence our task will arrange itself into three divisions--the
+investigation of the central mountains, of the interior mountains, and
+of the foreground.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                          OF THE CENTRAL MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+§ 1. Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the world.
+
+It does not always follow, because a mountain is the highest of its
+group, that it is in reality one of the central range. The Jungfrau is
+only surpassed in elevation, in the chain of which it is a member, by
+the Schreckhorn and Finster-Aarhorn; but it is entirely a secondary
+mountain. But the central peaks are usually the highest, and may be
+considered as the chief components of all mountain scenery in the snowy
+regions. Being composed of the same rocks in all countries, their
+external character is the same everywhere. Its chief essential points
+are the following.
+
+
+§ 2. Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical
+       fissures.
+
+Their summits are almost invariably either pyramids or wedges. Domes may
+be formed by superincumbent snow, or appear to be formed by the
+continuous outline of a sharp ridge seen transversely, with its
+precipice to the spectator; but wherever a rock appears, the uppermost
+termination of that rock will be a steep edgy ridge, or a sharp point,
+very rarely presenting even a gentle slope on any of its sides, but
+usually inaccessible unless encumbered with snow.
+
+These pyramids and wedges split vertically, or nearly so, giving smooth
+faces of rock, either perpendicular or very steeply inclined, which
+appear to be laid against the central wedge or peak, like planks upright
+against a wall. The surfaces of these show close parallelism; their
+fissures are vertical, and cut them smoothly, like the edges of shaped
+planks. Often groups of these planks, if I may so call them, rise higher
+than those between them and the central ridge, forming detached ridges
+inclining towards the central one. The planks are cut transversely,
+sometimes by graceful curvilinear fissures; sometimes by straight
+fissures, which are commonly parallel to the slope of one of the sides
+of the peak, while the main direction of the planks or leaves is
+parallel to that of its other side, or points directly to its summit.
+But the _universal_ law of fracture is--first, that it is clean and
+sharp, having a perfectly smooth surface, and a perfectly sharp edge to
+all the fissures; secondly, that every fissure is steeply inclined, and
+that a horizontal line, or one approaching to it, is an impossibility,
+except in some turn of a curve.
+
+
+§ 3. Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose.
+
+Hence, however the light may fall, these peaks are seen marked with
+sharp and defined shadows, indicating the square edges of the planks of
+which they are made up, which shadows sometimes are vertical, pointing
+to the summit; but are oftener parallel to one of the sides of the peak,
+and intersected by a second series, parallel to the other side. Where
+there has been much disintegration, the peak is often surrounded with
+groups of lower ridges or peaks, like the leaves of an artichoke or a
+rose, all evidently part and parcel of the great peak; but falling back
+from it, as if it were a budding flower, expanding its leaves one by
+one.
+
+
+§ 4. The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps at
+       Daybreak.
+
+Now, if I were giving a lecture on geology, and were searching for some
+means of giving the most faithful idea possible of the external
+appearance caused by this structure of the primary hills, I should throw
+my geological outlines aside, and take up Turner's vignette of the Alps
+at Daybreak. After what has been said, a single glance at it will be
+enough. Observe the exquisite decision with which the edge of the
+uppermost plank of the great peak is indicated by its clear dark side
+and sharp shadow; then the rise of the second low ridge on its side,
+only to descend again precisely in the same line; the two fissures of
+this peak, one pointing to its summit, the other rigidly parallel to the
+great slope which descends towards the sun; then the sharp white
+_aiguille_ on the right, with the great fissure from its summit, rigidly
+and severely square, as marked below, where another edge of rock is laid
+upon it. But this is not all; the black rock in the foreground is
+equally a member of the mass, its chief slope parallel with that of the
+mountain, and all its fissures and lines inclined in the same direction;
+and, to complete the mass of evidence more forcibly still, we have the
+dark mass on the left articulated with absolute right lines, as parallel
+as if they had been drawn with a ruler, indicating the tops of two of
+these huge plates or planks, pointing, with the universal tendency, to
+the great ridge, and intersected by fissures parallel to it. Throughout
+the extent of mountain, not one horizontal line, nor an approach to it,
+is discernible. This cannot be chance--it cannot be composition--it may
+not be beautiful--perhaps nature is very wrong to be so parallel, and
+very disagreeable in being so straight;--but this _is_ nature, whether
+we admire it or not.
+
+
+§ 5. Vignette of the Andes and others.
+
+In the vignette illustration to Jacqueline, we have another series of
+peaks, whose structure is less developed, owing to their distance, but
+equally clear and faithful in all points, as far as it is given. But the
+vignette of Aosta, in Italy, is perhaps more striking than any that
+could be named for its rendering of the perfect parallelism of the lower
+and smaller peaks with the great lines of the mass they compose; and
+that of the Andes, the second in Campbell, for its indication of the
+multitudes of the vertical and plank-like beds arranged almost like the
+leaves of a flower. This last especially, one of the very noblest, most
+faithful, most scientific statements of mountain form which even Turner
+has ever made, can leave little more to be said or doubted.
+
+
+§ 6. Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such
+       mountains.
+
+Now, whenever these vast peaks, rising from 12,000 to 24,000 feet above
+the sea, form part of anything like a landscape, that is to say,
+whenever the spectator beholds them from the region of vegetation, or
+even from any distance at which it is possible to get something like a
+view of their whole mass, they must be at so great a distance from him
+as to become aerial and faint in all their details. Their summits, and
+all those higher masses of whose character we have been speaking, can by
+no possibility be nearer to him than twelve or fifteen miles; to
+approach them nearer he must climb--must leave the region of vegetation,
+and must confine his view to a part, and that a very limited one, of the
+mountain he is ascending. Whenever, therefore, these mountains are seen
+over anything like vegetation, or are seen in mass, they _must_ be in
+the far distance. Most artists would treat an horizon fifteen miles off
+very much as if it were mere air; and though the greater clearness of
+the upper air permits the high summits to be seen with extraordinary
+distinctness, yet they never can by any possibility have dark or deep
+shadows, or intense dark relief against a light. Clear they may be, but
+faint they must be, and their great and prevailing characteristic, as
+distinguished from other mountains, is want of apparent solidity. They
+rise in the morning light rather like sharp shades, cast up into the
+sky, than solid earth. Their lights are pure, roseate, and
+cloud-like--their shadows transparent, pale, and opalescent, and often
+indistinguishable from the air around them, so that the mountain-top is
+seen in the heaven only by its flakes of motionless fire.
+
+
+§ 7. Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art.
+
+Now, let me once more ask, though I am sufficiently tired of asking,
+what record have we of anything like this in the works of the old
+masters? There is no vestige in any existing picture of the slightest
+effort to represent the high hill ranges; and as for such drawing of
+their forms as we have found in Turner, we might as well look for them
+among the Chinese. Very possibly it may be all quite right,--very
+probably these men showed the most cultivated taste, the most unerring
+judgment, in filling their pictures with mole-hills and sand-heaps. Very
+probably the withered and poisonous banks of Avernus, and the sand and
+cinders of the Campagna, are much more sublime things than the Alps; but
+still what limited truth it is, if truth it be, when through the last
+fifty pages we have been pointing out fact after fact, scene after
+scene, in clouds and hills, (and not individual facts nor scenes, but
+great and important classes of them,) and still we have nothing to say
+when we come to the old masters; but, "they are not here." Yet this is
+what we hear so constantly called painting "general" nature.
+
+
+§ 8. Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of
+       Claude.
+
+§ 9. Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance.
+
+Although, however, there is no vestige among the old masters of any
+effort to represent the attributes of the higher mountains seen in
+comparative proximity, we are not altogether left without evidence of
+their having thought of them as sources of light in the extreme
+distance, as for example, in that of the reputed Claude in our National
+Gallery, called the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. I have not the
+slightest doubt of its being a most execrable copy; for there is not one
+touch nor line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as
+connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our
+Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I
+may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are
+wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those
+which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall
+continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form,
+which cannot have been much altered by the copyist. In the distance of
+that picture (as well as in that of the Sinon before Priam, which I have
+little doubt is at least partially original, and whose central group of
+trees is a very noble piece of painting) is something white, which I
+believe must be intended for a snowy mountain, because I do not see that
+it can well be intended for anything else. Now no mountain of elevation
+sufficient to be so sheeted with perpetual snow, can by any possibility
+sink so low on the horizon as this something of Claude's, unless it be
+at a distance of from fifty to seventy miles. At such distances, though
+the outline is invariably sharp and edgy to an excess, yet all the
+circumstances of aerial perspective, faintness of shadow, and isolation
+of light, which I have described as characteristic of the Alps fifteen
+miles off, take place, of course, in a threefold degree; the mountains
+rise from the horizon like transparent films, only distinguishable from
+mist by their excessively keen edges, and their brilliant flashes of
+sudden light; they are as unsubstantial as the air itself, and impress
+their enormous size by means of this aerialness, in a far greater degree
+at these vast distances, than even when towering above the spectator's
+head. Now, I ask of the candid observer, if there be the smallest
+vestige of an effort to attain--if there be the most miserable, the most
+contemptible shadow of attainment of such an effect by Claude? Does that
+white thing on the horizon look seventy miles off? Is it faint, or
+fading, or to be looked for by the eye before it can be found out? Does
+it look high? does it look large? does it look impressive? You cannot
+but feel that there is not a vestige of any kind or species of truth in
+that horizon; and that, however artistical it may be, as giving
+brilliancy to the distance, (though, as far as I have any feeling in the
+matter, it only gives coldness,) it is, in the very branch of art on
+which Claude's reputation chiefly rests, aerial perspective, hurling
+defiance to nature in her very teeth.
+
+
+§ 10. And violation of specific form.
+
+But there are worse failures yet in this unlucky distance. Aerial
+perspective is not a matter of paramount importance, because nature
+infringes its laws herself and boldly too, though never in a case like
+this before us; but there are some laws which nature never violates--her
+laws of form. No mountain was ever raised to the level of perpetual
+snow, without an infinite multiplicity of form. Its foundation is built
+of a hundred minor mountains, and, from these, great buttresses run in
+converging ridges to the central peak. There is no exception to this
+rule; no mountain 15,000 feet high is ever raised without such
+preparation and variety of outwork. Consequently, in distant effect,
+when chains of such peaks are visible at once, the multiplicity of form
+is absolutely oceanic; and though it is possible in near scenes to find
+vast and simple masses composed of lines which run unbroken for a
+thousand feet, or more, it is physically impossible when these masses
+are thrown seventy miles back, to have simple outlines, for then these
+large features become mere jags, and hillocks, and are heaped and
+huddled together with endless confusion. To get a simple form, seventy
+miles away, mountain lines would be required unbroken for leagues; and
+this, I repeat, is physically impossible. Hence these mountains of
+Claude, having no indication of the steep vertical summits which we have
+shown to be the characteristic of the central ridges, having soft edges
+instead of decisive ones, simple forms (one line to the plain on each
+side) instead of varied and broken ones, and being painted with a crude
+raw white, having no transparency, nor filminess, nor air in it, instead
+of rising in the opalescent mystery which invariably characterizes the
+distant snows, have the forms and the colors of heaps of chalk in a
+lime-kiln, not of Alps. They are destitute of energy, of height, of
+distance, of splendor, and of variety, and are the work of a man,
+whether Claude or not, who had neither feeling for nature, nor knowledge
+of art.
+
+
+§ 11. Even in his best works.
+
+I should not, however, insist upon the faults of this picture, believing
+it to be a copy, if I had ever seen, even in his most genuine works, an
+extreme distance of Claude with any of the essential characters of
+nature. But although in his better pictures we have always beautiful
+drawing of the _air_, which in the copy before us is entirely wanting,
+the real features of the extreme mountain distance are equally neglected
+or maligned in all. There is, indeed, air between us and it; but ten
+miles, not seventy miles, of space. Let us observe a little more closely
+the practice of nature in such cases.
+
+
+§ 12. Farther illustration of the distant character of mountain chains.
+
+§ 13. Their excessive appearance of transparency.
+
+The multiplicity of form which I have shown to be necessary in the
+outline, is not less felt in the body of the mass. For, in all extensive
+hill ranges, there are five or six lateral chains separated by deep
+valleys, which rise between the spectator and the central ridge, showing
+their tops one over another, wave beyond wave, until the eye is carried
+back to the faintest and highest forms of the principal chain. These
+successive ridges, and I speak now not merely of the Alps, but of
+mountains generally, even as low as 3000 feet above the sea, show
+themselves in extreme distance merely as vertical shades, with very
+sharp outlines, detached from one another by greater intensity,
+according to their nearness. It is with the utmost difficulty that the
+eye can discern any solidity or roundness in them; the lights and shades
+of solid form are both equally lost in the blue of the atmosphere, and
+the mountain tells only as a flat, sharp-edged film, of which multitudes
+intersect and overtop one another, separated by the greater faintness of
+the retiring masses. This is the most simple and easily imitated
+arrangement possible, and yet, both in nature and art, it expresses
+distance and size in a way otherwise quite unattainable. For thus, the
+whole mass of one mountain being of one shade only, the smallest
+possible difference in shade will serve completely to detach it from
+another, and thus ten or twelve distances may be made evident, when the
+darkest and nearest is an aerial gray as faint as the sky; and the
+beauty of such arrangements carried out as nature carries them, to their
+highest degree, is, perhaps, the most striking feature connected with
+hill scenery: you will never, by any chance, perceive in extreme
+distance, anything like solid form or projection of the hills. Each is a
+dead, flat, perpendicular film or shade, with a sharp edge darkest at
+the summit, and lost as it descends, and about equally dark whether
+turned towards the light or from it; and of these successive films of
+mountain you will probably have half a dozen, one behind another, all
+showing with perfect clearness their every chasm and peak in the
+outline, and not one of them showing the slightest vestige of solidity,
+but on the contrary, looking so thoroughly transparent, that if it so
+happens, as I have seen frequently, that a conical near hill meets with
+its summit the separation of two distant ones, so that the right-hand
+slope of the nearer hill forms an apparent continuation of the
+right-hand slope of the left-hand farther hill, and _vice versa_, it is
+impossible to get rid of the impression that one or the more distant
+peaks is seen _through_ the other.
+
+
+§ 14. Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The Borromean
+        Islands of the latter.
+
+I may point out in illustration of these facts, the engravings of two
+drawings of precisely the same chain of distant hills,--Stanfield's
+Borromean Islands, with the St. Gothard in the distance, and Turner's
+Arona, also with the St. Gothard in the distance. Far be it from me to
+indicate the former of these plates as in any way exemplifying the power
+of Stanfield, or affecting his reputation; it is an unlucky drawing,
+murdered by the engraver, and as far from being characteristic of
+Stanfield as it is from being like nature, but it is just what I want,
+to illustrate the particular error of which I speak; and I prefer
+showing this error where it accidentally exists in the works of a really
+great artist, standing there alone, to point it out where it is confused
+with other faults and falsehoods in the works of inferior hands. The
+former of these plates is an example of everything which a hill distance
+is not, and the latter of everything which it is. In the former, we have
+the mountains covered with patchy lights, which being of equal intensity
+whether near or distant, confuse all the distances together; while the
+eye, perceiving that the light falls so as to give details of solid
+form, yet finding nothing but insipid and formless spaces displayed by
+it, is compelled to suppose that the whole body of the hill is equally
+monotonous and devoid of character; and the effect upon it is not one
+whit more impressive and agreeable than might be received from a group
+of sand-heaps, washed into uniformity by recent rain.
+
+
+§ 15. Turner's Arona.
+
+Compare with this the distance of Turner in Arona. It is totally
+impossible here to say which way the light falls on the distant hills,
+except by the slightly increased decision of their edges turned towards
+it, but the greatest attention is paid to get these edges decisive, yet
+full of gradation, and perfectly true in character of form. All the rest
+of the mountain is then indistinguishable haze, and by the bringing of
+these edges more and more decisively over one another, Turner has given
+us between the right-hand side of the picture and the snow, fifteen
+distinct distances, yet every one of these distances in itself
+palpitating, changeful, and suggesting subdivision into countless
+multitude. Something of this is traceable even in the engraving, and all
+the essential characters are perfectly well marked. I think even the
+least experienced eye can scarcely but feel the truth of this distance
+as compared with Stanfield's. In the latter, the eye gets something of
+the form, and therefore wonders it sees no more; the impression on it,
+therefore, is of hills within distinctly visible distance, indiscernible
+through want of light or dim atmosphere; and the effect is, of course,
+smallness of space, with obscurity of light and thickness of air. In
+Turner's the eye gets nothing of the substance, and wonders it sees so
+much of the outline; the impression is, therefore, of mountains too far
+off to be ever distinctly seen, rendered clear by brilliancy of light
+and purity of atmosphere; and the effect, consequently, vastness of
+space, with intensity of light and crystalline transparency of air.
+
+
+§ 16. Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by very
+        sharp outline.
+
+These truths are invariably given in every one of Turner's distances,
+that is to say, we have always in them two principal facts forced on our
+notice; transparency, or filminess of mass, and excessive sharpness of
+edge. And I wish particularly to insist upon this sharpness of edge,
+because it is not a casual or changeful habit of nature; it is the
+unfailing characteristic of all very great distances. It is quite a
+mistake to suppose that slurred or melting lines are characteristic of
+distant _large_ objects; they may be so, as before observed, (Sec. II.
+Chap. IV. § 4,) when the focus of the eye is not adapted to them; but,
+when the eye is really directed to the distance, melting lines are
+characteristic only of thick mist and vapor between us and the object,
+not of the removal of the object. If a thing has character upon its
+outline, as a tree for instance, or a mossy stone, the farther it is
+removed from us, the sharper the outline of the whole mass will become,
+though in doing so, the particular details which make up the character
+will become confused in the manner described in the same chapter. A tree
+fifty yards from us, taken as a mass, has a soft outline, because the
+leaves and interstices have some effect on the eye. But put it ten miles
+off against the sky, and its outline will be so sharp that you cannot
+tell it from a rock. There are three trees on the Mont Saleve, about
+five miles from Geneva, which from the city, as they stand on the ridge
+of the hill, are seen defined against the sky. The keenest eye in the
+world could not tell them from stones. So in a mountain five or six
+miles off, bushes, and heather, and roughnesses of knotty ground and
+rock, have still some effect on the eye, and by becoming confused and
+mingled as before described, soften the outline. But let the mountain be
+thirty miles off, and its edge will be as sharp as a knife. Let it, as
+in the case of the Alps, be seventy or eighty miles off, and though it
+has become so faint that the morning mist is not so transparent, its
+outline will be beyond all imitation for excessive sharpness. Thus,
+then, the character of extreme distance is always excessive keenness of
+edge. If you soften your outline, you either put mist between you and
+the object, and in doing so diminish, your distance, for it is
+impossible you should see so far through mist as through clear air; or,
+if you keep an impression of clear air, you bring the object close to
+the observer, diminish its size in proportion, and if the aerial colors,
+excessive blues, etc., be retained, represent an impossibility.
+
+
+§ 17. Want of this decision in Claude.
+
+Take Claude's distance (in No. 244, Dulwich Gallery,)[53] on the right
+of the picture. It is as pure blue as ever came from the pallet, laid on
+thick; you cannot see through it, there is not the slightest vestige of
+transparency or filminess about it, and its edge is soft and blunt.
+Hence, if it be meant for near hills, the blue is impossible, and the
+want of details impossible, in the clear atmosphere indicated through
+the whole picture. If it be meant for extreme distance, the blunt edge
+is impossible, and the opacity is impossible. I do not know a single
+distance of the Italian school to which the same observation is not
+entirely applicable, except, perhaps, one or two of Nicholas Poussin's.
+They always involve, under any supposition whatsoever, at least two
+impossibilities.
+
+
+§ 18. The perpetual rendering of it by Turner.
+
+I need scarcely mention in particular any more of the works of Turner,
+because there is not one of his mountain distances in which these facts
+are not fully exemplified. Look at the last vignette--the Farewell, in
+Rogers's Italy; observe the excessive sharpness of all the edges, almost
+amounting to lines, in the distance, while there is scarcely one
+decisive edge in the foreground. Look at the hills of the distance in
+the Dunstaffnage, Glencoe, and Loch Achray, (illustrations to Scott,) in
+the latter of which the left-hand side of the Benvenue is actually
+marked with a dark line. In fact, Turner's usual mode of executing these
+passages is perfectly evident in all his drawings; it is not often that
+we meet with a very broad dash of wet color in his finished works, but
+in these distances, as we before saw of his shadows, all the effect has
+been evidently given by a dash of very moist pale color, probably
+turning the paper upside down, so that a very firm edge may be left at
+the top of the mountain as the color dries. And in the Battle of Marengo
+we find the principle carried so far as to give nothing more than actual
+outline for the representation of the extreme distance, while all the
+other hills in the picture are distinctly darkest at the edge. This
+plate, though coarsely executed, is yet one of the noblest illustrations
+of mountain character and magnitude existing.
+
+
+§ 19. Effects of snow, how imperfectly studied.
+
+Such, then, are the chief characteristics of the highest peaks and
+extreme distances of all hills, as far as the forms of the rocks
+themselves, and the aerial appearances especially belonging to them, are
+alone concerned. There is, however, yet another point to be
+considered--the modification of their form caused by incumbent snow.
+
+Pictures of winter scenery are nearly as common as moonlights, and are
+usually executed by the same order of artists, that is to say, the most
+incapable; it being remarkably easy to represent the moon as a white
+wafer on a black ground, or to scratch out white branches on a cloudy
+sky. Nevertheless, among Flemish paintings several valuable
+representations of winter are to be found, and some clever pieces of
+effect among the moderns, as Hunt's, for instance, and De Wint's. But
+all such efforts end in effect alone, nor have I ever in any single
+instance seen a snow _wreath_, I do not say thoroughly, but even
+decently, drawn.
+
+In the range of inorganic nature, I doubt if any object can be found
+more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snow-drift, seen under warm
+light.[54] Its curves are of inconceivable perfection and changefulness,
+its surface and transparency alike exquisite, its light and shade of
+inexhaustible variety and inimitable finish, the shadows sharp, pale,
+and of heavenly color, the reflected lights intense and multitudinous,
+and mingled with the sweet occurrences of transmitted light. No mortal
+hand can approach the majesty or loveliness of it, yet it is possible by
+care and skill at least to suggest the preciousness of its forms and
+intimate the nature of its light and shade; but this has never been
+attempted; it could not be done except by artists of a rank exceedingly
+high, and there is something about the feeling of snow in ordinary
+scenery which such men do not like. But when the same qualities are
+exhibited on a magnificent Alpine scale and in a position where they
+interfere with no feeling of life, I see not why they should be
+neglected, as they have hitherto been, unless that the difficulty of
+reconciling the brilliancy of snow with a picturesque light and shade,
+is so great that most good artists disguise or avoid the greater part of
+upper Alpine scenery, and hint at the glacier so slightly, that they do
+not feel the necessity of careful study of its forms. Habits of
+exaggeration increase the evil: I have seen a sketch from nature, by one
+of the most able of our landscape painters, in which a cloud had been
+mistaken for a snowy summit, and the hint thus taken exaggerated, as was
+likely, into an enormous mass of impossible height, and unintelligent
+form, when the mountain itself, for which the cloud had been mistaken,
+though subtending an angle of about eighteen or twenty degrees, instead
+of the fifty attributed to it, was of a form so exquisite that it might
+have been a profitable lesson truly studied to Phidias. Nothing but
+failure can result from such methods of sketching, nor have I ever seen
+a single instance of an earnest study of snowy mountains by any one.
+Hence, wherever they are introduced, their drawing is utterly
+unintelligent, the forms being those of white rocks, or of rocks lightly
+powdered with snow, showing sufficiently that not only the painters have
+never studied the mountain carefully from below, but that they have
+never climbed into the snowy region. Harding's rendering of the high
+Alps (_vide_ the engraving of Chamonix, and of the Wengern Alp, in the
+illustrations to Byron) is best; but even he shows no perception of the
+real anatomy. Stanfield paints only white rocks instead of snow. Turner
+invariably avoids the difficulty, though he has shown himself capable of
+grappling with it in the ice of the Liber Studiorum, (Mer de Glace,)
+which is very cold and slippery and very like ice; but of the crusts and
+wreaths of the higher snow he has taken no cognizance. Even the
+vignettes to Rogers's Poems fail in this respect. It would be vain to
+attempt in this place to give any detailed account of the phenomena of
+the upper snows; but it may be well to note those general principles
+which every artist ought to keep in mind when he has to paint an Alp.
+
+
+§ 20. General principles of its forms on the Alps.
+
+Snow is modified by the under forms of the hill in some sort, as dress
+is by the anatomy of the human frame. And as no dress can be well laid
+on without conceiving the body beneath, so no Alp can be drawn unless
+its under form is conceived first, and its snow laid on afterwards.
+
+Every high Alp has as much snow upon it as it can hold or carry. It is
+not, observe, a mere coating of snow of given depth throughout, but it
+is snow loaded on until the rocks can hold no more. The surplus does not
+fall in the winter, because, fastened by continual frost, the quantity
+of snow which an Alp can carry is greater than each single winter can
+bestow; it falls in the first mild days of spring in enormous
+avalanches. Afterwards the melting continues, gradually removing from
+all the steep rocks the small quantity of snow which was all they could
+hold, and leaving them black and bare among the accumulated fields of
+unknown depth, which occupy the capacious valleys and less inclined
+superfices of the mountain.
+
+Hence it follows that the deepest snow does not take nor indicate the
+actual forms of the rocks on which it lies, but it hangs from peak to
+peak in unbroken and sweeping festoons, or covers whole groups of peaks,
+which afford it sufficient hold, with vast and unbroken domes: these
+festoons and domes being guided in their curves, and modified in size,
+by the violence and prevalent direction of the winter winds.
+
+We have, therefore, every variety of indication of the under mountain
+form; first, the mere coating, which is soon to be withdrawn, and which
+shows as a mere sprinkling or powdering after a storm on the higher
+peaks; then the shallow incrustation on the steep sides glazed by the
+running down of its frequent meltings, frozen again in the night; then
+the deep snow more or less cramped or modified by sudden eminences of
+emergent rock, or hanging in fractured festoons and huge blue irregular
+cliffs on the mountain flanks, and over the edges and summits of their
+precipices in nodding drifts, far overhanging, like a cornice, (perilous
+things to approach the edge of from above;) finally, the pure
+accumulation of overwhelming depth, smooth, sweeping, and almost
+cleftless, and modified only by its lines of drifting. Countless
+phenomena of exquisite beauty belong to each of these conditions, not to
+speak of the transition of the snow into ice at lower levels; but all on
+which I shall at present insist is that the artist should not think of
+his Alp merely as a white mountain, but conceive it as a group of peaks
+loaded with an accumulation of snow, and that especially he should avail
+himself of the exquisite curvatures, never failing, by which the snow
+unites and opposes the harsh and broken lines of the rock. I shall enter
+into farther detail on this subject hereafter; at present it is useless
+to do so, as I have no examples to refer to, either in ancient or modern
+art. No statement of these facts has hitherto been made, nor any
+evidence given even of their observation, except by the most inferior
+painters.[55]
+
+
+§ 21. Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has scarcely yet
+        been caught.
+
+Various works in green and white appear from time to time on the walls
+of the Academy, _like_ the Alps indeed, but so frightfully like, that we
+shudder and sicken at the sight of them, as we do when our best friend
+shows us into his dining-room, to see a portrait of himself, which
+"everybody thinks very like." We should be glad to see fewer of these,
+for Switzerland is quite beyond the power of any but first-rate men, and
+is exceedingly bad practice for a rising artist; but, let us express a
+hope that Alpine scenery will not continue to be neglected as it has
+been, by those who alone are capable of treating it. We love Italy, but
+we have had rather a surfeit of it lately;--too many peaked caps and
+flat-headed pines. We should be very grateful to Harding and Stanfield
+if they would refresh us a little among the snow, and give us, what we
+believe them to be capable of giving us, a faithful expression of Alpine
+ideal. We are well aware of the pain inflicted on an artist's mind by
+the preponderance of black, and white, and green, over more available
+colors; but there is nevertheless in generic Alpine scenery, a fountain
+of feeling yet unopened--a chord of harmony yet untouched by art. It
+will be struck by the first man who can separate what is national, in
+Switzerland, from what is ideal. We do not want chalets and three-legged
+stools, cow-bells and buttermilk. We want the pure and holy hills,
+treated as a link between heaven and earth.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [53] One of the most genuine Claudes I know.
+
+  [54] Compare Part III. Sect. I. Chap. 9, § 5.
+
+  [55] I hear of some study of Alpine scenery among the professors at
+    Geneva; but all foreign landscape that I have ever met with has been
+    so utterly ignorant that I hope for nothing except from our own
+    painters.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                          OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+§ 1. The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central by being
+       divided into beds.
+
+We have next to investigate the character of those intermediate masses
+which constitute the greater part of all hill scenery, forming the
+outworks of the high ranges, and being almost the sole constituents of
+such lower groups as those of Cumberland, Scotland, or South Italy.
+
+All mountains whatsoever, not composed of the granite or gneiss rocks
+described in the preceding chapter, nor volcanic, (these latter being
+comparatively rare,) are composed of _beds_, not of homogeneous, heaped
+materials, but of accumulated layers, whether of rock or soil. It may be
+slate, sandstone, limestone, gravel, or clay; but whatever the
+substance, it is laid in layers, not in a mass. These layers are
+scarcely ever horizontal, and may slope to any degree, often occurring
+vertical, the boldness of the hill outline commonly depending in a great
+degree on their inclination. In consequence of this division into beds,
+every mountain will have two great sets of lines more or less prevailing
+in its contours--one indicative of the surfaces of the beds, where they
+come out from under each other--and the other indicative of the
+extremities or edges of the beds, where their continuity has been
+interrupted. And these two great sets of lines will commonly be at right
+angles with each other, or nearly so. If the surface of the bed approach
+a horizontal line, its termination will approach the vertical, and this
+is the most usual and ordinary way in which a precipice is produced.
+
+
+§ 2. Farther division of these beds by joints.
+
+Farther, in almost all rocks there is a third division of substance,
+which gives to their beds a tendency to split transversely in some
+directions rather than others, giving rise to what geologists call
+"joints," and throwing the whole rock into blocks more or less
+rhomboidal; so that the beds are not terminated by torn or ragged edges,
+but by faces comparatively smooth and even, usually inclined to each
+other at some definite angle. The whole arrangement may be tolerably
+represented by the bricks of a wall, whose tiers may be considered as
+strata, and whose sides and extremities will represent the joints by
+which those strata are divided, varying, however, their direction in
+different rocks, and in the same rock under differing circumstances.
+
+
+§ 3. And by lines of lamination.
+
+Finally, in the slates, grauwackes, and some calcareous beds, in the
+greater number, indeed, of _mountain_ rocks, we find another most
+conspicuous feature of general structure--the lines of lamination, which
+divide the whole rock into an infinite number of delicate plates or
+layers, sometimes parallel to the direction or "strike" of the strata,
+oftener obliquely crossing it, and sometimes, apparently, altogether
+independent of it, maintaining a consistent and unvarying slope through
+a series of beds contorted and undulating in every conceivable
+direction. These lines of lamination extend their influence to the
+smallest fragment, causing it (as, for example, common roofing slate) to
+break smooth in one direction, and with a ragged edge in another, and
+marking the faces of the beds and joints with distinct and numberless
+lines, commonly far more conspicuous in a near view than the larger and
+more important divisions.
+
+
+§ 4. Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are
+       manifested.
+
+Now, it cannot be too carefully held in mind, in examining the
+principles of mountain structure, that nearly all the laws of nature
+with respect to external form are rather universal tendencies, evidenced
+by a plurality of instances, than imperative necessities complied with
+by all. For instance, it may be said to be a universal law with respect
+to the boughs of all trees that they incline their extremities more to
+the ground in proportion as they are lower on the trunk, and that the
+higher their point of insertion is, the more they share in the upward
+tendency of the trunk itself. But yet there is not a single group of
+boughs in any one tree which does not show exceptions to the rule, and
+present boughs lower in insertion, and yet steeper in inclination, than
+their neighbors. Nor is this defect or deformity, but the result of the
+constant habit of nature to carry variety into her very principles, and
+make the symmetry and beauty of her laws the more felt by the grace and
+accidentalism with which they are carried out. No one familiar with
+foliage could doubt for an instant of the necessity of giving evidence
+of this downward tendency in the boughs; but it would be nearly as great
+an offence against truth to make the law hold good with every individual
+branch, as not to exhibit its influence on the majority. Now, though the
+laws of mountain form are more rigid and constant than those of
+vegetation, they are subject to the same species of exception in
+carrying out. Though every mountain has these great tendencies in its
+lines, not one in a thousand of those lines is absolutely consistent
+with and obedient to this universal tendency. There are lines in every
+direction, and of almost every kind, but the sum and aggregate of those
+lines will invariably indicate the _universal_ force and influence to
+which they are all subjected; and of these lines there will, I repeat,
+be two principal sets or classes, pretty nearly at right angles with
+each other. When both are inclined, they give rise to peaks or ridges;
+when one is nearly horizontal and the other vertical, to table-lands and
+precipices.
+
+This then is the broad organization of all hills, modified afterwards by
+time and weather, concealed by superincumbent soil and vegetation, and
+ramified into minor and more delicate details in a way presently to be
+considered, but nevertheless universal in its great first influence, and
+giving to all mountains a particular cast and inclination; like the
+exertion of voluntary power in a definite direction, an internal spirit,
+manifesting itself in every crag, and breathing in every slope, flinging
+and forcing the mighty mass towards the heaven with an expression and an
+energy like that of life.
+
+
+§ 5. The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin.
+
+Now, as in the case of the structure of the central peaks described
+above, so also here, if I had to give a clear idea of this organization
+of the lower hills, where it is seen in its greatest perfection, with a
+mere view to geological truth, I should not refer to any geological
+drawings, but I should take the Loch Coriskin of Turner. It has luckily
+been admirably engraved, and for all purposes of reasoning or form, is
+nearly as effective in the print as in the drawing. Looking at any group
+of the multitudinous lines which make up this mass of mountain, they
+appear to be running anywhere and everywhere; there are none parallel to
+each other, none resembling each other for a moment; yet the whole mass
+is felt at once to be composed with the most rigid parallelism, the
+surfaces of the beds towards the left, their edges or escarpments
+towards the right. In the centre, near the top of the ridge, the edge of
+a bed is beautifully defined, casting its shadow on the surface of the
+one beneath it; this shadow marking by three jags the chasms caused in
+the inferior one by three of its parallel joints. Every peak in the
+distance is evidently subject to the same great influence, and the
+evidence is completed by the flatness and evenness of the steep surfaces
+of the beds which rise out of the lake on the extreme right, parallel
+with those in the centre.
+
+
+§ 6. Glencoe and other works.
+
+§ 7. Especially the Mount Lebanon.
+
+Turn to Glencoe, in the same series (the Illustrations to Scott). We
+have in the mass of mountain on the left, the most beautiful indication
+of vertical beds of a finely laminated rock, terminated by even joints
+towards the precipice; while the whole sweep of the landscape, as far as
+the most distant peaks, is evidently governed by one great and simple
+tendency upwards to the left, those most distant peaks themselves lying
+over one another in the same direction. In the Daphne hunting with
+Leucippus, the mountains on the left descend in two precipices to the
+plain, each of which is formed by a vast escarpment of the beds whose
+upper surfaces are shown between the two cliffs, sinking with an even
+slope from the summit of the lowest to the base of the highest, under
+which they evidently descend, being exposed in this manner for a length
+of five or six miles. The same structure is shown, though with more
+complicated development, on the left of the Loch Katrine. But perhaps
+the finest instance, or at least the most marked of all, will be found
+in the exquisite Mount Lebanon, with the convent of St. Antonio,
+engraved in Finden's Bible. There is not one shade nor touch on the rock
+which is not indicative of the lines of stratification; and every
+fracture is marked with a straightforward simplicity which makes you
+feel that the artist has nothing in his heart but a keen love of the
+pure unmodified truth; there is no effort to disguise the repetition of
+forms, no apparent aim at artificial arrangement or scientific grouping;
+the rocks are laid one above another with unhesitating decision; every
+shade is understood in a moment, felt as a dark side, or a shadow, or a
+fissure, and you may step from one block or bed to another until you
+reach the mountain summit. And yet, though there seems no effort to
+disguise the repetition of forms, see how it _is_ disguised, just as
+nature would have done it, by the perpetual play and changefulness of
+the very lines which appear so parallel; now bending a little up, or
+down, or losing themselves, or running into each other, the old story
+over and over again,--infinity. For here is still the great distinction
+between Turner's work and that of a common artist. Hundreds could have
+given the parallelism of blocks, but none but himself could have done so
+without the actual repetition of a single line or feature.
+
+
+§ 8. Compared with the work of Salvator;
+
+Now compare with this the second mountain from the left in the picture
+of Salvator, No. 220 in the Dulwich Gallery. The whole is first laid in
+with a very delicate and masterly gray, right in tone, agreeable in
+color, quite unobjectionable for a beginning. But how is this made into
+rock? On the light side Salvator gives us a multitude of touches, all
+exactly like one another, and therefore, it is to be hoped, quite
+patterns of perfection in rock-drawing, since they are too good to be
+even varied. Every touch is a dash of the brush, as nearly as possible
+in the shape of a comma, round and bright at the top, convex on its
+right side, concave on its left, and melting off at the bottom into the
+gray. These are laid in confusion one above another, some paler, some
+brighter, some scarcely discernible, but all alike in shape. Now, I am
+not aware myself of any particular object, either in earth or heaven,
+which these said touches do at all resemble or portray. I do not,
+however, assert that they may not resemble something--feathers, perhaps;
+but I do say, and say with perfect confidence, that they may be Chinese
+for rocks, or Sanscrit for rocks, or symbolical of rocks in some
+mysterious and undeveloped character; but that they are no more _like_
+rocks than the brush that made them. The dark sides appear to embrace
+and overhang the lights; they cast no shadows, are broken by no
+fissures, and furnish, as food for contemplation, nothing but a series
+of concave curves.
+
+
+§ 9. And of Poussin.
+
+Yet if we go on to No. 269, we shall find something a great deal worse.
+I can believe Gaspar Poussin capable of committing as much sin against
+nature as most people; but I certainly do not suspect him of having had
+any hand in this thing, at least after he was ten years old.
+Nevertheless, it shows what he is supposed capable of by his admirers,
+and will serve for a broad illustration of all those absurdities which
+he himself in a less degree, and with feeling and thought to atone for
+them, perpetually commits. Take the white bit of rock on the opposite
+side of the river, just above the right arm of the Niobe, and tell me of
+what the square green daubs of the brush at its base can be conjectured
+to be typical. Rocks with pale-brown light sides, and rich green dark
+sides, are a phenomenon perhaps occurring in some of the improved
+passages of nature among our Cumberland lakes; where I remember once
+having seen a bed of roses, of peculiar magnificence, tastefully and
+artistically assisted in effect by the rocks above it being painted pink
+to match; but I do not think that they are a kind of thing which the
+clumsiness and false taste of nature can be supposed frequently to
+produce; even granting that these same sweeps of the brush could, by any
+exercise of the imagination, be conceived representative of a dark, or
+any other side, which is far more than I am inclined to grant; seeing
+that there is no east shadow, no appearance of reflected light, of
+substance, or of character on the edge; nothing, in short, but pure,
+staring green paint, scratched heavily on a white ground. Nor is there a
+touch in the picture more expressive. All are the mere dragging of the
+brush here and there and everywhere, without meaning or intention;
+winding, twisting, zigzagging, doing anything in fact which may serve to
+break up the light and destroy its breadth, without bestowing in return
+one hint or shadow of anything like form. This picture is, indeed, an
+extraordinary case, but the Salvator above mentioned is a characteristic
+and exceedingly favorable example of the usual mode of mountain drawing
+among the old landscape painters.[56] Their admirers may be challenged
+to bring forward a single instance of their expressing, or even
+appearing to have noted, the great laws of structure above explained.
+Their hills are, without exception, irregular earthy heaps, without
+energy or direction of any kind, marked with shapeless shadows and
+meaningless lines; sometimes, indeed, where great sublimity has been
+aimed at, approximating to the pure and exalted ideal of rocks, which,
+in the most artistical specimens of China cups and plates, we see
+suspended from aerial pagodas, or balanced upon peacocks' tails, but
+never warranting even the wildest theorist in the conjecture that their
+perpetrators had ever seen a mountain in their lives. Let us, however,
+look farther into the modifications of character by which nature
+conceals the regularity of her first plan; for although all mountains
+are organized as we have seen, their organization is always modified,
+and often nearly concealed, by changes wrought upon them by external
+influence.
+
+
+§ 10. Effects of external influence on mountain form.
+
+We ought, when speaking of their stratification, to have noticed another
+great law, which must, however, be understood with greater latitude of
+application than any of the others, as very far from imperative or
+constant in particular cases, though universal in its influence on the
+aggregate of all. It is that the lines by which rocks are terminated,
+are always steeper and more inclined to the vertical as we approach the
+summit of the mountain. Thousands of cases are to be found in every
+group, of rocks and lines horizontal at the top of the mountain and
+vertical at the bottom; but they are still the exceptions, and the
+average out of a given number of lines in any rock formation whatsoever,
+will be found increasing in perpendicularity as they rise. Consequently
+the great skeleton lines of rock outline are always concave; that is to
+say, all distant ranges of rocky mountain approximate more or less to a
+series of concave curves, meeting in peaks, like a range of posts with
+chains hanging between. I do not say that convex forms will not
+perpetually occur, but that the tendency of the majority will always be
+to assume the form of sweeping, curved valleys, with angular peaks; not
+of rounded convex summits, with angular valleys. This structure is
+admirably exemplified in the second vignette in Rogers's Italy, and in
+Piacenza.
+
+
+§ 11. The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion.
+
+But although this is the primary form of all hills, and that which will
+always cut against the sky in every distant range, there are two great
+influences whose tendency is directly the reverse, and which modify, to
+a great degree, both the evidences of stratification and this external
+form. These are aqueous erosion and disintegration. The latter only is
+to be taken into consideration when we have to do with minor features of
+crag; but the former is a force in constant action--of the very utmost
+importance--a force to which one-half of the great outlines of all
+mountains is entirely owing, and which has much influence upon every one
+of their details.
+
+Now the tendency of aqueous action over a large elevated surface is
+_always_ to make that surface symmetrically and evenly convex and
+dome-like, sloping gradually more and more as it descends, until it
+reaches an inclination of about 40°, at which slope it will descend
+perfectly straight to the valley; for at that slope the soil washed from
+above will accumulate upon the hill-side, as it cannot lie in steeper
+beds. This influence, then, is exercised more or less on all mountains,
+with greater or less effect in proportion as the rock is harder or
+softer, more or less liable to decomposition, more or less recent in
+date of elevation, and more or less characteristic in its original
+forms; but it universally induces, in the lower parts of mountains, a
+series of the most exquisitely symmetrical convex curves, terminating,
+as they descend to the valley, in uniform and uninterrupted slopes; this
+symmetrical structure being perpetually interrupted by cliffs and
+projecting masses, which give evidence of the interior parallelism of
+the mountain anatomy, but which interrupt the convex forms more
+frequently by rising out of them, than by indentation.
+
+
+§ 12. And the effect of the action of torrents.
+
+There remains but one fact more to be noticed. All mountains, in some
+degree, but especially those which are composed of soft or decomposing
+substance, are delicately and symmetrically furrowed by the descent of
+streams. The traces of their action commence at the very summits, fine
+threads, and multitudinous, like the uppermost branches of a delicate
+tree. They unite in groups as they descend, concentrating gradually into
+dark undulating ravines, into which the body of the mountain descends on
+each side, at first in a convex curve, but at the bottom with the same
+uniform slope on each side which it assumes in its final descent to the
+plain, unless the rock be very hard, when the stream will cut itself a
+vertical chasm at the bottom of the curves, and there will be no even
+slope.[57] If, on the other hand, the rock be very soft, the slopes will
+increase rapidly in height and depth from day to day; washed away at the
+bottom and crumbling at the top, until, by their reaching the summit of
+the masses of rock which separate the active torrents, the whole
+mountain is divided into a series of penthouse-like ridges, all guiding
+to its summit, and becoming steeper and narrower as they ascend; these
+in their turn being divided by similar, but smaller ravines--caused in
+the same manner--into the same kind of ridges; and these again by
+another series, the arrangement being carried finer and farther
+according to the softness of the rock. The south side of Saddleback, in
+Cumberland, is a characteristic example; and the Montagne du Tacondy, in
+Chamonix, a noble instance of one of these ridges or buttresses, with
+all its subdivisions, on a colossal scale.
+
+
+§ 13. The exceeding simplicity of contour caused by these influences.
+
+§ 14. And multiplicity of feature.
+
+Now we wish to draw especial attention to the broad and bold simplicity
+of mass, and the excessive complication of details, which influences
+like these, acting on an enormous scale, must inevitably produce in all
+mountain groups; because each individual part and promontory, being
+compelled to assume the same symmetrical curves as its neighbors, and to
+descend at precisely the same slope to the valley, falls in with their
+prevailing lines, and becomes a part of a great and harmonious whole,
+instead of an unconnected and discordant individual. It is true that
+each of these members has its own touches of specific character, its own
+projecting crags and peculiar hollows; but by far the greater portion of
+its lines will be such as unite with, though they do not repeat, those
+of its neighbors, and carry out the evidence of one great influence and
+spirit to the limits of the scene. This effort is farther aided by the
+original unity and connection of the rocks themselves, which though it
+often may be violently interrupted, is never without evidence of
+existence; for the very interruption itself forces the eye to feel that
+there is something to be interrupted, a sympathy and similarity of
+lines and fractures, which, however full of variety and change of
+direction, never lose the appearance of symmetry of one kind or another.
+But, on the other hand, it is to be remembered that these great
+sympathizing masses are not one mountain, but a thousand mountains; that
+they are originally composed of a multitude of separate eminences, hewn
+and chiselled indeed into associating form, but each retaining still its
+marked points and features of character,--that each of these individual
+members has, by the very process which assimilated it to the rest, been
+divided and subdivided into equally multitudinous groups of minor
+mountains; finally, that the whole complicated system is interrupted
+forever and ever by daring manifestations of the inward mountain
+will--by the precipice which has submitted to no modulation of the
+torrent, and the peak which has bowed itself to no terror of the storm.
+Hence we see that the same imperative laws which require perfect
+simplicity of mass, require infinite and termless complication of
+detail,--that there will not be an inch nor a hairbreadth of the
+gigantic heap which has not its touch of separate character, its own
+peculiar curve, stealing out for an instant and then melting into the
+common line; felt for a moment by the blue mist of the hollow beyond,
+then lost when it crosses the enlightened slope,--that all this
+multiplicity will be grouped into larger divisions, each felt by their
+increasing aerial perspective, and their instants of individual form,
+these into larger, and these into larger still, until all are merged in
+the great impression and prevailing energy of the two or three vast
+dynasties which divide the kingdom of the scene.
+
+
+§ 15. Both utterly neglected in ancient art.
+
+There is no vestige nor shadow of approach to such treatment as this in
+the whole compass of ancient art. Whoever the master, his hills,
+wherever he has attempted them, have not the slightest trace of
+association or connection; they are separate, conflicting, confused,
+petty and paltry heaps of earth; there is no marking of distances or
+divisions in their body; they may have holes in them, but no
+valleys,--protuberances and excrescences, but no parts; and in
+consequence are invariably diminutive and contemptible in their whole
+appearance and impression.
+
+
+§ 16. The fidelity of treatment in Turner's Daphne and Leucippas.
+
+But look at the mass of mountain on the right in Turner's Daphne hunting
+with Leucippus. It is simple, broad, and united as one surge of a
+swelling sea; it rises in an unbroken line along the valley, and lifts
+its promontories with an equal slope. But it contains in its body ten
+thousand hills. There is not a quarter of an inch of its surface without
+its suggestion of increasing distance and individual form. First, on the
+right, you have a range of tower-like precipices, the clinging wood
+climbing along their ledges and cresting their summits, white waterfalls
+gleaming through its leaves; not, as in Claude's scientific ideals,
+poured in vast torrents over the top, and carefully keeping all the way
+down on the most projecting parts of the sides; but stealing down,
+traced from point to point, through shadow after shadow, by their
+evanescent foam and flashing light,--here a wreath, and there a
+ray,--through the deep chasms and hollow ravines, out of which rise the
+soft rounded slopes of mightier mountain, surge beyond surge, immense
+and numberless, of delicate and gradual curve, accumulating in the sky
+until their garment of forest is exchanged for the shadowy fold of
+slumbrous morning cloud, above which the utmost silver peak shines
+islanded and alone. Put what mountain painting you will beside this, of
+any other artist, and its heights will look like mole-hills in
+comparison, because it will not have the unity nor the multiplicity
+which are in nature, and with Turner, the signs of size.
+
+
+§ 17. And in the Avalanche and Inundation.
+
+Again, in the Avalanche and Inundation, we have for the whole subject
+nothing but one vast bank of united mountain, and one stretch of
+uninterrupted valley. Though the bank is broken into promontory beyond
+promontory, peak above peak, each the abode of a new tempest, the
+arbiter of a separate desolation, divided from each other by the rushing
+of the snow, by the motion of the storm, by the thunder of the torrent;
+the mighty unison of their dark and lofty line, the brotherhood of ages,
+is preserved unbroken; and the broad valley at their feet, though
+measured league after league away by a thousand passages of sun and
+darkness, and marked with fate beyond fate of hamlet and of inhabitant,
+lies yet but as a straight and narrow channel, a filling furrow before
+the flood. Whose work will you compare with this? Salvator's gray heaps
+of earth, seven yards high, covered with bunchy brambles, that we may be
+under no mistake about the size, thrown about at random in a little
+plain, beside a zigzagging river, just wide enough to admit of the
+possibility of there being fish in it, and with banks just broad enough
+to allow the respectable angler or hermit to sit upon them conveniently
+in the foreground? Is there more of nature in such paltriness, think
+you, than in the valley and the mountain which bend to each other like
+the trough of the sea; with the flank of the one swept in one surge into
+the height of heaven, until the pine forests lie on its immensity like
+the shadows of narrow clouds, and the hollow of the other laid league by
+league into the blue of the air, until its white villages flash in the
+distance only like the fall of a sunbeam?
+
+
+§ 18. The rarity among secondary hills of steep slopes or high
+        precipices.
+
+But let us examine by what management of the details themselves this
+wholeness and vastness of effect are given. We have just seen (§ 11)
+that it is impossible for the slope of a mountain, not actually a
+precipice of rock, to exceed 35° or among secondary 40°, and that by far
+the greater part of all hill-surface is composed of graceful curves of
+much less degree than this, reaching 40° only as their ultimate and
+utmost inclination. It must be farther observed that the interruptions
+to such curves, by precipices or steps, are always small in proportion
+to the slopes themselves. Precipices rising vertically more than 100
+feet are very rare among the secondary hills of which we are speaking. I
+am not aware of any cliff in England or Wales where a plumb-line can
+swing clear for 200 feet; and even although sometimes, with intervals,
+breaks, and steps, we get perhaps 800 feet of a slope of 60° or 70°, yet
+not only are these cases very rare, but even these have little influence
+on the great contours of a mountain 4000 or 5000 feet in elevation,
+being commonly balanced by intervals of ascent not exceeding 6° or 8°.
+The result of which is, first, that the peaks and precipices of a
+mountain appear as little more than jags or steps emerging from its
+great curves; and, secondly, that the bases of all hills are enormously
+extensive as compared with their elevation, so that there must be always
+a horizontal distance between the observer and the summit five or six
+times exceeding the perpendicular one.
+
+
+§ 19. And consequent expression of horizontal distance in their ascent.
+
+Now it is evident, that whatever the actual angle of elevation of the
+mountain may be, every exhibition of this horizontal distance between us
+and the summit is an addition to its height, and of course to its
+impressiveness; while every endeavor to exhibit its slope as steep and
+sudden, is diminution at once of its distance and elevation. In
+consequence nature is constantly endeavoring to impress upon us this
+horizontal distance, which, even in spite of all her means of
+manifesting it, we are apt to forget or underestimate; and all her
+noblest effects depend on the full measurement and feeling of it. And it
+is to the abundant and marvellous expression of it by Turner, that I
+would direct especial attention, as being that which is in itself
+demonstrative of the highest knowledge and power--knowledge, in the
+constant use of lines of subdued slope in preference to steep or violent
+ascents, and in the perfect subjection of all such features, when they
+necessarily occur, to the larger masses; and power, in the inimitable
+statements of retiring space by mere painting of surface details,
+without the aid of crossing shadows, divided forms, or any other
+artifice.
+
+
+§ 20. Full statement of all these facts in various works of Turner,
+        Caudebec, etc.
+
+The Caudebec, in the Rivers of France, is a fine instance of almost
+every fact which we have been pointing out. We have in it, first, the
+clear expression of what takes place constantly among hills,--that the
+river, as it passes through the valley, will fall backwards and forwards
+from side to side, lying first, if I may so speak, with all its weight
+against the hills on the one side, and then against those on the other;
+so that, as here it is exquisitely told, in each of its circular sweeps
+the whole force of its current is brought deep and close to the bases of
+the hills, while the water on the side next the plain is shallow,
+deepening gradually. In consequence of this, the hills are cut away at
+their bases by the current, so that their slopes are interrupted by
+precipices mouldering to the water. Observe first, how nobly Turner has
+given us the perfect unity of the whole mass of hill, making us
+understand that every ravine in it has been cut gradually by streams.
+The first eminence, beyond the city, is not disjointed from, or
+independent of, the one succeeding, but evidently part of the same
+whole, originally united, separated only by the action of the stream
+between. The association of the second and third is still more clearly
+told, for we see that there has been a little longitudinal valley
+running along the brow of their former united mass, which, after the
+ravine had been cut between, formed the two jags which Turner has given
+us at the same point in each of their curves. This great triple group
+has, however, been originally distinct from those beyond it; for we see
+that these latter are only the termination of the enormous even slope,
+which appears again on the extreme right, having been interrupted by the
+rise of the near hills. Observe how the descent of the whole series is
+kept gentle and subdued, never suffered to become steep except where it
+has been cut away by the river, the sudden precipice caused by which is
+exquisitely marked in the last two promontories, where they are defined
+against the bright horizon; and, finally, observe how, in the ascent of
+the nearest eminence beyond the city, without one cast shadow or any
+division of distances, every yard of surface is felt to be retiring by
+the mere painting of its details,--how we are permitted to walk up it,
+and along its top, and are carried, before we are half way up, a league
+or two forward into the picture. The difficulty of doing this, however,
+can scarcely be appreciated except by an artist.
+
+
+§ 21. The use of considering geological truths.
+
+I do not mean to assert that this great painter is acquainted with the
+geological laws and facts he has thus illustrated; I am not aware
+whether he be or not; I merely wish to demonstrate, in points admitting
+of demonstration, that intense observation of, and strict adherence to
+truth, which it is impossible to demonstrate in its less tangible and
+more delicate manifestations. However I may _feel_ the truth of every
+touch and line, I cannot _prove_ truth, except in large and general
+features; and I leave it to the arbitration of every man's reason,
+whether it be not likely that the painter who is thus so rigidly
+faithful in great things that every one of his pictures might be the
+illustration of a lecture on the physical sciences, is not likely to be
+faithful also in small.
+
+
+§ 22. Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the work
+        of Claude.
+
+Honfleur, and the scene between Clairmont and Mauves, supply us with
+farther instances of the same grand simplicity of treatment; and the
+latter is especially remarkable for its expression of the furrowing of
+the hills by descending water, in the complete roundness and symmetry
+of their curves, and in the delicate and sharp shadows which are cast in
+the undulating ravines. It is interesting to compare with either of
+these noble works such hills as those of Claude, on the left of the
+picture marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery. There is no detail nor
+surface in one of them; not an inch of ground for us to stand upon; we
+must either sit astride upon the edge, or fall to the bottom. I could
+not point to a more complete instance of mountain calumniation; nor can
+I oppose it more completely, in every circumstance, than with the
+Honfleur of Turner, already mentioned; in which there is not one edge
+nor division admitted, and yet we are permitted to climb up the hill
+from the town, and pass far into the mist along its top, and so descend
+mile after mile along the ridge to seaward, until, without one break in
+the magnificent unity of progress, we are carried down to the utmost
+horizon. And contrast the brown paint of Claude, which you can only
+guess to be meant for rock or soil because it _is_ brown, with Turner's
+profuse, pauseless richness of feature, carried through all the enormous
+space--the unmeasured wealth of exquisite detail, over which the mind
+can dwell, and walk, and wander, and feast forever, without finding
+either one break in its vast simplicity, or one vacuity in its
+exhaustless splendor.
+
+
+§ 23. The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher hills.
+
+But these, and hundreds of others which it is sin not to dwell
+upon--wooded hills and undulating moors of North England--rolling surges
+of park and forest of the South--soft and vine-clad ranges of French
+coteaux, casting their oblique shadows on silver leagues of glancing
+rivers,--and olive-whitened promontories of Alp and Apennine, are only
+instances of Turner's management of the lower and softer hills. In the
+bolder examples of his powers, where he is dealing with lifted masses of
+enormous mountain, we shall still find him as cautious in his use of
+violent slopes or vertical lines, and still as studied in his expression
+of retiring surface. We never get to the top of one of his hills without
+being tired with our walk; not by the steepness, observe, but by the
+stretch; for we are carried up towards the heaven by such delicate
+gradation of line, that we scarcely feel that we have left the earth
+before we find ourselves among the clouds. The Skiddaw, in the
+illustrations to Scott, is a noble instance of this majestic moderation.
+The mountain lies in the morning light, like a level vapor; its gentle
+lines of ascent are scarcely felt by the eye; it rises without effort or
+exertion, by the mightiness of its mass; every slope is full of slumber;
+and we know not how it has been exalted, until we find it laid as a
+floor for the walking of the eastern clouds. So again in the Fort
+Augustus, where the whole elevation of the hills depends on the soft
+lines of swelling surface which undulate back through leagues of mist
+carrying us unawares higher and higher above the diminished lake, until,
+when we are all but exhausted with the endless distance, the mountains
+make their last spring, and bear us, in that instant of exertion, half
+way to heaven.
+
+
+§ 24. The peculiar difficulty of investigating the more essential truths
+        of hill outline.
+
+I ought perhaps rather to have selected, as instances of mountain form,
+such elaborate works as the Oberwesel or Lake of Uri, but I have before
+expressed my dislike of speaking of such magnificent pictures as these
+by parts. And indeed all proper consideration of the hill drawing of
+Turner must be deferred until we are capable of testing it by the
+principles of beauty; for, after all, the most essential qualities of
+line,--those on which all right delineation of mountain character must
+depend, are those which are only to be explained or illustrated by
+appeals to our feeling of what is beautiful. There is an expression and
+a feeling about all the hill lines of nature, which I think I shall be
+able, hereafter, to explain; but it is not to be reduced to line and
+rule--not to be measured by angles or described by compasses--not to be
+chipped out by the geologist, or equated by the mathematician. It is
+intangible, incalculable--a thing to be felt, not understood--to be
+loved, not comprehended--a music of the eyes, a melody of the heart,
+whose truth is known only by its sweetness.
+
+
+§ 25. Works of other modern artists. Clarkson Stanfield.
+
+§ 26. Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing.
+
+I can scarcely, without repeating myself to tediousness, enter at
+present into proper consideration of the mountain drawing of other
+modern painters. We have, fortunately, several by whom the noble truths
+which we have seen so fully exemplified by Turner are also deeply felt
+and faithfully rendered; though there is a necessity, for the perfect
+statement of them, of such an unison of freedom of thought with perfect
+mastery over the greatest mechanical difficulties, as we can scarcely
+hope to see attained by more than one man in our age. Very nearly the
+same words which we used in reference to Stanfield's drawings of the
+central clouds, might be applied to his rendering of mountain truth. He
+occupies exactly the same position with respect to other artists in
+earth as in cloud. None can be said really to _draw_ the mountain as he
+will, to have so perfect a mastery over its organic development; but
+there is, nevertheless, in all his works, some want of feeling and
+individuality. He has studied and mastered his subject to the bottom,
+but he trusts too much to that past study, and rather invents his hills
+from his possessed stores of knowledge, than expresses in them the fresh
+ideas received from nature. Hence, in all that he does, we feel a little
+too much that the hills are his own. We cannot swear to their being the
+particular crags and individual promontories which break the cone of
+Ischia, or shadow the waves of Maggiore. We are nearly sure, on the
+contrary, that nothing but the outline is local, and that all the
+filling up has been done in the study. Now, we have already shown (Sect.
+I. Chap. III.) that particular truths are more important than general
+ones, and this is just one of the cases in which that rule especially
+applies. Nothing is so great a sign of truth and beauty in mountain
+drawing as the appearance of individuality--nothing is so great a proof
+of real imagination and invention, as the appearance that nothing has
+been imagined or invented. We ought to feel of every inch of mountain,
+that it _must_ have existence in reality, that if we had lived near the
+place we should have known every crag of it, and that there must be
+people to whom every crevice and shadow of the picture is fraught with
+recollections, and colored with associations. The moment the artist can
+make us feel this--the moment he can make us think that _he_ has done
+nothing, that nature has done all--that moment he becomes ennobled, he
+proves himself great. As long as we remember him, we cannot respect him.
+We honor him most when we most forget him. He becomes great when he
+becomes invisible. And we may, perhaps, be permitted to express our hope
+that Mr. Stanfield will--our conviction that he must--if he would
+advance in his rank as an artist, attend more to local character, and
+give us generally less of the Stanfield limestone. He ought to study
+with greater attention the rocks which afford finer divisions and more
+delicate parts (slates and gneiss;) and he ought to observe more fondly
+and faithfully those beautiful laws and lines of swell and curvature, by
+intervals of which nature sets off and relieves the energy of her peaked
+outlines. He is at present apt to be too rugged, and, in consequence, to
+lose size. Of his best manner of drawing hills, I believe I can scarcely
+give a better example than the rocks of Suli, engraved in Finden's
+illustrations to Byron. It is very grand and perfect in all parts and
+points.
+
+
+§ 27. Works of Copley Fielding. His hill feeling.
+
+Copley Fielding is peculiarly graceful and affectionate in his drawing
+of the inferior mountains. But as with his clouds so with his hills; as
+long as he keeps to silvery films of misty outline, or purple shadows
+mingled with the evening light, he is true and beautiful; but the moment
+he withdraws the mass out of its veiling mystery, he is lost. His worst
+drawings, therefore, are those on which he has spent most time; for he
+is sure to show weakness wherever he gives detail. We believe that all
+his errors proceed, as we observed before, from his not working with the
+chalk or pencil; and that if he would paint half the number of pictures
+in the year which he usually produces, and spend his spare time in hard
+dry study of forms, the half he painted would be soon worth double the
+present value of all. For he really has deep and genuine feeling of hill
+character--a far higher perception of space, elevation, incorporeal
+color, and all those qualities which are the poetry of mountains, than
+any other of our water-color painters; and it is an infinite pity that
+he should not give to these delicate feelings the power of realization,
+which might be attained by a little labor. A few thorough studies of his
+favorite mountains, Ben-Venue or Ben-Cruachan, in clear, strong, front
+chiaroscuro, allowing himself neither color nor mist, nor any means of
+getting over the ground but downright drawing, would, we think, open his
+eyes to sources of beauty of which he now takes no cognizance. He ought
+not, however, to repeat the same subjects so frequently, as the casting
+about of the mind for means of varying them blunts the feelings to
+truth. And he should remember that an artist, who is not making
+progress, is nearly certain to be retrograding; and that progress is not
+to be made by working in the study, or by mere labor bestowed on the
+repetition of unchanging conceptions.
+
+
+§ 28. Works of J. D. Harding and others.
+
+J. D. Harding would paint mountains very nobly, if he made them of more
+importance in his compositions, but they are usually little more than
+backgrounds for his foliage or buildings; and it is his present system
+to make his backgrounds very slight. His color is very beautiful:
+indeed, both his and Fielding's are far more refined than Stanfield's.
+We wish he would oftener take up some wild subject dependent for
+interest on its mountain forms alone, as we should anticipate the
+highest results from his perfect drawing; and we think that such an
+exercise, occasionally gone completely through, would counteract a
+tendency which we perceive in his present distances, to become a little
+thin and cutting, if not incomplete.
+
+The late G. Robson was a man most thoroughly acquainted with all the
+characteristics of our own island hills; and some of the outlines of
+John Varley showed very grand feeling of energy of form.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [56] I have above exhausted all terms of vituperation, and probably
+    disgusted the reader; and yet I have not spoken with enough
+    severity: I know not any terms of blame that are bitter enough to
+    chastise justly the mountain drawings of Salvator in the pictures of
+    the Pitti Palace.
+
+  [57] Some terrific cuts and chasms of this kind occur on the north
+    side of the Valais, from Sion to Briey. The torrent from the great
+    Aletsch glacier descends through one of them. Elsewhere chasms may
+    be found as narrow, but few so narrow and deep.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+                             OF THE FOREGROUND.
+
+
+We have now only to observe the close characteristics of the rocks and
+soils to which the large masses of which we have been speaking, owe
+their ultimate characters.
+
+
+§ 1. What rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape
+       foreground.
+
+We have already seen that there exists a marked distinction between
+those stratified rocks whose beds are amorphous and without subdivision,
+as many limestones and sandstones, and those which are divided by lines
+of lamination, as all slates. The last kind of rock is the more frequent
+in nature, and forms the greater part of all hill scenery; it has,
+however, been successfully grappled with by few, even of the moderns,
+except Turner; while there is no single example of any aim at it or
+thought of it among the ancients, whose foregrounds, as far as it is
+possible to guess at their intention through their concentrated errors,
+are chosen from among the tufa and travertin of the lower Apennines,
+(the ugliest as well as the least characteristic rocks of nature,) and
+whose larger features of rock scenery, if we look at them with a
+predetermination to find in them a resemblance of _something_, may be
+pronounced at least liker the mountain limestone than anything else. I
+shall glance, therefore, at the general characters of these materials
+first, in order that we may be able to appreciate the fidelity of
+rock-drawing on which Salvator's reputation has been built.
+
+
+§ 2. Salvator's limestones. The real characters of the rock. Its
+       fractures and obtuseness of angles.
+
+The massive limestones separate generally into irregular blocks, tending
+to the form of cubes or parallelopipeds, and terminated by tolerably
+smooth planes. The weather, acting on the edges of these blocks, rounds
+them off; but the frost, which, while it cannot penetrate nor split the
+body of the stone, acts energetically on the angles, splits off the
+rounded fragments, and supplies sharp, fresh, and complicated edges.
+Hence the angles of such blocks are usually marked by a series of steps
+and fractures, in which the peculiar character of the rock is most
+distinctly seen; the effect being increased in many limestones by the
+interposition of two or three thinner beds between the large strata of
+which the block has been a part; these thin laminę breaking easily, and
+supplying a number of fissures and lines at the edge of the detached
+mass. Thus, as a general principle, if a rock have character anywhere,
+it will be on the angle, and however even and smooth its great planes
+may be, it will usually break into variety where it turns a corner. In
+one of the most exquisite pieces of rock truth ever put on canvas, the
+foreground of the Napoleon in the Academy, 1842, this principle was
+beautifully exemplified in the complicated fractures of the upper angle
+just where it turned from the light, while the planes of the rock were
+varied only by the modulation they owed to the waves. It follows from
+this structure that the edges of all rock being partially truncated,
+first by large fractures, and then by the rounding of the fine edges of
+these by the weather, perpetually present _convex_ transitions from the
+light to the dark side, the planes of the rock almost always swelling a
+little _from_ the angle.
+
+
+§ 3. Salvator's acute angles caused by the meeting of concave curves.
+
+Now it will be found throughout the works of Salvator, that his most
+usual practice was to give a _concave_ sweep of the brush for his first
+expression of the dark side, leaving the paint darkest towards the
+light; by which daring and original method of procedure he has succeeded
+in covering his foregrounds with forms which approximate to those of
+drapery, of ribbons, of crushed cocked hats, of locks of hair, of waves,
+leaves, or anything, in short, flexible or tough, but which of course
+are not only unlike, but directly contrary to the forms which nature has
+impressed on rocks.[58]
+
+
+§ 4. Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of nature.
+
+§ 5. Peculiar confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator.
+
+And the circular and sweeping strokes or stains which are dashed at
+random over their surfaces, only fail of destroying all resemblance
+whatever to rock structure from their frequent want of any meaning at
+all, and from the impossibility of our supposing any of them to be
+representative of shade. Now, if there be any part of landscape in which
+nature develops her principles of light and shade more clearly than
+another, it is rock; for the dark sides of fractured stone receive
+brilliant reflexes from the lighted surfaces, on which the shadows are
+marked with the most exquisite precision, especially because, owing to
+the parallelism of cleavage, the surfaces lie usually in directions
+nearly parallel. Hence every crack and fissure has its shadow and
+reflected light separated with the most delicious distinctness, and the
+organization and solid form of all parts are told with a decision of
+language, which, to be followed with anything like fidelity, requires
+the most transparent color, and the most delicate and scientific
+drawing. So far are the works of the old landscape-painters from
+rendering this, that it is exceedingly rare to find a single passage in
+which the shadow can even be distinguished from the dark side--they
+scarcely seem to know the one to be darker than the other; and the
+strokes of the brush are not used to explain or express a form known or
+conceived, but are dashed and daubed about without any aim beyond the
+covering of the canvas. "A rock," the old masters appear to say to
+themselves, "is a great irregular, formless, characterless lump; but it
+must have shade upon it, and any gray marks will do for that shade."
+
+
+§ 6. And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness.
+
+§ 7. Instances in particular pictures.
+
+Finally, while few, if any, of the rocks of nature are untraversed by
+delicate and slender fissures, whose black sharp lines are the only
+means by which the peculiar quality in which rocks most differ from the
+other objects of the landscape, brittleness, can be effectually
+suggested, we look in vain among the blots and stains with which the
+rocks of ancient art are loaded, for any vestige or appearance of
+fissure or splintering. Toughness and malleability appear to be the
+qualities whose expression is most aimed at; sometimes sponginess,
+softness, flexibility, tenuity, and occasionally transparency. Take, for
+instance, the foreground of Salvator, in No. 220 of the Dulwich Gallery.
+There is, on the right-hand side of it, an object, which I never walk
+through the room without contemplating for a minute or two with renewed
+solicitude and anxiety of mind, indulging in a series of very wild and
+imaginative conjectures as to its probable or possible meaning. I think
+there is reason to suppose that the artist intended it either for a very
+large stone, or for the trunk of a tree; but any decision as to its
+being either one or the other of these must, I conceive, be the extreme
+of rashness. It melts into the ground on one side, and might reasonably
+be conjectured to form a part of it, having no trace of woody structure
+or color; but on the other side it presents a series of concave curves,
+interrupted by cogs like those of a water-wheel, which the boldest
+theorist would certainly not feel himself warranted in supposing
+symbolical of rock. The forms which this substance, whatever it be,
+assumes, will be found repeated, though in a less degree, in the
+foreground of No. 159, where they are evidently meant for rock.
+
+
+§ 8. Compared with the works of Stanfield.
+
+§ 9. Their absolute opposition in every particular.
+
+Let us contrast with this system of rock-drawing, the faithful,
+scientific, and dexterous studies of nature which we find in the works
+of Clarkson Stanfield. He is a man especially to be opposed to the old
+masters, because he usually confines himself to the same rock subjects
+as they--the mouldering and furrowed crags of the secondary formation
+which arrange themselves more or less into broad and simple masses; and
+in the rendering of these it is impossible to go beyond him. Nothing can
+surpass his care, his firmness, or his success, in marking the distinct
+and sharp light and shade by which the form is explained, never
+confusing it with local color, however richly his surface-texture may be
+given; while the wonderful play of line with which he will vary, and
+through which he will indicate, the regularity of stratification, is
+almost as instructive as that of nature herself. I cannot point to any
+of his works as better or more characteristic than others; but his
+Ischia, in the present British Institution, may be taken as a fair
+average example. The Botallack Mine, Cornwall, engraved in the Coast
+Scenery, gives us a very finished and generic representation of rock,
+whose primal organization has been violently affected by external
+influences. We have the stratification and cleavage indicated at its
+base, every fissure being sharp, angular, and decisive, disguised
+gradually as it rises by the rounding of the surface and the successive
+furrows caused by the descent of streams. But the exquisite drawing of
+the foreground is especially worthy of notice. No huge concave sweeps of
+the brush, no daubing or splashing here. Every inch of it is brittle and
+splintery, and the fissures are explained to the eye by the most
+perfect, speaking light and shade,--we can stumble over the edges of
+them. The East Cliff, Hastings, is another very fine example, from the
+exquisite irregularity with which its squareness of general structure is
+varied and disguised. Observe how totally contrary every one of its
+lines is to the absurdities of Salvator. Stanfield's are all angular and
+straight, every apparent curve made up of right lines, while Salvator's
+are all sweeping and flourishing like so much penmanship. Stanfield's
+lines pass away into delicate splintery fissures. Salvator's are broad
+daubs throughout. Not one of Stanfield's lines is like another. Every
+one of Salvator's mocks all the rest. All Stanfield's curves, where his
+universal angular character is massed, as on the left-hand side, into
+large sweeping forms, are convex. Salvator's are every one concave.
+
+
+§ 10. The rocks of J. D. Harding.
+
+The foregrounds of J. D. Harding and rocks of his middle distances are
+also thoroughly admirable. He is not quite so various and undulating in
+his line as Stanfield, and sometimes, in his middle distances, is
+wanting in solidity, owing to a little confusion of the dark side and
+shadow with each other, or with the local color. But his work, in near
+passages of fresh-broken, sharp-edged rock, is absolute perfection,
+excelling Stanfield in the perfect freedom and facility with which his
+fragments are splintered and scattered; true in every line without the
+least apparent effort. Stanfield's best works are laborious, but
+Harding's rocks fall from under his hand as if they had just crashed
+down the hill-side, flying on the instant into lovely form. In color
+also he incomparably surpasses Stanfield, who is apt to verge upon mud,
+or be cold in his gray. The rich, lichenous, and changeful warmth, and
+delicate weathered grays of Harding's rock, illustrated as they are by
+the most fearless, firm, and unerring drawing, render his wild pieces of
+torrent shore the finest things, next to the work of Turner, in English
+foreground art.
+
+J. B. Pyne has very accurate knowledge of limestone rock, and expresses
+it clearly and forcibly; but it is much to be regretted that this clever
+artist appears to be losing all sense of color and is getting more and
+more mannered in execution, evidently never studying from nature except
+with the previous determination to Pynize everything.[59]
+
+
+§ 11. Characters of loose earth and soil.
+
+§ 12. Its exceeding grace and fulness of feature.
+
+Before passing to Turner, let us take one more glance at the foregrounds
+of the old masters, with reference, not to their management of rock,
+which is comparatively a rare component part of their foregrounds, but
+to the common soil which they were obliged to paint constantly, and
+whose forms and appearances are the same all over the world. A steep
+bank of loose earth of any kind, that has been at all exposed to the
+weather, contains in it, though it may not be three feet high, features
+capable of giving high gratification to a careful observer. It is almost
+a fac-simile of a mountain slope of soft and decomposing rock; it
+possesses nearly as much variety of character, and is governed by laws
+of organization no less rigid. It is furrowed in the first place by
+undulating lines, by the descent of the rain, little ravines, which are
+cut precisely at the same slope as those of the mountain, and leave
+ridges scarcely less graceful in their contour, and beautifully sharp in
+their chiselling. Where a harder knot of ground or a stone occurs, the
+earth is washed from beneath it, and accumulates above it, and there we
+have a little precipice connected by a sweeping curve at its summit with
+the great slope, and casting a sharp dark shadow; where the soil has
+been soft, it will probably be washed away underneath until it gives
+way, and leaves a jagged, hanging, irregular line of fracture; and all
+these circumstances are explained to the eye in sunshine with the most
+delicious clearness; every touch of shadow being expressive of some
+particular truth of structure, and bearing witness to the symmetry into
+which the whole mass has been reduced. Where this operation has gone on
+long, and vegetation has assisted in softening the outlines, we have our
+ground brought into graceful and irregular curves, of infinite variety,
+but yet always so connected with each other, and guiding to each other,
+that the eye never feels them as _separate_ things, nor feels inclined
+to count them, nor perceives a likeness in one to the other; they are
+not repetitions of each other, but are different parts of one system.
+Each would be imperfect without the one next to it.
+
+
+§ 13. The ground of Teniers.
+
+Now it is all but impossible to express distinctly the particulars
+wherein this fine character of curve consists, and to show in definite
+examples, what it is which makes one representation right, and another
+wrong. The ground of Teniers for instance, in No. 139 in the Dulwich
+Gallery, is an example of all that is wrong. It is a representation of
+the forms of shaken and disturbed soil, such as we should see here and
+there after an earthquake, or over the ruins of fallen buildings. It has
+not one contour nor character of the soil of nature, and yet I can
+scarcely tell you why, except that the curves repeat one another, and
+are monotonous in their flow, and are unbroken by the delicate angle
+and momentary pause with which the feeling of nature would have touched
+them, and are disunited; so that the eye leaps from this to that, and
+does not pass from one to the other without being able to stop, drawn on
+by the continuity of line; neither is there any undulation or furrowing
+of watermark, nor in one spot or atom of the whole surface, is there
+distinct explanation of form to the eye by means of a determined shadow.
+All is mere sweeping of the brush over the surface with various ground
+colors, without a single indication of character by means of real shade.
+
+
+§ 14. Importance of these minor parts and points.
+
+§ 15. The observance of them is the real distinction between the master
+        and the novice.
+
+Let not these points be deemed unimportant; the truths of form in common
+ground are quite as valuable, (let me anticipate myself for a moment,)
+quite as beautiful, as any others which nature presents, and in lowland
+landscape they present us with a species of line which it is quite
+impossible to obtain in any other way,--the alternately flowing and
+broken line of mountain scenery, which, however small its scale, is
+always of inestimable value, contrasted with the repetitions of organic
+form which we are compelled to give in vegetation. A really great artist
+dwells on every inch of exposed soil with care and delight, and renders
+it one of the most essential, speaking and pleasurable parts of his
+composition. And be it remembered, that the man who, in the most
+conspicuous part of his foreground, will violate truth with every stroke
+of the pencil, is not likely to be more careful in other parts of it;
+and that in the little bits which I fix upon for animadversion, I am not
+pointing out solitary faults, but only the most characteristic examples
+of the falsehood which is everywhere, and which renders the whole
+foreground one mass of contradictions and absurdities. Nor do I myself
+see wherein the great difference lies between a master and a novice,
+except in the rendering of the finer truths, of which I am at present
+speaking. To handle the brush freely, and to paint grass and weeds with
+accuracy enough to satisfy the eye, are accomplishments which a year or
+two's practice will give any man; but to trace among the grass and weeds
+those mysteries of invention and combination, by which nature appeals to
+the intellect--to render the delicate fissure, and descending curve, and
+undulating shadow of the mouldering soil, with gentle and fine finger,
+like the touch of the rain itself--to find even in all that appears most
+trifling or contemptible, fresh evidence of the constant working of the
+Divine power "for glory and for beauty," and to teach it and proclaim it
+to the unthinking and the unregardless--this, as it is the peculiar
+province and faculty of the master-mind, so it is the peculiar duty
+which is demanded of it by the Deity.
+
+
+§ 16. The ground of Cuyp.
+
+§ 17. And of Claude.
+
+§ 18. The entire weakness and childishness of the latter.
+
+§ 19. Compared with the work of Turner.
+
+It would take me no reasonable nor endurable time, if I were to point
+out one half of the various kinds and classes of falsehood which the
+inventive faculties of the old masters succeeded in originating, in the
+drawing of foregrounds. It is not this man, nor that man, nor one school
+nor another; all agree in entire repudiation of everything resembling
+facts, and in the high degree of absurdity of what they substitute for
+them. Even Cuyp, who evidently saw and studied _near_ nature, as an
+artist should do--not fishing for idealities, but taking what nature
+gave him, and thanking her for it--even he appears to have supposed that
+the drawing of the earth might be trusted to chance or imagination, and,
+in consequence, strews his banks with lumps of dough, instead of stones.
+Perhaps, however, the "beautiful foregrounds" of Claude afford the most
+remarkable instances of childishness and incompetence of all. That of
+his morning landscape, with the large group of trees and high
+single-arched bridge, in the National Gallery, is a pretty fair example
+of the kind of error which he constantly falls into. I will not say
+anything of the agreeable composition of the three banks, rising one
+behind another from the water. I merely affirm that it amounts to a
+demonstration that all three were painted in the artist's study, without
+any reference to nature whatever. In fact, there is quite enough
+intrinsic evidence in each of them to prove this, seeing that what
+appears to be meant for vegetation upon them, amounts to nothing more
+than a green stain on their surfaces, the more evidently false because
+the leaves of the trees twenty yards farther off are all perfectly
+visible and distinct; and that the sharp lines with which each cuts
+against that beyond it, are not only such as crumbling earth could never
+show or assume, but are maintained through their whole progress
+ungraduated, unchanging, and unaffected by any of the circumstances of
+varying shade to which every one of nature's lines is inevitably
+subjected. In fact, the whole arrangement is the impotent struggle of a
+tyro to express, by successive edges, that approach of earth which he
+finds himself incapable of expressing by the drawing of the surface.
+Claude wished to make you understand that the edge of his pond came
+nearer and nearer: he had probably often tried to do this with an
+unbroken bank, or a bank only varied by the delicate and harmonized
+anatomy of nature; and he had found that owing to his total ignorance of
+the laws of perspective, such efforts on his part invariably ended in
+his reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and making it look
+perpendicular. Much comfort and solace of mind, in such unpleasant
+circumstances, may be derived from instantly dividing the obnoxious bank
+into a number of successive promontories, and developing their edges
+with completeness and intensity. Every school-girl's drawing, as soon as
+her mind has arrived at so great a degree of enlightenment as to
+perceive that perpendicular water is objectionable, will supply us with
+edifying instances of this unfailing resource; and this foreground of
+Claude's is only one out of the thousand cases in which he has been
+reduced to it. And if it be asked, how the proceeding differs from that
+of nature, I have only to point to nature herself, as she is drawn in
+the foreground of Turner's Mercury and Argus, a case precisely similar
+to Claude's, of earthy crumbling banks cut away by water. It will be
+found in this picture (and I am now describing nature's work and
+Turner's with the same words) that the whole distance is given by
+retirement of solid surface; and that if ever an edge is expressed, it
+is only felt for an instant, and then lost again; so that the eye cannot
+stop at it and prepare for a long jump to another like it, but is guided
+over it, and round it, into the hollow beyond; and thus the whole
+receding mass of ground, going back for more than a quarter of a mile,
+is made completely _one_--no part of it is separated from the rest for
+an instant--it is all united, and its modulations are _members_, not
+_divisions_ of its mass. But those modulations are countless--heaving
+here, sinking there--now swelling, now mouldering, now blending, now
+breaking--giving, in fact, to the foreground of this universal master,
+precisely the same qualities which we have before seen in his hills, as
+Claude gave to his foreground precisely the same qualities which we had
+before found in _his_ hills,--infinite unity in the one case, finite
+division in the other.
+
+
+§ 20. General features of Turner's foreground.
+
+Let us, then, having now obtained some insight into the principles of
+the old masters in foreground drawing, contrast them throughout with
+those of our great modern master. The investigation of the excellence of
+Turner's drawing becomes shorter and easier as we proceed, because the
+great distinctions between his work and that of other painters are the
+same, whatever the object or subject may be; and after once showing the
+general characters of the particular specific forms under consideration,
+we have only to point, in the works of Turner, to the same principles of
+infinity and variety in carrying them out, which we have before insisted
+upon with reference to other subjects.
+
+
+§ 21. Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees.
+
+§ 22. Their convex surfaces and fractured edges.
+
+§ 23. And perfect unity.
+
+§ 24. Various parts whose history is told us by the details of the
+        drawing.
+
+The Upper Fall of the Tees, Yorkshire, engraved in the England series,
+may be given as a standard example of rock-drawing to be opposed to the
+work of Salvator. We have, in the great face of rock which divides the
+two streams, horizontal lines which indicate the real direction of the
+strata, and these same lines are given in ascending perspective all
+along the precipice on the right. But we see also on the central
+precipice fissures absolutely vertical, which inform us of one series of
+joints dividing these horizontal strata; and the exceeding smoothness
+and evenness of the precipice itself inform us that it has been caused
+by a great separation of substance in the direction of another more
+important line of joints, running in a direction across the river.
+Accordingly, we see on the left that the whole summit of the precipice
+is divided again and again by this great series of joints into vertical
+beds, which lie against each other with their sides towards us, and are
+traversed downwards by the same vertical lines traceable on the face of
+the central cliff. Now, let me direct especial attention to the way in
+which Turner has marked over this general and grand unity of structure,
+the modifying effects of the weather and the torrent. Observe how the
+whole surface of the hill above the precipice on the left[60] is
+brought into one smooth, unbroken curvature of gentle convexity, until
+it comes to the edge of the precipice, and then, just on the angle,
+(compare § 2,) breaks into the multiplicity of fissure which marks its
+geological structure. Observe how every one of the separate blocks, into
+which it divides, is rounded and convex in its salient edges turned to
+the weather, and how every one of their inward angles is marked clear
+and sharp by the determined shadow and transparent reflex. Observe how
+exquisitely graceful are all the curves of the convex surfaces,
+indicating that every one of them has been modelled by the winding and
+undulating of running water; and how gradually they become steeper as
+they descend, until they are torn down into the face of the precipice.
+Finally, observe the exquisite variety of all the touches which express
+fissure or shade; every one in varying directions and with new forms,
+and yet throughout indicating that perfect parallelism which at once
+explained to us the geology of the rock, and falling into one grand
+mass, treated with the same simplicity of light and shade which a great
+portrait painter adopts in treating the features of the human face;
+which, though each has its own separate chiaroscuro, never disturb the
+wholeness and grandeur of the head, considered as one ball or mass. So
+here, one deep and marked piece of shadow indicates the greatest
+proximity of the rounded mass; and from this every shade becomes fainter
+and fainter, until all are lost in the obscurity and dimness of the
+hanging precipice and the shattering fall. Again, see how the same
+fractures just upon the edge take place with the central cliff above the
+right-hand fall, and how the force of the water is told us by the
+confusion of débris accumulated in its channel. In fact, the great
+quality about Turner's drawings which more especially proves their
+transcendent truth, is the capability they afford us of reasoning on
+past and future phenomena, just as if we had the actual rocks before us;
+for this indicates not that one truth is given, nor another, not that a
+pretty or interesting morsel has been selected here and there, but that
+the whole truth has been given, with all the relations of its parts; so
+that we can pick and choose our points of pleasure or of thought for
+ourselves, and reason upon the whole with the same certainty which we
+should after having climbed and hammered over the rocks bit by bit. With
+this drawing before him, a geologist could give a lecture upon the whole
+system of aqueous erosion, and speculate as safely upon the past and
+future states of this very spot, as if he were standing and getting wet
+with the spray. He would tell you, at once, that the waterfall was in a
+state of rapid recession; that it had once formed a wide cataract just
+at the spot where the figure is sitting on the heap of débris; and that
+when it was there, part of it came down by the channel on the left, its
+bed being still marked by the delicately chiselled lines of fissure. He
+would tell you that the foreground had also once been the top of the
+fall, and that the vertical fissures on the right of it were evidently
+then the channel of a side stream. He would tell you that the fall was
+then much lower than it is now, and that being lower, it had less force,
+and cut itself a narrower bed; and that the spot where it reached the
+higher precipice is marked by the expansion of the wide basin which its
+increased violence has excavated, and by the gradually increasing
+concavity of the rocks below, which we see have been hollowed into a
+complete vault by the elastic bound of the water. But neither he nor I
+could tell you with what exquisite and finished marking of every
+fragment and particle of soil or rock, both in its own structure and the
+evidence it bears of these great influences, the whole of this is
+confirmed and carried out.
+
+
+§ 25. Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the
+        Llanthony.
+
+With this inimitable drawing we may compare the rocks in the foreground
+of the Llanthony. These latter are not divided by joints, but into thin
+horizontal and united beds, which the torrent in its times of flood has
+chiselled away, leaving one exposed under another, with the sweeping
+marks of its eddies upon their edges. And here we have an instance of an
+exception to a general rule, occasioned by particular and local action.
+We have seen that the action of water over any surface _universally_,
+whether falling, as in rain, or sweeping, as a torrent, induces
+convexity of form. But when we have rocks _in situ_, as here, exposed at
+their edges to the violent action of an eddy, that eddy will cut a vault
+or circular space for itself, (as we saw on a large scale with the high
+waterfall,) and we have a concave curve interrupting the general
+contours of the rock. And thus Turner (while every edge of his masses is
+rounded, and, the moment we rise above the level of the water, all is
+convex) has interrupted the great contours of his strata with concave
+curves, precisely where the last waves of the torrent have swept against
+the exposed edges of the beds. Nothing could more strikingly prove the
+depth of that knowledge by which every touch of this consummate artist
+is regulated, that universal command of subject which never acts for a
+moment on anything conventional or habitual, but fills every corner and
+space with new evidence of knowledge, and fresh manifestation of
+thought.
+
+
+§ 26. Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone.
+
+The Lower Fall of the Tees, with the chain-bridge, might serve us for an
+illustration of all the properties and forms of vertical beds of rock,
+as the upper fall has of horizontal; but we pass rather to observe, in
+detached pieces of foreground, the particular modulation of parts which
+cannot be investigated in the grand combinations of general mass.
+
+The blocks of stone which form the foreground of the Ulleswater are, I
+believe, the finest example in the world of the finished drawing of
+rocks which have been subjected to violent aqueous action. Their
+surfaces seem to palpitate from the fine touch of the waves, and every
+part of them is rising or falling in soft swell or gentle depression,
+though the eye can scarcely trace the fine shadows on which this
+chiselling of the surface depends. And with all this, every block of
+them has individual character, dependent on the expression of the
+angular lines of which its contours were first formed, and which is
+retained and felt through all the modulation and melting of the
+water-worn surface. And what is done here in the most important part of
+the picture, to be especially attractive to the eye, is often done by
+Turner with lavish and overwhelming power, in the accumulated débris of
+a wide foreground, strewed with the ruin of ages, as, for instance, in
+the Junction of the Greta and Tees, where he has choked the torrent bed
+with a mass of shattered rock, thrown down with the profusion and
+carelessness of nature herself; and yet every separate block is a study,
+(and has evidently been drawn from nature,) chiselled and varied in its
+parts, as if it were to be the chief member of a separate subject; yet
+without ever losing, in a single instance, its subordinate position, or
+occasioning, throughout the whole accumulated multitude, the repetition
+of a single line.
+
+
+§ 27. And of complicated foreground.
+
+I consider cases like these, of perfect finish and new conception,
+applied and exerted in the drawing of every member of a confused and
+almost countlessly-divided system, about the most wonderful, as well as
+the most characteristic passages of Turner's foregrounds. It is done not
+less marvellously, though less distinctly, in the individual parts of
+all his broken ground, as in examples like these of separate blocks. The
+articulation of such a passage as the nearest bank, in the picture we
+have already spoken of at so great length, the Upper Fall of the Tees,
+might serve us for a day's study, if we were to go into it part by part;
+but it is impossible to do this, except with the pencil; we can only
+repeat the same general observations, about eternal change and unbroken
+unity, and tell you to observe how the eye is kept throughout on solid
+and retiring surfaces, instead of being thrown, as by Claude, on flat
+and equal edges. You cannot find a single edge in Turner's work; you are
+everywhere kept upon round surfaces, and you go back on these you cannot
+tell how--never taking a leap, but progressing imperceptibly along the
+unbroken bank, till you find yourself a quarter of a mile into the
+picture, beside the figure at the bottom of the waterfall.
+
+
+§ 28. And of loose soil.
+
+Finally, the bank of earth on the right of the grand drawing of Penmaen
+Mawr, may be taken as the standard of the representation of soft soil
+modelled by descending rain; and may serve to show us how exquisite in
+character are the resultant lines, and how full of every species of
+attractive and even sublime quality, if we only are wise enough not to
+scorn the study of them. The higher the mind, it may be taken as a
+universal rule, the less it will scorn that which appears to be small or
+unimportant; and the rank of a painter may always be determined by
+observing how he uses, and with what respect he views the minutię of
+nature. Greatness of mind is not shown by admitting small things, but by
+making small things great under its influence. He who can take no
+interest in what is small, will take false interest in what is great;
+he who cannot make a bank sublime, will make a mountain ridiculous.
+
+
+§ 29. The unison of all in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy
+        pictures.
+
+§ 30. And the great lesson to be received from all.
+
+It is not until we have made ourselves acquainted with these simple
+facts of form, as they are illustrated by the slighter works of Turner,
+that we can become at all competent to enjoy the combination of all, in
+such works as the Mercury and Argus, or Bay of Baię, in which the mind
+is at first bewildered by the abundant outpouring of the master's
+knowledge. Often as I have paused before these noble works, I never felt
+on returning to them as if I had ever seen them before; for their
+abundance is so deep and various that the mind, according to its own
+temper at the time of seeing, perceives some new series of truths
+rendered in them, just as it would on revisiting a natural scene; and
+detects new relations and associations of these truths which set the
+whole picture in a different light at every return to it. And this
+effect is especially caused by the management of the foreground; for the
+more marked objects of the picture may be taken one by one, and thus
+examined and known; but the foregrounds of Turner are so united in all
+their parts that the eye cannot take them by divisions, but is guided
+from stone to stone, and bank to bank, discovering truths totally
+different in aspect, according to the direction in which it approaches
+them, and approaching them in a different direction, and viewing them as
+a part of a new system, every time that it begins its course at a new
+point. One lesson, however, we are invariably taught by all, however
+approached or viewed,--that the work of the Great Spirit of nature is as
+deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects,--that
+the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every
+lowly bank and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of
+heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth; and that to the
+rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty,
+the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the
+casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering
+of the dust as in the kindling of the day-star.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [58] I have cut out a passage in this place which insisted on the
+    _angular_ character of rocks,--not because it was false, but because
+    it was incomplete, and I cannot explain it nor complete it without
+    example. It is not the absence of curves, but the suggestion of
+    _hardness through_ curves, and of the under tendencies of the inward
+    structure, which form the true characteristics of rock form; and
+    Salvator, whom neither here nor elsewhere I have abused enough, is
+    not wrong because he paints curved rocks, but because his curves are
+    the curves of ribbons and not of rocks; and the difference between
+    rock curvature and other curvature I cannot explain verbally, but I
+    hope to do it hereafter by illustration; and, at present, let the
+    reader study the rock-drawing of the Mont St. Gothard subject, in
+    the Liber Studiorum, and compare it with any examples of Salvator to
+    which he may happen to have access. All the account of rocks here
+    given is altogether inadequate, and I only do not alter it because I
+    first wish to give longer study to the subject.
+
+  [59] A passage which I happened to see in an Essay of Mr. Pyne's, in
+    the Art-Union, about nature's "foisting rubbish" upon the artist,
+    sufficiently explains the cause of this decline. If Mr. Pyne will go
+    to nature, as all great men have done, and as all men who mean to be
+    great must do, that is not merely to be _helped_, but to be _taught_
+    by her; and will once or twice take her gifts, without looking them
+    in the mouth, he will most assuredly find--and I say this in no
+    unkind or depreciatory feeling, for I should say the same of all
+    artists who are in the habit of only sketching nature, and not
+    studying her--that _her_ worst is better than _his_ best. I am quite
+    sure that if Mr. Pyne, or any other painter who has hitherto been
+    very careful in his choice of subject, will go into the next
+    turnpike-road, and taking the first four trees that he comes to in
+    the hedge, give them a day each, drawing them leaf for leaf, as far
+    as may be, and even their smallest boughs with as much care as if
+    they were rivers, or an important map of a newly-surveyed country,
+    he will find, when he has brought them all home, that at least three
+    out of the four are better than the best he ever invented. Compare
+    Part III. Sect. I. Chap. III. § 12, 13, (the reference in the note
+    ought to be to Chap. XV. § 7.)
+
+  [60] In the light between the waterfall and the large dark mass on
+    the extreme right.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION V.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF WATER.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                   OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY THE ANCIENTS.
+
+
+§ 1. Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water.
+
+Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and
+without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we
+think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we
+have seen in clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have
+contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into
+grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made,
+with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had
+not seen; then as it exists in the form of the torrent--in the iris
+which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep
+crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and
+glancing river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best
+emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic,
+tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this mighty, this
+universal element for glory and for beauty? or how shall we follow its
+eternal changefulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul.
+
+
+§ 2. The ease with which a common representation of it may be given. The
+       impossibility of a faithful one.
+
+To suggest the ordinary appearance of calm water--to lay on canvas as
+much evidence of surface and reflection as may make us understand that
+water is meant--is, perhaps, the easiest task of art; and even ordinary
+running or falling water may be sufficiently rendered, by observing
+careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little
+white over it, as we see done with judgment and truth by Ruysdael. But
+to paint the actual play of hue on the reflective surface, or to give
+the forms and fury of water when it begins to show itself--to give the
+flashing and rocket-like velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision
+and grace of the sea waves, so exquisitely modelled, though so mockingly
+transient--so mountainous in its form, yet so cloud-like in its
+motion--with its variety and delicacy of color, when every ripple and
+wreath has some peculiar passage of reflection upon itself alone, and
+the radiating and scintillating sunbeams are mixed with the dim hues of
+transparent depth and dark rock below;--to do this perfectly, is beyond
+the power of man; to do it even partially, has been granted to but one
+or two, even of those few who have dared to attempt it.
+
+
+§ 3. Difficulty of properly dividing the subject.
+
+As the general laws which govern the appearances of water have equal
+effect on all its forms, it would be injudicious to treat the subject in
+divisions; for the same forces which govern the waves and foam of the
+torrent, are equally influential on those of the sea; and it will be
+more convenient to glance generally at the system of water-painting of
+each school and artist, than to devote separate chapters to the
+examination of the lake, river, or sea-painting of all. We shall,
+therefore, vary our usual plan, and look first at the water-painting of
+the ancients; then at that of the moderns generally; lastly, at that of
+Turner.
+
+
+§ 4. Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among all painters.
+
+It is necessary in the outset to state briefly one or two of the optical
+conditions by which the appearance of the surface of water is affected;
+to describe them all would require a separate essay, even if I possessed
+the requisite knowledge, which I do not. The accidental modifications
+under which general laws come into play are innumerable, and often, in
+their extreme complexity, inexplicable, I suppose, even by men of the
+most extended optical knowledge. What I shall here state are a few only
+of the broadest laws verifiable by the reader's immediate observation,
+but of which nevertheless, I have found artists frequently ignorant;
+owing to their habit of sketching from nature without thinking or
+reasoning, and especially of finishing at home. It is not often, I
+believe, that an artist draws the reflections in water as he sees them;
+over large spaces, and in weather that is not very calm, it is nearly
+impossible to do so; when it is possible, sometimes in haste, and
+sometimes in idleness, and sometimes under the idea of improving nature,
+they are slurred or misrepresented; it is so easy to give something like
+a suggestive resemblance of calm water, that, even when the landscape is
+finished from nature, the water is merely indicated as something that
+may be done at any time, and then, in the home work, come the cold
+leaden grays with some, and the violent blues and greens with others,
+and the horizontal lines with the feeble, and the bright touches and
+sparkles with the dexterous, and everything that is shallow and
+commonplace with all. Now, the fact is, that there is hardly a roadside
+pond or pool which has not as much landscape _in_ it as above it. It is
+not the brown, muddy, dull thing we suppose it to be; it has a heart
+like ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the
+tall trees, and the blades of the shaking-grass, and all manner of hues,
+of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; nay, the ugly gutter, that
+stagnates over the drain bars, in the heart of the foul city, is not
+altogether base; down in that, if you will look deep enough, you may see
+the dark, serious blue of far-off sky, and the passing of pure clouds.
+It is at your own will that you see in that despised stream, either the
+refuse of the street, or the image of the sky--so it is with almost all
+other things that we unkindly despise. Now, this farseeing is just the
+difference between the great and the vulgar painter; the common man
+_knows_ the roadside pool is muddy, and draws its mud; the great painter
+sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will take him a day's
+work to follow, but he follows it, cost what it will. And if painters
+would only go out to the nearest common and take the nearest dirty pond
+among the furze, and draw that thoroughly, not considering that it is
+water that they are drawing, and that water must be done in a certain
+way; but drawing determinedly what they _see_, that is to say, all the
+trees, and their shaking leaves, and all the hazy passages of disturbing
+sunshine; and the bottom seen in the clearer little bits at the edge,
+and the stones of it, and all the sky, and the clouds far down in the
+middle, drawn as completely, and more delicately they must be, than the
+real clouds above, they would come home with such a notion of
+water-painting as might save me and every one else all trouble of
+writing more about the matter; but now they do nothing of the kind, but
+take the ugly, round, yellow surface for granted, or else improve it,
+and, instead of giving that refined, complex, delicate, but saddened and
+gloomy reflection in the polluted water, they clear it up with coarse
+flashes of yellow, and green, and blue, and spoil their own eyes, and
+hurt ours; failing, of course, still more hopelessly in touching the
+pure, inimitable light of waves thrown loose; and so Canaletto is still
+thought to have painted canals, and Vandevelde and Backhuysen to have
+painted sea, and the uninterpreted streams and maligned sea hiss shame
+upon us from all their rocky beds and hollow shores.
+
+
+§ 5. Difficulty of treating this part of the subject.
+
+I approach this part of my subject with more despondency than any other,
+and that for several reasons; first, the water painting of all the elder
+landscape painters, excepting a few of the better passages of Claude and
+Ruysdael, is so execrable, so beyond all expression and explanation bad;
+Claude's and Ruysdael's best so cold and valueless, that I do not know
+how to address those who like such painting; I do not know what their
+sensations are respecting sea. I can perceive nothing in Vandevelde or
+Backhuysen of the lowest redeeming merit; no power, no presence of
+intellect--or evidence of perception--of any sort or kind; no
+resemblance--even the feeblest--of anything natural; no invention--even
+the most sluggish--of anything agreeable. Had they given us staring
+green seas with hatchet edges, such as we see Her Majesty's ships
+so-and-so fixed into by the heads or sterns in the first room of the
+Royal Academy, the admiration of them would have been comprehensible;
+there being a natural predilection in the mind of men for green waves
+with curling tops, but not for clay and wool; so that though I can
+understand, in some sort, why people admire everything else in old art,
+why they admire Salvator's rocks, and Claude's foregrounds, and
+Hobbima's trees, and Paul Potter's cattle, and Jan Steen's pans; and
+while I can perceive in all these likings a root which seems right and
+legitimate, and to be appealed to; yet when I find they can even
+_endure_ the _sight_ of a Backhuysen on their room walls (I speak
+seriously) it makes me hopeless at once. I may be wrong, or they may be
+wrong, but at least I can conceive of no principle or opinion common
+between us, which either can address or understand in the other; and yet
+I am wrong in this want of conception, for I know that Turner once
+liked Vandevelde, and I can trace the evil influence of Vandevelde on
+most of his early sea painting, but Turner certainly could not have
+liked Vandevelde without _some_ legitimate cause. Another discouraging
+point is that I cannot catch a wave, nor Daguerreotype it, and so there
+is no coming to pure demonstration; but the forms and hues of water must
+always be in some measure a matter of dispute and feeling, and the more
+so because there is no perfect or even tolerably perfect sea painting to
+refer to: the sea never has been, and I fancy never will be nor can be
+painted; it is only suggested by means of more or less spiritual and
+intelligent conventionalism; and though Turner has done enough to
+suggest the sea mightily and gloriously, after all it is by
+conventionalism still, and there remains so much that is unlike nature,
+that it is always possible for those who do not feel his power to
+justify their dislike, on very sufficient and reasonable grounds; and to
+maintain themselves obstinately unreceptant of the good, by insisting on
+the deficiency which no mortal hand can supply, and which commonly is
+most manifest on the one hand, where most has been achieved on the
+other.
+
+With calm water the case is different. Facts are ascertainable and
+demonstrable there, and by the notice of one or two of the simplest, we
+may obtain some notion of the little success and intelligence of the
+elder painters in this easier field, and so prove their probable failure
+in contending with greater difficulties.
+
+
+§ 6. General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, the
+       imperfection of its reflective surface.
+
+First: Water, of course, owing to its transparency, possesses not a
+perfectly reflective surface, like that of speculum metal, but a surface
+whose reflective power is dependent on the angle at which the rays to be
+reflected fall. The smaller this angle, the greater are the number of
+rays reflected. Now, according to the number of rays reflected is the
+force of the image of objects above, and according to the number of rays
+transmitted is the perceptibility of objects below the water. Hence the
+visible transparency and reflective power of water are in inverse ratio.
+In looking down into it from above, we receive transmitted rays which
+exhibit either the bottom, or the objects floating in the water; or else
+if the water be deep and clear, we receive very few rays, and the water
+looks black. In looking along water we receive reflected rays, and
+therefore the image of objects above it. Hence, in shallow water on a
+level shore the bottom is seen at our feet, clearly; it becomes more and
+more obscure as it retires, even though the water do not increase in
+depth, and at a distance of twelve or twenty yards--more or less
+according to our height above the water--becomes entirely invisible,
+lost in the lustre of the reflected surface.
+
+
+§ 7. The inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does not
+       affect bright ones.
+
+Second: The brighter the objects reflected, the larger the angle at
+which reflection is visible; it is always to be remembered that,
+strictly speaking, only light objects are reflected, and that the darker
+ones are seen only in proportion to the number of rays of light that
+they can send; so that a dark object comparatively loses its power to
+affect the surface of water, and the water in the space of a dark
+reflection is seen partially with the image of the object, and partially
+transparent. It will be found on observation that under a bank--suppose
+with dark trees above showing spaces of bright sky, the bright sky is
+reflected distinctly, and the bottom of the water is in those spaces not
+seen; but in the dark spaces of reflection we see the bottom of the
+water, and the color of that bottom and of the water itself mingles with
+and modifies that of the color of the trees casting the dark reflection.
+
+This is one of the most beautiful circumstances connected with water
+surface, for by these means a variety of color and a grace and
+evanescence are introduced in the reflection otherwise impossible. Of
+course at great distances even the darkest objects cast distinct images,
+and the hue of the water cannot be seen, but in near water the
+occurrence of its own color modifying the dark reflections, while it
+leaves light ones unaffected, is of infinite value.
+
+Take, by way of example, an extract from my own diary at Venice.
+
+"May 17th, 4 P.M. Looking east the water is calm, and reflects the sky
+and vessels, with this peculiarity; the sky, which is pale blue, is in
+its reflection of the same kind of blue, only a little deeper; but the
+_vessels' hulls, which are black, are reflected in pale sea green_,
+_i.e._, the natural color of the water under sunlight; while the _orange
+masts_ of the vessels, wet with a recent shower, are reflected _without
+change of color_, only not quite so bright as above. One ship has a
+white, another a red stripe," (I ought to have said horizontal along the
+gunwales,) '_of these the water takes no notice_.'
+
+"What is curious, a boat passes across with white and dark figures, the
+water reflects the dark ones in green, and misses out all the white;
+this is chiefly owing to the dark images being opposed to the bright
+reflected sky."
+
+I have left the passage about the white and red stripe, because it will
+be useful to us presently; all that I wish to insist upon here is the
+showing of the local color (pea green) of the water in the spaces which
+were occupied by dark reflections, and the unaltered color of the bright
+ones.
+
+
+§ 8. Water takes no shadow.
+
+Third: Clear water takes no shadow, and that for two reasons; A perfect
+surface of speculum metal takes no shadow, (this the reader may
+instantly demonstrate for himself,) and a perfectly transparent body as
+air takes no shadow; hence water, whether transparent or reflective,
+takes no shadow.
+
+But shadows, or the forms of them, appear on water frequently and
+sharply: it is necessary carefully to explain the causes of these, as
+they are one of the most eminent sources of error in water painting.
+
+First: Water in shade is much more reflective than water in sunlight.
+Under sunlight the local color of the water is commonly vigorous and
+active, and forcibly affects, as we have seen, all the dark reflections,
+commonly diminishing their depth. Under shade, the reflective power is
+in a high degree increased,[61] and it will be found most frequently
+that the forms of shadows are expressed on the surface of water, not by
+actual shade, but by more genuine reflection of objects above. This is
+another most important and valuable circumstance, and we owe to it some
+phenomena of the highest beauty.
+
+A very muddy river, as the Arno for instance at Florence, is seen during
+sunshine of its own yellow color, rendering all reflections discolored
+and feeble. At twilight it recovers its reflective power to the fullest
+extent, and the mountains of Carrara are seen reflected in it as clearly
+as if it were a crystalline lake. The Mediterranean, whose determined
+blue yields to hardly any modifying color in daytime, receives at
+evening the image of its rocky shores. On our own seas, seeming shadows
+are seen constantly cast in purple and blue, upon pale green. These are
+no shadows, but the pure reflection of dark or blue sky above, seen in
+the shadowed space, refused by the local color of the sea in the
+sunlighted spaces, and turned more or less purple by the opposition of
+the vivid green.
+
+
+§ 9. Modification of dark reflections by shadow.
+
+We have seen, however, above, that the local color of water, while it
+comparatively refuses dark reflections, accepts bright ones without
+deadening them. Hence when a shadow is thrown across a space of water of
+strong local color, receiving, alternately, light and dark reflections,
+it has no power of increasing the reflectiveness of the water in the
+bright spaces, still less of diminishing it; hence, on all the dark
+reflections it is seen more or less distinctly, on all the light ones it
+vanishes altogether.
+
+Let us take an instance of the exquisite complexity of effect induced by
+these various circumstances in co-operation.
+
+Suppose a space of clear water showing the bottom under a group of
+trees, showing sky through their branches, casting shadows on the
+surface of the water, which we will suppose also to possess some color
+of its own. Close to us, we shall see the bottom, with the shadows of
+the trees clearly thrown upon it, and the color of the water seen in its
+genuineness by transmitted light. Farther off, the bottom will be
+gradually lost sight of, but it will be seen in the dark reflections
+much farther than in the light ones. At last it ceases to affect even
+the former, and the pure surface effect takes place. The blue bright sky
+is reflected truly, but the dark trees are reflected imperfectly, and
+the color of the water is seen instead. Where the shadow falls on these
+dark reflections a darkness is seen plainly, which is found to be
+composed of the pure clear reflection of the dark trees; when it crosses
+the reflection of the sky, the shadow of course, being thus fictitious,
+vanishes.
+
+Farther, of course on whatever dust and other foulness may be present in
+water, real shadow falls clear and dark in proportion to the quantity
+of solid substance present. On very muddy rivers, real shadow falls in
+sunlight nearly as sharply as on land; on our own sea, the apparent
+shadow caused by increased reflection, is much increased in depth by the
+chalkiness and impurity of the water.
+
+Farther, when surface is rippled, every ripple, up to a certain variable
+distance on each side of the spectator, and at a certain angle between
+him and the sun, varying with the size and shape of the ripples,
+reflects to him a small image of the sun. Hence those dazzling fields of
+expanding light so often seen upon the sea.
+
+Any object that comes between the sun and these ripples, takes from them
+the power of reflecting the sun, and in consequence, all their light;
+hence any intervening objects cast apparent shadows upon such spaces of
+intense force, and of the exact shape, and in the exact place of real
+shadows, and yet which are no more real shadows than the withdrawal of
+an image of a piece of white paper from a mirror is a shadow on the
+mirror. Farther, in all shallow water, more or less in proportion to its
+shallowness, but in some measure, I suppose, up to depths of forty or
+fifty fathoms, and perhaps more, the local color of the water depends in
+great measure on light reflected from the bottom. This, however, is
+especially manifest in clear rivers like the Rhone, where the absence of
+the light reflected from below forms an apparent shadow, often visibly
+detached some distance from the floating object which casts it.
+
+
+§ 10. Examples on the water of the Rhone.
+
+The following extract from my own diary at Geneva, with the subsequent
+one, which is a continuation of that already given in part at Venice,
+will illustrate both this and the other points we have been stating.
+
+                                    "GENEVA, _21st April, Morning._
+
+"The sunlight falls from the cypresses of Rousseau's island straight
+towards the bridge. The shadows of the bridge and of the trees fall on
+the water in leaden purple, opposed to its general hue of aquamarine
+green. This green color is caused by the light being reflected from the
+bottom, though the bottom is not seen; as is evident by its becoming
+paler towards the middle of the river, where the water shoals, on which
+pale part the purple shadow of the small bridge falls most forcibly,
+which shadow, however, is still only apparent, being the absence of this
+reflected light, associated with the increased reflective power of the
+water, which in those spaces reflects blue sky above. A boat swings in
+the shoal water; its reflection is cast in a transparent pea-green,
+which is considerably darker than the pale aquamarine of the surface at
+the spot. Its shadow is detached from it just about half the depth of
+the reflection; which, therefore, forms a bright green light between the
+keel of the boat and its shadow; where the shadow cuts the reflection,
+the reflection is darkest and something like the true color of the boat;
+where the shadow falls out of the reflection, it is of a leaden purple,
+pale. The boat is at an angle of about 20° below. Another boat nearer,
+in deeper water, shows no shadow, whatsoever, and the reflection is
+marked by its transparent green, while the surrounding water takes a
+lightish blue reflection from the sky."
+
+The above notes, after what has been said, require no comment; but one
+more case must be stated belonging to rough water. Every large wave of
+the sea is in ordinary circumstances divided into, or rather covered by,
+innumerable smaller waves, each of which, in all probability, from some
+of its edges or surfaces reflects the sunbeams; and hence result a
+glitter, polish, and vigorous light over the whole flank of the wave,
+which are, of course, instantly withdrawn within the space of a cast
+shadow, whose form, therefore, though it does not affect the great body
+or ground of the water in the least, is sufficiently traceable by the
+withdrawal of the high lights; also every string and wreath of foam
+above or within the wave takes real shadow, and thus adds to the
+impression.
+
+I have not stated one-half of the circumstances which produce or
+influence effects of shadow on water; but lest I should confuse or weary
+the reader, I leave him to pursue the subject for himself; enough having
+been stated to establish this general principle, that whenever shadow is
+seen on clear water, and, in a measure, even on foul water, it is not,
+as on land, a dark shade subduing where it falls the sunny general hue
+to a lower tone; but it is a space of an entirely different color,
+subject itself, by its susceptibility of reflection, to infinite
+varieties of depth and hue, and liable, under certain circumstances, to
+disappear altogether; and that, therefore, whenever we have to paint
+such shadows, it is not only the hue of the water itself that we have to
+consider, but all the circumstances by which in the position attributed
+to them such shaded spaces could be affected.
+
+
+§ 11. Effect of ripple on distant water.
+
+Fourth: If water be rippled, the side of every ripple next to us
+reflects a piece of the sky, and the side of every ripple farthest from
+us reflects a piece of the opposite shore, or of whatever objects may be
+beyond the ripple. But as we soon lose sight of the farther sides of the
+ripples on the retiring surface, the whole rippled space will then be
+reflective of the sky only. Thus, where calm distant water receives
+reflections of high shores, every extent of rippled surface appears as a
+bright line interrupting that reflection with the color of the sky.
+
+
+§ 12. Elongation of reflections by moving water.
+
+Fifth: When a ripple or swell is seen at such an angle as to afford a
+view of its farther side, it carries the reflection of objects farther
+down than calm water would. Therefore all motion in water elongates
+reflections, and throws them into confused vertical lines. The real
+amount of this elongation is not distinctly visible, except in the case
+of very bright objects, and especially of lights, as of the sun, moon,
+or lamps by a river shore, whose reflections are hardly ever seen as
+circles or points, which of course they are on perfectly calm water, but
+as long streams of tremulous light.
+
+But it is strange that while we are constantly in the habit of seeing
+the reflection of the sun, which ought to be a mere circle, elongated
+into a stream of light extending from the horizon to the shore, the
+elongation of the reflection of a sail or other object to one-half of
+this extent is received, if represented in a picture, with incredulity
+by the greater number of spectators. In one of Turner's Venices the
+image of the white lateen-sails of the principal boat is about twice as
+long as the sails themselves. I have heard the truth of this simple
+effect disputed over and over again by intelligent persons, and yet on
+any water so exposed as the lagoons of Venice, the periods are few and
+short when there is so little motion as that the reflection of sails a
+mile off shall not affect the swell within six feet of the spectator.
+
+There is, however, a strange arbitrariness about this elongation of
+reflection, which prevents it from being truly felt. If we see on an
+extent of lightly swelling water surface the image of a bank of white
+clouds, with masses of higher accumulation at intervals, the water will
+not usually reflect the whole bank in an elongated form, but it will
+commonly take the eminent parts, and reflect them in long straight
+columns of defined breadth, and miss the intermediate lower parts
+altogether; and even in doing this it will be capricious, for it will
+take one eminence, and miss another, with no apparent reason; and often
+when the sky is covered with white clouds, some of those clouds will
+cast long tower-like reflections, and others none, so arbitrarily that
+the spectator is often puzzled to find out which are the accepted and
+which the refused.
+
+In many cases of this kind it will be found rather that the eye is, from
+want of use and care, insensible to the reflection than that the
+reflection is not there; and a little thought and careful observation
+will show us that what we commonly suppose to be a surface of uniform
+color is, indeed, affected more or less by an infinite variety of hues,
+prolonged, like the sun image, from a great distance, and that our
+apprehension of its lustre, purity, and even of its surface, is in no
+small degree dependent on our feeling of these multitudinous hues, which
+the continual motion of that surface prevents us from analyzing or
+understanding for what they are.
+
+
+§ 13. Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images.
+
+Sixth: Rippled water, of which we can see the farther side of the waves,
+will reflect a perpendicular line clearly, a bit of its length being
+given on the side of each wave, and easily joined by the eye. But if the
+line slope, its reflection will be excessively confused and disjointed;
+and if horizontal, nearly invisible. It was this circumstance which
+prevented the red and white stripe of the ships at Venice, noticed
+above, from being visible.
+
+
+§ 14. To what extent reflection is visible from above.
+
+Seventh: Every reflection is the image in reverse of just so much of the
+objects beside the water, as we could see if we were placed as much
+under the level of the water as we are actually above it. If an object
+be so far back from the bank, that if we were five feet under the water
+level we could not see it over the bank, then, standing five feet above
+the water, we shall not be able to see its image under the reflected
+bank. Hence the reflection of all objects that have any slope back from
+the water is shortened, and at last disappears as we rise above it.
+Lakes seen from a great height appear like plates of metal set in the
+landscape, reflecting the sky but none of their shores.
+
+
+§ 15. Deflection of images on agitated water.
+
+Eighth: Any given point of the object above the water is reflected, if
+reflected at all, at some spot in a vertical line beneath it, so long as
+the plane of the water is horizontal. On rippled water a slight
+deflection sometimes takes place, and the image of a vertical tower will
+slope a little away from the wind, owing to the casting of the image on
+the sloping sides of the ripples. On the sloping sides of large waves
+the deflection is in proportion to the slope. For rough practice, after
+the slope of the wave is determined, let the artist turn his paper until
+it becomes horizontal, and then paint the reflections of any object upon
+it as on level water, and he will be right.
+
+
+§ 16. Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science.
+      Licenses, how taken by great men.
+
+Such are the most common and general optical laws which are to be taken
+into consideration in the painting of water. Yet, in the application of
+them, as tests of good or bad water painting, we must be cautious in the
+extreme. An artist may know all these laws, and comply with them, and
+yet paint water execrably; and he may be ignorant of every one of them,
+and, in their turn, and in certain places, violate every one of them,
+and yet paint water gloriously. Thousands of exquisite effects take
+place in nature, utterly inexplicable, and which can be believed only
+while they are seen; the combinations and applications of the above laws
+are so varied and complicated that no knowledge or labor could, if
+applied analytically, keep pace with them. Constant and eager
+watchfulness, and portfolios filled with actual statements of
+water-effect, drawn on the spot and on the instant, are worth more to
+the painter than the most extended optical knowledge; without these all
+his knowledge will end in a pedantic falsehood. With these it does not
+matter how gross or how daring here and there may be his violations of
+this or that law; his very transgressions will be admirable.
+
+It may be said, that this is a dangerous principle to advance in these
+days of idleness. I cannot help it; it is true, and must be affirmed.
+Of all contemptible criticism, the most to be contemned is that which
+punishes great works of art when they fight without armor, and refuses
+to feel or acknowledge the great spiritual refracted sun of their truth,
+because it has risen at a false angle, and burst upon them before its
+appointed time. And yet, on the other hand, let it be observed that it
+is not feeling, nor fancy, nor imagination, so called, that I have put
+before science, but watchfulness, experience, affection and trust in
+nature; and farther let it be observed, that there is a difference
+between the license taken by one man and another, which makes one
+license admirable, and the other punishable; and that this difference is
+of a kind sufficiently discernible by every earnest person, though it is
+not so explicable as that we can beforehand say where and when, or even
+to whom, the license is to be forgiven. In the Paradise of Tintoret, in
+the Academy of Venice, the Angel is seen in the distance driving Adam
+and Eve out of the garden. Not, for Tintoret, the leading to the gate
+with consolation or counsel; his strange ardor of conception is seen
+here as everywhere. Full speed they fly, the angel and the human
+creatures; the angel wrapt in an orb of light floats on, stooped forward
+in his fierce flight, and does not touch the ground; the chastised
+creatures rush before him in abandoned terror. All this might have been
+invented by another, though in other hands it would assuredly have been
+offensive; but one circumstance which completes the story could have
+been thought of or dared by none but Tintoret. The Angel casts a SHADOW
+before him towards Adam and Eve.
+
+Now that a globe of light should cast a shadow is a license, as far as
+mere optical matters are concerned, of the most audacious kind. But how
+beautiful is the circumstance in its application here, showing that the
+angel, who is light to all else around him, is darkness to those whom he
+is commissioned to banish forever.
+
+I have before noticed the license of Rubens in making his horizon an
+oblique line. His object is to carry the eye to a given point in the
+distance. The road winds to it, the clouds fly at it, the trees nod to
+it, a flock of sheep scamper towards it, a carter points his whip at it,
+his horses pull for it, the figures push for it, and the horizon slopes
+to it. If the horizon had been horizontal, it would have embarrassed
+everything and everybody.
+
+In Turner's Pas de Calais there is a buoy poised on the ridge of a near
+wave. It casts its reflection vertically down the flank of the wave,
+which slopes steeply. I cannot tell whether this is a license or a
+mistake; I suspect the latter, for the same thing occurs not
+unfrequently in Turner's seas; but I am almost certain that it would
+have been done wilfully in this case, even had the mistake been pointed
+out, for the vertical line is necessary to the picture, and the eye is
+so little accustomed to catch the real bearing of the reflections on the
+slopes of waves that it does not feel the fault.
+
+
+§ 17. Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp,
+        Vandevelde.
+
+In one of the smaller rooms of the Uffizii at Florence, off the Tribune,
+there are two so-called Claudes; one a pretty wooded landscape, I think
+a copy, the other a marine with architecture, very sweet and genuine.
+The sun is setting at the side of the picture, it casts a long stream of
+light upon the water. This stream of light is oblique, and comes from
+the horizon, where it is under the sun, to a point near the centre of
+the picture. If this had been done as a license, it would be an instance
+of most absurd and unjustifiable license, as the fault is detected by
+the eye in a moment, and there is no occasion nor excuse for it. But I
+imagine it to be an instance rather of the harm of imperfect science.
+Taking his impression instinctively from nature, Claude usually did what
+is right and put his reflection vertically under the sun; probably,
+however, he had read in some treatise on optics that every point in this
+reflection was in a vertical plane between the sun and spectator; or he
+might have noticed walking on the shore that the reflection came
+straight from the sun to his feet, and intending to indicate the
+position of the spectator, drew in his next picture the reflection
+sloping to the supposed point, the error being excusable enough, and
+plausible enough to have been lately revived and systematized.[62]
+
+In the picture of Cuyp, No. 83 in the Dulwich Gallery, the post at the
+end of the bank casts three or four radiating reflections. This is
+visibly neither license nor half science, but pure ignorance. Again, in
+the picture attributed to Paul Potter, No. 176, Dulwich Gallery, I
+believe most people must feel, the moment they look at it, that there is
+something wrong with the water, that it looks odd, and hard, and like
+ice or lead; and though they may not be able to tell the reason of the
+impression--for when they go near they will find it smooth and lustrous,
+and prettily painted--yet they will not be able to shake off the
+unpleasant sense of its being like a plate of bad mirror set in a model
+landscape among moss, rather than like a pond. The reason is, that while
+this water receives clear reflections from the fence and hedge on the
+left, and is everywhere smooth and evidently capable of giving true
+images, it yet reflects none of the cows.
+
+In the Vandevelde (113) there is not a line of ripple or swell in any
+part of the sea; it is absolutely windless, and the near boat casts its
+image with great fidelity, which being unprolonged downwards informs us
+that the calm is perfect, (Rule V.,) and being unshortened informs us
+that we are on a level with the water, or nearly so. (Rule VII.) Yet
+underneath the vessel on the right, the gray shade which stands for
+reflection breaks off immediately, descending like smoke a little way
+below the hull, then leaving the masts and sails entirely unrecorded.
+This I imagine to be not ignorance, but unjustifiable license.
+Vandevelde evidently desired to give an impression of great extent of
+surface, and thought that if he gave the reflection more faithfully, as
+the tops of the masts would come down to the nearest part of the
+surface, they would destroy the evidence of distance, and appear to set
+the ship above the boat instead of beyond it. I doubt not in such
+awkward hands that such would indeed have been the case, but he is not
+on that account to be excused for painting his surface with gray
+horizontal lines, as is done by nautically-disposed children; for no
+destruction of distance in the ocean is so serious a loss as that of its
+liquidity. It is better to feel a want of extent in the sea, than an
+extent which we might walk upon or play at billiards upon.
+
+
+§ 18. And Canaletto.
+
+Among all the pictures of Canaletto, which I have ever seen, and they
+are not a few, I remember but one or two where there is any variation
+from one method of treatment of the water. He almost always covers the
+whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed of a coat of
+well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green, covered with a
+certain number, I cannot state the exact average, but it varies from
+three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards, according to the
+extent of canvas to be covered, of white concave touches, which are very
+properly symbolical of ripple.
+
+And, as the canal retires back from the eye, he very geometrically
+diminishes the size of his ripples, until he arrives at an even field of
+apparently smooth water. By our sixth rule, this rippling water as it
+retires should show more and more of the reflection of the sky above it,
+and less and less of that of objects beyond it, until, at two or three
+hundred yards down the canal, the whole field of water should be one
+even gray or blue, the color of the sky receiving no reflections
+whatever of other objects. What does Canaletto do? Exactly in proportion
+as he retires, he displays _more_ and _more_ of the reflection of
+objects, and less and less of the sky, until, three hundred yards away,
+all the houses are reflected as clear and sharp as in a quiet lake.
+
+This, again, is wilful and inexcusable violation of truth, of which the
+reason, as in the last case, is the painter's consciousness of weakness.
+It is one of the most difficult things in the world to express the light
+reflection of the blue sky on a distant ripple, and to make the eye
+understand the cause of the color, and the motion of the apparently
+smooth water, especially where there are buildings above to be
+reflected, for the eye never understands the want of the reflection. But
+it is the easiest and most agreeable thing in the world to give the
+inverted image: it occupies a vast space of otherwise troublesome
+distance in the simplest way possible, and is understood by the eye at
+once. Hence Canaletto is glad, as any other inferior workman would be,
+not to say obliged, to give the reflections in the distance. But when he
+comes up close to the spectator, he finds the smooth surface just as
+troublesome near, as the ripple would have been far off. It is a very
+nervous thing for an ignorant artist to have a great space of vacant
+smooth water to deal with, close to him, too far down to take
+reflections from buildings, and yet which must be made to look flat and
+retiring and transparent. Canaletto, with his sea-green, did not at all
+feel himself equal to anything of this kind, and had therefore no
+resource but in the white touches above described, which occupy the
+alarming space without any troublesome necessity for knowledge or
+invention, and supply by their gradual diminution some means of
+expressing retirement of surface. It is easily understood, therefore,
+why he should adopt this system, which is just what any awkward workman
+would naturally cling to, trusting to the inaccuracy of observation of
+the public to secure him from detection.
+
+
+§ 19. Why unpardonable.
+
+Now in all these cases it is not the mistake or the license itself, it
+is not the infringement of this or that law which condemns the picture,
+but it is the spirit and habit of mind in which the license is taken,
+the cowardice or bluntness of feeling, which infects every part alike,
+and deprives the whole picture of vitality. Canaletto, had he been a
+great painter, might have cast his reflections wherever he chose, and
+rippled the water wherever he chose, and painted his sea sloping if he
+chose, and neither I nor any one else should have dared to say a word
+against him; but he is a little and a bad painter, and so continues
+everywhere multiplying and magnifying mistakes, and adding apathy to
+error, until nothing can any more be pardoned in him. If it be but
+remembered that every one of the surfaces of those multitudinous ripples
+is in nature a mirror which catches, according to its position, either
+the image of the sky or of the silver beaks of the gondolas, or of their
+black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the white marble, or the green
+sea-weed on the low stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would
+have something more of color upon them than that opaque dead green.
+Green they are by their own nature, but it is a transparent and emerald
+hue, mixing itself with the thousand reflected tints without
+overpowering the weakest of them; and thus, in every one of those
+individual waves, the truths of color are contradicted by Canaletto by
+the thousand.
+
+Venice is sad and silent now, to what she was in his time; the canals
+are choked gradually one by one, and the foul water laps more and more
+sluggishly against the rent foundations; but even yet, could I but place
+the reader at the early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the
+market boats, full laden, float into groups of golden color, and let him
+watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and
+under the shadows of the vine leaves, and show him the purple of the
+grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds carried away
+in long streams upon the waves, and among them, the crimson fish
+baskets, plashing and sparkling, and flaming as the morning sun falls on
+their wet tawny sides, and above, the painted sails of the fishing
+boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue, and better than all such
+florid color, the naked, bronzed, burning limbs of the seamen, the last
+of the old Venetian race, who yet keep the right Giorgione color on
+their brows and bosoms, in strange contrast with the sallow sensual
+degradation of the creatures that live in the cafés of the Piazza, he
+would not be merciful to Canaletto any more.
+
+
+§ 20. The Dutch painters of sea.
+
+Yet even Canaletto, in relation to the truths he had to paint, is
+spiritual, faithful, powerful, compared to the Dutch painters of sea. It
+is easily understood why his green paint and concave touches should be
+thought expressive of the water on which the real colors are not to be
+discerned but by attention, which is never given; but it is not so
+easily understood, considering how many there are who love the sea, and
+look at it, that Vandevelde and such others should be tolerated. As I
+before said, I feel utterly hopeless in addressing the admirers of these
+men, because I do not know what it is in their works which is supposed
+to be like nature. Foam appears to me to curdle and cream on the wave
+sides and to fly, flashing from their crests, and not to be set astride
+upon them like a peruke; and waves appear to me to fall, and plunge, and
+toss, and nod, and crash over, and not to curl up like shavings; and
+water appears to me, when it is gray, to have the gray of stormy air
+mixed with its own deep, heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not
+the gray of the first coat of cheap paint on a deal door; and many other
+such things appear to me which, as far as I can conjecture by what is
+admired of marine painting, appear to no one else; yet I shall have
+something more to say about these men presently, with respect to the
+effect they have had upon Turner; and something more, I hope, hereafter,
+with the help of illustration.
+
+
+§ 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator.
+
+There is a sea-piece of Ruysdael's in the Louvre[63] which, though
+nothing very remarkable in any quality of art, is at least forceful,
+agreeable, and, as far as it goes, natural; the waves have much freedom
+of action, and power of color; the wind blows hard over the shore, and
+the whole picture may be studied with profit as a proof that the
+deficiency of color and everything else in Backhuysen's works, is no
+fault of the Dutch sea. There is sublimity and power in every field of
+nature from the pole to the line; and though the painters of one country
+are often better and greater, universally, than those of another, this
+is less because the subjects of art are wanting anywhere, than because
+one country or one age breeds mighty and thinking men, and another none.
+
+Ruysdael's painting of falling water and brook scenery is also generally
+agreeable--more than agreeable it can hardly be considered. There
+appears no exertion of mind in any of his works; nor are they calculated
+to produce either harm or good by their feeble influence. They are good
+furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.
+
+The seas of Claude are the finest pieces of water-painting in ancient
+art. I do not say that I like them, because they appear to me selections
+of the particular moment when the sea is most insipid and characterless;
+but I think that they are exceedingly true to the forms and time
+selected, or at least that the fine instances of them are so, of which
+there are exceedingly few.
+
+On the right hand of one of the marines of Salvator, in the Pitti
+palace, there is a passage of sea reflecting the sunrise, which is
+thoroughly good, and very like Turner; the rest of the picture, as the
+one opposite to it, utterly virtueless. I have not seen any other
+instance of Salvator's painting water with any care, it is usually as
+conventional as the rest of his work, yet conventionalism is perhaps
+more tolerable in water-painting than elsewhere; and if his trees and
+rocks had been good, the rivers might have been generally accepted
+without objection.
+
+
+§ 22. Nicholas Poussin.
+
+The merits of Poussin as a sea or water painter may, I think, be
+sufficiently determined by the Deluge in the Louvre, where the breaking
+up of the fountains of the deep is typified by the capsizing of a wherry
+over a weir.
+
+In the outer porch of St. Mark's at Venice, among the mosaics on the
+roof, there is a representation of the deluge. The ground is dark blue;
+the rain is represented in bright white undulating parallel stripes;
+between these stripes is seen the massy outline of the ark, a bit
+between each stripe, very dark and hardly distinguishable from the sky;
+but it has a square window with a bright golden border, which glitters
+out conspicuously, and leads the eye to the rest--the sea below is
+almost concealed with dead bodies.
+
+On the font of the church of San Frediano at Lucca, there is a
+representation of--possibly--the Israelites and Egyptians in the Red
+Sea. The sea is typified by undulating bands of stone, each band
+composed of three plies (almost the same type is to be seen in the
+glass-painting of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as especially at
+Chartres). These bands would perhaps be hardly felt as very aqueous, but
+for the fish which are interwoven with them in a complicated manner,
+their heads appearing at one side of every band, and their tails at the
+other.
+
+Both of these representatives of deluge, archaic and rude as they are, I
+consider better, more suggestive, more inventive, and more natural,
+than Poussin's. Indeed, this is not saying anything very depreciatory,
+as regards the St. Mark's one, for the glittering of the golden window
+through the rain is wonderfully well conceived, and almost deceptive,
+looking as if it had just caught a gleam of sunlight on its panes, and
+there is something very sublime in the gleam of this light above the
+floating corpses. But the other instance is sufficiently grotesque and
+imperfect, and yet, I speak with perfect seriousness, it is, I think,
+very far preferable to Poussin's.
+
+On the other hand, there is a just medium between the meanness and
+apathy of such a conception as his, and the extravagance, still more
+contemptible, with which the subject has been treated in modern
+days.[64] I am not aware that I can refer to any instructive example of
+this intermediate course, for I fear the reader is by this time wearied
+of hearing of Turner, and the plate of Turner's picture of the deluge is
+so rare that it is of no use to refer to it.
+
+
+§ 23. Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion.
+
+It seems exceedingly strange that the great Venetian painters should
+have left us no instance, as far as I know, of any marine effects
+carefully studied. As already noted, whatever passages of sea occur in
+their backgrounds are merely broad extents of blue or green surface,
+fine in color, and coming dark usually against the horizon, well enough
+to be understood as sea, (yet even that not always without the help of a
+ship,) but utterly unregarded in all questions of completion and detail.
+The water even in Titian's landscape is almost always violently though
+grandly conventional, and seldom forms an important feature. Among the
+religious schools very sweet motives occur, but nothing which for a
+moment can be considered as real water-painting. Perugino's sea is
+usually very beautifully felt; his river in the fresco of S^ta.
+Maddalena at Florence is freely indicated, and looks level and clear;
+the reflections of the trees given with a rapid zigzag stroke of the
+brush. On the whole, I suppose that the best imitations of level water
+surface to be found in ancient art are in the clear Flemish landscapes.
+Cuyp's are usually very satisfactory, but even the best of these attain
+nothing more than the agreeable suggestion of calm pond or river. Of any
+tolerable representation of water in agitation, or under any
+circumstances that bring out its power and character, I know no
+instance; and the more capable of noble treatment the subject happens to
+be, the more manifest invariably is the painter's want of feeling in
+every effort, and of knowledge in every line.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [61] I state this merely as a fact: I am unable satisfactorily to
+    account for it on optical principles, and were it otherwise, the
+    investigation would be of little interest to the general reader, and
+    little value to the artist.
+
+  [62] Parsey's "Convergence of Perpendiculars." I have not space here
+    to enter into any lengthy exposure of this mistake, but reasoning is
+    fortunately unnecessary, the appeal to experiment being easy. Every
+    picture is the representation, as before stated, of a vertical plate
+    of glass, with what might be seen through it, drawn on its surface.
+    Let a vertical plate of glass be taken, and wherever it be placed,
+    whether the sun be at its side or at its centre, the reflection will
+    always be found in a vertical line under the sun, parallel with the
+    side of the glass. The pane of any window looking to sea is all the
+    apparatus necessary for this experiment, and yet it is not long
+    since this very principle was disputed with me by a man of much
+    taste and information, who supposed Turner to be wrong in drawing
+    the reflection straight down at the side of his picture, as in his
+    Lancaster Sands, and innumerable other instances.
+
+  [63] In the last edition of this work was the following passage:--"I
+    wish Ruysdael had painted one or two rough seas. I believe if he had
+    he might have saved the unhappy public from much grievous
+    victimizing, both in mind and pocket, for he would have shown that
+    Vandevelde and Backhuysen were not quite sea-deities." The writer
+    has to thank the editor of Murray's Handbook of Painting in Italy
+    for pointing out the oversight. He had passed many days in the
+    Louvre before the above passage was written, but had not been in the
+    habit of pausing long anywhere except in the last two rooms,
+    containing the pictures of the Italian school. The conjecture,
+    however, shows that he had not ill-estimated the power of Ruysdael;
+    nor does he consider it as in anywise unfitting him for the task he
+    has undertaken, that for every hour passed in galleries he has
+    passed days on the seashore.
+
+  [64] I am here, of course, speaking of the treatment of the subject
+    as a landscape only; many mighty examples of its conception occur
+    where the sea, and all other adjuncts, are entirely subservient to
+    the figures, as with Raffaelle and M. Angelo.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                     OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY THE MODERNS.
+
+
+§ 1. General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. The lakes of
+       Fielding.
+
+There are few men among modern landscape painters, who cannot paint
+quiet water at least suggestively, if not faithfully. Those who are
+incapable of doing this, would scarcely be considered artists at all;
+and anything like the ripples of Canaletto, or the black shadows of
+Vandevelde, would be looked upon as most unpromising, even in the work
+of a novice. Among those who most fully appreciate and render the
+qualities of space and surface in calm water, perhaps Copley Fielding
+stands first. His expanses of windless lake are among the most perfect
+passages of his works; for he can give surface as well as depth, and
+make his lake look not only clear, but, which is far more difficult,
+lustrous. He is less dependent than most of our artists upon
+reflections; and can give substance, transparency, and extent, where
+another painter would be reduced to paper; and he is exquisitely refined
+in his expression of distant breadth, by the delicate line of ripple
+interrupting the reflection, and by aerial qualities of color. Nothing,
+indeed, can be purer or more refined than his general feeling of lake
+sentiment, were it not for a want of simplicity--a fondness for pretty,
+rather than impressive color, and a consequent want of some of the
+higher expression of repose.
+
+
+§ 2. The calm rivers of De Wint, J. Holland, etc.
+
+§ 3. The character of bright and violent falling water.
+
+§ 4. As given by Nesfield.
+
+Hundreds of men might be named, whose works are highly instructive in
+the management of calm water. De Wint is singularly powerful and
+certain, exquisitely bright and vigorous in color. The late John Varley
+produced some noble passages. I have seen, some seven years ago, works
+by J. Holland, which were, I think, as near perfection as water-color
+can be carried--for _bona fide_ truth, refined and finished to the
+highest degree. But the power of modern artists is not brought out until
+they have greater difficulties to struggle with. Stand for half an hour
+beside the fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side where the rapids are
+long, and watch how the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure,
+polished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of the cataract,
+covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick--so swift that
+its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts over it
+like a falling star; and how the trees are lighted above it under all
+their leaves, at the instant that it breaks into foam; and how all the
+hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering
+chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white flash,
+a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall like a rocket, bursting in
+the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how,
+through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the
+blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the
+sky through white rain-cloud; while the shuddering iris stoops in
+tremulous stillness over all, fading and flushing alternately through
+the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among
+the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild
+water; their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded
+corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the
+mossy rocks as its roar dies away; the dew gushing from their thick
+branches through drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and sparkling in
+white threads along the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens
+which chase and checker them with purple and silver. I believe, when you
+have stood by this for half an hour, you will have discovered that there
+is something more in nature than has been given by Ruysdael. Probably
+you will not be much disposed to think of any mortal work at the time;
+but when you look back to what you have seen, and are inclined to
+compare it with art, you will remember--or ought to remember--Nesfield.
+He is a man of extraordinary feeling, both for the color and the
+spirituality of a great waterfall; exquisitely delicate in his
+management of the changeful veil of spray or mist; just in his curves
+and contours; and unequalled in color except by Turner. None of our
+water-color painters can approach him in the management of the variable
+hues of clear water over weeded rocks; but his feeling for it often
+leads him a little too far, and, like Copley Fielding, he loses sight of
+simplicity and dignity for the sake of delicacy or prettiness. His
+waterfalls are, however, unequalled in their way; and, if he would
+remember, that in all such scenes there is much gloom as well as much
+splendor, and relieve the lustre of his attractive passages of color
+with more definite and prevalent grays, and give a little more substance
+to parts of his picture unaffected by spray, his work would be nearly
+perfect. His seas are also most instructive; a little confused in
+chiaroscuro, but refined in form and admirable in color.
+
+
+§ 5. The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding.
+
+§ 6. His color; and painting of sea.
+
+J. D. Harding is, I think, nearly unequalled in the _drawing_ of running
+water. I do not know what Stanfield would do; I have never seen an
+important piece of torrent drawn by him; but I believe even he could
+scarcely contend with the magnificent _abandon_ of Harding's brush.
+There is perhaps nothing which tells more in the drawing of water than
+decisive and swift execution; for, in a rapid touch the hand naturally
+falls into the very curve of projection which is the absolute truth;
+while in slow finish, all precision of curve and character is certain to
+be lost, except under the hand of an unusually powerful master. But
+Harding has both knowledge and velocity, and the fall of his torrents is
+beyond praise; impatient, chafing, substantial, shattering, crystalline,
+and capricious; full of various form, yet all apparently instantaneous
+and accidental, nothing conventional, nothing dependent upon parallel
+lines or radiating curves; all broken up and dashed to pieces over the
+irregular rock, and yet all in unity of motion. The color also of his
+_falling_ and bright water is very perfect; but in the dark and level
+parts of his torrents he has taken up a bad gray, which has hurt some of
+his best pictures. His gray in shadows under rocks or dark reflections
+is admirable; but it is when the stream is in full light, and unaffected
+by reflections in distance, that he gets wrong. We believe that the
+fault is in a want of expression of darkness in the color, making it
+appear like a positive hue of the water, for which it is much too dead
+and cold.
+
+Harding seldom paints sea, and it is well for Stanfield that he does
+not, or the latter would have to look to his crown. All that we have
+seen from his hand is, as coast sea, quite faultless; we only wish he
+would paint it more frequently; always, however, with a veto upon French
+fishing-boats. In the Exhibition of 1842, he spoiled one of the most
+superb pieces of seashore and sunset which modern art has produced, with
+the pestilent square sail of one of these clumsy craft, which the eye
+could not escape from.
+
+
+§ 7. The sea of Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity.
+
+Before passing to our great sea painter, we must again refer to the
+works of Copley Fielding. It is with his sea as with his sky, he can
+only paint one, and that an easy one, but it is, for all that, an
+impressive and a true one. No man has ever given, with the same flashing
+freedom, the race of a running tide under a stiff breeze, nor caught,
+with the same grace and precision, the curvature of the breaking wave,
+arrested or accelerated by the wind. The forward fling of his foam, and
+the impatient run of his surges, whose quick, redoubling dash we can
+almost hear, as they break in their haste upon their own bosoms, are
+nature itself, and his sea gray or green was, nine years ago, very
+right, as color; always a little wanting in transparency, but never cold
+or toneless. Since that time, he seems to have lost the sense of
+greenness in water, and has verged more and more on the purple and
+black, with unhappy results. His sea was always dependent for effect on
+its light or dark relief against the sky, even when it possessed color;
+but it now has lost all local color and transparency together, and is
+little more than a study of chiaroscuro in an exceedingly ill-chosen
+gray. Besides, the perpetual repetition of the same idea is singularly
+weakening to the mind. Fielding, in all his life, can only be considered
+as having produced _one_ sea picture. The others are duplicates. He
+ought to go to some sea of perfect clearness and brilliant color, as
+that on the coast of Cornwall, or of the Gulf of Genoa, and study it
+sternly in broad daylight, with no black clouds nor drifting rain to
+help him out of his difficulties. He would then both learn his strength
+and add to it.
+
+
+§ 8. Its high aim at character.
+
+§ 9. But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays.
+
+§ 10. Variety of the grays of nature.
+
+But there is one point in all his seas deserving especial praise--a
+marked aim at _character_. He desires, especially in his latter works,
+not so much to produce an agreeable picture, a scientific piece of
+arrangement, or delightful melody of color, as to make us feel the
+utter desolation, the cold, withering, frozen hopelessness of the
+continuous storm and merciless sea. And this is peculiarly remarkable in
+his denying himself all color, just in the little bits which an artist
+of inferior mind would paint in sienna and cobalt. If a piece of broken
+wreck is allowed to rise for an instant through the boiling foam, though
+the blue stripe of a sailor's jacket, or a red rag of a flag would do
+all our hearts good, we are not allowed to have it; it would make us too
+comfortable, and prevent us from shivering and shrinking as we look, and
+the artist, with admirable intention, and most meritorious self-denial,
+expresses his piece of wreck with a dark, cold brown. Now we think this
+aim and effort worthy of the highest praise, and we only wish the lesson
+were taken up and acted on by our other artists; but Mr. Fielding should
+remember that nothing of this kind can be done with success unless by
+the most studied management of the general tones of the picture; for the
+eye, deprived of all means of enjoying the gray hues, merely as a
+contrast to bright points, becomes painfully fastidious in the quality
+of the hues themselves, and demands for its satisfaction such melodies
+and richness of gray as may in some degree atone to it for the loss of
+points of stimulus. That gray which would be taken frankly and freely
+for an expression of gloom, if it came behind a yellow sail or a red
+cap, is examined with invidious and merciless intentness when there is
+nothing to relieve it, and, if not able to bear the investigation, if
+neither agreeable nor variable in its hue, renders the picture weak
+instead of impressive, and unpleasant instead of awful. And indeed the
+management of nature might teach him this; for though, when using
+violent contrasts, she frequently makes her gloom somewhat monotonous,
+the moment she gives up her vivid color, and depends upon her
+desolation, that moment she begins to steal the greens into her
+sea-gray, and the browns and yellows into her cloud-gray, and the
+expression of variously tinted light through all. Nor is Mr. Fielding
+without a model in art, for the Land's End, and Lowestoffe, and
+Snowstorm, (in the Academy, 1842,) of Turner, are nothing more than
+passages of the most hopeless, desolate, uncontrasted grays, and yet are
+three of the very finest pieces of color that have come from his hand.
+And we sincerely hope that Mr. Fielding will gradually feel the
+necessity of such studied melodies of quiet color, and will neither fall
+back into the old tricks of contrast, nor continue to paint with purple
+and ink. If he will only make a few careful studies of gray from the
+mixed atmosphere of spray, rain, and mist of a gale that has been three
+days hard at work, not of a rainy squall, but of a persevering and
+powerful storm, and not where the sea is turned into milk and magnesia
+by a chalk coast, but where it breaks pure and green on gray slate or
+white granite, as along the cliffs of Cornwall, we think his pictures
+would present some of the finest examples of high intention and feeling
+to be found in modern art.
+
+
+§ 11. Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power.
+
+§ 12. But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern art.
+
+The works of Stanfield evidently, and at all times, proceed from the
+hand of a man who has both thorough knowledge of his subject, and
+thorough acquaintance with all the means and principles of art. We never
+criticise them, because we feel, the moment we look carefully at the
+drawing of any single wave, that the knowledge possessed by the master
+is much greater than our own, and therefore believe that if anything
+offends us in any part of the work, it is nearly certain to be our
+fault, and not the painter's. The local color of Stanfield's sea is
+singularly true and powerful, and entirely independent of any tricks of
+chiaroscuro. He will carry a mighty wave up against the sky, and make
+its whole body dark and substantial against the distant light, using all
+the while nothing more than chaste and unexaggerated local color to gain
+the relief. His surface is at once lustrous, transparent, and accurate
+to a hairbreadth in every curve; and he is entirely independent of dark
+skies, deep blues, driving spray, or any other means of concealing want
+of form, or atoning for it. He fears no difficulty, desires no
+assistance, takes his sea in open daylight, under general sunshine, and
+paints the _element_ in its pure color and complete forms. But we wish
+that he were less powerful, and more interesting; or that he were a
+little less Diogenes-like, and did not scorn all that he does not want.
+Now that he has shown us what he can do without such aids, we wish he
+would show us what he can do with them. He is, as we have already said,
+wanting in what we have just been praising in Fielding--impressiveness.
+We should like him to be less clever, and more affecting--less
+wonderful, and more terrible; and as the very first step towards such an
+end, to learn how to conceal. We are, however, trenching upon matters
+with which we have at present nothing to do; our concern is now only
+with truth, and one work of Stanfield alone presents us with as much
+concentrated knowledge of sea and sky, as, diluted, would have lasted
+any one of the old masters his life. And let it be especially observed,
+how extensive and how varied is the truth of our modern masters--how it
+comprises a complete history of that nature of which, from the ancients,
+you only here and there can catch a stammering descriptive syllable--how
+Fielding has given us every character of the quiet lake, Robson[65] of
+the mountain tarn, De Wint of the lowland river, Nesfield of the radiant
+cataract, Harding of the roaring torrent, Fielding of the desolate sea,
+Stanfield of the blue, open, boundless ocean. Arrange all this in your
+mind, observe the perfect truth of it in all its parts, compare it with
+the fragmentary falsities of the ancients, and then, come with me to
+Turner.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [65] I ought before to have alluded to the works of the late G.
+    Robson. They are a little disagreeable in execution, but there is a
+    feeling of the character of _deep_ calm water in them quite
+    unequalled, and different from the works and thoughts of all other
+    men.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                       OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY TURNER.
+
+
+§ 1. The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water.
+
+§ 2. Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by which
+       the reflected rays are perceived.
+
+I believe it is a result of the experience of all artists, that it is
+the easiest thing in the world to give a certain degree of depth and
+transparency to water; but that it is next thing to impossible, to give
+a full impression of surface. If no reflection be given--a ripple being
+supposed--the water looks like lead: if reflection be given, it in nine
+cases out of ten looks _morbidly_ clear and deep, so that we always go
+down _into_ it, even when the artist most wishes us to glide _over_ it.
+Now, this difficulty arises from the very same circumstance which
+occasions the frequent failure in effect of the best drawn foregrounds,
+noticed in Section II. Chapter III., the change, namely, of focus
+necessary in the eye in order to receive rays of light coming from
+different distances. Go to the edge of a pond, in a perfectly calm day,
+at some place where there is duckweed floating on the surface,--not
+thick, but a leaf here and there. Now, you may either see in the water
+the reflection of the sky, or you may see the duckweed; but you cannot,
+by any effort, see both together. If you look for the reflection, you
+will be sensible of a sudden change or effort in the eye, by which it
+adapts itself to the reception of the rays which have come all the way
+from the clouds, have struck on the water, and so been sent up again to
+the eye. The focus you adopt is one fit for great distance; and,
+accordingly, you will feel that you are looking down a great way under
+the water, while the leaves of the duckweed, though they lie upon the
+water at the very spot on which you are gazing so intently, are felt
+only as a vague, uncertain interruption, causing a little confusion in
+the image below, but entirely indistinguishable as leaves,--and even
+their color unknown and unperceived. Unless you think of them, you will
+not even feel that anything interrupts your sight, so excessively
+slight is their effect. If, on the other hand, you make up your mind to
+look for the leaves of the duckweed, you will perceive an instantaneous
+change in the effort of the eye, by which it becomes adapted to receive
+near rays--those which have only come from the surface of the pond. You
+will then see the delicate leaves of the duckweed with perfect
+clearness, and in vivid green; but while you do so, you will be able to
+perceive nothing of the reflections in the very water on which they
+float--nothing but a vague flashing and melting of light and dark hues,
+without form or meaning, which, to investigate, or find out what they
+mean or are, you must quit your hold of the duckweed, and plunge down.
+
+
+§ 3. Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by distinctness of
+       reflections.
+
+§ 4. How avoided by Turner.
+
+§ 5. All reflections on distant water are distinct.
+
+Hence it appears, that whenever we see plain reflections of
+comparatively distant objects, in near water, we cannot possibly see the
+surface, and _vice versa_; so that when in a painting we give the
+reflections with the same clearness with which they are visible in
+nature, we presuppose the effort of the eye to look under the surface,
+and, of course, destroy the surface, and induce an effect of clearness
+which, perhaps, the artist has not particularly wished to attain, but
+which he has found himself forced into, by his reflections, in spite of
+himself. And the reason of this effect of clearness appearing
+preternatural is, that people are not in the habit of looking at water
+with the distant focus adapted to the reflections, unless by particular
+effort. We invariably, under ordinary circumstances, use the surface
+focus; and, in consequence, receive nothing more than a vague and
+confused impression of the reflected colors and lines, however clearly,
+calmly, and vigorously all may be defined underneath, if we choose to
+look for them. We do not look for them, but glide along over the
+surface, catching only playing light and capricious color for evidence
+of reflection, except where we come to images of objects close to the
+surface, which the surface focus is of course adapted to receive; and
+these we see clearly, as of the weeds on the shore, or of sticks rising
+out of the water, etc. Hence, the ordinary effect of water is only to be
+rendered by giving the reflections of the _margin_ clear and distinct
+(so clear they usually are in nature, that it is impossible to tell
+where the water begins;) but the moment we touch the reflection of
+distant objects, as of high trees or clouds, that instant we must become
+vague and uncertain in drawing, and, though vivid in color and light as
+the object itself, quite indistinct in form and feature. If we take such
+a piece of water as that in the foreground of Turner's Chateau of Prince
+Albert, the first impression from it is,--"What a wide _surface_!" We
+glide over it a quarter of a mile into the picture before we know where
+we are, and yet the water is as calm and crystalline as a mirror; but we
+are not allowed to tumble into it, and gasp for breath as we go
+down,--we are kept upon the surface, though that surface is flashing and
+radiant with every hue of cloud, and sun, and sky, and foliage. But the
+secret is in the drawing of these reflections.[66] We cannot tell when
+we look _at_ them and _for_ them, what they mean. They have all
+character, and are evidently reflections of something definite and
+determined; but yet they are all uncertain and inexplicable; playing
+color and palpitating shade, which, though we recognize in an instant
+for images of something, and feel that the water is bright, and lovely,
+and calm, we cannot penetrate nor interpret: we are not allowed to go
+down to them, and we repose, as we should in nature, upon the lustre of
+the level surface. It is in this power of saying everything, and yet
+saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art here, as in all
+other cases, consists. But as it was before shown in Sect. II. Chap.
+III. that the focus of the eye required little alteration after the
+first half mile of distance, it is evident that on the _distant_ surface
+of water, _all_ reflections will be seen plainly; for the same focus
+adapted to a moderate distance of surface will receive with distinctness
+rays coming from the sky, or from any other distance, however great.
+Thus we always see the reflection of Mont Blanc on the Lake of Geneva,
+whether we take pains to look for it or not, because the water upon
+which it is cast is itself a mile off; but if we would see the
+reflection of Mont Blanc in the Lac de Chede, which is close to us, we
+must take some trouble about the matter, leave the green snakes swimming
+upon the surface, and plunge for it. Hence reflections, if viewed
+collectively, are always clear in proportion to the distance of the
+water on which they are cast. And now look at Turner's Ulleswater, or
+any of his distant lake expanses, and you will find every crag and line
+of the hills rendered in them with absolute fidelity, while the near
+surface shows nothing but a vague confusion of exquisite and lustrous
+tint. The reflections even of the clouds will be given far off, while
+those of near boats and figures will be confused and mixed among each
+other, except just at the water-line.
+
+
+§ 6. The error of Vandevelde.
+
+And now we see what Vandevelde _ought_ to have done with the shadow of
+his ship spoken of in the first chapter of this section. In such a calm,
+we should in nature, if we had looked for the reflection, have seen it
+clear from the water-line to the flag on the mainmast; but in so doing,
+we should have appeared to ourselves to be looking under the water, and
+should have lost all feeling of surface. When we looked at the surface
+of the sea,--as we naturally should,--we should have seen the image of
+the hull absolutely clear and perfect, because that image is cast on
+distant water; but we should have seen the image of the masts and sails
+gradually more confused as they descended, and the water close to us
+would have borne only upon its surface a maze of flashing color and
+indefinite hue. Had Vandevelde, therefore, given the perfect image of
+his ship, he would have represented a truth dependent on a particular
+effort of the eye, and destroyed his surface. But his business was to
+give, not a distinct reflection, but the colors of the reflection in
+mystery and disorder upon his near water, all perfectly vivid, but none
+intelligible; and had he done so, the eye would not have troubled itself
+to search them out; it would not have cared whence or how the colors
+came, but it would have felt them to be true and right, and rested
+satisfied upon the polished surface of the clear sea. Of the perfect
+truth, the best examples I can give are Turner's Saltash and Castle
+Upnor.
+
+
+§ 7. Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected object and
+       its image.
+
+Be it next observed that the reflection of all near objects is, by our
+fifth rule, not an exact copy of the parts of them which we see above
+the water, but a totally different view and arrangement of them, that
+which we should get if we were looking at them from beneath. Hence we
+see the dark sides of leaves hanging over a stream, in their reflection,
+though we see the light sides above, and all objects and groups of
+objects are thus seen in the reflection under different lights, and in
+different positions with respect to each other from those which they
+assume above; some which we see on the bank being entirely lost in their
+reflection, and others which we cannot see on the bank brought into
+view. Hence nature contrives never to repeat herself, and the surface of
+water is not a mockery, but a new view of what is above it. And this
+difference in what is represented, as well as the obscurity of the
+representation, is one of the chief sources by which the sensation of
+surface is kept up in the reality. The reflection is not so remarkable,
+it does not attract the eye in the same degree when it is entirely
+different from the images above, as when it mocks them and repeats them,
+and we feel that the space and surface have color and character of their
+own, and that the bank is one thing and the water another. It is by not
+making this change manifest, and giving underneath a mere duplicate of
+what is seen above, that artists are apt to destroy the essence and
+substance of water, and to drop us through it.
+
+
+§ 8. Illustrated from the works of Turner.
+
+§ 9. The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it.
+
+Now one instance will be sufficient to show the exquisite care of Turner
+in this respect. On the left-hand side of his Nottingham, the water (a
+smooth canal) is terminated by a bank fenced up with wood, on which,
+just at the edge of the water, stands a white sign-post. A quarter of a
+mile back, the hill on which Nottingham Castle stands rises steeply
+nearly to the top of the picture. The upper part of this hill is in
+bright golden light, and the lower in very deep gray shadow, against
+which the white board of the sign-post is seen entirely in light relief,
+though, being turned from the light, it is itself in delicate middle
+tint, illumined only on the edge. But the image of all this in the
+canal is very different. First, we have the reflection of the piles of
+the bank, sharp and clear, but under this we have not what we see above
+it, the dark _base_ of the hill, (for this being a quarter of a mile
+back, we could not see over the fence if we were looking from below,)
+but the golden summit of the hill, the shadow of the under part having
+no record nor place in the reflection. But this summit, being very
+distant, cannot be seen clearly by the eye while its focus is adapted to
+the surface of the water, and accordingly its reflection is entirely
+vague and confused; you cannot tell what it is meant for, it is mere
+playing golden light. But the sign-post, being on the bank close to us,
+will be reflected clearly, and accordingly its distinct image is seen in
+the midst of this confusion. But it now is relieved, not against the
+dark base, but against the illumined summit of the hill, and it appears,
+therefore, instead of a white space thrown out from blue shade, a dark
+gray space thrown out from golden light. I do not know that any more
+magnificent example could be given of concentrated knowledge, or of the
+daring statement of most difficult truth. For who but this consummate
+artist would have had courage, even if he had perceived the laws which
+required it, to undertake in a single small space of water, the painting
+of an entirely new picture, with all its tones and arrangements
+altered,--what was made above bright by opposition to blue, being
+underneath made cool and dark by opposition to gold;--or would have
+dared to contradict so boldly the ordinary expectation of the
+uncultivated eye, to find in the reflection a mockery for the reality?
+But the reward is immediate, for not only is the change most grateful to
+the eye, and most exquisite as composition, but the surface of the water
+in consequence of it is felt to be as spacious as it is clear, and the
+eye rests not on the inverted image of the material objects, but on the
+element which receives them. And we have a farther instance in this
+passage of the close study which is required to enjoy the works of
+Turner, for another artist might have altered the reflection or confused
+it, but he would not have reasoned upon it so as to find out _what the
+exact alteration must be_; and if we had tried to account for the
+reflection, we should have found it false or inaccurate. But the master
+mind of Turner, without effort, showers its knowledge into every touch,
+and we have only to trace out even his slightest passages, part by part,
+to find in them the universal working of the deepest thought, that
+consistency of every minor truth which admits of and invites the same
+ceaseless study as the work of nature herself.
+
+
+§ 10. The _texture_ of surface in Turner's painting of calm water.
+
+There is, however, yet another peculiarity in Turner's painting of
+smooth water, which, though less deserving of admiration, as being
+merely a mechanical excellence, is not less wonderful than its other
+qualities, nor less unique--a peculiar texture, namely, given to the
+most delicate tints of the surface, when there is little reflection from
+anything except sky or atmosphere, and which, just at the points where
+other painters are reduced to paper, gives to the surface of Turner the
+greatest appearance of substantial liquidity. It is impossible to say
+how it is produced; it looks like some modification of body color; but
+it certainly is not body color used as by other men, for I have seen
+this expedient tried over and over again without success; and it is
+often accompanied by crumbling touches of a dry brush, which never could
+have been put upon body color, and which could not have shown through
+underneath it. As a piece of mechanical excellence, it is one of the
+most remarkable things in the works of the master; and it brings the
+truth of his water-painting up to the last degree of perfection, often
+rendering those passages of it the most attractive and delightful, which
+from their delicacy and paleness of tint, would have been weak and
+papery in the hands of any other man. The best instance of it I can
+give, is, I think, the distance of the Devonport with the Dockyards.
+
+
+§ 11. Its united qualities.
+
+After all, however, there is more in Turner's painting of water surface
+than any philosophy of reflection, or any peculiarity of means, can
+account for or accomplish; there is a might and wonder about it which
+will not admit of our whys and hows. Take, for instance, the picture of
+the Sun of Venice going to Sea, of 1843, respecting which, however,
+there are one or two circumstances which may as well be noted besides
+its water-painting. The reader, if he has not been at Venice, ought to
+be made aware that the Venetian fishing-boats, almost without exception,
+carry canvas painted with bright colors, the favorite design for the
+centre being either a cross or a large sun with many rays, the favorite
+colors being red, orange, and black, blue occurring occasionally. The
+radiance of these sails and of the bright and grotesque vanes at the
+mast-heads under sunlight is beyond all painting, but it is strange
+that, of constant occurrence as these boats are on all the lagoons,
+Turner alone should have availed himself of them. Nothing could be more
+faithful than the boat which was the principal object in this picture,
+in the cut of the sail, the filling of it, the exact height of the boom
+above the deck, the quartering of it with color, finally and especially,
+the hanging of the fish-baskets about the bows. All these, however, are
+comparatively minor merits, (though not the blaze of color which the
+artist elicited from the right use of these circumstances,) but the
+peculiar power of the picture was the painting of the sea surface, where
+there were no reflections to assist it. A stream of splendid color fell
+from the boat, but that occupied the centre only; in the distance, the
+city and crowded boats threw down some playing lines, but these still
+left on each side of the boat a large space of water reflecting nothing
+but the morning sky. This was divided by an eddying swell, on whose
+continuous sides the local color of the water was seen, pure aquamarine,
+(a beautiful occurrence of closely-observed truth,) but still there
+remained a large blank space of pale water to be treated, the sky above
+had no distinct details and was pure faint gray, with broken white
+vestiges of cloud: it gave no help therefore. But there the water lay,
+no dead gray flat paint, but downright clear, playing, palpable surface,
+full of indefinite hue, and retiring as regularly and visibly back and
+far away, as if there had been objects all over it to tell the story by
+perspective. Now it is the doing of this which tries the painter, and it
+is his having done this which made me say above that "no man had ever
+painted the surface of calm water but Turner." The San Benedetto,
+looking towards Fusina, contained a similar passage, equally fine; in
+one of the Canale della Guidecca the specific green color of the water
+is seen in front, with the shadows of the boats thrown on it in purple;
+all, as it retires, passing into the pure reflective blue.
+
+
+§ 12. Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, etc., by the
+        most trifling incidents, as in the Cowes.
+
+But Turner is not satisfied with this. He is never altogether content
+unless he can, at the same time that he takes advantage of all the
+placidity of repose, tell us something either about the past commotion
+of the water, or of some present stirring of tide or current which its
+stillness does not show, or give us something or other to think about
+and reason upon, as well as to look at. Take a few instances. His Cowes,
+Isle of Wight, is a summer twilight about half an hour, or more, after
+sunset. Intensity of repose is the great aim throughout, and the unity
+of tone of the picture is one of the finest things that Turner has ever
+done. But there is not only quietness, there is the very deepest
+solemnity in the whole of the light, as well as in the stillness of the
+vessels; and Turner wishes to enhance this feeling by representing not
+only repose, but _power_ in repose, the emblem, in the sea, of the quiet
+ships of war. Accordingly, he takes the greatest possible pains to get
+his surface polished, calm, and smooth, but he indicates the reflection
+of a buoy, floating a full quarter of a mile off, by three black strokes
+with wide intervals between them, the last of which touches the water
+within twenty yards of the spectator. Now these three reflections can
+only indicate the farther sides of three rises of an enormous swell, and
+give by their intervals of separation, a space of from twelve to twenty
+yards for the breadth of each wave, including the sweep between them,
+and this swell is farther indicated by the reflection of the new moon
+falling, in a wide zigzag line. The exceeding majesty which this single
+circumstance gives to the whole picture, the sublime sensation of power
+and knowledge of former exertion which we instantly receive from it, if
+we have but acquaintance with nature enough to understand its language,
+render this work not only a piece of the most refined truth, (as which I
+have at present named it,) but to my mind, one of the highest pieces of
+intellectual art existing.
+
+
+§ 13. In scenes on the Loire and Seine.
+
+Again, in the scene on the Loire, with the square precipice and fiery
+sunset, in the Rivers of France, repose has been aimed at in the same
+way, and most thoroughly given; but the immense width of the river at
+this spot makes it look like a lake or sea, and it was therefore
+necessary that we should be made thoroughly to understand and feel that
+this is not the calm of still water, but the tranquillity of a majestic
+current. Accordingly, a boat swings at anchor on the right; and the
+stream, dividing at its bow, flows towards us in two long, dark waves,
+especial attention to which is enforced by the one on the left being
+brought across the reflected stream of sunshine, which it separates, and
+which is broken in the nearer water by the general undulation and
+agitation caused by the boat's wake; a wake caused by the waters passing
+it, not by _its_ going through the water.
+
+
+§ 14. Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore.
+
+§ 15. Various other instances.
+
+Again, in the Confluence of the Seine and Marne, we have the repose of
+the wide river stirred by the paddles of the steamboat, (whose plashing
+we can almost hear, for we are especially compelled to look at them by
+their being made the central note of the composition--the blackest
+object in it, opposed to the strongest light,) and this disturbance is
+not merely caused by the two lines of surge from the boat's wake, for
+any other painter must have given these, but Turner never rests
+satisfied till he has told you _all_ in his power; and he has not only
+given the receding surges, but these have gone on to the shore, have
+struck upon it, and been beaten back from it in another line of weaker
+contrary surges, whose point of intersection with those of the wake
+itself is marked by the sudden subdivision and disorder of the waves of
+the wake on the extreme left, and whose reverted direction is
+exquisitely given where their lines cross the calm water, close to the
+spectator, and marked also by the sudden vertical spring of the spray
+just where they intersect the swell from the boat; and in order that we
+may fully be able to account for these reverted waves, we are allowed,
+just at the extreme right-hand limit of the picture, to see the point
+where the swell from the boat meets the shore. In the Chaise de
+Gargantua we have the still water lulled by the dead calm which usually
+precedes the most violent storms, suddenly broken upon by a tremendous
+burst of wind from the gathered thunder-clouds, scattering the boats,
+and raising the water into rage, except where it is sheltered by the
+hills. In the Jumieges and Vernon we have farther instances of local
+agitation, caused, in the one instance, by a steamer, in the other, by
+the large water-wheels under the bridge, not, observe, a mere splashing
+about the wheel itself, this is too far off to be noticeable, so that we
+should not have even known that the objects beneath the bridge were
+water-wheels, but for the agitation recorded a quarter of a mile down
+the river, where its current crosses the sunlight. And thus there will
+scarcely ever be found a piece of quiet water by Turner, without some
+story in it of one kind or another; sometimes a slight, but beautiful
+incident--oftener, as in the Cowes, something on which the whole
+sentiment and intention of the picture in a great degree depends; but
+invariably presenting some new instance of varied knowledge and
+observation, some fresh appeal to the highest faculties of the mind.
+
+
+§ 16. Turner's painting of distant expanses of water. Calm, interrupted
+        by ripple.
+
+§ 17. And ripple, crossed by sunshine.
+
+Of extended surfaces of water, as rendered by Turner, the Loch Katrine
+and Derwent-water, of the Illustrations to Scott, and the Loch Lomond,
+vignette in Rogers's Poems, are characteristic instances. The first of
+these gives us the most distant part of the lake entirely under the
+influence of a light breeze, and therefore entirely without reflections
+of the objects on its borders; but the whole near half is untouched by
+the wind, and on that is cast the image of the upper part of Ben-Venue
+and of the islands. The second gives us the surface, with just so much
+motion upon it as to prolong, but not to destroy, the reflections of the
+dark woods,--reflections only interrupted by the ripple of the boat's
+wake. And the third gives us an example of the whole surface so much
+affected by ripple as to bring into exercise all those laws which we
+have seen so grossly violated by Canaletto. We see in the nearest boat
+that though the lines of the gunwale are much blacker and more
+conspicuous than that of the cutwater, yet the gunwale lines, being
+nearly horizontal, have no reflection whatsoever; while the line of the
+cutwater, being vertical, has a distinct reflection of three times its
+own length. But even these tremulous reflections are only visible as far
+as the islands; beyond them, as the lake retires into distance, we find
+it receives only the reflection of the gray light from the clouds, and
+runs in one flat white field up between the hills; and besides all this,
+we have another phenomenon, quite new, given to us,--the brilliant gleam
+of light along the centre of the lake. This is not caused by ripple,
+for it is cast on a surface rippled all over; but it is what we could
+not have without ripple,--the light of a passage of sunshine. I have
+already (Chap. I., § 9) explained the cause of this phenomenon, which
+never can by any possibility take place on calm water, being the
+multitudinous reflection of the sun from the sides of the ripples,
+causing an appearance of local light and shadow; and being dependent,
+like real light and shadow, on the passage of the clouds, though the
+dark parts of the water are the reflections of the clouds, not the
+shadows of them; and the bright parts are the reflections of the sun,
+and not the light of it. This little vignette, then, will entirely
+complete the system of Turner's universal truth in quiet water. We have
+seen every phenomenon given by him,--the clear reflection, the prolonged
+reflection, the reflection broken by ripple, and finally the ripple
+broken by light and shade; and it is especially to be observed how
+careful he is, in this last case, when he uses the apparent light and
+shade, to account for it by showing us in the whiteness of the lake
+beyond, its universal subjection to ripple.
+
+
+§ 18. His drawing of distant rivers.
+
+§ 19. And of surface associated with mist.
+
+We have not spoken of Turner's magnificent drawing of distant rivers,
+which, however, is dependent only on more complicated application of the
+same laws, with exquisite perspective. The sweeps of river in the
+Dryburgh, (Illustrations to Scott,) and Melrose, are bold and
+characteristic examples, as well as the Rouen from St. Catherine's Hill,
+and the Caudebec, in the Rivers of France. The only thing which in these
+works requires particular attention, is the care with which the height
+of the observer above the river is indicated by the loss of the
+reflections of its banks. This is, perhaps, shown most clearly in the
+Caudebec. If we had been on a level with the river, its whole surface
+would have been darkened by the reflection of the steep and high banks;
+but being far above it, we can see no more of the image than we could of
+the hill itself, if it were actually reversed under the water; and
+therefore we see that Turner gives us only a narrow line of dark water,
+immediately under the precipice, the broad surface reflecting only the
+sky. This is also finely shown on the left-hand side of the Dryburgh.
+
+But all these early works of the artist have been eclipsed by some
+recent drawings of Switzerland. These latter are not to be described by
+any words, but they must be noted here not only as presenting records of
+lake effect on grander scale, and of more imaginative character than any
+other of his works, but as combining effects of the surface of mist with
+the surface of water. Two or three of the Lake of Lucerne, seen from
+above, give the melting of the mountain promontories beneath into the
+clear depth, and above into the clouds; one of Constance shows the vast
+lake at evening, seen not as water, but its surface covered with low
+white mist, lying league beyond league in the twilight like a fallen
+space of moony cloud; one of Goldau shows the Lake of Zug appearing
+through the chasm of a thunder-cloud under sunset, its whole surface one
+blaze of fire, and the promontories of the hills thrown out against it,
+like spectres; another of Zurich gives the playing of the green waves of
+the river among white streams of moonlight: two purple sunsets on the
+Lake of Zug are distinguished for the glow obtained without positive
+color, the rose and purple tints being in great measure brought by
+opposition out of browns: finally, a drawing executed in 1845 of the
+town of Lucerne from the lake is unique for its expression of water
+surface reflecting the clear green hue of sky at twilight.
+
+
+§ 20. His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of weight.
+
+§ 21. The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by him.
+
+It will be remembered that it was said above, that Turner was the only
+painter who had ever represented the surface of calm or the _force_ of
+agitated water. He obtains this expression of force in falling or
+running water by fearless and full rendering of its forms. He never
+loses himself and his subject in the splash of the fall--his presence of
+mind never fails as he goes down; he does not blind us with the spray,
+or veil the countenance of his fall with its own drapery. A little
+crumbling white, or lightly rubbed paper, will soon give the effect of
+indiscriminate foam; but nature gives more than foam--she shows beneath
+it, and through it, a peculiar character of exquisitely studied form
+bestowed on every wave and line of fall; and it is this variety of
+definite character which Turner always aims at, rejecting, as much as
+possible, everything that conceals or overwhelms it. Thus, in the Upper
+Fall of the Tees, though the whole basin of the fall is blue and dim
+with the rising vapor, yet the whole attention of the spectator is
+directed to that which it was peculiarly difficult to render, the
+concentric zones and delicate curves of the falling water itself; and it
+is impossible to express with what exquisite accuracy these are given.
+They are the characteristic of a powerful stream descending without
+impediment or break, but from a narrow channel, so as to expand as it
+falls. They are the constant form which such a stream assumes as it
+descends; and yet I think it would be difficult to point to another
+instance of their being rendered in art. You will find nothing in the
+waterfalls even of our best painters, but springing lines of parabolic
+descent, and splashing, shapeless foam; and, in consequence, though they
+may make you understand the swiftness of the water, they never let you
+feel the weight of it; the stream in their hands looks _active_, not
+_supine_, as if it leaped, not as if it fell. Now water will leap a
+little way, it will leap down a weir or over a stone, but it _tumbles_
+over a high fall like this; and it is when we have lost the parabolic
+line, and arrived at the catenary,--when we have lost the _spring_ of
+the fall, and arrived at the _plunge_ of it, that we begin really to
+feel its weight and wildness. Where water takes its first leap from the
+top, it is cool, and collected, and uninteresting, and mathematical, but
+it is when it finds that it has got into a scrape, and has farther to go
+than it thought for, that its character comes out; it is then that it
+begins to writhe, and twist, and sweep out zone after zone in wilder
+stretching as it falls, and to send down the rocket-like, lance-pointed,
+whizzing shafts at its sides, sounding for the bottom. And it is this
+prostration, this hopeless abandonment of its ponderous power to the
+air, which is always peculiarly expressed by Turner, and especially in
+the case before us; while our other artists, keeping to the parabolic
+line, where they do not lose themselves in smoke and foam, make their
+cataract look muscular and wiry, and may consider themselves fortunate
+if they can keep it from stopping. I believe the majesty of motion which
+Turner has given by these concentric catenary lines must be felt even by
+those who have never seen a high waterfall, and therefore cannot
+appreciate their exquisite fidelity to nature.
+
+In the Chain Bridge over the Tees, this passiveness and swinging of the
+water to and fro are yet more remarkable; while we have another
+characteristic of a great waterfall given to us, that the wind, in this
+instance coming up the valley against the current, takes the spray up
+off the edges, and carries it back in little torn, reverted rags and
+threads, seen in delicate form against the darkness on the left. But we
+must understand a little more about the nature of running water before
+we can appreciate the drawing either of this, or any other of Turner's
+torrents.
+
+
+§ 22. Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when
+        interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of its bed.
+
+§ 23. But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.
+
+§ 24. Its exquisite curved lines.
+
+When water, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much interrupted
+by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in a pool as it goes
+along, it does not acquire a continuous velocity of motion. It pauses
+after every leap, and curdles about, and rests a little, and then goes
+on again; and if in this comparatively tranquil and rational state of
+mind it meets with an obstacle, as a rock or stone, it parts on each
+side of it with a little bubbling foam, and goes round; if it comes to a
+step in its bed, it leaps it lightly, and then after a little plashing
+at the bottom, stops again to take breath. But if its bed be on a
+continuous slope, not much interrupted by hollows, so that it cannot
+rest, or if its own mass be so increased by flood that its usual
+resting-places are not sufficient for it, but that it is perpetually
+pushed out of them by the following current, before it has had time to
+tranquillize itself, it of course gains velocity with every yard that it
+runs; the impetus got at one leap is carried to the credit of the next,
+until the whole stream becomes one mass of unchecked, accelerating
+motion. Now when water in this state comes to an obstacle, it does not
+part at it, but clears it, like a racehorse; and when it comes to a
+hollow, it does not fill it up and run out leisurely at the other side,
+but it rushes down into it and comes up again on the other side, as a
+ship into the hollow of the sea. Hence the whole appearance of the bed
+of the stream is changed, and all the lines of the water altered in
+their nature. The quiet stream is a succession of leaps and pools; the
+leaps are light and springy, and parabolic, and make a great deal of
+splashing when they tumble into the pool; then we have a space of quiet
+curdling water, and another similar leap below. But the stream when it
+has gained an impetus takes the shape of its bed, never stops, is
+equally deep and equally swift everywhere, goes down into every hollow,
+not with a leap, but with a swing, not foaming, nor splashing, but in
+the bending line of a strong sea-wave, and comes up again on the other
+side, over rock and ridge, with the ease of a bounding leopard; if it
+meet a rock three or four feet above the level of its bed, it will
+neither part nor foam, nor express any concern about the matter, but
+clear it in a smooth dome of water, without apparent exertion, coming
+down again as smoothly on the other side; the whole surface of the surge
+being drawn into parallel lines by its extreme velocity, but foamless,
+except in places where the form of the bed opposes itself at some direct
+angle to such a line of fall, and causes a breaker; so that the whole
+river has the appearance of a deep and raging sea, with this only
+difference, that the torrent-waves always break backwards, and sea-waves
+forwards. Thus, then, in the water which has gained an impetus, we have
+the most exquisite arrangements of curved lines, perpetually changing
+from convex to concave, and _vice versa_, following every swell and
+hollow of the bed with their modulating grace, and all in unison of
+motion, presenting perhaps the most beautiful series of inorganic forms
+which nature can possibly produce; for the sea runs too much into
+similar and concave curves with sharp edges, but every motion of the
+torrent is united, and all its curves are modifications of beautiful
+line.
+
+
+§ 25. Turner's careful choice of the historical truth.
+
+§ 26. His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the Llanthony
+        Abbey.
+
+We see, therefore, why Turner seizes on these curved lines of the
+torrent, not only as being among the most beautiful forms of nature, but
+because they are an instant expression of the utmost power and velocity,
+and tell us how the torrent has been flowing before we see it. For the
+leap and splash might be seen in the sudden freakishness of a quiet
+stream, or the fall of a rivulet over a mill-dam; but the undulating
+line is the _exclusive_ attribute of the mountain-torrent,[67] whose
+fall and fury have made the valleys echo for miles; and thus the moment
+we see one of its curves over a stone in the foreground, we know how far
+it has come, and how fiercely. And in the drawing we have been speaking
+of, the lower fall of the Tees, in the foreground of the Killiecrankie
+and Rhymer's Glen, and of the St. Maurice, in Rogers's Italy, we shall
+find the most exquisite instances of the use of such lines; but the most
+perfect of all in the Llanthony Abbey, which may be considered as the
+standard of torrent-drawing. The chief light of the picture here falls
+upon the surface of the stream, swelled by recent rain, and its mighty
+waves come rolling down close to the spectator, green and clear, but
+pale with anger, in gigantic, unbroken, oceanic curves, bending into
+each other without break or foam, though jets of fiery spray are cast
+into the air along the rocky shore, and rise in the sunshine in dusty
+vapor. The whole surface is one united race of mad motion; all the waves
+dragged, as I have described, into lines and furrows by their swiftness,
+and every one of these fine forms is drawn with the most studied
+chiaroscuro of delicate color, grays and greens, as silvery and pure as
+the finest passages of Paul Veronese, and with a refinement of execution
+which the eye strains itself in looking into. The rapidity and gigantic
+force of this torrent, the exquisite refinement of its color, and the
+vividness of foam which is obtained through a general middle tint,
+render it about the most perfect piece of painting of running water in
+existence.
+
+
+§ 27. And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus.
+
+Now this picture is, as was noticed in our former reference to it, full
+of expression of every kind of motion: the clouds are in wild haste; the
+sun is gleaming fast and fitfully through the leaves; the rain drifting
+away along the hill-side; and the torrent, the principal object, to
+complete the impression, is made the wildest thing of all and not only
+wild before us, and with us, but bearing with it in its every motion,
+from its long course, the record of its rage. Observe how differently
+Turner uses his torrent when the spirit of the picture is repose. In the
+Mercury and Argus, we have also a stream in the foreground; but, in
+coming down to us, we see it stopping twice in two quiet and glassy
+pools, upon which the drinking cattle cast an unstirred image. From the
+nearest of these, the water leaps in three cascades into another basin
+close to us; it trickles in silver threads through the leaves at its
+edge, and falls tinkling and splashing (though in considerable body)
+into the pool, stirring its quiet surface, at which a bird is stooping
+to drink, with concentric and curdling ripples which divide round the
+stone at its farthest border, and descend in sparkling foam over the lip
+of the basin. Thus we find, in every case, the system of Turner's truth
+entirely unbroken, each phase and phenomenon of nature being recorded
+exactly where it is most valuable and impressive.
+
+
+§ 28. Various cases.
+
+We have not, however, space to follow out the variety of his
+torrent-drawing. The above two examples are characteristic of the two
+great divisions or classes of torrents--that whose motion is continuous,
+and whose motion is interrupted: all drawing of running water will
+resolve itself into the representation of one or other of these. The
+descent of the distant stream in the vignette to the Boy of Egremond is
+slight, but very striking; and the Junction of the Greta and Tees, a
+singular instance of the bold drawing of the complicated forms of a
+shallow stream among multitudinous rocks. A still finer example occurs
+in a recent drawing of Dazio Grande, on the St. Gothard, the waves of
+the Toccia, clear and blue, fretting among the granite débris which were
+brought down by the storm that destroyed the whole road. In the Ivy
+bridge the subject is the rest of the torrent in a pool among fallen
+rocks, the forms of the stones are seen through the clear brown water,
+and their reflections mingle with those of the foliage.
+
+
+§ 29. Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.
+
+More determined efforts have at all periods been made in sea painting
+than in torrent painting, yet less successful. As above stated, it is
+easy to obtain a resemblance of broken running water by tricks and
+dexterities, but the sea _must_ be legitimately drawn; it cannot be
+given as utterly disorganized and confused, its weight and mass must be
+expressed, and the efforts at expression of it end in failure with all
+but the most powerful men; even with these few a partial success must be
+considered worthy of the highest praise.
+
+As the right rendering of the Alps depends on power of drawing snow, so
+the right painting of the sea must depend, at least in all coast
+scenery, in no small measure on the power of drawing foam. Yet there are
+two conditions of foam of invariable occurrence on breaking waves, of
+which I have never seen the slightest record attempted; first the thick
+creamy curdling overlapping massy form which remains for a moment only
+after the fall of the wave, and is seen in perfection in its running up
+the beach; and secondly, the thin white coating into which this
+subsides, which opens into oval gaps and clefts, marbling the waves over
+their whole surface, and connecting the breakers on a flat shore by long
+dragging streams of white.
+
+It is evident that the difficulty of expressing either of these two
+conditions must be immense. The lapping and curdling form is difficult
+enough to catch even when the lines of its undulation alone are
+considered; but the lips, so to speak, which lie along these lines, are
+full, projecting, and marked by beautiful light and shade; each has its
+high light, a gradation into shadow of indescribable delicacy, a bright
+reflected light and a dark cast shadow; to draw all this requires labor,
+and care, and firmness of work, which, as I imagine, must always,
+however skilfully bestowed, destroy all impression of wildness,
+accidentalism, and evanescence, and so kill the sea. Again, the openings
+in the thin subsided foam in their irregular modifications of circular
+and oval shapes dragged hither and thither, would be hard enough to draw
+even if they could be seen on a flat surface; instead of which, every
+one of the openings is seen in undulation on a tossing surface, broken
+up over small surges and ripples, and so thrown into perspectives of the
+most hopeless intricacy. Now it is not easy to express the lie of a
+pattern with oval openings on the folds of drapery. I do not know that
+any one under the mark of Veronese or Titian could even do this as it
+ought to be done, yet in drapery much stiffness and error may be
+overlooked; not so in sea,--the slightest inaccuracy, the slightest want
+of flow and freedom in the line, is attached by the eye in a moment of
+high treason, and I believe success to be impossible.
+
+Yet there is not a wave or any violently agitated sea on which both
+these forms do not appear, the latter especially, after some time of
+storm, extends over their whole surfaces; the reader sees, therefore,
+why I said that sea could only be painted by means of more or less
+dexterous conventionalisms, since two of its most enduring phenomena
+cannot be represented at all.
+
+
+§ 30. Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible.
+
+Again, as respects the form of breakers on an even shore, there is
+difficulty of no less formidable kind. There is in them an
+irreconcilable mixture of fury and formalism. Their hollow surface is
+marked by parallel lines, like those of a smooth mill-weir, and
+graduated by reflected and transmitted lights of the most wonderful
+intricacy, its curve being at the same time necessarily of mathematical
+purity and precision; yet at the top of this curve, when it nods over,
+there is a sudden laxity and giving way, the water swings and jumps
+along the ridge like a shaken chain, and the motion runs from part to
+part as it does through a serpent's body. Then the wind is at work on
+the extreme edge, and instead of letting it fling itself off naturally,
+it supports it, and, drives it back, or scrapes it off, and carries it
+bodily away; so that the spray at the top is in a continual transition
+between forms projected by their own weight, and forms blown and carried
+off with their weight overcome; then at last, when it has come down, who
+shall say what shape that may be called, which shape has none of the
+great crash where it touches the beach.
+
+I think it is that last crash which is the great taskmaster. Nobody can
+do anything with it. I have seen Copley Fielding come very close to the
+jerk and nod of the lifted threatening edge, curl it very successfully,
+and without any look of its having been in papers, down nearly to the
+beach, but the final fall has no thunder in it. Turner has tried hard
+for it once or twice, but it will not do. The moment is given in the
+Sidon of the Bible Illustrations, and more elaborately in a painting of
+Bamborough; in both these cases there is little foam at the bottom, and
+the fallen breaker looks like a wall, yet grand always; and in the
+latter picture very beautifully assisted in expression by the tossing of
+a piece of cable, which some figures are dragging ashore, and which the
+breaker flings into the air as it falls. Perhaps the most successful
+rendering of the forms was in the Hero and Leander, but there the
+drawing was rendered easier by the powerful effect of light which
+disguised the foam.
+
+
+§ 31. Their effect, how injured when seen from the shore.
+
+It is not, however, from the shore that Turner usually studies his sea.
+Seen from the land, the curl of the breakers, even in nature, is
+somewhat uniform and monotonous; the size of the waves out at sea is
+uncomprehended, and those nearer the eye seem to succeed and resemble
+each other, to move slowly to the beach, and to break in the same lines
+and forms.
+
+Afloat even twenty yards from the shore, we receive a totally different
+impression. Every wave around us appears vast--every one different from
+all the rest--and the breakers present, now that we see them with their
+backs towards us, the grand, extended, and varied lines of long
+curvature, which are peculiarly expressive both of velocity and power.
+Recklessness, before unfelt, is manifested in the mad, perpetual,
+changeful, undirected motion, not of wave after wave, as it appears from
+the shore, but of the very same water rising and falling. Of waves that
+successively approach and break, each appears to the mind a separate
+individual, whose part being performed, it perishes, and is succeeded by
+another; and there is nothing in this to impress us with the idea of
+restlessness, any more than in any successive and continuous functions
+of life and death. But it is when we perceive that it is no succession
+of wave, but the same water constantly rising, and crashing, and
+recoiling, and rolling in again in new forms and with fresh fury, that
+we perceive the perturbed spirit, and feel the intensity of its
+unwearied rage. The sensation of power is also trebled; for not only is
+the vastness of apparent size much increased, but the whole action is
+different; it is not a passive wave rolling sleepily forward until it
+tumbles heavily, prostrated upon the beach, but a sweeping exertion of
+tremendous and living strength, which does not now appear to _fall_, but
+to _burst_ upon the shore; which never perishes, but recoils and
+recovers.
+
+
+§ 32. Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea.
+
+§ 33. With peculiar expression of weight.
+
+Aiming at these grand characters of the Sea, Turner almost always places
+the spectator, not on the shore, but twenty or thirty yards from it,
+beyond the first range of the breakers, as in the Land's End, Fowey,
+Dunbar, and Laugharne. The latter has been well engraved, and may be
+taken as a standard of the expression of fitfulness and power. The grand
+division of the whole space of the sea by a few dark continuous furrows
+of tremendous swell, (the breaking of one of which alone has strewed the
+rocks in front with ruin,) furnishes us with an estimate of space and
+strength, which at once reduces the men upon the shore to insects; and
+yet through this terrific simplicity there is indicated a fitfulness and
+fury in the tossing of the individual lines, which give to the whole sea
+a wild, unwearied, reckless incoherency, like that of an enraged
+multitude, whose masses act together in frenzy, while not one individual
+feels as another. Especial attention is to be directed to the flatness
+of all the lines, for the same principle holds in sea which we have seen
+in mountains. All the size and sublimity of nature are given not by the
+height, but by the breadth of her masses: and Turner, by following her
+in her sweeping lines, while he does not lose the elevation of its
+surges, adds in a tenfold degree to their power: farther, observe the
+peculiar expression of _weight_ which there is in Turner's waves,
+precisely of the same kind which we saw in his waterfall. We have not a
+cutting, springing, elastic line--no jumping or leaping in the waves:
+_that_ is the characteristic of Chelsea Reach or Hampstead Ponds in a
+storm. But the surges roll and plunge with such prostration and hurling
+of their mass against the shore, that we feel the rocks are shaking
+under them; and, to add yet more to this impression, observe how little,
+comparatively, they are broken by the wind; above the floating wood, and
+along the shore, we have indication of a line of torn spray; but it is a
+mere fringe along the ridge of the surge--no interference with its
+gigantic body. The wind has no power over its tremendous unity of force
+and weight. Finally, observe how, on the rocks on the left, the violence
+and swiftness of the rising wave are indicated by precisely the same
+lines which we saw were indicative of fury in the torrent. The water on
+these rocks is the body of the wave which has just broken, rushing up
+over them; and in doing so, like the torrent, it does not break, nor
+foam, nor part upon the rock, but accommodates itself to every one of
+its swells and hollows, with undulating lines, whose grace and variety
+might alone serve us for a day's study; and it is only where two streams
+of this rushing water meet in the hollow of the rock, that their force
+is shown by the vertical bound of the spray.
+
+[Illustration: PORT RUYSDAEL.
+                 From a painting by Turner.]
+
+
+§ 34. Peculiar action of recoiling waves.
+
+§ 35. And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore.
+
+§ 36. General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in the
+        Land's End.
+
+In the distance of this grand picture, there are two waves which
+entirely depart from the principle observed by all the rest, and spring
+high into the air. They have a message for us which it is important that
+we should understand. Their leap is not a preparation for breaking,
+neither is it caused by their meeting with a rock. It is caused by their
+encounter with the recoil of the preceding wave. When a large surge, in
+the act of breaking, just as it curls over, is hurled against the face
+either of a wall or of a vertical rock, the sound of the blow is not a
+crash nor a roar; it is a report as loud as, and in every respect
+similar to, that of a great gun, and the wave is dashed back from the
+rock with force scarcely diminished, but reversed in direction,--it now
+recedes from the shore, and at the instant that it encounters the
+following breaker, the result is the vertical bound of both which is
+here rendered by Turner. Such a recoiling wave will proceed out to sea
+through ten or twelve ranges of following breakers, before it is
+overpowered. The effect of the encounter is more completely and palpably
+given in the Quilleboeuf, in the Rivers of France. It is peculiarly
+instructive here, as informing us of the nature of the coast, and the
+force of the waves, far more clearly than any spray about the rocks
+themselves could have done. But the effect of the blow at the shore
+itself is given in the Land's End, and vignette to Lycidas. Under
+favorable circumstances, with an advancing tide under a heavy gale,
+where the breakers feel the shore underneath them a moment before they
+touch the rock, so as to nod over when they strike, the effect is nearly
+incredible except to an eyewitness. I have seen the whole body of the
+wave rise in one white, vertical, broad fountain, eighty feet above the
+sea, half of it beaten so fine as to be borne away by the wind, the rest
+turning in the air when exhausted, and falling back with a weight and
+crash like that of an enormous waterfall. This is given most completely
+in the Lycidas, and the blow of a less violent wave among broken rocks,
+not meeting it with an absolute wall, along the shore of the Land's End.
+This last picture is a study of sea whose whole organization has been
+broken up by constant recoils from a rocky coast. The Laugharne gives
+the surge and weight of the ocean in a gale, on a comparatively level
+shore; but the Land's End, the entire disorder of the surges when every
+one of them, divided and entangled among promontories as it rolls in,
+and beaten back part by part from walls of rock on this side and that
+side, recoils like the defeated division of a great army, throwing all
+behind it into disorder, breaking up the succeeding waves into vertical
+ridges, which in their turn, yet more totally shattered upon the shore,
+retire in more hopeless confusion, until the whole surface of the sea
+becomes one dizzy whirl of rushing, writhing, tortured, undirected rage,
+bounding, and crashing, and coiling in an anarchy of enormous power,
+subdivided into myriads of waves, of which every one is not, be it
+remembered, a separate surge, but part and portion of a vast one,
+actuated by internal power, and giving in every direction the mighty
+undulation of impetuous line which glides over the rocks and writhes in
+the wind, overwhelming the one, and piercing the other with the form,
+fury, and swiftness of a sheet of lambent fire. And throughout the
+rendering of all this, there is not one false curve given, not one which
+is not the perfect expression of visible motion; and the forms of the
+infinite sea are drawn throughout with that utmost mastery of art which,
+through the deepest study of every line, makes every line appear the
+wildest child of chance, while yet each is in itself a subject and a
+picture different from all else around. Of the color of this magnificent
+sea I have before spoken; it is a solemn green gray, (with its foam seen
+dimly through the darkness of twilight,) modulated with the fulness,
+changefulness, and sadness of a deep, wild melody.
+
+
+§ 37. Open seas of Turner's earlier times.
+
+The greater number of Turner's paintings of open sea belong to a
+somewhat earlier period than these drawings; nor, generally speaking,
+are they of equal value. It appears to me that the artist had at that
+time either less knowledge of, or less delight in, the characteristics
+of deep water than of coast sea, and that, in consequence, he suffered
+himself to be influenced by some of the qualities of the Dutch
+sea-painters. In particular, he borrowed from them the habit of casting
+a dark shadow on the near waves, so as to bring out a stream of light
+behind; and though he did this in a more legitimate way than they, that
+is to say, expressing the light by touches on the foam, and indicating
+the shadow as cast on foamy surface, still the habit has induced much
+feebleness and conventionality in the pictures of the period. His
+drawing of the waves was also somewhat petty and divided, small forms
+covered with white flat spray, a condition which I doubt not the artist
+has seen on some of the shallow Dutch seas, but which I have never met
+with myself, and of the rendering of which therefore I cannot speak. Yet
+even in these, which I think among the poorest works of the painter, the
+expressions of breeze, motion, and light, are very marvellous; and it is
+instructive to compare them either with the lifeless works of the Dutch
+themselves, or with any modern imitations of them, as for instance with
+the seas of Callcott, where all the light is white and all the shadows
+gray, where no distinction is made between water and foam, or between
+real and reflective shadow, and which are generally without evidence of
+the artists having ever seen the sea.
+
+Some pictures, however, belonging to this period of Turner are free from
+the Dutch infection, and show the real power of the artist. A very
+important one is in the possession of Lord Francis Egerton, somewhat
+heavy in its forms, but remarkable for the grandeur of distance obtained
+at the horizon; a much smaller, but more powerful example is the Port
+Ruysdael in the possession of E. Bicknell, Esq., with which I know of no
+work at all comparable for the expression of the white, wild, cold,
+comfortless waves of northern sea, even though the sea is almost
+subordinate to the awful rolling clouds. Both these pictures are very
+gray. The Pas de Calais has more color, and shows more art than either,
+yet is less impressive. Recently, two marines of the same subdued color
+have appeared (1843) among his more radiant works. One, Ostend, somewhat
+forced and affected, but the other, also called Port Ruysdael, is among
+the most perfect sea pictures he has produced, and especially remarkable
+as being painted without one marked opposition either of color or of
+shade, all quiet and simple even to an extreme, so that the picture was
+exceedingly unattractive at first sight. The shadow of the pier-head on
+the near waves is marked solely by touches indicative of reflected
+light, and so mysteriously that when the picture is seen near, it is
+quite untraceable, and comes into existence as the spectator retires. It
+is thus of peculiar truth and value; and instructive as a contrast to
+the dark shadows of his earlier time.
+
+
+§ 38. Effect of sea after prolonged storm.
+
+Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a
+powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and
+nights, and to those who have not, I believe it must be unimaginable,
+not from the mere force or size of surge, but from the complete
+annihilation of the limit between sea and air. The water from its
+prolonged agitation is beaten, not into mere creaming foam, but into
+masses of accumulated yeast,[68] which hang in ropes and wreaths from
+wave to wave, and where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a
+drapery, from its edge; these are taken up by the wind, not in
+dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses,
+which make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a
+foot or two long each; the surges themselves are full of foam in their
+very bodies, underneath, making them white all through, as the water is
+under a great cataract; and their masses, being thus half water and half
+air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away
+in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water. Add to
+this, that when the air has been exhausted of its moisture by long rain,
+the spray of the sea is caught by it as described above, (Section III.
+Chapter VI. § 13,) and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of
+finely divided water, but with boiling mist; imagine also the low
+rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often
+seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave;
+and finally, conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of
+power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lifting themselves in precipices
+and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos;
+and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between
+the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon, nor any landmark or
+natural evidence of position is left; that the heaven is all spray, and
+the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no farther in any direction
+than you could see through a cataract. Suppose the effect of the first
+sunbeam sent from above to show this annihilation to itself, and you
+have the sea picture of the Academy, 1842--the Snowstorm, one of the
+very grandest statements of sea-motion, mist, and light that has ever
+been put on canvas, even by Turner. Of course it was not understood; his
+finest works never are; but there was some apology for the public's not
+comprehending this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing
+the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a
+mast or a rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning which
+few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of
+the noblest lessons of nature.
+
+
+§ 39. Turner's noblest work, the deep open sea in the Slave Ship.
+
+But, I think, the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so,
+the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of the Slave Ship,
+the chief Academy picture of the Exhibition of 1840. It is a sunset on
+the Atlantic after prolonged storm; but the storm is partially lulled,
+and the torn and streaming rain-clouds are moving in scarlet lines to
+lose themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of sea
+included in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell,
+not high, nor local, but a low, broad heaving of the whole ocean, like
+the lifting of its bosom by deep-drawn breath after the torture of the
+storm. Between these two ridges, the fire of the sunset falls along the
+trough of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious light, the
+intense and lurid splendor which burns like gold and bathes like blood.
+Along this fiery path and valley, the tossing waves by which the swell
+of the sea is restlessly divided, lift themselves in dark, indefinite,
+fantastic forms, each casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along
+the illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, but three or four
+together in wild groups, fitfully and furiously, as the under strength
+of the swell compels or permits them; leaving between them treacherous
+spaces of level and whirling water, now lighted with green and lamp-like
+fire, now flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now fearfully
+dyed from above with the indistinguishable images of the burning clouds,
+which fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and give to the
+reckless waves the added motion of their own fiery flying. Purple and
+blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of
+the night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of
+death upon the guilty[69] ship as it labors amidst the lightning of the
+sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, girded with
+condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky with horror, and
+mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight,--and cast far along the
+desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, incarnadines the multitudinous
+sea.
+
+
+§ 40. Its united excellences and perfection as a whole.
+
+I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single
+work, I should choose this. Its daring conception--ideal in the highest
+sense of the word--is based on the purest truth, and wrought out with the
+concentrated knowledge of a life; its color is absolutely perfect, not
+one false or morbid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every
+square inch of canvas is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate
+as fearless; the ship buoyant, bending, and full of motion; its tones as
+true as they are wonderful;[70] and the whole picture dedicated to the
+most sublime of subjects and impressions--(completing thus the perfect
+system of all truth, which we have shown to be formed by Turner's
+works)--the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep,
+illimitable Sea.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [66] Not altogether. I believe here, as in a former case, I have
+    attributed far too much influence to this change of focus. In
+    Turner's earlier works the principle is not found. In the rivers of
+    the Yorkshire drawings, every reflection is given clearly, even to
+    the farthest depth, and yet the surface is not lost, and it would
+    deprive the painter of much power if he were not sometimes so to
+    represent them, especially when his object is repose; it being, of
+    course, as lawful for him to choose one adaptation of the sight as
+    another. I have, however, left the above paragraphs as first
+    written, because they are true, although I think they make too much
+    of an unimportant matter. The reader may attribute to them such
+    weight as he thinks fit. He is referred to § 11 of this chapter, and
+    to § 4 of the first chapter of this section.
+
+  [67] On a large scale it is so, but the same lines are to be seen
+    for the moment whenever water becomes exceedingly rapid, and yet
+    feels the bottom as it passes, being not thrown up or cast clear of
+    it. In general, the drawing of water fails from being too
+    interrupted, the forms flung hither and thither, and broken up and
+    covered with bright touches, instead of being wrought out in their
+    real unities of curvature. It is difficult enough to draw a curved
+    surface, even when it is rough and has texture; but to indicate the
+    varied and sweeping forms of a crystalline and polished substance,
+    requires far more skill and patience than most artists possess. In
+    some respects, it is impossible. I do not suppose any means of art
+    are capable of rightly expressing the smooth, multitudinous rippling
+    of a rapid rivulet of shallow water, giving its transparency lustre
+    and fully-developed forms; and the greater number of the lines and
+    actions of torrent-waves are equally inexpressible. The effort
+    should, nevertheless, always be made, and whatever is sacrificed in
+    color, freedom, or brightness, the real contours ought always in
+    some measure to be drawn, as a careful draughtsman secures those of
+    flesh, or any other finely-modelled surface. It is better, in many
+    respects, the drawing should miss of being _like_ water, than that
+    it should miss in this one respect the grandeur of water. Many
+    tricks of scratching and dashing will bring out a deceptive
+    resemblance; the determined and laborious rendering of contour alone
+    secures sublimity.
+
+  [68] The "yesty waves" of Shakspeare have made the likeness
+    familiar, and probably most readers take the expression as merely
+    equivalent to "foamy;" but Shakspeare knew better. Sea-foam does
+    not, under ordinary circumstances, last a moment after it is formed,
+    but disappears, as above described, in a mere white film. But the
+    foam of a prolonged tempest is altogether different; it is "whipped"
+    foam,--thick, permanent, and, in a foul or discolored sea, very
+    ugly, especially in the way it hangs about the tops of the waves,
+    and gathers into clotted concretions before the driving wind. The
+    sea looks truly working or fermenting. The following passage from
+    Fenimore Cooper is an interesting confirmation of the rest of the
+    above description, which may be depended upon as entirely free from
+    exaggeration:--"For the first time I now witnessed a tempest at sea.
+    Gales, and pretty hard ones, I had often seen, but the force of the
+    wind on this occasion as much exceeded that in ordinary gales of
+    wind, as the force of these had exceeded that of a whole-sail
+    breeze. The seas seemed crushed; the pressure of the swooping
+    atmosphere, as the currents of the air went howling over the surface
+    of the ocean, fairly preventing them from rising; or where a mound
+    of water did appear, it was scooped up and borne off in spray, as
+    the axe dubs inequalities from the log. When the day returned, a
+    species of lurid, sombre light was diffused over the watery waste,
+    though nothing was visible but the ocean and the ship. Even the
+    sea-birds seemed to have taken refuge in the caverns of the adjacent
+    coast, none reappearing with the dawn. The air was full of spray,
+    and it was with difficulty that the eye could penetrate as far into
+    the humid atmosphere as half a mile,"--_Miles Wattingford_. Half a
+    mile is an over-estimate in coast.
+
+  [69] She is a slaver, throwing her slaves overboard. The near sea is
+    encumbered with corpses.
+
+  [70] There is a piece of tone of the same kind, equal in one part,
+    but not so united with the rest of the picture, in the storm scene
+    illustrative of the Antiquary,--a sunset light on polished sea. I
+    ought to have particularly mentioned the sea in the Lowestoffe, as a
+    piece of the cutting motion of shallow water, under storm,
+    altogether in gray, which should be especially contrasted, as a
+    piece of color, with the grays of Vandevelde. And the sea in the
+    Great Yarmouth should have been noticed for its expression of water
+    in violent agitation, seen in enormous extent from a great
+    elevation. There is almost every form of sea in it,--rolling waves
+    dashing on the pier--successive breakers rolling to the shore--a
+    vast horizon of multitudinous waves--and winding canals of calm
+    water along the sands, bringing fragments of bright sky down into
+    their yellow waste. There is hardly one of the views of the Southern
+    Coast which does not give some new condition or circumstance of sea.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION VI.
+
+                    OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.--CONCLUSION.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                          OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.
+
+
+§ 1. Frequent occurrence of foliage in the works of the old masters.
+
+We have now arrived at the consideration of what was, with the old
+masters, the subject of most serious and perpetual study. If they do not
+give us truth here, they cannot have the faculty of truth in them; for
+foliage is the chief component part of all their pictures, and is
+finished by them with a care and labor which, if bestowed without
+attaining truth, must prove either their total bluntness of perception,
+or total powerlessness of hand. With the Italian school I can scarcely
+recollect a single instance in which foliage does not form the greater
+part of the picture; in fact, they are rather painters of tree-portrait
+than landscape painters; for rocks, and sky, and architecture are
+usually mere accessories and backgrounds to the dark masses of laborious
+foliage, of which the composition principally consists. Yet we shall be
+less detained by the examination of foliage than by our former subjects;
+since where specific form is organized and complete, and the occurrence
+of the object universal, it is easy, without requiring any laborious
+attention in the reader, to demonstrate to him quite as much of the
+truth or falsehood of various representations of it, as may serve to
+determine the character and rank of the painter.
+
+
+§ 2. Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not taper, but
+       only divide.
+
+It will be best to begin as nature does, with the stems and branches,
+and then to put the leaves on. And in speaking of trees generally, be it
+observed, when I say _all_ trees, I mean only those ordinary forest or
+copse trees of Europe, which are the chief subjects of the landscape
+painter. I do not mean to include every kind of foliage which by any
+accident can find its way into a picture, but the ordinary trees of
+Europe,--oak, elm, ash, hazel, willow, birch, beech, poplar, chestnut,
+pine, mulberry, olive, ilex, carubbe, and such others. I do not purpose
+to examine the characteristics of each tree; it will be enough to
+observe the laws common to all. First, then, neither the stems nor the
+boughs of any of the above trees _taper_, except where they fork.
+Wherever a stem sends off a branch, or a branch a lesser bough, or a
+lesser bough a bud, the stem or the branch is, on the instant, less in
+diameter by the exact quantity of the branch or the bough they have sent
+off, and they remain of the same diameter; or if there be any change,
+rather increase than diminish until they send off another branch or
+bough. This law is imperative and without exception; no bough, nor stem,
+nor twig, ever tapering or becoming narrower towards its extremity by a
+hairbreadth, save where it parts with some portion of its substance at a
+fork or bud, so that if all the twigs and sprays at the top and sides of
+the tree, which are, and _have been_, could be united without loss of
+space, they would form a round log of the diameter of the trunk from
+which they spring.
+
+
+§ 3. Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds.
+
+But as the trunks of most trees send off twigs and sprays of light under
+foliage, of which every individual fibre takes precisely its own
+thickness of wood from the parent stem, and as many of these drop off,
+leaving nothing but a small excrescence to record their existence, there
+is frequently a slight and delicate appearance of tapering bestowed on
+the trunk itself; while the same operation takes place much more
+extensively in the branches, it being natural to almost all trees to
+send out from their young limbs more wood than they can support, which,
+as the stem increases, gets contracted at the point of insertion, so as
+to check the flow of the sap, and then dies and drops off, leaving all
+along the bough, first on one side, then on another, a series of small
+excrescences, sufficient to account for a degree of tapering, which is
+yet so very slight, that if we select a portion of a branch with no real
+fork or living bough to divide it or diminish it, the tapering is
+scarcely to be detected by the eye; and if we select a portion without
+such evidences of past ramification, there will be found none
+whatsoever.
+
+
+§ 4. And care of nature to conceal the parallelism.
+
+But nature takes great care and pains to conceal this uniformity in her
+boughs. They are perpetually parting with little sprays here and there,
+which steal away their substance cautiously, and where the eye does not
+perceive the theft, until, a little way above, it feels the loss; and in
+the upper parts of the tree, the ramifications take place so constantly
+and delicately, that the effect upon the eye is precisely the same as if
+the boughs actually tapered, except here and there, where some
+avaricious one, greedy of substance, runs on for two or three yards
+without parting with anything, and becomes ungraceful in so doing.
+
+
+§ 5. The degree of tapering which may be represented as continuous.
+
+Hence we see that although boughs may, and must be represented as
+actually tapering, they must only be so when they are sending off
+foliage and sprays, and when they are at such a distance that the
+particular forks and divisions cannot be evident to the eye; and
+farther, even in such circumstances the tapering never can be sudden or
+rapid. No bough ever, with appearance of smooth tapering, loses more
+than one tenth of its diameter in a length of ten diameters. Any greater
+diminution than this must be accounted for by visible ramification, and
+must take place by steps, at each fork.
+
+
+§ 6. The trees of Gaspar Poussin;
+
+And therefore we see at once that the stem of Gaspar Poussin's tall
+tree, on the right of the La Riccia, in the National Gallery, is a
+painting of a carrot or a parsnip, not of the trunk of a tree. For,
+being so near that every individual leaf is visible, we should not have
+seen, in nature, one branch or stem actually tapering. We should have
+received an _impression_ of graceful diminution; but we should have been
+able, on examination, to trace it joint by joint, fork by fork, into the
+thousand minor supports of the leaves. Gaspar Poussin's stem, on the
+contrary, only sends off four or five minor branches altogether, and
+both it and they taper violently, and without showing why or
+wherefore--without parting with a single twig--without showing one
+vestige of roughness or excrescence--and leaving, therefore, their
+unfortunate leaves to hold on as best they may. The latter, however, are
+clever leaves, and support themselves as swarming bees do, hanging on
+by each other.
+
+
+§ 7. And of the Italian school generally, defy this law.
+
+But even this piece of work is a jest to the perpetration of the bough
+at the left-hand upper corner of the picture opposite to it,--the View
+near Albano. This latter is a representation of an ornamental group of
+elephants' tusks, with feathers tied to the ends of them. Not the
+wildest imagination could ever conjure up in it the remotest resemblance
+to the bough of a tree. It might be the claws of a witch--the talons of
+an eagle--the horns of a fiend; but it is a full assemblage of every
+conceivable falsehood which can be told respecting foliage--a piece of
+work so barbarous in every way, that one glance at it ought to prove the
+complete charlatanism and trickery of the whole system of the old
+landscape painters. For I will depart for once from my usual plan, of
+abstaining from all assertion of a thing's being beautiful or otherwise;
+I will say here, at once, that such drawing as this is as ugly as it is
+childish, and as painful as it is false; and that the man who could
+tolerate, much more, who could deliberately set down such a thing on his
+canvas, had neither eye nor feeling for one single attribute or
+excellence of God's works. He might have drawn the other stem in
+excusable ignorance, or under some false impression of being able to
+improve upon nature; but _this_ is conclusive and unpardonable. Again,
+take the stem of the chief tree in Claude's Narcissus. It is a very
+faithful portrait of a large boa-constrictor, with a handsome tail; the
+kind of trunk which young ladies at fashionable boarding-schools
+represent with nosegays at the top of them, by way of forest scenery.
+
+
+§ 8. The truth, as it is given by J. D. Harding.
+
+Let us refresh ourselves for a moment, by looking at the truth. We need
+not go to Turner, we will go to the man who, next to him, is
+unquestionably the greatest master of foliage in Europe--J. D. Harding.
+Take the trunk of the largest stone-pine, Plate 25, in the Park and the
+Forest. For the first nine or ten feet from the ground it does not lose
+one hairbreadth of its diameter. But the shoot, broken off just under
+the crossing part of the distant tree, is followed by an instant
+diminution of the trunk, perfectly appreciable both by the eye and the
+compasses. Again, the stem maintains undiminished thickness, up to the
+two shoots on the left, from the loss of which it suffers again
+perceptibly. On the right, immediately above, is the stump of a very
+large bough, whose loss reduces the trunk suddenly to about two-thirds
+of what it was at the root. Diminished again, less considerably, by the
+minor branch close to this stump, it now retains its diameter up to the
+three branches, broken off just under the head, where it once more loses
+in diameter, and finally branches into the multitude of head-boughs, of
+which not one will be found tapering in any part, but losing themselves
+gradually by division among their offshoots and spray. This is nature,
+and beauty too.
+
+
+§ 9. Boughs, in consequence of this law, _must_ diminish where they
+       divide. Those of the old masters often do not.
+
+But the old masters are not satisfied with drawing carrots for boughs.
+Nature can be violated in more ways than one, and the industry with
+which they seek out and adopt every conceivable mode of contradicting
+her is matter of no small interest. It is evident, from what we have
+above stated of the structure of all trees, that as no boughs diminish
+where they do not fork, so they cannot fork without diminishing. It is
+impossible that the smallest shoot can be sent out of a bough without a
+diminution of the diameter above it; and wherever a branch goes off it
+must not only be less in diameter than the bough from which it springs,
+but the bough beyond the fork must be less by precisely the quantity of
+the branch it has sent off.[71] Now observe the bough underneath the
+first bend of the great stem in Claude's Narcissus; it sends off four
+branches like the ribs of a leaf. The two lowest of these are both quite
+as thick as the parent stem, and the stem itself is much thicker after
+it has sent off the first one than it was before. The top boughs of the
+central tree, in the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, ramify in the same
+scientific way.
+
+
+§ 10. Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old masters
+        do not.
+
+§ 11. Bough-drawing of Salvator.
+
+But there are further conclusions to be drawn from this great principle
+in trees. As they only diminish where they divide, their increase of
+number is in precise proportion to their diminution of size, so that
+whenever we come to the extremities of boughs, we must have a multitude
+of sprays sufficient to make up, if they were united, the bulk of that
+from which they spring. Where a bough divides into two equal
+ramifications, the diameter of each of the two is about two-thirds that
+of the single one, and the sum of their diameters, therefore, one-fourth
+greater than the diameter of the single one. Hence, if no boughs died or
+were lost, the quantity of wood in the sprays would appear one-fourth
+greater than would be necessary to make up the thickness of the trunk.
+But the lost boughs remove the excess, and therefore, speaking broadly,
+the diameters of the outer boughs put together would generally just make
+up the diameter of the trunk. Precision in representing this is neither
+desirable nor possible. All that is required is just so much observance
+of the general principle as may make the eye feel satisfied that there
+is something like the same quantity of wood in the sprays which there is
+in the stem. But to do this, there must be, what there always is in
+nature, an exceeding complexity of the outer sprays. This complexity
+gradually increases towards their extremities, of course exactly in
+proportion to the slenderness of the twigs. The slenderer they become,
+the more there are of them, until at last, at the extremities of the
+tree, they form a mass of intricacy, which in winter, when it can be
+seen, is scarcely distinguishable from fine herbage, and is beyond all
+power of definite representation; it can only be expressed by a mass of
+involved strokes. Also, as they shoot out in every direction, some are
+nearer, some more distant; some distinct, some faint; and their
+intersections and relations of distance are marked with the most
+exquisite gradations of aerial perspective. Now it will be found
+universally in the works of Claude, Gaspar, and Salvator, that the
+boughs do _not_ get in the least complex or multiplied towards the
+extremities--that each large limb forks only into two or three smaller
+ones, each of which vanishes into the air without any cause or reason
+for such unaccountable conduct--unless that the mass of leaves
+transfixed upon it or tied to it, entirely dependent on its single
+strength, have been too much, as well they may be, for its powers of
+solitary endurance. This total ignorance of tree structure is shown
+throughout their works. The Sinon before Priam is an instance of it in a
+really fine work of Claude's, but the most gross examples are in the
+works of Salvator. It appears that this latter artist was hardly in the
+habit of studying from nature at all after his boyish ramble among the
+Calabrian hills; and I do not recollect any instance of a piece of his
+bough-drawing which is not palpably and demonstrably a made-up phantasm
+of the studio, the proof derivable from this illegitimate tapering being
+one of the most convincing. The painter is always visibly embarrassed to
+reduce the thick boughs to spray, and _feeling_ (for Salvator naturally
+had acute feeling for truth) that the bough was wrong when it tapered
+suddenly, he accomplishes its diminution by an impossible protraction;
+throwing out shoot after shoot until his branches straggle all across
+the picture, and at last disappear unwillingly where there is no room
+for them to stretch any farther. The consequence is, that whatever
+leaves are put upon such boughs have evidently no adequate support,
+their power of leverage is enough to uproot the tree; or if the boughs
+are left bare, they have the look of the long tentacula of some
+complicated marine monster, or of the waving endless threads of bunchy
+sea-weed, instead of the firm, upholding, braced, and bending grace of
+natural boughs. I grant that this is in a measure done by Salvator from
+a love of ghastliness, and that in certain scenes it is in a sort
+allowable; but it is in a far greater degree done from pure ignorance of
+tree structure, as is sufficiently proved by the landscape of the Pitti
+palace, Peace burning the arms of War; where the spirit of the scene is
+intended to be quite other than ghastly, and yet the tree branches show
+the usual errors in an extraordinary degree; every one of their
+arrangements is impossible, and the trunk of the tree could not for a
+moment support the foliage it is loaded with. So also in the pictures of
+the Guadagni palace. And even where the skeleton look of branches is
+justifiable or desirable, there is no occasion for any violation of
+natural laws. I have seen more spectral character in the real limbs of a
+blasted oak, than ever in Salvator's best monstrosities; more horror is
+to be obtained by right combination of inventive line, than by drawing
+tree branches as if they were wing-bones of a pterodactyle. All
+departure from natural forms to give fearfulness is mere Germanism; it
+is the work of fancy, not of imagination,[72] and instantly degrades
+whatever it affects to third-rate level. There is nothing more marked in
+truly great men, than their power of being dreadful without being false
+or licentious. In Tintoret's Murder of Abel, the head of the sacrificed
+firstling lies in the corner of the foreground, obscurely sketched in,
+and with the light gleaming upon its glazed eyes. There is nothing
+exaggerated about the head, but there is more horror got out of it, and
+more of death suggested by its treatment, than if he had turned all the
+trees of his picture into skeletons, and raised a host of demons to
+drive the club.
+
+
+§ 12. All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches and
+        concentrated in a work of G. Poussin's.
+
+§ 13. Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them by
+        wind.
+
+It is curious that in Salvator's sketches or etchings there is less that
+is wrong than in his paintings,--there seems a fresher remembrance of
+nature about them. Not so with Claude. It is only by looking over his
+sketches, in the British Museum, that a complete and just idea is to be
+formed of his capacities of error; for the feeling and arrangement of
+many of them are those of an advanced age, so that we can scarcely set
+them down for what they resemble--the work of a boy ten years old; and
+the drawing being seen without any aids of tone or color to set it off,
+shows in its naked falsehood. The windy landscape of Poussin, opposite
+the Dido and Ęneas, in the National Gallery, presents us, in the
+foreground tree, with a piece of atrocity which I think, to any person
+who candidly considers it, may save me all farther trouble of
+demonstrating the errors of ancient art. I do not in the least suspect
+the picture: the tones of it, and much of the handling, are masterly;
+yet that foreground tree comprises every conceivable violation of truth
+which the human hand can commit, or head invent, in drawing a
+tree--except only, that it is not drawn root uppermost. It has no bark,
+no roughness nor character of stem; its boughs do not grow out of each
+other, but are stuck into each other; they ramify without diminishing,
+diminish without ramifying, are terminated by no complicated sprays,
+have their leaves tied to their ends, like the heads of Dutch brooms;
+and finally, and chiefly, they are evidently not made of wood, but of
+some soft elastic substance, which the wind can stretch out as it
+pleases, for there is not a vestige of an angle in any one of them. Now,
+the fiercest wind that ever blew upon the earth, could not take the
+angles out of the bough of a tree an inch thick. The whole bough bends
+together, retaining its elbows, and angles, and natural form, but
+affected throughout with curvature in each of its parts and joints. That
+part of it which was before perpendicular being bent aside, and that
+which was before sloping, being bent into still greater inclination, the
+angle at which the two parts meet remains the same; or if the strain be
+put in the opposite direction, the bough will break long before it loses
+its angle. You will find it difficult to bend the angles out of the
+youngest sapling, if they be marked; and absolutely impossible, with a
+strong bough. You may break it, but you will not destroy its angles. And
+if you watch a tree in the wildest storm, you will find that though all
+its boughs are bending, none lose their character but the utmost shoots
+and sapling spray. Hence Gaspar Poussin, by his bad drawing, does not
+make his storm strong, but his tree weak; he does not make his gust
+violent, but his boughs of India-rubber.
+
+
+§ 14. Bough-drawing of Titian.
+
+These laws respecting vegetation are so far more imperative than those
+which were stated respecting water, that the greatest artist cannot
+violate them without danger, because they are laws resulting from
+organic structure, which it is always painful to see interrupted; on the
+other hand, they have this in common with all laws, that they may be
+observed with mathematical precision, yet with no grateful result; the
+disciplined eye and the life in the woods are worth more than all
+botanical knowledge. For there is that about the growing of the tree
+trunk, and that grace in its upper ramification which cannot be taught,
+and which cannot even be seen but by eager watchfulness. There is not an
+Exhibition passes, but there appear in it hundreds of elaborate
+paintings of trees, many of them executed from nature. For three hundred
+years back, trees have been drawn with affection by all the civilized
+nations of Europe, and yet I repeat boldly, what I before asserted,
+that no men but Titian and Turner ever drew the stem of a tree.
+
+Generally, I think, the perception of the muscular qualities of the tree
+trunk incomplete, except in men who have studied the human figure, and
+in loose expression of those characters, the painter who can draw the
+living muscle seldom fails; but the thoroughly peculiar lines belonging
+to woody fibre, can only be learned by patient forest study; and hence
+in all the trees of the merely historical painters, there is fault of
+some kind or another, commonly exaggeration of the muscular swellings,
+or insipidity and want of spring in curvature, or fantasticism and
+unnaturalness of arrangement, and especially a want of the peculiar
+characters of bark which express the growth and age of the tree; for
+bark is no mere excrescence, lifeless and external--it is a skin of
+especial significance in its indications of the organic form beneath; in
+places under the arms of the tree it wrinkles up and forms fine lines
+_round_ the trunk, inestimable in their indication of the direction of
+its surface; in others, it bursts or peels longitudinally, and the
+rending and bursting of it are influenced in direction and degree by the
+under-growth and swelling of the woody fibre, and are not a mere
+roughness and granulated pattern of the hide. Where there are so many
+points to be observed, some are almost always exaggerated, and others
+missed, according to the predilections of the painter. Rembrandt and
+Albert Durer have given some splendid examples of woody texture, but
+both miss the grace of the great lines. Titian took a larger view and
+reached a higher truth, yet (as before noticed) from the habit of
+drawing the figure, he admits too much flaccidity and bend, and
+sometimes makes his tree trunks look flexible like sea-weed. There is a
+peculiar stiffness and spring about the curves of the wood, which
+separates them completely from animal curves, and which especially
+defies recollection or invention; it is so subtile that it escapes but
+too often, even in the most patient study from nature; it lies within
+the thickness of a pencil line. Farther, the modes of ramification of
+the upper branches are so varied, inventive, and graceful, that the
+least alteration of them, even in the measure of a hairbreadth, spoils
+them; and though it is sometimes possible to get rid of a troublesome
+bough, accidentally awkward, or in some minor respects to assist the
+arrangement, yet so far as the real branches are copied, the hand libels
+their lovely curvatures even in its best attempts to follow them.
+
+
+§ 15. Bough-drawing of Turner.
+
+These two characters, the woody stiffness hinted through muscular line,
+and the inventive grace of the upper boughs, have never been rendered
+except by Turner; he does not merely draw them better than others, but
+he is the only man who has ever drawn them at all. Of the woody
+character, the tree subjects of the Liber Studiorum afford marked
+examples; the Cephalus and Procris, scenes near the Grand Chartreuse and
+Blair Athol, Juvenile Tricks, and Hedging and Ditching, may be
+particularized; in the England series, the Bolton Abbey is perhaps a
+more characteristic and thoroughly Turneresque example than any.
+
+Of the arrangement of the upper boughs, the Ęsacus and Hesperie is
+perhaps the most consummate example, the absolute truth and simplicity
+and freedom from anything like fantasticism or animal form being as
+marked on the one hand, as the exquisite imaginativeness of the lines on
+the other: among the Yorkshire subjects the Aske Hall, Kirby Lonsdale
+Churchyard, and Brignall Church are most characteristic: among the
+England subjects the Warwick, Dartmouth Cove, Durham, and Chain Bridge
+over the Tees, where the piece of thicket on the right has been well
+rendered by the engraver, and is peculiarly expressive of the aerial
+relations and play of light among complex boughs. The vignette at the
+opening of Rogers's Pleasures of Memory, that of Chiefswood Cottage in
+the Illustrations to Scott's Works, and the Chateau de la belle
+Gabrielle, engraved for the Keepsake, are among the most graceful
+examples accessible to every one; the Crossing the Brook will occur at
+once to those acquainted with the artist's gallery. The drawing of the
+stems in all these instances, and indeed in all the various and frequent
+minor occurrences of such subject throughout the painter's works is
+entirely unique, there is nothing of the same kind in art.
+
+
+§ 16. Leafage. Its variety and symmetry.
+
+§ 17. Perfect regularity of Poussin.
+
+Let us, however, pass to the leafage of the elder landscape painters,
+and see if it atones for the deficiencies of the stems. One of the most
+remarkable characters of natural leafage is the constancy with which,
+while the leaves are arranged on the spray with exquisite regularity,
+that regularity is modified in their actual effect. For as in every
+group of leaves some are seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some
+foreshortened, some crossing each other, every one differently turned
+and placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though in
+themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and differing forms
+in the group; and the shadows of some, passing over the others, still
+farther disguise and confuse the mass, until the eye can distinguish
+nothing but a graceful and flexible disorder of innumerable forms, with
+here and there a perfect leaf on the extremity, or a symmetrical
+association of one or two, just enough to mark the specific character
+and to give unity and grace, but never enough to repeat in one group
+what was done in another--never enough to prevent the eye from feeling
+that, however regular and mathematical may be the structure of parts,
+what is composed out of them is as various and infinite as any other
+part of nature. Nor does this take place in general effect only. Break
+off an elm bough, three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table
+before you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in
+the whole bough, (provided you do not twist it about as you work,) you
+find one form of a leaf exactly like another; perhaps you will not even
+have _one_ complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or
+curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something
+or other the matter with it; and though the whole bough will look
+graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why
+it does so, since there is not one line of it like another. Now go to
+Gaspar Poussin, and take one of his sprays where they come against the
+sky; you may count it all round, one, two, three, four, one bunch; five,
+six, seven, eight, two bunches; nine, ten, eleven, twelve, three
+bunches; with four leaves each,--and such leaves! every one precisely
+the same as its neighbor, blunt and round at the end, (where every
+forest leaf is sharp, except that of the fig-tree,) tied together by the
+roots, and so fastened on to the demoniacal claws above described, one
+bunch to each claw.
+
+
+§ 18. Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage.
+
+But if nature is so various when you have a bough on the table before
+you, what must she be when she retires from you, and gives you her whole
+mass and multitude? The leaves then at the extremities become as fine
+as dust, a mere confusion of points and lines between you and the sky, a
+confusion which you might as well hope to draw sea-sand particle by
+particle, as to imitate leaf for leaf. This, as it comes down into the
+body of the tree, gets closer, but never opaque; it is always
+transparent, with crumbling lights in it letting you through to the sky;
+then, out of this, come, heavier and heavier, the masses of illumined
+foliage, all dazzling and inextricable, save here and there a single
+leaf on the extremities; then, under these, you get deep passages of
+broken, irregular gloom, passing into transparent, green-lighted, misty
+hollows; the twisted stems glancing through them in their pale and
+entangled infinity, and the shafted sunbeams, rained from above, running
+along the lustrous leaves for an instant; then lost, then caught again
+on some emerald bank or knotted root, to be sent up again with a faint
+reflex on the white under-sides of dim groups of drooping foliage, the
+shadows of the upper boughs running in gray network down the glossy
+stems, and resting in quiet checkers upon the glittering earth; but all
+penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and
+incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and the mystery of
+the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to us, some
+solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the
+type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and imagine, but can
+never see.
+
+
+§ 19. How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin.
+
+Now, with thus much of nature in your mind, go to Gaspar Poussin's View
+near Albano, in the National Gallery. It is the very subject to unite
+all these effects,--a sloping bank shaded with intertwined forest;--and
+what has Gaspar given us? A mass of smooth, opaque, varnished brown,
+without one interstice, one change of hue, or any vestige of leafy
+structure in its interior, or in those parts of it, I should say, which
+are intended to represent interior; but out of it, over it rather, at
+regular intervals, we have circular groups of greenish touches, always
+the same in size, shape, and distance from each other, containing so
+exactly the same number of touches each, that you cannot tell one from
+another. There are eight or nine and thirty of them, laid over each
+other like fish-scales; the shade being most carefully made darker and
+darker as it recedes from each until it comes to the edge of the next,
+against which it cuts in the same sharp circular line, and then begins
+to decline again, until the canvas is covered, with about as much
+intelligence or feeling of art as a house-painter has in marbling a
+wainscot, or a weaver in repeating an ornamental pattern. What is there
+in this, which the most determined prejudice in favor of the old masters
+can for a moment suppose to resemble trees? It is exactly what the most
+ignorant beginner, trying to make a complete drawing, would lay
+down,--exactly the conception of trees which we have in the works of our
+worst drawing-masters, where the shade is laid on with the black-lead
+and stump, and every human power exerted to make it look like a
+kitchen-grate well polished.
+
+
+§ 20. How followed by Creswick.
+
+Oppose to this the drawing even of our somewhat inferior tree-painters.
+I will not insult Harding by mentioning his work after it, but take
+Creswick, for instance, and match one of his sparkling bits of green
+leafage with this tree-pattern of Poussin's. I do not say there is not a
+dignity and impressiveness about the old landscape, owing to its
+simplicity; and I am very far from calling Creswick's good
+tree-painting; it is false in color and deficient in mass and freedom,
+and has many other defects, but it is the work of a man who has sought
+earnestly for truth; and who, with one thought or memory of nature in
+his heart, could look at the two landscapes, and receive Poussin's with
+ordinary patience? Take Creswick in black and white, where he is
+unembarrassed by his fondness for pea-green, the illustrations, for
+instance, to the Nut-brown Maid, in the Book of English Ballads. Look at
+the intricacy and fulness of the dark oak foliage where it bends over
+the brook, see how you can go through it, and into it, and come out
+behind it to the quiet bit of sky. Observe the gray, aerial transparency
+of the stunted copse on the left, and the entangling of the boughs where
+the light near foliage detaches itself. Above all, note the forms of the
+masses of light. Not things like scales or shells, sharp at the edge and
+flat in the middle, but irregular and rounded, stealing in and out
+accidentally from the shadow, and presenting, as the masses of all trees
+do, in general outline, a resemblance to the specific forms of the
+leaves of which they are composed. Turn over the page, and look into
+the weaving of the foliage and sprays against the dark night-sky, how
+near they are, yet how untraceable; see how the moonlight creeps up
+underneath them, trembling and shivering on the silver boughs above;
+note also, the descending bit of ivy on the left, of which only two
+leaves are made out, and the rest is confusion, or tells only in the
+moonlight like faint flakes of snow.
+
+
+§ 21. Perfect unity in nature's foliage.
+
+But nature observes another principle in her foliage more important even
+than its intricacy. She always secures an exceeding harmony and repose.
+She is _so_ intricate that her minuteness of parts becomes to the eye,
+at a little distance, one united veil or cloud of leaves, to destroy the
+evenness of which is perhaps a greater fault than to destroy its
+transparency. Look at Creswick's oak again, in its dark parts. Intricate
+as it is, all is blended into a cloud-like harmony of shade, which
+becomes fainter and fainter, as it retires, with the most delicate
+flatness and unity of tone. And it is by this kind of vaporescence, so
+to speak, by this flat, misty, unison of parts, that nature, and her
+faithful followers, are enabled to keep the eye in perfect repose in the
+midst of profusion, and to display beauty of form, wherever they choose,
+to the greatest possible advantage, by throwing it across some quiet,
+visionary passage of dimness and rest.
+
+
+§ 22. Total want of it in Both and Hobbima.
+
+It is here that Hobbima and Both fail. They can paint oak leafage
+faithfully, but do not know where to stop, and by doing too much, lose
+the truth of all,--lose the very truth of detail at which they aim, for
+all their minute work only gives two leaves to nature's twenty. They are
+evidently incapable of even thinking of a tree, much more of drawing it,
+except leaf by leaf; they have no notion nor sense of simplicity, mass,
+or obscurity, and when they come to distance, where it is totally
+impossible that leaves should be separately seen, yet, being incapable
+of conceiving or rendering the grand and quiet forms of truth, they are
+reduced to paint their bushes with dots and touches expressive of leaves
+three feet broad each. Nevertheless there is a genuine aim in their
+works, and their failure is rather to be attributed to ignorance of art,
+than to such want of sense for nature as we find in Claude or Poussin;
+and when they come close home, we sometimes receive from them fine
+passages of mechanical truth.
+
+
+§ 23. How rendered by Turner.
+
+But let us oppose to their works the group of trees on the left in
+Turner's Marly.[73] We have there perfect and ceaseless intricacy to
+oppose to Poussin,--perfect and unbroken repose to oppose to Hobbima;
+and in the unity of these the perfection of truth. This group may be
+taken as a fair standard of Turner's tree-painting. We have in it the
+admirably drawn stems, instead of the claws or the serpents; full,
+transparent, boundless intricacy, instead of the shell pattern; and
+misty depth of intermingled light and leafage, instead of perpetual
+repetition of one mechanical touch.
+
+
+§ 24. The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good.
+
+I have already spoken (Section II. Chapter IV. § 15,) of the way in
+which mystery and intricacy are carried even into the nearest leaves of
+the foreground, and noticed the want of such intricacy even in the best
+works of the old masters. Claude's are particularly deficient, for by
+representing every particular leaf of them, or trying to do so, he makes
+nature finite, and even his nearest bits of leafage are utterly false,
+for they have neither shadows modifying their form, (compare Section II.
+Chapter III. § 7,) nor sparkling lights, nor confused intersections of
+their own forms and lines; and the perpetual repetition of the same
+shape of leaves and the same arrangement, relieved from a black ground,
+is more like an ornamental pattern for dress than the painting of a
+foreground. Nevertheless, the foliage of Claude, in his middle
+distances, is the finest and truest part of his pictures, and, on the
+whole, affords the best example of good drawing to be found in ancient
+art. It is always false in color, and has not boughs enough amongst it,
+and the stems commonly look a great deal nearer than any part of it, but
+it is still graceful, flexible, abundant, intricate; and, in all but
+color and connection with stems, very nearly right. Of the perfect
+painting of thick, leafy foreground, Turner's Mercury and Argus, and
+Oakhampton, are the standards.[74]
+
+
+§ 25. Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves.
+
+§ 26. Altogether unobserved by the old masters. Always given by Turner.
+
+The last and most important truth to be observed respecting trees, is
+that their boughs always, in finely grown individuals, bear among
+themselves such a ratio of length as to describe with their extremities
+a symmetrical curve, constant for each species; and within this curve
+all the irregularities, segments, and divisions of the tree are
+included, each bough reaching the limit with its extremity, but not
+passing it. When a tree is perfectly grown, each bough starts from the
+trunk with just so much wood as, allowing for constant ramification,
+will enable it to reach the terminal line; or if by mistake, it start
+with too little, it will proceed without ramifying till within a
+distance where it may safely divide; if on the contrary it start with
+too much, it will ramify quickly and constantly; or, to express the real
+operation more accurately, each bough, growing on so as to keep even
+with its neighbors, takes so much wood from the trunk as is sufficient
+to enable it to do so, more or less in proportion as it ramifies fast
+or slowly. In badly grown trees, the boughs are apt to fall short of
+the curve, or at least, there are so many jags and openings that its
+symmetry is interrupted; and in young trees, the impatience of the upper
+shoots frequently breaks the line; but in perfect and mature trees,
+every bough does its duty completely, and the line of curve is quite
+filled up, and the mass within it unbroken, so that the tree assumes the
+shape of a dome, as in the oak, or, in tall trees, of a pear, with the
+stalk downmost. The old masters paid no attention whatsoever to this
+great principle. They swing their boughs about, anywhere and everywhere;
+each stops or goes on just as it likes, nor will it be possible, in any
+of their works, to find a single example in which any symmetrical curve
+is indicated by the extremities.[75]
+
+But I need scarcely tell any one in the slightest degree acquainted with
+the works of Turner, how rigidly and constantly he adheres to this
+principle of nature; taking in his highest compositions the perfect
+ideal form, every spray being graceful and varied in itself, but
+inevitably terminating at the assigned limit, and filling up the curve
+without break or gap; in his lower works, taking less perfect form, but
+invariably hinting the constant tendency in all, and thus, in spite of
+his abundant complexity, he arranges his trees under simpler and grander
+forms than any other artist, even among the moderns.
+
+
+§ 27. Foliage painting on the Continent.
+
+It was above asserted that J. D. Harding is, after Turner, the greatest
+master of foliage in Europe; I ought, however, to state that my
+knowledge of the modern landscape of Germany is very limited, and that,
+even with respect to France and Italy, I judge rather from the general
+tendency of study and character of mind visible in the annual
+Exhibition of the Louvre, and in some galleries of modern paintings at
+Milan, Venice, and Florence, than from any detailed acquaintance with
+the works of their celebrated painters. Yet I think I can hardly be
+mistaken. I have seen nothing to induce me to take a closer survey; no
+life knowledge or emotion in any quarter; nothing but the meanest and
+most ignorant copyism of vulgar details, coupled with a style of
+conception resembling that of the various lithographic ideals on the
+first leaves of the music of pastoral ballads. An exception ought,
+however, to be made in favor of French etching; some studies in black
+and white may be seen in the narrow passages of the Louvre of very high
+merit, showing great skill and delicacy of execution, and most
+determined industry; (in fact, I think when the French artist fails, it
+is never through fear of labor;) nay, more than this, some of them
+exhibit acute perception of landscape character and great power of
+reaching simple impressions of gloom, wildness, sound, and motion. Some
+of their illustrated works also exhibit these powers in a high degree;
+there is a spirit, fire, and sense of reality about some of the
+wood-cuts to the large edition of Paul and Virginia, and a determined
+rendering of separate feeling in each, such as we look for in vain in
+our own ornamental works.[76] But the French appear to have no teaching
+such as might carry them beyond this; their entire ignorance of color
+renders the assumption of the brush instantly fatal, and the false,
+forced, and impious sentiment of the nation renders anything like grand
+composition altogether impossible.
+
+
+§ 28. Foliage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies.
+
+It is therefore only among good artists of our own school that I think
+any fair comparison can be instituted, and I wish to assert Harding's
+knowledge of foliage more distinctly, because he neither does justice to
+himself, nor is, I think, rightly estimated by his fellow-artists. I
+shall not make any invidious remarks respecting individuals, but I think
+it necessary to state generally, that the style of foliage painting
+chiefly characteristic of the pictures on the line of the Royal Academy
+is of the most degraded kind;[77] and that, except Turner and Mulready,
+we have, as far as I know, no Royal Academician capable of painting even
+the smallest portion of foliage in a dignified or correct manner; all is
+lost in green shadows with glittering yellow lights, white trunks with
+black patches on them, and leaves of no species in particular. Much
+laborious and clever foliage drawing is to be found in the rooms of the
+New Water-Color Society; but we have no one in any wise comparable to
+Harding for thorough knowledge of the subject, for power of expression
+in a sketch from nature, or for natural and unaffected conception in the
+study.
+
+Maintaining for him this high position, it is necessary that I should
+also state those deficiencies which appear to me to conceal his real
+power, and in no small degree to prevent his progress.
+
+
+§ 29. His brilliancy of execution too manifest.
+
+His over-fondness for brilliant execution I have already noticed. He is
+fonder of seeing something tolerably like a tree produced with few
+touches, than something very like a tree produced with many. Now, it is
+quite allowable that occasionally, and in portions of his picture, a
+great artist should indulge himself in this luxury of sketching, yet it
+is a perilous luxury; it blunts the feeling and weakens the hand. I have
+said enough in various places respecting the virtues of negligence and
+of finish, (compare above the chapter on Ideas of Power in Part I. Sect.
+II., and Part III. Sect. I. Ch. X. § 4,) and I need only say here,
+therefore, that Harding's foliage is never sufficiently finished, and
+has at its best the look of a rapid sketch from nature touched upon at
+home. In 1843, (I think,) there was a pretty drawing in the rooms of the
+Water-Color Society,--the clear green water of a torrent resting among
+stones, with copse-like wood on each side, a bridge in the distance, a
+white flower (water-lily?) catching the eye in front; the tops of the
+trees on the left of this picture were mere broad blots of color dashed
+upon the sky and connected by stems. I allow the power necessary to
+attain any look of foliage by such means, but it is power abused: by no
+such means can any of the higher virtue and impressiveness of foliage be
+rendered. In the use of body color for near leaves, his execution is
+also too hasty; often the touches are mere square or round dots, which
+can be understood only for foliage by their arrangement. This fault was
+especially marked in the trees of his picture painted for the Academy
+two years ago; they were very nearly shapeless, and could not stand even
+in courtesy for walnut leaves, for which judging by the make of the
+tree, they must have been intended.
+
+
+§ 30. His bough-drawing and choice of form.
+
+His drawing of boughs is, in all points of demonstrable law, right, and
+very frequently easy and graceful also; yet it has two eminent faults,
+the first, that the flow of the bough is sacrificed to its texture, the
+pencil checking itself and hesitating at dots, and stripes, and knots,
+instead of following the grand and unbroken tendency of growth: the
+second, that however good the arrangement may be as far as regards
+merely flexibility, intricacy, and freedom, there are none of those
+composed groups of line which are unfailing in nature. Harding's work is
+not grand enough to be natural. The drawings in the park and the forest,
+are, I believe, almost facsimiles of sketches made from nature; yet it
+is evident at once that in all of them nothing but the general lie and
+disposition of the boughs has been taken from the tree, and that no
+single branch or spray has been faithfully copied or patiently studied.
+
+This want of close study necessarily causes several deficiencies of
+feeling respecting general form. Harding's choice is always of tree
+forms comparatively imperfect, leaning this way and that, and unequal in
+the lateral arrangements of foliage. Such forms are often graceful,
+always picturesque, but rarely grand; and when systematically adopted,
+untrue. It requires more patient study to attain just feeling of the
+dignity and character of a purely formed tree with all its symmetries
+perfect.
+
+
+§ 31. Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with what
+        advantage.
+
+One more cause of incorrectness I may note, though it is not peculiar to
+the artist's tree-drawing, but attaches to his general system of
+sketching. In Harding's valuable work on the use of the Lead Pencil,
+there is one principle advanced which I believe to be false and
+dangerous, that the local color of objects is not thereby to be
+rendered. I think the instance given is that of some baskets, whose
+darkness is occasioned solely by the touches indicating the
+wicker-work. Now, I believe, that an essential difference between the
+sketch of a great and of a comparatively inferior master is, that the
+former is conceived entirely in shade and color, and its masses are
+blocked out with reference to both, while the inferior draughtsman
+checks at textures and petty characters of object. If Rembrandt had had
+to sketch such baskets, he would have troubled himself very little about
+the wicker-work; but he would have looked to see where they came dark or
+light on the sand, and where there were any sparkling points of light on
+the wet osiers. These darks and lights he would have scratched in with
+the fastest lines he could, leaving no white paper but at the wet points
+of lustre; if he had had time, the wicker-work would have come
+afterwards.[78] And I think, that the first thing to be taught to any
+pupil, is neither how to manage the pencil, nor how to attain character
+of outline, but rather to see where things are light and where they are
+dark, and to draw them as he sees them, never caring whether his lines
+be dexterous or slovenly. The result of such study is the immediate
+substitution of downright drawing for symbolism, and afterwards a
+judicious moderation in the use of extreme lights and darks; for where
+local colors are really drawn, so much of what seems violently dark is
+found to come light against something else, and so much of what seems
+high light to come dark against the sky, that the draughtsman trembles
+at finding himself plunged either into blackness or whiteness, and
+seeks, as he should, for means of obtaining force without either.
+
+It is in consequence of his evident habit of sketching more with a view
+to detail and character than to the great masses, that Harding's
+chiaroscuro is frequently crude, scattered, and petty. Black shadows
+occur under his distant trees, white high lights on his foreground
+rocks, the foliage and trunks are divided by violent oppositions into
+separate masses, and the branches lose in spots of moss and furrowings
+of bark their soft roundings of delicate form, and their grand relations
+to each other and the sky.
+
+
+§ 32. Opposition between great manner and great knowledge.
+
+It is owing to my respect for the artist, and my belief in his power and
+conscientious desire to do what is best, that I have thus extended these
+somewhat unkind remarks. On the other hand, it is to be remembered, that
+his knowledge of nature is most extended, and his dexterity of drawing
+most instructive, especially considering his range of subject; for
+whether in water, rock, or foliage, he is equally skilful in attaining
+whatever he desires, (though he does not always desire all that he
+ought;) and artists should keep in mind, that neither grandeur of manner
+nor truth of system can atone for the want of this knowledge and this
+skill. Constable's manner is good and great, but being unable to draw
+even a log of wood, much more a trunk of a tree or a stone, he left his
+works destitute of substance, mere studies of effect without any
+expression of specific knowledge; and thus even what is great in them
+has been productive, I believe, of very great injury in its
+encouragement of the most superficial qualities of the English school.
+
+
+§ 33. Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattermole.
+
+The foliage of David Cox has been already noticed (preface to second
+edition.) It is altogether exquisite in color, and in its impressions of
+coolness, shade, and mass; of its drawing I cannot say anything, but
+that I should be sorry to see it better. Copley Fielding's is remarkable
+for its intricacy and elegance; it is, however, not free from
+affectation, and, as has been before remarked, is always evidently
+composed in the study. The execution is too rough and woolly; it is
+wanting in simplicity, sharpness, and freshness,--above all in specific
+character: not, however, in his middle distances, where the rounded
+masses of forest and detached blasted trunks of fir are usually very
+admirable. Cattermole has very grand conceptions of general form, but
+wild and without substance, and therefore incapable of long maintaining
+their attractiveness, especially lately, the execution having become in
+the last degree coarse and affected. This is bitterly to be regretted,
+for few of our artists would paint foliage better, if he would paint it
+from nature, and with reverence.
+
+
+§ 34. Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of light,
+        and offensive if otherwise.
+
+Hunt, I think, fails, and fails only, in foliage; fails, as the
+Daguerreotype does, from over-fidelity; for foliage will _not_ be
+imitated, it must be reasoned out and suggested; yet Hunt is the only
+man we have who can paint the real leaf green under sunlight, and, in
+this respect, his trees are delicious,--summer itself. Creswick has
+sweet feeling, and tries for the real green too, but, from want of
+science in his shadows, ends in green paint instead of green light; in
+mere local color, instead of color raised by sunshine. One example is
+enough to show where the fault lies. In his picture of the Weald of
+Kent, in the British Institution this year, there was a cottage in the
+middle distance with white walls, and a red roof. The dark sides of the
+white walls and of the roof were of the same color, a dark purple--wrong
+for both. Repeated inaccuracies of this kind necessarily deprive even
+the most brilliant color of all appearance of sunshine, and they are
+much to be deprecated in Creswick, as he is one of the very few artists
+who _do_ draw from nature and try for nature. Some of his thickets and
+torrent-beds are most painfully studied, and yet he cannot draw a bough
+nor a stone. I suspect he is too much in the habit of studying only
+large views on the spot, and not of drawing small portions thoroughly. I
+trust it will be seen that these, as all other remarks that I have made
+throughout this volume on particular works, are not in depreciation of,
+or unthankfulness for, what the artist has done, but in the desire that
+he should do himself more justice and more honor. I have much pleasure
+in Creswick's works, and I am glad always to see them admired by others.
+
+
+§ 35. Conclusion. Works of J. Linnell and S. Palmer.
+
+I shall conclude this sketch of the foliage art of England, by mention
+of two artists, whom I believe to be representative of a considerable
+class, admirable in their reverence and patience of study, yet
+unappreciated by the public, because what they do is unrecommended by
+dexterities of handling. The forest studies of J. Linnell are peculiarly
+elaborate, and, in many points, most skilful; they fail perhaps of
+interest, owing to over-fulness of detail and a want of generalization
+in the effect; but even a little more of the Harding sharpness of touch
+would set off their sterling qualities, and make them felt. A less known
+artist, S. Palmer, lately admitted a member of the Old Water-Color
+Society, is deserving of the very highest place among faithful followers
+of nature. His studies of foreign foliage especially are beyond all
+praise for care and fulness. I have never seen a stone pine or a cypress
+drawn except by him; and his feeling is as pure and grand as his
+fidelity is exemplary. He has not, however, yet, I think, discovered
+what is necessary and unnecessary in a great picture; and his works,
+sent to the Society's rooms, have been most unfavorable examples of his
+power, and have been generally, as yet, in places where all that is best
+in them is out of sight. I look to him, nevertheless, unless he lose
+himself in over-reverence for certain conventionalisms of the elder
+schools, as one of the probable renovators and correctors of whatever is
+failing or erroneous in the practice of English art.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [71] It sometimes happens that a morbid direction of growth will
+    cause an exception here and there to this rule, the bough swelling
+    beyond its legitimate size; knots and excrescences, of course,
+    sometimes interfere with the effect of diminution. I believe that in
+    the laurel, when it grows large and old, singular instances may be
+    found of thick upper boughs and over quantity of wood at the
+    extremities. All these accidents or exceptions are felt as such by
+    the eye. They may occasionally be used by the painter in savage or
+    grotesque scenery, or as points of contrast, but are no excuse for
+    his ever losing sight of the general law.
+
+  [72] Compare Part III. Sect. II. Chap. IV. § 6, 7.
+
+  [73] This group I have before noticed as singularly (but, I doubt
+    not, accidentally, and in consequence of the love of the two great
+    painters for the same grand forms) resembling that introduced by
+    Tintoret in the background of his Cain and Abel.
+
+  [74] The above paragraphs I have left as originally written, because
+    they are quite true as far as they reach; but like many other
+    portions of this essay, they take in a very small portion of the
+    truth. I shall not add to them at present, because I can explain my
+    meaning better in our consideration of the laws of beauty; but the
+    reader must bear in mind that what is above stated refers,
+    throughout, to large masses of foliage seen under broad
+    sunshine,--and it has especial reference to Turner's enormous scale
+    of scene, and intense desire of light. In twilight, when tree-forms
+    are seen against sky, other laws come into operation, as well as in
+    subject of narrow limits and near foreground. It is, I think, to be
+    regretted that Turner does not in his Academy pictures sometimes
+    take more confined and gloomy subjects, like that grand one, near
+    the Chartreuse, of the Liber Studiorum, wherein his magnificent
+    power of elaborating close foliage might be developed; but, for the
+    present, let the reader, with respect to what has been here said of
+    close foliage, note the drawing of the leaves in that plate, in the
+    Ęsacus and Hesperie, and the Cephalus, and the elaboration of the
+    foregrounds in the Yorkshire drawings; let him compare what is said
+    of Turner's foliage painting above in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. §
+    40, § 41, and of Titian's previously, as well as Part III. Sect. I.
+    Chap. VIII., and Sect. II. Chap. IV. § 21. I shall hereafter
+    endeavor to arrange the subject in a more systematic manner; but
+    what additional observations I may have to make will none of them be
+    in any wise more favorable to Gaspar, Salvator, or Hobbima, than the
+    above paragraphs.
+
+  [75] Perhaps in some instances, this may be the case with the trees
+    of Nicholas Poussin; but even with him the boughs only touch the
+    line of limit with their central _points_ of extremity, and are not
+    _sectors_ of the great curve--forming a part of it with expanded
+    extremities, as in nature. Draw a few straight lines, from the
+    centre to the circumference of a circle. The forms included between
+    them are the forms of the individual boughs of a fine tree, with all
+    their ramifications (only the external curve is not a circle, but
+    more frequently two parabolas--which, I believe, it is in the
+    oak--or an ellipse.) But each bough of the old masters is
+    club-shaped, and broadest, not at the outside of the tree, but a
+    little way towards its centre.
+
+  [76] On the other hand, nothing can be more exquisitely ridiculous
+    than the French illustrations of a second or third-rate order, as
+    those to the Harmonies of Lamartine.
+
+  [77] Of Stanfield's foliage I remember too little to enable me to
+    form any definite judgment; it is a pity that he so much neglects
+    this noble element of landscape.
+
+  [78] It is true that many of Rembrandt's etchings are merely in
+    line, but it may be observed that the subject is universally
+    _conceived_ in light and shade, and that the lines are either merely
+    guides in the arrangement, or an exquisite indication of the
+    key-notes of shade, on which the after-system of it is to be
+    based--portions of fragmentary finish, showing the completeness of
+    the conception.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+               GENERAL REMARKS RESPECTING THE TRUTH OF TURNER.
+
+
+§ 1. No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural truth.
+
+We have now arrived at some general conception of the extent of Turner's
+knowledge, and the truth of his practice, by the deliberate examination
+of the characteristics of the four great elements of landscape--sky,
+earth, water, and vegetation. I have not thought it necessary to devote
+a chapter to architecture, because enough has been said on this subject
+in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII.; and its general truths, which are those
+with which the landscape painter, as such, is chiefly concerned, require
+only a simple and straightforward application of those rules of which
+every other material object of a landscape has required a most difficult
+and complicated application. Turner's knowledge of perspective probably
+adds to his power in the arrangement of every order of subject; but
+ignorance on this head is rather disgraceful than knowledge meritorious.
+It is disgraceful, for instance, that any man should commit such
+palpable and atrocious errors in ordinary perspective as are seen in the
+quay in Claude's sea-piece, No. 14, National Gallery, or in the curved
+portico of No. 30; but still these are not points to be taken into
+consideration as having anything to do with artistical rank, just as,
+though we should say it was disgraceful if a great poet could not spell,
+we should not consider such a defect as in any way taking from his
+poetical rank. Neither is there anything particularly belonging to
+architecture, as such, which it is any credit to an artist to observe or
+represent; it is only a simple and clear field for the manifestation of
+his knowledge of general laws. Any surveyor or engineer could have drawn
+the steps and balustrade in the Hero and Leander, as well as Turner has;
+but there is no man living but himself who could have thrown the
+accidental shadows upon them. I may, however, refer for general
+illustration of Turner's power as an architectural draughtsman, to the
+front of Rouen Cathedral, engraved in the Rivers of France, and to the
+Ely in the England. I know nothing in art which can be set beside the
+former of these for overwhelming grandeur and simplicity of effect, and
+inexhaustible intricacy of parts. I have then only a few remarks farther
+to offer respecting the general character of all those truths which we
+have been hitherto endeavoring to explain and illustrate.
+
+
+§ 2. Extreme difficulty of illustrating or explaining the highest truth.
+
+§ 3. The _positive_ rank of Turner is in no degree shown in the
+       foregoing pages, but only his relative rank.
+
+§ 4. The exceeding refinement of his truth.
+
+§ 5. There is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without
+       knowledge.
+
+§ 6. And nothing which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy.
+
+The difference in the accuracy of the lines of the Torso of the Vatican,
+(the Maestro of M. Angelo,) from those in one of M. Angelo's finest
+works, could perhaps scarcely be appreciated by any eye or feeling
+undisciplined by the most perfect and practical anatomical knowledge. It
+rests on points of such traceless and refined delicacy, that though we
+feel them in the result, we cannot follow them in the details. Yet they
+are such and so great as to place the Torso alone in art, solitary and
+supreme; while the finest of M. Angelo's works, considered with respect
+to truth alone, are said to be only on a level with antiques of the
+second class, under the Apollo and Venus, that is, two classes or grades
+below the Torso. But suppose the best sculptor in the world, possessing
+the most entire appreciation of the excellence of the Torso, were to sit
+down, pen in hand, to try and tell us wherein the peculiar truth of each
+line consisted? Could any words that he could use make us feel the
+hairbreadth of depth and distance on which all depends? or end in
+anything more than bare assertions of the inferiority of this line to
+that, which, if we did not perceive for ourselves, no explanation could
+ever illustrate to us? He might as well endeavor to explain to us by
+words some taste or other subject of sense, of which we had no
+experience. And so it is with all truths of the highest order; they are
+separated from those of average precision by points of extreme delicacy,
+which none but the cultivated eye can in the least feel, and to express
+which, all words are absolutely meaningless and useless. Consequently,
+in all that I have been saying of the truth of artists, I have been able
+to point out only coarse, broad, and explicable matters; I have been
+perfectly unable to express (and indeed I have made no endeavor to
+express) the finely drawn and distinguished truth in which all the real
+excellence of art consists. All those truths which I have been able to
+explain and demonstrate in Turner, are such as any artist of ordinary
+powers of observation ought to be capable of rendering. It is
+disgraceful to omit them; but it is no very great credit to observe
+them. I have indeed proved that they have been neglected, and
+disgracefully so, by those men who are commonly considered the Fathers
+of Art; but in showing that they have been observed by Turner, I have
+only proved him to be _above_ other men in knowledge of truth, I have
+not given any conception of his own positive rank as a Painter of
+Nature. But it stands to reason, that the men, who in broad, simple, and
+demonstrable matters are perpetually violating truth, will not be
+particularly accurate or careful in carrying out delicate and refined,
+and undemonstrable matters; and it stands equally to reason, that the
+man who, as far as argument or demonstration can go, is found invariably
+truthful, will, in all probability, be truthful to the last line, and
+shadow of a line. And such is, indeed, the case with every touch of this
+consummate artist; the essential excellence--all that constitutes the
+real and exceeding value of his works--is beyond and above expression;
+it is a truth inherent in every line, and breathing in every hue, too
+delicate and exquisite to admit of any kind of proof, nor to be
+ascertained except by the highest of tests--the keen feeling attained by
+extended knowledge and long study. Two lines are laid on canvas; one is
+right and another wrong. There is no difference between them appreciable
+by the compasses--none appreciable by the ordinary eye--none which can
+be pointed out, if it is not seen. One person feels it,--another does
+not; but the feeling or sight of the one can by no words be communicated
+to the other: it would be unjust if it could, for that feeling and sight
+have been the reward of years of labor. And there is, indeed, nothing in
+Turner--not one dot nor line--whose meaning can be understood without
+knowledge; because he never aims at sensual impressions, but at the deep
+final truth, which only meditation can discover, and only experience
+recognize. There is nothing done or omitted by him, which does not imply
+such a comparison of ends, such rejection of the least worthy, (as far
+as they are incompatible with the rest,) such careful selection and
+arrangement of all that can be united, as can only be enjoyed by minds
+capable of going through the same process, and discovering the reasons
+for the choice. And, as there is nothing in his works which can be
+enjoyed without knowledge, so there is nothing in them which knowledge
+will not enable us to enjoy. There is no test of our acquaintance with
+nature so absolute and unfailing as the degree of admiration we feel for
+Turner's painting. Precisely as we are shallow in our knowledge, vulgar
+in our feeling, and contracted in our views of principles, will the
+works of this artist be stumbling-blocks or foolishness to
+us:--precisely in the degree in which we are familiar with nature,
+constant in our observation of her, and enlarged in our understanding of
+her, will they expand before our eyes into glory and beauty. In every
+new insight which we obtain into the works of God, in every new idea
+which we receive from His creation, we shall find ourselves possessed of
+an interpretation and a guide to something in Turner's works which we
+had not before understood. We may range over Europe, from shore to
+shore; and from every rock that we tread upon, every sky that passes
+over our heads, every local form of vegetation or of soil, we shall
+receive fresh illustration of his principles--fresh confirmation of his
+facts. We shall feel, wherever we go, that he has been there before
+us--whatever we see, that he has seen and seized before us: and we shall
+at last cease the investigation, with a well-grounded trust, that
+whatever we have been unable to account for, and what we still dislike
+in his works, has reason for it, and foundation like the rest; and that
+even where he has failed or erred, there is a beauty in the failure
+which none are able to equal, and a dignity in the error which none are
+worthy to reprove.
+
+
+§ 7. His former rank and progress.
+
+§ 8. Standing of his present works. Their mystery is the consequence of
+       their fullness.
+
+There has been marked and constant progress in his mind; he has not,
+like some few artists, been without childhood; his course of study has
+been as evidently as it has been swiftly progressive, and in different
+stages of the struggle, sometimes one order of truth, sometimes another,
+has been aimed at or omitted. But from the beginning to the present
+height of his career, he has never sacrificed a greater truth to a
+less. As he advanced, the previous knowledge or attainment was absorbed
+in what succeeded, or abandoned only if incompatible, and never
+abandoned without a gain; and his present works present the sum and
+perfection of his accumulated knowledge, delivered with the impatience
+and passion of one who feels too much, and knows too much, and has too
+little time to say it in, to pause for expression, or ponder over his
+syllables. There is in them the obscurity, but the truth, of prophecy;
+the instinctive and burning language, which would express less if it
+uttered more, which is indistinct only by its fulness, and dark with its
+abundant meaning. He feels now, with long-trained vividness and keenness
+of sense, too bitterly the impotence of the hand, and the vainness of
+the color to catch one shadow or one image of the glory which God has
+revealed to him. He has dwelt and communed with nature all the days of
+his life; he knows her now too well, he cannot palter over the material
+littleness of her outward form; he must give her soul, or he has done
+nothing, and he cannot do this with the flax, and the earth, and the
+oil. "I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make
+_them_ tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and
+let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the
+night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read
+this, and interpret this, and let us feel together. And if you have not
+that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not the sun in
+your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words may awaken,
+though they be indistinct and swift, leave me; for I will give you no
+patient mockery, no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am
+and whom I serve. Let other servants imitate the voice and the gesture
+of their master, while they forget his message. Hear that message from
+me; but remember, that the teaching of Divine truth must still be a
+mystery."
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                CONCLUSION.--MODERN ART AND MODERN CRITICISM.
+
+
+We have only, in conclusion, to offer a few general remarks respecting
+modern art and modern criticism.
+
+
+§ 1. The entire prominence hitherto given to the works of one artist
+       caused only by our not being able to take cognizance of character.
+
+§ 2. The feelings of different artists are incapable of full comparison.
+
+§ 3. But the fidelity and truth of each are capable of real comparison.
+
+§ 4. Especially because they are equally manifested in the treatment of
+       all subjects.
+
+§ 5. No man draws one thing well, if he can draw nothing else.
+
+We wish, in the first place, to remove the appearance of invidiousness
+and partiality which the constant prominence given in the present
+portion of the work to the productions of one artist, can scarcely fail
+of bearing in the minds of most readers. When we pass to the examination
+of what is beautiful and expressive in art, we shall frequently find
+distinctive qualities in the minds even of inferior artists, which have
+led them to the pursuit and embodying of particular trains of thought,
+altogether different from those which direct the compositions of other
+men, and incapable of comparison with them. Now, when this is the case,
+we should consider it in the highest degree both invidious and
+illogical, to say of such different modes of exertion of the intellect,
+that one is in all points greater or nobler than another. We shall
+probably find something in the working of all minds which has an end and
+a power peculiar to itself, and which is deserving of free and full
+admiration, without any reference whatsoever to what has, in other
+fields, been accomplished by other modes of thought, and directions of
+aim. We shall, indeed, find a wider range and grasp in one man than in
+another; but yet it will be our own fault if we do not discover
+something in the most limited range of mind which is different from, and
+in its way better than, anything presented to us by the more grasping
+intellect. We all know that the nightingale sings more nobly than the
+lark; but who, therefore, would wish the lark not to sing, or would deny
+that it had a character of its own, which bore a part among the melodies
+of creation no less essential than that of the more richly-gifted bird?
+And thus we shall find and feel that whatever difference may exist
+between the intellectual powers of one artist and another, yet wherever
+there is any true genius, there will be some peculiar lesson which even
+the humblest will teach us more sweetly and perfectly than those far
+above them in prouder attributes of mind; and we should be as mistaken
+as we should be unjust and invidious, if we refused to receive this
+their peculiar message with gratitude and veneration, merely because it
+was a sentence and not a volume. But the case is different when we
+examine their relative fidelity to given facts. That fidelity depends on
+no peculiar modes of thought or habits of character; it is the result of
+keen sensibility, combined with high powers of memory and association.
+These qualities, as such, are the same in all men; character or feeling
+may direct their choice to this or that object, but the fidelity with
+which they treat either the one or the other, is dependent on those
+simple powers of sense and intellect which are like and comparable in
+all, and of which we can always say that they are greater in this man,
+or less in that without reference to the character of the individual.
+Those feelings which direct Cox to the painting of wild, weedy banks,
+and cool, melting skies, and those which directed Barret to the painting
+of glowing foliage and melancholy twilight, are both just and beautiful
+in their way, and are both worthy of high praise and gratitude, without
+necessity, nay, without _proper_ possibility of comparing one with the
+other. But the degree of fidelity with which the leaves of the one and
+the light of the other are rendered, depends upon faculties of sight,
+sense, and memory common to both, and perfectly comparable; and we may
+say fearlessly, and without injustice, that one or the other, as the
+case may be, is more faithful in that which they have chosen to
+represent. It is also to be remembered that these faculties of sense and
+memory are not partial in their effect; they will not induce fidelity in
+the rendering of one class of object, and fail of doing so in another.
+They act equally, and with equal results, whatever may be the matter
+subjected to them; the same delicate sense which perceives the utmost
+grace of the fibres of a tree, will be equally unerring in tracing the
+character of cloud; and the quick memory which seizes and retains the
+circumstances of a flying effect of shadow or color, will be equally
+effectual in fixing the impression of the instantaneous form of a moving
+figure or a breaking wave. There are indeed one or two broad
+distinctions in the nature of the senses,--a sensibility to color, for
+instance, being very different from a sensibility to form; so that a man
+may possess one without the other, and an artist may succeed in mere
+imitation of what is before him, of air, sunlight, etc., without
+possessing sensibility at all. But wherever we have, in the drawing of
+any one object, sufficient evidence of real intellectual power, of the
+sense which perceives the essential qualities of a thing, and the
+judgment which arranges them so as to illustrate each other, we may be
+quite certain that the same sense and judgment will operate equally on
+whatever is subjected to them, and that the artist will be equally great
+and masterly in his drawing of all that he attempts. Hence we may be
+quite sure that wherever an artist appears to be truthful in one branch
+of art, and not in another, the apparent truth is either owing to some
+trickery of imitation, or is not so great as we suppose it to be. In
+nine cases out of ten, people who are celebrated for drawing only one
+thing, and _can_ only draw one thing, draw that one thing worse than
+anybody else. An artist may indeed confine himself to a limited range of
+subject, but if he be really true in his rendering of this, his power of
+doing more will be perpetually showing itself in accessories and minor
+points. There are few men, for instance, more limited in subject than
+Hunt, and yet I do not think there is another man in the old Water-Color
+Society, with so keen an eye for truth, or with power so universal. And
+this is the reason for the exceeding prominence which in the foregoing
+investigation one or two artists have always assumed over the rest, for
+the habits of accurate observation and delicate powers of hand which
+they possess, have equal effect, and maintain the same superiority in
+their works, to whatever class of subject they may be directed. And thus
+we have been compelled, however unwillingly, to pass hastily by the
+works of many gifted men, because, however pure their feeling, or
+original their conceptions, they were wanting in those faculties of the
+hand and mind which insure perfect fidelity to nature: it will be only
+hereafter, when we are at liberty to take full cognizance of the
+thought, however feebly it may be clothed in language, that we shall be
+able to do real justice to the disciples either of modern or of ancient
+art.
+
+
+§ 6. General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation.
+
+But as far as we have gone at present, and with respect only to the
+_material_ truth, which is all that we have been able to investigate,
+the conclusion to which we must be led is as clear as it is inevitable;
+that modern artists, as a body, are far more just and full in their
+views of material things than any landscape painters whose works are
+extant--but that J. M. W. Turner is the only man who has ever given an
+entire transcript of the whole system of nature, and is, in this point
+of view, the only perfect landscape painter whom the world has ever
+seen.
+
+
+§ 7. Truth, a standard of all excellence.
+
+Nor are we disposed to recede from our assertion made in Sec. I. Ch. I.
+§ 10, that this material truth is indeed a perfect test of the relative
+rank of painters, though it does not in itself constitute that rank. We
+shall be able to prove that truth and beauty, knowledge and imagination,
+invariably are associated in art; and we shall be able to show that not
+only in truth to nature, but in all other points, Turner is the greatest
+landscape painter who has ever lived. But his superiority is, in matters
+of feeling, one of kind, not of degree. Superiority of degree implies a
+superseding of others, superiority of kind only sustaining a more
+important, but not more necessary part, than others. If _truth_ were all
+that we required from art, all other painters might cast aside their
+brushes in despair, for all that they have done he has done more fully
+and accurately; but when we pass to the higher requirements of art,
+beauty and character, their contributions are all equally necessary and
+desirable, because different, and however inferior in position or rank,
+are still perfect of their kind; their inferiority is only that of the
+lark to the nightingale, or of the violet to the rose.
+
+
+§ 8. Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste.
+
+§ 9. Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment.
+
+§ 10. Duty of the press.
+
+Such then is the rank and standing of our modern artists. We have,
+living with us, and painting for us, the greatest painter of _all_ time;
+a man with whose supremacy of power no intellect of past ages can be put
+in comparison for a moment. Let us next inquire what is the rank of our
+critics. Public taste, I believe, as far as it is the encourager and
+supporter of art has been the same in all ages,--a fitful and
+vacillating current of vague impression, perpetually liable to change,
+subject to epidemic desires, and agitated by infectious passion, the
+slave of fashion, and the fool of fancy, but yet always distinguishing
+with singular clearsightedness, between that which is best and that
+which is worst of the particular class of food which its morbid appetite
+may call for; never failing to distinguish that which is produced by
+intellect, from that which is not, though it may be intellect degraded
+by ministering to its misguided will. Public taste may thus degrade a
+race of men capable of the highest efforts in art into the portrait
+painters of ephemeral fashions, but it will yet not fail of discovering
+who, among these portrait painters, is the man of most mind. It will
+separate the man who would have become Buonaroti from the man who would
+have become Bandinelli, though it will employ both in painting curls,
+and feathers, and bracelets. Hence, generally speaking, there is no
+_comparative_ injustice done, no false elevation of the fool above the
+man of mind, provided only that the man of mind will condescend to
+supply the particular article which the public chooses to want. Of
+course a thousand modifying circumstances interfere with the action of
+the general rule; but, taking one case with another, we shall very
+constantly find the price which the picture commands in the market a
+pretty fair standard of the artist's rank of intellect. The press,
+therefore, and all who pretend to lead the public taste, have not so
+much to direct the multitude whom to go to, as what to ask for. Their
+business is not to tell us which is our best painter, but to tell us
+whether we are making our best painter do his best.
+
+
+§ 11. Qualifications necessary for discharging it.
+
+§ 12. General incapability of modern critics.
+
+§ 13. And inconsistency with themselves.
+
+Now none are capable of doing this, but those whose principles of
+judgment are based both on thorough _practical_ knowledge of art, and on
+broad general views of what is true and right, without reference to what
+has been done at one time or another, or in one school or another.
+Nothing can be more perilous to the cause of art, than the constant
+ringing in our painters' ears of the names of great predecessors, as
+their examples or masters. I had rather hear a great poet, entirely
+original in his feeling and aim, rebuked or maligned for not being like
+Wordsworth or Coleridge, than a great painter criticised for not putting
+us in mind of Claude or Poussin. But such references to former
+excellence are the only refuge and resource of persons endeavoring to be
+critics without being artists. They cannot tell you whether a thing is
+right or not; but they can tell you whether it is like something else or
+not. And the whole tone of modern criticism--as far as it is worthy of
+being called criticism--sufficiently shows it to proceed entirely from
+persons altogether unversed in practice, and ignorant of truth, but
+possessing just enough of feeling to enjoy the solemnity of ancient art,
+who, not distinguishing that which is really exalted and valuable in the
+modern school, nor having any just idea of the real ends or capabilities
+of landscape art, consider nothing right which is not based on the
+conventional principles of the ancients, and nothing true which has more
+of nature in it than of Claude. But it is strange that while the noble
+and unequalled works of modern landscape painters are thus maligned and
+misunderstood, our historical painters--such as we have--are permitted
+to pander more fatally every year to the vicious English taste, which
+can enjoy nothing but what is theatrical, entirely unchastised, nay,
+encouraged and lauded by the very men who endeavor to hamper our great
+landscape painters with rules derived from consecrated blunders. The
+very critic who has just passed one of the noblest works of Turner--that
+is to say, a masterpiece of art, to which Time can show no
+parallel--with a ribald jest, will yet stand gaping in admiration before
+the next piece of dramatic glitter and grimace, suggested by the
+society, and adorned with the appurtenances of the greenroom, which he
+finds hung low upon the wall as a brilliant example of the ideal of
+English art. It is natural enough indeed, that the persons who are
+disgusted by what is pure and noble, should be delighted with what is
+vicious and degraded; but it is singular that those who are constantly
+talking of Claude and Poussin, should never even pretend to a thought of
+Raffaelle. We could excuse them for not comprehending Turner, if they
+only would apply the same cut-and-dried criticisms where they might be
+applied with truth, and productive of benefit; but we endure not the
+paltry compound of ignorance, false taste, and pretension, which assumes
+the dignity of classical feeling, that it may be able to abuse whatever
+is above the level of its understanding, but bursts into genuine rapture
+with all that is meretricious, if sufficiently adapted to the calibre of
+its comprehension.
+
+
+§ 14. How the press may really advance the cause of art.
+
+To notice such criticisms, however, is giving them far more importance
+than they deserve. They can lead none astray but those whose opinions
+are absolutely valueless, and we did not begin this chapter with any
+intent of wasting our time on these small critics, but in the hope of
+pointing out to the periodical press what kind of criticism is now most
+required by our school of landscape art, and how it may be in their
+power, if they will, to regulate its impulses, without checking its
+energies, and really to advance both the cause of the artist, and the
+taste of the public.
+
+
+§ 15. Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works.
+
+§ 16. By which the public defraud themselves.
+
+§ 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves.
+
+§ 18. Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly.
+
+One of the most morbid symptoms of the general taste of the present day,
+is a too great fondness for unfinished works. Brilliancy and rapidity of
+execution are everywhere sought as the highest good, and so that a
+picture be cleverly handled as far as it is carried, little regard is
+paid to its imperfection as a whole. Hence some artists are permitted,
+and others compelled, to confine themselves to a manner of working
+altogether destructive of their powers, and to tax their energies, not
+to concentrate the greatest quantity of thought on the least possible
+space of canvas, but to produce the greatest quantity of glitter and
+claptrap in the shortest possible time. To the idler and the trickster
+in art, no system can be more advantageous; but to the man who is really
+desirous of doing something worth having lived for--to a man of
+industry, energy, or feeling, we believe it to be the cause of the most
+bitter discouragement. If ever, working upon a favorite subject or a
+beloved idea, he is induced to tax his powers to the utmost, and to
+spend as much time upon his picture as he feels necessary for its
+perfection, he will not be able to get so high a price for the result,
+perhaps, of a twelvemonth's thought, as he might have obtained for
+half-a-dozen sketches with a forenoon's work in each, and he is
+compelled either to fall back upon mechanism, or to starve. Now the
+press should especially endeavor to convince the public, that by this
+purchase of imperfect pictures they not only prevent all progress and
+development of high talent, and set tricksters and mechanics on a level
+with men of mind, but defraud and injure themselves. For there is no
+doubt whatever, that, estimated merely by the quantity of pleasure it is
+capable of conveying, a well-finished picture is worth to its possessor
+half-a-dozen incomplete ones; and that a perfect drawing is, simply as a
+source of delight, better worth a hundred guineas than a drawing half as
+finished is worth thirty. On the other hand, the body of our artists
+should be kept in mind, that by indulging the public with rapid and
+unconsidered work, they are not only depriving themselves of the benefit
+which each picture ought to render to them, as a piece of practice and
+study, but they are destroying the refinement of general taste, and
+rendering it impossible for themselves ever to find a market for more
+careful works, supposing that they were inclined to execute them. Nor
+need any single artist be afraid of setting the example, and producing
+labored works, at advanced prices, among the cheap, quick drawings of
+the day. The public will soon find the value of the complete work, and
+will be more ready to give a large sum for that which is inexhaustible,
+than a quota of it for that which they are wearied of in a month. The
+artist who never lets the price command the picture, will soon find the
+picture command the price. And it ought to be a rule with every painter
+never to let a picture leave his easel while it is yet capable of
+improvement, or of having more thought put into it. The general effect
+is often perfect and pleasing, and not to be improved upon, when the
+details and facts are altogether imperfect and unsatisfactory. It may be
+difficult--perhaps the most difficult task of art--to complete these
+details, and not to hurt the general effect; but until the artist can do
+this, his art is imperfect and his picture unfinished. That only is a
+complete picture which has both the general wholeness and effect of
+nature, and the inexhaustible perfection of nature's details. And it is
+only in the effort to unite these that a painter really improves. By
+aiming only at details, he becomes a mechanic; by aiming only at
+generals, he becomes a trickster: his fall in both cases is sure. Two
+questions the artist has, therefore, always to ask himself,--first, "Is
+my whole right?" Secondly, "Can my details be added to? Is there a
+single space in the picture where I can crowd in another thought? Is
+there a curve in it which I can modulate--a line which I can graduate--a
+vacancy I can fill? Is there a single spot which the eye, by any peering
+or prying, can fathom or exhaust? If so, my picture is imperfect; and
+if, in modulating the line or filling the vacancy, I hurt the general
+effect, my art is imperfect."
+
+
+§ 19. _Sketches_ not sufficiently encouraged.
+
+But, on the other hand, though incomplete pictures ought neither to be
+produced nor purchased, careful and real _sketches_ ought to be valued
+much more highly than they are. Studies in chalk, of landscape, should
+form a part of every Exhibition, and a room should be allotted to
+drawings and designs of figures in the Academy. We should be heartily
+glad to see the room which is now devoted to bad drawings of incorporeal
+and imaginary architecture--of things which never were, and which, thank
+Heaven! never will be--occupied instead, by careful studies for
+historical pictures; not blots of chiaroscuro, but delicate outlines
+with the pen or crayon.
+
+
+§ 20. Brilliancy of execution or efforts at invention not to be
+        tolerated in young artists.
+
+§ 21. The duty and after privileges of all students.
+
+From young artists, in landscape, nothing ought to be tolerated but
+simple _bona fide imitation_ of nature. They have no business to ape the
+execution of masters,--to utter weak and disjointed repetitions of other
+men's words, and mimic the gestures of the preacher, without
+understanding his meaning or sharing in his emotions. We do not want
+their crude ideas of composition, their unformed conceptions of the
+Beautiful, their unsystematized experiments upon the Sublime. We scorn
+their velocity; for it is without direction: we reject their decision;
+for it is without grounds: we contemn their composition; for it is
+without materials: we reprobate their choice; for it is without
+comparison. Their duty is neither to choose, nor compose, nor imagine,
+nor experimentalize; but to be humble and earnest in following the steps
+of nature, and tracing the finger of God. Nothing is so bad a symptom,
+in the work of young artists, as too much dexterity of handling; for it
+is a sign that they are satisfied with their work, and have tried to do
+nothing more than they were able to do. Their work should be full of
+failures; for these are the signs of efforts. They should keep to quiet
+colors--grays and browns; and, making the early works of Turner their
+example, as his latest are to be their object of emulation, should go to
+nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and
+trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her
+meaning, and remember her instruction, rejecting nothing, selecting
+nothing, and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and
+good, and rejoicing always in the truth. Then, when their memories are
+stored, and their imaginations fed, and their hands firm, let them take
+up the scarlet and the gold, give the reins to their fancy, and show us
+what their heads are made of. We will follow them wherever they choose
+to lead; we will check at nothing; they are then our masters, and are
+fit to be so. They have placed themselves above our criticism, and we
+will listen to their words in all faith and humility; but not unless
+they themselves have before bowed, in the same submission, to a higher
+Authority and Master.
+
+
+§ 22. Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of aim.
+
+Among our greater artists, the chief want, at the present day, is that of
+_solemnity_ and definite purpose. We have too much picture-manufacturing,
+too much making up of lay figures with a certain quantity of foliage, and
+a certain quantity of sky, and a certain quantity of water,--a little bit
+of all that is pretty, a little sun, and a little shade,--a touch of
+pink, and a touch of blue,--a little sentiment, and a little sublimity,
+and a little humor, and a little antiquarianism,--all very neatly
+associated in a very charming picture, but not working together for a
+definite end. Or if the aim be higher, as was the case with Barrett and
+Varley, we are generally put off with stale repetitions of eternal
+composition; a great tree, and some goats, and a bridge and a lake, and
+the Temple at Tivoli, etc. Now we should like to see our artists working
+out, with all exertion of their concentrated powers, such marked pieces
+of landscape character as might bear upon them the impression of solemn,
+earnest, and pervading thought, definitely directed, and aided by every
+accessory of detail, color, and idealized form, which the disciplined
+feeling, accumulated knowledge, and unspared labor of the painter could
+supply. I have alluded, in the second preface, to the deficiency of our
+modern artists in these great points of earnestness and completeness; and
+I revert to it, in conclusion, as their paramount failing, and one fatal
+in many ways to the interests of art. Our landscapes are all descriptive,
+not reflective, agreeable and conversational, but not impressive nor
+didactic. They have no other foundation than
+
+                     "That vivacious versatility,
+           Which many people take for want of heart.
+           They err; 'tis merely what is called "mobility;"
+           A thing of temperament, and _not of art,
+           Though seeming so from its supposed facility_.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+           This makes your actors, _artists_, and romancers;
+           Little that's great--but much of what is clever."
+
+Only it is to be observed that--in painters--this vivacity is _not_
+always versatile. It is to be wished that it were, but it is no such
+easy matter to be versatile in painting. Shallowness of thought insures
+not its variety, nor rapidity of production its originality. Whatever
+may be the case in literature, facility is in art inconsistent with
+invention. The artist who covers most canvas always shows, even in the
+sum of his works, the least expenditure of thought.[79] I have never
+seen more than four works of John Lewis on the walls of the Water-Color
+Exhibition; I have counted forty from other hands; but have found in the
+end that the forty were a multiplication of one, and the four a
+concentration of forty. And therefore I would earnestly plead with all
+our artists, that they should make it a law _never_ to repeat
+themselves; for he who never repeats himself will not produce an
+inordinate number of pictures, and he who limits himself in number gives
+himself at least the opportunity of completion. Besides, all repetition
+is degradation of the art; it reduces it from headwork to handwork; and
+indicates something like a persuasion on the part of the artist that
+nature is exhaustible or art perfectible; perhaps, even, by him
+exhausted and perfected. All copyists are contemptible, but the copyist
+of himself the most so, for he has the worst original.
+
+
+§ 23. What should be their general aim.
+
+Let then every picture be painted with earnest intention of impressing
+on the spectator some elevated emotion, and exhibiting to him some one
+particular, but exalted, beauty. Let a real subject be carefully
+selected, in itself suggestive of, and replete with, this feeling and
+beauty; let an effect of light and color be taken which may harmonize
+with both; and a sky, not invented, but recollected, (in fact, all
+so-called invention is in landscape nothing more than appropriate
+recollection--good in proportion as it is distinct.) Then let the
+details of the foreground be separately studied, especially those plants
+which appear peculiar to the place: if any one, however unimportant,
+occurs there, which occurs not elsewhere, it should occupy a prominent
+position; for the other details, the highest examples of the ideal
+forms[80] or characters which he requires are to be selected by the
+artist from his former studies, or fresh studies made expressly for the
+purpose, leaving as little as possible--nothing, in fact, beyond their
+connection and arrangement--to mere imagination. Finally, when his
+picture is thus perfectly realized in all its parts, let him dash as
+much of it out as he likes; throw, if he will, mist around
+it--darkness--or dazzling and confused light--whatever, in fact,
+impetuous feeling or vigorous imagination may dictate or desire; the
+forms, once so laboriously realized, will come out whenever they _do_
+occur with a startling and impressive truth, which the uncertainty in
+which they are veiled will enhance rather than diminish; and the
+imagination, strengthened by discipline and fed with truth, will achieve
+the utmost of creation that is possible to finite mind.
+
+The artist who thus works will soon find that he cannot repeat himself
+if he would; that new fields of exertion, new subjects of contemplation
+open to him in nature day by day, and that, while others lament the
+weakness of their invention, _he_ has nothing to lament but the
+shortness of life.
+
+
+§ 24. Duty of the press with respect to the works of Turner.
+
+And now but one word more, respecting the great artist whose works have
+formed the chief subject of this treatise. All the _greatest_ qualities
+of those works--all that is mental in them, has not yet been so much as
+touched upon. None but their lightest and least essential excellences
+have been proved, and, therefore, the enthusiasm with which I speak of
+them must necessarily appear overcharged and absurd. It, might, perhaps,
+have been more prudent to have withheld the full expression of it till I
+had shown the full grounds for it; but once written, such expression
+must remain till I have justified it. And, indeed, I think there is
+enough, even in the foregoing pages, to show that these works are, as
+far as concerns the ordinary critics of the press, above all
+animadversion, and above all praise; and that, by the public, they are
+not to be received as in any way subjects or matters of opinion, but of
+Faith. We are not to approach them to be pleased, but to be taught; not
+to form a judgment, but to receive a lesson. Our periodical writers,
+therefore, may save themselves the trouble either of blaming or
+praising: their duty is not to pronounce opinions upon the work of a man
+who has walked with nature threescore years; but to impress upon the
+public the respect with which they are to be received, and to make
+request to him, on the part of the people of England, that he would now
+touch no unimportant work--that he would not spend time on slight or
+small pictures, but give to the nation a series of grand, consistent,
+systematic, and completed poems. We desire that he should follow out his
+own thoughts and intents of heart, without reference to any human
+authority. But we request, in all humility, that those thoughts may be
+seriously and loftily given; and that the whole power of his unequalled
+intellect may be exerted in the production of such works as may remain
+forever for the teaching of the nations. In all that he says, we
+believe; in all that he does we trust.[81] It is therefore that we pray
+him to utter nothing lightly--to do nothing regardlessly. He stands upon
+an eminence, from which he looks back over the universe of God, and
+forward over the generations of men. Let every work of his hand be a
+history of the one, and a lesson to the other. Let each exertion of his
+mighty mind be both hymn and prophecy,--adoration, to the
+Deity,--revelation to mankind.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [79] Of course this assertion does not refer to the differences in
+    mode of execution, which enable one painter to work faster or slower
+    than another, but only to the exertion of mind, commonly manifested
+    by the artist, according as he is sparing or prodigal of production.
+
+  [80] "Talk of improving nature when it _is_ nature--Nonsense."--_E.
+    V. Rippingille_. I have not yet spoken of the difference--even in
+    what we commonly call Nature--between imperfect and ideal form: the
+    study of this difficult question must, of course, be deferred until
+    we have examined the nature of our impressions of beauty; but it may
+    not be out of place here to hint at the want of care in many of our
+    artists to distinguish between the real work of nature and the
+    diseased results of man's interference with her. Many of the works
+    of our greatest artists have for their subjects nothing but hacked
+    and hewn remnants of farm-yard vegetation, branded root and branch,
+    from their birth, by the prong and the pruning-hook; and the
+    feelings once accustomed to take pleasure in such abortions, can
+    scarcely become perceptive of forms truly ideal. I have just said
+    (423) that young painters should go to nature trustingly,--rejecting
+    nothing, and selecting nothing: so they should; but they must be
+    careful that it _is_ nature to whom they go--nature in her
+    liberty--not as servant-of-all-work in the hands of the
+    agriculturist, nor stiffened into court-dress by the landscape
+    gardener. It must be the pure, wild volition and energy of the
+    creation which they follow--not subdued to the furrow, and
+    cicatrized to the pollard--not persuaded into proprieties, nor
+    pampered into diseases. Let them work by the torrent-side, and in
+    the forest shadows; not by purling brooks and under "tonsile
+    shades." It is impossible to enter here into discussion of what man
+    can or cannot do, by assisting natural operations: it is an
+    intricate question: nor can I, without anticipating what I shall
+    have hereafter to advance, show how or why it happens that the
+    racehorse is _not_ the artist's ideal of a horse, nor a prize tulip
+    his ideal of a flower; but so it is. As far as the painter is
+    concerned, man never touches nature but to spoil;--he operates on
+    her as a barber would on the Apollo; and if he sometimes increases
+    some particular power or excellence,--strength or agility in the
+    animal--tallness, or fruitfulness, or solidity in the tree,--he
+    invariably loses that _balance_ of good qualities which is the chief
+    sign of perfect specific form; above all, he destroys the appearance
+    of free _volition_ and _felicity_, which, as I shall show hereafter,
+    is one of the essential characters of organic beauty. Until,
+    however, I can enter into the discussion of the nature of beauty,
+    the only advice I can safely give the young painter, is to keep
+    clear of clover-fields and parks, and to hold to the unpenetrated
+    forest and the unfurrowed hill. There he will find that every
+    influence is noble, even when destructive--that decay itself is
+    beautiful,--and that, in the elaborate and lovely composition of all
+    things, if at first sight it seems less studied than the works of
+    men, the appearance of Art is only prevented by the presence of
+    Power.
+
+                      "Nature never did betray
+             The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege,
+             Through all the years of this our life, to lead
+             From joy to joy; for she can so inform
+             The mind that is within us, so impress
+             With quietness and beauty, and so feed
+             With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
+             Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men
+             Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
+             Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
+             Is full of blessings."
+
+                                              WORDSWORTH.
+
+  [81] It has been hinted, in some of the reviews of the Second Volume
+    of this work, that the writer's respect for Turner has diminished
+    since the above passage was written. He would, indeed, have been
+    deserving of little attention if, with the boldness manifested on
+    the preceding pages, he had advanced opinions based on so shallow
+    foundation as that the course of three years could effect
+    modification of them. He was justified by the sudden accession of
+    power which the great artist exhibited at the period when this
+    volume was first published, as well as by the low standard of the
+    criticism to which he was subjected, in claiming, with respect to
+    his then works, a submission of judgment, greater indeed than may
+    generally be accorded to even the highest human intellect, yet not
+    greater than such a master might legitimately claim from such
+    critics; and the cause of the peculiar form of advocacy into which
+    the preceding chapters necessarily fell, has been already stated
+    more than once. In the following sections it became necessary, as
+    they treated a subject of intricate relations, and peculiar
+    difficulty, to obtain a more general view of the scope and operation
+    of art, and to avoid all conclusions in any wise referable to the
+    study of particular painters. The reader will therefore find, not
+    that lower rank is attributed to Turner, but that he is now compared
+    with the greatest men, and occupies his true position among the most
+    noble of all time.
+
+
+
+
+                                 POSTSCRIPT.
+
+The above passage was written in the year 1843; too late. It is true
+that soon after the publication of this work, the abuse of the press,
+which had been directed against Turner with unceasing virulence during
+the production of his noblest works, sank into timid animadversion, or
+changed into unintelligent praise; but not before illness, and, in some
+degree, mortification, had enfeebled the hand and chilled the heart of
+the painter.
+
+This year (1851) he has no picture on the walls of the Academy; and the
+_Times_ of May 3d says, "We miss those works of INSPIRATION!"
+
+We miss! Who misses?--The populace of England rolls by to weary itself
+in the great bazaar of Kensington, little thinking that a day will come
+when those veiled vestals and prancing amazons, and goodly merchandise
+of precious stones and gold, will all be forgotten as though they had
+not been, but that the light which has faded from the walls of the
+Academy is one which a million of Koh-i-Noors could not rekindle, and
+that the year 1851 will in the far future be remembered less for what it
+has displayed than for what it has withdrawn.
+
+   DENMARK HILL, _June_, 1851.
+
+
+
+
+                      END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+              CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
+
+Page xiii: 'attack of the following colums' corrected to 'columns'.
+
+Page lxiii: (Table of Contents) § 8. Monotony and falsehood... 239
+  corrected to 230.
+
+Page 34: 'attained with greater porportional' corrected to
+  'proportional'.
+
+Page 74: 'exquisite truths of specfic' corrected to 'specific'.
+
+Page 84: 'things as in the right exhbition' corrected to 'exhibition'.
+
+Page 89: 'man's working from nature comtinually' changed to
+  'continually'.
+
+Page 146: 'But I allow this inferiority only with respect to the
+  paintings,' superfluous comma omitted.
+
+Page 277: 'But the vignette of Aosta, in the Italy', 'the' omitted.
+
+Page 281: 'lateral chains separated rll' corrected to 'all'.
+
+Footnote 41: Comma after Esq changed to period.
+
+Footnote 74: 'is above stated refers, thoughout' changed to
+  'throughout'.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Modern Painters Volume I (of V), by John Ruskin
+
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Modern Painters Volume I (of V), by John Ruskin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Modern Painters Volume I (of V)
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+Release Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #29907]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN PAINTERS VOLUME I (OF V) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #dcdcdc; color: #696969; " summary="Transcriber's note">
+<tr>
+<td style="width:25%; vertical-align:top">
+Transcriber's note:
+</td>
+<td class="norm">
+A few typographical errors have been corrected. They
+appear in the text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like this</span>, and the
+explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked
+passage. Sections in Greek will yield a transliteration
+when the pointer is moved over them, and words using diacritic characters in the
+Latin Extended Additional block, which may not display in some fonts or browsers, will
+display an unaccented version. Original page numbers are displayed in
+the margin as: [Page xxx]. <br /><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagei"></a>[Page i]</span></p>
+
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<table class="allbctr" style="width: 60%; " summary="Front page.">
+<tr>  <td class="pd" style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; " colspan="2"><h5>Library Edition</h5> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td style="padding-top: 3em; " colspan="2"><h3>THE COMPLETE WORKS</h3> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td colspan="2"><h6>OF</h6> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td style="padding-bottom: 5em; " colspan="2"><h2>JOHN RUSKIN</h2> </td> </tr>
+
+
+<tr>  <td colspan="2"><h5>POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE</h5> </td> </tr>
+<tr>  <td colspan="2"><h5>SEVEN LAMPS</h5> </td> </tr>
+<tr>  <td colspan="2"><h5>MODERN PAINTERS</h5> </td> </tr>
+<tr>  <td style="padding-bottom: 5em; " colspan="2"><h5><span class="sc">Volume I</span></h5> </td> </tr>
+
+
+<tr>  <td style="border-top: black 1px solid; padding-top: 1.5em; " colspan="2"><h3>NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION</h3> </td> </tr>
+<tr>  <td><h3 style="text-align: left; padding-left: 3em; ">NEW YORK</h3></td>
+      <td><h3 style="text-align: right; padding-right: 3em; ">CHICAGO</h3></td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageii"></a>[Page ii]</span></p>
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageiii"></a>[Page iii]</span></p>
+
+<h5>THE COMPLETE WORKS</h5>
+<h6>OF</h6>
+<h4>JOHN RUSKIN</h4>
+<h5>VOLUME II</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h5>MODERN PAINTERS</h5>
+<h5>VOLUME I</h5>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageiv"></a>[Page iv]</span></p>
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagev"></a>[Page v]</span></p>
+
+<h3>MODERN PAINTERS.</h3>
+<h6>BY</h6>
+<h4>A GRADUATE OF OXFORD.</h4>
+<h5>VOL. I.</h5>
+<h5>PART I&mdash;II.</h5>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagevi"></a>[Page vi]</span></p>
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagevii"></a>[Page vii]</span></p>
+
+<h6>TO</h6>
+<h4>THE LANDSCAPE ARTISTS OF ENGLAND</h4>
+<h6>This Work</h6>
+<h5>IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED</h5>
+<h6>BY THEIR SINCERE ADMIRER,</h6>
+<p class="right" style="padding-right: 5em; "><i>THE AUTHOR</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageviii"></a>[Page viii]</span></p>
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageix"></a>[Page ix]</span></p>
+<h3>PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.</h3>
+
+<p>The work now laid before the public originated in indignation at the
+shallow and false criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works
+of the great living artist to whom it principally refers. It was
+intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobating the matter and style of
+those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency, as guides of
+public feeling. But, as point after point presented itself for
+demonstration, I found myself compelled to amplify what was at first a
+letter to the Editor of a Review, into something very like a treatise on
+art, to which I was obliged to give the more consistency and
+completeness, because it advocated opinions which, to the ordinary
+connoisseur, will sound heretical. I now scarcely know whether I should
+announce it is an Essay on Landscape Painting, and apologize for its
+frequent reference to the works of a particular master; or, announcing
+it as a critique on particular works, apologize for its lengthy
+discussion of general principles. But of whatever character the work may
+be considered, the motives which led me to undertake it must not be
+mistaken. No zeal for the reputation of any individual, no personal
+feeling of any kind, has the slightest weight or influence with me. The
+reputation of the great artist to whose works I have chiefly referred,
+is established on too legitimate grounds among all whose admiration is
+honorable, to be in any way affected by the ignorant sarcasms of
+pretension and affectation. But when <i>public</i> taste seems plunging
+deeper and deeper into degradation day by day, and when the press
+universally exerts such power as it possesses to direct the feeling of
+the nation more completely to all that is theatrical, affected, and
+false in art; while it vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted
+truth, and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any other age
+has ever witnessed, it becomes the imperative duty of all who have any
+perception or <span class="pagenum"><a name="pagex"></a>[Page x]</span> knowledge of what is really great in art, and
+any desire for its advancement in England, to come fearlessly forward,
+regardless of such individual interests as are likely to be injured by
+the knowledge of what is good and right, to declare and demonstrate,
+wherever they exist, the essence and the authority of the Beautiful and
+the True.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may seem invidious or partial in the execution of my task is
+dependent not so much on the tenor of the work, as on its
+incompleteness. I have not entered into systematic criticism of all the
+painters of the present day; but I have illustrated each particular
+excellence and truth of art by the works in which it exists in the
+highest degree, resting satisfied that if it be once rightly felt and
+enjoyed in these, it will be discovered and appreciated wherever it
+exists in others. And although I have never suppressed any conviction of
+the superiority of one artist over another, which I believed to be
+grounded on truth, and necessary to the understanding of truth, I have
+been cautious never to undermine positive rank, while I disputed
+relative rank. My uniform desire and aim have been, not that the present
+favorite should be admired less, but that the neglected master should be
+admired more. And I know that an increased perception and sense of truth
+and beauty, though it may interfere with our estimate of the comparative
+rank of painters, will invariably tend to increase our admiration of all
+who are really great; and he who now places Stanfield and Callcott above
+Turner, will admire Stanfield and Callcott more than he does now, when
+he has learned to place Turner far above them both.</p>
+
+<p>In three instances only have I spoken in direct depreciation of the
+works of living artists, and these are all cases in which the reputation
+is so firm and extended, as to suffer little injury from the opinion of
+an individual, and where the blame has been warranted and deserved by
+the desecration of the highest powers.</p>
+
+<p>Of the old masters I have spoken with far greater freedom; but let it be
+remembered that only a portion of the work is now presented to the
+public, and it must not be supposed, because in that particular portion,
+and with reference to particular excellencies, I have spoken in constant
+depreciation, that I have no feeling of other excellencies of which
+cognizance can only be taken in future parts of the work. Let me not be
+understood to mean more than I have said, nor be made responsible for
+conclusions <span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexi"></a>[Page xi]</span> when I have only stated facts. I have said that
+the old masters did not give the truth of Nature; if the reader chooses,
+thence, to infer that they were not masters at all, it is his
+conclusion, not mine.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever I have asserted throughout the work, I have endeavored to
+ground altogether on demonstrations which must stand or fall by their
+own strength, and which ought to involve no more reference to authority
+or character than a demonstration in Euclid. Yet it is proper for the
+public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has been
+devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever has been generally affirmed of the old schools of
+landscape-painting is founded on familiar acquaintance with every
+important work of art, from Antwerp to Naples. But it would be useless,
+where close and immediate comparison with works in our own Academy is
+desirable, to refer to the details of pictures at Rome or Munich; and it
+would be impossible to speak at once with just feeling, as regarded the
+possessor, and just freedom, as regarded the public, of pictures in
+private galleries. Whatever particular references have been made for
+illustration, have been therefore confined, as far as was in my power,
+to works in the National and Dulwich Galleries.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, I have to apologize for the imperfection of a work which I
+could have wished not to have executed, but with years of reflection and
+revisal. It is owing to my sense of the necessity of such revisal, that
+only a portion of the work is now presented to the public; but that
+portion is both complete in itself, and is more peculiarly directed
+against the crying evil which called for instant remedy. Whether I ever
+completely fulfil my intention, will partly depend upon the spirit in
+which the present volume is received. If it be attributed to an
+invidious spirit, or a desire for the advancement of individual
+interests, I could hope to effect little good by farther effort. If, on
+the contrary, its real feeling and intention be understood, I shall
+shrink from no labor in the execution of a task which may tend, however
+feebly, to the advancement of the cause of real art in England, and to
+the honor of those great living Masters whom we now neglect or malign,
+to pour our flattery into the ear of Death, and exalt, with vain
+acclamation, the names of those who neither demand our praise, nor
+regard our gratitude.</p>
+
+<p class="sc" style="text-align: right; margin-right: 1em; ">The Author.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexii"></a>[Page xii]</span></p>
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexiii"></a>[Page xiii]</span></p>
+
+<h3>PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.</h3>
+
+<p>It is allowed by the most able writers on naval and military
+tactics, that although the attack by successive divisions absolutely
+requires in the attacking party such an inherent superiority
+in quality of force, and such consciousness of that superiority,
+as may enable his front columns, or his leading ships, to
+support themselves for a considerable period against overwhelming
+numbers; it yet insures, if maintained with constancy, the
+most total ruin of the opposing force. Convinced of the truth,
+and therefore assured of the ultimate prevalence and victory of
+the principles which I have advocated, and equally confident
+that the strength of the cause must give weight to the strokes of
+even the weakest of its defenders, I permitted myself to yield to
+a somewhat hasty and hot-headed desire of being, at whatever
+risk, in the thick of the fire, and began the contest with a part,
+and that the weakest and least considerable part, of the forces
+at my disposal. And I now find the volume thus boldly laid
+before the public in a position much resembling that of the
+Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, receiving, unsupported, the broadsides
+of half the enemy's fleet, while unforeseen circumstances
+have hitherto prevented, and must yet for a time prevent, my
+heavier ships of the line from taking any part in the action. I
+watched the first moments of the struggle with some anxiety for
+the solitary vessel,&mdash;an anxiety which I have now ceased to feel,&mdash;for
+the flag of truth waves brightly through the smoke of the
+battle, and my antagonists, wholly intent on the destruction of
+the leading ship, have lost their position, and exposed themselves
+in defenceless disorder to the attack of the following <span class="correction" title="corrected from 'colums'">columns</span>.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, I have had no reason to regret my hasty advance,
+as far as regards the ultimate issue of the struggle, I have
+yet found it to occasion much misconception of the character,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexiv"></a>[Page xiv]</span>
+and some diminution of the influence, of the present essay.
+For though the work has been received as only in sanguine moments
+I had ventured to hope, though I have had the pleasure
+of knowing that in many instances its principles have carried
+with them a strength of conviction amounting to a demonstration
+of their truth, and that, even where it has had no other influence,
+it has excited interest, suggested inquiry, and prompted
+to a just and frank comparison of Art with Nature; yet this
+effect would have been greater still, had not the work been supposed,
+as it seems to have been by many readers, a completed
+treatise, containing a systematized statement of the whole of my
+views on the subject of modern art. Considered as such, it surprises
+me that the book should have received the slightest attention.
+For what respect could be due to a writer who pretended
+to criticise and classify the works of the great painters of landscape,
+without developing, or even alluding to, one single principle
+of the beautiful or sublime? So far from being a completed
+essay, it is little more than the introduction to the mass
+of evidence and illustration which I have yet to bring forward;
+it treats of nothing but the initiatory steps of art, states nothing
+but the elementary rules of criticism, touches only on merits
+attainable by accuracy of eye and fidelity of hand, and leaves for
+future consideration every one of the eclectic qualities of pictures,
+all of good that is prompted by feeling, and of great that
+is guided by judgment; and its function and scope should the
+less have been mistaken, because I have not only most carefully
+arranged the subject in its commencement, but have given frequent
+references throughout to the essays by which it is intended
+to be succeeded, in which I shall endeavor to point out the signification
+and the value of those phenomena of external nature
+which I have been hitherto compelled to describe without reference
+either to their inherent beauty, or to the lessons which may
+be derived from them.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, to prevent such misconception in future, I may perhaps
+be excused for occupying the reader's time with a fuller statement
+of the feelings with which the work was undertaken, of its
+general plan, and of the conclusions and positions which I hope
+to be able finally to deduce and maintain.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, perhaps, bears on the face of it more appearance of
+folly, ignorance, and impertinence, than any attempt to diminish
+the honor of those to whom the assent of many generations
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexv"></a>[Page xv]</span>
+has assigned a throne; for the truly great of later times have,
+almost without exception, fostered in others the veneration of
+departed power which they felt themselves, satisfied in all
+humility to take their seat at the feet of those whose honor is
+brightened by the hoariness of time, and to wait for the period
+when the lustre of many departed days may accumulate on their
+own heads, in the radiance which culminates as it recedes. The
+envious and incompetent have usually been the leaders of attack,
+content if, like the foulness of the earth, they may attract to
+themselves notice by their noisomeness, or, like its insects, exalt
+themselves by virulence into visibility. While, however, the
+envy of the vicious, and the insolence of the ignorant, are occasionally
+shown in their nakedness by <i>futile</i> efforts to degrade the
+dead, it is worthy of consideration whether they may not more
+frequently escape detection in <i>successful</i> efforts to degrade the
+living,&mdash;whether the very same malice may not be gratified, the
+very same incompetence demonstrated in the unjust lowering of
+present greatness, and the unjust exaltation of a perished power,
+as, if exerted and manifested in a less safe direction, would have
+classed the critic with Nero and Caligula, with Zoilus and Perrault.
+Be it remembered, that the spirit of detraction is detected
+only when unsuccessful, and receives least punishment
+where it effects the greatest injury; and it cannot but be felt
+that there is as much danger that the rising of new stars should
+be concealed by the mists which are unseen, as that those
+throned in heaven should be darkened by the clouds which are
+visible.</p>
+
+<p>There is, I fear, so much malice in the hearts of most men,
+that they are chiefly jealous of that praise which can give the
+greatest pleasure, and are then most liberal of eulogium when it
+can no longer be enjoyed. They grudge not the whiteness of
+the sepulchre, because by no honor they can bestow upon it can
+the senseless corpse be rendered an object of envy; but they are
+niggardly of the reputation which contributes to happiness, or
+advances to fortune. They are glad to obtain credit for generosity
+and humility by exalting those who are beyond the reach
+of praise, and thus to escape the more painful necessity of doing
+homage to a living rival. They are rejoiced to set up a standard
+of imaginary excellence, which may enable them, by insisting
+on the inferiority of a contemporary work to the things that
+have been, to withdraw the attention from its superiority to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexvi"></a>[Page xvi]</span>
+things that are. The same undercurrent of jealousy operates
+in our reception of animadversion. Men have commonly more
+pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that which is innocuous,
+and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks
+hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently
+on the grave.</p>
+
+<p>And thus well says the good and deep-minded Richard
+Hooker: "To the best and wisest, while they live, the world is
+continually a froward opposite; and a curious observer of their
+defects and imperfections, their virtues afterwards it as much
+admireth. And for this cause, many times that which deserveth
+admiration would hardly be able to find favor, if they which
+propose it were not content to profess themselves therein scholars
+and followers of the ancient. For the world will not endure
+to hear that we are wiser than any have been which went before."&mdash;Book
+v. ch. vii. 3. He therefore who would maintain
+the cause of contemporary excellence against that of elder time,
+must have almost every class of men arrayed against him. The
+generous, because they would not find matter of accusation
+against established dignities; the envious, because they like
+not the sound of a living man's praise; the wise, because they
+prefer the opinion of centuries to that of days; and the foolish,
+because they are incapable of forming an opinion of their own.
+Obloquy so universal is not lightly to be risked, and the few
+who make an effort to stem the torrent, as it is made commonly
+in favor of their own works, deserve the contempt which is their
+only reward. Nor is this to be regretted, in its influence on the
+progress and preservation of things technical and communicable.
+Respect for the ancients is the salvation of art, though it
+sometimes blinds us to its <i>ends</i>. It increases the power of the
+painter, though it diminishes his liberty; and if it be sometimes
+an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is oftener a protection
+from the consequences of audacity. The whole system
+and discipline of art, the collected results of the experience of
+ages, might, but for the fixed authority of antiquity, be swept
+away by the rage of fashion, or lost in the glare of novelty; and
+the knowledge which it had taken centuries to accumulate, the
+principles which mighty minds had arrived at only in dying,
+might be overthrown by the frenzy of a faction, and abandoned
+in the insolence of an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Neither, in its general application, is the persuasion of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexvii"></a>[Page xvii]</span>
+superiority of former works less just than useful. The greater
+number of them are, and must be, immeasurably nobler than
+any of the results of present effort, because that which is best of
+the productions of four thousand years must necessarily be in
+its accumulation, beyond all rivalry from the works of any given
+generation; but it should always be remembered that it is improbable
+that many, and impossible that all, of such works,
+though the greatest yet produced, should approach abstract perfection;
+that there is certainly something left for us to carry
+farther, or complete; that any given generation has just the
+same chance of producing some individual mind of first-rate
+calibre, as any of its predecessors; and that if such a mind
+<i>should</i> arise, the chances are, that with the assistance of experience
+and example, it would, in its particular and chosen path,
+do greater things than had been before done.</p>
+
+<p>We must therefore be cautious not to lose sight of the real
+use of what has been left us by antiquity, nor to take that for a
+model of perfection which is, in many cases, only a guide to it.
+The picture which is looked to for an interpretation of nature is
+invaluable, but the picture which is taken as a substitute for
+nature, had better be burned; and the young artist, while he
+should shrink with horror from the iconoclast who would tear
+from him every landmark and light which has been bequeathed
+him by the ancients, and leave him in a liberated childhood,
+may be equally certain of being betrayed by those who would
+give him the power and the knowledge of past time, and then
+fetter his strength from all advance, and bend his eyes backward
+on a beaten path&mdash;who would thrust canvas between him
+and the sky, and tradition between him and God.</p>
+
+<p>And such conventional teaching is the more to be dreaded,
+because all that is highest in art, all that is creative and imaginative,
+is formed and created by every great master for himself,
+and cannot be repeated or imitated by others. We judge of the
+excellence of a rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of
+his works to what has been done before, as by their difference
+from it; and while we advise him, in his first trials of strength,
+to set certain models before him with respect to inferior points,&mdash;one
+for versification, another for arrangement, another for
+treatment,&mdash;we yet admit not his greatness until he has broken
+away from all his models, and struck forth versification, arrangement,
+and treatment of his own.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexviii"></a>[Page xviii]</span></p>
+<p>Three points, therefore, I would especially insist upon as
+necessary to be kept in mind in all criticism of modern art.
+First, that there are few, very few of even the best productions
+of antiquity, which are not visibly and palpably imperfect in
+some kind or way, and conceivably improvable by farther
+study; that every nation, perhaps every generation, has in all
+probability some peculiar gift, some particular character of
+mind, enabling it to do something different from, or something
+in some sort better than what has been before done; and
+that therefore, unless art be a trick, or a manufacture, of which
+the secrets are lost, the greatest minds of existing nations,
+if exerted with the same industry, passion, and honest aim as
+those of past time, have a chance in their particular walk of
+doing something as great, or, taking the advantage of former
+example into account, even greater and better. It is difficult
+to conceive by what laws of logic some of the reviewers of
+the following Essay have construed its first sentence into a
+denial of this principle,&mdash;a denial such as their own conventional
+and shallow criticism of modern works invariably implies.
+I have said that "nothing has been for centuries consecrated
+by public admiration without possessing in a <i>high</i>
+degree <i>some</i> species of sterling excellence." Does it thence follow
+that it possesses in the <i>highest</i> degree <i>every</i> species of sterling
+excellence? "Yet thus," says the sapient reviewer, "he
+admits the fact against which he mainly argues,&mdash;namely, the
+superiority of these time-honored productions." As if the possession
+of an abstract excellence of some kind necessarily implied
+the possession of an incomparable excellence of every
+kind! There are few works of man so perfect as to admit of no
+conception of their being excelled,<a name="FnAnchor_A" href="#Footnote_A"><sup>[A]</sup></a>&mdash;there are thousands which
+have been for centuries, and will be for centuries more, consecrated
+by public admiration, which are yet imperfect in many
+respects, and have been excelled, and may be excelled again.
+Do my opponents mean to assert that nothing good can ever be
+bettered, and that what is best of past time is necessarily best of
+all time? Perugino, I suppose, possessed some species of sterling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexix"></a>[Page xix]</span>
+excellence, but Perugino was excelled by Raffaelle; and so
+Claude possesses some species of sterling excellence, but it follows
+not that he may not be excelled by Turner.</p>
+
+<p>The second point on which I would insist is that if a mind
+<i>were</i> to arise of such power as to be capable of equalling or excelling
+some of the greatest works of past ages, the productions
+of such a mind would, in all probability, be totally different in
+manner and matter from all former productions; for the more
+powerful the intellect, the less will its works resemble those of
+other men, whether predecessors or contemporaries. Instead of
+reasoning, therefore, as we commonly do, in matters of art, that
+because such and such a work does not resemble that which has
+hitherto been a canon, therefore it <i>must</i> be inferior and wrong
+in principle; let us rather admit that there is in its very dissimilarity
+an increased chance of its being itself a new, and perhaps,
+a higher canon. If any production of modern art can be
+shown to have the authority of nature on its side, and to be
+based on eternal truths, it is all so much more in its favor, so
+much farther proof of its power, that it is totally different from
+all that have been before seen.<a name="FnAnchor_B" href="#Footnote_B"><sup>[B]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The third point on which I would insist, is that if such a
+mind were to arise, it would necessarily divide the world of
+criticism into two factions; the one, necessarily the largest and
+loudest, composed of men incapable of judging except by precedent,
+ignorant of general truth, and acquainted only with
+such particular truths as may have been illustrated or pointed
+out to them by former works, which class would of course be
+violent in vituperation, and increase in animosity as the master
+departed farther from their particular and preconceived canons
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexx"></a>[Page xx]</span>
+of right,&mdash;thus wounding their vanity by impugning their judgment;
+the other, necessarily narrow of number, composed of
+men of general knowledge and unbiassed habits of thought, who
+would recognize in the work of the daring innovator a record
+and illustration of facts before unseized, who would justly and
+candidly estimate the value of the truths so rendered, and would
+increase in fervor of admiration as the master strode farther and
+deeper, and more daringly into dominions before unsearched or
+unknown; yet diminishing in multitude as they increased in
+enthusiasm: for by how much their leader became more impatient
+in his step&mdash;more impetuous in his success&mdash;more exalted
+in his research, by so much must the number capable of following
+him become narrower, until at last, supposing him never
+to pause in his advance, he might be left in the very culminating
+moment of his consummate achievement, with but a faithful
+few by his side, his former disciples fallen away, his former
+enemies doubled in numbers and virulence, and the evidence of
+his supremacy only to be wrought out by the devotion of men's
+lives to the earnest study of the new truths he had discovered
+and recorded.</p>
+
+<p>Such a mind has arisen in our days. It has gone on from
+strength to strength, laying open fields of conquest peculiar to
+itself. It has occasioned such schism in the schools of criticism
+as was beforehand to be expected, and it is now at the zenith of
+its power, and, <i>consequently</i>, in the last phase of declining popularity.</p>
+
+<p>This I know, and can prove. No man, says Southey, was
+ever yet convinced of any momentous truth without feeling in
+himself the power, as well as the desire of communicating it.
+In asserting and demonstrating the supremacy of this great master,
+I shall both do immediate service to the cause of right art,
+and shall be able to illustrate many principles of landscape
+painting which are of general application, and have hitherto
+been unacknowledged.</p>
+
+<p>For anything like immediate effect on the public mind, I do
+not hope. "We mistake men's diseases," says Richard Baxter,
+"when we think there needeth nothing to cure them of their
+errors but the evidence of truth. Alas! there are many distempers
+of mind to be removed before they receive that evidence."
+Nevertheless, when it is fully laid before them, my duty will be
+done. Conviction will follow in due time.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxi"></a>[Page xxi]</span>
+I do not consider myself as in any way addressing, or having
+to do with, the ordinary critics of the press. Their writings are
+not the guide, but the expression, of public opinion. A writer
+for a newspaper naturally and necessarily endeavors to meet, as
+nearly as he can, the feelings of the majority of his readers; his
+bread depends on his doing so. Precluded by the nature of his
+occupations from gaining any knowledge of art, he is sure that
+he can gain credit for it by expressing the opinions of his readers.
+He mocks the picture which the public pass, and bespatters
+with praise the canvas which a crowd concealed from him.</p>
+
+<p>Writers like the present critic of Blackwood's Magazine<a name="FnAnchor_C" href="#Footnote_C"><sup>[C]</sup></a>
+deserve more respect&mdash;the respect due to honest, hopeless, helpless
+imbecility. There is something exalted in the innocence of
+their feeblemindedness: one cannot suspect them of partiality,
+for it implies feeling; nor of prejudice, for it implies some previous
+acquaintance with their subject. I do not know that even
+in this age of charlatanry, I could point to a more barefaced instance
+of imposture on the simplicity of the public, than the insertion
+of these pieces of criticism in a respectable periodical. We
+are not insulted with opinions on music from persons ignorant
+of its notes; nor with treatises on philology by persons unacquainted
+with the alphabet; but here is page after page of criticism,
+which one may read from end to end, looking for something
+which the writer knows, and finding nothing. Not his
+own language, for he has to look in his dictionary, by his own
+confession, for a word<a name="FnAnchor_D" href="#Footnote_D"><sup>[D]</sup></a> occurring in one of the most important
+chapters of his Bible; not the commonest traditions of
+the schools, for he does not know why Poussin was called
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxii"></a>[Page xxii]</span>
+"learned;"<a name="FnAnchor_E" href="#Footnote_E"><sup>[E]</sup></a> not the most simple canons of art, for he prefers
+Lee to Gainsborough;<a name="FnAnchor_F" href="#Footnote_F"><sup>[F]</sup></a> not the most ordinary facts of nature,
+for we find him puzzled by the epithet "silver," as applied to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxiii"></a>[Page xxiii]</span>
+the orange blossom,&mdash;evidently never having seen anything silvery
+about an orange in his life, except a spoon. Nay, he leaves
+us not to conjecture his calibre from internal evidence; he candidly
+tells us (Oct. 1842) that he has been studying trees only
+for the last week, and bases his critical remarks chiefly on his
+practical experience of birch. More disinterested than our
+friend Sancho, he would disenchant the public from the magic
+of Turner by virtue of his own flagellation; Xanthias-like, he
+would rob his master of immortality by his own powers of endurance.
+What is Christopher North about? Does he receive his
+critiques from Eaton or Harrow&mdash;based on the experience of a
+week's birds'-nesting and its consequences? How low must art
+and its interests sink, when the public mind is inadequate to the
+detection of this effrontery of incapacity! In all kindness to
+Maga, we warn her, that, though the nature of this work precludes
+us from devoting space to the exposure, there may come
+a time when the public shall be themselves able to distinguish
+ribaldry from reasoning, and may require some better and
+higher qualifications in their critics of art, than the experience
+of a school-boy, and the capacities of a buffoon.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, however, merely to vindicate the reputation of
+those whom writers like these defame, which would but be to
+anticipate by a few years the natural and inevitable reaction of
+the public mind, that I am devoting years of labor to the development
+of the principles on which the great productions of
+recent art are based. I have a higher end in view&mdash;one which
+may, I think, justify me, not only in the sacrifice of my own
+time, but in calling on my readers to follow me through an investigation
+far more laborious than could be adequately rewarded
+by mere insight into the merits of a particular master, or the
+spirit of a particular age.</p>
+
+<p>It is a question which, in spite of the claims of Painting to be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxiv"></a>[Page xxiv]</span>
+called the Sister of Poetry, appears to me to admit of considerable
+doubt, whether art has ever, except in its earliest and rudest
+stages, possessed anything like efficient moral influence on mankind.
+Better the state of Rome when "magnorum artificum
+frangebat pocula miles, ut phaleris gauderet equus," than when
+her walls flashed with the marble and the gold, "nec cessabat
+luxuria id agere, ut quam plurimum incendiis perdat." Better
+the state of religion in Italy, before Giotto had broken on one
+barbarism of the Byzantine schools, than when the painter of
+the Last Judgment, and the sculptor of the Perseus, sat revelling
+side by side. It appears to me that a rude symbol is oftener
+more efficient than a refined one in touching the heart, and that
+as pictures rise in rank as works of art, they are regarded with
+less devotion and more curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>But, however this may be, and whatever influence we may be
+disposed to admit in the great works of sacred art, no doubt
+can, I think, be reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility
+of all that has been hitherto accomplished by the painters of
+landscape. No moral end has been answered, no permanent
+good effected, by any of their works. They may have amused
+the intellect, or exercised the ingenuity, but they never have
+spoken to the heart. Landscape art has never taught us one
+deep or holy lesson; it has not recorded that which is fleeting,
+nor penetrated that which was hidden, nor interpreted that
+which was obscure; it has never made us feel the wonder, nor
+the power, nor the glory, of the universe; it has not prompted
+to devotion, nor touched with awe; its power to move and exalt
+the heart has been fatally abused, and perished in the abusing.
+That which ought to have been a witness to the omnipotence of
+God, has become an exhibition of the dexterity of man, and
+that which should have lifted our thoughts to the throne of the
+Deity, has encumbered them with the inventions of his creatures.</p>
+
+<p>If we stand for a little time before any of the more celebrated
+works of landscape, listening to the comments of the
+passers-by, we shall hear numberless expressions relating to the
+skill of the artist, but very few relating to the perfection of nature.
+Hundreds will be voluble in admiration, for one who will
+be silent in delight. Multitudes will laud the composition, and
+depart with the praise of Claude on their lips,&mdash;not one will feel
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxv"></a>[Page xxv]</span>
+as if it were <i>no</i> composition, and depart with the praise of God
+in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>These are the signs of a debased, mistaken, and false school
+of painting. The skill of the artist, and the perfection of his
+art, are never proved until both are forgotten. The artist has
+done nothing till he has concealed himself,&mdash;the art is imperfect
+which is visible,&mdash;the feelings are but feebly touched, if they
+permit us to reason on the methods of their excitement. In the
+reading of a great poem, in the hearing of a noble oration, it is
+the subject of the writer, and not his skill,&mdash;his passion, not his
+power, on which our minds are fixed. We see as he sees, but we
+see not him. We become part of him, feel with him, judge, behold
+with him; but we think <i>of</i> him as little as of ourselves.
+Do we think of Ęschylus while we wait on the silence of Cassandra,<a name="FnAnchor_G" href="#Footnote_G"><sup>[G]</sup></a>
+or of Shakspeare, while we listen to the wailing of
+Lear? Not so. The power of the masters is shown by their
+self-annihilation. It is commensurate with the degree in which
+they themselves appear not in their work. The harp of the
+minstrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it
+records. Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding
+the mind far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his
+creation, and the knowledge which is past his finding out.</p>
+
+<p>And must it ever be otherwise with painting, for otherwise it
+has ever been. Her subjects have been regarded as mere themes
+on which the artist's power is to be displayed; and that power,
+be it of imitation, composition, idealization, or of whatever
+other kind, is the chief object of the spectator's observation. It
+is man and his fancies, man and his trickeries, man and his
+inventions,&mdash;poor, paltry, weak, self-sighted man,&mdash;which the
+connoisseur forever seeks and worships. Among potsherds and
+dunghills, among drunken boors and withered beldames,
+through every scene of debauchery and degradation, we follow
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxvi"></a>[Page xxvi]</span>
+the erring artist, not to receive one wholesome lesson, not to be
+touched with pity, nor moved with indignation, but to watch
+the dexterity of the pencil, and gloat over the glittering of the
+hue.</p>
+
+<p>I speak not only of the works of the Flemish School&mdash;I wage
+no war with their admirers; they may be left in peace to count
+the spiculę of haystacks and the hairs of donkeys&mdash;it is also of
+works of real mind that I speak,&mdash;works in which there are evidences
+of genius and workings of power,&mdash;works which have
+been held up as containing all of the beautiful that art can
+reach or man conceive. And I assert with sorrow, that all
+hitherto done in landscape, by those commonly conceived its
+masters, has never prompted one holy thought in the minds of
+nations. It has begun and ended in exhibiting the dexterities
+of individuals, and conventionalities of systems. Filling the
+world with the honor of Claude and Salvator, it has never once
+tended to the honor of God.</p>
+
+<p>Does the reader start in reading these last words, as if they
+were those of wild enthusiasm,&mdash;as if I were lowering the dignity
+of religion by supposing that its cause could be advanced
+by such means? His surprise proves my position. It <i>does</i>
+sound like wild, like absurd enthusiasm, to expect any definite
+moral agency in the painters of landscape; but ought it so to
+sound? Are the gorgeousness of the visible hue, the glory of
+the realized form, instruments in the artist's hand so ineffective,
+that they can answer no nobler purpose than the amusement
+of curiosity, or the engagement of idleness? Must it not be
+owing to gross neglect or misapplication of the means at his
+command, that while words and tones (means of representing
+nature surely less powerful than lines and colors) can kindle and
+purify the very inmost souls of men, the painter can only hope
+to entertain by his efforts at expression, and must remain forever
+brooding over his incommunicable thoughts?</p>
+
+<p>The cause of the evil lies, I believe, deep-seated in the system
+of ancient landscape art; it consists, in a word, in the
+painter's taking upon him to modify God's works at his pleasure,
+casting the shadow of himself on all he sees, constituting
+himself arbiter where it is honor to be a disciple, and exhibiting
+his ingenuity by the attainment of combinations whose highest
+praise is that they are impossible. We shall not pass through a
+single gallery of old art, without hearing this topic of praise
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxvii"></a>[Page xxvii]</span>
+confidently advanced. The sense of artificialness, the absence
+of all appearance of reality, the clumsiness of combination by
+which the meddling of man is made evident, and the feebleness
+of his hand branded on the inorganization of his monstrous
+creature, is advanced as a proof of inventive power, as an evidence
+of abstracted conception;&mdash;nay, the violation of specific
+form, the utter abandonment of all organic and individual
+character of object, (numberless examples of which from the
+works of the old masters are given in the following pages,) is
+constantly held up by the unthinking critic as the foundation of
+the grand or historical style, and the first step to the attainment
+of a pure ideal. Now, there is but one grand style, in the treatment
+of all subjects whatsoever, and that style is based on the
+<i>perfect</i> knowledge, and consists in the simple, unencumbered
+rendering, of the specific characters of the given object, be it
+man, beast, or flower. Every change, caricature, or abandonment
+of such specific character, is as destructive of grandeur as
+it is of truth, of beauty as of propriety. Every alteration of the
+features of nature has its origin either in powerless indolence or
+blind audacity, in the folly which forgets, or the insolence which
+desecrates, works which it is the pride of angels to know, and
+their privilege to love.</p>
+
+<p>We sometimes hear such infringement of universal laws
+justified on the plea, that the frequent introduction of mythological
+abstractions into ancient landscape requires an imaginary
+character of form in the material objects with which they
+are associated. Something of this kind is hinted in Reynolds's
+14th Discourse; but nothing can be more false than such reasoning.
+If there be any truth or beauty in the original conception
+of the spiritual being so introduced, there must be a true
+and real connection between that abstract idea<a name="FnAnchor_H" href="#Footnote_H"><sup>[H]</sup></a> and the features
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxviii"></a>[Page xxviii]</span>
+of nature as she was and is. The woods and waters which
+were peopled by the Greek with typical life were not different
+from those which now wave and murmur by the ruins of his
+shrines. With their visible and actual forms was his imagination
+filled, and the beauty of its incarnate creatures can only be
+understood among the pure realities which originally modelled
+their conception. If divinity be stamped upon the features, or
+apparent in the form of the spiritual creature, the mind will
+not be shocked by its appearing to ride upon the whirlwind,
+and trample on the storm; but if mortality, no violation of the
+characters of the earth will forge one single link to bind it to
+the heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal character of
+landscape? Undoubtedly; and Sir Joshua, with the great master
+of this character, Nicolo Poussin, present to his thoughts,
+ought to have arrived at more true conclusions respecting its
+essence than, as we shall presently see, are deducible from his
+works. The true ideal of landscape is precisely the same as that
+of the human form; it is the expression of the specific&mdash;not the
+individual, but the specific&mdash;characters of every object, in their
+perfection; there is an ideal form of every herb, flower, and
+tree: it is that form to which every individual of the species
+has a tendency to arrive, freed from the influence of accident or
+disease. Every landscape painter should know the specific
+characters of every object he has to represent, rock, flower, or
+cloud; and in his highest ideal works, all their distinctions will
+be perfectly expressed, broadly or delicately, slightly or completely,
+according to the nature of the subject, and the degree of
+attention which is to be drawn to the particular object by the
+part it plays in the composition. Where the sublime is aimed at,
+such distinctions will be indicated with severe simplicity, as
+the muscular markings in a colossal statue; where beauty is the
+object, they must be expressed with the utmost refinement of
+which the hand is capable.</p>
+
+<p>This may sound like a contradiction of principles advanced
+by the highest authorities; but it is only a contradiction of a
+particular and most mistaken application of them. Much evil
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxix"></a>[Page xxix]</span>
+has been done to art by the remarks of historical painters on
+landscape. Accustomed themselves to treat their backgrounds
+slightly and boldly, and feeling (though, as I shall presently
+show, only in consequence of their own deficient powers) that
+any approach to completeness of detail therein, injures their
+picture by interfering with its principal subject, they naturally
+lose sight of the peculiar and intrinsic beauties of things which
+to them are injurious, unless subordinate. Hence the frequent
+advice given by Reynolds and others, to neglect <i>specific</i> form in
+landscape, and treat its materials in large masses, aiming only at
+general truths,&mdash;the flexibility of foliage, but not its kind; the
+rigidity of rock, but not its mineral character. In the passage
+more especially bearing on this subject (in the eleventh lecture
+of Sir J. Reynolds), we are told that "the landscape painter
+works not for the virtuoso or the naturalist, but for the general
+observer of life and nature." This is true, in precisely the same
+sense that the sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for
+the common observer of life and nature. Yet the sculptor is
+not, for this reason, permitted to be wanting either in knowledge
+or expression of anatomical detail; and the more refined
+that expression can be rendered, the more perfect is his work.
+That which, to the anatomist, is the end,&mdash;is, to the sculptor,
+the means. The former desires details, for their own sake; the
+latter, that by means of them, he may kindle his work with life,
+and stamp it with beauty. And so in landscape;&mdash;botanical or
+geological details are not to be given as matter of curiosity or
+subject of search, but as the ultimate elements of every species
+of expression and order of loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>In his observations on the foreground of the St. Pietro
+Martire, Sir Joshua advances, as matter of praise, that the plants
+are discriminated "just as much as was necessary for variety,
+and no more." Had this foreground been occupied by a group
+of animals, we should have been surprised to be told that the
+lion, the serpent, and the dove, or whatever other creatures
+might have been introduced, were distinguished from each other
+just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more. Yet is
+it to be supposed that the distinctions of the vegetable world are
+less complete, less essential, or less divine in origin, than those
+of the animal? If the distinctive forms of animal life are meant
+for our reverent observance, is it likely that those of vegetable life
+are made merely to be swept away? The latter are indeed less
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxx"></a>[Page xxx]</span>
+obvious and less obtrusive; for which very reason there is less
+excuse for omitting them, because there is less danger of their
+disturbing the attention or engaging the fancy.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Joshua is as inaccurate in fact, as false in principle.
+He himself furnishes a most singular instance of the very error
+of which he accuses Vaseni,&mdash;the seeing what he expects; or,
+rather, in the present case, not seeing what he does not expect.
+The great masters of Italy, almost without exception, and
+Titian perhaps more than any, (for he had the highest knowledge
+of landscape,) are in the constant habit of rendering every
+detail of their foregrounds with the most laborious botanical
+fidelity: witness the "Bacchus and Ariadne," in which the
+foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia,
+and the wild rose; <i>every stamen</i> of which latter is given, while
+the blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to
+draw) have been studied with the most exquisite accuracy. The
+foregrounds of Raffaelle's two cartoons,&mdash;"The Miraculous
+Draught of Fishes" and "The Charge to Peter,"&mdash;are covered
+with plants of the common sea colewort, (<i>crambe maritima</i>,) of
+which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have
+exhausted the patience of any other artist; but have appeared
+worthy of prolonged and thoughtful labor to the great mind of
+Raffaelle.</p>
+
+<p>It appears then, not only from natural principles, but from
+the highest of all authority, that thorough knowledge of the
+lowest details is necessary and full expression of them right,
+even in the highest class of historical painting; that it will not
+take away from, nor interfere with, the interest of the figures;
+but, rightly managed, must add to and elucidate it; and, if
+further proof be wanting, I would desire the reader to compare
+the background of Sir Joshua's "Holy Family," in the National
+Gallery, with that of Nicolo Poussin's "Nursing of Jupiter,"
+in the Dulwich Gallery. The first, owing to the utter
+neglect of all botanical detail, has lost every atom of ideal character,
+and reminds us of nothing but an English fashionable
+flower garden;&mdash;the formal pedestal adding considerably to the
+effect. Poussin's, in which every vine leaf is drawn with consummate
+skill and untiring diligence, produces not only a tree
+group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but one which, in
+its pure and simple truth, belongs to every age of nature, and
+adapts itself to the history of all time. If, then, such entire
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxi"></a>[Page xxxi]</span>
+rendering of specific character be necessary to the historical
+painter, in cases where these lower details are entirely subordinate
+to his human subject, how much more must it be
+necessary in landscape, where they themselves constitute the
+subject, and where the undivided attention is to be drawn to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>There is a singular sense in which the child may peculiarly
+be said to be father of the man. In many arts and attainments,
+the first and last stages of progress&mdash;the infancy and the consummation&mdash;have
+many features in common; while the intermediate
+stages are wholly unlike either, and are farthest from
+the right. Thus it is in the progress of a painter's handling.
+We see the perfect child,&mdash;the absolute beginner, using of necessity
+a broken, imperfect, inadequate line, which, as he advances,
+becomes gradually firm, severe, and decided. Yet before he becomes
+a perfect artist, this severity and decision will again be
+exchanged for a light and careless stroke, which in many points
+will far more resemble that of his childhood than of his middle
+age&mdash;differing from it only by the consummate effect wrought
+out by the apparently inadequate means. So it is in many matters
+of opinion. Our first and last coincide, though on different
+grounds; it is the middle stage which is farthest from the
+truth. Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers,
+which the grasp of manhood cannot retain,&mdash;which it is the
+pride of utmost age to recover.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this is in no instance more remarkable than in the
+opinion we form upon the subject of detail in works of art. Infants
+in judgment, we look for specific character, and complete
+finish&mdash;we delight in the faithful plumage of the well-known
+bird&mdash;in the finely drawn leafage of the discriminated flower.
+As we advance in judgment, we scorn such detail altogether;
+we look for impetuosity of execution, and breadth of effect.
+But, perfected in judgment, we return in a great measure to
+our early feelings, and thank Raffaelle for the shells upon his
+sacred beach, and for the delicate stamens of the herbage beside
+his inspired St. Catherine.<a name="FnAnchor_I" href="#Footnote_I"><sup>[I]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Of those who take interest in art, nay, even of artists themselves,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxii"></a>[Page xxxii]</span>
+there are an hundred in the middle stage of judgment,
+for one who is in the last; and this not because they are destitute
+of the power to discover, or the sensibility to enjoy the
+truth, but because the truth bears so much semblance of error&mdash;the
+last stage of the journey to the first,&mdash;that every feeling
+which guides to it is checked in its origin. The rapid and powerful
+artist necessarily looks with such contempt on those who
+seek minutię of detail <i>rather</i> than grandeur of impression, that
+it is almost impossible for him to conceive of the great last step
+in art, by which both become compatible. He has so often to
+dash the delicacy out of the pupil's work, and to blot the details
+from his encumbered canvas; so frequently to lament the loss
+of breadth and unity, and so seldom to reprehend the imperfection
+of minutię, that he necessarily looks upon complete <i>parts</i>
+as the very sign of error, weakness, and ignorance. Thus, frequently
+to the latest period of his life, he separates, like Sir
+Joshua, as chief enemies, the details and the whole, which an
+artist cannot be great unless he reconciles; and because details
+alone, and unreferred to a final purpose, are the sign of a tyro's
+work, he loses sight of the remoter truth, that details perfect in
+unity, and, contributing to a final purpose, are the sign of the
+production of a consummate master.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, therefore, detail sought for its own sake,&mdash;not the
+calculable bricks of the Dutch house-painters, nor the numbered
+hairs and mapped wrinkles of Denner, which constitute great
+art,&mdash;they are the lowest and most contemptible art; but it is
+detail referred to a great end,&mdash;sought for the sake of the inestimable
+beauty which exists in the slightest and least of God's
+works, and treated in a manly, broad, and impressive manner.
+There may be as much greatness of mind, as much nobility of
+manner in a master's treatment of the smallest features, as in
+his management of the most vast; and this greatness of manner
+chiefly consists in seizing the specific character of the object,
+together with all the great qualities of beauty which it has in
+common with higher orders of existence,<a name="FnAnchor_J" href="#Footnote_J"><sup>[J]</sup></a> while he utterly
+rejects the meaner beauties which are accidentally peculiar to the
+object, and yet not specifically characteristic of it. I cannot give
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxiii"></a>[Page xxxiii]</span>
+a better instance than the painting of the flowers in Titian's
+picture above mentioned. While every stamen of the rose is
+given, because this was necessary to mark the flower, and while
+the curves and large characters of the leaves are rendered with
+exquisite fidelity, there is no vestige of particular texture, of
+moss, bloom, moisture, or any other accident&mdash;no dew-drops,
+nor flies, nor trickeries of any kind; nothing beyond the simple
+forms and hues of the flowers,&mdash;even those hues themselves being
+simplified and broadly rendered. The varieties of aquilegia
+have, in reality, a grayish and uncertain tone of color; and, I
+believe, never attain the intense purity of blue with which
+Titian has gifted his flower. But the master does not aim at
+the particular color of individual blossoms; he seizes the type of
+all, and gives it with the utmost purity and simplicity of which
+color is capable.</p>
+
+<p>These laws being observed, it will not only be in the power,
+it will be the duty,&mdash;the imperative duty,&mdash;of the landscape
+painter, to descend to the lowest details with undiminished attention.
+Every herb and flower of the field has its specific, distinct,
+and perfect beauty; it has its peculiar habitation, expression,
+and function. The highest art is that which seizes
+this specific character, which develops and illustrates it, which
+assigns to it its proper position in the landscape, and which, by
+means of it, enhances and enforces the great impression which
+the picture is intended to convey. Nor is it of herbs and flowers
+alone that such scientific representation is required. Every
+class of rock, every kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be
+studied with equal industry, and rendered with equal precision.
+And thus we find ourselves unavoidably led to a conclusion
+directly opposed to that constantly enunciated dogma of the
+parrot-critic, that the features of nature must be "generalized,"&mdash;a
+dogma whose inherent and broad absurdity would
+long ago have been detected, if it had not contained in its convenient
+falsehood an apology for indolence, and a disguise for
+incapacity. Generalized! As if it were possible to generalize
+things generically different. Of such common cant of criticism
+I extract a characteristic passage from one of the reviews of this
+work, that in this year's Athenęum for February 10th: "He
+(the author) would have geological landscape painters, dendrologic,
+meteorologic, and doubtless entomologic, ichthyologic,
+every kind of physiologic painter united in the same person;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxiv"></a>[Page xxxiv]</span>
+yet, alas, for true poetic art among all these learned Thebans!
+No; landscape painting must not be reduced to mere portraiture
+of inanimate substances, Denner-like portraiture of the
+earth's face.<span style="letter-spacing: 1em; "> * * * * * </span>Ancient landscapists took a
+broader, deeper, higher view of their art; they neglected particular
+traits, and gave only general features. Thus they attained
+mass and force, harmonious union and simple effect, the elements
+of grandeur and beauty."</p>
+
+<p>To all such criticism as this (and I notice it only because it
+expresses the feelings into which many sensible and thoughtful
+minds have been fashioned by infection) the answer is simple
+and straightforward. It is just as impossible to generalize granite
+and slate, as it is to generalize a man and a cow. An animal
+must be either one animal or another animal; it cannot be a
+general animal, or it is no animal; and so a rock must be either
+one rock or another rock; it cannot be a general rock, or it
+is no rock. If there were a creature in the foreground of a picture,
+of which he could not decide whether it were a pony or a
+pig, the Athenęum critic would perhaps affirm it to be a generalization
+of pony and pig, and consequently a high example
+of "harmonious union and simple effect." But <i>I</i> should call
+it simple bad drawing. And so when there are things in the
+foreground of Salvator of which I cannot pronounce whether
+they be granite or slate, or tufa, I affirm that there is in them
+neither harmonious union nor simple effect, but simple monstrosity.
+There is no grandeur, no beauty of any sort or kind;
+nothing but destruction, disorganization, and ruin, to be obtained
+by the violation of natural distinctions. The elements
+of brutes can only mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic
+nature only in annihilation. We may, if we choose, put together
+centaur monsters; but they must still be half man, half
+horse; they cannot be both man and horse, nor either man or
+horse. And so, if landscape painters choose, they may give us
+rocks which shall be half granite and half slate; but they cannot
+give us rocks which shall be either granite or slate, nor
+which shall be both granite and slate. Every attempt to produce
+that which shall be <i>any</i> rock, ends in the production of
+that which is <i>no</i> rock.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that the distinctions of rocks and plants and clouds
+are less conspicuous, and less constantly subjects of observation
+than those of the animal creation; but the difficulty of observing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxv"></a>[Page xxxv]</span>
+them proves not the merit of overlooking them. It only
+accounts for the singular fact, that the world has never yet seen
+anything like a perfect school of landscape. For just as the
+highest historical painting is based on perfect knowledge of the
+workings of the human form, and human mind, so must the
+highest landscape painting be based on perfect cognizance of
+the form, functions, and system of every organic or definitely
+structured existence which it has to represent. This proposition
+is self-evident to every thinking mind; and every principle
+which appears to contradict it is either misstated or misunderstood.
+For instance, the Athenęum critic calls the right statement
+of generic difference "<i>Denner</i>-like portraiture." If he
+can find anything like Denner in what I have advanced as the
+utmost perfection of landscape art&mdash;the recent works of Turner&mdash;he
+is welcome to his discovery and his theory. No; Denner-like
+portraiture would be the endeavor to paint the separate
+crystals of quartz and felspar in the granite, and the separate
+flakes of mica in the mica slate,&mdash;an attempt just as far removed
+from what I assert to be great art, (the bold rendering of the
+generic characters of form in both rocks,) as modern sculpture
+of lace and button-holes is from the Elgin marbles. Martin
+has attempted this Denner-like portraiture of sea-foam with the
+assistance of an acre of canvas&mdash;with what success, I believe the
+critics of his last year's Canute had, for once, sense enough to
+decide.</p>
+
+<p>Again, it does not follow that because such accurate knowledge
+is <i>necessary</i> to the painter that it should constitute the
+painter, nor that such knowledge is valuable in itself, and without
+reference to high ends. Every kind of knowledge may be
+sought from ignoble motives, and for ignoble ends; and in
+those who so possess it, it is ignoble knowledge; while the very
+same knowledge is in another mind an attainment of the highest
+dignity, and conveying the greatest blessing. This is the difference
+between the mere botanist's knowledge of plants, and the
+great poet's or painter's knowledge of them. The one notes
+their distinctions for the sake of swelling his herbarium, the
+other, that he may render them vehicles of expression and emotion.
+The one counts the stamens, and affixes a name, and is
+content; the other observes every character of the plant's color
+and form; considering each of its attributes as an element of
+expression, he seizes on its lines of grace or energy, rigidity or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxvi"></a>[Page xxxvi]</span>
+repose; notes the feebleness or the vigor, the serenity or tremulousness
+of its hues; observes its local habits, its love or fear of
+peculiar places, its nourishment or destruction by particular influences;
+he associates it in his mind with all the features of
+the situations it inhabits, and the ministering agencies necessary
+to its support. Thenceforward the flower is to him a living
+creature, with histories written on its leaves, and passions
+breathing in its motion. Its occurrence in his picture is no
+mere point of color, no meaningless spark of light. It is a
+voice rising from the earth,&mdash;a new chord of the mind's music,&mdash;a
+necessary note in the harmony of his picture, contributing
+alike to its tenderness and its dignity, nor less to its loveliness
+than its truth.</p>
+
+<p>The particularization of flowers by Shakspeare and Shelley
+affords us the most frequent examples of the exalted use of these
+inferior details. It is true that the painter has not the same
+power of expressing the thoughts with which his symbols are
+connected; he is dependent in some degree on the knowledge
+and feeling of the spectator; but, by the destruction of such
+details, his foreground is not rendered more intelligible to the
+ignorant, although it ceases to have interest for the informed.
+It is no excuse for illegible writing that there are persons who
+could not have read it had it been plain.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat then, generalization, as the word is commonly understood,
+is the act of a vulgar, incapable, and unthinking
+mind. To see in all mountains nothing but similar heaps of
+earth; in all rocks, nothing but similar concretions of solid
+matter; in all trees, nothing but similar accumulations of
+leaves, is no sign of high feeling or extended thought. The
+more we know, and the more we feel, the more we separate;
+we separate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the
+thoughts of the peasant, lie as they do on his field, one is like
+another, and there is no connection between any of them. The
+geologist distinguishes, and in distinguishing connects them.
+Each becomes different from its fellow, but in differing from,
+assumes a relation to its fellow; they are no more each the repetition
+of the other,&mdash;they are parts of a system, and each implies
+and is connected with the existence of the rest. That generalization
+then is right, true, and noble, which is based on the
+knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relations of
+individual kinds. That generalization is wrong, false, and contemptible,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxvii"></a>[Page xxxvii]</span>
+which is based on ignorance of the one, and disturbance
+of the other. It is indeed no generalization, but confusion
+and chaos; it is the generalization of a defeated army
+into indistinguishable impotence&mdash;the generalization of the elements
+of a dead carcass into dust.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, then, without farther notice of the dogmata of the
+schools of art, follow forth those conclusions to which we are
+led by observance of the laws of nature.</p>
+
+<p>I have just said that every class of rock, earth and cloud,
+must be known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic
+accuracy.<a name="FnAnchor_K" href="#Footnote_K"><sup>[K]</sup></a> Nor is this merely for the sake of obtaining the
+character of these minor features themselves, but more especially
+for the sake of reaching that simple, earnest, and consistent
+character which is visible in the <i>whole</i> effect of every natural
+landscape. Every geological formation has features entirely
+peculiar to itself; definite lines of fracture, giving rise to fixed
+resultant forms of rock and earth; peculiar vegetable products,
+among which still farther distinctions are wrought out by variations
+of climate and elevation. From such modifying circumstances
+arise the infinite varieties of the orders of landscape, of
+which each one shows perfect harmony among its several features,
+and possesses an ideal beauty of its own; a beauty not
+distinguished merely by such peculiarities as are wrought on
+the human form by change of climate, but by generic differences
+the most marked and essential; so that its classes cannot be
+generalized or amalgamated by any expedients whatsoever. The
+level marshes and rich meadows of the tertiary, the rounded
+swells and short pastures of the chalk, the square-built cliffs
+and cloven dells of the lower limestone, the soaring peaks and
+ridgy precipices of the primaries, having nothing in common
+among them&mdash;nothing which is not distinctive and incommunicable.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxviii"></a>[Page xxxviii]</span>
+Their very atmospheres are different&mdash;their clouds are
+different&mdash;their humors of storm and sunshine are different&mdash;their
+flowers, animals and forests are different. By each order
+of landscape&mdash;and its orders, I repeat, are infinite in number,
+corresponding not only to the several species of rock, but to the
+particular circumstances of the rocks' deposition or after treatment,
+and to the incalculable varieties of climate, aspect, and
+human interference:&mdash;by each order of landscape, I say, peculiar
+lessons are intended to be taught, and distinct pleasures to
+be conveyed; and it is as utterly futile to talk of generalizing
+their impressions into an ideal landscape, as to talk of amalgamating
+all nourishment into one ideal food, gathering all music
+into one ideal movement, or confounding all thought into one
+ideal idea.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, such a thing as composition of different
+orders of landscape, though there can be no generalization of
+them. Nature herself perpetually brings together elements of
+various expression. Her barren rocks stoop through wooded
+promontories to the plain; and the wreaths of the vine show
+through their green shadows the wan light of unperishing snow.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, therefore, has the choice of either working out
+the isolated character of some one distinct class of scene, or of
+bringing together a multitude of different elements, which may
+adorn each other by contrast.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that the simple and uncombined landscape, if
+wrought out with due attention to the ideal beauty of the features
+it includes, will always be the most powerful in its appeal
+to the heart. Contrast increases the splendor of beauty, but it
+disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes
+its power. On this subject I shall have much to say hereafter;
+at present I merely wish to suggest the possibility, that
+the single-minded painter, who is working out on broad and
+simple principles, a piece of unbroken, harmonious landscape
+character, may be reaching an end in art quite as high as the
+more ambitious student who is always "within five minutes'
+walk of everywhere," making the ends of the earth contribute
+to his pictorial guazzetto;<a name="FnAnchor_L" href="#Footnote_L"><sup>[L]</sup></a> and the certainty, that unless the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxix"></a>[Page xxxix]</span>
+composition of the latter be regulated by severe judgment, and
+its members connected by natural links, it must become more
+contemptible in its motley, than an honest study of roadside
+weeds.</p>
+
+<p>Let me, at the risk of tediously repeating what is universally
+known, refer to the common principles of historical composition,
+in order that I may show their application to that of landscape.
+The merest tyro in art knows that every figure which is
+unnecessary to his picture, is an encumbrance to it, and that
+every figure which does not sympathize with the action, interrupts
+it. He that gathereth not with me, scattereth,&mdash;is, or
+ought to be, the ruling principle of his plan: and the power
+and grandeur of his result will be exactly proportioned to the
+unity of feeling manifested in its several parts, and to the propriety
+and simplicity of the relations in which they stand to
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>All this is equally applicable to the materials of inanimate
+nature. Impressiveness is destroyed by a multitude of contradictory
+facts, and the accumulation, which is not harmonious,
+is discordant. He who endeavors to unite simplicity with magnificence,
+to guide from solitude to festivity, and to contrast
+melancholy with mirth, must end by the production of confused
+inanity. There is a peculiar spirit; possessed by every kind of
+scene; and although a point of contrast may sometimes enhance
+and exhibit this particular feeling more intensely, it must be
+only a point, not an equalized opposition. Every introduction
+of new and different feeling weakens the force of what has
+already been impressed, and the mingling of all emotions must
+conclude in apathy, as the mingling of all colors in white.</p>
+
+<p>Let us test by these simple rules one of the "ideal" landscape
+compositions of Claude, that known to the Italians as "Il
+Mulino."</p>
+
+<p>The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest
+scenery, with a dance of peasants by a brookside; quite enough
+subject to form, in the hands of a master, an impressive and
+complete picture. On the other side of the brook, however, we
+have a piece of pastoral life, a man with some bulls and goats
+tumbling headforemost into the water, owing to some sudden
+paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this group is one too
+many; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock so near
+the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexl"></a>[Page xl]</span>
+But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive
+a sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance,
+amidst things pastoral and musical, of the military: a number
+of Roman soldiers riding in on hobby-horses, with a leader on
+foot, apparently encouraging them to make an immediate and
+decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the soldiers is a circular
+temple, in exceedingly bad repair, and close beside it, built
+against its very walls, a neat water-mill in full work. By the
+mill flows a large river, with a weir all across it. The weir has
+not been made for the mill, (for that receives its water from the
+hills by a trough carried over the temple,) but it is particularly
+ugly and monotonous in its line of fall, and the water below
+forms a dead-looking pond, on which some people are fishing in
+punts. The banks of this river resemble in contour the later
+geological formations around London, constituted chiefly of
+broken pots and oyster-shells. At an inconvenient distance
+from the water-side stands a city, composed of twenty-five round
+towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge;
+beyond the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of
+aqueducts; beyond the Campagna, the chain of the Alps; on
+the left, the cascades of Tivoli.</p>
+
+<p>This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called
+an "ideal landscape," <i>i.e.</i>, a group of the artist's studies from
+nature, individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of
+character as may insure their neutralizing each other's effect,
+and united with sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association
+to insure their producing a general sensation of the impossible.
+Let us analyze the separate subjects a little in this ideal
+work of Claude's.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the
+solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light.
+Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from
+the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone
+into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles
+beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is
+white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of
+men.<a name="FnAnchor_M" href="#Footnote_M"><sup>[M]</sup></a> The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the
+evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexli"></a>[Page xli]</span>
+along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight.
+Hillocks of mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead
+beneath were struggling in their sleep; scattered blocks of black
+stone, four-square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left
+upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull purple,
+poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, veiling its
+spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests
+like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the Alban
+mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet
+sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the
+promontories, of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains,
+the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the
+darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners,
+passing from a nation's grave.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, with Claude, make a few "ideal" alterations in this
+landscape. First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices
+of the Apennines to four sugar-loaves. Secondly, we will remove
+the Alban mount, and put a large dust-heap in its stead.
+Next, we will knock down the greater part of the aqueducts,
+and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of length may
+no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist
+and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with
+round white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant
+ruins in the foreground; we will plant some handsome trees
+therein, we will send for some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and
+a picnic party.</p>
+
+<p>It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species
+of improvement is made on the materials which Claude had
+ready to his hand. The descending slopes of the city of Rome,
+towards the pyramid of Caius Cestius, supply not only lines of
+the most exquisite variety and beauty, but matter for contemplation
+and reflection in every fragment of their buildings.
+This passage has been idealized by Claude into a set of similar
+round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that
+they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached,
+beyond the difficulty of conjecturing what they could
+have been built for. The ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive
+by the juxtaposition of the water-mill, and inexplicable
+by the introduction of the Roman soldiers. The glide of
+the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and Anio through
+the Campagna, is impressive in itself, but altogether ceases to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexlii"></a>[Page xlii]</span>
+be so, when we disturb their stillness of motion by a weir, adorn
+their neglected flow with a handsome bridge, and cover their
+solitary surface with punts, nets, and fishermen.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot, I think, be expected, that landscapes like this
+should have any effect on the human heart, except to harden or
+to degrade it; to lead it from the love of what is simple, earnest
+and pure, to what is as sophisticated and corrupt in arrangement,
+as erring and imperfect in detail. So long as such works
+are held up for imitation, landscape painting must be a manufacture,
+its productions must be toys, and its patrons must be
+children.</p>
+
+<p>My purpose then, in the present work, is to demonstrate the
+utter falseness both of the facts and principles; the imperfection
+of material, and error of arrangement, on which works such as
+these are based; and to insist on the necessity, as well as the
+dignity, of an earnest, faithful, loving, study of nature as she
+is, rejecting with abhorrence all that man has done to alter and
+modify her. And the praise which, in this first portion of the
+work, is given to many English artists, would be justifiable on
+this ground only, that although frequently with little power and
+desultory effort, they have yet, in an honest and good heart,
+received the word of God from clouds, and leaves, and waves,
+and kept it,<a name="FnAnchor_N" href="#Footnote_N"><sup>[N]</sup></a> and endeavored in humility to render to the world
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexliii"></a>[Page xliii]</span>
+that purity of impression which can alone render the result of
+art an instrument of good, or its labor deserving of gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, I shall have frequent occasion to insist on the
+necessity of this heartfelt love of, and unqualified submission to,
+the teaching of nature, it will be no less incumbent upon me to
+reprobate the careless rendering of casual impression, and the
+mechanical copyism of unimportant subject, which are too frequently
+visible in our modern school.<a name="FnAnchor_O" href="#Footnote_O"><sup>[O]</sup></a> Their lightness and desultoriness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexliv"></a>[Page xliv]</span>
+of intention, their meaningless multiplication of unstudied
+composition, and their want of definiteness and loftiness
+of aim, bring discredit on their whole system of study, and encourage
+in the critic the unhappy prejudice that the field and
+the hill-side are less fit places of study than the gallery and the
+garret. Not every casual idea caught from the flight of a
+shower or the fall of a sunbeam, not every glowing fragment of
+harvest light, nor every flickering dream of copsewood coolness,
+is to be given to the world as it came, unconsidered, incomplete,
+and forgotten by the artist as soon as it has left his easel.
+That only should be considered a picture, in which the spirit,
+(not the materials, observe,) but the animating emotion of many
+such studies is concentrated, and exhibited by the aid of long-studied,
+painfully-chosen forms; idealized in the right sense of
+the word, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of degrading
+God's works which man calls his "imagination," but by perfect
+assertion of entire knowledge of every part and character and
+function of the object, and in which the details are completed
+to the last line compatible with the dignity and simplicity of the
+whole, wrought out with that noblest industry which concentrates
+profusion into point, and transforms accumulation into
+structure; neither must this labor be bestowed on every subject
+which appears to afford a capability of good, but on chosen subjects
+in which nature has prepared to the artist's hand the purest
+sources of the impression he would convey. These may be
+humble in their order, but they must be perfect of their kind.
+There is a perfection of the hedgerow and cottage, as well as of
+the forest and the palace, and more ideality in a great artist's
+selection and treatment of roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles,
+than in all the struggling caricature of the meaner mind
+which heaps its foreground with colossal columns, and heaves
+impossible mountains into the encumbered sky. Finally, these
+chosen subjects must not be in any way repetitions of one another,
+but each founded on a new idea, and developing a totally
+distinct train of thought; so that the work of the artist's life
+should form a consistent series of essays, rising through the
+scale of creation from the humblest scenery to the most exalted;
+each picture being a necessary link in the chain, based on what
+preceded, introducing to what is to follow, and all, in their
+lovely system, exhibiting and drawing closer the bonds of nature
+to the human heart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexlv"></a>[Page xlv]</span></p>
+
+<p>Since, then, I shall have to reprobate the absence of study in
+the moderns nearly as much as its false direction in the ancients,
+my task will naturally divide itself into three portions. In the
+first, I shall endeavor to investigate and arrange the facts of nature
+with scientific accuracy; showing as I proceed, by what
+total neglect of the very first base and groundwork of their art
+the idealities of some among the old masters are produced.
+This foundation once securely laid, I shall proceed, in the second
+portion of the work, to analyze and demonstrate the nature
+of the emotions of the Beautiful and Sublime; to examine the
+particular characters of every kind of scenery, and to bring to
+light, as far as may be in my power, that faultless, ceaseless, inconceivable,
+inexhaustible loveliness, which God has stamped
+upon all things, if man will only receive them as He gives them.
+Finally, I shall endeavor to trace the operation of all this on the
+hearts and minds of men; to exhibit the moral function and
+end of art, to prove the share which it ought to have in the
+thoughts, and influence on the lives of all of us; to attach to
+the artist the responsibility of a preacher, and to kindle in the
+general mind that regard which such an office must demand.</p>
+
+<p>It must be evident that the first portion of this task, which
+is all that I have yet been enabled to offer to the reader, cannot
+but be the least interesting and the most laborious, especially
+because it is necessary that it should be executed without reference
+to any principles of beauty or influences of emotion. It is
+the hard, straightforward classification of material things, not
+the study of thought or passion; and therefore let me not be
+accused of the feelings which I choose to repress. The consideration
+of the high qualities of art must not be interrupted by
+the work of the hammer and the eudiometer.</p>
+
+<p>Again, I would request that the frequent passages of reference
+to the great masters of the Italian school may not be
+looked upon as mere modes of conventional expression. I think
+there is enough in the following pages to prove that I am not
+likely to be carried away by the celebrity of a name; and therefore
+that the devoted love which I profess for the works of the
+great historical and sacred painters is sincere and well-grounded.
+And indeed every principle of art which I may advocate, I shall
+be able to illustrate by reference to the works of men universally
+allowed to be the masters of masters; and the public, so long as
+my teaching leads them to higher understanding and love of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexlvi"></a>[Page xlvi]</span>
+works of Buonaroti, Leonardo, Raffaelle, Titian, and Cagliari,
+may surely concede to me without fear, the right of striking
+such blows as I may deem necessary to the establishment of my
+principles, at Gasper Poussin, or Vandevelde.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the
+present day, for advocacy of Michael Angelo against the pettiness
+of the moderns, as there is for support of Turner against
+the conventionalities of the ancients. For, though the names
+of the fathers of sacred art are on all our lips, our faith in them
+is much like that of the great world in its religion&mdash;nominal,
+but dead. In vain our lecturers sound the name of Raffaelle in
+the ears of their pupils, while their own works are visibly at variance
+with every principle deducible from his. In vain is the
+young student compelled to produce a certain number of school
+copies of Michael Angelo, when his bread must depend on the
+number of gewgaws he can crowd into his canvas. And I could
+with as much zeal exert myself against the modern system of
+English historical art, as I have in favor of our school of landscape,
+but that it is an ungrateful and painful task to attack the
+works of living painters, struggling with adverse circumstances
+of every kind, and especially with the false taste of a nation
+which regards matters of art either with the ticklishness of an
+infant, or the stolidity of a Megatherium.</p>
+
+<p>I have been accused, in the execution of this first portion of
+my work, of irreverent and scurrile expression towards the
+works which I have depreciated. Possibly I may have been in
+some degree infected by reading those criticisms of our periodicals,
+which consist of nothing else; but I believe in general that
+my words will be found to have sufficient truth in them to excuse
+their familiarity; and that no other weapons could have
+been used to pierce the superstitious prejudice with which the
+works of certain painters are shielded from the attacks of reason.
+My answer is that given long ago to a similar complaint,
+uttered under the same circumstances by the foiled sophist:&mdash;
+("<span class="grk" title="Hos d'estin ho anthrōpos; hōs apaideutos tis, os ouiō phaula onomata onomazein tolma en semnō pragmati">
+&Omega;&sigma; &delta;&#x1fbd; &#x1f14;&sigma;&tau;&iota;&nu; &#x1f42; &#x1f02;&nu;&theta;&rho;&pi;&omicron;&sigmaf;;
+&#x1f61;&sigmaf; &#x1f00;&pi;&alpha;&#x1f77;&delta;&epsilon;&upsilon;&tau;&#x1f79;&sigmaf; &tau;&iota;&sigmaf;,
+&omicron;&sigmaf; &omicron;&upsilon;&iota;&omega; &phi;&alpha;&#x1fe6;&lambda;&alpha;
+&#x1f40;&nu;&#x1f79;&mu;&alpha;&tau;&alpha; &omicron;&nu;&omicron;&mu;&#x1f00;&zeta;&epsilon;&iota;&nu;
+&tau;&omicron;&lambda;&mu;&#x1f86; &#x1f10;&nu; &sigma;&epsilon;&mu;&nu;&#x1ff7;
+&pi;&rho;&#x1f71;&gamma;&mu;&alpha;&tau;&iota;</span>.)
+
+<span class="grk" title="Toioutos tis, ō Hippia, ouden allo phrontizōn ź to alźthes">
+&Tau;&omicron;&iota;&omicron;&#x1fe6;&tau;&#x1f79;&sigmaf; &tau;&iota;&sigmaf;, &#x1f66; &Iota;&pi;&pi;&#x1f31;&alpha;
+&#x1f40;&upsilon;&delta;&epsilon;&nu; &#x1f02;&lambda;&lambda;&omicron; &phi;&rho;&omicron;&nu;&#x1f77;&zeta;&omega;&nu;
+&#x1f22; &tau;&#x1f78; &alpha;&lambda;&eta;&theta;&#x1f73;&sigmaf;</span>."</p>
+
+<p>It is with more surprise that I have heard myself accused of
+thoughtless severity with respect to the works of contemporary
+painters, for I fully believe that whenever I attack them, I give
+myself far more pain than I can possibly inflict; and, in many
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexlvii"></a>[Page xlvii]</span>
+instances, I have withheld reprobation which I considered
+necessary to the full understanding of my work, in the fear of
+grieving or injuring men of whose feelings and circumstances I
+was ignorant. Indeed, the apparently false and exaggerated bias
+of the whole book in favor of modern art, is in great degree dependent
+on my withholding the animadversions which would
+have given it balance, and keeping silence where I cannot
+praise. But I had rather be a year or two longer in effecting
+my purposes, than reach them by trampling on men's hearts
+and hearths; and I have permitted myself to express unfavorable
+opinions only where the popularity and favor of the artist
+are so great as to render the opinion of an individual a matter
+of indifference to him.</p>
+
+<p>And now&mdash;but one word more. For many a year we have
+heard nothing with respect to the works of Turner but accusations
+of their want of <i>truth</i>. To every observation on their
+power, sublimity, or beauty, there has been but one reply:
+They are not like nature. I therefore took my opponents on
+their own ground, and demonstrated, by thorough investigation
+of actual facts, that Turner <i>is</i> like nature, and paints more of
+nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition
+(the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been
+disputed with desperate struggles, and that I should have had
+to fight my way to my position inch by inch. Not at all. My
+opponents yield me the field at once. One (the writer for the
+Athenęum) has no other resource than the assertion, that "he
+disapproves the natural style in painting. If people want to see
+<i>nature</i>, let them go and look at herself. Why should they see
+her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other, (Blackwood,)
+still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more
+remarkable line of defence. "It is not," he says, "what things
+in all respects really are, but how they are convertible by the
+mind into what they are <i>not</i>, that we have to consider." (October,
+1843, p. 485.) I leave therefore the reader to choose
+whether, with Blackwood and his fellows, he will proceed to
+consider how things are convertible by the mind into what they
+are <i>not</i>, or whether, with me, he will undergo the harder, but
+perhaps on the whole more useful, labor of ascertaining&mdash;What
+they are.</p>
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_A" href="#FnAnchor_A">[A]</a> One or two fragments of Greek sculpture, the works of Michael
+Angelo, considered with reference to their general conception and power,
+and the Madonna di St. Sisto, are all that I should myself put into such a
+category, not that even these are without defect, but their defects are such as
+mortality could never hope to rectify.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_B" href="#FnAnchor_B">[B]</a> This principle is dangerous, but not the less true, and necessary to be
+kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does not admit of being
+wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny the desirableness of
+originality, because men may err in seeking for it, or because a pretence to
+it may be made, by presumption, a cloak for its incompetence. Nevertheless,
+originality is never to be sought for its own sake&mdash;otherwise it will
+be mere aberration&mdash;it should arise naturally out of hard, independent study
+of nature; and it should be remembered that in many things technical, it
+is impossible to alter without being inferior, for therein, as says Spencer,
+"Truth is one, and right is ever one;" but wrongs are various and multitudinous.
+"Vice," says Byron, in Marino Faliero, "must have variety;
+but Virtue stands like the sun, and all which rolls around drinks life from
+her aspect."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_C" href="#FnAnchor_C">[C]</a> It is with regret that, in a work of this nature, I take notice of criticisms,
+which, after all, are merely intended to amuse the careless reader,
+and be forgotten as soon as read; but I do so in compliance with wishes
+expressed to me since the publication of this work, by persons who have
+the interests of art deeply at heart, and who, I find, attach more importance
+to the matter than I should have been disposed to do. I have, therefore,
+marked two or three passages which <i>may</i> enable the public to judge for
+themselves of the quality of these critiques; and this I think a matter of
+justice to those who might otherwise have been led astray by them&mdash;more
+than this I cannot consent to do. I should have but a hound's office if I
+had to tear the tabard from every Rouge Sanglier of the arts&mdash;with bell and
+bauble to back him.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_D" href="#FnAnchor_D">[D]</a> Chrysoprase, (Vide No. for October, 1843, p. 502.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_E" href="#FnAnchor_E">[E]</a> Every school-boy knows that this epithet was given to Poussin in allusion
+to the profound classical knowledge of the painter. The reviewer,
+however, (September, 1841,) informs us that the expression refers to his skill
+in "Composition."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_F" href="#FnAnchor_F">[F]</a> Critique on Royal Academy, 1842. "He" (Mr. Lee) "often reminds
+us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is <i>superior</i> to him always in subject,
+composition, and variety."&mdash;Shade of Gainsborough!&mdash;deep-thoughted,
+solemn Gainsborough,&mdash;forgive us for re-writing this sentence; we do so to
+gibbet its perpetrator forever,&mdash;and leave him swinging in the winds of the
+Fool's Paradise. It is with great pain that I ever speak with severity of
+the works of living masters, especially when, like Mr. Lee's, they are well-intentioned,
+simple, free from affectation or imitation, and evidently painted
+with constant reference to nature. But I believe that these qualities will
+always secure him that admiration which he deserves&mdash;that there will be
+many unsophisticated and honest minds always ready to follow his guidance,
+and answer his efforts with delight; and therefore, that I need not
+fear to point out in him the want of those technical qualities which are
+more especially the object of an artist's admiration. Gainsborough's power
+of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift) is capable of taking
+rank beside that of Rubens; he is the purest colorist&mdash;Sir Joshua himself
+not excepted&mdash;of the whole English school; with him, in fact, the art
+of painting did in great part die, and exists not now in Europe. Evidence
+enough will be seen in the following pages of my devoted admiration of
+Turner; but I hesitate not to say, that in management and quality of single
+and particular tint, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is a
+child of Gainsborough. Now, Mr. Lee never aims at color; he does not
+make it his object in the slightest degree&mdash;the spring green of vegetation is
+all that he desires; and it would be about as rational to compare his works
+with studied pieces of coloring, as the modulation of the Calabrian pipe to
+the harmony of a full orchestra. Gainsborough's hand is as light as the
+sweep of a cloud&mdash;as swift as the flash of a sunbeam; Lee's execution is
+feeble and spotty. Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division
+in heaven of light from darkness; Lee's (perhaps necessarily, considering
+the effects of flickering sunlight at which he aims) are as fragmentary as
+his leaves, and as numerous. Gainsborough's forms are grand, simple, and
+ideal; Lee's are small, confused, and unselected. Gainsborough never
+loses sight of his picture as a whole; Lee is but too apt to be shackled by
+its parts. In a word, Gainsborough is an immortal painter; and Lee,
+though on the right road, is yet in the early stages of his art; and the man
+who could imagine any resemblance or point of comparison between them,
+is not only a novice in art, but has not capacity ever to be anything more. He
+may be pardoned for not comprehending Turner, for long preparation and
+discipline are necessary before the abstract and profound philosophy of that
+artist can be met; but Gainsborough's excellence is based on principles of
+art long acknowledged, and facts of nature universally apparent; and I
+insist more particularly on the reviewer's want of feeling for his works,
+because it proves a truth of which the public ought especially to be assured
+that those who lavish abuse on the great men of modern times, are equally
+incapable of perceiving the real excellence of established canons, are ignorant
+of the commonest and most acknowledged principia of the art, blind to
+the most palpable and comprehensible of its beauties, incapable of distinguishing,
+if left to themselves, a master's work from the vilest school
+copy, and founding their applause of those great works which they praise,
+either in pure hypocrisy, or in admiration of their defects.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_G" href="#FnAnchor_G">[G]</a> There is a fine touch in the Frogs in Aristophanes, alluding probably
+to this part of the Agamemnon.
+<span class="grk" title="Ego d'hechairon tź siōpź kai me tout' heterpen ouk hźttou ź nun hoi lalountes">
+"&Epsilon;&gamma;&#x1f7c; &delta;&#x1fbd;
+&#x1f73;&chi;&alpha;&iota;&rho;&omicron;&nu; &tau;&#x1fc6;
+&sigma;&iota;&omega;&pi;&#x1fc6; &kappa;&alpha;&#x1f76; &mu;&epsilon;
+&tau;&omicron;&#x1fe6;&tau;&#x1fbd;
+&#x1f14;&tau;&epsilon;&rho;&pi;&epsilon;&nu; &omicron;&#x1f7a;&kappa;
+&#x1f20;&tau;&tau;&omicron;&nu; &#x1f40;&iota;
+&lambda;&alpha;&lambda;&omicron;&#x1fe6;&nu;&tau;&epsilon;&sigmaf;</span>." The
+same remark might be well applied to the seemingly vacant or
+incomprehensible portions of Turner's canvas. In their mysterious, and
+intense fire, there is much correspondence between the mind of Ęschylus
+and that of our great painter. They share at least one thing in
+common&mdash;unpopularity.
+
+<span class="grk" title="'Ho dźmos aneboa krisin poiein, XA. o tōn panourgōn; Ai. nź Di, ouranion g' hoson. XA. met' Aischylou ho ouk źsan heteroi symmachoi; AI. oligon to chrźston estin">
+&#x1ffe;&Omicron; &delta;&eta;&mu;&omicron;&sigmaf;
+&#x1f01;&nu;&epsilon;&beta;&#x1f79;&alpha;
+&kappa;&rho;&#x1f77;&sigma;&iota;&nu;
+&pi;&omicron;&iota;&epsilon;&#x1f30;&nu;. &Xi;&Alpha;. &#x1f40;
+&tau;&#x1ff6;&nu;
+&pi;&alpha;&nu;&omicron;&#x1f7a;&rho;&gamma;&omega;&nu;; &Alpha;&Iota;.
+&nu;&eta; &Delta;&#x1f30;,
+&omicron;&#x1f50;&rho;&#x1f71;&nu;&iota;&omicron;&nu; &gamma;&#x1fbd;
+&#x1f41;&sigma;&omicron;&nu;. &Xi;&Alpha;. &mu;&epsilon;&tau;&#x1fbd;
+&Alpha;&#x1f30;&sigma;&chi;&#x1f7b;&lambda;&omicron;&upsilon; &#x1f42;
+&omicron;&#x1f50;&kappa; &#x1f20;&sigma;&alpha;&nu;
+&#x1f11;&tau;&epsilon;&rho;&omicron;&iota;
+&sigma;&#x1f7b;&mu;&mu;&alpha;&chi;&omicron;&iota;; &Alpha;&Iota;.
+&#x1f40;&lambda;&#x1f31;&gamma;&omicron;&nu; &tau;&#x1f78;
+&chi;&rho;&eta;&rho;&tau;&#x1f41;&nu; &#x1f10;&rho;&tau;&iota;&nu;</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_H" href="#FnAnchor_H">[H]</a> I do not know any passage in ancient literature in which this connection
+is more exquisitely illustrated than in the lines, burlesque though they
+be, descriptive of the approach of the chorus in the Clouds of Aristophanes,&mdash;a
+writer, by the way, who, I believe, knew and felt more of the noble
+landscape character of his country than any whose works have come down
+to us except Homer. The individuality and distinctness of conception&mdash;the
+visible cloud character which every word of this particular passage brings
+out into more dewy and bright existence, are to me as refreshing as the real
+breathing of mountain winds. The line
+<span class="grk" title="dia tōn koilōn kai tōn daseōn, plagiai">
+"&delta;&iota;&#x1f70; &tau;&#x1ff6;&nu;
+&kappa;&omicron;&#x1f77;&lambda;&omega;&nu; &kappa;&alpha;&#x1f76;
+&tau;&#x1ff6;&nu; &delta;&alpha;&sigma;&#x1f73;&omega;&nu;,
+&pi;&lambda;&#x1f01;&gamma;&iota;&alpha;&iota;,"</span> could have been written
+by none but an ardent lover of hill scenery&mdash;one who had watched,
+hour after hour, the peculiar oblique, sidelong action of descending
+clouds, as they form along the hollows and ravines of the hills. There
+are no lumpish solidities&mdash;no pillowy protuberances here. All is
+melting, drifting, evanescent,&mdash;full of air, and light, and dew.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_I" href="#FnAnchor_I">[I]</a> Let not this principle be confused with Fuseli's, "love for what is
+called deception in painting marks either the infancy or decrepitude of a
+nation's taste." Realization to the mind necessitates not deception of the
+eye.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_J" href="#FnAnchor_J">[J]</a> I shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are principles
+of universal beauty common to all the creatures of God; and that it is by
+the greater or less share of these that one form becomes nobler or meaner
+than another.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_K" href="#FnAnchor_K">[K]</a> Is not this&mdash;it may be asked&mdash;demanding more from him than life can
+accomplish? Not one whit. Nothing more than knowledge of external
+characteristics is absolutely required; and even if, which were more desirable,
+thorough scientific knowledge had to be attained, the time which our
+artists spend in multiplying crude sketches, or finishing their unintelligent
+embryos of the study, would render them masters of every science that
+modern investigations have organized, and familiar with every form that
+Nature manifests. Martin, if the time which he must have spent on the
+abortive bubbles of his Canute had been passed in working on the seashore,
+might have learned enough to enable him to produce, with a few
+strokes, a picture which would have smote like the sound of the sea, upon
+men's hearts forever.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_L" href="#FnAnchor_L">[L]</a></p>
+
+<p class="poemq">
+"A green field is a sight which makes us pardon <br />
+The absence of that more sublime construction <br />
+Which mixes up vines, olive, precipices, <br />
+Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices."</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="padding-right: 6em; "><i>Don Juan.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_M" href="#FnAnchor_M">[M]</a> The vegetable soil of the Campagna is chiefly formed by decomposed
+lavas, and under it lies a bed of white pumice, exactly resembling remnants
+of bones.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_N" href="#FnAnchor_N">[N]</a> The feelings of Constable with respect to his art might be almost a
+model for the young student, were it not that they err a little on the other
+side, and are perhaps in need of chastening and guiding from the works of
+his fellow-men. We should use pictures not as authorities, but as comments
+on nature, just as we use divines, not as authorities, but as comments on the
+Bible. Constable, in his dread of saint-worship, excommunicates himself
+from all benefit of the Church, and deprives himself of much instruction
+from the Scripture to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the
+reading of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beaumont, on
+the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes given of him in Constable's life, a
+melancholy instance of the degradation into which the human mind may
+fall, when it suffers human works to interfere between it and its Master.
+The recommending the color of an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing
+tone of everything, and the vapid inquiry of the conventionalist, "Where
+do you put your brown tree?" show a prostration of intellect so laughable
+and lamentable, that they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the
+gallery, a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile indolence
+in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous extremes
+to be shunned,&mdash;forgetfulness of the Scripture, and scorn of the divine&mdash;slavery
+on the one hand, free-thinking on the other. The mean is nearly as
+difficult to determine or keep in art as in religion, but the great danger is
+on the side of superstition. He who walks humbly with Nature will
+seldom be in danger of losing sight of Art. He will commonly find in all
+that is truly great of man's works, something of their original, for which he
+will regard them with gratitude, and sometimes follow them with respect;
+while he who takes Art for his authority may entirely lose sight of all that
+it interprets, and sink at once into the sin of an idolater, and the degradation
+of a slave.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_O" href="#FnAnchor_O">[O]</a> I should have insisted more on this fault (for it is a fatal one) in the
+following Essay, but the cause of it rests rather with the public than with
+the artist, and in the necessities of the public as much as in their will.
+Such pictures as artists themselves would wish to paint, could not be executed
+under very high prices; and it must always be easier, in the present
+state of society, to find ten purchasers of ten-guinea sketches, than one purchaser
+for a hundred-guinea picture. Still, I have been often both surprised
+and grieved to see that any effort on the part of our artists to rise above
+manufacture&mdash;any struggle to something like completed conception&mdash;was
+left by the public to be its own reward. In the water-color exhibition of
+last year there was a noble work of David Cox's, ideal in the right sense&mdash;a
+forest hollow with a few sheep crushing down through its deep fern, and a
+solemn opening of evening sky above its dark masses of distance. It was
+worth all his little bits on the walls put together. Yet the public picked up
+all the little bits&mdash;blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn&mdash;all
+that was clever and petite; and the real picture&mdash;the full development of
+the artist's mind&mdash;was left on his hands. How can I, or any one else, with
+a conscience, advise him after this to aim at anything more than may be
+struck out by the cleverness of a quarter of an hour. Cattermole, I believe,
+is earthed and shackled in the same manner. He began his career with
+finished and studied pictures, which, I believe, never paid him&mdash;he now
+prostitutes his fine talent to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his
+way to emolument and oblivion. There is commonly, however, fault on
+both sides; in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank tricks
+of the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the knowledge and
+labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he has himself formed in
+his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a common actor will oftentimes
+render apparently vapid the finished touches of perfect nature; and in the
+public, for taking less real pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate,
+the various powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate
+the excellence of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexlviii"></a>[Page xlviii]</span></p>
+<div style="padding-top: 1em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexlix"></a>[Page xlix]</span></p>
+<h3>PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.</h3>
+
+<p>It is with much regret, and partly against my own judgment,
+that I republish the following chapters in their present
+form. The particular circumstances (stated in the first preface)
+under which they were originally written, have rendered them
+so unfit for the position they now hold as introductory to a serious
+examination of the general functions of art, that I should
+have wished first to complete the succeeding portions of the
+essay, and then to write another introduction of more fitting
+character. But as it may be long before I am able to do this,
+and as I believe what I have already written may still be of some
+limited and partial service, I have suffered it to reappear, trusting
+to the kindness of the reader to look to its intention rather
+than its temper, and forgive its inconsideration in its earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever
+I have found a passage which I thought required modification
+or explanation, I have cut it out; what I have left, however
+imperfect, cannot I think be dangerously misunderstood:
+something I have added, not under the idea of rendering the
+work in any wise systematic or complete, but to supply gross
+omissions, answer inevitable objections, and give some substance
+to passages of mere declamation.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever inadequacy or error there may be, throughout, in
+materials or modes of demonstration, I have no doubt of the
+truth and necessity of the main result; and though the reader
+may, perhaps, find me frequently hereafter showing other and
+better grounds for what is here affirmed, yet the point and bearing
+of the book, its determined depreciation of Claude, Salvator,
+Gaspar, and Canaletto, and its equally determined support of
+Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of Turner's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagel"></a>[Page l]</span>
+recent works as his finest, are good and right; and if the prevalence
+throughout of attack and eulogium be found irksome or
+offensive, let it be remembered that my object thus far has not
+been either the establishment or the teaching of any principles
+of art, but the vindication, most necessary to the prosperity of
+our present schools, of the uncomprehended rank of their greatest
+artist, and the diminution, equally necessary as I think to
+the prosperity of our schools, of the unadvised admiration of the
+landscape of the seventeenth century. For I believe it to be
+almost impossible to state in terms sufficiently serious and severe
+the depth and extent of the evil which has resulted (and that
+not in art alone, but in all other matters with which the contemplative
+faculties are concerned) from the works of those elder
+men. On the continent all landscape art has been utterly annihilated
+by them, and with it all sense of the power of nature.
+We in England have only done better because our artists have
+had strength of mind enough to form a school withdrawn from
+their influence.</p>
+
+<p>These points are somewhat farther developed in the general
+sketch of ancient and modern landscape, which I have added to
+the first section of the second part. Some important additions
+have also been made to the chapters on the painting of sea.
+Throughout the rest of the text, though something is withdrawn,
+little is changed; and the reader may rest assured that
+if I were now to bestow on this feeble essay the careful revision
+which it much needs, but little deserves, it would not be to alter
+its tendencies, or modify its conclusions, but to prevent indignation
+from appearing virulence on the one side, and enthusiasm
+partisanship on the other.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageli"></a>[Page li]</span></p>
+<h3>PREFACE TO NEW EDITION (1873).</h3>
+
+<p>I have been lately so often asked by friends on whose judgment
+I can rely, to permit the publication of another edition of
+"Modern Painters" in its original form, that I have at last
+yielded, though with some violence to my own feelings; for many
+parts of the first and second volumes are written in a narrow
+enthusiasm, and the substance of their metaphysical and religious
+speculation is only justifiable on the ground of its absolute
+honesty. Of the third, fourth, and fifth volumes I indeed mean
+eventually to rearrange what I think of permanent interest, for
+the complete edition of my works, but with fewer and less elaborate
+illustrations: nor have I any serious grounds for refusing
+to allow the book once more to appear in the irregular form
+which it took as it was written, since of the art-teaching and
+landscape description it contains I have little to retrench, and
+nothing to retract.</p>
+
+<p>This final edition must, however, be limited to a thousand
+copies, for some of the more delicate plates are already worn,
+that of the Mill Stream in the fifth volume, and of the Loire
+Side very injuriously; while that of the Shores of Wharfe had to
+be retouched by an engraver after the removal of the mezzotint
+for reprinting. But Mr. Armytage's, Mr. Cousen's, and Mr.
+Cuff's magnificent plates are still in good state, and my own
+etchings, though injured, are still good enough to answer their
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelii"></a>[Page lii]</span></p>
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageliii"></a>[Page liii]</span></p>
+<h3>SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.</h3>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<h3>PART I.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.</h4>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<h3>SECTION I.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter I.</span>&mdash;Introductory.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="spac">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><span class="sc">page</span></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c1p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long periods of time.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page001">1</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And therefore obstinate when once formed.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page004">4</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page005">5</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But only on points capable of demonstration.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page005">5</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The author's partiality to modern works excusable.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page006">6</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter II.</span>&mdash;Definition of Greatness in Art.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and technical knowledge.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page008">8</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Painting, as such, is nothing more than language.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page008">8</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">"Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page009">9</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Example in a painting of E. Landseer's.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page009">9</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page009">9</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Distinction between decorative and expressive language.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page010">10</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page010">10</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page011">11</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c2p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The definition.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page012">12</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter III.</span>&mdash;Of Ideas of Power.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">What classes of ideas are conveyable by art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page013">13</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page013">13</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But are received from whatever has been the subject of power. The meaning of the word "excellence."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page014">14</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">What is necessary to the distinguishing of excellence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pageliv"></a>[Page liv]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page015">15</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page016">16</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter IV.</span>&mdash;Of Ideas of Imitation.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c4p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">False use of the term "imitation" by many writers on art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page017">17</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c4p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Real meaning of the term.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page018">18</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c4p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">What is requisite to the sense of imitation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page018">18</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c4p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible that can be derived from art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page019">19</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c4p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Imitation is only of contemptible subjects.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page019">19</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c4p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Imitation is contemptible because it is easy.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page020">20</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c4p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page020">20</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter V.</span>&mdash;Of Ideas of Truth.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c5p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page021">21</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c5p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">First difference between truth and imitation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page021">21</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c5p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Second difference.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page021">21</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c5p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Third difference.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page022">22</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c5p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">No accurate truths necessary to imitation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page022">22</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c5p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page024">24</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter VI.</span>&mdash;Of Ideas of Beauty.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c6p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Definition of the term "beautiful."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page026">26</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c6p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Definition of the term "taste."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page026">26</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c6p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Distinction between taste and judgment.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page027">27</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c6p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How far beauty may become intellectual.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page027">27</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c6p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The high rank and function of ideas of beauty.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page028">28</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c6p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page028">28</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter VII.</span>&mdash;Of Ideas of Relation.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c7p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General meaning of the term.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page029">29</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c7p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">ideas are to be comprehended under it.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page029">29</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c7p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The exceeding nobility of these ideas.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page030">30</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s1c7p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page031">31</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3>SECTION II.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF POWER.</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter I.</span>&mdash;General Principles respecting Ideas of Power.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page032">32</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Nor for separate study of ideas of power.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page032">32</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Except under one particular form.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page033">33</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly inconsistent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelv"></a>[Page lv]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page033">33</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">First reason of the inconsistency.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page033">33</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Second reason for the inconsistency.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page034">34</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page034">34</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Instances in pictures of modern artists.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page035">35</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c1p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page035">35</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter II.</span>&mdash;Of Ideas of Power, as they are dependent
+upon Execution.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Meaning of the term "execution."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page036">36</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The first quality of execution is truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page036">36</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The second, simplicity.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page036">36</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The third, mystery.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page037">37</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The fourth, inadequacy; and the fifth, decision.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page037">37</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The sixth, velocity.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page037">37</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page037">37</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are inconsistent with each other.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page038">38</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the lowest.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page039">39</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Therefore perilous.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page040">40</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c2p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page040">40</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter III.</span>&mdash;Of the Sublime.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Sublimity is the effect upon the mind of anything above it.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page041">41</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and why.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page041">41</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Danger is sublime, but not the fear of it.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page042">42</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The highest beauty is sublime.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page042">42</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And generally whatever elevates the mind.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page042">42</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#s2c3p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page042">42</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<h3>PART II.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF TRUTH.</h4>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<h3>SECTION I.</h3>
+
+<h5>GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter I.</span>&mdash;Of Ideas of Truth in their connection with
+those of Beauty and Relation.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation of facts and thoughts.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page044">44</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">They induce a different choice of material subjects.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelvi"></a>[Page lvi]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page045">45</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page045">45</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The second necessitating variety.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page045">45</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Yet the first is delightful to all.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page046">46</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The second only to a few.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page046">46</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The first necessary to the second.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page047">47</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The exceeding importance of truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page047">48</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page048">48</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c1p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page048">48</a></td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter II.</span>&mdash;That the Truth of Nature is not to be discerned
+by the Uneducated Senses.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The common self-deception of men with respect to their power of discerning truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page050">50</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Men usually see little of what is before their eyes.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page051">51</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to what is beautiful.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page052">52</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page052">52</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of the intellectual powers.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page053">53</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How sight depends upon previous knowledge.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page054">54</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page055">55</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">We recognize objects by their least important attributes. Compare Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page055">55</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter III.</span>&mdash;Of the Relative Importance of Truths:&mdash;First,
+that Particular Truths are more important than General Ones.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page058">58</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more important than particular ones."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page058">58</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Falseness of this maxim, taken without explanation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page059">59</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Generality important in the subject, particularity in the predicate.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page059">59</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The importance of truths of species is not owing to their generality.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page060">60</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">All truths valuable as they are characteristic.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page061">61</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Otherwise truths of species are valuable, because beautiful.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page061">61</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in connection with others.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page061">62</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c3p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page063">63</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelvii"></a>[Page lvii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter IV.</span>&mdash;Of the Relative Importance of Truths:&mdash;Secondly,
+that Rare Truths are more important than Frequent Ones.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c4p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">No accidental violation of nature's principles should be represented.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page064">64</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c4p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly exemplified.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page065">65</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c4p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Which are comparatively rare.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page065">65</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c4p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">All repetition is blamable.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page065">65</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c4p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page066">66</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter V.</span>&mdash;Of the Relative Importance of Truths:&mdash;Thirdly,
+that Truths of Color are the least important of all Truths.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page067">67</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page067">67</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than form.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page068">68</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Color no distinction between objects of the same species.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page068">68</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And different in association from what it is alone.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page069">69</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">It is not certain whether any two people see the same colors in things.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page069">69</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Form, considered as an element of landscape, includes light and shade.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page069">69</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of bodies, and unimportance of color.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page070">70</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c5p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page071">71</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter VI.</span>&mdash;Recapitulation.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c6p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The importance of historical truths.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page072">72</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c6p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths. Tone, light, and color, are secondary.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page072">72</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c6p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page073">73</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter VII.</span>&mdash;General Application of the Foregoing Principles.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The different selection of facts consequent on the several aims at imitation or at truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page074">74</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page074">74</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">What truths they gave.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page075">75</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The principles of selection adopted by modern artists.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page076">76</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted with the freedom and vastness of nature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page077">77</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelviii"></a>[Page lviii]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page078">78</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page079">79</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The value of inferior works of art, how to be estimated.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page080">80</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its completion.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page081">81</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Finish, and the want of it, how right&mdash;and how wrong.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page082">82</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page084">84</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page086">86</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page088">88</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page089">89</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">German and Flemish landscape.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page090">90</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The lower Dutch schools.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page092">92</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">English school, Wilson and Gainsborough.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page093">93</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Constable, Callcott.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page094">94</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page095">95</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page095">95</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page097">97</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Beauty of mountain foreground.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page099">99</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">De Wint.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page101">101</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page101">101</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p25">§&nbsp;25.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page103">103</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p26">§&nbsp;26.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page104">104</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p27">§&nbsp;27.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page106">106</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p28">§&nbsp;28.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page107">107</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p29">§&nbsp;29.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of the Venetians generally.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page109">109</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p30">§&nbsp;30.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page110">110</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p31">§&nbsp;31.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Expression of the effects of age on Architecture by S. Prout.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page112">112</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p32">§&nbsp;32.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His excellent composition and color.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page114">114</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p33">§&nbsp;33.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page115">115</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p34">§&nbsp;34.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The evil in an archęological point of view of misapplied invention, in architectural subject.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page117">117</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p35">§&nbsp;35.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Works of David Roberts: their fidelity and grace.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page118">118</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p36">§&nbsp;36.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Clarkson Stanfield.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page121">121</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p37">§&nbsp;37.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great painters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page123">123</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p38">§&nbsp;38.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page125">125</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p39">§&nbsp;39.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its peculiar manifestation in Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page125">125</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p40">§&nbsp;40.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page127">127</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p41">§&nbsp;41.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter deficient.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page129">129</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p42">§&nbsp;42.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His rendering of Italian character still less successful. His large compositions how failing.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page130">130</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p43">§&nbsp;43.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant quantity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelix"></a>[Page lix]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page133">133</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p44">§&nbsp;44.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Changes introduced by him in the received system of art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page133">133</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p45">§&nbsp;45.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page134">134</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p46">§&nbsp;46.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Reflection of his very recent works.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page137">137</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s1c7p47">§&nbsp;47.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page139">139</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3>SECTION II.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF GENERAL TRUTHS.</h5>
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter I.</span>&mdash;Of Truth of Tone.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Meanings of the word "tone:"&mdash;First, the right relation of objects in shadow to the principal light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page140">140</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Secondly, the quality of color by which it is felt to owe part of its brightness to the hue of light upon it.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page140">140</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difference between tone in its first sense and aerial perspective.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page141">141</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle tints to light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page141">141</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to darkness.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page141">141</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General falsehood of such a system.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page143">143</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The principle of Turner in this respect.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page143">143</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Comparison of N. Poussin's "Phocion."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page144">144</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">With Turner's "Mercury and Argus."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page145">145</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And with the "Datur Hora Quieti."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page145">145</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The second sense of the word "tone."</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page146">146</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings and drawings of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page146">146</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Not owing to want of power over the material.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page146">146</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The two distinct qualities of light to be considered.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page147">147</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality in light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page148">148</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner will not use such means.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page148">148</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page148">148</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The second quality of light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page148">148</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The perfection of Cuyp in this respect interfered with by numerous solecisms.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page150">150</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner is not so perfect in parts&mdash;far more so in the whole.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page151">151</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page152">152</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c1p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page153">153</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelx"></a>[Page lx]</span></p>
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> II.&mdash;Of Truth of Color.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Observations on the color of G. Poussin's La Riccia.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page155">155</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">As compared with the actual scene.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page155">155</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner himself is inferior in brilliancy to nature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page157">157</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page157">157</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Poussin, and Claude.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page158">158</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's translation of colors.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page160">160</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even approach that of reality.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page161">161</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect to their representation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page162">162</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Color of the Napoleon.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page163">163</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of color and light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page164">164</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">This discrepancy less in Turner than in other colorists.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page165">165</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page165">165</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid color.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page166">166</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The basis of gray, under all his vivid hues.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page167">167</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page168">168</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page168">168</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His dislike of purple, and fondness for the opposition of yellow and black. The principles of nature in this respect.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page169">169</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His early works are false in color.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page170">170</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His drawings invariably perfect.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page171">171</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c2p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The subjection of his system of color to that of chiaroscuro.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page171">171</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> III.&mdash;Of Truth of Chiaroscuro.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">We are not at present to examine particular effects of light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page174">174</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means of expressing vividness of light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page175">175</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian school.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page175">175</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And partial absence in the Dutch.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page176">176</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The perfection of Turner's works in this respect.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page177">177</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The effect of his shadows upon the light.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page178">178</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the ancient and modern schools.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page179">179</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and deep shadow are used in equal quantity, and only in points.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page180">180</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page180">180</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And consequent misguiding of the student.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page181">181</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The great value of a simple chiaroscuro.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page182">182</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle tint.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page182">182</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c3p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The truth of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page183">183</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxi"></a>[Page lxi]</span></p>
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> IV.&mdash;Of Truth of Space:&mdash;First, as Dependent on the Focus of the Eye.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than by their hue.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page185">185</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances distinctly at one moment.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page186">186</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Especially such as are both comparatively near.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page186">186</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must be partially sacrificed.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page187">187</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Which not being done by the old masters, they could not express space.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page187">187</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying out this principle.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page188">188</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Especially of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page189">189</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c4p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page189">189</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> V.&mdash;Of Truth of Space:&mdash;Secondly, as its Appearance is dependent on the Power of the Eye.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of objects from the eye.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page191">191</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page191">191</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Instances in various objects.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page192">192</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Two great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct, and never vacant.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page193">193</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Complete violation of both these principles by the old masters. They are either distinct or vacant.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page193">193</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Instances from Nicholas Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page194">194</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">From Claude.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page194">194</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And G. Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page195">195</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness and finish.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page196">196</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Breadth is not vacancy.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page197">197</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page198">198</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Farther illustrations in architectural drawing.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page199">199</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">In near objects as well as distances.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page199">199</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page200">200</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page200">200</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by vacancy.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page202">202</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Swift execution best secures perfection of details.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page202">202</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical subjects.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page202">202</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s2c5p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation of the section.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page203">203</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxii"></a>[Page lxii]</span></p>
+<h3>SECTION III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF SKIES.</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> I.&mdash;Of the Open Sky.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and teaching of man.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page204">204</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The carelessness with which its lessons are received.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page205">205</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page205">205</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page205">205</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Nature, and essential qualities of the open blue.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page206">206</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its connection with clouds.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page207">207</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its exceeding depth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page207">207</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">These qualities are especially given by modern masters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page207">207</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And by Claude.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page208">208</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his general treatment of open sky.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page208">208</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Errors of Cuyp in graduation of color.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page209">209</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and Dutch schools. Their qualities are unattainable in modern times.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page210">210</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page211">211</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky is free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page211">211</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by the old masters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page212">212</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be represented.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page213">213</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more delicate phenomena of rays.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page213">213</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the works of the old masters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page213">213</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Truth of the skies of modern drawings.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page214">214</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c1p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in <i>quality</i>, inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page215">215</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> II.&mdash;Of Truth of Clouds:&mdash;First, of the Region of the Cirrus.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds consists.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page216">216</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Variation of their character at different elevations. The three regions to which they may conveniently be considered as belonging.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page216">216</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Extent of the upper region.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page217">217</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxiii"></a>[Page lxiii]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page217">217</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their exceeding delicacy.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page218">218</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their number.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page218">218</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Causes of their peculiarly delicate coloring.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page219">219</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their variety of form.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page219">219</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Total absence of even the slightest effort at their representation, in ancient landscape.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page220">220</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The intense and constant study of them by Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page221">221</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page222">222</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His use of the cirrus in expressing mist.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page223">223</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His consistency in every minor feature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page224">224</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The color of the upper clouds.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page224">224</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c2p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page225">225</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> III.&mdash;Of  Truth of Clouds:&mdash;Secondly, of the Central Cloud Region.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Extent and typical character of the central cloud region.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page226">226</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought for their representation, are therefore favorite subjects with the old masters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page226">226</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The clouds of Salvator and Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page227">227</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their essential characters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page227">227</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their angular forms and general decision of outline.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page228">228</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The composition of their minor curves.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page229">229</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their characters, as given by S. Rosa.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page230">230</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian school <span class="correction" title="page number corrected from 239">generally</span>.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page230">230</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Vast size of congregated masses of cloud.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page231">231</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page231">231</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And consequent divisions and varieties of feature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page232">232</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Not lightly to be omitted.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page232">232</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Imperfect conceptions of this size and extent in ancient landscape.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page233">233</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of ancient landscape.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page234">234</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Farther proof of their deficiency in space.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page235">235</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page236">236</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And in his Pools of Solomon.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page237">237</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Truths of outline and character in his Como.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page237">237</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page238">238</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of Geneva.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page238">238</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Farther principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page239">239</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Reasons for insisting on the <i>infinity</i> of Turner's works. Infinity is almost an unerring test of <i>all</i> truth<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxiv"></a>[Page lxiv]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page239">239</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page240">240</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The conclusions which may be arrived at from it.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page240">240</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p25">§&nbsp;25.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will not give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page241">241</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p26">§&nbsp;26.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page242">242</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p27">§&nbsp;27.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page242">242</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c3p28">§&nbsp;28.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The average standing of the English school.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page243">243</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> IV.&mdash;Of Truth of Clouds:&mdash;Thirdly, of the Region of the Rain-Cloud.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The apparent difference in character between the lower and central clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page244">244</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their marked differences in color.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page244">244</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And in definiteness of form.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page245">245</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">They are subject to precisely the same great laws.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page245">245</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page246">246</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The old masters have not left a single instance of the painting of the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it. Gaspar Poussin's storms.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page247">247</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The great power of the moderns in this respect.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page248">248</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Works of Copley Fielding.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page248">248</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His peculiar truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page248">248</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His weakness, and its probable cause.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page249">249</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from engravings.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page250">250</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page250">250</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of smoke and steam.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page250">250</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page251">251</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch Coriskin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page252">252</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page253">253</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The individual character of its parts.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page253">253</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Deep-studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page254">254</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Compared with forms given by Salvator.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page254">254</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and circumstances in the Coventry.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page255">255</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page255">255</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky only seen after rain, and how seen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxv"></a>[Page lxv]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page256">256</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Absence of this effect in the works of the old masters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page256">256</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it by Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page257">257</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p25">§&nbsp;25.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page257">257</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p26">§&nbsp;26.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and Ęneas.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page258">258</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p27">§&nbsp;27.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's power of rendering mist.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page258">258</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p28">§&nbsp;28.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once understood, they can no more be explained or reasoned on than nature herself.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page259">259</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p29">§&nbsp;29.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Various instances.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page259">259</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p30">§&nbsp;30.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by engravers.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page260">260</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p31">§&nbsp;31.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General system of landscape engraving.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page260">260</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p32">§&nbsp;32.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The storm in the Stonehenge.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page260">260</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p33">§&nbsp;33.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General character of such effects as given by Turner. His expression of falling rain.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page261">261</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p34">§&nbsp;34.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Recapitulation of the section.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page261">261</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p35">§&nbsp;35.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole, compared with the works of Turner and of the old masters. Morning on the plains.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page262">262</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p36">§&nbsp;36.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Noon with gathering storms.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page263">263</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p37">§&nbsp;37.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page264">264</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c4p38">§&nbsp;38.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And sunrise on the Alps.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page264">264</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> V.&mdash;Effects of Light rendered by Modern Art.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c5p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Reasons for merely, at present, naming, without examining the particular effects of light rendered by Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page266">266</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s3c5p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Hopes of the author for assistance in the future investigation of them.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page266">266</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+
+<h3>SECTION IV.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF EARTH.</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> I.&mdash;Of General Structure.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c1p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">First laws of the organization of the earth, and their importance in art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page270">270</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study by modern artists.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page271">271</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General structure of the earth. The hills are its action, the plains its rest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxvi"></a>[Page lxvi]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page271">271</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their support.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page272">272</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when deposited by quiet water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page273">273</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c1p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Illustrated by Turner's Marengo.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page273">273</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c1p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General divisions of formation resulting from this arrangement. Plan of investigation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page274">274</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> II.&mdash;Of the Central Mountains.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the world.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page275">275</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical fissures.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page275">275</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page276">276</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps at Daybreak.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page276">276</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Vignette of the Andes and others.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page277">277</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such mountains.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page277">277</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page278">278</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of Claude.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page278">278</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page279">279</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And violation of specific form.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page280">280</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Even in his best works.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page280">280</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Farther illustration of the distant character of mountain chains.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page281">281</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their excessive appearance of transparency.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page281">281</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The Borromean Islands of the latter.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page282">282</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's Arona.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page283">283</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by very sharp outline.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page283">283</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Want of this decision in Claude.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page284">284</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The perpetual rendering of it by Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page285">285</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Effects of snow, how imperfectly studied.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page285">285</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General principles of its forms on the Alps.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page287">287</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c2p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has scarcely yet been caught.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page289">289</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxvii"></a>[Page lxvii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> III.&mdash;Of the Inferior Mountains.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central, by being divided into beds.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page290">290</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Farther division of these beds by joints.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page290">290</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And by lines of lamination.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page291">291</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are manifested.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page291">291</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page292">292</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Glencoe and other works.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page293">293</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Especially the Mount Lebanon.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page293">293</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Compared with the work of Salvator.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page294">294</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page295">295</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Effects of external influence on mountain form.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page296">296</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page297">297</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And the effect of the action of torrents.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page297">297</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The exceeding simplicity of contour caused by these influences.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page298">298</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And multiplicity of feature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page299">299</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Both utterly neglected in ancient art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page299">299</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The fidelity of treatment in Turner's Daphne and Leucippus.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page300">300</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And in the Avalanche and Inundation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page300">300</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The rarity among secondary hills of steep slopes or high precipices.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page301">301</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And consequent expression of horizontal distance in their ascent.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page302">302</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Full statement of all these facts in various works of Turner.&mdash;Caudebec, etc.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page302">302</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The use of considering geological truths.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page303">303</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the work of Claude.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page304">304</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher hills.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page304">304</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The peculiar difficulty of investigating the more essential truths of hill outline.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page305">305</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p25">§&nbsp;25.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Works of other modern artists.&mdash;Clarkson Stanfield.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page305">305</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p26">§&nbsp;26.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page306">306</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p27">§&nbsp;27.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Works of Copley Fielding. His high feeling.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page307">307</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c3p28">§&nbsp;28.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Works of J. D. Harding and others.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page308">308</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> IV.&mdash;Of the Foreground.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">What rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape foreground.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page309">309</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Salvator's limestones. The real characters of the rock. Its fractures, and obtuseness of angles.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page309">309</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Salvator's acute angles caused by the meeting of concave curves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxviii"></a>[Page lxviii]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page310">310</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of nature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page311">311</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Peculiar confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page311">311</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page311">311</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Instances in particular pictures.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page312">312</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Compared with the works of Stanfield.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page312">312</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their absolute opposition in every particular.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page313">313</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The rocks of J. D. Harding.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page313">313</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Characters of loose earth and soil.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page314">314</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its exceeding grace and fulness of feature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page315">315</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The ground of Teniers.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page315">315</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Importance of these minor parts and points.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page316">316</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The observance of them is the real distinction between the master and the novice.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page316">316</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Ground of Cuyp.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page317">317</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of Claude.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page317">317</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The entire weakness and childishness of the latter.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page318">318</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Compared with the work of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page318">318</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General features of Turner's foreground.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page319">319</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page319">319</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their convex surfaces and fractured edges.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page319">319</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And perfect unity.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page320">320</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Various parts whose history is told us by the details of the drawing.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page321">321</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p25">§&nbsp;25.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the Llanthony.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page321">321</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p26">§&nbsp;26.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page322">322</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p27">§&nbsp;27.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of complicated foreground.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page323">323</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p28">§&nbsp;28.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of loose soil.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page323">323</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p29">§&nbsp;29.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The unison of all in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy pictures.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page324">324</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s4c4p30">§&nbsp;30.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And the great lesson to be received from all.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page324">324</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<h3>SECTION V.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF WATER.</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> I.&mdash;Of Water, as Painted by the Ancients.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page325">325</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The ease with which a common representation of it may be given. The impossibility of a faithful one.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page325">325</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difficulty of properly dividing the subject.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page326">326</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among all painters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page326">326</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difficulty of treating this part of the subject.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page328">328</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, The imperfection of its reflective surface.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxix"></a>[Page lxix]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page329">329</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does not affect right ones.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page330">330</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Water takes no shadow.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page331">331</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Modification of dark reflections by shadow.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page332">332</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Examples on the waters of the Rhone.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page333">333</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Effect of ripple on distant water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page335">335</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Elongation of reflections by moving water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page335">335</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page336">336</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">To what extent reflection is visible from above.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page336">336</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Deflection of images on agitated water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page337">337</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science. Licenses, how taken by great men.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page337">337</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp, Vandevelde.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page339">339</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And Canaletto.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page341">341</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Why unpardonable.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page342">342</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The Dutch painters of sea.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page343">343</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page344">344</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Nicolo Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page345">345</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c1p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page346">346</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">chapter</span> II.&mdash;Of Water, as Painted by the Moderns.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. The lakes of Fielding.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page348">348</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The calm rivers of De Wint, J. Holland, &amp;c.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page348">348</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The character of bright and violent falling water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page349">349</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">As given by Nesfield.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page349">349</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page350">350</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His color; and painting of sea.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page350">350</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The sea of Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page351">351</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its high aim at character.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page351">351</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page352">352</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Variety of the grays of nature.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page352">352</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page353">353</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c2p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern art.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page353">353</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> III.&mdash;Of Water, as Painted by Turner.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page355">355</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by which the reflected rays are perceived.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page355">355</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by distinctness of reflections.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page356">356</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How avoided by Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page357">357</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">All reflections on distant water are distinct.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxx"></a>[Page lxx]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page357">357</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The error of Vandevelde.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page358">358</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected object and its image.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page359">359</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Illustrated from the works of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page359">359</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page360">360</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The <i>texture</i> of surface in Turner's painting of calm water.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page361">361</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its united qualities.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page361">361</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, &amp;c., by the most trifling incidents, as in the Cowes.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page363">363</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">In scenes on the Loire and Seine.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page363">363</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page364">364</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Various other instances.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page364">364</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's painting of distant expanses of water.&mdash;Calm, interrupted by ripple.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page365">365</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And rippled, crossed by sunshine.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page365">365</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His drawing of distant rivers.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page366">366</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of surface associated with mist.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page367">367</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of weight.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page367">367</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by him.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page368">368</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of its bed.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page369">369</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page370">370</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its exquisite curved lines.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page370">370</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p25">§&nbsp;25.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's careful choice of the historical truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page370">370</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p26">§&nbsp;26.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the Llanthony Abbey.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page371">371</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p27">§&nbsp;27.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page372">372</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p28">§&nbsp;28.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Various cases.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page372">372</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p29">§&nbsp;29.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page373">373</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p30">§&nbsp;30.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page374">374</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p31">§&nbsp;31.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Their effect how injured when seen from the shore.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page375">375</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p32">§&nbsp;32.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page376">376</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p33">§&nbsp;33.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">With peculiar expression of weight.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page376">376</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p34">§&nbsp;34.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Peculiar action of recoiling waves.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page377">377</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p35">§&nbsp;35.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page377">377</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p36">§&nbsp;36.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in the Land's End.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page378">378</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p37">§&nbsp;37.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Open seas of Turner's earlier time.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page379">379</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p38">§&nbsp;38.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Effect of sea after prolonged storm.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page380">380</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p39">§&nbsp;39.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Turner's noblest work, the painting of the deep open sea in the Slave Ship.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page382">382</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s5c3p40">§&nbsp;40.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Its united excellences and perfection as a whole.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page383">383</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxxi"></a>[Page lxxi]</span></p>
+
+<h3>SECTION VI.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.&mdash;CONCLUSION.</h5>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> I.&mdash;Of Truth of Vegetation.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Frequent occurrence of foliage in the works of the old masters.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page384">384</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not taper, but only divide.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page385">385</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page385">385</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And care of nature to conceal the parallelism.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page386">386</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The degree of tapering which may be represented as continuous.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page386">386</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The trees of Gaspar Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page386">386</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And of the Italian school generally, defy this law.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page387">387</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The truth, as it is given by J. D. Harding.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page387">387</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Boughs, in consequence of this law, <i>must</i> diminish where they divide. Those of the old masters often do not.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page388">388</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old masters do not.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page389">389</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Bough-drawing of Salvator.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page390">390</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches, and concentrated in a work of G. Poussin's.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page391">391</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them by wind.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page392">392</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Bough-drawing of Titian.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page392">392</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Bough-drawing of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page394">394</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Leafage. Its variety and symmetry.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page394">394</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Perfect regularity of Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page395">395</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page396">396</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page396">396</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How followed by Creswick.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page397">397</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Perfect unity in nature's foliage.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page398">398</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Total want of it in Both and Hobbima.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page398">398</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How rendered by Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page399">399</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page399">399</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p25">§&nbsp;25.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page400">400</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p26">§&nbsp;26.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Altogether unobserved by the old masters. Always given by Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page401">401</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p27">§&nbsp;27.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Foliage painting on the Continent.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page401">401</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p28">§&nbsp;28.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Foliage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page402">402</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p29">§&nbsp;29.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His brilliancy of execution too manifest.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page403">403</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p30">§&nbsp;30.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His bough-drawing, and choice of form.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page404">404</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p31">§&nbsp;31.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with what advantage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxxii"></a>[Page lxxii]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page404">404</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p32">§&nbsp;32.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Opposition between great manner and great knowledge.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page406">406</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p33">§&nbsp;33.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattermole.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page406">406</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p34">§&nbsp;34.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of light, and offensive if otherwise.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page407">407</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c1p35">§&nbsp;35.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Conclusion. Works of J. Linnel and S. Palmer.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page407">407</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> II.&mdash;General remarks respecting the Truth of Turner.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page409">409</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Extreme difficulty of illustrating or explaining the highest truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page410">410</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The <i>positive</i> rank of Turner is in no degree shown in the foregoing pages, but only his relative rank.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page410">410</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The exceeding refinement of his truth.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page411">411</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">There is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without knowledge.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page411">411</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And nothing which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page412">412</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">His former rank and progress.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page412">412</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c2p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Standing of his present works. Their mystery is the consequence of their fulness.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page413">413</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<p class="chapter"><span class="sc">Chapter</span> III.&mdash;Conclusion.&mdash;Modern Art and Modern
+Criticism.</p>
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p1">§&nbsp;&nbsp;1.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The entire prominence hitherto given to the works of one artist caused only by our not being able to take cognizance of <i>character</i>.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page414">414</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p2">§&nbsp;&nbsp;2.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The feelings of different artists are incapable of full comparison.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page415">415</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p3">§&nbsp;&nbsp;3.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">But the fidelity and truth of each are capable of real comparison.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page415">415</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p4">§&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Especially because they are equally manifested in the treatment of all subjects.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page415">415</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p5">§&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">No man draws one thing well, if he can draw nothing else.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page416">416</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p6">§&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page417">417</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p7">§&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Truth, a standard of all excellence.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page417">417</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p8">§&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page418">418</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p9">§&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page418">418</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p10">§&nbsp;10.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Duty of the press.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page418">418</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p11">§&nbsp;11.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Qualifications necessary for discharging it.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page418">418</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p12">§&nbsp;12.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">General incapability of modern critics.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page419">419</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p13">§&nbsp;13.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And inconsistency with themselves.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page419">419</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p14">§&nbsp;14.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">How the press may really advance the cause of art.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxxiii"></a>[Page lxxiii]</span></td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page420">420</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p15">§&nbsp;15.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page420">420</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p16">§&nbsp;16.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">By which the public defraud themselves.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page421">421</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p17">§&nbsp;17.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page421">421</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p18">§&nbsp;18.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page421">421</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p19">§&nbsp;19.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac"><i>Sketches</i> not sufficiently encouraged.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page422">422</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p20">§&nbsp;20.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Brilliancy of execution or efforts at invention not to be tolerated in young artists.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page422">422</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p21">§&nbsp;21.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">The duty and after privileges of all students.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page423">423</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p22">§&nbsp;22.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of aim.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page423">423</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p23">§&nbsp;23.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">What should be their general aim.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page425">425</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="nspac"><a href="#b2s6c3p24">§&nbsp;24.</a></td>
+      <td class="spac">Duty of the press with respect to the works of Turner.</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page427">427</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxxiv"></a>[Page lxxiv]</span></p>
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagelxxv"></a>[Page lxxv]</span></p>
+<hr class="art" />
+<h2>LIST OF PLATES TO VOLUME I.</h2>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><i>Page.</i></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="spac">Casa Contarini Fasan, Venice</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page111">111</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="center" colspan="2">From a drawing by Ruskin.</td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="spac">The Dogana, and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page136">136</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="center" colspan="2">From a painting by Turner.</td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="spac">Okehampton Castle</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page258">258</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="center" colspan="2">From a painting by Turner.</td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="spac">Port Ruysdael</td>
+      <td class="rsp"><a href="#page377">377</a></td>  </tr>
+<tr>  <td class="center" colspan="2">From a painting by Turner.</td>  </tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="art" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page001"></a>[Page 1]</span></p>
+
+
+<h2>MODERN PAINTERS.</h2>
+<hr class="art" />
+
+<h2>PART I</h2>
+
+<h4>OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.</h4>
+<hr class="art" />
+
+<h3>SECTION I.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE<br />
+BY ART.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>INTRODUCTORY.</h5>
+
+<p>If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing has been
+for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c1p1">§ 1. Public
+opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long periods of
+time.</a></span>possessing in a high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is
+not because the average intellect and feeling of the majority of the
+public are competent in any way to distinguish what is really excellent,
+but because all erroneous opinion is inconsistent, and all ungrounded
+opinion transitory; so that while the fancies and feelings which deny
+deserved honor and award what is undue have neither root nor strength
+sufficient to maintain consistent
+
+testimony for a length of time, the opinions formed on right grounds by
+those few who are in reality competent judges, being necessarily stable,
+communicate themselves gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as
+they extend wider, until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by
+absolute authority, even where the grounds and reasons for them cannot
+be understood. On this gradual victory of what is consistent <span class="pagenum"><a name="page002"></a>[Page 2]</span>
+over what is vacillating, depends the reputation of all that is highest
+in art and literature. For It is an insult to what is really great in
+either, to suppose that it in any way addresses itself to mean or
+uncultivated faculties. It is a matter of the simplest demonstration,
+that no man can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior. His
+inferior may over-estimate him in enthusiasm; or, as is more commonly
+the case, degrade him, in ignorance; but he cannot form a grounded and
+just estimate. Without proving this, however&mdash;which it would take more
+space to do than I can spare&mdash;it is sufficiently evident that there is
+no process of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individually, can
+become right merely by their multitude.<a name="FnAnchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> If I stand by a picture in
+the Academy, and hear twenty persons in succession admiring some paltry
+piece of mechanism or imitation in the lining of a cloak, or the satin
+of a slipper, it is absurd to tell me that they reprobate collectively
+what they admire individually: or, if they pass with apathy by a piece
+of the most noble conception or most perfect truth, because it has in it
+no tricks of the brush nor grimace of expression, it is absurd to tell
+me that they collectively respect what they separately scorn, or that
+the feelings and knowledge of such judges, by any length of time or
+comparison of ideas, could come to any right conclusion with respect to
+what is really high in art. The question is not decided by them, but for
+them;&mdash;decided at first by few: by fewer in proportion as the merits of
+the work are of a higher order. From these few the decision is
+communicated to the number next below them in rank of mind, and by these
+again to a wider and lower circle; each rank being so far cognizant of
+the superiority of that above it, as to receive its decision with
+respect; until, in process of time, the right and consistent opinion is
+communicated to all, and held by all as a matter of faith, the more
+positively in proportion as the grounds of it are less perceived.<a name="FnAnchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page003"></a>[Page 3]</span></p>
+
+<p>But when this process has taken place, and the work has become
+sanctified by time in the minds of men, it is impossible <span class="pagenum"><a name="page004"></a>[Page 4]</span> that
+any new work of equal merit can be impartially compared <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c1p2">§ 2. And
+therefore obstinate when once formed.</a></span>with it, except by minds not only
+educated and generally capable of appreciating merit, but strong enough
+to shake off the weight of prejudice and association, which invariably
+incline them to the older favorite. It is much easier, says Barry, to
+repeat the character recorded of Phidias, than to investigate the merits
+of Agasias. And when, as peculiarly in the case of painting, much
+knowledge of what is technical and practical is necessary to a right
+judgment, so that those alone are competent to pronounce a true verdict
+who are themselves the persons to be judged, and who therefore can give
+no opinion, centuries may elapse before fair comparison can be made
+between two artists of different ages; while the patriarchal excellence
+exercises during the interval a tyrannical&mdash;perhaps, even a blighting,
+influence over the minds, both of the public and of those to whom,
+properly understood, it should serve for a guide and example. In no city
+of Europe where art is a subject of attention, are its prospects so
+hopeless, or its pursuits so resultless, as in Rome; because there,
+among all students, the authority of their predecessors in art is
+supreme and without appeal, and the mindless copyist studies Raffaelle,
+but not what Raffaelle studied. It thus becomes the duty of every one
+capable of demonstrating any definite points <span class="pagenum"><a name="page005"></a>[Page 5]</span> of superiority in
+modern art, and who is in a position in which his doing so will not be
+ungraceful, to encounter without hesitation <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c1p3">§ 3. The author's reasons
+for opposing it in particular instances.</a></span>whatever opprobrium may fall
+upon him from the necessary prejudice even of the most candid minds, and
+from the far more virulent opposition of those who have no hope of
+maintaining their own reputation for discernment but in the support of
+that kind of consecrated merit which may be applauded without an
+inconvenient necessity for reasons. It is my purpose, therefore,
+believing that there are certain points of superiority in modern
+artists, and especially in one or two of their number, which have not
+yet been fully understood, except by those who are scarcely in a
+position admitting the declaration of their conviction, to institute a
+close comparison between the great works of ancient and modern landscape
+art, to raise, as far as possible, the deceptive veil of imaginary light
+through which we are accustomed to gaze upon the patriarchal work, and
+to show the real relations, whether favorable or otherwise, subsisting
+between it and our own. I am fully aware that this is not to be done
+lightly or rashly; that it is the part of every one proposing to
+undertake such a task strictly to examine, with prolonged doubt and
+severe trial, every opinion in any way contrary to the sacred verdict of
+time, and to advance nothing which does not, at least in his own
+conviction, rest on surer ground than mere <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c1p4">§ 4. But only on points
+capable of demonstration.</a></span>feeling or taste. I have accordingly advanced
+nothing in the following pages but with accompanying demonstration,
+which may indeed be true or false&mdash;complete or conditional, but which
+can only be met on its own grounds, and can in no way be borne down or
+affected by mere authority of great names. Yet even thus I should
+scarcely have ventured to speak so decidedly as I have, but for my full
+conviction that we ought not to class the historical painters of the
+fifteenth, and landscape painters of the seventeenth, centuries,
+together, under the general title of "old masters," as if they possessed
+anything like corresponding rank in their respective walks of art. I
+feel assured that the principles on which they worked are totally
+opposed, and that the landscape painters have been honored only because
+they exhibited in mechanical and technical qualities some semblance of
+the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page006"></a>[Page 6]</span> manner of the nobler historical painters, whose principles
+of conception and composition they entirely reversed. The course of
+study which has led me reverently to the feet of Michael Angelo and Da
+Vinci, has alienated me gradually from Claude and Gaspar&mdash;I cannot at
+the same time do homage to power and pettiness&mdash;to the truth of
+consummate science, and the mannerism of undisciplined imagination. And
+let it be understood that whenever hereafter I speak depreciatingly of
+the old masters as a body, I refer to none of the historical painters,
+for whom I entertain a veneration, which though I hope reasonable in its
+grounds, is almost superstitious in degree. Neither, unless he be
+particularly mentioned, do I intend to include Nicholas Poussin, whose
+landscapes have a separate and elevated character, which renders it
+necessary to consider them apart from all others. Speaking generally of
+the older masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator
+Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers, (in his
+landscapes,) P. Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van somethings, and
+Back somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have libelled
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>It will of course be necessary for me in the commencement of the work to
+state briefly those principles on which I conceive all right judgment of
+art must be founded. These introductory chapters I should wish to be
+read carefully, because all criticism must be useless when the terms or
+grounds of it are in any degree ambiguous; and the ordinary language of
+connoisseurs and critics, granting that they understand it themselves,
+is usually mere jargon to others, from their custom of using technical
+terms, by which everything is meant, and nothing is expressed.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c1p5">§5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable.</a></p>
+<p>And if, in the application of these principles, in spite of my endeavor to render it
+impartial, the feeling and fondness which I have for some works of
+modern art escape me sometimes where it should not, let it be pardoned
+as little more than a fair counterbalance to that peculiar veneration
+with which the work of the older master, associated as it has ever been
+in our ears with the expression of whatever is great or perfect, must be
+usually regarded by the reader. I do not say that this veneration is
+wrong, nor that we <span class="pagenum"><a name="page007"></a>[Page 7]</span> should be less attentive to the repeated
+words of time: but let us not forget, that if honor be for the dead,
+gratitude can only be for the living. He who has once stood beside the
+grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever
+closed, feeling how impotent <i>there</i> are the wild love, or the keen
+sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone
+in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness,
+will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart, which can
+only be discharged to the dust. But the lesson which men receive as
+individuals, they do not learn as nations. Again and again they have
+seen their noblest descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to
+garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow, and to pay the
+honor to the ashes, which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not
+displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of
+their busy life, to listen for the few voices, and watch for the few
+lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that
+they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by
+their decay.</p>
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FnAnchor_1">[1]</a> The opinion of a majority is right only when it is more probable
+with each individual that he should be right than that he should be
+wrong, as in the case of a jury. Where it is more probable, with respect
+to each individual, that he should be wrong than right, the opinion of
+the minority is the true one. Thus it is in art.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FnAnchor_2">[2]</a> There are, however, a thousand modifying circumstances which render
+this process sometimes unnecessary,&mdash;sometimes rapid and
+certain&mdash;sometimes impossible. It is unnecessary in rhetoric and the
+drama, because the multitude is the only proper judge of those arts
+whose end is to move the multitude (though more is necessary to a fine
+play than is essentially dramatic, and it is only of the dramatic part
+that the multitude are cognizant). It is unnecessary, when, united with
+the higher qualities of a work, there are appeals to universal passion,
+to all the faculties and feelings which are general in man as an animal.
+The popularity is then as sudden as it is well grounded,&mdash;it is hearty
+and honest in every mind, but it is based in every mind on a different
+species of excellence. Such will often be the case with the noblest
+works of literature. Take Don Quixote for example. The lowest mind would
+find in it perpetual and brutal amusement in the misfortunes of the
+knight, and perpetual pleasure in sympathy with the squire. A mind of
+average feeling would perceive the satirical meaning and force of the
+book, would appreciate its wit, its elegance, and its truth. But only
+elevated and peculiar minds discover, in addition to all this, the full
+moral beauty of the love and truth which are the constant associates of
+all that is even most weak and erring in the character of its hero, and
+pass over the rude adventure and scurrile jest in haste&mdash;perhaps in
+pain, to penetrate beneath the rusty corselet, and catch from the
+wandering glance the evidence and expression of fortitude,
+self-devotion, and universal love. So, again, with the works of Scott
+and Byron; popularity was as instant as it was deserved, because there
+is in them an appeal to those passions which are universal in all men,
+as well as an expression of such thoughts as can be received only by the
+few. But they are admired by the majority of their advocates for the
+weakest parts of their works, as a popular preacher by the majority of
+his congregation for the worst part of his sermon.</p>
+
+<p>The process is rapid and certain, when, though there may be little to
+catch the multitude at once, there is much which they can enjoy when
+their attention is authoritatively directed to it. So rests the
+reputation of Shakspeare. No ordinary mind can comprehend wherein his
+undisputed superiority consists, but there is yet quite as much to
+amuse, thrill, or excite,&mdash;quite as much of what is, in the strict sense
+of the word, dramatic, in his works as in any one else's. They were
+received, therefore, when first written, with average approval, as works
+of common merit: but when the high decision was made, and the circle
+spread, the public took up the hue and cry conscientiously enough. Let
+them have daggers, ghosts, clowns, and kings, and with such real and
+definite sources of enjoyment, they will take the additional trouble to
+learn half a dozen quotations, without understanding them, and admit the
+superiority of Shakspeare without further demur. Nothing, perhaps, can
+more completely demonstrate the total ignorance of the public of all
+that is great or valuable in Shakspeare than their universal admiration
+of Maclise's Hamlet.</p>
+
+<p>The process is impossible when there is in the work nothing to attract
+and something to disgust the vulgar mind. Neither their intrinsic
+excellence, nor the authority of those who can judge of it, will ever
+make the poems of Wordsworth or George Herbert popular, in the sense in
+which Scott and Byron are popular, because it is to the vulgar a labor
+instead of a pleasure to read them; and there are parts in them which to
+such judges cannot but be vapid or ridiculous. Most works of the highest
+art,&mdash;those of Raffaelle, M. Angelo, or Da Vinci,&mdash;stand as Shakspeare
+does,&mdash;that which is commonplace and feeble in their excellence being
+taken for its essence by the uneducated, imagination assisting the
+impression, (for we readily fancy that we feel, when feeling is a matter
+of pride or conscience,) and affectation and pretension increasing the
+noise of the rapture, if not its degree. Giotto, Orgagna, Angelico,
+Perugino, stand, like George Herbert, only with the few. Wilkie becomes
+popular, like Scott, because he touches passions which all feel, and
+expresses truths which all can recognize.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page008"></a>[Page 8]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>DEFINITION OF GREATNESS IN ART.</h5>
+
+<p>In the 15th Lecture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, incidental notice is taken
+of the distinction between those excellences in the <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p1">§ 1. Distinction
+between the painter's intellectual power and technical knowledge.</a></span>painter
+which belong to him <i>as such</i>, and those which belong to him in common
+with all men of intellect, the general and exalted powers of which art
+is the evidence and expression, not the subject. But the distinction is
+not there dwelt upon as it should be, for it is owing to the slight
+attention ordinarily paid to it, that criticism is open to every form of
+coxcombry, and liable to every phase of error. It is a distinction on
+which depend all sound judgment of the rank of the artist, and all just
+appreciation of the dignity of art.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p2">§ 2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language.</a></p>
+<p>Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its technicalities, difficulties, and
+particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language,
+invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing. He who has
+learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is,
+the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only
+learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed. He has
+done just as much towards being that which we ought to respect as a
+great painter, as a man who has learned how to express himself
+grammatically and melodiously has towards being a great poet. The
+language is, indeed, more difficult of acquirement in the one case than
+in the other, and possesses more power of delighting the sense, while it
+speaks to the intellect, but it is, nevertheless, nothing more than
+language, and all those excellences which are peculiar to the painter as
+such, are merely what rhythm, melody, precision and force are in the
+words of the orator and the poet, necessary to their greatness, but not
+the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page009"></a>[Page 9]</span> tests of their greatness. It is not by the mode of
+representing and saying, but by what is represented and said, that the
+respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be
+finally determined.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p3">§ 3. "Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier."</a></p>
+<p>Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we should call a man a great painter only as
+he excelled in precision and force in the language of lines, and a great
+versifier, as he excelled in precision or force in the language of
+words. A great poet would then be a term strictly, and in precisely the
+same sense applicable to both, if warranted by the character of the
+images or thoughts which each in their respective languages convey.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p4">§ 4. Example in a painting of E. Landseer's.</a></p>
+<p>Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which
+modern times have seen:&mdash;the "Old Shepherd's Chief-mourner." Here the
+exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp hair of the dog, the bright
+sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the
+wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language&mdash;language
+clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of
+the dog's breast against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws,
+which has dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerlessness
+of the head laid, close and motionless, upon its folds, the fixed and
+tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness, the rigidity of
+repose which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the
+trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the coffin-lid, the
+quietness and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles marking the place
+where the Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the
+life&mdash;how unwatched the departure of him who is now laid solitary in his
+sleep;&mdash;these are all thoughts&mdash;thoughts by which the picture is
+separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as far as mere painting
+goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, and stamps its author,
+not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a
+drapery, but as the Man of Mind.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p5">§5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought.</a></p>
+<p>It is not, however, always easy, either in painting or literature, to
+determine where the influence of language stops, and where that of
+thought begins. Many thoughts are so dependent upon the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page010"></a>[Page 10]</span>
+language in which they are clothed, that they would lose half their
+beauty if otherwise expressed. But the highest thoughts are those which
+are least dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and
+praise to which it is entitled, are in exact proportion to its
+independency of language or expression. A composition is indeed usually
+most perfect, when to such intrinsic dignity is added all that
+expression can do to attract and adorn; but in every case of supreme
+excellence this all becomes as nothing. We are more gratified by the
+simplest lines or words which can suggest the idea in its own naked
+beauty, than by the robe or the gem which conceal while they decorate;
+we are better pleased to feel by their absence how little they would
+bestow, than by their presence how much they can destroy.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p6">§ 6. Distinction between decorative and expressive language.</a></p>
+<p>There is therefore a distinction to be made between what is ornamental in
+language and what is expressive. That part of it which is necessary to
+the embodying and conveying the thought is worthy of respect and
+attention as necessary to excellence, though not the test of it. But
+that part of it which is decorative has little more to do with the
+intrinsic excellence of the picture than the frame or the varnishing of
+it. And this caution in distinguishing between the ornamental and the
+expressive is peculiarly necessary in painting; for in the language of
+words it is nearly impossible for that which is not expressive to be
+beautiful, except by mere rhythm or melody, any sacrifice to which is
+immediately stigmatized as error. But the beauty of mere language in
+painting is not only very attractive and entertaining to the spectator,
+but requires for its attainment no small exertion of mind and devotion
+of time by the artist. Hence, in art, men have frequently fancied that
+they were becoming rhetoricians and poets when they were only learning
+to speak melodiously, and the judge has over and over again advanced to
+the honor of authors those who were never more than ornamental
+writing-masters.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p7">§ 7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools.</a></p>
+<p>Most pictures of the Dutch school, for instance, and excepting always those of Rubens,
+Vandyke, and Rembrandt, are ostentatious exhibitions of the artist's
+power of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of useless and
+senseless words: while the early efforts of Cimabue and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page011"></a>[Page 11]</span>
+Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the stammering
+lips of infants. It is not by ranking the former as more than mechanics,
+or the latter as less than artists, that the taste of the multitude,
+always awake to the lowest pleasures which art can bestow, and blunt to
+the highest, is to be formed or elevated. It must be the part of the
+judicious critic carefully to distinguish what is language, and what is
+thought, and to rank and praise pictures chiefly for the latter,
+considering the former as a totally inferior excellence, and one which
+cannot be compared with nor weighed against thought in any way nor in
+any degree whatsoever. The picture which has the nobler and more
+numerous ideas, however awkwardly expressed, is a greater and a better
+picture than that which has the less noble and less numerous ideas,
+however beautifully expressed. No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of
+execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought. Three
+penstrokes of Raffaelle are a greater and a better picture than the most
+finished work that ever Carlo Dolci polished into inanity. A finished
+work of a great artist is only better than its sketch, if the sources of
+pleasure belonging to color and realization&mdash;valuable in
+themselves,&mdash;are so employed as to increase the impressiveness of the
+thought. But if one atom of thought has vanished, all color, all finish,
+all execution, all ornament, are too dearly bought. Nothing but thought
+can pay for thought, and the instant that the increasing refinement or
+finish of the picture begins to be paid for by the loss of the faintest
+shadow of an idea, that instant all refinement or finish is an
+excrescence, and a deformity.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p8">§ 8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself.</a></p>
+<p>Yet although in all our speculations on art, language is thus to be distinguished
+from, and held subordinate to, that which it conveys, we must still
+remember that there are certain ideas inherent in language itself, and
+that strictly speaking, every pleasure connected with art has in it some
+reference to the intellect. The mere sensual pleasure of the eye,
+received from the most brilliant piece of coloring, is as nothing to
+that which it receives from a crystal prism, except as it depends on our
+perception of a certain meaning and intended arrangement of color, which
+has been the subject of intellect. Nay, the term idea, according to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page012"></a>[Page 12]</span> Locke's definition of it, will extend even to the sensual
+impressions themselves as far as they are "things which the mind
+occupies itself about in thinking," that is, not as they are felt by the
+eye only, but as they are received by the mind through the <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c2p9">§ 9. The
+definition.</a></span>eye. So that, if I say that the greatest picture is that
+which conveys to the mind of the spectator the greatest number of the
+greatest ideas, I have a definition which will include as subjects of
+comparison every pleasure which art is capable of conveying. If I were
+to say, on the contrary, that the best picture was that which most
+closely imitated nature, I should assume that art could only please by
+imitating nature, and I should cast out of the pale of criticism those
+parts of works of art which are not imitative, that is to say, intrinsic
+beauties of color and form, and those works of art wholly, which, like
+the arabesques of Raffaelle in the Loggias, are not imitative at all.
+Now I want a definition of art wide enough to include all its varieties
+of aim: I do not say therefore that the art is greatest which gives most
+pleasure, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to teach, and
+not to please. I do not say that the art is greatest which teaches us
+most, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to please, and not
+to teach. I do not say that the art is greatest which imitates best,
+because perhaps there is some art whose end is to create, and not to
+imitate. But I say that the art is greatest, which conveys to the mind
+of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the
+greatest ideas, and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received
+by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in
+occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received.</p>
+
+<p>If this then be the definition of great art, that of a great artist
+naturally follows. He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the
+sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page013"></a>[Page 13]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF IDEAS OF POWER.</h5>
+
+<p>The definition of art which I have just given, requires me to determine
+what kinds of ideas can be received from works of art, and which of
+these are the greatest, before proceeding to any practical application
+of the test.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c3p1">§ 1. What classes of ideas are conveyable by art.</a></p>
+<p>I think that all the sources of pleasure, or any other good, to be
+derived from works of art, may be referred to five distinct heads.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 4em; ">
+
+<p style="clear: both; text-indent: -2em; ">I. Ideas of Power.&mdash;The perception or conception of the mental or bodily
+powers by which the work has been produced.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: -2em; ">II. Ideas of Imitation.&mdash;The perception that the thing produced
+resembles something else.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: -2em; ">III. Ideas of Truth.&mdash;The perception of faithfulness in a statement of
+facts by the thing produced.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: -2em; ">IV. Ideas of Beauty.&mdash;The perception of beauty, either in the thing
+produced, or in what it suggests or resembles.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: -2em; ">V. Ideas of Relation.&mdash;The perception of intellectual relations, in the
+thing produced, or in what it suggests or resembles.</p> </div>
+
+<p>I shall briefly distinguish the nature and effects of each of these
+classes of ideas.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c3p2">§ 2. Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity.</a></p>
+<p>I. Ideas of Power.&mdash;These are the simple perception of the mental or
+bodily powers exerted in the production of any work of art. According to the dignity and
+degree of the power perceived is the dignity of the idea; but the whole
+class of ideas is received by the intellect, and they excite the best of
+the moral feelings, veneration, and the desire of exertion. As a
+species, therefore, they are one of the noblest connected with art; but
+the differences in degree of dignity among themselves are infinite,
+being correspondent with every order of power,&mdash;from that of the fingers
+to that of the most exalted intellect. Thus, when we see an <span class="pagenum"><a name="page014"></a>[Page 14]</span>
+Indian's paddle carved from the handle to the blade, we have a
+conception of prolonged manual labor, and are gratified in proportion to
+the supposed expenditure of time and exertion. These are, indeed, powers
+of a low order, yet the pleasure arising from the conception of them
+enters very largely indeed into our admiration of all elaborate
+ornament, architectural decoration, etc. The delight with which we look
+on the fretted front of Rouen Cathedral depends in no small degree on
+the simple perception of time employed and labor expended in its
+production. But it is a right, that is, an ennobling pleasure, even in
+this its lowest phase; and even the pleasure felt by those persons who
+praise a drawing for its "finish," or its "work," which is one precisely
+of the same kind, would be right, if it did not imply a want of
+perception of the higher powers which render work unnecessary. If to the
+evidence of labor be added that of strength or dexterity, the sensation
+of power is yet increased; if to strength and dexterity be added that of
+ingenuity and judgment, it is multiplied tenfold, and so on, through all
+the subjects of action of body or mind, we receive the more exalted
+pleasure from the more exalted power.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c3p3">§ 3. But are received
+from whatever has been the subject of power. The meaning of the word "excellence."</a></p>
+<p>So far the nature and effects of ideas of power cannot but be admitted by all. But the circumstance which I
+wish especially to insist upon, with respect to them, is one which may
+not, perhaps, be so readily allowed, namely, that they are independent
+of the nature or worthiness of the object from which they are received,
+and that whatever has been the subject of a great power, whether there
+be intrinsic and apparent worthiness in itself or not, bears with it the
+evidence of having been so, and is capable of giving the ideas of power,
+and the consequent pleasures, in their full degree. For observe, that a
+thing is not properly said to have been the result of a great power, on
+which only some part of that power has been expended. A nut may be
+cracked by a steam-engine, but it has not, in being so, been the subject
+of the power of the engine. And thus it is falsely said of great men,
+that they waste their lofty powers on unworthy objects: the object may
+be dangerous or useless, but, as far as the phrase has reference to
+difficulty of performance, it cannot be unworthy of the power <span class="pagenum"><a name="page015"></a>[Page 15]</span>
+which it brings into exertion, because nothing can become a subject of
+action to a greater power which can be accomplished by a less, any more
+than bodily strength can be exerted where there is nothing to resist it.</p>
+
+<p>So then, men may let their great powers lie dormant, while they employ
+their mean and petty powers on mean and petty objects; but it is
+physically impossible to employ a great power, except on a great object.
+Consequently, wherever power of any kind or degree has been exerted, the
+marks and evidence of it are stamped upon its results: it is impossible
+that it should be lost or wasted, or without record, even in the
+"estimation of a hair:" and therefore, whatever has been the subject of
+a great power bears about with it the image of that which created it,
+and is what is commonly called "excellent." And this is the true meaning
+of the word excellent, as distinguished from the terms, "beautiful,"
+"useful," "good," etc.; and we shall always, in future, use the word
+excellent, as signifying that the thing to which it is applied required
+a great power for its production.<a name="FnAnchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c3p4">§ 4. What is
+necessary to the distinguishing of excellence.</a></p>
+<p>The faculty of perceiving what powers are required for the production of a
+thing, is the faculty of perceiving excellence. It is this faculty in
+which men, even of the most cultivated taste, must always be wanting,
+unless they have added practice to reflection; because none can estimate
+the power manifested in victory, unless they have personally measured
+the strength to be overcome. Though, therefore, it is possible, by the
+cultivation of sensibility and judgment, to become capable of
+distinguishing what is beautiful, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page016"></a>[Page 16]</span> it is totally impossible,
+without practice and knowledge, to distinguish or feel what is
+excellent. The beauty or the truth of Titian's flesh-tint may be
+appreciated by all; but it is only to the artist, whose multiplied hours
+of toil have not reached the slightest resemblance of one of its tones,
+that its <i>excellence</i> is manifest.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c3p5">§ 5. The pleasure
+attendant on conquering difficulties is right.</a></p>
+<p>Wherever, then, difficulty has been overcome, there is excellence: and
+therefore, in order to prove excellent, we have only to prove the
+difficulty of its production: whether it be useful or beautiful is
+another question; its excellence depends on its difficulty alone. For is
+it a false or diseased taste which looks for the overcoming of
+difficulties, and has pleasure in it, even without any view to resultant
+good. It has been made part of our moral nature that we should have a
+pleasure in encountering and conquering opposition, for the sake of the
+struggle and the victory, not for the sake of any after result; and not
+only our own victory, but the perception of that of another, is in all
+cases the source of pure and ennobling pleasure. And if we often hear it
+said, and truly said, that an artist has erred by seeking rather to show
+his skill in overcoming technical difficulties, than to reach a great
+end, be it observed that he is only blamed because he has sought to
+conquer an inferior difficulty rather than a great one; for it is much
+easier to overcome technical difficulties than to reach a great end.
+Whenever the visible victory over difficulties is found painful or in
+false taste, it is owing to the preference of an inferior to a great
+difficulty, or to the false estimate of what is difficult and what is
+not. It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far
+more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper
+place, than to expend both indiscriminately. We shall find, in the
+course of our investigation, that beauty and difficulty go together; and
+that they are only mean and paltry difficulties which it is wrong or
+contemptible to wrestle with. Be it remembered then&mdash;Power is never
+wasted. Whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in
+proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of
+perceiving this exertion, and appreciating this dignity, is the faculty
+of perceiving excellence.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FnAnchor_3">[3]</a> Of course the word "excellent" is primarily a mere synonym with
+"surpassing," and when applied to persons, has the general meaning given
+by Johnson&mdash;"the state of abounding in any good quality." But when
+applied to things it has always reference to the power by which they are
+produced. We talk of excellent music or poetry, because it is difficult
+to compose or write such, but never of excellent flowers, because all
+flowers being the result of the same power, must be equally excellent.
+We distinguish them only as beautiful or useful, and therefore, as there
+is no other one word to signify that quality of a thing produced by
+which it pleases us merely as the result of power, and as the term
+"excellent" is more frequently used in this sense than in any other, I
+choose to limit it at once to this sense, and I wish it, when I use it
+in future, to be so understood.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page017"></a>[Page 17]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF IDEAS OF IMITATION.</h5>
+
+<p>Fuseli, in his lectures, and many other persons of equally just and
+accurate habits of thought, (among others, S. T. Coleridge,) make a
+distinction between imitation and copying, <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c4p1">§ 1. False use of the term
+"imitation" by many writers of art.</a></span>representing the first as the
+legitimate function of art&mdash;the latter as its corruption; but as such a
+distinction is by no means warranted, or explained by the common meaning
+of the words themselves, it is not easy to comprehend exactly in what
+sense they are used by those writers. And though, reasoning from the
+context, I can understand what ideas those words stand for in their
+minds, I cannot allow the terms to be properly used as symbols of those
+ideas, which (especially in the case of the word Imitation) are
+exceedingly complex, and totally different from what most people would
+understand by the term. And by men of less accurate thought, the word is
+used still more vaguely or falsely. For instance, Burke (Treatise on the
+Sublime, part i. sect. 16) says, "When the object represented in poetry
+or painting is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality,
+then we may be sure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the
+power of <i>imitation</i>." In which case the real pleasure may be in what we
+have been just speaking of, the dexterity of the artist's hand; or it
+may be in a beautiful or singular arrangement of colors, or a thoughtful
+chiaroscuro, or in the pure beauty of certain forms which art forces on
+our notice, though we should not have observed them in the reality; and
+I conceive that none of these sources of pleasure are in any way
+expressed or intimated by the term "imitation."</p>
+
+<p>But there is one source of pleasure in works of art totally different
+from all these, which I conceive to be properly and accurately expressed
+by the word "imitation:" one which, though <span class="pagenum"><a name="page018"></a>[Page 18]</span> constantly
+confused in reasoning, because it is always associated in fact, with
+other means of pleasure, is totally separated from them in its nature,
+and is the real basis of whatever complicated or various meaning may be
+afterwards attached to the word in the minds of men.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to point out this distinct source of pleasure clearly at once,
+and only to use the word "imitation" in reference to it. <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c4p2">§ 2. Real
+meaning of the term.</a></span>Whenever anything looks like what it is not, the
+resemblance being so great as <i>nearly</i> to deceive, we feel a kind of
+pleasurable surprise, an agreeable excitement of mind, exactly the same
+in its nature as that which we receive from juggling. Whenever we
+perceive this in something produced by art, that is to say, whenever the
+work is seen to resemble something which we know it is not, we receive
+what I call an idea of imitation. <i>Why</i> such ideas are pleasing, it
+would be out of our present purpose to inquire; we only know that there
+is no man who does not feel pleasure in his animal nature from gentle
+surprise, and that such surprise can be excited in no more distinct
+manner than by the evidence that a thing is not <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c4p3">§ 3. What is requisite
+to the sense of imitation.</a></span>what it appears to be.<a name="FnAnchor_4" href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> Now two things are
+requisite to our complete and more pleasurable perception of this:
+first, that the resemblance be so perfect as to amount to a deception;
+secondly, that there be some means of proving at the same moment that it
+<i>is</i> a deception. The most perfect ideas and pleasures of imitation are,
+therefore, when one sense is contradicted by another, both bearing as
+positive evidence on the subject as each is capable of alone; as when
+the eye says a thing is round, and the finger says it is flat; they are,
+therefore, never felt in so high a degree as in painting, where
+appearance of projection, roughness, hair, velvet, etc., are given with
+a smooth surface, or in wax-work, where the first evidence of the senses
+is perpetually contradicted by their experience; but the moment we come
+to marble, our definition checks us, for a marble figure does not look
+like what it is not: it looks like marble, and like the form of a man,
+but then it <i>is</i> marble, and it <i>is</i> the form of a man. It does not look
+like a man, which it is not, but like the form of a man, which it is.
+Form is form, <i>bona fide</i> and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page019"></a>[Page 19]</span> actual, whether in marble or in
+flesh&mdash;not an imitation or resemblance of form, but real form. The chalk
+outline of the bough of a tree on paper, is not an imitation; it looks
+like chalk and paper&mdash;not like wood, and that which it suggests to the
+mind is not properly said to be <i>like</i> the form of a bough, it <i>is</i> the
+form of a bough. Now, then, we see the limits of an idea of imitation;
+it extends only to the sensation of trickery and deception occasioned by
+a thing's intentionally seeming different from what it is; and the
+degree of the pleasure depends on the degree of difference and the
+perfection of the resemblance, not on the nature of the thing resembled.
+The simple pleasure in the imitation would be precisely of the same
+degree, (if the accuracy could be equal,) whether the subject of it were
+the hero or his horse. There are other collateral sources of pleasure,
+which are necessarily associated with this, but that part of the
+pleasure which depends on the imitation is the same in both.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c4p4">§ 4. The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible that
+can be derived from art.</a></p>
+<p>Ideas of imitation, then, act by producing the simple pleasure of
+surprise, and that not of surprise in its higher sense and function, but
+of the mean and paltry surprise which is felt in jugglery. These ideas
+and pleasures are the most contemptible which can be received from art;
+first, because it is necessary to their enjoyment that the mind should
+reject the impression and address of the thing represented, and fix
+itself only upon the reflection that it is not what it seems to be. All
+high or noble emotion or thought are thus rendered physically
+impossible, while the mind exults in what is very like a strictly
+sensual pleasure. We may consider tears as a result of agony or of art,
+whichever we please, but not of both at the same moment. If we are
+surprised by them as an attainment of the one, it is impossible we can
+be moved by them as a sign of the other.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c4p5">§ 5. Imitation is only of contemptible subjects.</a></p>
+<p>Ideas of imitation are contemptible in the second place, because not
+only do they preclude the spectator from enjoying inherent beauty in the subject, but
+they can only be received from mean and paltry subjects, because it is
+impossible to imitate anything really great. We can "paint a cat or a
+fiddle, so that they look as if we could take them up;" but we cannot
+imitate the ocean, or <span class="pagenum"><a name="page020"></a>[Page 20]</span> the Alps. We can imitate fruit, but not
+a tree; flowers, but not a pasture; cut-glass, but not the rainbow. All
+pictures in which deceptive powers of imitation are displayed are
+therefore either of contemptible subjects, or have the imitation shown
+in contemptible parts of them, bits of dress, jewels, furniture, etc.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c4p6">§ 6. Imitation is contemptible because it is easy.</a></p>
+<p>Thirdly, these ideas are contemptible, because no ideas of power are associated with
+them; to the ignorant, imitation, indeed, seems difficult, and its
+success praiseworthy, but even they can by no possibility see more in
+the artist than they do in a juggler, who arrives at a strange end by
+means with which they are unacquainted. To the instructed, the juggler
+is by far the more respectable artist of the two, for they know sleight
+of hand to be an art of immensely more difficult acquirement, and to
+imply more ingenuity in the artist than a power of deceptive imitation
+in painting, which requires nothing more for its attainment than a true
+eye, a steady hand, and moderate industry&mdash;qualities which in no degree
+separate the imitative artist from a watch-maker, pin-maker, or any
+other neat-handed artificer. These remarks do not apply to the art of
+the Diorama, or the stage, where the pleasure is not dependent on the
+imitation, but is the same which we should receive from nature herself,
+only far inferior in degree. It is a noble pleasure; but we shall see in
+the course of our investigation, both that it is inferior to that which
+we receive when there is no deception at all, and why it is so.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c4p7">§ 7. Recapitulation.</a></p>
+<p>Whenever then in future, I speak of ideas of imitation, I wish to be
+understood to mean the immediate and present perception that something
+produced by art is not what it seems to be. I prefer saying "that it is
+not what it seems to be," to saying "that it seems to be what it is
+not," because we perceive at once what it seems to be, and the idea of
+imitation, and the consequent pleasure, result from the subsequent
+perception of its being something else&mdash;flat, for instance, when we
+thought it was round.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<a name="Footnote_4" href="#FnAnchor_4">[4]</a>
+<span class="grk" title="syllogismos ettig, hoti touto ekeino">
+&sigma;&upsilon;&lambda;&lambda;&omicron;&gamma;&iota;&sigma;&mu;&#x1f79;&sigmaf;
+&#x1f10;&tau;&tau;&iota;&gamma;,
+&#x1f40;&tau;&iota;
+&tau;&#x1f40;&upsilon;&tau;&omicron;
+&#x1f10;&kappa;&epsilon;&#x1fd6;&nu;&omicron;</span>.&mdash;Arist. Rhet. 1, 11, 23.
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page021"></a>[Page 21]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF IDEAS OF TRUTH.</h5>
+
+<p>The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement,
+either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature.</p>
+
+<p>We <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c5p1">§ 1. Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art.</a></span>receive an idea of
+truth, then, when we perceive the faithfulness of such a statement.</p>
+
+<p>The difference between ideas of truth and of imitation lies chiefly in
+the following points.</p>
+
+<p>First,&mdash;Imitation can only be of something <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c5p2">§ 2. First difference between
+truth and imitation.</a></span>material, but truth has reference to statements both
+of the qualities of material things, and of emotions, impressions, and
+thoughts. There is a moral as well as material truth,&mdash;a truth of
+impression as well as of form,&mdash;of thought as well as of matter; and the
+truth of impression and thought is a thousand times the more important
+of the two. Hence, truth is a term of universal application, but
+imitation is limited to that narrow field of art which takes cognizance
+only of material things.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly,&mdash;Truth may be stated by any signs or <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c5p3">§ 3. Second
+difference.</a></span>symbols which have a definite signification in the minds of
+those to whom they are addressed, although such signs be themselves no
+image nor likeness of anything. Whatever can excite in the mind the
+conception of certain facts, can give ideas of truth, though it be in no
+degree the imitation or resemblance of those facts. If there be&mdash;we do
+not say there is&mdash;but if there be in painting anything which operates,
+as words do, not by resembling anything, but by being taken as a symbol
+and substitute for it, and thus inducing the effect of it, then this
+channel of communication can convey uncorrupted truth, though it do not
+in any degree resemble the facts whose conception it induces. But ideas
+of imitation, of course, require the likeness of the object. They speak
+to the perceptive faculties only: truth to the conceptive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page022"></a>[Page 22]</span></p>
+
+<p>Thirdly,&mdash;And in consequence of what is above stated, an idea of truth
+exists in the statement of <i>one</i> attribute of anything, <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c5p4">§ 4. Third
+difference.</a></span>but an idea of imitation requires the resemblance of as many
+attributes as we are usually cognizant of in its real presence. A pencil
+outline of the bough of a tree on white paper is a statement of a
+certain number of facts of form. It does not yet amount to the imitation
+of anything. The idea of that form is not given in nature by lines at
+all, still less by black lines with a white space between them. But
+those lines convey to the mind a distinct impression of a certain number
+of facts, which it recognizes as agreeable with its previous impressions
+of the bough of a tree; and it receives, therefore, an idea of truth.
+If, instead of two lines, we give a dark form with the brush, we convey
+information of a certain relation of shade between the bough and sky,
+recognizable for another idea of truth; but we have still no imitation,
+for the white paper is not the least like air, nor the black shadow like
+wood. It is not until after a certain number of ideas of truth have been
+collected together, that we arrive at an idea of imitation.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c5p5">§ 5. No accurate truths necessary to imitation.</a></p>
+<p>Hence it might at first sight appear, that an idea of imitation,
+inasmuch as several ideas of truth were united in it, was nobler than a
+simple idea of truth. And if it were necessary that the ideas of truth
+should be perfect, or should be subjects of contemplation <i>as such</i>, it
+would be so. But, observe, we require to produce the effect of imitation
+only so many and such ideas of truth as the <i>senses</i> are usually
+cognizant of. Now the senses are not usually, nor unless they be
+especially devoted to the service, cognizant, with accuracy, of any
+truths but those of space and projection. It requires long study and
+attention before they give certain evidence of even the simplest truths
+of form. For instance, the quay on which the figure is sitting, with his
+hand at his eyes, in Claude's seaport, No. 14, in the National Gallery,
+is egregiously out of perspective. The eye of this artist, with all his
+study, had thus not acquired the power of taking cognizance of the
+apparent form even of a simple parallelopiped. How much less of the
+complicated forms of boughs, leaves, or <span class="pagenum"><a name="page023"></a>[Page 23]</span> limbs? Although,
+therefore, something resembling the real form is necessary to deception,
+this something is not to be called a <i>truth</i> of form; for, strictly
+speaking, there are no degrees of truth, there are only degrees of
+approach to it; and an approach to it, whose feebleness and imperfection
+would instantly offend and give pain to a mind really capable of
+distinguishing truth, is yet quite sufficient for all the purposes of
+deceptive imagination. It is the same with regard to color. If we were
+to paint a tree sky-blue, or a dog rose-pink, the discernment of the
+public would be keen enough to discover the falsehood; but, so that
+there be just so much approach to truth of color as may come up to the
+common idea of it in men's minds, that is to say, if the trees be all
+bright green, and flesh unbroken buff, and ground unbroken brown, though
+all the real and refined truths of color be wholly omitted, or rather
+defied and contradicted, there is yet quite enough for all purposes of
+imitation. The only facts then, which we are usually and certainly
+cognizant of, are those of distance and projection, and if these be
+tolerably given, with something like truth of form and color to assist
+them, the idea of imitation is complete. I would undertake to paint an
+arm, with every muscle out of its place, and every bone of false form
+and dislocated articulation, and yet to observe certain coarse and broad
+resemblances of true outline, which, with careful shading, would induce
+deception, and draw down the praise and delight of the discerning
+public. The other day at Bruges, while I was endeavoring to set down in
+my note-book something of the ineffable expression of the Madonna in the
+cathedral, a French amateur came up to me, to inquire if I had seen the
+modern French pictures in a neighboring church. I had not, but felt
+little inclined to leave my marble for all the canvas that ever suffered
+from French brushes. My apathy was attacked with gradually increasing
+energy of praise. Rubens never executed&mdash;Titian never colored anything
+like them. I thought this highly probable, and still sat quiet. The
+voice continued at my ear. "Parbleu, Monsieur, Michel Ange n'a rien
+produit de plus beau!" "De plus <i>beau</i>?" repeated I, wishing to know
+what particular excellences of Michael Angelo were to be intimated
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page024"></a>[Page 24]</span> by this expression. "Monsieur, on ne pent plus&mdash;c'est un
+tableau admirable&mdash;inconcevable: Monsieur," said the Frenchman, lifting
+up his hands to heaven, as he concentrated in one conclusive and
+overwhelming proposition the qualities which were to outshine Rubens and
+overpower Buonaroti&mdash;"Monsieur, <span class="sc">IL SORT</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>This gentleman could only perceive two truths&mdash;flesh color and
+projection. These constituted his notion of the perfection of painting;
+because they unite all that is necessary for deception. He was not
+therefore cognizant of many ideas of truth, though perfectly cognizant
+of ideas of imitation.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c5p6">§ 6. Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation.</a></p>
+<p>We shall see, in the course of our investigation of ideas of truth, that
+ideas of imitation not only do not imply their presence, but even are
+inconsistent with it; and that pictures which imitate so as to deceive,
+are never true. But this is not the place for the proof of this; at
+present we have only to insist on the last and greatest distinction
+between ideas of truth and of imitation&mdash;that the mind, in receiving one
+of the former, dwells upon its own conception of the fact, or form, or
+feeling stated, and is occupied only with the qualities and character of
+that fact or form, considering it as real and existing, being all the
+while totally regardless of the signs or symbols by which the notion of
+it has been conveyed. These signs have no pretence, nor hypocrisy, nor
+legerdemain about them;&mdash;there is nothing to be found out, or sifted, or
+surprised in them;&mdash;they bear their message simply and clearly, and it
+is that message which the mind takes from them and dwells upon,
+regardless of the language in which it is delivered. But the mind, in
+receiving an idea of imitation, is wholly occupied in finding out that
+what has been suggested to it is not what it appears to be: it does not
+dwell on the suggestion, but on the perception that it is a false
+suggestion: it derives its pleasure, not from the contemplation of a
+truth, but from the discovery of a falsehood. So that the moment ideas
+of truth are grouped together, so as to give rise to an idea of
+imitation, they change their very nature&mdash;lose their essence as ideas of
+truth&mdash;and are corrupted and degraded, so as to share in the treachery
+of what they have produced. Hence, finally, ideas of truth are <span class="pagenum"><a name="page025"></a>[Page
+25]</span> the foundation, and ideas of imitation the destruction, of all art.
+We shall be better able to appreciate their relative dignity after the
+investigation which we propose of the functions of the former; but we
+may as well now express the conclusion to which we shall then be
+led&mdash;that no picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for
+the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page026"></a>[Page 26]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY.</h5>
+
+<p>Any material object which can give us pleasure in the simple
+contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct and definite
+exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, or in <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c6p1">§ 1. Definition of
+the term "beautiful."</a></span>some degree, beautiful. Why we receive pleasure
+from some forms and colors, and not from others, is no more to be asked
+or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. The utmost
+subtilty of investigation will only lead us to ultimate instincts and
+principles of human nature, for which no farther reason can be given
+than the simple will of the Deity that we should be so created. We may,
+indeed, perceive, as far as we are acquainted with His nature, that we
+have been so constructed as, when in a healthy and cultivated state of
+mind, to derive pleasure from whatever things are illustrative of that
+nature; but we do not receive pleasure from them <i>because</i> they are
+illustrative of it, nor from any perception that they are illustrative
+of it, but instinctively and necessarily, as we derive sensual pleasure
+from the scent of a rose. On these primary principles of our nature,
+education and accident operate to an unlimited extent; they may be
+cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted by right guidance
+with the most acute and faultless sense, or subjected by neglect to
+every phase of error and disease. He who has followed up these natural
+laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more authoritative
+by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always from that which
+God originally intended should give him pleasure, and who derives the
+greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object, is a man of
+taste.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c6p2">§ 2. Definition of the term "taste."</a></p>
+<p>This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect taste is
+the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those
+material <span class="pagenum"><a name="page027"></a>[Page 27]</span> sources which are attractive to our moral nature in
+its purity and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these
+sources, wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other sources,
+has false or bad taste.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c6p3">§ 3. Distinction between taste and judgment.</a></p>
+<p>And it is thus that the term "taste" is to be distinguished from that of
+"judgment," with which it is constantly confounded. Judgment is a
+general term, expressing definite action of the intellect, and
+applicable to every kind of subject which can be submitted to it. There
+may be judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, judgment of justice,
+and judgment of difficulty and excellence. But all these exertions of
+the intellect are totally distinct from taste, properly so called, which
+is the instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to
+another without any obvious reason, except that it is proper to human
+nature in its perfection so to do.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c6p4">§ 4. How far beauty may become intellectual.</a></p>
+<p>Observe, however, I do not mean by excluding direct exertion of the
+intellect from ideas of beauty, to assert that beauty has no effect upon
+nor connection with the intellect. All our moral feelings are so
+in-woven with our intellectual powers, that we cannot affect the one
+without in some degree addressing the other; and in all high ideas of
+beauty, it is more than probable that much of the pleasure depends on
+delicate and untraceable perceptions of fitness, propriety, and
+relation, which are purely intellectual, and through which we arrive at
+our noblest ideas of what is commonly and rightly called "intellectual
+beauty." But there is yet no immediate <i>exertion</i> of the intellect; that
+is to say, if a person receiving even the noblest ideas of simple beauty
+be asked <i>why</i> he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able to
+give any distinct reason, nor to trace in his mind any formed thought,
+to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. He will say that the
+thing gratifies, fills, hallows, exalts his mind, but he will not be
+able to say why, or how. If he can, and if he can show that he perceives
+in the object any expression of distinct thought, he has received more
+than an idea of beauty&mdash;it is an idea of relation.</p>
+
+<p>Ideas of beauty are among the noblest which can be presented to the
+human mind, invariably exalting and purifying it according <span class="pagenum"><a name="page028"></a>[Page 28]</span> to
+their degree; and it would appear that we are intended <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c6p5">§ 5. The high
+rank and function of ideas of beauty.</a></span>by the Deity to be constantly under
+their influence, because there is not one single object in nature which
+is not capable of conveying them, and which, to the rightly perceiving
+mind, does not present an incalculably greater number of beautiful than
+of deformed parts; there being in fact scarcely anything, in pure,
+undiseased nature, like positive deformity, but only degrees of beauty,
+or such slight and rare points of permitted contrast as may render all
+around them more valuable by their opposition, spots of blackness in
+creation, to make its colors felt.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c6p6">§ 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."</a></p>
+<p>But although everything in nature is more or less beautiful, every
+species of object has its own kind and degree of beauty; some being in
+their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any,
+individuals possessing the utmost degree of beauty of which the species
+is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily
+coexistent with the utmost perfection of the object in other respects,
+is the ideal of the object.</p>
+
+<p>Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral, but
+not of intellectual perception. By the investigation of them we shall be
+led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page029"></a>[Page 29]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF IDEAS OF RELATION.</h5>
+
+<p>I use this term rather as one of convenience than as adequately
+expressive of the vast class of ideas which I wish to be <span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c7p1">§ 1. General
+meaning of the term.</a></span>comprehended under it, namely, all those conveyable
+by art, which are the subjects of distinct intellectual perception and
+action, and which are therefore worthy of the name of thoughts. But as
+every thought, or definite exertion of intellect, implies two subjects,
+and some connection or relation inferred between them, the term "ideas
+of relation" is not incorrect, though it is inexpressive.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c7p2">§ 2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it.</a></p>
+<p>Under this head must be arranged everything productive of expression,
+sentiment, and character, whether in figures or landscapes, (for there
+may be as much definite expression and marked carrying out of particular
+thoughts in the treatment of inanimate as of animate nature,) everything
+relating to the conception of the subject and to the congruity and
+relation of its parts; not as they enhance each other's beauty by known
+and constant laws of composition, but as they give each other expression
+and meaning, by particular application, requiring distinct thought to
+discover or to enjoy: the choice, for instance, of a particular lurid or
+appalling light, to illustrate an incident in itself terrible, or of a
+particular tone of pure color to prepare the mind for the expression of
+refined and delicate feeling; and, in a still higher sense, the
+invention of such incidents and thoughts as can be expressed in words as
+well as on canvas, and are totally independent of any means of art but
+such as may serve for the bare suggestion of them. The principal object
+in the foreground of Turner's "Building of Carthage" is a group of
+children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as
+expressive of the ruling passion, which was to be the source of future
+greatness, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page030"></a>[Page 30]</span> in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons
+or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it
+is seen,&mdash;it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a
+scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the
+intellect as much as the elaborate realizations of color. Such a thought
+as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest
+order. Claude, in subjects of the same kind, commonly introduces people
+carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and dwells, with infantine
+delight, on the lustre of the leather and the ornaments of the iron. The
+intellect can have no occupation here; we must look to the imitation or
+to nothing. Consequently, Turner rises above Claude in the very first
+instant of the conception of his picture, and acquires an intellectual
+superiority which no powers of the draughtsman or the artist (supposing
+that such existed in his antagonist) could ever wrest from him.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s1c7p3">§ 3. The exceeding nobility of these ideas.</a></p>
+<p>Such are the function and force of ideas of relation. They are what I
+have asserted in the second chapter of this section to be the noblest
+subjects of art. Dependent upon it only for expression, they cause all
+the rest of its complicated sources of pleasure to take, in comparison
+with them, the place of mere language or decoration; nay, even the
+noblest ideas of beauty sink at once beside these into subordination and
+subjection. It would add little to the influence of Landseer's picture
+above instanced, Chap. II., § 4, that the form of the dog should be
+conceived with every perfection of curve and color which its nature was
+capable of, and that the ideal lines should be carried out with the
+science of a Praxiteles; nay, the instant that the beauty so obtained
+interfered with the impression of agony and desolation, and drew the
+mind away from the feeling of the animal to its outward form, that
+instant would the picture become monstrous and degraded. The utmost
+glory of the human body is a mean subject of contemplation, compared to
+the emotion, exertion and character of that which animates it; the
+lustre of the limbs of the Aphrodite is faint beside that of the brow of
+the Madonna; and the divine form of the Greek god, except as it is the
+incarnation and expression of divine mind, is degraded beside the
+passion and the prophecy of the vaults of the Sistine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page031"></a>[Page 31]</span></p>
+<p>Ideas of relation are of course, with respect to art
+generally, the most extensive as the most important source of pleasure;
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="s1c7p4">§ 4. Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary.</a></span>and if we
+proposed entering upon the criticism of historical works, it would be
+absurd to attempt to do so without further subdivision and arrangement.
+But the old landscape painters got over so much canvas without either
+exercise of, or appeal to, the intellect, that we shall be little
+troubled with the subject as far as they are concerned; and whatever
+subdivision we may adopt, as it will therefore have particular reference
+to the works of modern artists, will be better understood when we have
+obtained some knowledge of them in less important points.</p>
+
+<p>By the term "ideas of relation," then, I mean in future to express all
+those sources of pleasure, which involve and require, at the instant of
+their perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page032"></a>[Page 32]</span></p>
+<h3>SECTION II.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF POWER.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF POWER.</h5>
+
+<p>We have seen in the last section, what classes of ideas may be conveyed
+by art, and we have been able so far to appreciate their relative worth
+as to see, that from the list, as it is to be <span class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p1">§ 1. No necessity for
+detailed study of ideas of imitation.</a></span>applied to the purposes of
+legitimate criticism, we may at once throw out the ideas of imitation;
+first, because, as we have shown, they are unworthy the pursuit of the
+artist; and secondly, because they are nothing more than the result of a
+particular association of ideas of truth. In examining the truth of art,
+therefore, we shall be compelled to take notice of those particular
+truths, whose association gives rise to the ideas of imitation. We shall
+then see more clearly the meanness of those truths, and we shall find
+ourselves able to use them as tests of vice in art, saying of a
+picture,&mdash;"It deceives, therefore it must be bad."</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p2">§ 2. Nor for separate study of ideas of power.</a></p>
+<p>Ideas of power, in the same way, cannot be completely viewed as a
+separate class; not because they are mean or unimportant, but because
+they are almost always associated with, or dependent upon, some of the
+higher ideas of truth, beauty, or relation, rendered with decision or
+velocity. That power which delights us in the chalk sketch of a great
+painter is not one of the fingers, not like that of the writing-master,
+mere dexterity of hand. It is the accuracy and certainty of the
+knowledge, rendered evident by its rapid and fearless expression, which
+is the real source of pleasure; and so upon each difficulty of art,
+whether it be to know, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page033"></a>[Page 33]</span> or to relate, or to invent, the
+sensation of power is attendant, when we see that difficulty totally and
+swiftly vanquished. Hence, as we determine what is otherwise desirable
+in art, we shall gradually develop the sources of the ideas of power;
+and if there be anything difficult which is not otherwise desirable, it
+must be afterwards considered separately.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p3">§ 3. Except under one particular form.</a></p>
+<p>But it will be necessary at present to notice a particular form of the
+ideas of power, which is partially independent of knowledge of truth, or
+difficulty, and which is apt to corrupt the judgment of the critic, and
+debase the work of the artist. It is evident that the conception of
+power which we receive from a calculation of unseen difficulty, and an
+estimate of unseen strength, can never be so impressive as that which we
+receive from the present sensation or sight of the one resisting, and
+the other overwhelming. In the one case the power is imagined, and in
+the other felt.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p4">§ 4. There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly inconsistent.</a></p>
+<p>There are thus two modes in which we receive the conception of
+power; one, the most just, when by a perfect knowledge of the difficulty
+to be overcome, and the means employed, we form a right estimate of the
+faculties exerted; the other, when without possessing such intimate and
+accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a sensation of power in visible
+action. If these two modes of receiving the impression agree in the
+result, and if the sensation be equal to the estimate, we receive the
+utmost possible idea of power. But this is the case perhaps with the
+works of only one man out of the whole circle of the fathers of art, of
+him to whom we have just referred, Michael Angelo. In others, the
+estimate and the sensation are constantly unequal, and often
+contradictory.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p5">§ 5. First reason of the inconsistency.</a></p>
+<p>The first reason of this inconsistency is, that in order to receive a
+<i>sensation</i> of power, we must see it in operation. Its victory,
+therefore, must not be achieved, but achieving, and therefore imperfect.
+Thus we receive a greater sensation of power from the half-hewn limbs of
+the Twilight to the Day of the Cappella de' Medici, than even from the
+divine inebriety of the Bacchus in the gallery&mdash;greater from the life
+dashed out along the Friezes of the Parthenon, than from the polished
+limbs of the Apollo,&mdash;greater <span class="pagenum"><a name="page034"></a>[Page 34]</span> from the ink sketch of the head
+of Raffaelle's St. Catherine, than from the perfection of its
+realization.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p6">§ 6. Second reason for the inconsistency.</a></p>
+<p>Another reason of the inconsistency is, that the sensation of power is
+in proportion to the apparent inadequacy of the means to the end; so
+that the impression is much greater from a partial success attained with
+slight effort, than from perfect success attained with greater <span
+class="correction" title="originally porportional">proportional</span> effort.
+Now, in all art, every touch or effort does individually less in
+proportion as the work approaches perfection. The first five chalk
+touches bring a head into existence out of nothing. No five touches in
+the whole course of the work will ever do so much as these, and the
+difference made by each touch is more and more imperceptible as the work
+approaches completion. Consequently, the ratio between the means
+employed and the effect produced is constantly decreasing, and therefore
+the least sensation of power is received from the most perfect work.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p7">§ 7. The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art.</a></p>
+<p>It is thus evident that there are sensations of power about imperfect
+art, so that it be right art as far as it goes, which must always be
+wanting in its perfection; and that there are sources of pleasure in the
+hasty sketch and rough hewn block, which are partially wanting in the
+tinted canvas and the polished marble. But it is nevertheless wrong to
+prefer the sensation of power to the intellectual perception of it.
+There is in reality greater power in the completion than in the
+commencement; and though it be not so manifest to the senses, it ought
+to have higher influence on the mind; and therefore in praising pictures
+for the ideas of power they convey, we must not look to the keenest
+sensation, but to the highest estimate, accompanied with as much of the
+sensation as is compatible with it; and thus we shall consider those
+pictures as conveying the highest ideas of power which attain the most
+<i>perfect</i> end with the slightest possible means; not, observe, those in
+which, though much has been done with little, all has not been done, but
+from the picture, in which <i>all</i> has been done, and yet not a touch
+thrown away. The quantity of work in the sketch is necessarily less in
+proportion to the effect obtained than in the picture; but <span class="pagenum"><a name="page035"></a>[Page 35]</span>
+yet the picture involves the greater power, if out of all the additional
+labor bestowed on it, not a touch has been lost.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p8">§ 8. Instances in pictures of modern artists.</a></p>
+<p>For instance, there are few drawings of the present day that involve
+greater sensations of power than those of Frederick Tayler. Every dash
+tells, and the quantity of effect obtained is enormous, in proportion to
+the apparent means. But the effect obtained is not complete. Brilliant,
+beautiful, and right, as a sketch, the work is still far from
+perfection, as a drawing. On the contrary, there are few drawings of the
+present day that bear evidence of more labor bestowed, or more
+complicated means employed, than those of John Lewis. The result does
+not, at first, so much convey an impression of inherent power as of
+prolonged exertion; but the result is complete. Water-color drawing can
+be carried no farther; nothing has been left unfinished or untold. And
+on examination of the means employed, it is found and felt that not one
+touch out of the thousands employed has been thrown away;&mdash;that not one
+dot nor dash could be spared without loss of effect;&mdash;and that the
+exertion has been as swift as it has been prolonged&mdash;as bold as it has
+been persevering. The power involved in such a picture is of the highest
+order, and the enduring pleasure following on the estimate of it pure.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c1p9">§ 9. Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution.</a></p>
+<p>But there is still farther ground for caution in pursuing the sensation
+of power, connected with the particular characters and modes of
+execution. This we shall be better able to understand by briefly
+reviewing the various excellences which may belong to execution, and
+give pleasure in it; though the full determination of what is desirable
+in it, and the critical examination of the execution of different
+artists, must be deferred, as will be immediately seen, until we are
+more fully acquainted with the principles of truth.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page036"></a>[Page 36]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF IDEAS OF  POWER, AS THEY ARE  DEPENDENT UPON
+EXECUTION.</h5>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p1">§ 1. Meaning of the term "execution."</a></p>
+<p>By the term "execution," I understand the right mechanical use of the
+means of art to produce a given end.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p2">§ 2. The first quality of execution is truth.</a></p>
+<p>All qualities of execution, properly so called, are influenced by, and
+in a great degree dependent on, a far higher power than that of mere
+execution,&mdash;knowledge of truth. For exactly in proportion as an artist
+is certain of his end, will he be swift and simple in his means; and, as
+he is accurate and deep in his knowledge, will he be refined and precise
+in his touch. The first merit of manipulation, then, is that delicate
+and ceaseless expression of refined truth which is carried out to the
+last touch, and shadow of a touch, and which makes every hairsbreadth of
+importance, and every gradation full of meaning. It is not, properly
+speaking, execution; but it is the only source of difference between the
+execution of a commonplace and of a perfect artist. The lowest
+draughtsman, if he have spent the same time in handling the brush, may
+be equal to the highest in the other qualities of execution (in
+swiftness, simplicity, and decision;) but not in truth. It is in the
+perfection and precision of the instantaneous line that the claim to
+immortality is laid. And if this truth of truths be present, all the
+other qualities of execution may well be spared; and to those artists
+who wish to excuse their ignorance and inaccuracy by a species of
+execution which is a perpetual proclamation, "qu'ils n'ont demeuré qu'un
+quart d'heure a le faire," we may reply with the truthful Alceste,
+"Monsieur, le temps ne fait rien a l'affaire."</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p3">§ 3. The second, simplicity.</a></p>
+<p>The second quality of execution is simplicity. The more unpretending,
+quiet, and retiring the means, the more impressive their effect. Any
+ostentation, brilliancy, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page037"></a>[Page 37]</span>or pretension of touch,&mdash;any
+exhibition of power or quickness, merely as such, above all, any attempt
+to render lines attractive at the expense of their meaning, is vice.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p4">§ 4. The third mystery.</a></p>
+<p>The third is mystery. Nature is always mysterious
+and secret in the use of her means; and art is always likest her when it
+is most inexplicable. That execution which is the most incomprehensible,
+and which therefore defies imitation, (other qualities being supposed
+alike,) is the best.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p5">§ 5. The fourth, inadequacy; and the fifth, decision.</a></p>
+<p>The fourth is inadequacy. The less sufficient the means appear to the
+end, the greater (as has been already noticed) will be the sensation of
+power.</p>
+
+<p>The fifth is decision: the appearance, that is, that whatever is done,
+has been done fearlessly and at once; because this gives us the
+impression that both the fact to be represented, and the means necessary
+to its representation, were perfectly known.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p6">§ 6. The sixth, velocity.</a></p>
+<p>The sixth is velocity. Not only is velocity, or
+the appearance of it, agreeable as decision is, because it gives ideas
+of power and knowledge; but of two touches, as nearly as possible the
+same in other respects, the quickest will invariably be the best. Truth
+being supposed equally present in the shape and direction of both, there
+will be more evenness, grace and variety, in the quick one than in the
+slow one. It will be more agreeable to the eye as a touch or line, and
+will possess more of the qualities of the lines of nature&mdash;gradation,
+uncertainty, and unity.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p7">§ 7. Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution.</a></p>
+<p>These six qualities are the only perfectly legitimate sources of
+pleasure in execution; but I might have added a seventh&mdash;strangeness,
+which in many cases is productive of a pleasure not altogether mean or
+degrading, though scarcely right. Supposing the other higher qualities
+first secured, it adds in no small degree to our impression of the
+artist's knowledge, if the means used be such as we should never have
+thought of, or should have thought adapted to a contrary effect. Let us,
+for instance, compare the execution of the bull's head in the left hand
+lowest corner of the Adoration of the Magi, in the Museum at Antwerp,
+with that in Berghem's landscape, No. 132 in the Dulwich Gallery. Rubens
+first scratches horizontally over his canvas a thin grayish brown, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page038"></a>[Page 38]</span>
+transparent and even, very much the color of light wainscot; the
+horizontal strokes of the bristles being left so evident, that the whole
+might be taken for an imitation of wood, were it not for its
+transparency. On this ground the eye, nostril, and outline of the cheek
+are given with two or three rude, brown touches, (about three or four
+minutes' work in all,) though the head is colossal. The background is
+then laid in with thick, solid, warm white, actually projecting all
+round the head, leaving it in dark intaglio. Finally, five thin and
+scratchy strokes of very cold bluish white are struck for the high light
+on the forehead and nose, and the head is complete. Seen within a yard
+of the canvas, it looks actually transparent&mdash;a flimsy, meaningless,
+distant shadow; while the background looks solid, projecting and near.
+From the right distance, (ten or twelve yards off, whence alone the
+whole of the picture can be seen,) it is a complete, rich, substantial,
+and living realization of the projecting head of the animal; while the
+background falls far behind. Now there is no slight nor mean pleasure in
+perceiving such a result attained by means so strange. By Berghem, on
+the other hand, a dark background is first laid in with exquisite
+delicacy and transparency, and on this the cow's head is actually
+modelled in luminous white, the separate locks of hair projecting from
+the canvas. No surprise, nor much pleasure of any kind, would be
+attendant on this execution, even were the result equally successful;
+and what little pleasure we had in it, vanishes, when on retiring from
+the picture, we find the head shining like a distant lantern, instead of
+substantial or near. Yet strangeness is not to be considered as a
+legitimate source of pleasure. That means which is most conducive to the
+end, should always be the most pleasurable; and that which is most
+conducive to the end, can be strange only to the ignorance of the
+spectator. This kind of pleasure is illegitimate, therefore, because it
+implies and requires, in those who feel it, ignorance of art.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p8">§ 8. Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are
+inconsistent with each other.</a></p>
+<p>The legitimate sources of pleasure in execution
+are therefore truth, simplicity, mystery, inadequacy, decision, and
+velocity. But of these, be it observed, some are so far inconsistent
+with others, that they cannot be united in high degrees. Mystery with
+inadequacy, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page039"></a>[Page 39]</span>for instance; since to see that the means are
+inadequate, we must see what they are. Now the first three are the great
+qualities of execution, and the last three are the attractive ones,
+because on them are chiefly attendant the ideas of power. By the first
+three the attention is withdrawn from the means and fixed on the result:
+by the last three, withdrawn from the result and fixed on the means. To
+see that execution is swift or that it is decided, we must look away
+from its creation to observe it in the act of creating; we must think
+more of the pallet than of the picture, but simplicity and mystery
+compel the mind to leave the means and fix itself on the conception.
+Hence the <span class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p9">§ 9. And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of
+the lowest.</a></span>danger of too great fondness for those sensations of power
+which are associated with the three last qualities of execution; for
+although it is most desirable that these should be present as far as
+they are consistent with the others, and though their visible absence is
+always painful and wrong, yet the moment the higher qualities are
+sacrificed to them in the least degree, we have a brilliant vice.
+Berghem and Salvator Rosa are good instances of vicious execution
+dependent on too great fondness for sensations of power, vicious because
+intrusive and attractive in itself, instead of being subordinate to its
+results and forgotten in them. There is perhaps no greater
+stumbling-block in the artist's way, than the tendency to sacrifice
+truth and simplicity to decision and velocity,<a name="FnAnchor_5" href="#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> captivating qualities,
+easy of attainment, and sure to attract attention and praise, while the
+delicate degree of truth which is at first sacrificed to them is so
+totally unappreciable by <span class="pagenum"><a name="page040"></a>[Page 40]</span>the majority of spectators, so difficult
+of attainment to the artist, that it is no wonder that efforts so
+arduous and unrewarded <span class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p10">§ 10. Therefore perilous.</a></span>should be abandoned. But
+if the temptation be once yielded to, its consequences are fatal; there
+is no pause in the fall. I could name a celebrated modern artist&mdash;once a
+man of the highest power and promise, who is a glaring instance of the
+peril of such a course. Misled by the undue popularity of his swift
+execution, he has sacrificed to it, first precision, and then truth, and
+her associate, beauty. What was first neglect of nature, has become
+contradiction of her; what was once imperfection, is now falsehood; and
+all that was meritorious in his manner, is becoming the worst, because
+the most attractive of vices; decision without a foundation, and
+swiftness without an end.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c2p11">§ 11. Recapitulation.</a></p>
+<p>Such are the principal modes in which the ideas of
+power may become a dangerous attraction to the artist&mdash;a false test to
+the critic. But in all cases where they lead us astray it will be found
+that the error is caused by our preferring victory over a small
+<i>apparent</i> difficulty to victory over a great, but concealed one; and so
+that we keep this distinction constantly in view, (whether with
+reference to execution or to any other quality of art,) between the
+sensation and the intellectual estimate of power, we shall always find
+the ideas of power a just and high source of pleasure in every kind and
+grade of art.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" href="#FnAnchor_5">[5]</a> I have here noticed only noble vices, the sacrifices of one
+excellence to another legitimate but inferior one. There are, on the
+other hand, qualities of execution which are often sought for and
+praised, though scarcely by the class of persons for whom I am writing,
+in which everything is sacrificed to illegitimate and contemptible
+sources of pleasure, and these are vice throughout, and have no
+redeeming quality nor excusing aim. Such is that which is often thought
+so desirable in the Drawing-master, under the title of boldness, meaning
+that no touch is ever to be made less than the tenth of an inch broad;
+such, on the other hand, the softness and smoothness which are the great
+attraction of Carlo Dolci, and such the exhibition of particular powers
+and tricks of the hand and fingers, in total forgetfulness of any end
+whatsoever to be attained thereby, which is especially characteristic of
+modern engraving. Compare Sect. II. Chap. II. § 21. Note.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page041"></a>[Page 41]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE SUBLIME.</h5>
+
+<p>It may perhaps be wondered that in the division we have made of our
+subject, we have taken no notice of the sublime in art, and that in our
+explanation of that division we have not once used the word.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c3p1">§ 1. Sublimity is the effect upon the mind of anything above it.</a></p>
+<p>The fact is, that sublimity is not a specific term,&mdash;not a term
+descriptive of the effect of a particular class of ideas. Anything which
+elevates the mind is sublime, and elevation of mind is produced by the
+contemplation of greatness of any kind; but chiefly, of course, by the
+greatness of the noblest things. Sublimity is, therefore, only another
+word for the effect of greatness upon the feelings. Greatness of matter,
+space, power, virtue, or beauty, are thus all sublime; and there is
+perhaps no desirable quality of a work of art, which in its perfection
+is not, in some way or degree, sublime.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c3p2">§ 2. Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and why.</a></p>
+<p>I am fully prepared to allow of much ingenuity in Burke's theory of the
+sublime, as connected with self-preservation. There are few things so
+great as death; and there is perhaps nothing which banishes all
+littleness of thought and feeling in an equal degree with its
+contemplation. Everything, therefore, which in any way points to it,
+and, therefore, most dangers and powers over which we have little
+control, are in some degree sublime. But it is not the fear, observe,
+but the contemplation of death; not the instinctive shudder and struggle
+of self-preservation, but the deliberate measurement of the doom, which
+are really great or sublime in feeling. It is not while we shrink, but
+while we defy, that we receive or convey the highest conceptions of the
+fate. There is no sublimity in the agony of terror. Whether do we trace
+it most in the cry to the mountains, "fall on us," and to the hills,
+"cover us," or in the calmness of the prophecy&mdash;"And <span class="pagenum"><a name="page042"></a>[Page 42]</span> though
+after my skin worms destroy this body, <span class="sidenote"><a name="s2c3p3">§ 3. Danger is sublime, but not
+the fear of it.</a></span>yet in my flesh I shall see God?" A little reflection
+will easily convince any one, that so far from the feelings of
+self-preservation being necessary to the sublime, their greatest action
+is totally destructive of it; and that there are few feelings less
+capable of its perception than those of a coward. But the simple
+conception or idea of greatness of suffering or extent of destruction is
+sublime, whether there be any connection of that idea with ourselves or
+not. If we were placed beyond the reach of all peril or pain, the
+perception of these agencies in their influence on others would not be
+less sublime, not because peril or pain are sublime in their own nature,
+but because their contemplation, exciting <span class="sidenote"><a name="s2c3p4">§ 4. The highest beauty is
+sublime.</a></span>compassion or fortitude, elevates the mind, and renders meanness
+of thought impossible. Beauty is not so often felt to be sublime;
+because, in many kinds of purely material beauty there is some truth in
+Burke's assertion, that "littleness" is one of its elements. But he who
+has not felt that there may be beauty without littleness, and that such
+beauty is a source of the sublime, is yet ignorant <span class="sidenote"><a name="s2c3p5">§ 5. And generally
+whatever elevates the mind.</a></span>of the meaning of the ideal in art. I do not
+mean, in tracing the source of the sublime to greatness, to hamper
+myself with any fine-spun theory. I take the widest possible ground of
+investigation, that sublimity is found wherever anything elevates the
+mind; that is, wherever it contemplates anything above itself, and
+perceives it to be so. This is the simple philological signification of
+the word derived from <i>sublimis</i>; and will serve us much more easily,
+and be a far clearer and more evident ground of argument, than any mere
+metaphysical or more limited definition, while the proof of its justness
+will be naturally developed by its application to the different branches
+of art.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="s2c3p6">§ 6. The former division of the subject is therefore
+sufficient.</a></p> <p>As, therefore, the sublime is not distinct from what is
+beautiful, nor from other sources of pleasure in art, but is only a
+particular mode and manifestation of them, my subject will divide itself
+into the investigation of ideas of truth, beauty, and relation; and to
+each of these classes of ideas I destine a separate part of the work.
+The investigation of ideas of truth will enable us to determine <span class="pagenum"><a name="page043"></a>[Page
+43]</span> the relative rank of artists as followers and historians of nature.</p>
+
+<p>That of ideas of beauty will lead us to compare them in their
+attainment, first of what is agreeable in technical matters, then in
+color and composition, finally and chiefly, in the purity of their
+conceptions of the ideal.</p>
+
+<p>And that of ideas of relation will lead us to compare them as
+originators of just thought.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page044"></a>[Page 44]</span></p>
+<h2>PART II.</h2>
+
+<h4>OF TRUTH.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>SECTION I.</h3>
+
+<h4>GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF IDEAS OF TRUTH IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH THOSE OF<br />
+BEAUTY AND RELATION.</h5>
+
+<p>It cannot but be evident from the above division of the ideas conveyable
+by art, that the landscape painter must always have <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p1">§ 1. The two great
+ends of landscape painting are the representation of facts and
+thoughts.</a></span>two great and distinct ends; the first, to induce in the
+spectator's mind the faithful conception of any natural objects
+whatsoever; the second, to guide the spectator's mind to those objects
+most worthy of its contemplation, and to inform him of the thoughts and
+feelings with which these were regarded by the artist himself.</p>
+
+<p>In attaining the first end, the painter only places the spectator where
+he stands himself; he sets him before the landscape and leaves him. The
+spectator is alone. He may follow out his own thoughts as he would in
+the natural solitude, or he may remain untouched, unreflecting and
+regardless, as his disposition may incline him. But he has nothing of
+thought given to him, no new ideas, no unknown feelings, forced on his
+attention or his heart. The artist is his conveyance, not his
+companion,&mdash;his horse, not his friend. But in attaining the second
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page045"></a>[Page 45]</span> end, the artist not only <i>places</i> the spectator, but <i>talks</i>
+to him; makes him a sharer in his own strong feelings and quick
+thoughts; hurries him away in his own enthusiasm; guides him to all that
+is beautiful; snatches him from all that is base, and leaves him more
+than delighted,&mdash;ennobled and instructed, under the sense of having not
+only beheld a new scene, but of having held communion with a new mind,
+and having been endowed for a time with the keen perception and the
+impetuous emotion of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p2">§ 2. They induce a different choice of material subjects.</a></p>
+<p>Each of these different aims of art will necessitate a different system
+of choice of objects to be represented. The first does not indeed imply
+choice at all, but it is usually united with the selection of such
+objects as may be naturally and constantly pleasing to all men, at all
+times; and this selection, when perfect and careful, leads to the
+attainment of the pure ideal. But the artist aiming at the second end,
+selects his objects for their meaning and character, rather than for
+their beauty; and uses them rather to throw light upon the particular
+thought he wishes to convey, than as in themselves objects of
+unconnected admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p3">§ 3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition.</a></p>
+<p>Now, although the first mode of selection, when guided by deep
+reflection, may rise to the production of works possessing a noble and
+ceaseless influence on the human mind, it is likely to degenerate into,
+or rather, in nine cases out of ten, it never goes beyond, a mere appeal
+to such parts of our animal nature as are constant and common&mdash;shared by
+all, and perpetual in all; such, for instance, as the pleasure of the
+eye in the opposition of a cold and warm color, or of a massy form with
+a delicate one. It also tends to induce constant repetition of the same
+ideas, and reference to the same principles; it gives rise to those
+<i>rules</i> of art which properly excited Reynolds's indignation when
+applied to its higher efforts; it is the source of, and the apology for,
+that host of technicalities and absurdities which in all ages have been
+the curse of art and the crown of the connoisseur.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p4">§ 4. The second necessitating variety.</a></p>
+<p>But art, in its second and highest
+aim, is not an appeal to constant animal feelings, but an expression and
+awakening of individual thought: it <span class="pagenum"><a name="page046"></a>[Page 46]</span> is therefore as various
+and as extended in its efforts as the compass and grasp of the directing
+mind; and we feel, in each of its results, that we are looking, not at a
+specimen of a tradesman's wares, of which he is ready to make us a dozen
+to match, but at one coruscation of a perpetually active mind, like
+which there has not been, and will not be another.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p5">§ 5. Yet the first is delightful to all.</a></p>
+<p>Hence, although there can be no
+doubt which of these branches of art is the highest, it is equally
+evident that the first will be the most generally felt and appreciated.
+For the simple statement of the truths of nature must in itself be
+pleasing to every order of mind; because every truth of nature is more
+or less beautiful; and if there be just and right selection of the more
+important of these truths&mdash;based, as above explained, on feelings and
+desires common to all mankind&mdash;the facts so selected must, in some
+degree, be delightful to all, and their value appreciable by all: more
+or less, indeed, as their senses and instinct have been rendered more or
+less acute and accurate by use and study; but in some degree <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p6">§ 6. The
+second only to a few.</a></span>by all, and in the same way by all. But the highest
+art, being based on sensations of peculiar minds, sensations occurring
+to <i>them</i> only at particular times, and to a plurality of mankind
+perhaps never, and being expressive of thoughts which could only rise
+out of a mass of the most extended knowledge, and of dispositions
+modified in a thousand ways by peculiarity of intellect&mdash;can only be met
+and understood by persons having some sort of sympathy with the high and
+solitary minds which produced it&mdash;sympathy only to be felt by minds in
+some degree high and solitary themselves. He alone can appreciate the
+art, who could comprehend the conversation of the painter, and share in
+his emotion, in moments of his most fiery passion and most original
+thought. And whereas the true meaning and end of his art must thus be
+sealed to thousands, or misunderstood by them; so also, as he is
+sometimes obliged, in working out his own peculiar end, to set at
+defiance those constant laws which have arisen out of our lower and
+changeless desires, that whose purpose is unseen, is frequently in its
+means and parts displeasing.</p>
+
+<p>But this want of extended influence in high art, be it especially
+observed, proceeds from no want of truth in the art itself, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page047"></a>[Page 47]</span>
+but from a want of sympathy in the spectator with those feelings in the
+artist which prompt him to the utterance of one truth <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p7">§ 7. The first
+necessary to the second.</a></span>rather than of another. For (and this is what I
+wish at present especially to insist upon) although it is possible to
+reach what I have stated to be the first end of art, the representation
+of facts, without reaching the second, the representation of thoughts,
+yet it is altogether impossible to reach the second without having
+previously reached the first. I do not say that a man cannot think,
+having false basis and material for thought; but that a false thought is
+worse than the want of thought, and therefore is not art. And this is
+the reason why, though I consider the second as the real and only
+important end of all art, I call the representation of facts the first
+end; because it is necessary to the other, and must be attained before
+it. It is the foundation of all art; like real foundations it may be
+little thought of when a brilliant fabric is raised on it; but it must
+be there: and as few buildings are beautiful unless every line and
+column of their mass have reference to their foundation, and are
+suggestive of its existence and strength, so nothing can be beautiful in
+art which does not in all its parts suggest and guide to the foundation,
+even where no undecorated portion of it is visible; while the noblest
+edifices of art are built of such pure and fine crystal that the
+foundation may all be seen through them; and then many, while they do
+not see what is built upon that first story, yet much admire the
+solidity of its brickwork; thinking they understand all that is to be
+understood of the matter; while others stand beside them, looking not at
+the low story, but up into the heaven at that building of crystal in
+which the builder's spirit is dwelling. And thus, though we want the
+thoughts and feelings of the artist as well as the truth, yet they must
+be thoughts arising out of the knowledge of truth, and feelings raising
+out of the contemplation of truth. We do not want his mind to be as
+badly blown glass, that distorts what we see through it; but like a
+glass of sweet and strange color, that gives new tones to what we see
+through it; and a glass of rare strength and clearness too, to let us
+see more than we could ourselves, and bring nature up to us and near to
+us. Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most brilliant
+imagination, the most playful <span class="pagenum"><a name="page048"></a>[Page 48]</span> fancy, the most pure feeling,
+(supposing that feeling <i>could</i> be pure and false at the same time;) not
+the most exalted conception, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p8">§ 8. The exceeding importance of truth.</a></span>nor
+the most comprehensive grasp of intellect, can make amends for the want
+of truth, and that for two reasons; first, because falsehood is in
+itself revolting and degrading; and secondly, because nature is so
+immeasurably superior to all that the human mind can conceive, that
+every departure from her is a fall beneath her, so that there can be no
+such thing as an ornamental falsehood. All falsehood must be a blot as
+well as a sin, an injury as well as a deception.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p9">§ 9. Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth.</a></p>
+<p>We shall, in consequence, find that no artist can be graceful,
+imaginative, or original, unless he be truthful; and that the pursuit of
+beauty, instead of leading us away from truth, increases the desire for
+it and the necessity of it tenfold; so that those artists who are really
+great in imaginative power, will be found to have based their boldness
+of conception on a mass of knowledge far exceeding that possessed by
+those who pride themselves on its accumulation without regarding its
+use. Coldness and want of passion in a picture, are not signs of the
+accuracy, but of the paucity of its statements; true vigor and
+brilliancy are not signs of audacity, but of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c1p10">§ 10. How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art.</a></p>
+<p>Hence it follows that it is in the power of all, with care and time, to
+form something like a just judgment of the relative merits of artists;
+for although with respect to the feeling and passion of pictures, it is
+often as impossible to criticise as to appreciate, except to such as are
+in some degree equal in powers of mind, and in some respects the same in
+modes of mind, with those whose works they judge; yet, with respect to
+the representation of facts, it is possible for all, by attention, to
+form a right judgment of the respective powers and attainments of every
+artist. Truth is a bar of comparison at which they may all be examined,
+and according to the rank they take in this examination, will almost
+invariably be that which, if capable of appreciating them in every
+respect, we should be just in assigning them; so strict is the
+connection, so constant the relation between the sum of knowledge <span class="pagenum"><a name="page049"></a>[Page
+49]</span> and the extent of thought, between accuracy of perception and
+vividness of idea.</p>
+
+<p>I shall endeavor, therefore, in the present portion of the work, to
+enter with care and impartiality into the investigation of the claims of
+the schools of ancient and modern landscape to faithfulness in
+representing nature. I shall pay no regard whatsoever to what may be
+thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative. I shall look only for
+truth; bare, clear, downright statement of facts; showing in each
+particular, as far as I am able, what the truth of nature is, and then
+seeking for the plain expression of it, and for that alone. And I shall
+thus endeavor, totally regardless of fervor of imagination or brilliancy
+of effect, or any other of their more captivating qualities, to examine
+and to judge the works of the great living painter, who is, I believe,
+imagined by the majority of the public to paint more falsehood and less
+fact than any other known master. We shall see with what reason.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page050"></a>[Page 50]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>THAT THE TRUTH OF NATURE IS NOT TO BE DISCERNED BY<br />
+THE UNEDUCATED SENSES.</h5>
+
+<p>It may be here inquired by the reader, with much appearance of reason,
+why I think it necessary to devote a separate portion of the work to the
+showing of what is truthful in art. "Cannot <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p1">§ 1. The common
+self-deception of men with respect to their power of discerning
+truth.</a></span>we," say the public, "see what nature is with our own eyes, and
+find out for ourselves what is like her?" It will be as well to
+determine this question before we go farther, because if this were
+possible, there would be little need of criticism or teaching with
+respect to art.</p>
+
+<p>Now I have just said that it is possible for all men, by care and
+attention, to form a just judgment of the fidelity of artists to nature.
+To do this, no peculiar powers of mind are required, no sympathy with
+particular feelings, nothing which every man of ordinary intellect does
+not in some degree possess,&mdash;powers, namely, of observation and
+intelligence, which by cultivation may be brought to a high degree of
+perfection and acuteness. But until this cultivation has been bestowed,
+and until the instrument thereby perfected has been employed in a
+consistent series of careful observation, it is as absurd as it is
+audacious to pretend to form any judgment whatsoever respecting the
+truth of art: and my first business, before going a step farther, must
+be to combat the nearly universal error of belief among the thoughtless
+and unreflecting, that they know either what nature is, or what is like
+her, that they can discover truth by instinct, and that their minds are
+such pure Venice glass as to be shocked by all treachery. I have to
+prove to them that there are more things in heaven and earth than are
+dreamed of in their philosophy, and that the truth of nature is a part
+of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness, as it
+is to him who does, infinity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page051"></a>[Page 51]</span></p> <p>The first great mistake that people make in the matter, is the
+supposition that they must <i>see</i> a thing if it be before their <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p2">§ 2. Men
+usually see little of what is before their eyes.v</a></span>eyes. They forget the
+great truth told them by Locke, Book ii. chap. 9, § 3:&mdash;"This is
+certain, that whatever alterations are made in the body, if they reach
+not the mind, whatever impressions are made on the outward parts, if
+they are not taken notice of within, there is no perception. Fire may
+burn our bodies, with no other effect than it does a billet, unless the
+motion be continued to the brain, and there the sense of heat or idea of
+pain be produced in the mind, wherein consists actual perception. How
+often may a man observe in himself, that while his mind is intently
+employed in the contemplation of some subjects and curiously surveying
+some ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions of sounding
+bodies, made upon the organ of hearing, with the same attention that
+uses to be for the producing the ideas of sound! A sufficient impulse
+there may be on the organ, but it not reaching the observation of the
+mind, there follows no perception, and though the motion that uses to
+produce the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no sound is heard."
+And what is here said, which all must feel by their own experience to be
+true, is more remarkably and necessarily the case with sight than with
+any other of the senses, for this reason, that the ear is not accustomed
+to exercise constantly its functions of hearing; it is accustomed to
+stillness, and the occurrence of a sound of any kind whatsoever is apt
+to awake attention, and be followed with perception, in proportion to
+the degree of sound; but the eye, during our waking hours, exercises
+constantly its function of seeing; it is its constant habit; we always,
+as far as the <i>bodily</i> organ is concerned, see something, and we always
+see in the same degree, so that the occurrence of sight, as such, to the
+eye, is only the continuance of its necessary state of action, and
+awakes no attention whatsoever, except by the particular nature and
+quality of the sight. And thus, unless the minds of men are particularly
+directed to the impressions of sight, objects pass perpetually before
+the eyes without conveying any impression to the brain at all; and so
+pass actually unseen, not merely unnoticed, but in the full, clear sense
+of the word, unseen. And numbers of men being pre-occupied with business
+or care <span class="pagenum"><a name="page052"></a>[Page 52]</span> of some description, totally unconnected with the
+impressions of sight, such is actually the case with them, they
+receiving from nature only the inevitable sensations of blueness,
+redness, darkness, light, etc., and except at particular and rare
+moments, no more whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p3">§ 3. But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to
+what is beautiful.</a></p>
+<p>The degree of ignorance of external nature in which men
+may thus remain, depends, therefore, partly on the number and character
+of the subjects with which their minds may be otherwise occupied, and
+partly on a natural want of sensibility to the power of beauty of form,
+and the other attributes of external objects. I do not think that there
+is ever such absolute incapacity in the eye for distinguishing and
+receiving pleasure from certain forms and colors, as there is in persons
+who are technically said to have no ear, for distinguishing notes, but
+there is naturally every degree of bluntness and acuteness, both for
+perceiving the truth of form, and for receiving pleasure from it when
+perceived. And although I believe even the lowest degree of these
+faculties can be expanded almost unlimitedly by cultivation, the
+pleasure received rewards not the labor necessary, and the pursuit is
+abandoned. So that while in those whose sensations are naturally acute
+and vivid, the call of external nature is so strong that it must be
+obeyed, and is ever heard louder as the approach to her is nearer,&mdash;in
+those whose sensations are naturally blunt, the call is overpowered at
+once by other thoughts, and their <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p4">§ 4. Connected with a perfect state of
+moral feeling.</a></span>faculties of perception, weak originally, die of disuse.
+With this kind of bodily sensibility to color and form is intimately
+connected that higher sensibility which we revere as one of the chief
+attributes of all noble minds, and as the chief spring of real poetry. I
+believe this kind of sensibility may be entirely resolved into the
+acuteness of bodily sense of which I have been speaking, associated with
+love, love I mean in its infinite and holy functions, as it embraces
+divine and human and brutal intelligences, and hallows the physical
+perception of external objects by association, gratitude, veneration,
+and other pure feelings of our moral nature. And although the discovery
+of truth is in itself altogether intellectual, and dependent merely on
+our powers of physical perception and abstract intellect, wholly
+independent of our moral nature, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page053"></a>[Page 53]</span> yet these instruments
+(perception and judgment) are so sharpened and brightened, and so far
+more swiftly and effectively used, when they have the energy and passion
+of our moral nature to bring them into action&mdash;perception is so
+quickened by love, and judgment so tempered by veneration, that,
+practically, a man of deadened moral sensation is always dull in his
+perception of truth, and thousands of the highest and most divine truths
+of nature are wholly concealed from him, however constant and
+indefatigable may be his intellectual search. Thus, then, the farther we
+look, the more we are limited in the number of those to whom we should
+choose to appeal as judges of truth, and the more we perceive how great
+a number of mankind may be partially incapacitated from either
+discovering or feeling it.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p5">§ 5. And of the intellectual powers.</a></p>
+<p>Next to sensibility, which is
+necessary for the perception of facts, come reflection and memory, which
+are necessary for the retention of them, and recognition of their
+resemblances. For a man may receive impression after impression, and
+that vividly and with delight, and yet, if he take no care to reason
+upon those impressions and trace them to their sources, he may remain
+totally ignorant of the facts that produced them; nay, may attribute
+them to facts with which they have no connection, or may coin causes for
+them that have no existence at all. And the more sensibility and
+imagination a man possesses, the more likely will he be to fall into
+error; for then he will see whatever he expects, and admire and judge
+with his heart, and not with his eyes. How many people are misled, by
+what has been said and sung of the serenity of Italian skies, to suppose
+they must be more <i>blue</i> than the skies of the north, and think that
+they see them so; whereas, the sky of Italy is far more dull and gray in
+color than the skies of the north, and is distinguished only by its
+intense repose of light. And this is confirmed by Benvenuto Cellini,
+who, I remember, on his first entering France, is especially struck with
+the clearness of the sky, as contrasted with the <i>mist</i> of Italy. And
+what is more strange still, when people see in a painting what they
+suppose to have been the source of their impressions, they will affirm
+it to be truthful, though they feel no such impression resulting from
+it. Thus, though day after <span class="pagenum"><a name="page054"></a>[Page 54]</span> day they may have been impressed
+by the tone and warmth of an Italian sky, yet not having traced the
+feeling to its source, and supposing themselves impressed by its
+<i>blueness</i>, they will affirm a blue sky in a painting to be truthful,
+and reject the most faithful rendering of all the real attributes of
+Italy as <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p6">§ 6. How sight depends upon previous knowledge.</a></span>cold or dull.
+And this influence of the imagination over the senses, is peculiarly
+observable in the perpetual disposition of mankind to suppose that they
+<i>see</i> what they <i>know</i>, and <i>vice versa</i> in their not seeing what they
+do not know. Thus, if a child be asked to draw the corner of a house, he
+will lay down something in the form of the letter T. He has no
+conception that the two lines of the roof, which he knows to be level,
+produce on his eye the impression of a slope. It requires repeated and
+close attention before he detects this fact, or can be made to feel that
+the lines on his paper are false. And the Chinese, children in all
+things, suppose a good perspective drawing to be as false as we feel
+their plate patterns to be, or wonder at the strange buildings which
+come to a point at the end. And all the early works, whether of nations
+or of men, show, by their want of <i>shade</i>, how little the eye, without
+knowledge, is to be depended upon to discover truth. The eye of a Red
+Indian, keen enough to find the trace of his enemy or his prey, even in
+the unnatural turn of a trodden leaf, is yet so blunt to the impressions
+of shade, that Mr. Catlin mentions his once having been in great danger
+from having painted a portrait with the face in half-light, which the
+untutored observers imagined and affirmed to be the painting of half a
+face. Barry, in his sixth lecture, takes notice of the same want of
+actual <i>sight</i> in the early painters of Italy. "The imitations," he
+says, "of early art are like those of children&mdash;nothing is seen in the
+spectacle before us, unless it be previously known and sought for; and
+numberless observable differences between the age of ignorance and that
+of knowledge, show how much the contraction or extension of our sphere
+of vision depends upon other considerations than the mere returns of our
+natural optics." And the deception which takes place so broadly in cases
+like these, has infinitely greater influence over our judgment of the
+more intricate and less tangible truths of nature. We are constantly
+supposing that we see <span class="pagenum"><a name="page055"></a>[Page 55]</span> what experience only has shown us, or
+can show us, to have existence, constantly missing the sight of what we
+do not know beforehand to be visible: and painters, to the last hour of
+their lives, are apt to fall in some degree into the error of painting
+what exists, rather than what they can see. I shall prove the extent of
+this error more completely hereafter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p7">§ 7. The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature.</a></span></p>
+<p>Be it also observed, that all these difficulties would lie in the way,
+even if the truths of nature were always the same, constantly repeated
+and brought before us. But the truths of nature are one eternal
+change&mdash;one infinite variety. There is no bush on the face of the globe
+exactly like another bush;&mdash;there are no two trees in the forest whose
+boughs bend into the same network, nor two leaves on the same tree which
+could not be told one from the other, nor two waves in the sea exactly
+alike. And out of this mass of various, yet agreeing beauty, it is by
+long attention only that the conception of the constant character&mdash;the
+ideal form&mdash;hinted at by all, yet assumed by none, is fixed upon the
+imagination for its standard of truth.</p>
+
+<p>It is not singular, therefore, nor in any way disgraceful, that the
+majority of spectators are totally incapable of appreciating the truth
+of nature, when fully set before them; but it is both singular and
+disgraceful that it is so difficult to convince them of their own
+incapability. Ask the connoisseur, who has scampered over all Europe,
+the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that
+he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every
+painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid, and pretend to tell you
+whether they are like nature or not. Ask an enthusiastic chatterer in
+the Sistine Chapel how many ribs he has, and you get no answer; but it
+is odds that you do not get out of the door without his informing you
+that he considers such and such a figure badly drawn!</p>
+
+<p><span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c2p8">§ 8. We recognize objects by their least important attributes. Compare
+Part I., Sect. I., Chap. 4.</a></span></p><p>A few such interrogations as these might indeed
+convict, if not convince the mass of spectators of incapability, were it
+not for the universal reply, that they can recognize what they cannot
+describe, and feel what is truthful, though they do not know what is
+truth. And this is, to a certain degree, true: a man may recognize the
+portrait of his friend, though he cannot, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page056"></a>[Page 56]</span> if you ask him
+apart, tell you the shape of his nose or the height of his forehead; and
+every one could tell nature herself from an imitation; why not then, it
+will be asked, what is like her from what is not? For this simple
+reason, that we constantly recognize things by their least important
+attributes, and by help of very few of those, and if these attributes
+exist not in the imitation, though there may be thousands of others far
+higher and more valuable, yet if those be wanting, or imperfectly
+rendered, by which we are accustomed to recognize the object, we deny
+the likeness; while if these be given, though all the great and valuable
+and important attributes may be wanting, we affirm the likeness.
+Recognition is no proof of real and intrinsic resemblance. We recognize
+our books by their bindings, though the true and essential
+characteristics lie inside. A man is known to his dog by the smell&mdash;to
+his tailor by the coat&mdash;to his friend by the smile: each of these know
+him, but how little, or how much, depends on the dignity of the
+intelligence. That which is truly and indeed characteristic of the man,
+is known only to God. One portrait of a man may possess exact accuracy
+of feature, and no atom of expression; it may be, to use the ordinary
+terms of admiration bestowed on such portraits by those whom they
+please, "as like as it can stare." Everybody, down to his cat, would
+know this. Another portrait may have neglected or misrepresented the
+features, but may have given the flash of the eye, and the peculiar
+radiance of the lip, seen on him only in his hours of highest mental
+excitement. None but his friends would know this. Another may have given
+none of his ordinary expressions, but one which he wore in the most
+excited instant of his life, when all his secret passions and all his
+highest powers were brought into play at once. None but those who had
+then seen him might recognize <i>this</i> as like. But which would be the
+most truthful portrait of the <i>man</i>? The first gives the accidents of
+body&mdash;the sport of climate, and food, and time&mdash;which corruption
+inhabits, and the worm waits for. The second gives the stamp of the soul
+upon the flesh; but it is the soul seen in the emotions which it shares
+with many&mdash;which may not be characteristic of its essence&mdash;the results
+of habit, and education, and accident&mdash;a gloze, whether purposely worn
+or unconsciously assumed, perhaps <span class="pagenum"><a name="page057"></a>[Page 57]</span> totally contrary to all
+that is rooted and real in the mind that it conceals. The third has
+caught the trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty, when all
+hypocrisy, and all habit, and all petty and passing emotion&mdash;the ice,
+and the bank, and the foam of the immortal river&mdash;were shivered, and
+broken, and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward strength; when
+the call and claim of some divine motive had brought into visible being
+those latent forces and feelings which the spirit's own volition could
+not summon, nor its consciousness comprehend; which God only knew, and
+God only could awaken, the depth and the mystery of its peculiar and
+separating attributes. And so it is with external Nature: she has a body
+and a soul like man; but her soul is the Deity. It is possible to
+represent the body without the spirit; and this shall be like to those
+whose senses are only cognizant of body. It is possible to represent the
+spirit in its ordinary and inferior manifestations; and this shall be
+like to those who have not watched for its moments of power. It is
+possible to represent the spirit in its secret and high operations; and
+this shall be like only to those to whose watching they have been
+revealed. All these are truth; but according to the dignity of the
+truths he can represent or feel, is the power of the painter,&mdash;the
+justice of the judge.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page058"></a>[Page 58]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:&mdash;FIRST, THAT<br />
+PARTICULAR TRUTHS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GENERAL<br />
+ONES.</h5>
+
+<p>I have in the last chapter affirmed that we usually recognize objects by
+their least essential characteristics. This very naturally excites the
+inquiry what I consider their important <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p1">§ 1. Necessity of determining
+the relative importance of truths.</a></span>characteristics, and why I call one
+truth more important than another. And this question must be immediately
+determined, because it is evident, that in judging of the truth of
+painters, we shall have to consider not only the accuracy with which
+individual truths are given, but the relative importance of the truths
+themselves; for as it constantly happens that the powers of art are
+unable to render <i>all</i> truths, that artist must be considered the most
+truthful who has preserved the most important at the expense of the most
+trifling.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p2">§ 2. Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more important
+than particular ones."</a></p> <p>Now if we are to begin our investigation in
+Aristotle's way, and look at the <span class="grk" title="phainomena">
+&phi;&alpha;&iota;&nu;&#x1f79;&mu;&epsilon;&nu;&alpha;</span> of the subject, we
+shall immediately stumble over a maxim which is in everybody's mouth,
+and which, as it is understood in practice, is true and useful, as it is
+usually applied in argument, false and misleading. "General truths are
+more important than particular ones." Often, when in conversation, I
+have been praising Turner for his perpetual variety, and for giving so
+particular and separate a character to each of his compositions, that
+the mind of the painter can only be estimated by seeing all that he has
+ever done, and that nothing can be prophesied of a picture coming into
+existence on his easel, but that it will be totally different in idea
+from all that he has ever done before; and when I have opposed this
+inexhaustible knowledge or imagination, whichever it may be, to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page059"></a>[Page 59]</span> perpetual repetition of some half-dozen conceptions by Claude
+and Poussin, I have been met by the formidable objection, enunciated
+with much dignity and self-satisfaction on the part of my
+antagonist&mdash;"That is not painting general truths, that <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p3">§ 3. Falseness of
+this maxim taken without explanation.</a></span>is painting particular truths." Now
+there must be something wrong in that application of a principle which
+would make the variety and abundance which we look for as the greatest
+sign of intellect in the writer, the greatest sign of error in the
+painter; and we shall accordingly see, by an application of it to other
+matters, that, taken without limitation, the whole proposition is
+utterly false. For instance, Mrs. Jameson somewhere mentions the
+exclamation of a lady of her acquaintance, more desirous to fill a pause
+in conversation than abundant in sources of observation: "What an
+excellent book the Bible is!" This was a very general truth indeed, a
+truth predicable of the Bible in common with many other books, but it
+certainly is neither striking nor important. Had the lady
+exclaimed&mdash;"How evidently is the Bible a divine revelation!" she would
+have expressed a particular truth, one predicable of the Bible only; but
+certainly far more interesting and important. Had she, on the contrary,
+informed us that the Bible was a book, she would have been still more
+general, and still less entertaining. If I ask any one who somebody else
+is, and receive for answer that he is a man, I get little satisfaction
+for my pains; but if I am told that he is Sir Isaac Newton, I
+immediately thank my neighbor for his <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p4">§ 4. Generality important in the
+subject, particularity in the predicate.</a></span>information. The fact is, and
+the above instances may serve at once to prove it if it be not
+self-evident, that generality gives importance to the <i>subject</i>, and
+limitation or particularity to the <i>predicate</i>. If I say that such and
+such a man in China is an opium-eater, I say nothing very interesting,
+because my subject (such a man) is particular. If I say that all men in
+China are opium-eaters, I say something interesting, because my subject
+(all men) is general. If I say that all men in China eat, I say nothing
+interesting, because my predicate (eat) is general. If I say that all
+men in China eat opium, I say something interesting, because my
+predicate (eat opium) is particular.</p>
+
+<p>Now almost everything which (with reference to a given subject) <span class="pagenum"><a name="page060"></a>[Page
+60]</span> a painter has to ask himself whether he shall represent or not, is a
+predicate. Hence in art, particular truths are usually more important
+than general ones.</p>
+
+<p>How is it then that anything so plain as this should be contradicted by
+one of the most universally received aphorisms respecting art? A little
+reflection will show us under what limitations this maxim may be true in
+practice.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p5">§ 5. The importance of truths of species is not owing to their
+generality.</a></p>
+<p>It is self-evident that when we are painting or describing
+anything, those truths must be the most important which are most
+characteristic of what is to be told or represented. Now that which is
+first and most broadly characteristic of a thing, is that which
+distinguishes its genus, or which makes it what it is. For instance,
+that which makes drapery <i>be</i> drapery, is not its being made of silk or
+worsted or flax, for things are made of all these which are not drapery,
+but the ideas peculiar to drapery; the properties which, when inherent
+in a thing, make it drapery, are extension, non-elastic flexibility,
+unity and comparative thinness. Everything which has these properties, a
+waterfall, for instance, if united and extended, or a net of weeds over
+a wall, is drapery, as much as silk or woollen stuff is. So that these
+ideas separate drapery in our minds from everything else; they are
+peculiarly characteristic of it, and therefore are the most important
+group of ideas connected with it; and so with everything else, that
+which makes the thing what it is, is the most important idea, or group
+of ideas connected with the thing. But as this idea must necessarily be
+common to all individuals of the species it belongs to, it is a general
+idea with respect to that species; while other ideas, which are not
+characteristic of the species, and are therefore in reality general, (as
+black or white are terms applicable to more things than drapery,) are
+yet particular with respect to that species, being predicable only of
+certain individuals of it. Hence it is carelessly and falsely said, that
+general ideas are more important than particular ones; carelessly and
+falsely, I say, because the so-called general idea is important, not
+because it is common to all the individuals of that species, but because
+it separates that species from everything else. It is the
+distinctiveness, not the universality of the truth, which renders it
+important. And the so-called <span class="pagenum"><a name="page061"></a>[Page 61]</span> particular idea is unimportant,
+not because it is not predicable of the whole species, but because it
+<i>is</i> predicable of things out of that species. It is not its
+individuality, but its <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p6">§ 6. All truths valuable as they are
+characteristic.</a></span>generality which renders it unimportant. So, then, truths
+are important just in proportion as they are characteristic, and are
+valuable, primarily, as they separate the species from all other created
+things secondarily, as they separate the individuals of that species
+from one another: thus "silken" or "woollen" are unimportant ideas with
+respect to drapery, because they neither separate the species from other
+things, nor even the individuals of that species from one another,
+since, though not common to the whole of it, they are common to
+indefinite numbers of it; but the particular folds into which any piece
+of drapery may happen to fall, being different in many particulars from
+those into which any other piece of drapery will fall, are expressive
+not only of the characters of the species, flexibility, (non-elasticity,
+etc.,) but of individuality and definite character in the case
+immediately observed, and are consequently most important and necessary
+ideas. So in a man, to be short-legged or long-nosed or anything else of
+accidental quality, does not distinguish him from other short-legged or
+long-nosed animals; but the important truths respecting a man are,
+first, the marked development of that distinctive organization which
+separates him as man from other animals, and secondly, that group of
+qualities which distinguish the individual from all other men, which
+make him Paul or Judas, Newton or Shakspeare.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p7">§ 7. Otherwise truths of species are valuable because beautiful.</a></p> <p>Such
+are the real sources of importance in truths as far as they are
+considered with reference merely to their being general, or particular;
+but there are other sources of importance which give farther weight to
+the ordinary opinion of the greater value of those which are general,
+and which render this opinion right in practice; I mean the intrinsic
+beauty of the truths themselves, a quality which it is not here the
+place to investigate, but which must just be noticed, as invariably
+adding value to truths of species rather than to those of individuality.
+The qualities and properties which characterize man or any other animal
+as a species, are the perfection of his or its form of mind, almost all
+individual <span class="pagenum"><a name="page062"></a>[Page 62]</span> differences arising from imperfections; hence a
+truth of species is the more valuable to art, because it must always be
+a beauty, while a truth of individuals is commonly, in some sort or way,
+a defect.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p8">§ 8. And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in
+connection with others.</a></p> <p>Again, a truth which may be of great interest,
+when an object is viewed by itself, may be objectionable when it is
+viewed in relation to other objects. Thus if we were painting a piece of
+drapery as our whole subject, it would be proper to give in it every
+source of entertainment, which particular truths could supply, to give
+it varied color and delicate texture; but if we paint this same piece of
+drapery, as part of the dress of a Madonna, all these ideas of richness
+or texture become thoroughly contemptible, and unfit to occupy the mind
+at the same moment with the idea of the Virgin. The conception of
+drapery is then to be suggested by the simplest and slightest means
+possible, and all notions of texture and detail are to be rejected with
+utter reprobation; but this, observe, is not because they are particular
+or general or anything else, with respect to the drapery itself, but
+because they draw the attention to the dress instead of the saint, and
+disturb and degrade the imagination and the feelings; hence we ought to
+give the conception of the drapery in the most unobtrusive way possible,
+by rendering those essential qualities distinctly, which are necessary
+to the very existence of drapery, and not one more.</p>
+
+<p>With these last two sources of the importance of truths, we have nothing
+to do at present, as they are dependent upon ideas of beauty and
+relation: I merely allude to them now, to show that all that is alleged
+by Sir J. Reynolds and other scientific writers respecting the kind of
+truths proper to be represented by the painter or sculptor is perfectly
+just and right; while yet the principle on which they base their
+selection (that general truths are more important than particular ones)
+is altogether false. Canova's Perseus in the Vatican is entirely spoiled
+by an unlucky <i>tassel</i> in the folds of the mantle (which the next
+admirer of Canova who passes would do well to knock off;) but it is
+spoiled not because this is a particular truth, but because it is a
+contemptible, unnecessary, and ugly truth. The button which fastens the
+vest of the Sistine Daniel is as much a particular <span class="pagenum"><a name="page063"></a>[Page 63]</span> truth as
+this, but it is a necessary one, and the idea of it is given by the
+simplest possible means; hence it is right and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, then, it is to be remembered that all truths as far <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c3p9">§ 9.
+Recapitulation.</a></span>as their being particular or general affects their value
+at all, are valuable in proportion as they are particular, and valueless
+in proportion as they are general; or to express the proposition in
+simpler terms, every truth is valuable in proportion as it is
+characteristic of the thing of which it is affirmed.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page064"></a>[Page 64]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:&mdash;SECONDLY, THAT<br />
+RARE TRUTHS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN FREQUENT ONES.</h5>
+
+<p>It will be necessary next for us to determine how far frequency <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c4p1">§ 1. No
+accidental violation of nature's principles should be represented.</a></span>or
+rarity can affect the importance of truths, and whether the artist is to
+be considered the most truthful who paints what is common or what is
+unusual in nature.</p>
+
+<p>Now the whole determination of this question depends upon whether the
+unusual fact be a violation of nature's general principles, or the
+application of some of those principles in a peculiar and striking way.
+Nature sometimes, though very rarely, violates her own principles; it is
+her principle to make everything beautiful, but now and then, for an
+instant, she permits what, compared with the rest of her works, might be
+called ugly; it is true that even these rare blemishes are permitted, as
+I have above said, for a good purpose, (Part I. Sec. I. Chap. 5,) they
+are valuable in nature, and used as she uses them, are equally valuable
+(as instantaneous discords) in art; but the artist who should seek after
+these exclusively, and paint nothing else, though he might be able to
+point to something in nature as the original of every one of his
+uglinesses, would yet be, in the strict sense of the word, false,&mdash;false
+to nature, and disobedient to her laws. For instance, it is the practice
+of nature to give character to the outlines of her clouds, by perpetual
+angles and right lines. Perhaps once in a month, by diligent watching,
+we might be able to see a cloud altogether rounded and made up of
+curves; but the artist who paints nothing but curved clouds must yet be
+considered thoroughly and inexcusably false.</p>
+
+<p>But the case is widely different, when instead of a principle <span class="pagenum"><a name="page065"></a>[Page 65]</span>
+violated, we have one extraordinarily carried out or manifested <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c4p2">§ 2. But
+the cases in which those principles have been strikingly
+exemplified.</a></span>under unusual circumstances. Though nature is constantly
+beautiful, she does not exhibit her highest powers of beauty constantly,
+for then they would satiate us and pall upon our senses. It is necessary
+to their appreciation that they should be rarely shown. Her finest
+touches are things which must be watched for; her most <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c4p3">§ 3. Which are
+comparatively rare.</a></span>perfect passages of beauty are the most evanescent.
+She is constantly doing something beautiful for us, but it is something
+which she has not done before and will not do again; some exhibition of
+her general powers in particular circumstances which, if we do not catch
+at the instant it is passing, will not be repeated for us. Now they are
+these evanescent passages of perfected beauty, these perpetually varied
+examples of utmost power, which the artist ought to seek for and arrest.
+No supposition can be more absurd than that effects or truths frequently
+exhibited are more characteristic of nature than those which are equally
+necessary by her laws, though rarer in occurrence. Both the frequent and
+the rare are parts of the same great system; to give either exclusively
+is imperfect truth, and to repeat the same effect or <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c4p4">§ 4. All repetition
+is blamable.</a></span>thought in two pictures is wasted life. What should we think
+of a poet who should keep all his life repeating the same thought in
+different words? and why should we be more lenient to the parrot-painter
+who has learned one lesson from the page of nature, and keeps stammering
+it out with eternal repetition without turning the leaf? Is it less
+tautology to describe a thing over and over again with lines, than it is
+with words? The teaching of nature is as varied and infinite as it is
+constant; and the duty of the painter is to watch for every one of her
+lessons, and to give (for human life will admit of nothing more) those
+in which she has manifested each of her principles in the most peculiar
+and striking way. The deeper his research and the rarer the phenomena he
+has noted, the more valuable will his works be; to repeat himself, even
+in a single instance, is treachery to nature, for a thousand human lives
+would not be enough to give one instance of the perfect manifestation of
+each of her powers; and as for combining or classifying them, as well
+might a preacher expect <span class="pagenum"><a name="page066"></a>[Page 66]</span> in one sermon to express and explain
+every divine truth which can be gathered out of God's revelation, as a
+painter expect in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c4p5">§ 5. The duty of the painter is the same as that of a
+preacher.</a></span>one composition to express and illustrate every lesson which
+can be received from God's creation. Both are commentators on infinity,
+and the duty of both is to take for each discourse one essential truth,
+seeking particularly and insisting especially on those which are less
+palpable to ordinary observation, and more likely to escape an indolent
+research; and to impress that, and that alone, upon those whom they
+address, with every illustration that can be furnished by their
+knowledge, and every adornment attainable by their power. And the real
+truthfulness of the painter is in proportion to the number and variety
+of the facts he has so illustrated; those facts being always, as above
+observed, the realization, not the violation of a general principle. The
+quantity of truth is in proportion to the number of such facts, and its
+value and instructiveness in proportion to their rarity. All really
+great pictures, therefore, exhibit the general habits of nature,
+manifested in some peculiar, rare, and beautiful way.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page067"></a>[Page 67]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:&mdash;THIRDLY, THAT<br />
+TRUTHS OF COLOR ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT OF ALL TRUTHS.</h5>
+
+<p>In the two last chapters, we have pointed out general tests <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p1">§ 1.
+Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies.</a></span>of the
+importance of all truths, which will be sufficient at once to
+distinguish certain classes of properties in bodies, as more necessary
+to be told than others, because more characteristic, either of the
+particular thing to be represented, or of the principles of nature.</p>
+
+<p>According to Locke, Book ii. chap. 8, there are three sorts of qualities
+in bodies: first, the "bulk, figure, number, situation, and motion or
+rest of their solid parts: those that are in them, whether we perceive
+them or not." These he calls primary qualities. Secondly, "the power
+that is in any body to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our
+senses," (sensible qualities.) And thirdly, "the power that is in any
+body to make such a change in another body as that it shall operate on
+our senses differently from what it did before: these last being usually
+called <i>powers</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Hence he proceeds to prove that those which he calls primary qualities
+are indeed part of the essence of the body, and characteristic of it;
+but that the two other kinds of qualities which together he calls
+secondary, are neither of them more than <i>powers</i> of producing on other
+objects, or in us, certain effects <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p2">§ 2. The first are fully
+characteristic, the second imperfectly so.</a></span>and sensations. Now a power of
+influence is always equally characteristic of two objects&mdash;the active
+and passive; for it is as much necessary that there should be a power in
+the object suffering to receive the impression, as in the object acting
+to give the impression. (Compare Locke, Book ii. chap. 21, sect. 2.) For
+supposing two people, as is frequently the case, perceive different
+scents <span class="pagenum"><a name="page068"></a>[Page 68]</span> in the same flower, it is evident that the power in
+the flower to give this or that depends on the nature of their nerves,
+as well as on that of its own particles; and that we are as correct in
+saying it is a power in us to perceive, as in the object to impress.
+Every power, therefore, being characteristic of the nature of two
+bodies, is imperfectly and incompletely characteristic of either
+separately; but the primary qualities, being characteristic only of the
+body in which they are inherent, are the most important truths connected
+with it. For the question, what the thing <i>is</i>, must precede, and be of
+more importance than the question, what can it do.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p3">§ 3. Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than form.</a></p>
+<p>Now by Locke's definition above given, only bulk, figure, situation, and
+motion or rest of solid parts, are primary qualities. Hence all truths
+of color sink at once into the second rank. He, therefore, who has
+neglected a truth of form for a truth of color, has neglected a greater
+truth for a less one.</p>
+
+<p>And that color is indeed a most unimportant characteristic of objects,
+will be farther evident on the slightest consideration. The color of
+plants is constantly changing with the season, and of everything with
+the quality of light falling on it; but the nature and essence of the
+thing are independent of these changes. An oak is an oak, whether green
+with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be
+yellow or crimson; and if some monster-hunting botanist should ever
+frighten the flower blue, still it will be a dahlia; but let one curve
+of the petals&mdash;one groove of the stamens be wanting, and the flower
+ceases to be the same. Let the roughness of the bark and the angles of
+the boughs be smoothed or diminished, and the oak ceases to be an oak;
+but let it retain its inward structure and outward form, and though its
+leaves grew white, or pink, or blue, or tri-color, it would be a white
+oak, or a pink oak, or a republican oak, but an <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p4">§ 4. Color no
+distinction between objects of the same species.</a></span>oak still. Again, color
+is hardly ever even a <i>possible</i> distinction between two objects of the
+same species. Two trees, of the same kind, at the same season, and of
+the same age, are of absolutely the same color; but they are not of the
+same form, nor anything like it. There can be no difference in the color
+of two pieces of rock broken from the same place; but it is impossible
+they should be of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page069"></a>[Page 69]</span> the same form. So that form is not only the
+chief characteristic of species, but the only characteristic of
+individuals of a species.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p5">§ 5. And different in association from what it is alone.</a></p> <p>Again, a color,
+in association with other colors, is different from the same color seen
+by itself. It has a distinct and peculiar power upon the retina
+dependent on its association. Consequently, the color of any object is
+not more dependent upon the nature of the object itself, and the eye
+beholding it, than on the color of the objects near it; in this respect
+also, therefore, it is no characteristic.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p6">§ 6. It is not certain whether any two people see the same color in
+things.</a></p> <p>And so great is the uncertainty with respect to those qualities
+or powers which depend as much on the nature of the object suffering as
+of the object acting, that it is totally impossible to prove that one
+man sees in the same thing the same color that another does though he
+may use the same name for it. One man may see yellow where another sees
+blue, but as the effect is constant, they agree in the term to be used
+for it, and both call it blue, or both yellow, having yet totally
+different ideas attached to the term. And yet neither can be said to see
+falsely, because the color is not in the thing, but in the thing and
+them together. But if they see forms differently, one must see falsely,
+because the form is positive in the object. My friend may see boars blue
+for anything I know, but it is impossible he should see them with paws
+instead of hoofs, unless his eyes or brain are diseased. (Compare Locke,
+Book ii. chap. xxxii. § 15.) But I do not speak of this uncertainty as
+capable of having any effect on art, because, though perhaps Landseer
+sees dogs of the color which I should call blue, yet the color he puts
+on the canvas, being in the same way blue to him, will still be brown or
+dog-color to me; and so we may argue on points of color just as if all
+men saw alike, as indeed in all probability they do; but I merely
+mention this uncertainty to show farther the vagueness and unimportance
+of color as a characteristic of bodies.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p7">§ 7. Form considered as an element of landscape, includes light and
+shade.</a></p> <p>Before going farther, however, I must explain the sense in which
+I have used the word "form," because painters have a most inaccurate and
+careless habit of confining the term to the <i>outline</i> of bodies, whereas
+it necessarily implies light and shade. It is true that the outline and
+the chiaroscuro must be separate subjects <span class="pagenum"><a name="page070"></a>[Page 70]</span> of investigation
+with the student; but no form whatsoever can be known to the eye in the
+slightest degree without its chiaroscuro; and, therefore, in speaking of
+form generally as an element of landscape, I mean that perfect and
+harmonious unity of outline with light and shade, by which all the parts
+and projections and proportions of a body are fully explained to the
+eye, being nevertheless perfectly independent of sight or power in other
+objects, the presence of light upon a body being a positive existence,
+whether we are aware of it or not, and in no degree dependent upon our
+senses. This being understood, the most <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p8">§ 8. Importance of light and
+shade in expressing the character of bodies and unimportance of color.
+</a></span>convincing proof of the unimportance of color lies in the accurate
+observation of the way in which any material object impresses itself on
+the mind. If we look at nature carefully, we shall find that her colors
+are in a state of perpetual confusion and indistinctness, while her
+forms, as told by light and shade, are invariably clear, distinct, and
+speaking. The stones and gravel of the bank catch green reflections from
+the boughs above; the bushes receive grays and yellows from the ground;
+every hairbreadth of polished surface gives a little bit of the blue of
+the sky or the gold of the sun, like a star upon the local color; this
+local color, changeful and uncertain in itself, is again disguised and
+modified by the hue of the light, or quenched in the gray of the shadow;
+and the confusion and blending of tint is altogether so great, that were
+we left to find out what objects were by their colors only, we would
+scarcely in places distinguish the boughs of a tree from the air beyond
+them, or the ground beneath them. I know that people unpractised in art
+will not believe this at first; but if they have accurate powers of
+observation, they may soon ascertain it for themselves; they will find
+that, while they can scarcely ever determine the <i>exact</i> hue of
+anything, except when it occurs in large masses, as in a green field or
+the blue sky, the form, as told by light and shade, is always decided
+and evident, and the source of the chief character of every object.
+Light and shade indeed so completely conquer the distinctions of local
+color, that the difference in hue between the illumined parts of a white
+and black object is not so great as the difference (in sunshine) between
+the illumined and dark side of either separately.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page071"></a>[Page 71]</span></p>
+
+<p>We shall see hereafter, in considering ideas of beauty, that
+color, even as a source of pleasure, is feeble compared to form; <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c5p9">§ 9.
+Recapitulation.</a></span>but this we cannot insist upon at present; we have only
+to do with simple truth, and the observations we have made are
+sufficient to prove that the artist who sacrifices or forgets a truth of
+form in the pursuit of a truth of color, sacrifices what is definite to
+what is uncertain, and what is essential to what is accidental.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page072"></a>[Page 72]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<h5>RECAPITULATION.</h5>
+
+<p>It ought farther to be observed respecting truths in general, that those
+are always most valuable which are most historical, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c6p1">§ 1. The importance
+of historical truths.</a></span>that is, which tell us most about the past and
+future states of the object to which they belong. In a tree, for
+instance, it is more important to give the appearance of energy and
+elasticity in the limbs which is indicative of growth and life, than any
+particular character of leaf, or texture of bough. It is more important
+that we should feel that the uppermost sprays are creeping higher and
+higher into the sky, and be impressed with the current of life and
+motion which is animating every fibre, than that we should know the
+exact pitch of relief with which those fibres are thrown out against the
+sky. For the first truths tell us tales about the tree, about what it
+has been, and will be, while the last are characteristic of it only in
+its present state, and are in no way talkative about themselves.
+Talkative facts are always more interesting and more important than
+silent ones. So again the lines in a crag which mark its stratification,
+and how it has been washed and rounded by water, or twisted and drawn
+out in fire, are more important, because they tell more than the stains
+of the lichens which change year by year, and the accidental fissures of
+frost or decomposition; not but that both of these are historical, but
+historical in a less distinct manner, and for shorter periods.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c6p2">§ 2. Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths.
+Tone, light and color are secondary.</a></p> <p>Hence in general the truths of
+specific form are the first and most important of all; and next to them,
+those truths of chiaroscuro which are necessary to make us understand
+every quality and part of forms, and the relative distances of objects
+among each other, and in consequence their relative bulks. Altogether
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page073"></a>[Page 73]</span> lower than these, as truths, though often most important as
+beauties, stand all effects of chiaroscuro which are productive merely
+of imitations of light and tone, and all effects of color. To make us
+understand the <i>space</i> of the sky, is an end worthy of the artist's
+highest powers; to hit its particular blue or gold is an end to be
+thought of when we have accomplished the first, and not till then.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c6p3">§ 3. And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.</a></p> <p>Finally, far below all
+these come those particular accuraciesor tricks of chiaroscuro which
+cause objects to look projecting from the canvas, not worthy of the name
+of truths, because they require for their attainment the sacrifice of
+all others; for not having at our disposal the same intensity of light
+by which nature illustrates her objects, we are obliged, if we would
+have perfect deception in one, to destroy its relation to the rest.
+(Compare Sect. II. chap. V.) And thus he who throws one object out of
+his picture, never lets the spectator into it. Michael Angelo bids you
+follow his phantoms into the abyss of heaven, but a modern French
+painter drops his hero out of the picture frame.</p>
+
+<p>This solidity or projection then, is the very lowest truth that art can
+give; it is the painting of mere matter, giving that as food for the eye
+which is properly only the subject of touch; it can neither instruct nor
+exalt, nor please except as jugglery; it addresses no sense of beauty
+nor of power; and wherever it characterizes the general aim of a
+picture, it is the sign and the evidence of the vilest and lowest
+mechanism which art can be insulted by giving name to.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page074"></a>[Page 74]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<h5>GENERAL APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES.</h5>
+
+<p>We have seen, in the preceding chapters, some proof of what was before
+asserted, that the truths necessary for deceptive imitation <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p1">§ 1. The
+different selection of facts consequent on the several aims at imitation
+or at truth.</a></span>are not only few, but of the very lowest order. We thus find
+painters ranging themselves into two great classes; one aiming at the
+development of the exquisite truths of <span class="correction"
+title="originally specfic">specific</span> form, refined color, and ethereal
+space, and content with the clear and impressive suggestion of any of
+these, by whatsoever means obtained; and the other casting all these
+aside, to attain those particular truths of tone and chiaroscuro, which
+may trick the spectator into a belief of reality. The first class, if
+they have to paint a tree, are intent upon giving the exquisite designs
+of intersecting undulation in its boughs, the grace of its leafage, the
+intricacy of its organization, and all those qualities which make it
+lovely or affecting of its kind. The second endeavor only to make you
+believe that you are looking at wood. They are totally regardless of
+truths or beauties of form; a stump is as good as a trunk for all their
+purposes, so that they can only deceive the eye into the supposition
+that it <i>is</i> a stump and not canvas.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p2">§ 2. The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation.</a></p> <p>To which of
+these classes the great body of the old landscape painters belonged, may
+be partly gathered from the kind of praise which is bestowed upon them
+by those who admire them most, which either refers to technical matters,
+dexterity of touch, clever oppositions of color, etc., or is bestowed on
+the power of the painter to <i>deceive</i>. M. de Marmontel, going into a
+connoisseur's gallery, pretends to mistake a fine Berghem for a window.
+This, he says, was affirmed by its possessor to be the greatest praise
+the picture had ever received. Such is indeed the notion <span class="pagenum"><a name="page075"></a>[Page 75]</span> of
+art which is at the bottom of the veneration usually felt for the old
+landscape painters; it is of course the palpable, first idea of
+ignorance; it is the only notion which people unacquainted with art can
+by any possibility have of its ends; the only test by which people
+unacquainted with nature can pretend to form anything like judgment of
+art. It is strange that, with the great historical painters of Italy
+before them, who had broken so boldly and indignantly from the trammels
+of this notion, and shaken the very dust of it from their feet, the
+succeeding landscape painters should have wasted their lives in
+jugglery: but so it is, and so it will be felt, the more we look into
+their <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p3">§ 3. What truths they gave.</a></span>works, that the deception of the senses
+was the great and first end of all their art. To attain this they paid
+deep and serious attention to effects of light and tone, and to the
+exact degree of relief which material objects take against light and
+atmosphere; and sacrificing every other truth to these, not necessarily,
+but because they required no others for deception, they succeeded in
+rendering these particular facts with a fidelity and force which, in the
+pictures that have come down to us uninjured, are as yet unequalled, and
+never can be surpassed. They painted their foregrounds with laborious
+industry, covering them with details so as to render them deceptive to
+the ordinary eye, regardless of beauty or truth in the details
+themselves; they painted their trees with careful attention to their
+pitch of shade against the sky, utterly regardless of all that is
+beautiful or essential in the anatomy of their foliage and boughs: they
+painted their distances with exquisite use of transparent color and
+aerial tone, totally neglectful of all facts and forms which nature uses
+such color and tone to relieve and adorn. They had neither love of
+nature, nor feeling of her beauty; they looked for her coldest and most
+commonplace effects, because they were easiest to imitate; and for her
+most vulgar forms, because they were most easily to be recognized by the
+untaught eyes of those whom alone they could hope to please; they did
+it, like the Pharisee of old, to be seen of men, and they had their
+reward. They do deceive and delight the unpractised eye; they will to
+all ages, as long as their colors endure, be the standards of excellence
+with all, who, ignorant of nature, claim to be thought learned in art.
+And they will to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page076"></a>[Page 76]</span> all ages be, to those who have thorough love
+and knowledge of the creation which they libel, instructive proofs of
+the limited number and low character of the truths which are necessary,
+and the accumulated multitude of pure, broad, bold falsehoods which are
+admissible in pictures meant only to deceive.</p>
+
+<p>There is of course more or less accuracy of knowledge and execution
+combined with this aim at effect, according to the industry and
+precision of eye possessed by the master, and more or less of beauty in
+the forms selected, according to his natural taste; but both the beauty
+and truth are sacrificed unhesitatingly where they interfere with the
+great effort at deception. Claude had, if it had been cultivated, a fine
+feeling for beauty of form, and is seldom ungraceful in his foliage; but
+his picture, when examined with reference to essential truth, is one
+mass of error from beginning to end. Cuyp, on the other hand, could
+paint close truth of everything, except ground and water, with decision
+and success, but he has no sense of beauty. Gaspar Poussin, more
+ignorant of truth than Claude, and almost as dead to beauty as Cuyp, has
+yet a perception of the feeling and moral truth of nature which often
+redeems the picture; but yet in all of them, everything that they can do
+is done for deception, and nothing for the sake or love of what they are
+painting.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p4">§ 4. The principles of selection adopted by modern artists.</a></p> <p>Modern
+landscape painters have looked at nature with totally different eyes,
+seeking not for what is easiest to imitate, but for what is most
+important to tell. Rejecting at once all idea of <i>bona fide</i> imitation,
+they think only of conveying the impression of nature into the mind of
+the spectator. And there is, in consequence, a greater sum of valuable,
+essential, and impressive truth in the works of two or three of our
+leading modern landscape painters, than in those of all the old masters
+put together, and of truth too, nearly unmixed with definite or
+avoidable falsehood; while the unimportant and feeble truths of the old
+masters are choked with a mass of perpetual defiance of the most
+authoritative laws of nature.</p>
+
+<p>I do not expect this assertion to be believed at present; it must rest
+for demonstration on the examination we are about to enter upon; yet,
+even without reference to any intricate or <span class="pagenum"><a name="page077"></a>[Page 77]</span> deep-laid truths,
+it appears strange to me, that any one familiar with nature, and fond of
+her, should not grow weary and sick <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p5">§ 5. General feeling of Claude,
+Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted with the freedom and vastness of
+nature.</a></span>at heart among the melancholy and monotonous transcripts of her
+which alone can be received from the old school of art. A man accustomed
+to the broad, wild seashore, with its bright breakers, and free winds,
+and sounding rocks, and eternal sensation of tameless power, can
+scarcely but be angered when Claude bids him stand still on some paltry,
+chipped and chiselled quay with porters and wheelbarrows running against
+him, to watch a weak, rippling bound and barriered water, that has not
+strength enough in one of its waves to upset the flower-pots on the
+wall, or even to fling one jet of spray over the confining stone. A man
+accustomed to the strength and glory of God's mountains, with their
+soaring and radiant pinnacles, and surging sweeps of measureless
+distance, kingdoms in their valleys, and climates upon their crests, can
+scarcely but be angered when Salvator bids him stand still under some
+contemptible fragment of splintery crag, which an Alpine snow-wreath
+would smother in its first swell, with a stunted bush or two growing out
+of it, and a volume of manufactory smoke for a sky. A man accustomed to
+the grace and infinity of nature's foliage, with every vista a
+cathedral, and every bough a revelation, can scarcely but be angered
+when Poussin mocks him with a black round mass of impenetrable paint,
+diverging into feathers instead of leaves, and supported on a stick
+instead of a trunk. The fact is, there is one thing wanting in all the
+doing of these men, and that is the very virtue by which the work of
+human mind chiefly rises above that of the Daguerreotype or Calotype, or
+any other mechanical means that ever have been or may be invented, Love:
+There is no evidence of their ever having gone to nature with any
+thirst, or received from her such emotion as could make them, even for
+an instant, lose sight of themselves; there is in them neither
+earnestness nor humility; there is no simple or honest record of any
+single truth; none of the plain words nor straight efforts that men
+speak and make when they once feel.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it only by the professed landscape painters that the great
+verities of the material world are betrayed: Grand as are <span class="pagenum"><a name="page078"></a>[Page 78]</span> the
+motives of landscape in the works of the earlier and mightier men, there
+is yet in them nothing approaching to a general <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p6">§ 6. Inadequacy of the
+landscape of Titian and Tintoret.</a></span>view nor complete rendering of natural
+phenomena; not that they are to be blamed for this; for they took out of
+nature that which was fit for their purpose, and their mission was to do
+no more; but we must be cautious to distinguish that imaginative
+abstraction of landscape which alone we find in them, from the entire
+statement of truth which has been attempted by the moderns. I have said
+in the chapter on symmetry in the second volume, that all landscape
+grandeur vanishes before that of Titian and Tintoret; and this is true
+of whatever these two giants touched;&mdash;but they touched little. A few
+level flakes of chestnut foliage; a blue abstraction of hill forms from
+Cadore or the Euganeans; a grand mass or two of glowing ground and
+mighty herbage, and a few burning fields of quiet cloud were all they
+needed; there is evidence of Tintoret's having felt more than this, but
+it occurs only in secondary fragments of rock, cloud, or pine, hardly
+noticed among the accumulated interest of his human subject. From the
+window of Titian's house at Venice, the chain of the Tyrolese Alps is
+seen lifted in spectral power above the tufted plain of Treviso; every
+dawn that reddens the towers of Murano lights also a line of pyramidal
+fires along that colossal ridge; but there is, so far as I know, no
+evidence in any of the master's works of his ever having beheld, much
+less felt, the majesty of their burning. The dark firmament and saddened
+twilight of Tintoret are sufficient for their end; but the sun never
+plunges behind San Giorgio in Aliga without such retinue of radiant
+cloud, such rest of zoned light on the green lagoon, as never received
+image from his hand. More than this, of that which they loved and
+rendered much is rendered conventionally; by noble conventionalities
+indeed, but such nevertheless as would be inexcusable if the landscape
+became the principal subject instead of an accompaniment. I will
+instance only the San Pietro Martire, which, if not the most perfect, is
+at least the most popular of Titian's landscapes; in which, to obtain
+light on the flesh of the near figures the sky is made as dark as deep
+sea, the mountains are laid in with violent and impossible blue, except
+one of them on the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page079"></a>[Page 79]</span> left, which, to connect the distant light
+with the foreground, is thrown into light relief, unexplained by its
+materials, unlikely in its position, and in its degree impossible under
+any circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p7">§ 7. Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools.</a></p> <p>I do not
+instance these as faults in the picture: there are no works of very
+powerful color which are free from conventionality concentrated or
+diffused, daring or disguised; but as the conventionality of this whole
+picture is mainly thrown into the landscape, it is necessary, while we
+acknowledge the virtue of this distance as a part of the great
+composition, to be on our guard against the license it assumes and the
+attractiveness of its overcharged color. Fragments of far purer truth
+occur in the works of Tintoret; and in the drawing of foliage, whether
+rapid or elaborate, of masses or details, the Venetian painters, taken
+as a body, may be considered almost faultless models. But the whole
+field of what they have done is so narrow, and therein is so much of
+what is only relatively right, and in itself false or imperfect, that
+the young and inexperienced painter could run no greater risk than the
+too early taking them for teachers; and to the general spectator their
+landscape is valuable rather as a means of peculiar and solemn emotion
+than as ministering to, or inspiring the universal love of nature. Hence
+while men of serious mind, especially those whose pursuits have brought
+them into continued relations with the peopled rather than the lonely
+world, will always look to the Venetian painters as having touched those
+simple chords of landscape harmony which are most in unison with earnest
+and melancholy feeling; those whose philosophy is more cheerful and more
+extended, as having been trained and colored among simple and solitary
+nature, will seek for a wider and more systematic circle of teaching:
+they may grant that the barred horizontal gloom of the Titian sky, and
+the massy leaves of the Titian forest are among the most sublime of the
+conceivable forms of material things; but they know that the virtue of
+these very forms is to be learned only by right comparison of them with
+the cheerfulness, fulness and comparative inquietness of other hours and
+scenes; that they are not intended for the continual food, but the
+occasional soothing of the human heart; that there is a lesson of not
+less <span class="pagenum"><a name="page080"></a>[Page 80]</span> value in its place, though of less concluding and
+sealing authority, in every one of the more humble phases of material
+things: and that there are some lessons of equal or greater authority
+which these masters neither taught nor received. And until the school of
+modern landscape arose Art had never noted the links of this mighty
+chain; it mattered not that a fragment lay here and there, no heavenly
+lightning could descend by it; the landscape of the Venetians was
+without effect on any contemporary in subsequent schools; it still
+remains on the continent as useless as if it had never existed; and at
+this moment German and Italian landscapes, of which no words are
+scornful enough to befit the utter degradation, hang in the Venetian
+Academy in the next room to the Desert of Titian and the Paradise of
+Tintoret.<a name="FnAnchor_6" href="#Footnote_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p8">§ 8. The value of inferior works of art how to be estimated.</a></p> <p>That then
+which I would have the reader inquire respecting every work of art of
+undetermined merit submitted to his judgment, is not whether it be a
+work of especial grandeur, importance, or power; but whether it have
+<i>any</i> virtue or substance as a link in this chain of truth, whether it
+have recorded or interpreted anything before unknown, whether it have
+added one single stone to our heaven-pointing pyramid, cut away one dark
+bough, or levelled one rugged hillock in our path. This, if it be an
+honest work of art, it must have done, for no man ever yet worked
+honestly without giving some such help to his race. God appoints to
+every one of his creatures a separate mission, and if they discharge it
+honorably, if they quit themselves like men and faithfully follow that
+light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching
+influence, there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its
+appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service
+constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but
+the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is
+peculiar to him, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page081"></a>[Page 81]</span> and which worthily used will be a gift also
+to his race forever&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fool not," says George Herbert,</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"><span style="padding-left: 10em; ">
+                            "For all may have, <br /></span>
+If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave."
+</p>
+
+<p>If, on the contrary, there be nothing of this freshness achieved, if
+there be neither purpose nor fidelity in what is done, if it be an
+envious or powerless imitation of other men's labors, if it be a display
+of mere manual dexterity or curious manufacture, or if in any other mode
+it show itself as having its origin in vanity,&mdash;Cast it out. It matters
+not what powers of mind may have been concerned or corrupted in it, all
+have lost their savor, it is worse than worthless;&mdash;perilous&mdash;Cast it
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Works of art are indeed always of mixed kind, their honesty being more
+or less corrupted by the various weaknesses of the painter, by his
+vanity, his idleness, or his cowardice; (the fear of doing right has far
+more influence on art than is commonly thought,) that only is altogether
+to be rejected which is altogether vain, idle, and cowardly. Of the rest
+the rank is to be estimated rather by the purity of their metal than the
+coined value of it.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p9">§ 9. Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its completion.</a></p>
+<p>Keeping these principles in view, let us endeavor to obtain something
+like a general view of the assistance which has been rendered to our
+study of nature by the various occurrences of landscape in elder art,
+and by the more exclusively directed labors of modern schools.</p>
+
+<p>To the ideal landscape of the early religious painters of Italy I have
+alluded in the concluding chapter of the second volume. It is absolutely
+right and beautiful in its peculiar application; but its grasp of nature
+is narrow and its treatment in most respects too severe and conventional
+to form a profitable example when the landscape is to be alone the
+subject of thought. The great virtue of it is its entire, exquisite, and
+humble realization of those objects it selects; in this respect
+differing from such German imitations of it as I have met with, that
+there is no effort of any fanciful or ornamental modifications, but
+loving fidelity to the thing studied. The foreground plants <span class="pagenum"><a name="page082"></a>[Page 82]</span>
+are usually neither exaggerated nor stiffened; they do not form arches
+or frames or borders; their grace is unconfined, their simplicity
+undestroyed. Cima da Conegliano, in his picture in the church of the
+Madonna dell' Orto at Venice, has given us the oak, the fig, the
+beautiful "Erba della Madonna" on the wall, precisely such a bunch of it
+as may be seen growing at this day on the marble steps of that very
+church; ivy and other creepers, and a strawberry plant in the
+foreground, with a blossom and a berry just set, and one half ripe and
+one ripe, all patiently and innocently painted from the real thing, and
+therefore most divine. Fra Angelico's use of the oxalis acetosella is as
+faithful in representation as touching in feeling.<a name="FnAnchor_7" href="#Footnote_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> The ferns that
+grow on the walls of Fiesole may be seen in their simple verity on the
+architecture of Ghirlandajo. The rose, the myrtle, and the lily, the
+olive and orange, pomegranate and vine, have received their fairest
+portraiture where they bear a sacred character; even the common
+plantains and mallows of the waysides are touched with deep reverence by
+Raffaelle; and indeed for the perfect treatment of details of this kind,
+treatment as delicate and affectionate as it is elevated and manly, it
+is to the works of these schools alone that we can refer. And on this
+their peculiar excellence I should the more earnestly insist, because it
+is of a kind altogether neglected by the English school, and with most
+unfortunate result, many of our best painters missing their deserved
+rank solely from the want of it, as Gainsborough; and all being more or
+less checked in their progress or vulgarized in their aim.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p10">§ 10. Finish, and the want of it, how right and how wrong.</a></p> <p>It is a
+misfortune for all honest critics, that hardly any quality of art is
+independently to be praised, and without reference to the motive from
+which it resulted, and the place in which it appears; so that no
+principle can be simply enforced but it shall seem to countenance a
+vice; while the work of qualification and explanation both weakens the
+force of what is said, and is not perhaps always likely to be with
+patience received: so also those who desire <span class="pagenum"><a name="page083"></a>[Page 83]</span> to misunderstand
+or to oppose have it always in their power to become obtuse listeners or
+specious opponents. Thus I hardly dare insist upon the virtue of
+completion, lest I should be supposed a defender of Wouvermans or Gerard
+Dow; neither can I adequately praise the power of Tintoret, without
+fearing to be thought adverse to Holbein or Perugino. The fact is, that
+both finish and impetuosity, specific minuteness, or large abstraction,
+may be the signs of passion, or of its reverse; may result from
+affection or indifference, intellect or dulness. Some men finish from
+intense love of the beautiful in the smallest parts of what they do;
+others in pure incapability of comprehending anything but parts; others
+to show their dexterity with the brush, and prove expenditure of time.
+Some are impetuous and bold in their handling, from having great
+thoughts to express which are independent of detail; others because they
+have bad taste or have been badly taught; others from vanity, and others
+from indolence. (Compare Vol. II. Chap. IX. § 8.) Now both the finish
+and incompletion are right where they are the signs of passion or of
+thought, and both are wrong, and I think the finish the more
+contemptible of the two, when they cease to be so. The modern Italians
+will paint every leaf of a laurel or rose-bush without the slightest
+feeling of their beauty or character; and without showing one spark of
+intellect or affection from beginning to end. Anything is better than
+this; and yet the very highest schools <i>do</i> the same thing, or nearly
+so, but with totally different motives and perceptions, and the result
+is divine. On the whole, I conceive that the extremes of good and evil
+lie with the finishers, and that whatever glorious power we may admit in
+men like Tintoret, whatever attractiveness of method to Rubens,
+Rembrandt, or, though in far less degree, our own Reynolds, still the
+thoroughly great men are those who have done everything thoroughly, and
+who, in a word, have never despised anything, however small, of God's
+making. And this is the chief fault of our English landscapists, that
+they have not the intense all-observing penetration of well-balanced
+mind; they have not, except in one or two instances, anything of that
+feeling which Wordsworth shows in the following lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page084"></a>[Page 84]</span></p>
+
+<p class="poemq1">
+"So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive;&mdash; <br />
+Would that the little flowers were born to live <br />
+Conscious of half the pleasure which they give. <br />
+That to this mountain daisy's self were known <br />
+<i>The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown <br />
+On the smooth surface of this naked stone.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>That is a little bit of good, downright, foreground painting&mdash;no mistake
+about it; daisy, and shadow, and stone texture and all. Our painters
+must come to this before they have done their duty; and yet, on the
+other hand, let them beware of finishing, for the sake of finish, all
+over their picture. The ground is not to be all over daisies, nor is
+every daisy to have its star-shaped shadow; there is as much finish in
+the right concealment of things as in the right <span class="correction"
+title="originally exhbition">exhibition</span> of them; and while I demand this
+amount of specific character where nature shows it, I demand equal
+fidelity to her where she conceals it. To paint mist rightly, space
+rightly, and light rightly, it may be often necessary to paint nothing
+else rightly, but the rule is simple for all that; if the artist is
+painting something that he knows and loves, as he knows it because he
+loves it, whether it be the fair strawberry of Cima, or the clear sky of
+Francia, or the blazing incomprehensible mist of Turner, he is all
+right; but the moment he does anything as he thinks it ought to be,
+because he does not care about it, he is all wrong. He has only to ask
+himself whether he cares for anything except himself; so far as he does
+he will make a good picture; so far as he thinks of himself a vile one.
+This is the root of the viciousness of the whole French school. Industry
+they have, learning they have, power they have, feeling they have, yet
+not so much feeling as ever to force them to forget themselves even for
+a moment; the ruling motive is invariably vanity, and the picture
+therefore an abortion.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p11">§ 11. The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain
+drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione.</a></p> <p>Returning
+to the pictures of the religious schools, we find that their open skies
+are also of the highest value. Their preciousness is such that no
+subsequent schools can by comparison be said to have painted sky at all,
+but only clouds, or mist, or blue canopies. The golden sky of Marco
+Basaiti in the Academy of Venice altogether overpowers and renders
+valueless <span class="pagenum"><a name="page085"></a>[Page 85]</span> that of Titian beside it. Those of Francia in the
+gallery of Bologna are even more wonderful, because cooler in tone and
+behind figures in full light. The touches of white light in the horizon
+of Angelico's Last Judgment are felt and wrought with equal truth. The
+dignified and simple forms of cloud in repose are often by these
+painters sublimely expressed, but of changeful cloud form they show no
+examples. The architecture, mountains, and water of these distances are
+commonly conventional; motives are to be found in them of the highest
+beauty, and especially remarkable for quantity and meaning of incident;
+but they can only be studied or accepted in the particular feeling that
+produced them. It may generally be observed that whatever has been the
+result of strong emotion is ill seen unless through the medium of such
+emotion, and will lead to conclusions utterly false and perilous, if it
+be made a subject of cold-hearted observance, or an object of systematic
+imitation. One piece of genuine mountain drawing, however, occurs in the
+landscape of Masaccio's Tribute Money. It is impossible to say what
+strange results might have taken place in this particular field of art,
+or how suddenly a great school of landscape might have arisen, had the
+life of this great painter been prolonged. Of this particular fresco I
+shall have much to say hereafter. The two brothers Bellini gave a marked
+and vigorous impulse to the landscape of Venice, of Gentile's
+architecture I shall speak presently. Giovanni's, though in style less
+interesting and in place less prominent, occurring chiefly as a kind of
+frame to his pictures, connecting them with the architecture of the
+churches for which they were intended, is in refinement of realization,
+I suppose, quite unrivalled, especially in passages requiring pure
+gradation, as the hollows of vaultings. That of Veronese would look
+ghostly beside it; that of Titian lightless. His landscape is
+occasionally quaint and strange like Giorgione's, and as fine in color,
+as that behind the Madonna in the Brera gallery at Milan; but a more
+truthful fragment occurs in the picture in San Francesco della Vigna at
+Venice; and in the picture of St. Jerome in the church of San
+Grisostomo, the landscape is as perfect and beautiful as any background
+may legitimately be, and finer, as far as it goes, than anything of
+Titian's. It is remarkable for the absolute truth of its sky, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page086"></a>[Page 86]</span>
+whose blue, clear as crystal, and though deep in tone bright as the open
+air, is gradated to the horizon with a cautiousness and finish almost
+inconceivable; and to obtain light at the horizon without contradicting
+the system of chiaroscuro adopted in the figures which are lighted from
+the right hand, it is barred across with some glowing white cirri which,
+in their turn, are opposed by a single dark horizontal line of lower
+cloud; and to throw the whole farther back, there is a wreath of rain
+cloud of warmer color floating above the mountains, lighted on its under
+edge, whose faithfulness to nature, both in hue and in its light and
+shattering form, is altogether exemplary; the wandering of the light
+among the hills is equally studied, and the whole is crowned by the
+grand realization of the leaves of the fig-tree alluded to (Vol. II.
+Part III. Chap. 5,) as well as of the herbage upon the rocks.
+Considering that with all this care and completeness in the background,
+there is nothing that is not of meaning and necessity in reference to
+the figures, and that in the figures themselves the dignity and
+heavenliness of the highest religious painters are combined with a force
+and purity of color, greater I think than Titian's, it is a work which
+may be set before the young artist as in every respect a nearly
+faultless guide. Giorgione's landscape is inventive and solemn, but
+owing to the rarity even of his nominal works I dare not speak of it in
+general terms. It is certainly conventional, and is rather, I imagine,
+to be studied for its color and its motives than its details.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p12">§ 12. Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.</a></p> <p>Of Titian and Tintoret I have
+spoken already. The latter is every way the greater master, never
+indulging in the exaggerated color of Titian, and attaining far more
+perfect light; his grasp of nature is more extensive, and his view of
+her more imaginative, (incidental notices of his landscape will be found
+in the chapter on Imagination penetrative, of the second volume,) but he
+is usually too impatient to carry his thoughts as far out, or to realize
+with as much substantiality as Titian. In the St. Jerome of the latter
+in the gallery of the Brera, there is a superb example of the modes in
+which the objects of landscape may be either suggested or elaborated
+according to their place and claim. The larger features of the ground,
+foliage, and drapery, as well as the lion in the lower angle, are
+executed with a slightness which admits <span class="pagenum"><a name="page087"></a>[Page 87]</span> not of close
+examination, and which, if not in shade, would be offensive to the
+generality of observers. But on the rock above the lion, where it turns
+towards the light, and where the eye is intended to dwell, there is a
+wreath of ivy of which every leaf is separately drawn with the greatest
+accuracy and care, and beside it a lizard, studied with equal
+earnestness, yet always with that right grandeur of manner to which I
+have alluded in the preface. Tintoret seldom reaches or attempts the
+elaboration in substance and color of these objects, but he is even more
+truth-telling and certain in his rendering of all the great characters
+of specific form, and as the painter of Space he stands altogether alone
+among dead masters; being the first who introduced the slightness and
+confusion of touch which are expressive of the effects of luminous
+objects seen through large spaces of air, and the principles of aerial
+color which have been since carried out in other fields by Turner. I
+conceive him to be the most powerful painter whom the world has seen,
+and that he was prevented from being also the most perfect, partly by
+untoward circumstances in his position and education, partly by the very
+fulness and impetuosity of his own mind, partly by the want of religious
+feeling and its accompanying perception of beauty; for his noble
+treatment of religious subject, of which I have given several examples
+in the third part, appears to be the result only of that grasp which a
+great and well-toned intellect necessarily takes of any subject
+submitted to it, and is wanting in the signs of the more withdrawn and
+sacred sympathies.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever advances were made by Tintoret in modes of artistical
+treatment, he cannot be considered as having enlarged the sphere of
+landscape conception. He took no cognizance even of the materials and
+motives, so singularly rich in color, which were forever around him in
+his own Venice. All portions of Venetian scenery introduced by him are
+treated conventionally and carelessly; the architectural characters lost
+altogether, the sea distinguished from the sky only by a darker green,
+while of the sky itself only those forms were employed by him which had
+been repeated again and again for centuries, though in less tangibility
+and completion. Of mountain scenery he has left, I believe, no example
+so far carried as that of John Bellini above instanced.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page088"></a>[Page 88]</span></p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p13">§ 13. Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna.</a></p> <p>The Florentine and
+Ambrian schools supply us with no examples of landscape, except that
+introduced by their earliest masters, gradually overwhelmed under
+renaissance architecture.</p>
+
+<p>Leonardo's landscape has been of unfortunate effect on art, so far as it
+has had effect at all. In realization of detail he verges on the
+ornamental, in his rock outlines he has all the deficiencies and little
+of the feeling of the earlier men. Behind the "Sacrifice for the
+Friends" of Giotto at Pisa, there is a sweet piece of rock incident, a
+little fountain breaking out at the mountain foot, and trickling away,
+its course marked by branches of reeds, the latter formal enough
+certainly, and always in triplets, but still with a sense of nature
+pervading the whole which is utterly wanting to the rocks of Leonardo in
+the Holy Family in the Louvre. The latter are grotesque without being
+ideal, and extraordinary without being impressive. The sketch in the
+Uffizii of Florence has some fine foliage, and there is of course a
+certain virtue in all the work of a man like Leonardo which I would not
+depreciate, but our admiration of it in this particular field must be
+qualified, and our following cautious.</p>
+
+<p>No advances were made in landscape, so far as I know, after the time of
+Tintoret; the power of art ebbed gradually away from the derivative
+schools; various degrees of cleverness or feeling being manifested in
+more or less brilliant conventionalism. I once supposed there was some
+life in the landscape of Domenichino, but in this I must have been
+wrong. The man who painted the Madonna del Rosario and Martyrdom of St.
+Agnes in the gallery of Bologna, is palpably incapable of doing anything
+good, great, or right in any field, way, or kind, whatsoever.<a name="FnAnchor_8" href="#Footnote_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page089"></a>[Page 89]</span></p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p14">§ 14. Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins. </a></p> <p>Though, however, at this
+period the general grasp of the schools was perpetually contracting, a
+gift was given to the world by Claude, for which we are perhaps hardly
+enough grateful, owing to the very frequency of our after enjoyment of
+it. He set the sun in heaven, and was, I suppose, the first who
+attempted anything like the realization of actual sunshine in misty air.
+He gives the first example of the study of nature for her own sake, and
+allowing for the unfortunate circumstances of his education, and for his
+evident inferiority of intellect, more could hardly have been expected
+from him. His false taste, forced composition, and ignorant rendering of
+detail have perhaps been of more detriment to art than the gift he gave
+was of advantage. The character of his own mind is singular; I know of
+no other instance of a man's working from nature <span
+class="correction" title="originally comtinually">continually</span> with the
+desire of being true, and never attaining the power of drawing so much
+as a bough of a tree rightly. Salvator, a man originally endowed with
+far higher power of mind than Claude, was altogether unfaithful to his
+mission, and has left us, I believe, no gift. Everything that he did is
+evidently for the sake of exhibiting his own dexterity; there is no love
+of any kind for anything; his choice of landscape features is dictated
+by no delight in the sublime, but by mere animal restlessness or
+ferocity, guided by an imaginative power of which he could not
+altogether deprive himself. He has done nothing which others have not
+done better, or which it would not have been better not to have done; in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page090"></a>[Page 90]</span> nature, he mistakes distortion for energy, and savageness for
+sublimity; in man, mendicity for sanctity, and conspiracy for heroism.</p>
+
+<p>The landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows much power, and is usually
+composed and elaborated on right principles, (compare preface to second
+edition,) but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or
+peculiar excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found
+in other masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to
+Leonardo's, in invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace
+to Raffaelle's. The landscapes of Gaspar have serious feeling and often
+valuable and solemn color; virtueless otherwise, they are full of the
+most degraded mannerism, and I believe the admiration of them to have
+been productive of extensive evil among recent schools.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p15">§ 15. German and Flemish landscape.</a></p> <p>The development of landscape north
+of the Alps, presents us with the same general phases under
+modifications dependent partly on less intensity of feeling, partly on
+diminished availableness of landscape material. That of the religious
+painters is treated with the same affectionate completion; but
+exuberance of fancy sometimes diminishes the influence of the
+imagination, and the absence of the Italian force of passion admits of
+more patient and somewhat less intellectual elaboration. A morbid habit
+of mind is evident in many, seeming to lose sight of the balance and
+relations of things, so as to become intense in trifles, gloomily
+minute, as in Albert Durer; and this mingled with a feverish operation
+of the fancy, which appears to result from certain habitual conditions
+of bodily health rather than of mental culture, (and of which the
+sickness without the power is eminently characteristic of the modern
+Germans;) but with all this there are virtues of the very highest order
+in those schools, and I regret that my knowledge is insufficient to
+admit of my giving any detailed account of them.</p>
+
+<p>In the landscape of Rembrandt and Rubens, we have the northern parallel
+to the power of the Venetians. Among the etchings and drawings of
+Rembrandt, landscape thoughts may be found not unworthy of Titian, and
+studies from nature of sublime fidelity; but his system of chiaroscuro
+was inconsistent with the gladness, and his peculiar modes of feeling
+with the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page091"></a>[Page 91]</span> grace, of nature; nor from my present knowledge can
+I name any work on canvas in which he has carried out the dignity of his
+etched conceptions, or exhibited any perceptiveness of new truths.</p>
+
+<p>Not so Rubens, who perhaps furnishes us with the first instances of
+complete unconventional unaffected landscape. His treatment is healthy,
+manly, and rational, not very affectionate, yet often condescending to
+minute and multitudinous detail; always as far as it goes pure,
+forcible, and refreshing, consummate in composition, and marvellous in
+color. In the Pitti palace, the best of its two Rubens landscapes has
+been placed near a characteristic and highly-finished Titian, the
+marriage of St. Catherine. But for the grandeur of line and solemn
+feeling in the flock of sheep, and the figures of the latter work, I
+doubt if all its glow and depth of tone could support its overcharged
+green and blue against the open breezy sunshine of the Fleming. I do not
+mean to rank the art of Rubens with that of Titian, but it is always to
+be remembered that Titian hardly ever paints sunshine, but a certain
+opalescent twilight which has as much of human emotion as of imitative
+truth in it,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1">
+"The clouds that gather round the setting sun <br />
+Do take a sober coloring from an eye <br />
+That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality:"
+</p>
+
+<p>and that art of this kind must always be liable to some appearance of
+failure when compared with a less pathetic statement of facts.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be noted, however, that the licenses taken by Rubens in
+particular instances are as bold as his general statements are sincere.
+In the landscape just instanced the horizon is an oblique line; in the
+Sunset of our own gallery many of the shadows fall at right angles to
+the light; and in a picture in the Dulwich gallery a rainbow is seen by
+the spectator at the side of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>These bold and frank licenses are not to be considered as detracting
+from the rank of the painter; they are usually characteristic of those
+minds whose grasp of nature is so certain and extensive as to enable
+them fearlessly to sacrifice a truth of actuality to a truth of feeling.
+Yet the young artist must keep <span class="pagenum"><a name="page092"></a>[Page 92]</span> in mind that the painter's
+greatness consists not in his taking, but in his atoning for them.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p16">§ 16. The lower Dutch schools.</a></p> <p>Among the professed landscapists of the
+Dutch school, we find much dexterous imitation of certain kinds of
+nature, remarkable usually for its persevering rejection of whatever is
+great, valuable, or affecting in the object studied. Where, however,
+they show real desire to paint what they saw as far as they saw it,
+there is of course much in them that is instructive, as in Cuyp and in
+the etchings of Waterloo, which have even very sweet and genuine
+feeling; and so in some of their architectural painters. But the object
+of the great body of them is merely to display manual dexterities of one
+kind or another, and their effect on the public mind is so totally for
+evil, that though I do not deny the advantage an artist of real judgment
+may derive from the study of some of them, I conceive the best patronage
+that any monarch could possibly bestow upon the arts, would be to
+collect the whole body of them into a grand gallery and burn it to the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p17">§ 17. English school, Wilson and Gainsborough.</a></p> <p>Passing to the English
+school, we find a connecting link between them and the Italians formed
+by Richard Wilson. Had this artist studied under favorable
+circumstances, there is evidence of his having possessed power enough to
+produce an original picture; but, corrupted by study of the Poussins,
+and gathering his materials chiefly in their field, the district about
+Rome&mdash;a district especially unfavorable, as exhibiting no pure or
+healthy nature, but a diseased and overgrown Flora among half-developed
+volcanic rocks, loose calcareous concretions, and mouldering wrecks of
+buildings&mdash;and whose spirit, I conceive, to be especially opposed to the
+natural tone of the English mind, his originality was altogether
+overpowered, and, though he paints in a manly way and occasionally
+reaches exquisite tones of color, as in the small and very precious
+picture belonging to Mr. Rogers, and sometimes manifests some freshness
+of feeling, as in the Villa of Męcenas of our National Gallery, yet his
+pictures are in general mere diluted adaptations from Poussin and
+Salvator, without the dignity of the one or the fire of the other.</p>
+
+<p>Not so Gainsborough, a great name his whether of the English <span class="pagenum"><a name="page093"></a>[Page 93]</span>
+or any other school. The greatest colorist since Rubens, and the last, I
+think, of legitimate colorists; that is to say, of those who were fully
+acquainted with the power of their material; pure in his English
+feeling, profound in his seriousness, graceful in his gayety, there are
+nevertheless certain deductions to be made from his worthiness which yet
+I dread to make, because my knowledge of his landscape works is not
+extensive enough to justify me in speaking of them decisively; but this
+is to be noted of all that I know, that they are rather motives of
+feeling and color than earnest studies; that their execution is in some
+degree mannered, and always hasty; that they are altogether wanting in
+the affectionate detail of which I have already spoken; and that their
+color is in some measure dependent on a bituminous brown and
+conventional green which have more of science than of truth in them.
+These faults may be sufficiently noted in the magnificent picture
+presented by him to the Royal Academy, and tested by a comparison of it
+with the Turner (Llanberis,) in the same room. Nothing can be more
+attractively luminous or aerial than the distance of the Gainsborough,
+nothing more bold or inventive than the forms of its crags and the
+diffusion of the broad distant light upon them, where a vulgar artist
+would have thrown them into dark contrast. But it will be found that the
+light of the distance is brought out by a violent exaggeration of the
+gloom in the valley; that the forms of the green trees which bear the
+chief light are careless and ineffective; that the markings of the crags
+are equally hasty; and that no object in the foreground has realization
+enough to enable the eye to rest upon it. The Turner, a much feebler
+picture in its first impression, and altogether inferior in the quality
+and value of its individual hues, will yet be found to the end more
+forcible, because unexaggerated; its gloom is moderate and aerial, its
+light deep in tone, its color entirely unconventional, and the forms of
+its rocks studied with the most devoted care. With Gainsborough
+terminates the series of painters connected with the elder schools. By
+whom, among those yet living or lately lost, the impulse was first given
+to modern landscape, I attempt not to decide. Such questions are rather
+invidious than interesting; the particular tone or direction of any
+school seems to me always to have resulted rather <span class="pagenum"><a name="page094"></a>[Page 94]</span> from
+certain phases of national character, limited to particular periods,
+than from individual teaching; and, especially among moderns, what has
+been good in each master has been commonly original.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p18">§ 18. Constable, Calcott.</a></p> <p>I have already alluded to the simplicity and
+earnestness of the mind of Constable; to its vigorous rupture with
+school laws, and to its unfortunate error on the opposite side.
+Unteachableness seems to have been a main feature of his character, and
+there is corresponding want of veneration in the way he approaches
+nature herself. His early education and associations were also against
+him; they induced in him a morbid preference of subjects of a low order.
+I have never seen any work of his in which there were any signs of his
+being able to draw, and hence even the most necessary details are
+painted by him inefficiently. His works are also eminently wanting both
+in rest and refinement, and Fuseli's jesting compliment is too true; for
+the showery weather in which the artist delights, misses alike the
+majesty of storm and the loveliness of calm weather: it is great-coat
+weather, and nothing more. There is strange want of depth in the mind
+which has no pleasure in sunbeams but when piercing painfully through
+clouds, nor in foliage but when shaken by the wind, nor in light itself
+but when flickering, glistening, restless, and feeble. Yet, with all
+these deductions, his works are to be deeply respected as thoroughly
+original, thoroughly honest, free from affectation, manly in manner,
+frequently successful in cool color, and especially realizing certain
+motives of English scenery with perhaps as much affection as such
+scenery, unless when regarded through media of feeling derived from
+higher sources, is calculated to inspire.</p>
+
+<p>On the works of Calcott, high as his reputation stands, I should look
+with far less respect; I see not any preference or affection in the
+artist; there is no tendency in him with which we can sympathize, nor
+does there appear any sign of aspiration, effort, or enjoyment in any
+one of his works. He appears to have completed them methodically, to
+have been content with them when completed, to have thought them good,
+legitimate, regular pictures; perhaps in some respects better than
+nature. He painted everything tolerably, and nothing excellently; he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page095"></a>[Page 95]</span> has given us no gift, struck for us no light, and though he
+has produced one or two valuable works, of which the finest I know is
+the Marine in the possession of Sir J. Swinburne, they will, I believe,
+in future have no place among those considered representative of the
+English school.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p19">§ 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.</a></p> <p>Throughout the range of
+elder art it will be remembered we have found no instance of the
+faithful painting of mountain scenery, except in a faded background of
+Masaccio's: nothing more than rocky eminences, undulating hills, or
+fantastic crags, and even these treated altogether under typical forms.
+The more specific study of mountains seems to have coincided with the
+most dexterous practice of water-color; but it admits of doubt whether
+the choice of subject has been directed by the vehicle, or whether, as I
+rather think, the tendency of national feeling has been followed in the
+use of the most appropriate means. Something is to be attributed to the
+increased demand for slighter works of art, and much to the sense of the
+quality of objects now called picturesque, which appears to be
+exclusively of modern origin. From what feeling the character of
+middle-age architecture and costume arose, or with what kind of
+affection their forms were regarded by the inventors, I am utterly
+unable to guess; but of this I think we may be assured, that the natural
+instinct and child-like wisdom of those days were altogether different
+from the modern feeling, which appears to have taken its origin in the
+absence of such objects, and to be based rather on the strangeness of
+their occurrence than on any real affection for them; and which is
+certainly so shallow and ineffective as to be instantly and always
+sacrificed by the majority to fashion, comfort, or economy. Yet I trust
+that there is a healthy though feeble love of nature mingled with it,
+nature pure, separate, felicitous, which is also peculiar to the
+moderns; and as signs of this feeling, or ministers to it, I look with
+veneration upon many works which, in a technical point of view, are of
+minor importance.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p20">§ 20. G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style."</a></p> <p>I have been
+myself indebted for much teaching and more delight to those of the late
+G. Robson. Weaknesses there are in them manifold, much bad drawing, much
+forced color, much over finish, little of what <span class="pagenum"><a name="page096"></a>[Page 96]</span> artists call
+composition; but there is thorough affection for the thing drawn; they
+are serious and quiet in the highest degree, certain qualities of
+atmosphere and texture in them have never been excelled, and certain
+facts of mountain scenery never but by them expressed, as, for instance,
+the stillness and depth of the mountain tarns, with the reversed imagery
+of their darkness signed across by the soft lines of faintly touching
+winds; the solemn flush of the brown fern and glowing heath under
+evening light; the purple mass of mountains far removed, seen against
+clear still twilight. With equal gratitude I look to the drawings of
+David Cox, which, in spite of their loose and seemingly careless
+execution, are not less serious in their meaning, nor less important in
+their truth. I must, however, in reviewing those modern works in which
+certain modes of execution are particularly manifested, insist
+especially on this general principle, applicable to all times of art;
+that what is usually called the style or manner of an artist is, in all
+good art, nothing but the best means of getting at the particular truth
+which the artist wanted; it is not a mode peculiar to himself of getting
+at the same truths as other men, but the <i>only</i> mode of getting the
+particular facts he desires, and which mode, if others had desired to
+express those facts, they also must have adopted. All habits of
+execution persisted in under no such necessity, but because the artist
+has invented them, or desires to show his dexterity in them, are utterly
+base; for every good painter finds so much difficulty in reaching the
+end he sees and desires, that he has no time nor power left for playing
+tricks on the road to it; he catches at the easiest and best means he
+can get; it is possible that such means may be singular, and then it
+will be said that his <i>style</i> is strange; but it is not a style at all,
+it is the saying of a particular thing in the only way in which it
+possibly can be said. Thus the reed pen outline and peculiar touch of
+Prout, which are frequently considered as mere manner, are in fact the
+only means of expressing the crumbling character of stone which the
+artist loves and desires. That character never has been expressed except
+by him, nor will it ever be expressed except by his means. And it is of
+the greatest importance to distinguish this kind of necessary and
+virtuous manner from the conventional manners very frequent in
+derivative schools, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page097"></a>[Page 97]</span> and always utterly to be contemned,
+wherein an artist, desiring nothing and feeling nothing, executes
+everything in his own particular mode, and teaches emulous scholars how
+to do with difficulty what might have been done with ease. It is true
+that there are sometimes instances in which great masters have employed
+different means of getting at the same end, but in these cases their
+choice has been always of those which to them appeared the shortest and
+most complete; their practice has never been prescribed by affectation
+or continued from habit, except so far as must be expected from such
+weakness as is common to all men; from hands that necessarily do most
+readily what they are most accustomed to do, and minds always liable to
+prescribe to the hands that which they can do most readily.</p>
+
+<p>The recollection of this will keep us from being offended with the loose
+and blotted handling of David Cox. There is no other means by which his
+object could be attained. The looseness, coolness, and moisture of his
+herbage; the rustling crumpled freshness of his broad-leaved weeds; the
+play of pleasant light across his deep heathered moor or plashing sand;
+the melting of fragments of white mist into the dropping blue above; all
+this has not been fully recorded except by him, and what there is of
+accidental in his mode of reaching it, answers gracefully to the
+accidental part of nature herself. Yet he is capable of more than this,
+and if he suffers himself uniformly to paint beneath his capability,
+that which began in feeling must necessarily end in manner. He paints
+too many small pictures, and perhaps has of late permitted his peculiar
+execution to be more manifest than is necessary. Of this, he is himself
+the best judge. For almost all faults of this kind the public are
+answerable, not the painter. I have alluded to one of his grander
+works&mdash;such as I should wish always to see him paint&mdash;in the preface;
+another, I think still finer, a red sunset on distant hills, almost
+unequalled for truth and power of color, was painted by him several
+years ago, and remains, I believe, in his own possession.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p21">§ 21. Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color.</a></p> <p>The deserved
+popularity of Copley Fielding has rendered it less necessary for me to
+allude frequently to his works in the following pages than it would
+otherwise have been, more especially as my own sympathies and enjoyments
+are so entirely directed in the channel which his art <span class="pagenum"><a name="page098"></a>[Page 98]</span> has
+taken, that I am afraid of trusting them too far. Yet I may, perhaps, be
+permitted to speak of myself so far as I suppose my own feelings to be
+representative of those of a class; and I suppose that there are many
+who, like myself, at some period of their life have derived more intense
+and healthy pleasure from the works of this painter than of any other
+whatsoever; healthy, because always based on his faithful and simple
+rendering of nature, and that of very lovely and impressive nature,
+altogether freed from coarseness, violence, or vulgarity. Various
+references to that which he has attained will be found subsequently:
+what I am now about to say respecting what he has <i>not</i> attained, is not
+in depreciation of what he has accomplished, but in regret at his
+suffering powers of a high order to remain in any measure dormant.</p>
+
+<p>He indulges himself too much in the use of crude color. Pure cobalt,
+violent rose, and purple, are of frequent occurrence in his distances;
+pure siennas and other browns in his foregrounds, and that not as
+expressive of lighted but of local color. The reader will find in the
+following chapters that I am no advocate for subdued coloring; but crude
+color is not bright color, and there was never a noble or brilliant work
+of color yet produced, whose real form did not depend on the subduing of
+its tints rather than the elevation of them.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps one of the most difficult lessons to learn in art, that
+the warm colors of distance, even the most glowing, are subdued by the
+air so as in no wise to resemble the same color seen on a foreground
+object; so that the rose of sunset on clouds or mountains has a gray in
+it which distinguishes it from the rose color of the leaf of a flower;
+and the mingling of this gray of distance, without in the slightest
+degree taking away the expression of the intense and perfect purity of
+the color in and by itself, is perhaps the last attainment of the great
+landscape colorist. In the same way the blue of distance, however
+intense, is not the blue of a bright blue flower, and it is not
+distinguished from it by different texture merely, but by a certain
+intermixture and under current of warm color, which is altogether
+wanting in many of the blues of Fielding's distances; and so of every
+bright distant color; while in foreground where colors may be, and ought
+to be, pure, yet that any of them are <span class="pagenum"><a name="page099"></a>[Page 99]</span> expressive of light is
+only to be felt where there is the accurate fitting of them to their
+relative shadows which we find in the works of Giorgione, Titian,
+Tintoret, Veronese, Turner, and all other great colorists in proportion
+as they are so. Of this fitting of light to shadow Fielding is
+altogether regardless, so that his foregrounds are constantly assuming
+the aspect of overcharged local color instead of sunshine, and his
+figures and cattle look transparent.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p22">§ 22. Beauty of mountain foreground.</a></p> <p>Again, the finishing of Fielding's
+foregrounds, as regards their drawing, is minute without accuracy,
+multitudinous without thought, and confused without mystery. Where
+execution is seen to be in measure accidental, as in Cox, it may be
+received as representative of what is accidental in nature; but there is
+no part of Fielding's foreground that is accidental; it is evidently
+worked and reworked, dotted, rubbed, and finished with great labor, and
+where the virtue, playfulness, and freedom of accident are thus removed,
+one of two virtues must be substituted for them. Either we must have the
+deeply studied and imaginative foreground, of which every part is
+necessary to every other, and whose every spark of light is essential to
+the well-being of the whole, of which the foregrounds of Turner in the
+Liber Studiorum are the most eminent examples I know, or else we must
+have in some measure the botanical faithfulness and realization of the
+early masters. Neither of these virtues is to be found in Fielding's.
+Its features, though grouped with feeling, are yet scattered and
+inessential. Any one of them might be altered in many ways without doing
+harm; there is no proportioned, necessary, unalterable relation among
+them; no evidence of invention or of careful thought, while on the other
+hand there is no botanical or geological accuracy, nor any point on
+which the eye may rest with thorough contentment in its realization.</p>
+
+<p>It seems strange that to an artist of so quick feeling the details of a
+mountain foreground should not prove irresistibly attractive, and entice
+him to greater accuracy of study. There is not a fragment of its living
+rock, nor a tuft of its heathery herbage, that has not adorable
+manifestations of God's working thereupon. The harmonies of color among
+the native lichens <span class="pagenum"><a name="page100"></a>[Page 100]</span> are better than Titian's; the interwoven
+bells of campanula and heather are better than all the arabesques of the
+Vatican; they need no improvement, arrangement, nor alteration, nothing
+but love, and every combination of them is different from every other,
+so that a painter need never repeat himself if he will only be true; yet
+all these sources of power have been of late entirely neglected by
+Fielding; there is evidence through all his foregrounds of their being
+mere home inventions, and like all home inventions they exhibit
+perpetual resemblances and repetitions; the painter is evidently
+embarrassed without his rutted road in the middle, and his boggy pool at
+the side, which pool he has of late painted in hard lines of violent
+blue: there is not a stone, even of the nearest and most important,
+which has its real lichens upon it, or a studied form or anything more
+to occupy the mind than certain variations of dark and light browns. The
+same faults must be found with his present painting of foliage, neither
+the stems nor leafage being ever studied from nature; and this is the
+more to be regretted, because in the earlier works of the artist there
+was much admirable drawing, and even yet his power is occasionally
+developed in his larger works, as in a Bolton Abbey on canvas, which
+was,&mdash;I cannot say, exhibited,&mdash;but was in the rooms of the Royal
+Academy in 1843.<a name="FnAnchor_9" href="#Footnote_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> I should have made the preceding remarks <span class="pagenum"><a name="page101"></a>[Page 101]</span>
+with more hesitation and diffidence, but that, from a comparison of
+works of this kind with the slighter ornaments of the water-color rooms,
+it seems evident that the painter is not unaware of the deficiencies of
+these latter, and concedes something of what he would himself desire to
+what he has found to be the feeling of a majority of his admirers. This
+is a dangerous modesty, and especially so in these days when the
+judgment of the many is palpably as artificial as their feeling is cold.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p23">§ 23. De Wint.</a></p> <p>There is much that is instructive and deserving of high
+praise in the sketches of De Wint. Yet it is to be remembered that even
+the pursuit of truth, however determined, will have results limited and
+imperfect when its chief motive is the pride of being true; and I fear
+that these works, sublime as many of them have unquestionably been,
+testify more accuracy of eye and experience of color than exercise of
+thought. Their truth of effect is often purchased at too great an
+expense by the loss of all beauty of form, and of the higher refinements
+of color; deficiencies, however, on which I shall not insist, since the
+value of the sketches, as far as they go, is great; they have done good
+service and set good example, and whatever their failings may be, there
+is evidence in them that the painter has always done what he believed to
+be right.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p24">§ 24. Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding.</a></p> <p>The influence of the
+masters of whom we have hitherto spoken is confined to those who have
+access to their actual works, since the particular qualities in which
+they excel, are in no wise to be rendered by the engraver. Those of whom
+we have next to speak are known to the public in a great measure by the
+help of the engraver; and while their influence is thus very far
+extended, their modes of working are perhaps, in some degree modified by
+the habitual reference to the future translation into light and shade;
+reference <span class="pagenum"><a name="page102"></a>[Page 102]</span> which is indeed beneficial in the care it induces
+respecting the arrangement of the chiaroscuro and the explanation of the
+forms, but which is harmful, so far as it involves a dependence rather
+on quantity of picturesque material than on substantial color or simple
+treatment, and as it admits of indolent diminution of size and
+slightness of execution.</p>
+
+<p>We should not be just to the present works of J. D. Harding unless we
+took this influence into account. Some years back none of our artists
+realized more laboriously, nor obtained more substantial color and
+texture; a large drawing in the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq., of
+Tottenham, is of great value as an example of his manner at the period;
+a manner not only careful, but earnest, and free from any kind of
+affectation. Partly from the habit of making slight and small drawings
+for engravers, and partly also, I imagine, from an overstrained seeking
+after appearances of dexterity in execution, his drawings have of late
+years become both less solid and less complete; not, however, without
+attaining certain brilliant qualities in exchange which are very
+valuable in the treatment of some of the looser portions of subject. Of
+the extended knowledge and various powers of this painter, frequent
+instances are noted in the following pages. Neither, perhaps, are
+rightly estimated among artists, owing to a certain coldness of
+sentiment in his choice of subject, and a continual preference of the
+picturesque to the impressive; proved perhaps in nothing so distinctly
+as in the little interest usually attached to his skies, which, if
+aerial and expressive of space and movement, content him, though
+destitute of story, power, or character: an exception must be made in
+favor of the very grand sunrise on the Swiss Alps, exhibited in 1844,
+wherein the artist's real power was in some measure displayed, though I
+am convinced he is still capable of doing far greater things. So in his
+foliage he is apt to sacrifice the dignity of his trees to their
+wildness, and lose the forest in the copse, neither is he at all
+accurate enough in his expression of species or realization of near
+portions. These are deficiencies, be it observed, of sentiment, not of
+perception, as there are few who equal him in rapidity of seizure of
+material truth.</p>
+
+<p>Very extensive influence in modern art must be attributed to the works
+of Samuel Prout; and as there are some circumstances <span class="pagenum"><a name="page103"></a>[Page 103]</span>
+belonging to his treatment of architectural subject <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p25">§ 25. Samuel Prout.
+Early painting of architecture, how deficient.</a></span>which it does not come
+within the sphere of the following chapters to examine, I shall endeavor
+to note the more important of them here.</p>
+
+<p>Let us glance back for a moment to the architectural drawing of earlier
+times. Before the time of the Bellinis at Venice, and of Ghirlandajo at
+Florence, I believe there are no examples of anything beyond
+conventional representation of architecture, often rich, quaint, and
+full of interest, as Memmi's abstract of the Duomo at Florence at S^ta.
+Maria Novella; but not to be classed with any genuine efforts at
+representation. It is much to be regretted that the power and custom of
+introducing well-drawn architecture should have taken place only when
+architectural taste had been itself corrupted, and that the architecture
+introduced by Bellini, Ghirlandajo, Francia, and the other patient and
+powerful workmen of the fifteenth century, is exclusively of the
+renaissance styles; while their drawing of it furnishes little that is
+of much interest to the architectural draughtsman as such, being always
+governed by a reference to its subordinate position, so that all
+forceful shadow and play of color are (most justly) surrendered for
+quiet and uniform hues of gray and chiaroscuro of extreme simplicity.
+Whatever they chose to do they did with consummate grandeur, (note
+especially the chiaroscuro of the square window of Ghirlandajo's which
+so much delighted Vasari in S^ta. Maria Novella; and the daring
+management of a piece of the perspective in the Salutation, opposite
+where he has painted a flight of stairs descending in front, though the
+picture is twelve feet above the eye); and yet this grandeur, in all
+these men, results rather from the general power obtained in their
+drawing of the figure than from any definite knowledge respecting the
+things introduced in these accessory parts; so that while in some points
+it is impossible for any painter to equal these accessories, unless he
+were in all respects as great as Ghirlandajo or Bellini, in others it is
+possible for him, with far inferior powers, to attain a representation
+both more accurate and more interesting.</p>
+
+<p>In order to arrive at the knowledge of these, we must briefly take note
+of a few of the modes in which architecture <span class="pagenum"><a name="page104"></a>[Page 104]</span> itself is
+agreeable to the mind, especially of the influence upon the character of
+the building which is to be attributed to the signs of age.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p26">§ 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.</a></p> <p>It is evident,
+first, that if the design of the building be originally bad, the only
+virtue it can ever possess will be in signs of antiquity. All that in
+this world enlarges the sphere of affection or imagination is to be
+reverenced, and all those circumstances enlarge it which strengthen our
+memory or quicken our conception of the dead; hence it is no light sin
+to destroy anything that is old, more especially because, even with the
+aid of all obtainable records of the past, we, the living, occupy a
+space of too large importance and interest in our own eyes; we look upon
+the world too much as our own, too much as if we had possessed it and
+should possess it forever, and forget that it is a mere hostelry, of
+which we occupy the apartments for a time, which others better than we
+have sojourned in before, who are now where we should desire to be with
+them. Fortunately for mankind, as some counterbalance to that wretched
+love of novelty which originates in selfishness, shallowness, and
+conceit, and which especially characterizes all vulgar minds, there is
+set in the deeper places of the heart such affection for the signs of
+age that the eye is delighted even by injuries which are the work of
+time; not but that there is also real and absolute beauty in the forms
+and colors so obtained, for which the original lines of the
+architecture, unless they have been very grand indeed, are well
+exchanged, so that there is hardly any building so ugly but that it may
+be made an agreeable object by such appearances. It would not be easy,
+for instance, to find a less pleasing piece of architecture than the
+portion of the front of Queen's College, Oxford, which has just been
+restored; yet I believe that few persons could have looked with total
+indifference on the mouldering and peeled surface of the oolite
+limestone previous to its restoration. If, however, the character of the
+building consist in minute detail or multitudinous lines, the evil or
+good effect of age upon it must depend in great measure on the kind of
+art, the material, and the climate. The Parthenon, for instance, would
+be injured by any markings which interfered with the contours of its
+sculptures; and any lines of extreme purity, or colors of original
+harmony <span class="pagenum"><a name="page105"></a>[Page 105]</span> and perfection are liable to injury, and are ill
+exchanged for mouldering edges or brown weatherstains.</p>
+
+<p>But as all architecture is, or ought to be, meant to be durable, and to
+derive part of its glory from its antiquity, all art that is liable to
+mortal injury from effects of time is therein out of place, and this is
+another reason for the principle I have asserted in the second part,
+<a href="#page204">page 204</a>. I do not at this instant recollect a single instance of any
+very fine building which is not improved up to a certain period by all
+its signs of age, after which period, like all other human works, it
+necessarily declines, its decline being in almost all ages and countries
+accelerated by neglect and abuse in its time of beauty, and alteration
+or restoration in its time of age.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I conceive that all buildings dependent on color, whether of mosaic
+or painting, have their effect improved by the richness of the
+subsequent tones of age; for there are few arrangements of color so
+perfect but that they are capable of improvement by some softening and
+blending of this kind: with mosaic, the improvement may be considered as
+proceeding almost so long as the design can be distinctly seen; with
+painting, so long as the colors do not change or chip off.</p>
+
+<p>Again, upon all forms of sculptural ornament, the effect of time is
+such, that if the design be poor, it will enrich it; if overcharged,
+simplify it; if harsh and violent, soften it; if smooth and obscure,
+exhibit it; whatever faults it may have are rapidly disguised, whatever
+virtue it has still shines and steals out in the mellow light; and this
+to such an extent, that the artist is always liable to be tempted to the
+drawing of details in old buildings as of extreme beauty, which look
+cold and hard in their architectural lines; and I have never yet seen
+any restoration or cleaned portion of a building whose effect was not
+inferior to the weathered parts, even to those of which the design had
+in some parts almost disappeared. On the front of the church of San
+Michele at Lucca, the mosaics have fallen out of half the columns, and
+lie in weedy ruin beneath; in many, the frost has torn large masses of
+the entire coating away, leaving a scarred unsightly surface. Two of the
+shafts of the upper star window are eaten entirely away by the sea wind,
+the rest have lost their proportions, the edges of the arches are hacked
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106"></a>[Page 106]</span> into deep hollows, and cast indented shadows on the
+weed-grown wall. The process has gone too far, and yet I doubt not but
+that this building is seen to greater advantage now than when first
+built, always with exception of one circumstance, that the French
+shattered the lower wheel window, and set up in front of it an
+escutcheon with "Libertas" upon it, which abomination of desolation, the
+Lucchese have not yet had human-heartedness enough to pull down.</p>
+
+<p>Putting therefore the application of architecture as an accessory out of
+the question, and supposing our object to be the exhibition of the most
+impressive qualities of the building itself, it is evidently the duty of
+the draughtsman to represent it under those conditions, and with that
+amount of age-mark upon it which may best exalt and harmonize the
+sources of its beauty: this is no pursuit of mere picturesqueness, it is
+true following out of the ideal character of the building; nay, far
+greater dilapidation than this may in portions be exhibited, for there
+are beauties of other kinds, not otherwise attainable, brought out by
+advanced dilapidation; but when the artist suffers the mere love of
+ruinousness to interfere with his perception of the <i>art</i> of the
+building, and substitutes rude fractures and blotting stains for all its
+fine chiselling and determined color, he has lost the end of his own
+art.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p27">§ 27. Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail.</a></p> <p>So
+far of aging; next of effects of light and color. It is, I believe,
+hardly enough observed among architects that the same decorations are of
+totally different effect according to their position and the time of
+day. A moulding which is of value on a building facing south, where it
+takes deep shadows from steep sun, may be utterly ineffective if placed
+west or east; and a moulding which is chaste and intelligible in shade
+on a north side, may be grotesque, vulgar, or confused when it takes
+black shadows on the south. Farther, there is a time of day in which
+every architectural decoration is seen to best advantage, and certain
+times in which its peculiar force and character are best explained; of
+these niceties the architect takes little cognizance, as he must in some
+sort calculate on the effect of ornament at all times; but to the artist
+they are of infinite importance, and especially for this reason, that
+there is always much detail on buildings which <span class="pagenum"><a name="page107"></a>[Page 107]</span> cannot be
+drawn as such, which is too far off, or too minute, and which must
+consequently be set down in short-hand of some kind or another; and, as
+it were, an abstract, more or less philosophical, made of its general
+heads. Of the style of this abstract, of the lightness, confusion, and
+mystery necessary in it, I have spoken elsewhere; at present I insist
+only on the arrangement and matter of it. All good ornament and all good
+architecture are capable of being put into short-hand; that is, each has
+a perfect system of parts, principal and subordinate, of which, even
+when the complemental details vanish in distance, the system and anatomy
+yet remain visible so long as anything is visible; so that the divisions
+of a beautiful spire shall be known as beautiful even till their last
+line vanishes in blue mist, and the effect of a well-designed moulding
+shall be visibly disciplined, harmonious, and inventive, as long as it
+is seen to be a moulding at all. Now the power of the artist of marking
+this character depends not on his complete knowledge of the design, but
+on his experimental knowledge of its salient and bearing parts, and of
+the effects of light and shadow, by which their saliency is best told.
+He must therefore be prepared, according to his subject, to use light,
+steep or level, intense or feeble, and out of the resulting chiaroscuro
+select those peculiar and hinging points on which the rest are based,
+and by which all else that is essential may be explained.</p>
+
+<p>The thoughtful command of all these circumstances constitutes the real
+architectural draughtsman; the habits of executing everything either
+under one kind of effect or in one manner, or of using unintelligible
+and meaningless abstracts of beautiful designs, are those which must
+commonly take the place of it and are the most extensively esteemed.<a name="FnAnchor_10" href="#Footnote_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p28">§ 28. Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio;</a></p>
+<p>Let us now proceed with our review of those artists who have devoted
+themselves more peculiarly to architectural subject.</p>
+
+<p>Foremost among them stand Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio, to whom
+we are indebted for the only existing faithful statements of the
+architecture of Old Venice, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page108"></a>[Page 108]</span> and who are the only authorities
+to whom we can trust in conjecturing the former beauty of those few
+desecrated fragments, the last of which are now being rapidly swept away
+by the idiocy of modern Venetians.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can be more careful, nothing more delicately finished, or more
+dignified in feeling than the works of both these men; and as
+architectural evidence they are the best we could have had, all the
+gilded parts being gilt in the picture, so that there can be no mistake
+or confusion of them with yellow color or light, and all the frescoes or
+mosaics given with the most absolute precision and fidelity. At the same
+time they are by no means examples of perfect architectural drawing;
+there is little light and shade in them of any kind, and none whatever
+of the thoughtful observance of temporary effect of which we have just
+been speaking; so that, in rendering the character of the relieved
+parts, their solidity, depth, or gloom, the representation fails
+altogether, and it is moreover lifeless from its very completion, both
+the signs of age and the effects of use and habitation being utterly
+rejected; rightly so, indeed, in these instances, (all the architecture
+of these painters being in background to religious subject,) but wrongly
+so, if we look to the architecture alone. Neither is there anything like
+aerial perspective attempted; the employment of actual gold in the
+decoration of all the distances, and the entire realization of their
+details, as far as is possible on the scale compelled by perspective,
+being alone sufficient to prevent this, except in the hands of painters
+far more practised in effect than either Gentile or Carpaccio. But with
+all these discrepancies, Gentile Bellini's church of St. Mark's is the
+best church of St. Mark's that has ever been painted, so far as I know;
+and I believe the reconciliation of true aerial perspective and
+chiaroscuro with the splendor and dignity obtained by the real gilding
+and elaborate detail, is a problem yet to be accomplished. With the help
+of the Daguerreotype, and the lessons of color given by the later
+Venetians, we ought now to be able to accomplish it, more especially as
+the right use of gold has been shown us by the greatest master of effect
+whom Venice herself produced, Tintoret, who has employed it with
+infinite grace on the steps ascended by the young Madonna, in his large
+picture in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page109"></a>[Page 109]</span> church of the Madonna dell' Orto. Perugino
+uses it also with singular grace, often employing it for golden light on
+distant trees, and continually on the high light of hair, and that
+without losing relative distances.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p29">§ 29. And of the Venetians generally.</a></p> <p>The great group of Venetian
+painters who brought landscape art, for that time, to its culminating
+point, have left, as we have already seen, little that is instructive in
+architectural painting. The causes of this I cannot comprehend, for
+neither Titian nor Tintoret appears to despise anything that affords
+them either variety of form or of color, the latter especially
+condescending to very trivial details,&mdash;as in the magnificent carpet
+painting of the Doge Mocenigo; so that it might have been expected that
+in the rich colors of St. Mark's, and the magnificent and fantastic
+masses of the Byzantine palaces, they would have found where-upon to
+dwell with delighted elaboration. This is, however, never the case, and
+although frequently compelled to introduce portions of Venetian locality
+in their backgrounds, such portions are always treated in a most hasty
+and faithless manner, missing frequently all character of the building,
+and never advanced to realization. In Titian's picture of Faith, the
+view of Venice below is laid in so rapidly and slightly, the houses all
+leaning this way and that, and of no color, the sea a dead gray green,
+and the ship-sails mere dashes of the brush, that the most obscure of
+Turner's Venices would look substantial beside it; while in the very
+picture of Tintoret in which he has dwelt so elaborately on the carpet,
+he has substituted a piece of ordinary renaissance composition for St.
+Mark's, and in the background has chosen the Sansovino side of the
+Piazzetta, treating even that so carelessly as to lose all the
+proportion and beauty of its design, and so flimsily that the line of
+the distant sea which has been first laid in, is seen through all the
+columns. Evidences of magnificent power of course exist in whatever he
+touches, but his full power is never turned in this direction. More
+space is allowed to his architecture by Paul Veronese, but it is still
+entirely suggestive, and would be utterly false except as a frame or
+background for figures. The same may be said with respect to Raffaelle
+and the Roman school.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, these men laid architecture little under contribution
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110"></a>[Page 110]</span> to their own art, they made their own art a glorious <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p30">§ 30.
+Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto.</a></span>gift to
+architecture, and the walls of Venice, which before, I believe, had
+received color only in arabesque patterns, were lighted with human life
+by Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese. Of the works of Tintoret
+and Titian, nothing now, I believe, remains; two figures of Giorgione's
+are still traceable on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, one of which,
+singularly uninjured, is seen from far above and below the Rialto,
+flaming like the reflection of a sunset. Two figures of Veronese were
+also traceable till lately, the head and arms of one still remain, and
+some glorious olive-branches which were beside the other; the figure
+having been entirely effaced by an inscription in large black letters on
+a whitewash tablet which we owe to the somewhat inopportunely expressed
+enthusiasm of the inhabitants of the district in favor of their new
+pastor.<a name="FnAnchor_11" href="#Footnote_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> Judging, however, from the rate at which destruction is at
+present advancing, and seeing that, in about seven or eight years more,
+Venice will have utterly lost every external claim to interest, except
+that which attaches to the group of buildings immediately around St.
+Mark's place, and to the larger churches, it may be conjectured that the
+greater part of her present degradation has taken place, at any rate,
+within the last forty years. Let the reader with such scraps of evidence
+as may still be gleaned from under the stucco and paint of the Italian
+committees of taste, and from among the drawing-room innovations of
+English and German residents restore Venice in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page111"></a>[Page 111]</span> his
+imagination to some resemblance of what she must have been before her
+fall. Let him, looking from Lido or Fusina, replace in the forest of
+towers those of the hundred and sixty-six churches which the French
+threw down; let him sheet her walls with purple and scarlet, overlay her
+minarets with gold,<a name="FnAnchor_12" href="#Footnote_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> cleanse from their pollution those choked canals
+which are now the drains of hovels, where they were once vestibules of
+palaces, and fill them with gilded barges and bannered ships; finally,
+let him withdraw from this scene, already so brilliant, such sadness and
+stain as had been set upon it by the declining energies of more than
+half a century, and he will see Venice as it was seen by Canaletto;
+whose miserable, virtueless, heartless mechanism, accepted as the
+representation of such various glory, is, both in its existence and
+acceptance, among the most striking signs of the lost sensation and
+deadened intellect of the nation at that time; a numbness and darkness
+more without hope than that of the grave itself, holding and wearing yet
+the sceptre and the crown like the corpses of the Etruscan kings, ready
+to sink into ashes at the first unbarring of the door of the sepulchre.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/img110.jpg" width="488" height="650" alt="CASA CONTARINI FASAN, VENICE." title="CASA CONTARINI FASAN, VENICE." /></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">CASA CONTARINI FASAN, VENICE.<br /><span style="font-size: 0.8em; ">From a drawing by Ruskin.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole
+range of art. Professing the most servile and mindless imitation, it
+imitates nothing but the blackness of the shadows; it gives no one
+single architectural ornament, however near, so much form as might
+enable us even to guess at its actual one; and this I say not rashly,
+for I shall prove it by placing portions of detail accurately copied
+from Canaletto side by side with engravings from the Daguerreotype; it
+gives the buildings neither their architectural beauty nor their
+ancestral dignity, for there is no texture of stone nor character of age
+in Canaletto's touch; which is invariably a violent, black, sharp, ruled
+penmanlike line, as far removed from the grace of nature as from her
+faintness and transparency; and for his truth of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page112"></a>[Page 112]</span> color, let
+the single fact of his having omitted <i>all record, whatsoever, of the
+frescoes</i> whose wrecks are still to be found at least on one half of the
+unrestored palaces, and, with still less excusableness, all record of
+the magnificent colored marbles of many whose greens and purples are
+still undimmed upon the Casa Dario, Casa Bianca Capello, and multitudes
+besides, speak for him in this respect.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be observed that I find no fault with Canaletto, for his want of
+poetry, of feeling, of artistical thoughtfulness in treatment, or of the
+various other virtues which he does not so much as profess. He professes
+nothing but colored Daguerreotypeism. Let us have it: most precious and
+to be revered it would be: let us have fresco where fresco was, and that
+copied faithfully; let us have carving where carving is, and that
+architecturally true. I have seen Daguerreotypes in which every figure
+and rosette, and crack and stain, and fissure are given on a scale of an
+inch to Canaletto's three feet. What excuse is there to be offered for
+his omitting, on that scale, as I shall hereafter show, all statement of
+such ornament whatever? Among the Flemish schools, exquisite imitations
+of architecture are found constantly, and that not with Canaletto's
+vulgar, black exaggeration of shadow, but in the most pure and silvery
+and luminous grays. I have little pleasure in such pictures; but I blame
+not those who have more; they are what they profess to be, and they are
+wonderful and instructive, and often graceful, and even affecting, but
+Canaletto possesses no virtue except that of dexterous imitation of
+commonplace light and shade, and perhaps, with the exception of
+Salvator, no artist has ever fettered his unfortunate admirers more
+securely from all healthy or vigorous perception of truth, or been of
+more general detriment to all subsequent schools.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p31">§ 31. Expression of the effects of age on architecture by S. Prout.</a></p>
+<p>Neither, however, by the Flemings, nor by any other of the elder
+schools, was the effect of age or of human life upon architecture ever
+adequately expressed. What ruins they drew looked as if broken down on
+purpose, what weeds they put on seemed put on for ornament. Their
+domestic buildings had never any domesticity, the people looked out of
+their windows evidently to be drawn, or came into the street only to
+stand there forever. A peculiar studiousness <span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"></a>[Page 113]</span> infected all
+accident; bricks fell out methodically, windows opened and shut by rule;
+stones were chipped at regular intervals; everything that happened
+seemed to have been expected before; and above all, the street had been
+washed and the houses dusted expressly to be painted in their best. We
+owe to Prout, I believe, the first perception, and certainly the only
+existing expression of precisely the characters which were wanting to
+old art, of that feeling which results from the influence among the
+noble lines of architecture, of the rent and the rust, the fissure, the
+lichen, and the weed, and from the writing upon the pages of ancient
+walls of the confused hieroglyphics of human history. I suppose, from
+the deserved popularity of the artist, that the strange pleasure which I
+find myself in the deciphering of these is common to many; the feeling
+has been rashly and thoughtlessly contemned as mere love of the
+picturesque; there is, as I have above shown, a deeper moral in it, and
+we owe much, I am not prepared to say how much, to the artist by whom
+pre-eminently it has been excited. For, numerous as have been his
+imitators, extended as his influence, and simple as his means and
+manner, there has yet appeared nothing at all to equal him; there is
+<i>no</i> stone drawing, <i>no</i> vitality of architecture like Prout's. I say
+not this rashly, I have Mackenzie in my eye and many other capital
+imitators; and I have carefully reviewed the Architectural work of the
+Academicians, often most accurate and elaborate. I repeat, there is
+nothing but the work of Prout which is true, living, or right in its
+general impression, and nothing, therefore, so inexhaustibly agreeable.
+Faults he has, manifold, easily detected, and much declaimed against by
+second-rate artists; but his excellence no one has ever touched, and his
+lithographic work, (Sketches in Flanders and Germany,) which was, I
+believe, the first of the kind, still remains the most valuable of all,
+numerous and elaborate as its various successors have been. The second
+series (in Italy and Switzerland) was of less value, the drawings seemed
+more laborious, and had less of the life of the original sketches, being
+also for the most part of subjects less adapted for the development of
+the artist's peculiar powers; but both are fine, and the Brussels,
+Louvain, Cologne, and Nuremberg, subjects of the one, together with the
+Tours, Amboise, Geneva, and Sion of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page114"></a>[Page 114]</span> the other, exhibit
+substantial qualities of stone and wood drawing, together with an ideal
+appreciation of the present active vital being of the cities, such as
+nothing else has ever approached. Their value is much increased by the
+circumstance of their being drawn by the artist's own hand upon the
+stone, and by the consequent manly recklessness of subordinate parts,
+(in works of this kind, be it remembered, much <i>is</i> subordinate,) which
+is of all characters of execution the most refreshing. Note the scrawled
+middle tint of the wall behind the Gothic well at Ratisbonne, and
+compare this manly piece of work with the wretched smoothness of recent
+lithography. Let it not be thought that there is any inconsistency
+between what I say here and what I have said respecting finish. This
+piece of dead wall is as much finished in relation to its <i>function</i> as
+a wall of Ghirlandajo's or Leonardo's in relation to theirs, and the
+refreshing quality is the same in both, and manifest in <i>all</i> great
+masters, without exception, that of the utter regardlessness of the
+means so that their end be reached. The same kind of scrawling occurs
+often in the shade of Raffaelle.</p>
+
+<p>It is not only, however, by his peculiar stone touch nor perception of
+human character that he is distinguished. He <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p32">§ 32. His excellent
+composition and color.</a></span>is the most dexterous of all our artists in a
+certain kind of composition. No one can place figures like him, except
+Turner. It is one thing to know where a piece of blue or white is
+wanted, and another to make the wearer of the blue apron or white cap
+come there, and not look as if it were against her will. Prout's streets
+are the only streets that are accidentally crowded, his markets are the
+only markets where one feels inclined to get out of the way. With others
+we feel the figures so right where they are, that we have no expectation
+of their going anywhere else, and approve of the position of the man
+with the wheelbarrow, without the slightest fear of his running against
+our legs. One other merit he has, far less generally acknowledged than
+it should be: he is among our most sunny and substantial colorists. Much
+conventional color occurs in his inferior pictures (for he is very
+unequal) and some in all; but portions are always to be found of quality
+so luminous and pure that I have found these works the only ones capable
+of bearing juxtaposition with Turner and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page115"></a>[Page 115]</span> Hunt, who
+invariably destroy everything else that comes within range of them. His
+most beautiful tones occur in those drawings in which there is prevalent
+and powerful warm gray, his most failing ones in those of sandy red. On
+his deficiencies I shall not insist, because I am not prepared to say
+how far it is possible for him to avoid them. We have never seen the
+reconciliation of the peculiar characters he has obtained with the
+accurate following out of architectural detail. With his present modes
+of execution, farther fidelity is impossible, nor has any other mode of
+execution yet obtained the same results; and though much is
+unaccomplished by him in certain subjects, and something of
+over-mannerism may be traced in his treatment of others, as especially
+in his mode of expressing the decorative parts of Greek or Roman
+architecture, yet in his own peculiar Gothic territory, where the spirit
+of the subject itself is somewhat rude and grotesque, his abstract of
+decoration has more of the spirit of the reality than far more laborious
+imitation. The spirit of the Flemish Hotel de Ville and decorated street
+architecture has never been even in the slightest degree felt or
+conveyed except by him, and by him, to my mind, faultlessly and
+absolutely; and though his interpretation of architecture that contains
+more refined art in its details is far less satisfactory, still it is
+impossible, while walking on his favorite angle of the Piazzetta at
+Venice, either to think of any other artist than Prout or <i>not</i> to think
+of <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Many other dexterous and agreeable architectural artists we <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p33">§ 33. Modern
+architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole.</a></span>have of various degrees
+of merit, but of all of whom, it may be generally said, that they draw
+hats, faces, cloaks, and caps much better than Prout, but figures not so
+well; that they draw walls and windows but not cities, mouldings and
+buttresses but not cathedrals. Joseph Nash's work on the architecture of
+the middle ages is, however, valuable, and I suppose that Haghe's works
+may be depended on for fidelity. But it appears very strange that a
+workman capable of producing the clever drawings he has, from time to
+time, sent to the New Society of Painters in Water Colors, should
+publish lithographs so conventional, forced, and lifeless.</p>
+
+<p>It is not without hesitation, that I mention a name respecting <span class="pagenum"><a name="page116"></a>[Page
+116]</span> which the reader may already have been surprised at my silence,
+that of G. Cattermole. There are signs in his works of very peculiar
+gifts, and perhaps also of powerful genius; their deficiencies I should
+willingly attribute to the advice of ill-judging friends, and to the
+applause of a public satisfied with shallow efforts, if brilliant; yet I
+cannot but think it one necessary characteristic of all true genius to
+be misled by no such false fires. The Antiquarian feeling of Cattermole
+is pure, earnest, and natural; and I think his imagination originally
+vigorous, certainly his fancy, his grasp of momentary passion
+considerable, his sense of action in the human body vivid and ready. But
+no original talent, however brilliant, can sustain its energy when the
+demands upon it are constant, and all legitimate support and food
+withdrawn. I do not recollect in any, even of the most important of
+Cattermole's works, so much as a fold of drapery studied out from
+nature. Violent conventionalism of light and shade, sketchy forms
+continually less and less developed, the walls and the faces drawn with
+the same stucco color, alike opaque, and all the shades on flesh, dress,
+or stone, laid in with the same arbitrary brown, forever tell the same
+tale of a mind wasting its strength and substance in the production of
+emptiness, and seeking, by more and more blindly hazarded handling, to
+conceal the weakness which the attempt at finish would betray.</p>
+
+<p>This tendency of late, has been painfully visible in his architecture.
+Some drawings made several years ago for an annual illustrative of
+Scott's works were for the most part pure and finely felt&mdash;(though
+irrelevant to our present subject, a fall of the Clyde should be
+noticed, admirable for breadth and grace of foliage, and for the bold
+sweeping of the water, and another subject of which I regret that I can
+only judge by the engraving; Glendearg at twilight&mdash;the monk Eustace
+chased by Christie of the Clint hill&mdash;which I think must have been one
+of the sweetest pieces of simple Border hill feeling ever painted)&mdash;and
+about that time his architecture, though always conventionally brown in
+the shadows, was generally well drawn, and always powerfully conceived.</p>
+
+<p>Since then, he has been tending gradually through exaggeration to
+caricature, and vainly endeavoring to attain by inordinate <span class="pagenum"><a name="page117"></a>[Page 117]</span>
+bulk of decorated parts, that dignity which is only to be reached by
+purity of proportion and majesty of line.</p>
+
+<p>It has pained me deeply, to see an artist of so great original power
+indulging in childish fantasticism and exaggeration, and substituting
+for the serious and subdued work of legitimate <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p34">§ 34. The evil in an
+archęological point of view of misapplied invention in architectural
+subject.</a></span>imagination, monstre machicolations and colossal cusps and
+crockets. While there is so much beautiful architecture daily in process
+of destruction around us, I cannot but think it treason to <i>imagine</i>
+anything; at least, if we must have composition, let the design of the
+artist be such as the architect would applaud. But it is surely very
+grievous, that while our idle artists are helping their vain inventions
+by the fall of sponges on soiled paper, glorious buildings with the
+whole intellect and history of centuries concentrated in them, are
+suffered to fall into unrecorded ruin. A day does not now pass in Italy
+without the destruction of some mighty monument; the streets of all her
+cities echo to the hammer, half of her fair buildings lie in separate
+stones about the places of their foundation; would not time be better
+spent in telling us the truth about these perishing remnants of majestic
+thought, than in perpetuating the ill-digested fancies of idle hours? It
+is, I repeat, treason to the cause of art for any man to invent, unless
+he invents something better than has been invented before, or something
+differing in kind. There is room enough for invention in the pictorial
+treatment of what exists. There is no more honorable exhibition of
+imaginative power, than in the selection of such place, choice of such
+treatment, introduction of such incident, as may produce a noble picture
+without deviation from one line of the actual truth; and such I believe
+to be, indeed, in the end the most advantageous, as well as the most
+modest direction of the invention, for I recollect no single instance of
+architectural composition by any men except such as Leonardo or
+Veronese, who could design their architecture thoroughly before they
+painted it, which has not a look of inanity and absurdity. The best
+landscapes and the best architectural studies have been views; and I
+would have the artist take shame to himself in the exact degree in which
+he finds himself obliged in the production of his picture to lose any,
+even of the smallest parts or most trivial hues which bear a part in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118"></a>[Page 118]</span> great impression made by the reality. The difference between
+the drawing of the architect and artist<a name="FnAnchor_13" href="#Footnote_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> ought never to be, as it now
+commonly is, the difference between lifeless formality and witless
+license; it ought to be between giving the mere lines and measures of a
+building, and giving those lines and measures with the impression and
+soul of it besides. All artists should be ashamed of themselves when
+they find they have not the power of being true; the right wit of
+drawing is like the right wit of conversation, not hyperbole, not
+violence, not frivolity, only well expressed, laconic truth.</p>
+
+<p>Among the members of the Academy, we have at present only one
+professedly architectural draughtsman of note, David Roberts, whose
+reputation is probably farther extended on the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p35">§ 35. Works of David
+Roberts: their fidelity and grace.</a></span>continent than that of any other of
+our artists, except Landseer. I am not certain, however, that I have any
+reason to congratulate either of my countrymen upon this their European
+estimation; for I think it exceedingly probable that in both instances
+it is exclusively based on their defects; and in the case of Mr.
+Roberts, in particular, there has of late appeared more ground for it
+than is altogether desirable in a smoothness and over-finish of texture
+which bears dangerous fellowship with the work of our Gallic neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>The fidelity of intention and honesty of system of Roberts have,
+however, always been meritorious; his drawing of architecture is
+dependent on no unintelligible lines, or blots, or substituted types:
+the main lines of the real design are always there, and its hollowness
+and undercuttings given with exquisite feeling; his sense of solidity of
+form is very peculiar, leading him to dwell with great delight on the
+roundings of edges and angles; his execution is dexterous and delicate,
+singularly so in oil, and his sense of chiaroscuro refined. But he has
+never done himself justice, and suffers his pictures to fall below the
+rank they should assume, by the presence of several marring characters,
+which I shall name, because it is perfectly in his power to avoid them.
+In looking over the valuable series of drawing of the Holy Land, which
+we owe to Mr. Roberts, we cannot but be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page119"></a>[Page 119]</span> amazed to find how
+frequently it has happened that there was something very white
+immediately in the foreground, and something very black exactly behind
+it. The same thing happens perpetually with Mr. Roberts's pictures; a
+white column is always coming out of a blue mist, or a white stone out
+of a green pool, or a white monument out of a brown recess, and the
+artifice is not always concealed with dexterity. This is unworthy of so
+skilful a composer, and it has destroyed the impressiveness as well as
+the color of some of his finest works. It shows a poverty of conception,
+which appears to me to arise from a deficient habit of study. It will be
+remembered that of the sketches for this work, several times exhibited
+in London, every one was executed in the same manner, and with about the
+same degree of completion: being all of them accurate records of the
+main architectural lines, the shapes of the shadows, and the remnants of
+artificial color, obtained, by means of the same grays, throughout, and
+of the same yellow (a singularly false and cold though convenient color)
+touched upon the lights. As far as they went, nothing could be more
+valuable than these sketches, and the public, glancing rapidly at their
+general and graceful effects, could hardly form anything like an
+estimate of the endurance and determination which must have been
+necessary in such a climate to obtain records so patient, entire, and
+clear, of details so multitudinous as (especially) the hieroglyphics of
+the Egyptian temples; an endurance which perhaps only artists can
+estimate, and for which we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Roberts most
+difficult to discharge. But if these sketches were all that the artist
+brought home, whatever value is to be attached to them as statements of
+fact, they are altogether insufficient for the producing of pictures. I
+saw among them no single instance of a downright study; of a study in
+which the real hues and shades of sky and earth had been honestly
+realized or attempted; nor were there, on the other hand, any of those
+invaluable-blotted-five-minutes works which record the unity of some
+single and magnificent impressions. Hence the pictures which have been
+painted from these sketches have been as much alike in their want of
+impressiveness as the sketches themselves, and have never borne the
+living aspect of the Egyptian light; it has always been impossible to
+say whether the red in them (not a pleasant <span class="pagenum"><a name="page120"></a>[Page 120]</span> one) was meant
+for hot sunshine or for red sandstone&mdash;their power has been farther
+destroyed by the necessity the artist seems to feel himself under of
+eking out their effect by points of bright foreground color, and thus we
+have been encumbered with caftans, pipes, scymetars, and black hair,
+when all that we wanted was a lizard, or an ibis. It is perhaps owing to
+this want of earnestness in study rather than to deficiency of
+perception, that the coloring of this artist is commonly untrue. Some
+time ago when he was painting Spanish subjects, his habit was to bring
+out his whites in relief from transparent bituminous browns, which
+though not exactly right in color, were at any rate warm and agreeable;
+but of late his color has become cold, waxy, and opaque, and in his deep
+shades he sometimes permits himself the use of a violent black which is
+altogether unjustifiable. A picture of Roslin Chapel exhibited in 1844,
+showed this defect in the recess to which the stairs descend, in an
+extravagant degree; and another exhibited in the British Institution,
+instead of showing the exquisite crumbling and lichenous texture of the
+Roslin stone, was polished to as vapid smoothness as every French
+historical picture. The general feebleness of the effect is increased by
+the insertion of the figures as violent pieces of local color unaffected
+by the light and unblended with the hues around them, and bearing
+evidence of having been painted from models or draperies in the dead
+light of a room instead of sunshine. On these deficiencies I should not
+have remarked, but that by honest and determined painting from and of
+nature, it is perfectly in the power of the artist to supply them; and
+it is bitterly to be regretted that the accuracy and elegance of his
+work should not be aided by that genuineness of hue and effect which can
+only be given by the uncompromising effort to paint not a fine picture
+but an impressive and known <i>verity</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The two artists whose works it remains for us to review, are men who
+have presented us with examples of the treatment of every kind of
+subject, and among the rest with portions of architecture which the best
+of our exclusively architectural draughtsmen could not excel.</p>
+
+<p>The frequent references made to the works of Clarkson Stanfield
+throughout the subsequent pages render it less necessary for <span class="pagenum"><a name="page121"></a>[Page 121]</span>
+me to speak of him here at any length. He is the leader of the English
+Realists, and perhaps among the more remarkable of his <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p36">§ 36. Clarkson
+Stanfield.</a></span>characteristics is the look of common-sense and rationality
+which his compositions will always bear when opposed to any kind of
+affectation. He appears to think of no other artist. What he has
+learned, has been from his own acquaintance with and affection for the
+steep hills and the deep sea; and his modes of treatment are alike
+removed from sketchiness or incompletion, and from exaggeration or
+effort. The somewhat over-prosaic tone of his subjects is rather a
+condescension to what he supposes to be public feeling, than a sign of
+want of feeling in himself; for in some of his sketches from nature or
+from fancy, I have seen powers and perceptions manifested of a far
+higher order than any that are traceable in his Academy works, powers
+which I think him much to be blamed for checking. The portion of his
+pictures usually most defective in this respect is the sky, which is apt
+to be cold and uninventive, always well drawn, but with a kind of
+hesitation in the clouds whether it is to be fair or foul weather; they
+having neither the joyfulness of rest, nor the majesty of storm. Their
+color is apt also to verge on a morbid purple, as was eminently the case
+in the large picture of the wreck on the coast of Holland exhibited in
+1844, a work in which both his powers and faults were prominently
+manifested, the picture being full of good painting, but wanting in its
+entire appeal. There was no feeling of wreck about it; and, but for the
+damage about her bowsprit, it would have been impossible for a landsman
+to say whether the hull was meant for a wreck or a guardship.
+Nevertheless, it is always to be recollected, that in subjects of this
+kind it is probable that much escapes us in consequence of our want of
+knowledge, and that to the eye of the seaman much may be of interest and
+value which to us appears cold. At all events, this healthy and rational
+regard of things is incomparably preferable to the dramatic absurdities
+which weaker artists commit in matters marine; and from copper-colored
+sunsets on green waves sixty feet high, with cauliflower breakers, and
+ninepin rocks; from drowning on planks, and starving on rafts, and lying
+naked on beaches, it is really refreshing to turn to a surge of
+Stanfield's true salt, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page122"></a>[Page 122]</span> serviceable, unsentimental sea. It
+would be well, however, if he would sometimes take a higher flight. The
+castle of Ischia gave him a grand subject, and a little more invention
+in the sky, a little less muddiness in the rocks, and a little more
+savageness in the sea, would have made it an impressive picture; it just
+misses the sublime, yet is a fine work, and better engraved than usual
+by the Art Union.</p>
+
+<p>One fault we cannot but venture to find, even in our own extreme
+ignorance, with Mr. Stanfield's boats; they never look weather-beaten.
+There is something peculiarly precious in the rusty, dusty,
+tar-trickled, fishy, phosphorescent brown of an old boat, and when this
+has just dipped under a wave and rises to the sunshine it is enough to
+drive Giorgione to despair. I have never seen any effort at this by
+Stanfield; his boats always look new painted and clean; witness
+especially the one before the ship in the wreck picture above noticed;
+and there is some such absence of a right sense of color in other
+portions of his subject; even his fishermen have always clean jackets
+and unsoiled caps, and his very rocks are lichenless. And, by the way,
+this ought to be noted respecting modern painters in general, that they
+have not a proper sense of the value of dirt; cottage children never
+appear but in fresh got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed beggars
+excite compassion in unexceptionable rags. In reality, almost all the
+colors of things associated with human life derive something of their
+expression and value from the tones of impurity, and so enhance the
+value of the entirely pure tints of nature herself. Of Stanfield's rock
+and mountain drawing enough will be said hereafter. His foliage is
+inferior; his architecture admirably drawn, but commonly wanting in
+color. His picture of the Doge's palace at Venice was quite clay-cold
+and untrue. Of late he has shown a marvellous predilection for the
+realization, even to actually relieved texture, of old worm-eaten wood;
+we trust he will not allow such fancies to carry him too far.</p>
+
+<p>The name I have last to mention is that of J. M. W. Turner. I do not
+intend to speak of this artist at present in general terms, because my
+constant practice throughout this work is to say, when I speak of an
+artist at all, the very truth of what I believe and feel respecting him;
+and the truth of what I believe <span class="pagenum"><a name="page123"></a>[Page 123]</span> and feel respecting Turner
+would appear in this place, unsupported by any proof, mere rhapsody. I
+shall therefore here confine <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p37">§ 37. J. M. W. Turner. Force of national
+feeling in all great painters.</a></span>myself to a rapid glance at the relations
+of his past and present works, and to some notice of what he has failed
+of accomplishing: the greater part of the subsequent chapters will be
+exclusively devoted to the examination of the new fields over which he
+has extended the range of landscape art.</p>
+
+<p>It is a fact more universally acknowledged than enforced or acted upon,
+that all great painters, of whatever school, have been great only in
+their rendering of what they had seen and felt from early childhood; and
+that the greatest among them have been the most frank in acknowledging
+this their inability to treat anything successfully but that with which
+they had been familiar. The Madonna of Raffaelle was born on the Urbino
+mountains, Ghirlandajo's is a Florentine, Bellini's a Venetian; there is
+not the slightest effort on the part of any one of these great men to
+paint her as a Jewess. It is not the place here to insist farther on a
+point so simple and so universally demonstrable. Expression, character,
+types of countenance, costume, color, and accessories are with all great
+painters whatsoever those of their native land, and that frankly and
+entirely, without the slightest attempt at modification; and I assert
+fearlessly that it is impossible that it should ever be otherwise, and
+that no man ever painted or ever will paint well anything but what he
+has early and long seen, early and long felt, and early and long loved.
+How far it is possible for the mind of one nation or generation to be
+healthily modified and taught by the work of another, I presume not to
+determine; but it depends upon whether the energy of the mind which
+receives the instruction be sufficient, while it takes out of what it
+feeds upon that which is universal and common to all nature, to resist
+all warping from national or temporary peculiarities. Nino Pisano got
+nothing but good, the modern French nothing but evil, from the study of
+the antique; but Nino Pisano had a God and a character. All artists who
+have attempted to assume, or in their weakness have been affected by,
+the national peculiarities of other times and countries, have instantly,
+whatever their original power, fallen to third-rate rank, or fallen
+altogether, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page124"></a>[Page 124]</span> and have invariably lost their birthright and
+blessing, lost their power over the human heart, lost all capability of
+teaching or benefiting others. Compare the hybrid classification of
+Wilson with the rich English purity of Gainsborough; compare the recent
+exhibition of middle-age cartoons for the Houses of Parliament with the
+works of Hogarth; compare the sickly modern German imitations of the
+great Italians with Albert Durer and Holbein; compare the vile
+classicality of Canova and the modern Italians with Mino da Fiesole,
+Luca della Robbia, and Andrea del Verrocchio. The manner of Nicolo
+Poussin is said to be Greek&mdash;it may be so; this only I know, that it is
+heartless and profitless. The severity of the rule, however, extends not
+in full force to the nationality, but only to the visibility of things;
+for it is very possible for an artist of powerful mind to throw himself
+well into the feeling of foreign nations of his own time. Thus John
+Lewis has been eminently successful in his seizing of Spanish character.
+Yet it may be doubted if the seizure be such as Spaniards themselves
+would acknowledge; it is probably of the habits of the people more than
+their hearts; continued efforts of this kind, especially if their
+subjects be varied, assuredly end in failure; Lewis, who seemed so
+eminently penetrative in Spain, sent nothing from Italy but complexions
+and costumes, and I expect no good from his stay in Egypt. English
+artists are usually entirely ruined by residence in Italy, but for this
+there are collateral causes which it is not here the place to examine.
+Be this as it may, and whatever success may be attained in pictures of
+slight and unpretending aim, of genre, as they are called, in the
+rendering of foreign character, of this I am certain, that whatever is
+to be truly great and affecting must have on it the strong stamp of the
+native land; not a law this, but a necessity, from the intense hold on
+their country of the affections of all truly great men; all
+classicality, all middle-age patent reviving, is utterly vain and
+absurd; if we are now to do anything great, good, awful, religious, it
+must be got out of our own little island, and out of this year 1846,
+railroads and all: if a British painter, I say this in earnest
+seriousness, cannot make historical characters out of the British House
+of Peers, he cannot paint history; and if he cannot make a Madonna of a
+British girl of the nineteenth century, he cannot paint one at all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page125"></a>[Page 125]</span></p>
+
+<p>The rule, of course, holds in landscape; yet so far less
+authoritatively, that the material nature of all countries and times is
+in many points actually, and in all, in principle, the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p38">§ 38. Influence
+of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject.</a></span>same; so that
+feelings educated in Cumberland, may find their food in Switzerland, and
+impressions first received among the rocks of Cornwall, be recalled upon
+the precipices of Genoa. Add to this actual sameness, the power of every
+great mind to possess itself of the spirit of things once presented to
+it, and it is evident, that little limitation can be set to the
+landscape painter as to the choice of his field; and that the law of
+nationality will hold with him only so far as a certain joyfulness and
+completion will be by preference found in those parts of his subject
+which remind him of his own land. But if he attempt to impress on his
+landscapes any other spirit than that he has felt, and to make them
+landscapes of other times, it is all over with him, at least, in the
+degree in which such reflected moonshine takes place of the genuine
+light of the present day.</p>
+
+<p>The reader will at once perceive how much trouble this simple principle
+will save both the painter and the critic; it at once sets aside the
+whole school of common composition, and exonerates us from the labor of
+minutely examining any landscape which has nymphs or philosophers in it.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary for us to illustrate this principle by any
+reference to the works of early landscape painters, as I suppose it is
+universally acknowledged with respect to them; Titian being the most
+remarkable instance of the influence of the native air on a strong mind,
+and Claude, of that of the classical poison on a weak one; but it is
+very necessary to keep it in mind in reviewing the works of our great
+modern landscape painter.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know in what district of England Turner first or longest
+studied, but the scenery whose influence I can trace most definitely
+throughout his works, varied as they are, is that <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p39">§ 39. Its peculiar
+manifestation in Turner.</a></span>of Yorkshire. Of all his drawings, I think,
+those of the Yorkshire series have the most heart in them, the most
+affectionate, simple, unwearied, serious finishing of truth. There is in
+them little seeking after effect, but a strong love of place, little
+exhibition of the artist's own powers or peculiarities, but intense
+appreciation of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page126"></a>[Page 126]</span> smallest local minutię. These drawings
+have unfortunately changed hands frequently, and have been abused and
+ill treated by picture dealers and cleaners; the greater number of them,
+are now mere wrecks. I name them not as instances, but as proofs of the
+artist's study in this district; for the affection to which they owe
+their excellence, must have been grounded long years before. It is to be
+traced, not only in these drawings of the places themselves, but in the
+peculiar love of the painter for rounded forms of hills; not but that he
+is right in this on general principles, for I doubt not, that, with his
+peculiar feeling for beauty of line, his hills would have been rounded
+still, even if he had studied first among the peaks of Cadore; but
+rounded to the same extent and with the same delight in their roundness,
+they would not have been. It is, I believe, to those broad wooded steeps
+and swells of the Yorkshire downs that we in part owe the singular
+massiveness that prevails in Turner's mountain drawing, and gives it one
+of its chief elements of grandeur. Let the reader open the Liber
+Studiorum, and compare the painter's enjoyment of the lines in the Ben
+Arthur, with his comparative uncomfortableness among those of the
+aiguilles about the Mer de Glace. Great as he is, those peaks would have
+been touched very differently by a Savoyard as great as he.</p>
+
+<p>I am in the habit of looking to the Yorkshire drawings, as indicating
+one of the culminating points in Turner's career. In these he attained
+the highest degree of what he had up to that time attempted, namely,
+finish and quantity of form united with expression of atmosphere, and
+light without color. His early drawings are singularly instructive in
+this definiteness and simplicity of aim. No complicated or brilliant
+color is ever thought of in them; they are little more than exquisite
+studies in light and shade, very green blues being used for the shadows,
+and golden browns for the lights. The difficulty and treachery of color
+being thus avoided, the artist was able to bend his whole mind upon the
+drawing, and thus to attain such decision, delicacy, and completeness as
+have never in any wise been equalled, and as might serve him for a
+secure foundation in all after experiments. Of the quantity and
+precision of his details, the drawings made for Hakewill's Italy, are
+singular examples. The most perfect gem in execution is a little bit on
+the Rhine, with <span class="pagenum"><a name="page127"></a>[Page 127]</span> reeds in the foreground, in the possession
+of B. G. Windus, Esq., of Tottenham; but the Yorkshire drawings seem to
+be on the whole the most noble representatives of his art at this
+period.</p>
+
+<p>About the time of their production, the artist seems to have felt that
+he had done either all that could be done, or all that was necessary, in
+that manner, and began to reach after something beyond it. The element
+of color begins to mingle with his work, and in the first efforts to
+reconcile his intense feeling for it with his careful form, several
+anomalies begin to be visible, and some unfortunate or uninteresting
+works necessarily belong to the period. The England drawings, which are
+very characteristic of it, are exceedingly unequal,&mdash;some, as the
+Oakhampton, Kilgarren, Alnwick, and Llanthony, being among his finest
+works; others, as the Windsor from Eton, the Eton College, and the
+Bedford, showing coarseness and conventionality.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know at what time the painter first went abroad, but among the
+earliest of the series of the Liber Studiorum (dates 1808, 1809,) occur
+the magnificent Mont St. Gothard, and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p40">§ 40. The domestic subjects of the
+Liber Studiorum.</a></span>little Devil's Bridge. Now it is remarkable that after
+his acquaintance with this scenery, so congenial in almost all respects
+with the energy of his mind, and supplying him with materials of which
+in these two subjects, and in the Chartreuse, and several others
+afterwards, he showed both his entire appreciation and command, the
+proportion of English to foreign subjects should in the rest of the work
+be more than two to one; and that those English subjects should be&mdash;many
+of them&mdash;of a kind peculiarly simple, and of every-day occurrence, such
+as the Pembury Mill, the Farm Yard Composition with the White Horse,
+that with the Cocks and Pigs, Hedging and Ditching, Watercress Gatherers
+(scene at Twickenham,) and the beautiful and solemn rustic subject
+called a Watermill; and that the architectural subjects instead of being
+taken, as might have been expected of an artist so fond of treating
+effects of extended space, from some of the enormous continental masses
+are almost exclusively British; Rivaulx, Holy Island, Dumblain,
+Dunstanborough, Chepstow, St. Catherine's, Greenwich Hospital, an
+English Parish Church, a Saxon Ruin, and an exquisite Reminiscence of
+the English Lowland Castle in the pastoral, with the brook, wooden
+bridge, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page128"></a>[Page 128]</span> and wild duck, to all of which we have nothing
+foreign to oppose but three slight, ill-considered, and unsatisfactory
+subjects, from Basle, Lauffenbourg, and another Swiss village; and,
+further, not only is the preponderance of subject British, but of
+affection also; for it is strange with what fulness and completion the
+home subjects are treated in comparison with the greater part of the
+foreign ones. Compare the figures and sheep in the Hedging and Ditching,
+and the East Gate Winchelsea, together with the near leafage, with the
+puzzled foreground and inappropriate figures of the Lake of Thun; or the
+cattle and road of the St. Catherine's Hill, with the foreground of the
+Bonneville; or the exquisite figure with the sheaf of corn, in the
+Watermill, with the vintages of the Grenoble subject.</p>
+
+<p>In his foliage the same predilections are remarkable. Reminiscences of
+English willows by the brooks, and English forest glades mingle even
+with the heroic foliage of the Ęsacus and Hesperie, and the Cephalus;
+into the pine, whether of Switzerland or the glorious Stone, he cannot
+enter, or enters at his peril, like Ariel. Those of the Valley of
+Chamounix are fine masses, better pines than other people's, but not a
+bit like pines for all that; he feels his weakness, and tears them off
+the distant mountains with the mercilessness of an avalanche. The Stone
+pines of the two Italian compositions are fine in their arrangement, but
+they are very pitiful pines; the glory of the Alpine rose he never
+touches; he munches chestnuts with no relish; never has learned to like
+olives; and, by the vine, we find him in the foreground of the Grenoble
+Alps laid utterly and incontrovertibly on his back.</p>
+
+<p>I adduce these evidences of Turner's nationality (and innumerable others
+might be given if need were) not as proofs of weakness but of power; not
+so much as testifying want of perception in foreign lands, as strong
+hold on his own will; for I am sure that no artist who has not this hold
+upon his own will ever get good out of any other. Keeping this principle
+in mind, it is instructive to observe the depth and solemnity which
+Turner's feeling received from the scenery of the continent, the keen
+appreciation up to a certain point of all that is locally
+characteristic, and the ready seizure for future use of all valuable
+material.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page129"></a>[Page 129]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of all foreign countries he has most entirely entered into the spirit of
+France; partly because here he found more fellowship of scene with his
+own England, partly because an amount of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p41">§ 41. Turner's painting of
+French and Swiss landscape. The latter deficient.</a></span>thought which will miss
+of Italy or Switzerland, will fathom France; partly because there is in
+the French foliage and forms of ground, much that is especially
+congenial with his own peculiar choice of form. To what cause it is
+owing I cannot tell, nor is it generally allowed or felt; but of the
+fact I am certain, that for grace of stem and perfection of form in
+their transparent foliage, the French trees are altogether unmatched;
+and their modes of grouping and massing are so perfectly and constantly
+beautiful that I think of all countries for educating an artist to the
+perception of grace, France bears the bell; and that not romantic nor
+mountainous France, not the Vosges, nor Auvergne, nor Provence, but
+lowland France, Picardy and Normandy, the valleys of the Loire and
+Seine, and even the district, so thoughtlessly and mindlessly abused by
+English travellers, as uninteresting, traversed between Calais and
+Dijon; of which there is not a single valley but is full of the most
+lovely pictures, nor a mile from which the artist may not receive
+instruction; the district immediately about Sens being perhaps the most
+valuable from the grandeur of its lines of poplars and the unimaginable
+finish and beauty of the tree forms in the two great avenues without the
+walls. Of this kind of beauty Turner was the first to take cognizance,
+and he still remains the only, but in himself the sufficient painter of
+French landscape. One of the most beautiful examples is the drawing of
+trees engraved for the Keepsake, now in the possession of B. G. Windus,
+Esq.; the drawings made to illustrate the scenery of the Rivers of
+France supply instances of the most varied character.</p>
+
+<p>The artist appears, until very lately, rather to have taken from
+Switzerland thoughts and general conceptions of size and of grand form
+and effect to be used in his after compositions, than to have attempted
+the seizing of its actual character. This was beforehand to be expected
+from the utter physical impossibility of rendering certain effects of
+Swiss scenery, and the monotony and unmanageableness of others. The
+Valley of Chamounix in the collection of Walter Fawkes, Esq., I have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130"></a>[Page 130]</span> never seen; it has a high reputation; the Hannibal passing
+the Alps in its present state exhibits nothing but a heavy shower and a
+crowd of people getting wet; another picture in the artist's gallery of
+a land-fall is most masterly and interesting, but more daring than
+agreeable. The Snowstorm, avalanche, and inundation, is one of his
+mightiest works, but the amount of mountain drawing in it is less than
+of cloud and effect; the subjects in the Liber Studiorum are on the
+whole the most intensely felt, and next to them the vignettes to
+Rogers's Poems and Italy. Of some recent drawings of Swiss subject I
+shall speak presently.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of Italy upon his mind is very puzzling. On the one hand, it
+gave him the solemnity and power which are manifested in the historical
+compositions of the Liber Studiorum, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p42">§ 42. His rendering of Italian
+character still less successful. His large compositions how failing.</a></span>more
+especially the Rizpah, the Cephalus, the scene from the Fairy Queen, and
+the Ęsacus and Hesperie: on the other, he seems never to have entered
+thoroughly into the spirit of Italy, and the materials he obtained there
+were afterwards but awkwardly introduced in his large compositions.</p>
+
+<p>Of these there are very few at all worthy of him; none but the Liber
+Studiorum subjects are thoroughly great, and these are great because
+there is in them the seriousness without the materials of other
+countries and times. There is nothing particularly indicative of
+Palestine in the Barley Harvest of the Rizpah, nor in those round and
+awful trees; only the solemnity of the south in the lifting of the near
+burning moon. The rocks of the Jason may be seen in any quarry of
+Warwickshire sandstone. Jason himself has not a bit of Greek about
+him&mdash;he is a simple warrior of no period in particular, nay, I think
+there is something of the nineteenth century about his legs. When local
+character of this classical kind is attempted, the painter is visibly
+cramped: awkward resemblances to Claude testify the want of his usual
+forceful originality: in the tenth Plague of Egypt, he makes us think of
+Belzoni rather than of Moses; the fifth is a total failure, the pyramids
+look like brick-kilns, and the fire running along the ground bears
+brotherly resemblance to the burning of manure. The realization of the
+tenth plague now in his gallery is finer than the study, but still
+uninteresting; and of the large compositions which have much of Italy in
+them, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page131"></a>[Page 131]</span> the greater part are overwhelmed with quantity and
+deficient in emotion. The Crossing the Brook is one of the best of these
+hybrid pictures; incomparable in its tree drawing, it yet leaves us
+doubtful where we are to look and what we are to feel; it is northern in
+its color, southern in its foliage, Italy in its details, and England in
+its sensations, without the grandeur of the one, or the healthiness of
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>The two Carthages are mere rationalizations of Claude, one of them
+excessively bad in color, the other a grand thought, and yet one of the
+kind which does no one any good, because everything in it is
+reciprocally sacrificed; the foliage is sacrificed to the architecture,
+the architecture to the water, the water is neither sea, nor river, nor
+lake, nor brook, nor canal, and savors of Regent's Park; the foreground
+is uncomfortable ground,&mdash;let on building leases. So the Caligula's
+Bridge, Temple of Jupiter, Departure of Regulus, Ancient Italy, Cicero's
+Villa, and such others, come they from whose hand they may, I class
+under the general head of "nonsense pictures." There never can be any
+wholesome feeling developed in these preposterous accumulations, and
+where the artist's feeling fails, his art follows; so that the worst
+possible examples of Turner's color are found in pictures of this class;
+in one or two instances he has broken through the conventional rules,
+and then is always fine, as in the Hero and Leander; but in general the
+picture rises in value as it approaches to a view, as the Fountain of
+Fallacy, a piece of rich northern Italy, with some fairy waterworks;
+this picture was unrivalled in color once, but is now a mere wreck. So
+the Rape of Proserpine, though it is singular that in his Academy
+pictures even his simplicity fails of reaching ideality; in this picture
+of Proserpine the nature is not the grand nature of all time, it is
+indubitably modern,<a name="FnAnchor_14" href="#Footnote_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> and we are perfectly electrified at anybody's
+being carried away in the corner except <span class="pagenum"><a name="page132"></a>[Page 132]</span> by people with spiky
+hats and carabines. This is traceable to several causes; partly to the
+want of any grand specific form, partly to the too evident middle-age
+character of the ruins crowning the hills, and to a multiplicity of
+minor causes which we cannot at present enter into.</p>
+
+<p>Neither in his actual views of Italy has Turner ever caught her true
+spirit, except in the little vignettes to Rogers's Poems. The Villa of
+Galileo, the nameless composition with stone pines, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p43">§ 43. His views of
+Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant quantity.</a></span>the several villa
+moonlights, and the convent compositions in the Voyage of Columbus, are
+altogether exquisite; but this is owing chiefly to their simplicity and
+perhaps in some measure to their smallness of size. None of his large
+pictures at all equal them; the Bay of Baię is encumbered with
+material, it contains ten times as much as is necessary to a good
+picture, and yet is so crude in color as to look unfinished. The
+Palestrina is fall of raw white, and has a look of Hampton Court about
+its long avenue; the modern Italy is purely English in its near foliage;
+it is composed from Tivoli material enriched and arranged most
+dexterously, but it has the look of a rich arrangement, and not the
+virtue of the real thing. The early Tivoli, a large drawing taken from
+below the falls, was as little true, and still less fortunate, the trees
+there being altogether affected and artificial. The Florence engraved in
+the Keepsake is a glorious drawing, as far as regards the passage with
+the bridge and sunlight on the Arno, the Cascine foliage, and distant
+plain, and the towers of the fortress on the left; but the details of
+the duomo and the city are entirely missed, and with them the majesty of
+the whole scene. The vines and melons of the foreground are disorderly,
+and its cypresses conventional; in fact, I recollect no instance of
+Turner's drawing a cypress except in general terms.</p>
+
+<p>The chief reason of these failures I imagine to be the effort of the
+artist to put joyousness and brilliancy of effect upon scenes eminently
+pensive, to substitute radiance for serenity of light, and to force the
+freedom and breadth of line which he learned to love on English downs
+and Highland moors, out of a country dotted by campaniles and square
+convents, bristled with cypresses, partitioned by walls, and gone up and
+down by steps.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the cities of Italy he had no such difficulties to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page133"></a>[Page 133]</span>
+encounter. At Venice he found freedom of space, brilliancy of light,
+variety of color, massy simplicity of general form; and to Venice we owe
+many of the motives in which his highest powers of color have been
+displayed after that change in his system of which we must now take
+note.</p>
+
+<p>Among the earlier paintings of Turner, the culminating period, marked by
+the Yorkshire series in his drawings, is distinguished by great
+solemnity and simplicity of subject, prevalent <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p44">§ 44. Changes introduced
+by him in the received system of art.</a></span>gloom in light and shade, and brown
+in the hue, the drawing manly but careful, the minutię sometimes
+exquisitely delicate. All the finest works of this period are, I
+believe, without exception, views, or quiet single thoughts. The Calder
+Bridge, belonging to E. Bicknell, Esq., is a most pure and beautiful
+example. The Ivy Bridge I imagine to be later, but its rock foreground
+is altogether unrivalled and remarkable for its delicacy of detail; a
+butterfly is seen settled on one of the large brown stones in the midst
+of the torrent. Two paintings of Bonneville, in Savoy, one in the
+possession of Abel Allnutt, Esq., the other, and, I think, the finest,
+in a collection at Birmingham, show more variety of color than is usual
+with him at the period, and are in every respect magnificent examples.
+Pictures of this class are of peculiar value, for the larger
+compositions of the same period are all poor in color, and most of them
+much damaged, but the smaller works have been far finer originally, and
+their color seems secure. There is nothing in the range of landscape art
+equal to them in their way, but the full character and capacity of the
+painter is not in them. Grand as they are in their sobriety, they still
+leave much to be desired; there is great heaviness in their shadows, the
+material is never thoroughly vanquished, (though this partly for a very
+noble reason, that the painter is always thinking of and referring to
+nature, and indulges in no artistical conventionalities,) and sometimes
+the handling appears feeble. In warmth, lightness, and transparency they
+have no chance against Gainsborough; in clear skies and air tone they
+are alike unfortunate when they provoke comparison with Claude; and in
+force and solemnity they can in no wise stand with the landscape of the
+Venetians.</p>
+
+<p>The painter evidently felt that he had farther powers, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page134"></a>[Page 134]</span>
+pressed forward into the field where alone they could be brought into
+play. It was impossible for him, with all his keen and long-disciplined
+perceptions, not to feel that the real color of nature had never been
+attempted by any school; and that though conventional representations
+had been given by the Venetians of sunlight and twilight, by invariably
+rendering the whites golden and the blues green, yet of the actual,
+joyous, pure, roseate hues of the external world no record had ever been
+given. He saw also that the finish and specific grandeur of nature had
+been given, but her fulness, space, and mystery never; and he saw that
+the great landscape painters had always sunk the lower middle tints of
+nature in extreme shade, bringing the entire melody of color as many
+degrees down as their possible light was inferior to nature's; and that
+in so doing a gloomy principle had influenced them even in their choice
+of subject.</p>
+
+<p>For the conventional color he substituted a pure straightforward
+rendering of fact, as far as was in his power; and that not of such fact
+as had been before even suggested, but of all that is <i>most</i> brilliant,
+beautiful, and inimitable; he went to the cataract for its iris, to the
+conflagration for its flames, asked of the sea its intensest azure, of
+the sky its clearest gold. For the limited space and defined forms of
+elder landscape, he substituted the quantity and the mystery of the
+vastest scenes of earth; and for the subdued chiaroscuro he substituted
+first a balanced diminution of oppositions throughout the scale, and
+afterwards, in one or two instances, attempted the reverse of the old
+principle, taking the lowest portion of the scale truly, and merging the
+upper part in high light.</p>
+
+<p>Innovations so daring and so various could not be introduced without
+corresponding peril: the difficulties that lay in his way were more than
+any human intellect could altogether surmount. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p45">§ 45. Difficulties of his
+later manner. Resultant deficiencies.</a></span>In his time there has been no one
+system of color generally approved; every artist has his own method and
+his own vehicle; how to do what Gainsborough did, we know not; much less
+what Titian; to invent a new system of color can hardly be expected of
+those who cannot recover the old. To obtain perfectly satisfactory
+results in color under the new conditions introduced by Turner, would at
+least have required the exertion of all his energies in that sole <span class="pagenum"><a name="page135"></a>[Page
+135]</span> direction. But color has always been only his second object. The
+effects of space and form, in which he delights, often require the
+employment of means and method totally at variance with those necessary
+for the obtaining of pure color. It is physically impossible, for
+instance, rightly to draw certain forms of the upper clouds with the
+brush; nothing will do it but the pallet knife with loaded white after
+the blue ground is prepared. Now it is impossible that a cloud so drawn,
+however glazed afterwards, should have the virtue of a thin warm tint of
+Titian's, showing the canvas throughout. So it happens continually. Add
+to these difficulties, those of the peculiar subjects attempted, and to
+these again, all that belong to the altered system of chiaroscuro, and
+it is evident that we must not be surprised at finding many deficiencies
+or faults in such works, especially in the earlier of them, nor even
+suffer ourselves to be withdrawn by the pursuit of what seems censurable
+from our devotion to what is mighty.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding, in some chosen examples of pictures of this kind, I
+will name three: Juliet and her Nurse; the Old Temeraire, and the Slave
+Ship: I do not admit that there are at the time of their first appearing
+on the walls of the Royal Academy, any demonstrably avoidable faults. I
+do not deny that there may be, nay, that it is likely there are; but
+there is no living artist in Europe whose judgment might safely be taken
+on the subject, or who could without arrogance affirm of any part of
+such a picture, that it was <i>wrong</i>; I am perfectly willing to allow,
+that the lemon yellow is not properly representative of the yellow of
+the sky, that the loading of the color is in many places disagreeable,
+that many of the details are drawn with a kind of imperfection different
+from what they would have in nature, and that many of the parts fail of
+imitation, especially to an uneducated eye. But no living authority is
+of weight enough to prove that the virtues of the picture could have
+been obtained at a less sacrifice, or that they are not worth the
+sacrifice; and though it is perfectly possible that such may be the
+case, and that what Turner has done may hereafter in some respects be
+done better, I believe myself that these works are at the time of their
+first appearing as perfect as those of Phidias or <span class="pagenum"><a name="page136"></a>[Page 136]</span> Leonardo;
+that is to say, incapable in their way, of any improvement conceivable
+by human mind.</p>
+
+<p>Also, it is only by comparison with such that we are authorized to
+affirm definite faults in any of his others, for we should have been
+bound to speak, at least for the present, with the same modesty
+respecting even his worst pictures of this class, had not his more noble
+efforts given us canons of criticism.</p>
+
+<p>But, as was beforehand to be expected from the difficulties he grappled
+with, Turner is exceedingly unequal; he appears always as a champion in
+the thick of fight, sometimes with his foot on his enemies' necks,
+sometimes staggered or struck to his knee; once or twice altogether
+down. He has failed most frequently, as before noticed, in elaborate
+compositions, from redundant quantity; sometimes, like most other men,
+from over-care, as very signally in a large and most labored drawing of
+Bamborough; sometimes, unaccountably, his eye for color seeming to fail
+him for a time, as in a large painting of Rome from the Forum, and in
+the Cicero's Villa, Building of Carthage, and the picture of this year
+in the British Institution; and sometimes I am sorry to say, criminally,
+from taking licenses which he must know to be illegitimate, or indulging
+in conventionalities which he does not require.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/img136.jpg" width="650" height="439" alt="THE DOGANA, AND SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE." title="THE DOGANA, AND SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE." /></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">THE DOGANA, AND SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE.<br /><span style="font-size: 0.8em; ">From a painting by Turner.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On such instances I shall not insist, for the finding fault with Turner
+is not, I think, either decorous in myself or like to be beneficial to
+the reader.<a name="FnAnchor_15" href="#Footnote_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> The greater number of failures took <span class="pagenum"><a name="page137"></a>[Page 137]</span> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p46">§ 46.
+Reflection of his very recent works.</a></span>place in the transition period, when
+the artist was feeling for the new qualities, and endeavoring to
+reconcile them with more careful elaboration of form than was properly
+consistent with them. Gradually his hand became more free, his
+perception and grasp of the new truths more certain, and his choice of
+subject more adapted to the exhibition of them. But his powers did not
+attain their highest results till towards the year 1840, about which
+period they did so suddenly, and with a vigor and concentration which
+rendered his pictures at that time almost incomparable with those which
+had preceded them. The drawings of Nemi, and Oberwesel, in the
+possession of B. G. Windus, Esq., were among the first evidences of this
+sudden advance; only the foliage in both of these is inferior; and it is
+remarkable that in this phase of his art, Turner has drawn little
+foliage, and that little badly&mdash;the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"></a>[Page 138]</span> great characteristic of
+it being its power, beauty, and majesty of color, and its abandonment of
+all littleness and division of thought to a single impression. In the
+year 1842, he made some drawings from recent sketches in Switzerland;
+these, with some produced in the following years, all of Swiss subject,
+I consider to be, on the whole, the most characteristic and perfect
+works he has ever produced. The Academy pictures were far inferior to
+them; but among these examples of the same power were not wanting, more
+especially in the smaller pictures of Venice. The Sun of Venice, going
+to sea; the San Benedetto, looking towards Fusina; and a view of Murano,
+with the Cemetery, were all faultless: another of Venice, seen from near
+Fusina, with sunlight and moonlight mixed (1844) was, I think, when I
+first saw it, (and it still remains little injured,) the most perfectly
+<i>beautiful</i> piece of color of all that I have seen produced by human
+hands, by any means, or at any period. Of the exhibition of 1845, I have
+only seen a small Venice, (still I believe in the artist's possession,)
+and the two whaling subjects. The Venice is a second-rate work, and the
+two others altogether unworthy of him.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion of our present sketch of the course of landscape art, it
+may be generally stated that Turner is the only painter, so far as I
+know, who has ever drawn the sky, (not the clear sky, which we before
+saw belonged exclusively to the religious schools, but the various forms
+and phenomena of the cloudy heavens,) all previous artists having only
+represented it typically or partially; but he absolutely and
+universally: he is the only painter who has ever drawn a mountain, or a
+stone; no other man ever having learned their organization, or possessed
+himself of their spirit, except in part and obscurely, (the one or two
+stones noted of Tintoret's, (Vol. II., Part III. Ch. 3,) are perhaps
+hardly enough on which to found an exception in his favor.) He is the
+only painter who ever drew the stem of a tree, Titian having come the
+nearest before him, and excelling him in the muscular development of the
+larger trunks, (though sometimes losing the woody strength in a
+serpent-like flaccidity,) but missing the grace and character of the
+ramifications. He is the only painter who has ever represented the
+surface of calm, or the force of agitated water; who has represented the
+effects of space on distant <span class="pagenum"><a name="page139"></a>[Page 139]</span> objects, or who has rendered the
+abstract beauty of natural color. These assertions I make deliberately,
+after careful weighing and consideration, in no spirit of dispute, or
+momentary zeal; but from strong and convinced feeling, and with the
+consciousness of being able to prove them.</p>
+
+<p>This proof is only partially and incidentally attempted in the present
+portion of this work, which was originally written, as before explained,
+for a temporary purpose, and which, therefore, I should have gladly
+cancelled, but that, relating as it does only to simple matters of fact
+and not to those of feeling, it may still, perhaps, be of service to
+some readers who would be unwilling to enter into the more speculative
+fields with which the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s1c7p47">§ 47. Difficulty of demonstration in such
+subjects.</a></span>succeeding sections are concerned. I leave, therefore, nearly
+as it was originally written, the following examination of the relative
+truthfulness of elder and of recent art; always requesting the reader to
+remember, as some excuse for the inadequate execution, even of what I
+have here attempted, how difficult it is to express or explain, by
+language only, those delicate qualities of the object of sense, on the
+seizing of which all refined truth of representation depends. Try, for
+instance, to explain in language the exact qualities of the lines on
+which depend the whole truth and beauty of expression about the
+half-opened lips of Raffaelle's St. Catherine. There is, indeed, nothing
+in landscape so ineffable as this; but there is no part nor portion of
+God's works in which the delicacy appreciable by a cultivated eye, and
+necessary to be rendered in art, is not beyond all expression and
+explanation; I cannot tell it you, if you do not see it. And thus I have
+been entirely unable, in the following pages, to demonstrate clearly
+anything of really deep and perfect truth; nothing but what is coarse
+and commonplace, in matters to be judged of by the senses, is within the
+reach of argument. How much or how little I have done must be judged of
+by the reader: how much it is impossible to do I have more fully shown
+in the concluding section.</p>
+
+<p>I shall first take into consideration those general truths, common to
+all the objects of nature, which are productive of what is usually
+called "effect," that is to say, truths of tone, general color, space,
+and light. I shall then investigate the truths of specific form and
+color, in the four great component parts of landscape&mdash;sky, earth,
+water, and vegetation.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" href="#FnAnchor_6">[6]</a> Not the large Paradise, but the Fall of Adam, a small picture
+chiefly in brown and gray, near Titian's Assumption. Its companion, the
+Death of Abel, is remarkable as containing a group of trees which
+Turner, I believe accidentally, has repeated nearly mass for mass in the
+"Marly." Both are among the most noble works of this or any other
+master, whether for preciousness of color or energy of thought.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" href="#FnAnchor_7">[7]</a> The triple leaf of this plant, and white flower, stained purple,
+probably gave it strange typical interest among the Christian painters.
+Angelico, in using its leaves mixed with daisies in the foreground of
+his Crucifixion had, I imagine, a view also to its chemical property.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" href="#FnAnchor_8">[8]</a> This is no rash method of judgment, sweeping and hasty as it may
+appear. From the weaknesses of an artist, or failures, however numerous,
+we have no right to conjecture his total inability; a time may come when
+he may rise into sudden strength, or an instance occur when his efforts
+shall be successful. But there are some pictures which rank not under
+the head of failures, but of perpetrations or commissions; some things
+which a man cannot do nor say without sealing forever his character and
+capacity. The angel holding the cross with his finger in his eye, the
+roaring red-faced children about the crown of thorns, the blasphemous (I
+speak deliberately and determinedly) head of Christ upon the
+handkerchief, and the mode in which the martyrdom of the saint is
+exhibited (I do not choose to use the expressions which alone could
+characterize it) are perfect, sufficient, incontrovertible proofs that
+whatever appears good in any of the doings of such a painter must be
+deceptive, and that we may be assured that our taste is corrupted and
+false whenever we feel disposed to admire him. I am prepared to support
+this position, however uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted
+into a gross sin by passion, and forgiven; and yet there are some kinds
+of sins into which only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which
+cannot be forgiven. It should be added, however, that the artistical
+qualities of these pictures are in every way worthy of the conceptions
+they realize; I do not recollect any instances of color or execution so
+coarse and feelingless.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9" href="#FnAnchor_9">[9]</a> It appears not to be sufficiently understood by those artists who
+complain acrimoniously of their positions on the Academy walls, that the
+Academicians have in their own rooms a right to the line and the best
+places near it; in their taking this position there is no abuse nor
+injustice; but the Academicians should remember that with their rights
+they have their duties, and their duty is to determine among the works
+of artists not belonging to their body those which are most likely to
+advance public knowledge and judgment, and to give these the best places
+next their own; neither would it detract from their dignity if they
+occasionally ceded a square even of their own territory, as they did
+gracefully and rightly, and, I am sorry to add, disinterestedly, to the
+picture of Paul de la Roche in 1844. Now the Academicians know perfectly
+well that the mass of portrait which encumbers their walls at half
+height is worse than useless, seriously harmful to the public taste, and
+it was highly criminal (I use the word advisedly) that the valuable and
+interesting work of Fielding, of which I have above spoken, should have
+been placed where it was, above three rows of eye-glasses and
+waistcoats. A very beautiful work of Harding's was treated either in the
+same or the following exhibition with still greater injustice.
+Fielding's was merely put out of sight; Harding's where its faults were
+conspicuous and its virtues lost. It was an Alpine scene, of which the
+foreground, rocks, and torrents were painted with unrivalled fidelity
+and precision; the foliage was dexterous, the aerial gradations of the
+mountains tender and multitudinous, their forms carefully studied and
+very grand. The blemish of the picture was a buff-colored tower with a
+red roof; singularly meagre in detail, and conventionally relieved from
+a mass of gloom. The picture was placed where nothing but this tower
+could be seen.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10" href="#FnAnchor_10">[10]</a> I have not given any examples in this place, because it is
+difficult to explain such circumstances of effect without diagrams: I
+purpose entering into fuller discussion of the subject with the aid of
+illustration.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11" href="#FnAnchor_11">[11]</a> The inscription is to the following effect,&mdash;a pleasant thing to
+see upon the walls, were it but more innocently placed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">CAMPO. DI. S. MAURIZIO</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="center" style="letter-spacing: 0.5em; ">DIO</p>
+<p class="center">CONSERVI A NOI. <br />
+LUNGAMENTE <br />
+LO ZELANTIS. E. REVERENDIS <br />
+D. LUIGI. PICCINI. <br />
+NOSTRO</p>
+<p class="center" style="letter-spacing: 0.5em; ">NOVELLO PIEVANO.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="center" style="letter-spacing: 0.5em; ">GLI ESULTANT.</p>
+<p class="center">PARROCCHIANI</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12" href="#FnAnchor_12">[12]</a> The quantity of gold with which the decorations of Venice were once
+covered could not now be traced or credited without reference to the authority
+of Gentile Bellini. The greater part of the marble mouldings have been
+touched with it in lines and points, the minarets of St. Mark's, and all the
+florid carving of the arches entirely sheeted. The Casa d'Oro retained it on
+its lions until the recent commencement of its Restoration.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13" href="#FnAnchor_13">[13]</a> Indeed there should be no such difference at all. Every architect ought
+to be an artist; every very great artist is necessarily an architect.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14" href="#FnAnchor_14">[14]</a> This passage seems at variance with what has been said of the necessity
+of painting present times and objects. It is not so. A great painter
+makes out of that which he finds before him something which is independent
+of <i>all</i> time. He can only do this out of the materials ready to his
+hand, but that which he builds has the dignity of dateless age. A little
+painter is annihilated by an anachronism, and is conventionally antique,
+and involuntarily modern.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15" href="#FnAnchor_15">[15]</a> One point, however, it is incumbent upon me to notice, being no
+question of art but of material. The reader will have observed that I
+strictly limited the perfection of Turner's works to the time of their first appearing
+on the walls of the Royal Academy. It bitterly grieves me to have
+to do this, but the fact is indeed so. No <i>picture</i> of Turner's is seen in perfection
+a month after it is painted. The Walhalla cracked before it had
+been eight days in the Academy rooms; the vermilions frequently lose lustre
+long before the exhibition is over; and when all the colors begin to get
+hard a year or two after the picture is painted, a painful deadness and
+opacity comes over them, the whites especially becoming lifeless, and many
+of the warmer passages settling into a hard valueless brown, even if the paint
+remains perfectly firm, which is far from being always the case. I believe
+that in some measure these results are unavoidable, the colors being so peculiarly
+blended and mingled in Turner's present manner as almost to necessitate
+their irregular drying; but that they are not necessary to the extent in
+which they sometimes take place, is proved by the comparative safety of
+some even of the more brilliant works. Thus the Old Temeraire is nearly
+safe in color, and quite firm; while the Juliet and her Nurse is now the
+ghost of what it was; the Slaver shows no cracks, though it is chilled in
+some of the darker passages, while the Walhalla and several of the recent
+Venices cracked in the Royal Academy. It is true that the damage makes
+no further progress after the first year or two, and that even in its altered
+state the picture is always valuable and records its intention; but it is bitterly
+to be regretted that so great a painter should not leave a single work
+by which in succeeding ages he might be estimated. The fact of his using
+means so imperfect, together with that of his utter neglect of the pictures in
+his own gallery, are a phenomenon in human mind which appears to me
+utterly inexplicable; and both are without excuse. If the effects he desires
+cannot be to their full extent produced except by these treacherous means,
+one picture only should be painted each year as an exhibition of immediate
+power, and the rest should be carried out, whatever the expense of labor
+and time in safe materials, even at the risk of some deterioration of immediate
+effect. That which is greatest in him is entirely independent of
+means; much of what he now accomplishes illegitimately might without
+doubt be attained in securer modes&mdash;what cannot should without hesitation
+be abandoned. Fortunately the drawings appear subject to no such deterioration.
+Many of them are now almost destroyed, but this has been I
+think always through ill treatment, or has been the case only with very
+early works. I have myself known no instance of a drawing properly protected,
+and not rashly exposed to light suffering the slightest change. The
+great foes of Turner, as of all other great colorists especially, are the picture
+cleaner and the mounter.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page140"></a>[Page 140]</span></p>
+<h3>SECTION II.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF GENERAL TRUTHS.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF TONE.</h5>
+
+<p>As I have already allowed, that in effects of tone, the old masters have
+never yet been equalled; and as this is the first, and nearly the last,
+concession I shall have to make to them, I <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p1">§ 1. Meaning of the word
+"tone:" First, the right relation of objects in shadow to the principal
+light.</a></span>wish it at once to be thoroughly understood how far it extends.</p>
+
+<p>I understand two things by the word "tone:"&mdash;first, the exact relief and
+relation of objects against and to each other in substance and darkness,
+as they are nearer or more distant, and the perfect relation of the
+shades of all of them to the chief light of the picture, whether that be
+sky, water, or anything else. Secondly, the exact <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p2">§ 2. Secondly, the
+quality of color by which it is felt to owe part of its brightness to
+the hue of light upon it.</a></span>relation of the colors to the shadows to the
+colors of the lights, so that they may be at once felt to be merely
+different degrees of the same light; and the accurate relation among the
+illuminated parts themselves, with respect to the degree in which they
+are influenced by the color of the light itself, whether warm or cold;
+so that the whole of the picture (or, where several tones are united,
+those parts of it which are under each,) may be felt to be in one
+climate, under one kind of light, and in one kind of atmosphere; this
+being chiefly dependent on that peculiar and inexplicable quality of
+each color laid on, which makes the eye feel both what is the actual
+color of the object represented, and that it is raised to its apparent
+pitch by illumination. A very bright brown, for instance, out of
+sunshine, may be precisely of the same shade of color as a very dead or
+cold brown in sunshine, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page141"></a>[Page 141]</span> but it will be totally different in
+<i>quality</i>; and that quality by which the illuminated dead color would be
+felt in nature different from the unilluminated bright one, is what
+artists are perpetually aiming at, and connoisseurs talking nonsense
+about, under the name of "tone." The want of tone in pictures is caused
+by objects looking bright in their own positive hue, and not by
+illumination, and by the consequent want of sensation of the raising of
+their hues by light.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these meanings of the word "tone" is liable to be
+confounded with what is commonly called "aerial perspective." But aerial
+perspective is the expression of space, by any <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p3">§ 3. Difference between
+tone in its first sense and aerial perspective.</a></span>means whatsoever,
+sharpness of edge, vividness of color, etc., assisted by greater pitch
+of shadow, and requires only that objects should be detached from each
+other, by degrees of intensity in <i>proportion</i> to their distance,
+without requiring that the difference between the farthest and nearest
+should be in positive quantity the same that nature has put. But what I
+have called "tone" requires that there should be the same sum of
+difference, as well as the same division of differences.</p>
+
+<p>Now the finely toned pictures of the old masters are, in this respect,
+some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves below her key;
+the dark objects in the middle distance having <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p4">§ 4. The pictures of the
+old masters perfect in relation of middle tints to light.</a></span>precisely the
+same relation to the light of the sky which they have in nature, but the
+light being necessarily infinitely lowered, and the mass of the shadow
+deepened in the same degree. I have often been struck, when looking at a
+camera-obscuro on a dark day, with the exact resemblance the image bore
+to one of the finest pictures of the old masters; all the foliage coming
+dark against the sky, and nothing being seen in its mass but here and
+there the isolated light of a silvery stem or an unusually illumined
+cluster of leafage.</p>
+
+<p>Now if this could be done consistently, and all the notes of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p5">§ 5. And
+consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to
+darkness.</a></span>nature given in this way an octave or two down, it would be
+right and necessary so to do: but be it observed, not only does nature
+surpass us in power of obtaining light as much as the sun surpasses
+white paper, but she also infinitely surpasses us in her power <span class="pagenum"><a name="page142"></a>[Page
+142]</span> of shade. Her deepest shades are void spaces from which no light
+whatever is reflected to the eye; ours are black surfaces from which,
+paint as black as we may, a great deal of light is still reflected, and
+which, placed against one of nature's deep bits of gloom, would tell as
+distinct light. Here we are then, with white paper for our highest
+light, and visible illumined surface for our deepest shadow, set to run
+the gauntlet against nature, with the sun for her light, and vacuity for
+her gloom. It is evident that <i>she</i> can well afford to throw her
+material objects dark against the brilliant aerial tone of her sky, and
+yet give in those objects themselves a thousand intermediate distances
+and tones before she comes to black, or to anything like it&mdash;all the
+illumined surfaces of her objects being as distinctly and vividly
+brighter than her nearest and darkest shadows, as the sky is brighter
+than those illumined surfaces. But if we, against our poor, dull
+obscurity of yellow paint, instead of sky, insist on having the same
+relation of shade in material objects, we go down to the bottom of our
+scale at once; and what in the world are we to do then? Where are all
+our intermediate distances to come from?&mdash;how are we to express the
+aerial relations among the parts themselves, for instance, of foliage,
+whose most distant boughs are already almost black?&mdash;how are we to come
+up from this to the foreground, and when we have done so, how are we to
+express the distinction between its solid parts, already as dark as we
+can make them, and its vacant hollows, which nature has marked sharp and
+clear and black, among its lighted surfaces? It cannot but be evident at
+a glance, that if to any one of the steps from one distance to another,
+we give the same quantity of difference in pitch of shade which nature
+does, we must pay for this expenditure of our means by totally missing
+half a dozen distances, not a whit less important or marked, and so
+sacrifice a multitude of truths, to obtain one. And this, accordingly
+was the means by which the old masters obtained their (truth?) of tone.
+They chose those steps of distance which are the most conspicuous and
+noticeable&mdash;that for instance from sky to foliage, or from clouds to
+hills&mdash;and they gave these their precise pitch of difference in shade
+with exquisite accuracy of imitation. Their means were then exhausted,
+and they were obliged to leave their trees flat <span class="pagenum"><a name="page143"></a>[Page 143]</span> masses of
+mere filled-up outline, and to omit the truths of space in every
+individual part of their picture by the thousand. But this they did not
+care for; it saved them trouble; they reached their grand end, imitative
+effect; they thrust home just at the places where the common and
+careless eye looks for imitation, and they attained the broadest and
+most faithful appearance of truth of tone which art can exhibit.</p>
+
+<p>But they are prodigals, and foolish prodigals, in art; they lavish their
+whole means to get one truth, and leave themselves powerless when they
+should seize a thousand. And is it indeed <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p6">§6. General falsehood of such
+a system.</a></span>worthy of being called a truth, when we have a vast history
+given us to relate, to the fulness of which neither our limits nor our
+language are adequate, instead of giving all its parts abridged in the
+order of their importance, to omit or deny the greater part of them,
+that we may dwell with verbal fidelity on two or three? Nay, the very
+truth to which the rest are sacrificed is rendered falsehood by their
+absence, the relation of the tree to the sky is marked as an
+impossibility by the want of relation of its parts to each other.</p>
+
+<p>Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle. He
+boldly takes pure white (and justly, for it is the sign of the most
+intense sunbeams) for his highest light, and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p7">§ 7. The principle of
+Turner in this respect.</a></span>lampblack for his deepest shade; and between
+these he makes every degree of shade indicative of separate degree of
+distance,<a name="FnAnchor_16" href="#Footnote_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> giving each step of approach, not the exact difference in
+pitch which it would have in nature, but a difference bearing the same
+proportion to that which his sum of possible shade bears to the sum of
+nature's shade; so that an object half way between his horizon and his
+foreground, will be exactly in half tint of force, and every minute
+division of intermediate space will have just its proportionate share of
+the lesser sum, and no more. Hence where the old masters expressed one
+distance, he expresses a hundred; and where they said furlongs, he says
+leagues. Which of these modes of procedure be most agreeable with truth,
+I think I may safely <span class="pagenum"><a name="page144"></a>[Page 144]</span> leave the reader to decide for himself.
+He will see in this very first instance, one proof of what we above
+asserted, that the deceptive imitation of nature is inconsistent with
+real truth; for the very means by which the old masters attained the
+apparent accuracy of tone which is so satisfying to the eye, compelled
+them to give up all idea of real relations of retirement, and to
+represent a few successive and marked stages of distance, like the
+scenes of a theatre, instead of the imperceptible, multitudinous,
+symmetrical retirement of nature, who is not more careful to separate
+her nearest bush from her farthest one, than to separate the nearest
+bough of that bush from the one next to it.</p>
+
+<p>Take for instance, one of the finest landscapes that ancient art has
+produced&mdash;the work of a really great and intellectual mind, the quiet
+Nicholas Poussin, in our own National Gallery, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p8">§ 8. Comparison of N.
+Poussin's "Phocion,"</a></span>with the traveller washing his feet. The first idea
+we receive from this picture is, that it is evening, and all the light
+coming from the horizon. Not so. It is full moon, the light coming steep
+from the left, as is shown by the shadow of the stick on the right-hand
+pedestal,&mdash;(for if the sun were not very high, that shadow could not
+lose itself half way down, and if it were not lateral, the shadow would
+slope, instead of being vertical.) Now, ask yourself, and answer
+candidly, if those black masses of foliage, in which scarcely any form
+is seen but the outline, be a true representation of trees under
+noonday sunlight, sloping from the left, bringing out, as it
+necessarily would do, their masses into golden green, and marking every
+leaf and bough with sharp shadow and sparkling light. The only truth in
+the picture is the exact pitch of relief against the sky of both trees
+and hills, and to this the organization of the hills, the intricacy of
+the foliage, and everything indicative either of the nature of the
+light, or the character of the objects, are unhesitatingly sacrificed.
+So much falsehood does it cost to obtain two apparent truths of tone. Or
+take, as a still more glaring instance, No. 260 in the Dulwich Gallery,
+where the trunks of the trees, even of those farthest off, on the left,
+are as black as paint can make them, and there is not, and cannot be,
+the slightest increase of force, or any marking whatsoever <span class="pagenum"><a name="page145"></a>[Page 145]</span>
+of distance by color, or any other means, between them and the
+foreground.</p>
+
+<p>Compare with these, Turner's treatment of his materials in the Mercury
+and Argus. He has here his light actually coming from the distance, the
+sun being nearly in the centre of the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p9">§ 9. With Turner's "Mercury and
+Argus."</a></span>picture, and a violent relief of objects against it would be far
+more justifiable than in Poussin's case. But this dark relief is used in
+its full force only with the nearest <i>leaves</i> of the nearest group of
+foliage overhanging the foreground from the left; and between these
+and the more distant members of the same group, though only three or
+four yards separate, distinct aerial perspective and intervening mist
+and light are shown; while the large tree in the centre, though very
+dark, as being very near, compared with all the distance, is much
+diminished in intensity of shade from this nearest group of leaves, and
+is faint compared with all the foreground. It is true that this tree has
+not, in consequence, the actual pitch of shade against the sky which it
+would have in nature; but it has precisely as much as it possibly can
+have, to leave it the same proportionate relation to the objects near at
+hand. And it cannot but be evident to the thoughtful reader, that
+whatever trickery or deception may be the result of a contrary mode of
+treatment, this is the only scientific or essentially truthful system,
+and that what it loses in tone it gains in aerial perspective.</p>
+
+<p>Compare again the last vignette in Rogers's Poems, the "Datur Hora
+Quieti," where everything, even the darkest parts of the trees, is kept
+pale and full of graduation; even the bridge <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p10">§ 10. And with the "Datur
+Hora Quieti."</a></span>where it crosses the descending stream of sunshine, rather
+lost in the light than relieved against it, until we come up to the
+foreground, and then the vigorous local black of the plough throws the
+whole picture into distance and sunshine. I do not know anything in art
+which can for a moment be set beside this drawing for united intensity
+of light and repose.</p>
+
+<p>Observe, I am not at present speaking of the beauty or desirableness of
+the system of the old masters; it may be sublime, and affecting, and
+ideal, and intellectual, and a great deal more; but all I am concerned
+with at present is, that it <span class="pagenum"><a name="page146"></a>[Page 146]</span> is not <i>true</i>; while Turner's is
+the closest and most studied approach to truth of which the materials of
+art admit.</p>
+
+<p>It was not, therefore, with reference to this division of the subject
+that I admitted inferiority in our great modern master to Claude or
+Poussin, but with reference to the second and more <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p11">§ 11. The second
+sense of the word "tone."</a></span>usual meaning of the word "tone"&mdash;the exact
+relation and fitness of shadow and light, and of the hues of all objects
+under them; and more especially that precious quality of each color laid
+on, which makes it appear a quiet color illuminated, not a bright color
+in shade. But I allow this inferiority only with respect to the <span
+class="correction" title="superfluous 'paintings,' comma
+omitted">paintings</span> of Turner, not to his drawings. I could select from
+among the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p12">§ 12. Remarkable difference in this respect between the
+paintings and drawings of Turner.</a></span>works named in Chap. VI. of this
+section, pieces of tone absolutely faultless and perfect, from the
+coolest grays of wintry dawn to the intense fire of summer noon. And the
+difference between the prevailing character of these and that of nearly
+all the paintings, (for the early oil pictures of Turner are far less
+perfect in tone than the most recent,) it is difficult to account for,
+but on the supposition that there is something in the material which
+modern artists in general are incapable of mastering, and which compels
+Turner himself to think less of tone in oil color, than of other and
+more important qualities. The total failures of Callcott, whose
+struggles after tone ended so invariably in shivering winter or brown
+paint, the misfortune of Landseer with his evening sky in 1842, the
+frigidity of Stanfield, and the earthiness and opacity which all the
+magnificent power and admirable science of Etty are unable entirely to
+conquer, are too fatal and convincing proofs of the want of knowledge of
+means, rather than of the absence of aim, in modern artists as a body.
+Yet, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p13">§ 13. Not owing to want of power over the material.</a></span>with respect to
+Turner, however much the want of tone in his early paintings (the Fall
+of Carthage, for instance, and others painted at a time when he was
+producing the most exquisite hues of light in water-color) might seem to
+favor such a supposition, there are passages in his recent works (such,
+for instance, as the sunlight along the sea, in the Slaver) which
+directly contradict it, and which prove to us that where he now errs in
+tone, (as in the Cicero's Villa,) it is less owing to want of power to
+reach it, than to the pursuit <span class="pagenum"><a name="page147"></a>[Page 147]</span> of some different and nobler
+end. I shall therefore glance at the particular modes in which Turner
+manages his tone in his present Academy pictures; the early ones must be
+given up at once. Place a genuine untouched Claude beside the Crossing
+the Brook, and the difference in value and tenderness of tone will be
+felt in an instant, and felt the more painfully because all the cool and
+transparent qualities of Claude would have been here desirable, and in
+their place, and appear to have been aimed at. The foreground of the
+Building of Carthage, and the greater part of the architecture of the
+Fall, are equally heavy and evidently paint, if we compare them with
+genuine passages of Claude's sunshine. There is a very grand and simple
+piece of tone in the possession of J. Allnutt, Esq., a sunset behind
+willows, but even this is wanting in refinement of shadow, and is crude
+in its extreme distance. Not so with the recent Academy pictures; many
+of their passages are absolutely faultless; all are refined and
+marvellous, and with the exception of the Cicero's Villa, we shall find
+few pictures painted within the last ten years which do not either
+present us with perfect tone, or with some higher beauty, to which it is
+necessarily sacrificed. If we glance at the requirements of nature, and
+her superiority of means to ours, we shall see why and how it is
+sacrificed.</p>
+
+<p>Light, with reference to the tone it induces on objects, is either to be
+considered as neutral and white, bringing out local colors with
+fidelity; or colored, and consequently modifying <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p14">§ 14. The two distinct
+qualities of light to be considered.</a></span>these local tints, with its own. But
+the power of pure white light to exhibit local color is strangely
+variable. The morning light of about nine or ten is usually very pure;
+but the difference of its effect on different days, independently of
+mere brilliancy, is as inconceivable as inexplicable. Every one knows
+how capriciously the colors of a fine opal vary from day to day, and how
+rare the lights are which bring them fully out. Now the expression of
+the strange, penetrating, deep, neutral light, which, while it <i>alters</i>
+no color, brings every color up to the highest possible pitch and key of
+pure, harmonious intensity, is the chief attribute of finely-toned
+pictures by the great <i>colorists</i> as opposed to pictures of equally high
+tone, by masters who, careless of color, are content, like Cuyp, to lose
+local tints in the golden blaze of absorbing light.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page148"></a>[Page 148]</span></p>
+
+<p>Falsehood, in this neutral tone, if it may be so called, is a matter far
+more of feeling than of proof, for any color is <i>possible</i> under such
+lights; it is meagreness and feebleness only which <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p15">§ 15. Falsehoods by
+which Titian attains the appearance of quality in light.</a></span>are to be
+avoided; and these are rather matters of sensation than of reasoning.
+But it is yet easy enough to prove by what exaggerated and false means
+the pictures most celebrated for this quality are endowed with their
+richness and solemnity of color. In the Bacchus and Ariadne of Titian,
+it is difficult to imagine anything more magnificently impossible than
+the blue of the distant landscape;&mdash;impossible, not from its vividness,
+but because it is not faint and aerial enough to account for its purity
+of color; it is too dark and blue at the same time; and there is indeed
+so total a want of atmosphere in it, that, but for the difference of
+form, it would be impossible to tell the mountains (intended to be ten
+miles off) from the robe of Ariadne close to the spectator. Yet make
+this blue faint, aerial, and distant&mdash;make it in the slightest degree to
+resemble the truth of nature's color&mdash;and all the tone of the picture,
+all its intensity and splendor, will vanish on the instant. So again, in
+the exquisite and inimitable little bit of color, the Europa in the
+Dulwich Gallery; the blue of the dark promontory on the left is
+thoroughly absurd and impossible, and the warm tones of the clouds
+equally so, unless it were sunset; but the blue especially, because it
+is nearer than several points of land which are equally in shadow, and
+yet are rendered in warm gray. But the whole value and tone of the
+picture would be destroyed if this blue were altered.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as much of this kind of richness of tone is always given by Turner
+as is compatible with truth of aerial effect; but he will not sacrifice
+the higher truths of his landscape to mere <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p16">§ 16. Turner will not use
+such means.</a></span>pitch of color as Titian does. He infinitely prefers having
+the power of giving extension of space, and fulness of form, to that of
+giving deep melodies of tone; he feels too much the incapacity of art,
+with its feeble means of light, to give the abundance of nature's
+gradations; and therefore it is, that taking pure white for his highest
+expression of light, that even pure yellow may give him one more step in
+the scale of shade, he becomes necessarily inferior in richness of
+effect to the old masters of tone, (who always used a golden highest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149"></a>[Page 149]</span> light,) but gains by the sacrifice a thousand more essential
+truths. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p17"></a>§ 17. But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice.</span>For, though
+we all know how much more like light, in the abstract, a finely-toned
+warm hue will be to the feelings than white, yet it is utterly
+impossible to mark the same number of gradations between such a sobered
+high light and the deepest shadow, which we can between this and white;
+and as these gradations are absolutely necessary to give the facts of
+form and distance, which, as we have above shown, are more important
+than any truths of tone,<a name="FnAnchor_17" href="#Footnote_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> Turner sacrifices the richness of his
+picture to its completeness&mdash;the manner of the statement to its matter.
+And not only is he right in doing this for the sake of space, but he is
+right also in the abstract question of color; for as we observed above
+(Sect. 14,) it is only the white light&mdash;the perfect unmodified group of
+rays&mdash;which will bring out local color perfectly; and if the picture,
+therefore, is to be complete in its system of color, that is, if it is
+to have each of the three primitives in their purity, it <i>must</i> have
+white for its highest light, otherwise the purity of one of them at
+least will be impossible. And this leads <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p18">§ 18. The second quality of
+light.</a></span>us to notice the second and more frequent quality of light, (which
+is assumed if we make our highest representation of it yellow,) the
+positive hue, namely, which it may itself possess, of course modifying
+whatever local tints it exhibits, and thereby rendering certain colors
+necessary, and certain colors impossible. Under the direct yellow light
+of a descending sun, for instance, pure white and pure blue are both
+impossible; because the purest whites and blues that nature could
+produce would be turned in some degree into gold or green by it; and
+when the sun is within half a degree of the horizon, if the sky be
+clear, a rose light supersedes the golden one, still more overwhelming
+in its effect on local color. I have seen the pale fresh green of spring
+vegetation in the gardens of Venice, on the Lido side, turned pure
+russet, or between that and crimson, by a vivid sunset of this kind,
+every particle of green color being absolutely annihilated. And so under
+all colored lights, (and there are few, from dawn to twilight, which are
+not slightly <span class="pagenum"><a name="page150"></a>[Page 150]</span> tinted by some accident of atmosphere,) there
+is a change of local color, which, when in a picture it is so exactly
+proportioned that we feel at once both what the local colors are in
+themselves, and what is the color and strength of the light upon them,
+gives us truth of tone.</p>
+
+<p>For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out
+of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art. But
+I much doubt if there be a single <i>bright</i> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p19">§ 19. The perfection of Cuyp
+in this respect interfered with by numerous solecisms.</a></span>Cuyp in the world,
+which, taken as a whole, does not present many glaring solecisms in
+tone. I have not seen many fine pictures of his, which were not utterly
+spoiled by the vermilion dress of some principal figure, a vermilion
+totally unaffected and unwarmed by the golden hue of the rest of the
+picture; and, what is worse, with little distinction, between its own
+illumined and shaded parts, so that it appears altogether out of
+sunshine, the color of a bright vermilion in dead, cold daylight. It is
+possible that the original color may have gone down in all cases, or
+that these parts may have been villanously repainted: but I am the
+rather disposed to believe them genuine, because even throughout the
+best of his pictures there are evident recurrences of the same kind of
+solecism in other colors&mdash;greens for instance&mdash;as in the steep bank on
+the right of the largest picture in the Dulwich Gallery; and browns, as
+in the lying cow in the same picture, which is in most visible and
+painful contrast with the one standing beside it, the flank of the
+standing one being bathed in breathing sunshine, and the reposing one
+laid in with as dead, opaque, and lifeless brown as ever came raw from a
+novice's pallet. And again, in that marked 83, while the figures on the
+right are walking in the most precious light, and those just beyond them
+in the distance leave a furlong or two of pure visible sunbeams between
+us and them, the cows in the centre are entirely deprived, poor things,
+of both light and air. And these failing parts, though they often escape
+the eye when we are near the picture and able to dwell upon what is
+beautiful in it, yet so injure its whole effect that I question if there
+be many Cuyps in which vivid colors occur, which will not lose their
+effect, and become cold and flat at a distance of ten or twelve paces,
+retaining their <span class="pagenum"><a name="page151"></a>[Page 151]</span> influence only when the eye is close enough
+to rest on the right parts without including the whole. Take, for
+instance, the large one in our National Gallery, seen from the opposite
+door, where the black cow appears a great deal nearer than the dogs, and
+the golden tones of the distance look like a sepia drawing rather than
+like sunshine, owing chiefly to the utter want of aerial grays indicated
+through them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, there is no instance in the works of Turner of anything so faithful
+and imitative of sunshine as the best parts of Cuyp; but at the same
+time, there is not a single vestige of the same kind of solecism. It is
+true, that in his fondness for color, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p20">§ 20. Turner is not so perfect in
+parts&mdash;far more so in the whole.</a></span>Turner is in the habit of allowing
+excessively cold fragments in big warmest pictures; but these are never,
+observe, warm colors with no light upon them, useless as contrasts while
+they are discords in the tone; but they are bits of the very coolest
+tints, partially removed from the general influence, and exquisitely
+valuable as color, though, with all deference be it spoken, I think them
+sometimes slightly destructive of what would otherwise be perfect tone.
+For instance, the two blue and white stripes on the drifting flag of the
+Slave Ship, are, I think, the least degree too purely cool. I think both
+the blue and white would be impossible under such a light; and in the
+same way the white parts of the dress of the Napoleon interfered by
+their coolness with the perfectly managed warmth of all the rest of the
+picture. But both these lights are reflexes, and it is nearly impossible
+to say what tones may be assumed even by the warmest light reflected
+from a cool surface; so that we cannot actually convict these parts of
+falsehood, and though we should have liked the <i>tone</i> of the picture
+better had they been slightly warmer, we cannot but like the <i>color</i> of
+the picture better with them as they are; while Cuyp's failing portions
+are not only evidently and demonstrably false, being in direct light,
+but are as disagreeable in color as false in tone, and injurious to
+everything near them. And the best proof of the grammatical accuracy of
+the tones of Turner is in the perfect and unchanging influence of all
+his pictures at any distance. We approach only to follow the sunshine
+into every cranny of the leafage, and retire only to feel it diffused
+over the scene, the whole picture <span class="pagenum"><a name="page152"></a>[Page 152]</span> glowing like a sun or star
+at whatever distance we stand, and lighting the air between us and it;
+while many even of the best pictures of Claude must be looked close into
+to be felt, and lose light every foot that we retire. The smallest of
+the three seaports in the National Gallery is valuable and right in tone
+when we are close to it; but ten yards off, it is all brick-dust,
+offensively and evidently false in its whole hue.</p>
+
+<p>The comparison of Turner with Cuyp and Claude may sound strange in most
+ears; but this is chiefly because we are not in the habit of analyzing
+and dwelling upon those difficult and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p21">§ 21. The power in Turner of
+uniting a number of tones.</a></span>daring passages of the modern master which do
+not at first appeal to our ordinary notions of truth, owing to his habit
+of uniting two, three, or even more separate tones in the same
+composition. In this also he strictly follows nature, for wherever
+climate changes, tone changes, and the climate changes with every 200
+feet of elevation, so that the upper clouds are always different in tone
+from the lower ones, these from the rest of the landscape, and in all
+probability, some part of the horizon from the rest. And when nature
+allows this in a high degree, as in her most gorgeous effects she always
+will, she does not herself impress at once with intensity of tone, as in
+the deep and quiet yellows of a July evening, but rather with the
+magnificence and variety of associated color, in which, if we give time
+and attention to it, we shall gradually find the solemnity and the depth
+of twenty tones instead of one. Now in Turner's power of associating
+cold with warm light, no one has ever approached, or even ventured into
+the same field with him. The old masters, content with one simple tone,
+sacrificed to its unity all the exquisite gradations and varied touches
+of relief and change by which nature unites her hours with each other.
+They gave the warmth of the sinking sun, overwhelming all things in its
+gold; but they did not give those gray passages about the horizon where,
+seen through its dying light, the cool and the gloom of night gather
+themselves for their victory. Whether it was in them impotence or
+judgment, it is not for me to decide. I have only to point to the daring
+of Turner in this respect, as something to which art affords no matter
+of comparison, as that in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page153"></a>[Page 153]</span> which the mere attempt is, in
+itself, superiority. Take the evening effect with the Temeraire. That
+picture will not, at the first glance, deceive as a piece of actual
+sunlight; but this is because there is in it more than sunlight, because
+under the blazing veil of vaulted fire which lights the vessel on her
+last path, there is a blue, deep, desolate hollow of darkness, out of
+which you can hear the voice of the night wind, and the dull boom of the
+disturbed sea; because the cold, deadly shadows of the twilight are
+gathering through every sunbeam, and moment by moment as you look, you
+will fancy some new film and faintness of the night has risen over the
+vastness of the departing form.</p>
+
+<p>And if, in effects of this kind, time be taken to dwell upon the
+individual tones, and to study the laws of their reconcilement, there
+will be found in the recent Academy pictures of this <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c1p22">§22.
+Recapitulation.</a></span>great artist a mass of various truth to which nothing can
+be brought for comparison, which stands not only unrivalled, but
+uncontended with, and which, when in carrying out it may be inferior to
+some of the picked passages of the old masters, is so through deliberate
+choice rather to suggest a multitude of truths than to imitate one, and
+through a strife with difficulties of effect of which art can afford no
+parallel example. Nay, in the next chapter, respecting color, we shall
+see farther reason for doubting the truth of Claude, Cuyp, and Poussin,
+in tone,&mdash;reason so palpable that if these were all that were to be
+contended with, I should scarcely have allowed any inferiority in Turner
+whatsoever;<a name="FnAnchor_18" href="#Footnote_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> but I allow it, not so much with reference to the
+deceptive imitations of sunlight, wrought out with desperate
+exaggerations of shade, of the professed landscape painters, as with
+reference to the glory of Rubens, the glow of Titian, the silver
+tenderness of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page154"></a>[Page 154]</span> Cagliari, and perhaps more than all to the
+precious and pure passages of intense feeling and heavenly light, holy
+and undefiled, and glorious with the changeless passion of eternity,
+which sanctify with their shadeless peace the deep and noble conceptions
+of the early school of Italy,&mdash;of Fra Bartolomeo, Perugino, and the
+early mind of Raffaelle.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16" href="#FnAnchor_16">[16]</a> Of course I am not speaking here of treatment of chiaroscuro, but
+of that quantity of depth of shade by which, <i>c[oe]teris paribus</i>, a
+near object will exceed a distant one. For the truth of the systems of
+Turner and the old masters, as regards chiaroscuro, vide Chapter III. of
+this Section, § 8.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17" href="#FnAnchor_17">[17]</a> More important, observe, <i>as matters of truth or fact</i>. It may
+often chance that, as a matter of feeling, the tone is the more
+important of the two; but with this we have here no concern.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18" href="#FnAnchor_18">[18]</a> We must not leave the subject of tone without alluding to the works
+of the late George Barrett, which afford glorious and exalted passages
+of light; and John Varley, who, though less truthful in his aim, was
+frequently deep in his feeling. Some of the sketches of De Wint are also
+admirable in this respect. As for our oil pictures, the less that is
+said about them the better. Callcott has the truest aim; but not having
+any eye for color, it is impossible for him to succeed in tone.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page155"></a>[Page 155]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF COLOR.</h5>
+
+<p>There is, in the first room of the National Gallery, a landscape
+attributed to Gaspar Poussin, called sometimes Aricia, sometimes Le or
+La Riccia, according to the fancy of catalogue <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p1">§1. Observations on the
+color of G. Poussin's La Riccia.</a></span>printers. Whether it can be supposed to
+resemble the ancient Aricia, now La Riccia, close to Albano, I will not
+take upon me to determine, seeing that most of the towns of these old
+masters are quite as like one place as another; but, at any rate, it is
+a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes, of very uniform
+size, and possessing about the same number of leaves each. These bushes
+are all painted in with one dull opaque brown, becoming very slightly
+greenish towards the lights, and discover in one place a bit of rock,
+which of course would in nature have been cool and gray beside the
+lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being moreover
+completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted of a
+very clear, pretty, and positive brick-red, the only thing like color in
+the picture. The foreground is a piece of road, which in order to make
+allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in light,
+and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vegetation usually present
+on carriage-roads, is given in a very cool green gray, and the truth of
+the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right,
+with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p2">§2. As compared with the actual scene.</a></p> <p>Not long ago, I was slowly
+descending this very bit of carriage-road, the first turn after you
+leave Albano, not a little impeded by the worthy successors of the
+ancient prototypes of Veiento.<a name="FnAnchor_19" href="#Footnote_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> It had been <span class="pagenum"><a name="page156"></a>[Page 156]</span> wild weather
+when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping
+in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams
+of sun along the Claudian aqueduct lighting up the infinity of its
+arches like the bridge of chaos. But as I climbed the long slope of the
+Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outline
+of the domes of Albano and graceful darkness of its ilex grove rose
+against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper sky
+gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in deep,
+palpitating azure, half ether and half dew. The noonday sun came
+slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled
+and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure
+of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot
+call it color, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet,
+like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the
+valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant
+and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the
+sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of
+the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of
+some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks
+for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around
+them, breaking over the gray walls of rock into a thousand separate
+stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let
+them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven,
+opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as
+sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of
+dark rock&mdash;dark though flushed with scarlet lichen,&mdash;casting their quiet
+shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them
+filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over
+all&mdash;the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that
+have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless
+intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines,
+passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the
+measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Tell me who is likest this, Poussin or Turner? Not in his most daring
+and dazzling efforts could Turner himself come <span class="pagenum"><a name="page157"></a>[Page 157]</span> near it; but
+you could not at the time have thought or remembered the work of any
+other man as having the remotest hue or <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p3">§3. Turner himself is inferior
+in brilliancy to nature.</a></span>resemblance of what you saw. Nor am I speaking
+of what is uncommon or unnatural; there is no climate, no place, and
+scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal
+effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial pigments are,
+even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside
+her living color; the green of a growing leaf, the scarlet of a fresh
+flower, no art nor expedient can reach; but in addition to this, nature
+exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their
+brilliancy, while the painter, deprived of this splendid aid, works
+still with what is actually a gray shadow compared to the force of
+nature's color. Take a blade of grass and a scarlet flower, and place
+them so as to receive sunlight beside the brightest canvas that ever
+left Turner's easel, and the picture will be extinguished. So far from
+out-facing nature, he does not, as far as mere vividness of color goes,
+one-half reach her;&mdash;but does he use this brilliancy of color on objects
+to which it does not properly belong? Let us compare his works in this
+respect with a few instances from the old masters.</p>
+
+<p>There is, on the left hand side of Salvator's Mercury and the Woodman in
+our National Gallery, something, without doubt intended for a rocky
+mountain, in the middle distance, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p4">§4. Impossible colors of Salvator,
+Titian;</a></span>near enough for all its fissures and crags to be distinctly
+visible, or, rather, for a great many awkward scratches of the brush
+over it to be visible, which, though not particularly representative
+either of one thing or another, are without doubt intended to be
+symbolical of rocks. Now no mountain in full light, and near enough for
+its details of crag to be seen, is without great variety of delicate
+color. Salvator has painted it throughout without one instant of
+variation; but this, I suppose, is simplicity and generalization;&mdash;let
+it pass: but what is the color? <i>Pure sky blue</i>, without one grain of
+gray, or any modifying hue whatsoever;&mdash;the same brush which had just
+given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part
+of the pallet, and the whole mountain thrown in with unmitigated
+ultramarine. Now mountains only <span class="pagenum"><a name="page158"></a>[Page 158]</span> can become pure blue when
+there is so much air between us and them that they become mere flat,
+dark shades, every detail being totally lost: they become blue when they
+become air, and not till then. Consequently this part of Salvator's
+painting, being of hills perfectly clear and near, with all their
+details visible, is, as far as color is concerned, broad, bold
+falsehood&mdash;the direct assertion of direct impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>In the whole range of Turner's works, recent or of old date, you will
+not find an instance of anything near enough to have details visible,
+painted in sky blue. Wherever Turner gives blue, there he gives
+atmosphere; it is air, not object. Blue he gives to his sea; so does
+nature;&mdash;blue he gives, sapphire-deep, to his extreme distance; so does
+nature;&mdash;blue he gives to the misty shadows and hollows of his hills; so
+does nature: but blue he gives <i>not</i>, where detail and illumined surface
+are visible; as he comes into light and character, so he breaks into
+warmth and varied hue; nor is there in one of his works, and I speak of
+the Academy pictures especially, one touch of cold color which is not to
+be accounted for, and proved right and full of meaning.</p>
+
+<p>I do not say that Salvator's distance is not artist-like; both in that,
+and in the yet more glaringly false distances of Titian above alluded
+to, and in hundreds of others of equal boldness of exaggeration, I can
+take delight, and perhaps should be sorry to see them other than they
+are; but it is somewhat singular to hear people talking of Turner's
+exquisite care and watchfulness in color as false, while they receive
+such cases of preposterous and audacious fiction with the most generous
+and simple credulity.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in the upper sky of the picture of Nicolas Poussin, before
+noticed, the clouds are of a very fine clear olive-green, about the same
+tint as the brightest parts of the trees beneath <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p5">§5. Poussin, and
+Claude.</a></span>them. They cannot have altered, (or else the trees must have been
+painted in gray,) for the hue is harmonious and well united with the
+rest of the picture, and the blue and white in the centre of the sky are
+still fresh and pure. Now a green sky in open and illumined distance is
+very frequent, and very beautiful; but rich olive-green clouds, as far
+as I am acquainted with nature, are a piece of color in which <span class="pagenum"><a name="page159"></a>[Page
+159]</span> she is not apt to indulge. You will be puzzled to show me such a
+thing in the recent works of Turner.<a name="FnAnchor_20" href="#Footnote_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> Again, take any important group
+of trees, I do not care whose&mdash;Claude's, Salvator's, or Poussin's&mdash;with
+lateral light (that in the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, or Gaspar's
+sacrifice of Isaac, for instance:) Can it be seriously supposed that
+those murky browns and melancholy greens are representative of the tints
+of leaves under full noonday sun? I know that you cannot help looking
+upon all these pictures as pieces of dark relief against a light wholly
+proceeding from the distances; but they are nothing of the kind&mdash;they
+are noon and morning effects with full lateral light. Be so kind as to
+match the color of a leaf in the sun (the darkest you like) as nearly as
+you can, and bring your matched color and set it beside one of these
+groups of trees, and take a blade of common grass, and set it beside any
+part of the fullest light of their foregrounds, and then talk about the
+truth of color of the old masters!</p>
+
+<p>And let not arguments respecting the sublimity or fidelity of
+<i>impression</i> be brought forward here. I have nothing whatever to do with
+this at present. I am not talking about what is sublime, but about what
+is true. People attack Turner on this ground;&mdash;they never speak of
+beauty or sublimity with respect to him, but of nature and truth, and
+let them support their own favorite masters on the same grounds. Perhaps
+I may have the very deepest veneration for the <i>feeling</i> of the old
+masters, but I must not let it influence me now&mdash;my business is to match
+colors, not to talk sentiment. Neither let it be said that I am going
+too much into details, and that general truths may be obtained by local
+falsehood. Truth is only to be measured by <span class="pagenum"><a name="page160"></a>[Page 160]</span> close comparison
+of actual facts; we may talk forever about it in generals, and prove
+nothing. We cannot tell what effect falsehood may produce on this or
+that person, but we can very well tell what is false and what is not,
+and if it produce on our senses the effect of truth, that only
+demonstrates their imperfection and inaccuracy, and need of cultivation.
+Turner's color is glaring to one person's sensations, and beautiful to
+another's. This proves nothing. Poussin's color is right to one, soot to
+another. This proves nothing. There is no means of arriving at any
+conclusion but close comparison of both with the known and demonstrable
+hues of nature, and this comparison will invariably turn Claude or
+Poussin into blackness, and even Turner into gray.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever depth of gloom may seem to invest the objects of a real
+landscape, yet a window with that landscape seen through it, will
+invariably appear a broad space of light as compared with the shade of
+the room walls; and this single circumstance may prove to us both the
+intensity and the diffusion of daylight in open air, and the necessity,
+if a picture is to be truthful in effect of color, that it should tell
+as a broad space of graduated illumination&mdash;not, as do those of the old
+masters, as a patch-work of black shades. Their works are nature in
+mourning weeds,&mdash;<span class="grk" title="oud hen hźliō katharō tethrammenoi, all hypo
+symmigei skia">&#x1f40;&upsilon;&delta;&#x1fbd;
+&#x1f11;&nu;
+&#x1f21;&lambda;&#x1f77;&omega;
+&kappa;&alpha;&theta;&alpha;&rho;&#x1ff7;
+&tau;&epsilon;&theta;&rho;&alpha;&mu;&mu;&#x1f73;&nu;&omicron;&iota;,
+&#x1f00;&lambda;&lambda;&#x1fbd;
+&#x1f51;&pi;&#x1f78;
+&sigma;&upsilon;&mu;&mu;&iota;&gamma;&epsilon;&iota;
+&sigma;&kappa;&iota;&#x1f86;</span>.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that there are, here and there, in the Academy pictures,
+passages in which Turner has translated the unattainable intensity of
+one tone of color, into the attainable pitch of a higher <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p6">§6. Turner's
+translation of colors.</a></span>one: the golden green for instance, of intense
+sunshine on verdure, into pure yellow, because he knows it to be
+impossible, with any mixture of blue whatsoever, to give faithfully its
+relative intensity of light, and Turner always will have his light and
+shade right, whatever it costs him in color. But he does this in rare
+cases, and even then over very small spaces; and I should be obliged to
+his critics if they would go out to some warm, mossy green bank in full
+summer sunshine, and try to reach its tone; and when they find, as find
+they will, Indian yellow and chrome look dark beside it, let them tell
+me candidly which is nearest truth, the gold of Turner, or the mourning
+and murky olive browns and verdigris <span class="pagenum"><a name="page161"></a>[Page 161]</span> greens in which Claude,
+with the industry and intelligence of a Sevres china painter, drags the
+laborious bramble leaves over his childish foreground.</p>
+
+<p>But it is singular enough that the chief attacks on Turner for
+overcharged brilliancy, are made, not when there could by any
+possibility be any chance of his outstepping nature, but <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p7">§ 7. Notice of
+effects in which no brilliancy of art can even approach that of
+reality.</a></span>when he has taken subjects which no colors of earth could ever
+vie with or reach, such, for instance, as his sunsets among the high
+clouds. When I come to speak of skies, I shall point out what divisions,
+proportioned to their elevation, exist in the character of clouds. It is
+the highest region,&mdash;that exclusively characterized by white, filmy,
+multitudinous, and quiet clouds, arranged in bars, or streaks, or
+flakes, of which I speak at present, a region which no landscape
+painters have ever made one effort to represent, except Rubens and
+Turner&mdash;the latter taking it for his most favorite and frequent study.
+Now we have been speaking hitherto of what is constant and necessary in
+nature, of the ordinary effects of daylight on ordinary colors, and we
+repeat again, that no gorgeousness of the pallet can reach even these.
+But it is a widely different thing when nature herself takes a coloring
+fit, and does something extraordinary, something really to exhibit her
+power. She has a thousand ways and means of rising above herself, but
+incomparably the noblest manifestations of her capability of color are
+in these sunsets among the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment
+before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-color, and when
+this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloud-forms of
+inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapor, which would in
+common daylight be pure snow white, and which give therefore fair field
+to the tone of light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no
+check to the intensity of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the
+zenith to the horizon becomes one molten, mantling sea of color and
+fire; every black bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into
+unsullied, shadowless, crimson, and purple, and scarlet, and colors for
+which there are no words in language, and no ideas in the mind,&mdash;things
+which can only be conceived while they are visible,&mdash;the intense hollow
+blue of the upper sky melting <span class="pagenum"><a name="page162"></a>[Page 162]</span> through it all,&mdash;showing here
+deep, and pure, and lightless, there, modulated by the filmy, formless
+body of the transparent vapor, till it is lost imperceptibly in its
+crimson and gold. Now there is no connection, no one link of association
+or resemblance, between those skies and the work of any mortal hand but
+Turner's. He alone has followed nature in these her highest efforts; he
+follows her faithfully, but far behind; follows at such a distance below
+her intensity that the Napoleon of last year's exhibition, and the
+Temeraire of the year before, would look colorless and cold if the eye
+came upon them after one of nature's sunsets among the high clouds. But
+there are a thousand <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p8">§ 8. Reasons for the usual incredulity of the
+observer with respect to their representation.</a></span>reasons why this should
+not be believed. The concurrence of circumstances necessary to produce
+the sunsets of which I speak does not take place above five or six times
+in the summer, and then only for a space of from five to ten minutes,
+just as the sun reaches the horizon. Considering how seldom people think
+of looking for sunset at all, and how seldom, if they do, they are in a
+position from which it can be fully seen, the chances that their
+attention should be awake, and their position favorable, during these
+few flying instants of the year, is almost as nothing. What can the
+citizen, who can see only the red light on the canvas of the wagon at
+the end of the street, and the crimson color of the bricks of his
+neighbor's chimney, know of the flood of fire which deluges the sky from
+the horizon to the zenith? What can even the quiet inhabitant of the
+English lowlands, whose scene for the manifestation of the fire of
+heaven is limited to the tops of hayricks, and the rooks' nests in the
+old elm-trees, know of the mighty passages of splendor which are tossed
+from Alp to Alp over the azure of a thousand miles of champaign? Even
+granting the constant vigor of observation, and supposing the possession
+of such impossible knowledge, it needs but a moment's reflection to
+prove how incapable the memory is of retaining for any time the distinct
+image of the sources even of its most vivid impressions. What
+recollection have we of the sunsets which delighted us last year? We may
+know that they were magnificent, or glowing, but no distinct image of
+color or form is retained&mdash;nothing of whose <i>degree</i> (for the great
+difficulty with the memory is to retain, not <span class="pagenum"><a name="page163"></a>[Page 163]</span> facts, but
+<i>degrees</i> of fact) we could be so certain as to say of anything now
+presented to us, that it is like it. If we did say so, we should be
+wrong; for we may be quite certain that the energy of an impression
+fades from the memory, and becomes more and more indistinct every day;
+and thus we compare a faded and indistinct image with the decision and
+certainty of one present to the senses. How constantly do we affirm that
+the thunder-storm of last week was the most terrible one we ever saw in
+our lives, because we compare it, not with the thunder-storm of last
+year, but with the faded and feeble recollection of it. And so, when we
+enter an exhibition, as we have no definite standard of truth before us,
+our feelings are toned down and subdued to the quietness of color which
+is all that human power can ordinarily attain to; and when we turn to a
+piece of higher and closer truth, approaching the pitch of the color of
+nature, but to which we are not guided, as we should be in nature, by
+corresponding gradations of light everywhere around us, but which is
+isolated and cut off suddenly by a frame and a wall, and surrounded by
+darkness and coldness, what can we expect but that it should surprise
+and shock the feelings? Suppose, where the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p9">§9. Color of the
+Napoleon.</a></span>Napoleon hung in the Academy last year, there could have been
+left, instead, an opening in the wall, and through that opening, in the
+midst of the obscurity of the dim room and the smoke-laden atmosphere,
+there could suddenly have been poured the full glory of a tropical
+sunset, reverberated from the sea: How would you have shrunk, blinded,
+from its scarlet and intolerable lightnings! What picture in the room
+would not have been blackness after it? And why then do you blame Turner
+because he dazzles you? Does not the falsehood rest with those who do
+<i>not</i>? There was not one hue in this whole picture which was not far
+below what nature would have used in the same circumstances, nor was
+there one inharmonious or at variance with the rest;&mdash;the stormy
+blood-red of the horizon, the scarlet of the breaking sunlight, the rich
+crimson browns of the wet and illumined sea-weed; the pure gold and
+purple of the upper sky, and, shed through it all, the deep passage of
+solemn blue, where the cold moonlight fell on one pensive spot of the
+limitless shore&mdash;all were given with harmony as perfect as their color
+was intense; and if, instead of passing, as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page164"></a>[Page 164]</span> I doubt not you
+did, in the hurry of your unreflecting prejudice, you had paused but so
+much as one quarter of an hour before the picture, you would have found
+the sense of air and space blended with every line, and breathing in
+every cloud, and every color instinct and radiant with visible, glowing,
+absorbing light.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be observed, however, in general, that wherever in brilliant
+effects of this kind, we approach to anything like a true statement of
+nature's color, there must yet be a distinct <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p10">§10. Necessary discrepancy
+between the attainable brilliancy of color and light.</a></span>difference in the
+impression we convey, because we cannot approach her <i>light</i>. All such
+hues are usually given by her with an accompanying intensity of sunbeams
+which dazzles and overpowers the eye, so that it cannot rest on the
+actual colors, nor understand what they are; and hence in art, in
+rendering all effects of this kind, there must be a want of the ideas of
+<i>imitation</i>, which are the great source of enjoyment to the ordinary
+observer; because we can only give one series of truths, those of color,
+and are unable to give the accompanying truths of light, so that the
+more true we are in color, the greater, ordinarily, will be the
+discrepancy felt between the intensity of hue and the feebleness of
+light. But the painter who really loves nature will not, on this
+account, give you a faded and feeble image, which indeed may appear to
+you to be right, because your feelings can detect no discrepancy in its
+parts, but which he knows to derive its apparent truth from a
+systematized falsehood. No; he will make you understand and feel that
+art <i>cannot</i> imitate nature&mdash;that where it appears to do so, it must
+malign her, and mock her. He will give you, or state to you, such truths
+as are in his power, completely and perfectly; and those which he cannot
+give, he will leave to your imagination. If you are acquainted with
+nature, you will know all he has given to be true, and you will supply
+from your memory and from your heart that light which he cannot give. If
+you are unacquainted with nature, seek elsewhere for whatever may happen
+to satisfy your feelings; but do not ask for the truth which you would
+not acknowledge and could not enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the aim and struggle of the artist must always be to do
+away with this discrepancy as far as the powers of art admit, not by
+lowering his color, but by increasing his light. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page165"></a>[Page 165]</span> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p11">§ 11. This
+discrepancy less in Turner than in other colorists.</a></span>And it is indeed by
+this that the works of Turner are peculiarly distinguished from those of
+all other colorists, by the dazzling intensity, namely, of the light
+which he sheds through every hue, and which, far more than their
+brilliant color, is the real source of their overpowering effect upon
+the eye, an effect so <i>reasonably</i> made the subject of perpetual
+animadversion, as if the sun which they represent were quite a quiet,
+and subdued, and gentle, and manageable luminary, and never dazzled
+anybody, under any circumstances whatsoever. I am fond of standing by a
+bright Turner in the Academy, to listen to the unintentional compliments
+of the crowd&mdash;"What a glaring thing!" "I declare I can't look at it!"
+"Don't it hurt your eyes?"&mdash;expressed as if they were in the constant
+habit of looking the sun full in the face, with the most perfect comfort
+and entire facility of vision. It is curious <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p12">§ 12. Its great extent in a
+landscape attributed to Rubens.</a></span>after hearing people malign some of
+Turner's noble passages of light, to pass to some really ungrammatical
+and false picture of the old masters, in which we have color given
+<i>without</i> light. Take, for instance, the landscape attributed to Rubens,
+No. 175, in the Dulwich Gallery. I never have spoken, and I never will
+speak of Rubens but with the most reverential feeling; and whatever
+imperfections in his art may have resulted from his unfortunate want of
+seriousness and incapability of true passion, his calibre of mind was
+originally such that I believe the world may see another Titian and
+another Raffaelle, before it sees another Rubens. But I have before
+alluded to the violent license he occasionally assumes; and there is an
+instance of it in this picture apposite to the immediate question. The
+sudden streak and circle of yellow and crimson in the middle of the sky
+of that picture, being the occurrence of a fragment of a sunset color in
+pure daylight, and in perfect isolation, while at the same time it is
+rather darker, when translated into light and shade, than brighter than
+the rest of the sky, is a case of such bold absurdity, come from whose
+pencil it may, that if every error which Turner has fallen into in the
+whole course of his life were concentrated into one, that one would not
+equal it; and as our connoisseurs gaze upon this with never-ending
+approbation, we must not be surprised that the accurate perceptions
+which thus <span class="pagenum"><a name="page166"></a>[Page 166]</span> take delight in pure fiction, should consistently
+be disgusted by Turner's fidelity and truth.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto, however, we have been speaking of vividness of pure color, and
+showing that it is used by Turner only where nature uses it, and in no
+less degree. But we have hitherto, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p13">§ 13. Turner scarcely ever uses pure
+or vivid color.</a></span>therefore, been speaking of a most limited and
+uncharacteristic portion of his works; for Turner, like all great
+colorists, is distinguished not more for his power of dazzling and
+overwhelming the eye with intensity of effect, than for his power of
+doing so by the use of subdued and gentle means. There is no man living
+more cautious and sparing in the use of pure color than Turner. To say
+that he never perpetrates anything like the blue excrescences of
+foreground, or hills <i>shot</i> like a housekeeper's best silk gown, with
+blue and red, which certain of our celebrated artists consider the
+essence of the sublime, would be but a poor compliment. I might as well
+praise the portraits of Titian because they have not the grimace and
+paint of a clown in a pantomime; but I do say, and say with confidence,
+that there is scarcely a landscape artist of the present day, however
+sober and lightless their effects may look, who does not employ more
+pure and raw color than Turner; and that the ordinary tinsel and trash,
+or rather vicious and perilous stuff, according to the power of the mind
+producing it, with which the walls of our Academy are half covered,
+disgracing, in weak hands, or in more powerful, degrading and corrupting
+our whole school of art, is based on a system of color beside which
+Turner's is as Vesta to Cotytto&mdash;the chastity of fire to the foulness of
+earth. Every picture of this great colorist has, in one or two parts of
+it, (key-notes of the whole,) points where the system of each individual
+color is concentrated by a single stroke, as pure as it can come from
+the pallet; but throughout the great space and extent of even the most
+brilliant of his works, there will not be found a raw color; that is to
+say, there is no warmth which has not gray in it, and no blue which has
+not warmth in it; and the tints in which he most excels and distances
+all other men, the most cherished and inimitable portions of his color,
+are, as with all perfect colorists they must be, his grays.</p>
+
+<p>It is instructive in this respect, to compare the sky of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page167"></a>[Page 167]</span>
+Mercury and Argus with the various illustrations of the serenity, space,
+and sublimity naturally inherent in blue and pink, of which every year's
+exhibition brings forward enough and to spare. In the Mercury and Argus,
+the pale and vaporous blue of the heated sky is broken with gray and
+pearly white, the gold color of the light warming it more or less as it
+approaches or retires from the sun; but throughout, there is not a grain
+of pure blue; all is subdued and warmed at the same time by the mingling
+gray and gold, up to the very zenith, where, breaking through the flaky
+mist, the transparent and deep azure of the sky is expressed with a
+single crumbling touch; the key-note of the whole is given, and every
+part of it passes at once far into glowing and aerial space. The reader
+can scarcely fail to remember at once sundry works in contradistinction
+to this, with great names attached to them, in which the sky is a sheer
+piece of plumber's and glazier's work, and should be valued per yard,
+with heavy extra charge for ultramarine.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the works of Turner, the same truthful principle of delicate
+and subdued color is carried out with a care and labor of which it is
+difficult to form a conception. He gives a <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p14">§ 14. The basis of gray,
+under all his vivid hues.</a></span>dash of pure white for his highest light; but
+all the other whites of his picture are pearled down with gray or gold.
+He gives a fold of pure crimson to the drapery of his nearest figure;
+but all his other crimsons will be deepened with black, or warmed with
+yellow. In one deep reflection of his distant sea, we catch a trace of
+the purest blue; but all the rest is palpitating with a varied and
+delicate gradation of harmonized tint, which indeed looks vivid blue as
+a mass, but is only so by opposition. It is the most difficult, the most
+rare thing, to find in his works a definite space, however small, of
+unconnected color; that is, either of a blue which has nothing to
+connect it with the warmth, or of a warm color which has nothing to
+connect it with the grays of the whole; and the result is, that there is
+a general system and undercurrent of gray pervading the whole of his
+color, out of which his highest lights, and those local touches of pure
+color, which are, as I said before, the key-notes of the picture, flash
+with the peculiar brilliancy and intensity in which he stands alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page168"></a>[Page 168]</span></p>
+
+<p>Intimately associated with this toning down and connection of the colors
+actually used, is his inimitable power of varying and blending them, so
+as never to give a quarter of an inch of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p15">§ 15. The variety and fulness
+even of his most simple tones.</a></span>canvas without a change in it, a melody as
+well as a harmony of one kind or another. Observe, I am not at present
+speaking of this as artistical or desirable in itself, not as a
+characteristic of the great colorist, but as the aim of the simple
+follower of nature. For it is strange to see how marvellously nature
+varies the most general and simple of her tones. A mass of mountain seen
+against the light, may, at first, appear all of one blue; and so it is,
+blue as a whole, by comparison with other parts of the landscape. But
+look how that blue is made up. There are black shadows in it under the
+crags, there are green shadows along the turf, there are gray
+half-lights upon the rocks, there are faint touches of stealthy warmth
+and cautious light along their edges; every bush, every stone, every
+tuft of moss has its voice in the matter, and joins with individual
+character in the universal will. Who is there who can do this as Turner
+will? The old masters would have settled the matter at once with a
+transparent, agreeable, but monotonous gray. Many among the moderns
+would probably be equally monotonous with absurd and false colors.
+Turner only would give the uncertainty&mdash;the palpitating, perpetual
+change&mdash;the subjection of all to a great influence, without one part or
+portion being lost or merged in it&mdash;the unity of action with infinity of
+agent. And I wish to insist on this the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p16">§ 16. Following the infinite and
+unapproachable variety of nature.</a></span>more particularly, because it is one of
+the eternal principles of nature, that she will not have one line nor
+color, nor one portion nor atom of space without a change in it. There
+is not one of her shadows, tints, or lines that is not in a state of
+perpetual variation: I do not mean in time, but in space. There is not a
+leaf in the world which has the <i>same color</i> visible over its whole
+surface; it has a white high light somewhere; and in proportion as it
+curves to or from that focus, the color is brighter or grayer. Pick up a
+common flint from the roadside, and count, if you can, its changes and
+hues of color. Every bit of bare ground under your feet has in it a
+thousand such&mdash;the gray pebbles, the warm ochre, the green of incipient
+vegetation, the grays and blacks of its reflexes and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page169"></a>[Page 169]</span>
+shadows, might keep a painter at work for a month, if he were obliged to
+follow them touch for touch: how much more, when the same infinity of
+change is carried out with vastness of object and space. The extreme of
+distance may appear at first monotonous; but the least examination will
+show it to be full of every kind of change&mdash;that its outlines are
+perpetually melting and appearing again&mdash;sharp here, vague there&mdash;now
+lost altogether, now just hinted and still confused among each
+other&mdash;and so forever in a state and necessity of change. Hence,
+wherever in a painting we have unvaried color extended even over a small
+space, there is falsehood. Nothing can be natural which is monotonous;
+nothing true which only tells one story. The brown foreground and rocks
+of Claude's Sinon before Priam are as false as color can be: first,
+because there never was such a brown under sunlight, for even the sand
+and cinders (volcanic tufa) about Naples, granting that he had studied
+from these ugliest of all formations, are, where they are fresh
+fractured, golden and lustrous in full light compared to these ideals of
+crag, and become, like all other rocks, quiet and gray when weathered;
+and secondly, because no rock that ever nature stained is without its
+countless breaking tints of varied vegetation. And even Stanfield,
+master as he is of rock form, is apt in the same way to give us here and
+there a little bit of mud, instead of stone.</p>
+
+<p>What I am next about to say with respect to Turner's color, I should
+wish to be received with caution, as it admits of dispute. I think that
+the first approach to viciousness of color in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p17">§17. His dislike of purple
+and fondness for the opposition of yellow and black. The principles of
+nature in this respect.</a></span>any master is commonly indicated chiefly by a
+prevalence of purple, and an absence of yellow. I think nature mixes
+yellow with almost every one of her hues, never, or very rarely, using
+red without it, but frequently using yellow with scarcely any red; and I
+believe it will be in consequence found that her favorite opposition,
+that which generally characterizes and gives tone to her color, is
+yellow and black, passing, as it retires, into white and blue. It is
+beyond dispute that the great fundamental opposition of Rubens is yellow
+and black; and that on this, concentrated in one part of the picture,
+and modified in various grays throughout, chiefly depend the tones of
+all his <span class="pagenum"><a name="page170"></a>[Page 170]</span> finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far
+greater tendency to the purple than in Rubens, I believe no red is ever
+mixed with the pure blue, or glazed over it, which has not in it a
+modifying quantity of yellow. At all events, I am nearly certain that
+whatever rich and pure purples are introduced locally, by the great
+colorists, nothing is so destructive of all fine color as the slightest
+tendency to purple in general tone; and I am equally certain that Turner
+is distinguished from all the vicious colorists of the present day, by
+the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and the
+intermediate grays, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is
+invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples. So fond indeed is Turner
+of black and yellow, that he has given us more than one composition,
+both drawings and paintings, based on these two colors alone, of which
+the magnificent Quilleb&oelig;uf, which I consider one of the most perfect
+pieces of simple color existing, is a most striking example; and I think
+that where, as in some of the late Venices, there has been something
+like a marked appearance of purple tones, even though exquisitely
+corrected by vivid orange and warm green in the foreground, the general
+color has not been so perfect or truthful: my own feelings would always
+guide me rather to the warm grays of such pictures as the Snow Storm, or
+the glowing scarlet and gold of the Napoleon and Slave Ship. But I do
+not insist at present on this part of the subject, as being perhaps more
+proper for future examination, when we are considering the ideal of
+color.</p>
+
+<p>The above remarks have been made entirely with reference to the recent
+Academy pictures, which have been chiefly attacked for their color. I by
+no means intend them to apply to <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p18">§18. His early works are false in
+color.</a></span>the early works of Turner, those which the enlightened newspaper
+critics are perpetually talking about as characteristic of a time when
+Turner was "really great." He is, and was, really great, from the time
+when he first could hold a brush, but he never was so great as he is
+now. The Crossing the Brook, glorious as it is as a composition, and
+perfect in all that is most desirable and most ennobling in art, is
+scarcely to be looked upon as a piece of color; it is an agreeable,
+cool, gray rendering of space and form, but it is not color; if it be
+regarded as such, it is thoroughly false and vapid, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page171"></a>[Page 171]</span> and very
+far inferior to the tones of the same kind given by Claude. The reddish
+brown in the foreground of the Fall of Carthage, with all diffidence be
+it spoken, is, as far as my feelings are competent to judge, crude,
+sunless, and in every way wrong; and both this picture and the Building
+of Carthage, though this latter is far the finer of the two, are quite
+unworthy of Turner as a colorist.</p>
+
+<p>Not so with the drawings; these, countless as they are, from the
+earliest to the latest, though presenting an unbroken chain of
+increasing difficulty overcome, and truth illustrated, are all, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p19">§ 19.
+His drawings invariably perfect.</a></span>according to their aim, equally
+faultless as to color. Whatever we have hitherto said, applies to them
+in its fullest extent; though each, being generally the realization of
+some effect actually seen, and realized but once, requires almost a
+separate essay. As a class, they are far quieter and chaster than the
+Academy pictures, and, were they better known, might enable our
+connoisseurs to form a somewhat more accurate judgment of the intense
+study of nature on which all Turner's color is based.</p>
+
+<p>One point only remains to be noted respecting his system of color
+generally&mdash;its entire subordination to light and shade, a subordination
+which there is no need to prove here, as every <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c2p20">§ 20. The subjection of
+his system of color to that of chiaroscuro.</a></span>engraving from his works&mdash;and
+few are unengraved&mdash;is sufficient demonstration of it. I have before
+shown the inferiority and unimportance in nature of color, as a truth,
+compared with light and shade. That inferiority is maintained and
+asserted by all really great works of color; but most by Turner's as
+their color is most intense. Whatever brilliancy he may choose to
+assume, is subjected to an inviolable law of chiaroscuro, from which
+there is no appeal. No richness nor depth of tint is considered of value
+enough to atone for the loss of one particle of arranged light. No
+brilliancy of hue is permitted to interfere with the depth of a
+determined shadow. And hence it is, that while engravings from works far
+less splendid in color are often vapid and cold, because the little
+color employed has not been rightly based on light and shade, an
+engraving from Turner is always beautiful and forcible in proportion as
+the color of the original has been intense, and never in a single
+instance has <span class="pagenum"><a name="page172"></a>[Page 172]</span> failed to express the picture as a perfect
+composition.<a name="FnAnchor_21" href="#Footnote_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> Powerful and captivating and faithful as his color is,
+it is the least important of all his excellences, because it is the
+least important feature of nature. He paints in color, but he thinks in
+light and shade; and were it necessary, rather than lose one line of his
+forms, or one ray of his sunshine, would, I apprehend, be content to
+paint in black and white to the end of his life. It is by mistaking the
+shadow for the substance, and aiming at the brilliancy and the fire,
+without perceiving of what deep-studied <span class="pagenum"><a name="page173"></a>[Page 173]</span> shade and inimitable
+form it is at once the result and the illustration, that the host of his
+imitators sink into deserved disgrace. With him, as with all the
+greatest painters, and in Turner's more than all, the hue is a beautiful
+auxiliary in working out the great impression to be conveyed, but is not
+the source nor the essence of that impression; it is little more than a
+visible melody, given to raise and assist the mind in the reception of
+nobler ideas&mdash;as sacred passages of sweet sound, to prepare the feelings
+for the reading of the mysteries of God.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19" href="#FnAnchor_19">[19]</a></p>
+<p class="poemq">
+"Cęcus adulator&mdash;Dignus <br />
+Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes, <br />
+Blandaque devexę iactaret basia rhedę."
+</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20" href="#FnAnchor_20">[20]</a> There is perhaps nothing more characteristic of a great colorist
+than his power of using greens in strange places without their being
+felt as such, or at least than a constant preference of green gray to
+purple gray. And this hue of Poussin's clouds would have been perfectly
+agreeable and allowable, had there been gold or crimson enough in the
+rest of the picture to have thrown it into gray. It is only because the
+lower clouds are pure white and blue, and because the trees are of the
+same color as the clouds, that the cloud color becomes false. There is a
+fine instance of a sky, green in itself, but turned gray by the
+opposition of warm color, in Turner's Devonport with the Dockyards.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21" href="#FnAnchor_21">[21]</a> This is saying too much; for it not unfrequently happens that the
+light and shade of the original is lost in the engraving, the effect of
+which is afterwards partially recovered, with the aid of the artist
+himself, by introductions of new features. Sometimes, when a drawing
+depends chiefly on color, the engraver gets unavoidably embarrassed, and
+must be assisted by some change or exaggeration of the effect; but the
+more frequent case is, that the engraver's difficulties result merely
+from his inattention to, or wilful deviations from his original; and
+that the artist is obliged to assist him by such expedients as the error
+itself suggests.</p>
+
+<p>Not unfrequently in reviewing a plate, as very constantly in reviewing a
+picture after some time has elapsed since its completion, even the
+painter is liable to make unnecessary or hurtful changes. In the plate
+of the Old Temeraire, lately published in Finden's gallery, I do not
+know whether it was Turner or the engraver who broke up the water into
+sparkling ripple, but it was a grievous mistake, and has destroyed the
+whole dignity and value of the conception. The flash of lightning in the
+Winchelsea of the England series does not exist in the original; it is
+put in to withdraw the attention of the spectator from the sky which the
+engraver destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>There is an unfortunate persuasion among modern engravers that color can
+be expressed by particular characters of line; and in the endeavor to
+distinguish by different lines, different colors of equal depth, they
+frequently lose the whole system of light and shade. It will hardly be
+credited that the piece of foreground on the left of Turner's Modern
+Italy, represented in the Art-Union engraving as nearly coal black, is
+in the original of a pale warm gray, hardly darker than the sky. All
+attempt to record color in engraving, is heraldry out of its place: the
+engraver has no power beyond that of expressing transparency or opacity
+by greater or less openness of line, (for the same depth of tint is
+producible by lines with very different intervals.)</p>
+
+<p>Texture of surface is only in a measure in the power of the steel, and
+ought not to be laboriously sought after; nature's surfaces are
+distinguished more by form than texture; a stone is often smoother than
+a leaf; but if texture is to be given, let the engraver at least be sure
+that he knows what the texture of the object actually is, and how to
+represent it. The leaves in the foreground of the engraved Mercury and
+Argus have all of them three or four black lines across them. What sort
+of leaf texture is supposed to be represented by these? The stones in
+the foreground of Turner's Llanthony received from the artist the
+powdery texture of sandstone; the engraver covered them with contorted
+lines and turned them into old timber.</p>
+
+<p>A still more fatal cause of failure is the practice of making out or
+finishing what the artist left incomplete. In the England plate of
+Dudley, there are two offensive blank windows in the large building with
+the chimney on the left. These <i>are</i> engraver's improvements; in the
+original they are barely traceable, their lines being excessively faint
+and tremulous as with the movement of heated air between them and the
+spectator: their vulgarity is thus taken away, and the whole building
+left in one grand unbroken mass. It is almost impossible to break
+engravers of this unfortunate habit. I have even heard of their taking
+journeys of some distance in order to obtain knowledge of the details
+which the artist intentionally omitted; and the evil will necessarily
+continue until they receive something like legitimate artistical
+education. In one or two instances, however, especially in small plates,
+they have shown great feeling; the plates of Miller (especially those of
+the Turner illustrations to Scott) are in most instances perfect and
+beautiful interpretations of the originals; so those of Goodall in
+Rogers's works, and Cousens's in the Rivers of France; those of the
+Yorkshire series are also very valuable, though singularly inferior to
+the drawings. But none even of these men appear capable of producing a
+large plate. They have no knowledge of the means of rendering their
+lines vital or valuable; cross-hatching stands for everything; and
+inexcusably, for though we cannot expect every engraver to etch like
+Rembrandt or Albert Durer, or every wood-cutter to draw like Titian, at
+least something of the system and power of the grand works of those men
+might be preserved, and some mind and meaning stolen into the
+reticulation of the restless modern lines.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page174"></a>[Page 174]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO.</h5>
+
+<p>It is not my intention to enter, in the present portion of the work,
+upon any examination of Turner's particular effects of light. We must
+know something about what is beautiful before <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p1">§ 1. We are not at present
+to examine particular effects of light.</a></span>we speak of these.</p>
+
+<p>At present I wish only to insist upon two great principles of
+chiaroscuro, which are observed throughout the works of the great modern
+master, and set at defiance by the ancients&mdash;great general laws, which
+may, or may not, be sources of beauty, but whose observance is
+indisputably necessary to truth.</p>
+
+<p>Go out some bright sunny day in winter, and look for a tree with a broad
+trunk, having rather delicate boughs hanging down on the sunny side,
+near the trunk. Stand four or five yards from it, with your back to the
+sun. You will find that the boughs between you and the trunk of the tree
+are very indistinct, that you confound them in places with the trunk
+itself, and cannot possibly trace one of them from its insertion to its
+extremity. But the shadows which they cast upon the trunk, you will find
+clear, dark, and distinct, perfectly traceable through their whole
+course, except when they are interrupted by the crossing boughs. And if
+you retire backwards, you will come to a point where you cannot see the
+intervening boughs at all, or only a fragment of them here and there,
+but can still see their shadows perfectly plain. Now, this may serve to
+show you the immense prominence and importance of shadows where there is
+anything like bright light. They are, in fact, commonly far more
+conspicuous than the thing which casts them, for being as large as the
+casting object, and altogether made up of a blackness deeper than the
+darkest part of the casting object, (while that object is also broken up
+with positive and reflected <span class="pagenum"><a name="page175"></a>[Page 175]</span> lights,) their large, broad,
+unbroken spaces, tell strongly on the eye, especially as all form is
+rendered partially, often totally invisible within them, and as they are
+suddenly terminated by the sharpest lines which nature ever shows. For
+no outline of objects whatsoever is so sharp as the edge of a close
+shadow. Put your finger over a piece of white paper in the sun, and
+observe the difference between the softness of the outline of the finger
+itself and the decision of the edge of the shadow. And note also the
+excessive gloom of the latter. A piece of black cloth, laid in the
+light, will not attain one-fourth of the blackness of the paper under
+the shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Hence shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most
+conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights. All forms
+are understood and explained chiefly by their <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p2">§ 2. And therefore the
+distinctness of shadows is the chief means of expressing vividness of
+light.</a></span>agency: the roughness of the bark of a tree, for instance, is not
+seen in the light, nor in the shade: it is only seen between the two,
+where the shadows of the ridges explain it. And hence, if we have to
+express vivid light, our very first aim must be to get the shadows sharp
+and visible; and this is not to be done by blackness, (though indeed
+chalk on white paper is the only thing which comes up to the intensity
+of real shadows,) but by keeping them perfectly flat, keen, and even. A
+very pale shadow, if it be quite flat&mdash;if it conceal the details of the
+objects it crosses&mdash;if it be gray and cold compared to their color, and
+very sharp edged, will be far more conspicuous, and make everything out
+of it look a great deal more like sunlight, than a shadow ten times its
+depth, shaded off at the edge, and confounded with <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p3">§ 3. Total absence of
+such distinctness in the works of the Italian school.</a></span>the color of the
+objects on which it falls. Now the old masters of the Italian school, in
+almost all of their works, directly reverse this principle: they blacken
+their shadows till the picture becomes quite appalling, and everything
+in it invisible; but they make a point of losing their edges, and
+carrying them off by gradation; in consequence utterly destroying every
+appearance of sunlight. All their shadows are the faint, secondary
+darknesses of mere <i>daylight</i>; the sun has nothing whatever to do with
+them. The shadow between the pages of the book which you hold in your
+hand is distinct and visible enough, (though you are, I suppose, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page176"></a>[Page
+176]</span> reading it by the ordinary daylight of your room,) out of the sun;
+and this weak and secondary shadow is all that we ever find in the
+Italian masters, as indicative of sunshine. Even <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p4">§ 4. And partial
+absence in the Dutch.</a></span>Cuyp and Berghem, though they know thoroughly well
+what they are about in their foregrounds, forget the principle in their
+distances; and though in Claude's seaports, where he has plain
+architecture to deal with, he gives us something like real shadows along
+the stones, the moment we come to ground and foliage with lateral light,
+away go the shadows and the sun together. In the Marriage of Isaac and
+Rebecca, in our own gallery, the trunks of the trees between the
+water-wheel and the white figure in the middle distance, are dark and
+visible; but their shadows are scarcely discernible on the ground, and
+are quite vague and lost in the building. In nature, every bit of the
+shadow would have been darker than the darkest part of the trunks, and
+both on the ground and building would have been defined and conspicuous;
+while the trunks themselves would have been faint, confused, and
+indistinguishable, in their illumined parts, from the grass or distance.
+So in Poussin's Phocion, the shadow of the stick on the stone in the
+right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see the stick plain
+all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct
+reverse&mdash;you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all the way
+down, but you would have had to look for the stick, which in all
+probability would in several places have been confused with the stone
+behind it.</p>
+
+<p>And so throughout the works of Claude, Poussin, and Salvator, we shall
+find, especially in their conventional foliage, and unarticulated
+barbarisms of rock, that their whole sum and substance of chiaroscuro is
+merely the gradation and variation which nature gives in the <i>body</i> of
+her shadows, and that all which they do to express sunshine, she does to
+vary shade. They take only one step, while she always takes two;
+marking, in the first place, with violent decision, the great transition
+from sun to shade, and then varying the shade itself with a thousand
+gentle gradations and double shadows, in themselves equivalent, and more
+than equivalent, to all that the old masters did for their entire
+chiaroscuro.</p>
+
+<p>Now if there be one principle, or secret more than another, on which
+Turner depends for attaining brilliancy of light, it is <span class="pagenum"><a name="page177"></a>[Page 177]</span> his
+clear and exquisite drawing of the <i>shadows</i>. Whatever is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p5">§ 5. The
+perfection of Turner's works in this respect.</a></span>obscure, misty, or
+undefined in his objects or his atmosphere, he takes care that the
+shadows be sharp and clear&mdash;and then he knows that the light will take
+care of itself, and he makes them clear, not by blackness, but by
+excessive evenness, unity, and sharpness of edge. He will keep them
+clear and distinct, and make them felt as shadows, though they are so
+faint, that, but for their decisive forms, we should not have observed
+them for darkness at all. He will throw them one after another like
+transparent veils, along the earth and upon the air, till the whole
+picture palpitates with them, and yet the darkest of them will be a
+faint gray, imbued and penetrated with light. The pavement on the left
+of the Hero and Leander, is about the most thorough piece of this kind
+of sorcery that I remember in art; but of the general principle, not one
+of his works is without constant evidence. Take the vignette of the
+garden opposite the title-page of Rogers's Poems, and note the drawing
+of the nearest balustrade on the right. The balusters themselves are
+faint and misty, and the light through them feeble; but the shadows of
+them are sharp and dark, and the intervening light as intense as it can
+be left. And see how much more distinct the shadow of the running figure
+is on the pavement, than the checkers of the pavement itself. Observe
+the shadows on the trunk of the tree at page 91, how they conquer all
+the details of the trunk itself, and become darker and more conspicuous
+than any part of the boughs or limbs, and so in the vignette to
+Campbell's Beechtree's Petition. Take the beautiful concentration of all
+that is most characteristic of Italy as she is, at page 168 of Rogers's
+Italy, where we have the long shadows of the trunks made by far the most
+conspicuous thing in the whole foreground, and hear how Wordsworth, the
+keenest-eyed of all modern poets for what is deep and essential in
+nature, illustrates Turner here, as we shall find him doing in all other
+points.</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"><span style="padding-left: 13em; ">
+                               "At the root <br /></span>
+Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare <br />
+And slender stem, while here I sit at eve, <br />
+Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path, <br />
+Traced faintly in the greensward." <br />
+
+<span style="padding-left: 14em; "><span class="sc">Excursion</span>, Book VI</span>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page178"></a>[Page 178]</span></p>
+
+<p>So again in the Rhymer's Glen, (Illustrations to Scott,) note the
+intertwining of the shadows across the path, and the checkering of the
+trunks by them; and again on the bridge in the Armstrong's Tower; and
+yet more in the long avenue of Brienne, where we have a length of two or
+three miles expressed by the playing shadows alone, and the whole
+picture filled with sunshine by the long lines of darkness cast by the
+figures on the snow. The Hampton Court in the England series, is another
+very striking instance. In fact, the general system of execution
+observable in all Turner's drawings, is to work his grounds richly and
+fully, sometimes stippling, and giving infinity of delicate, mysterious,
+and ceaseless detail; and on the ground so prepared to cast his shadows
+with one dash of the brush, leaving an excessively sharp edge of watery
+color. Such at least is commonly the case in such coarse and broad
+instances as those I <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p6">§ 6. The effect of his shadows upon the light.</a></span>have
+above given. Words are not accurate enough, nor delicate enough to
+express or trace the constant, all-pervading influence of the finer and
+vaguer shadows throughout his works, that thrilling influence which
+gives to the light they leave, its passion and its power. There is not a
+stone, not a leaf, not a cloud, over which light is not felt to be
+actually passing and palpitating before our eyes. There is the motion,
+the actual wave and radiation of the darted beam&mdash;not the dull universal
+daylight, which falls on the landscape without life, or direction, or
+speculation, equal on all things and dead on all things; but the
+breathing, animated, exulting light, which feels, and receives, and
+rejoices, and acts&mdash;which chooses one thing and rejects another&mdash;which
+seeks, and finds, and loses again&mdash;leaping from rock to rock, from leaf
+to leaf, from wave to wave,&mdash;glowing, or flashing, or scintillating,
+according to what it strikes, or in its holier moods, absorbing and
+enfolding all things in the deep fulness of its repose, and then again
+losing itself in bewilderment, and doubt, and dimness; or perishing and
+passing away, entangled in drifting mist, or melted into melancholy air,
+but still,&mdash;kindling, or declining, sparkling or still, it is the living
+light, which breathes in its deepest, most entranced rest, which sleeps,
+but never dies.</p>
+
+<p>I need scarcely insist farther on the marked distinction between the
+works of the old masters and those of the great <span class="pagenum"><a name="page179"></a>[Page 179]</span> modern
+landscape-painters in this respect. It is one which the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p7">§ 7. The
+distinction holds good between almost all the works of the ancient and
+modern schools.</a></span>reader can perfectly well work out for himself, by the
+slightest systematic attention,&mdash;one which he will find existing, not
+merely between this work and that, but throughout the whole body of
+their productions, and down to every leaf and line. And a little careful
+watching of nature, especially in her foliage and foregrounds, and
+comparison of her with Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator, will soon
+show him that those artists worked entirely on conventional principles,
+not representing what they saw, but what they thought would make a
+handsome picture; and even when they went to nature, which I believe to
+have been a very much rarer practice with them than their biographers
+would have us suppose, they copied her like children, drawing what they
+knew to be there, but not what they saw there.<a name="FnAnchor_22" href="#Footnote_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> I believe you may
+search the foregrounds of Claude, from one end of Europe to another, and
+you will not find the shadow of one leaf cast upon another. You will
+find leaf after leaf painted more or less boldly or brightly out of the
+black ground, and you will find dark leaves defined in perfect form upon
+the light; but you will not find the form of a single leaf disguised or
+interrupted by the shadow of another. And Poussin and Salvator are still
+farther from anything like genuine truth. There is nothing in their
+pictures which might not be manufactured in their painting-room, with a
+branch or two of brambles and a bunch or two of weeds before them, to
+give them the form of the leaves. And it is refreshing to turn from
+their ignorant and impotent repetitions of childish conception, to the
+clear, close, genuine studies of modern artists; for it is not Turner
+only, (though here, as in all other points, the first,) who is
+remarkable for fine and expressive decision of chiaroscuro. Some
+passages by J. D. Harding are thoroughly admirable in this respect,
+though this master is getting a little too much into a habit of general
+keen execution, which prevents the parts which ought to be especially
+decisive from being felt as such, and which makes his pictures,
+especially the large ones, look a little thin. But some of his later
+passages of rock foreground have, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page180"></a>[Page 180]</span> taken in the abstract,
+been beyond all praise, owing to the exquisite forms and firm
+expressiveness of their shadows. And the chiaroscuro of Stanfield is
+equally deserving of the most attentive study.</p>
+
+<p>The second point to which I wish at present to direct attention has
+reference to the <i>arrangement</i> of light and shade. It is the constant
+habit of nature to use both her highest lights and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p8">§ 8. Second great
+principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and deep shadow are used in
+equal quantity and only in points.</a></span>deepest shadows in exceedingly small
+quantity; always in points, never in masses. She will give a large mass
+of tender light in sky or water, impressive by its quantity, and a large
+mass of tender shadow relieved against it, in foliage, or hill, or
+building; but the light is always subdued if it be extensive&mdash;the shadow
+always feeble if it be broad. She will then fill up all the rest of her
+picture with middle tints and pale grays of some sort or another, and on
+this quiet and harmonious whole, she will touch her high lights in
+spots&mdash;the foam of an isolated wave&mdash;the sail of a solitary vessel&mdash;the
+flash of the sun from a wet roof&mdash;the gleam of a single whitewashed
+cottage&mdash;or some such sources of local brilliancy, she will use so
+vividly and delicately as to throw everything else into definite shade
+by comparison. And then taking up the gloom, she will use the black
+hollows of some overhanging bank, or the black dress of some shaded
+figure, or the depth of some sunless chink of wall or window, so sharply
+as to throw everything else into definite light by comparison; thus
+reducing the whole mass of her picture to a delicate middle tint,
+approaching, of course, here to light, and there to gloom; but yet
+sharply separated from the utmost degrees either of the one or the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is a curious thing that none of our writers on art seem to have
+noticed the great principle of nature in this respect. They all talk of
+deep shadow as a thing that may be given in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p9">§ 9. Neglect or
+contradiction of this principle by writers on art.</a></span>quantity,&mdash;one fourth
+of the picture, or, in certain effects, much more. Barry, for instance,
+says that the practice of the great painters, who "best understood the
+effects of chiaroscuro," was, for the most part, to make the mass of
+middle tint larger than the light, and the mass of dark larger than the
+masses of light and middle tint together, <i>i.e.</i>, occupying more than
+one-half of the picture. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page181"></a>[Page 181]</span> Now I do not know what we are to
+suppose is meant by "understanding chiaroscuro." If it means being able
+to manufacture agreeable patterns in the shape of pyramids, and crosses,
+and zigzags, into which arms and legs are to be persuaded, and passion
+and motion arranged, for the promotion and encouragement of the cant of
+criticism, such a principle may be productive of the most advantageous
+results. But if it means, being acquainted with the deep, perpetual,
+systematic, unintrusive simplicity and unwearied variety of nature's
+chiaroscuro&mdash;if it means the perception that blackness and sublimity are
+not synonymous, and that space and light may possibly be
+coadjutors&mdash;then no man, who ever advocated or dreamed of such a
+principle, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p10">§ 10. And consequent misguiding of the student.</a></span>is anything
+more than a novice, blunderer and trickster in chiaroscuro. And my firm
+belief is, that though color is inveighed against by all artists, as the
+great Circe of art&mdash;the great transformer of mind into sensuality&mdash;no
+fondness for it, no study of it, is half so great a peril and
+stumbling-block to the young student, as the admiration he hears
+bestowed on such artificial, false, and juggling chiaroscuro, and the
+instruction he receives, based on such principles as that given us by
+Fuseli&mdash;that "mere natural light and shade, however separately or
+individually true, is not always legitimate chiaroscuro in art." It may
+not always be <i>agreeable</i> to a sophisticated, unfeeling, and perverted
+mind; but the student had better throw up his art at once, than proceed
+on the conviction that any other can ever be <i>legitimate</i>. I believe I
+shall be perfectly well able to prove, in following parts of the work,
+that "mere natural light and shade" is the only fit and faithful
+attendant of the highest art; and that all tricks&mdash;all visible, intended
+arrangement&mdash;all extended shadows and narrow lights&mdash;everything in fact,
+in the least degree artificial, or tending to make the mind dwell upon
+light and shade as such, is an injury, instead of an aid, to conceptions
+of high ideal dignity. I believe I shall be able also to show, that
+nature manages her chiaroscuro a great deal more neatly and cleverly
+than people fancy;&mdash;that "mere natural light and shade" is a very much
+finer thing than most artists can put together, and that none think they
+can improve upon it but those who never understood it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page182"></a>[Page 182]</span></p>
+
+<p>But however this may be, it is beyond dispute that every permission
+given to the student to amuse himself with painting one figure all
+black, and the next all white, and throwing them out <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p11">§ 11. The great
+value of a simple chiaroscuro.</a></span>with a background of nothing&mdash;every
+permission given to him to spoil his pocketbook with sixths of sunshine
+and sevenths of shade, and other such fractional sublimities, is so much
+more difficulty laid in the way of his ever becoming a master; and that
+none are in the right road to real excellence, but those who are
+struggling to render the simplicity, purity, and inexhaustible variety
+of nature's own chiaroscuro in open, cloudless daylight, giving the
+expanse of harmonious light&mdash;the speaking, decisive shadow&mdash;and the
+exquisite grace, tenderness, and grandeur of aerial opposition of local
+color and equally illuminated lines. No chiaroscuro is so difficult as
+this; and none so noble, chaste, or impressive. On this part of the
+subject, however, I must not enlarge at present. I wish now only to
+speak of those great principles of chiaroscuro, which nature observes,
+even when she is most working for effect&mdash;when she is playing with
+thunder-clouds and sunbeams, and throwing one thing out and obscuring
+another, with the most marked artistical feeling and intention;&mdash;even
+then, she never forgets her great rule, to give precisely the same
+quantity of deepest shade which she does of highest light, and no more;
+points of the one answering to points of the other, and both vividly
+conspicuous and separated from all the rest of the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>And it is most singular that this separation, which is the great source
+of brilliancy in nature, should not only be unobserved, but absolutely
+forbidden by our great writers on art, who are <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p12">§ 12. The sharp
+separation of nature's lights from her middle tint.</a></span>always talking about
+connecting the light with the shade by <i>imperceptible gradations</i>. Now
+so surely as this is done, all sunshine is lost, for imperceptible
+gradation from light to dark is the characteristic of objects seen out
+of sunshine, in what is, in landscape, shadow. Nature's principle of
+getting light is the direct reverse. She will cover her whole landscape
+with middle tint, in which she will have as many gradations as you
+please, and a great many more than you can paint; but on this middle
+tint she touches her extreme lights, and extreme darks, isolated and
+sharp, so that the eye <span class="pagenum"><a name="page183"></a>[Page 183]</span> goes to them directly, and feels them
+to be key-notes of the whole composition. And although the dark touches
+are less attractive than the light ones, it is not because they are less
+distinct, but because they exhibit nothing; while the bright touches are
+in parts where everything is seen, and where in consequence the eye goes
+to rest. But yet the high lights do not exhibit anything in themselves,
+they are too bright and dazzle the eye; and having no shadows in them,
+cannot exhibit form, for form can only be seen by shadow of some kind or
+another. Hence the highest lights and deepest darks agree in this, that
+nothing is seen in either of them; that both are in exceedingly small
+quantity, and both are marked and distinct from the middle tones of the
+landscape&mdash;the one by their brilliancy, the other by their sharp edges,
+even though many of the more energetic middle tints may approach their
+intensity very closely.</p>
+
+<p>I need scarcely do more than tell you to glance at any one of the works
+of Turner, and you will perceive in a moment the exquisite observation
+of all these principles; the sharpness, decision, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c3p13">§ 13. The truth of
+Turner.</a></span>conspicuousness, and excessively small quantity, both of extreme
+light and extreme shade, all the mass of the picture being graduated and
+delicate middle tint. Take up the Rivers of France, for instance, and
+turn over a few of the plates in succession.</p>
+
+<p>1. Chateau Gaillard (vignette.)&mdash;Black figures and boats, points of
+shade; sun-touches on castle, and wake of boat, of light. See how the
+eye rests on both, and observe how sharp and separate all the lights
+are, falling in spots, edged by shadow, but not melting off into it.</p>
+
+<p>2. Orleans.&mdash;The crowded figures supply both points of shade and light.
+Observe the delicate middle tint of both in the whole mass of buildings,
+and compare this with the blackness of Canaletto's shadows, against
+which neither figures nor anything else can ever tell, as points of
+shade.</p>
+
+<p>3. Blois.&mdash;White figures in boats, buttresses of bridge, dome of church
+on the right, for light; woman on horseback, heads of boats, for shadow.
+Note especially the isolation of the light on the church dome.</p>
+
+<p>4. Chateau de Blois.&mdash;Torches and white figures for light, roof of
+chapel and monks' dresses for shade.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page184"></a>[Page 184]</span></p>
+
+<p>5. Beaugency.&mdash;Sails and spire opposed to buoy and boats. An exquisite
+instance of brilliant, sparkling, isolated touches of morning light.</p>
+
+<p>6. Amboise.&mdash;White sail and clouds; cypresses under castle.</p>
+
+<p>7. Chateau of Amboise.&mdash;The boat in the centre, with its reflections,
+needs no comment. Note the glancing lights under the bridge. This is a
+very glorious and perfect instance.</p>
+
+<p>8. St. Julien, Tours.&mdash;Especially remarkable for its preservation of
+deep points of gloom, because the whole picture is one of extended
+shade.</p>
+
+<p>I need scarcely go on. The above instances are taken as they happen to
+come, without selection. The reader can proceed for himself. I may,
+however, name a few cases of chiaroscuro more especially deserving of
+his study. Scene between Quilleb&oelig;uf and Villequier,&mdash;Honfleur,&mdash;Light
+Towers of the Héve,&mdash;On the Seine between Mantes and Vernon,&mdash;The
+Lantern at St. Cloud,&mdash;Confluence of Seine and Marne,&mdash;Troyes,&mdash;the
+first and last vignette, and those at pages 36, 63, 95, 184, 192, 203,
+of Rogers's poems; the first and second in Campbell, St. Maurice in the
+Italy, where note the black stork; Brienne, Skiddaw, Mayburgh, Melrose,
+Jedburgh, in the illustrations to Scott, and the vignettes to Milton,
+not because these are one whit superior to others of his works, but
+because the laws of which we have been speaking are more strikingly
+developed in them, and because they have been well engraved. It is
+impossible to reason from the larger plates, in which half the
+chiaroscuro is totally destroyed by the haggling, blackening, and
+"making out" of the engravers.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22" href="#FnAnchor_22">[22]</a> Compare Sect. II. Chap. II. § 6.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page185"></a>[Page 185]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF SPACE:&mdash;FIRST AS DEPENDENT ON THE FOCUS<br />
+OF THE EYE.<a name="FnAnchor_23" href="#Footnote_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a></h5>
+
+<p>In the first chapter of this section I noticed the distinction between
+real aerial perspective, and that overcharged contrast of light and
+shade by which the old masters obtained their deceptive <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p1">§ 1. Space is
+more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than by their
+hue.</a></span>effect; and I showed that, though inferior to them in the precise
+quality or tone of aerial color, our great modern master is altogether
+more truthful in the expression of the proportionate relation of all his
+distances to one another. I am now about to examine those modes of
+expressing space, both in nature and art by far the most important,
+which are dependent, not on the relative hues of objects, but on the
+<i>drawing</i> of them: by far the most important, I say, because the most
+constant and certain; for nature herself is not always aerial. Local
+effects are frequent which interrupt and violate the laws of aerial
+tone, and induce strange deception in our ideas of distance. I have
+often seen the summit of a snowy mountain look nearer than its base,
+owing to the perfect clearness of the upper air. But the <i>drawing</i> of
+objects, that is to say, the degree in which their details and parts are
+distinct or confused, is an unfailing and certain criterion of their
+distance; and if this be rightly rendered in a painting, we shall have
+genuine truth of space, in spite of many errors in aerial tone; while,
+if this be neglected, all space will <span class="pagenum"><a name="page186"></a>[Page 186]</span> be destroyed, whatever
+dexterity of tint may be employed to conceal the defective drawing.</p>
+
+<p>First, then, it is to be noticed, that the eye, like any other lens,
+must have its focus altered, in order to convey a distinct image of
+objects at different distances; so that it is totally impossible <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p2">§ 2. It
+is impossible to see objects at unequal distances distinctly at one
+moment.</a></span>to see distinctly, at the same moment, two objects, one of which
+is much farther off than another. Of this, any one may convince himself
+in an instant. Look at the bars of your window-frame, so as to get a
+clear image of their lines and form, and you cannot, while your eye is
+fixed on them, perceive anything but the most indistinct and shadowy
+images of whatever objects may be visible beyond. But fix your eyes on
+those objects, so as to see them clearly, and though they are just
+beyond and apparently beside the window-frame, that frame will only be
+felt or seen as a vague, flitting, obscure interruption to whatever is
+perceived beyond it. A little attention directed to this fact will
+convince every one of its universality, and prove beyond dispute that
+objects at unequal distances cannot be seen together, not from the
+intervention of air or mist, but from the impossibility of the rays
+proceeding from both, converging to the same focus, so that the whole
+impression, either of one or the other, must necessarily be confused,
+indistinct, and inadequate.</p>
+
+<p>But, be it observed (and I have only to request that whatever I say may
+be tested by immediate experiment,) the difference of focus necessary is
+greatest within the first five hundred yards, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p3">§ 3. Especially such as
+are both comparatively near.</a></span>and therefore, though it is totally
+impossible to see an object ten yards from the eye, and one a quarter of
+a mile beyond it, at the same moment, it is perfectly possible to see
+one a quarter of a mile off, and one five miles beyond it, at the same
+moment. The consequence of this is, practically, that in a real
+landscape, we can see the whole of what would be called the middle
+distance and distance together, with facility and clearness; but while
+we do so we can see nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and
+indistinct arrangement of lines and colors; and that if, on the
+contrary, we look at any foreground object, so as to receive a distinct
+impression of it, the distance and middle distance become all disorder
+and mystery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page187"></a>[Page 187]</span></p>
+
+<p>And therefore, if in a painting our foreground is anything, our distance
+must be nothing, and <i>vice versa</i>; for if we represent our near and
+distant objects as giving both at once that distinct <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p4">§ 4. In painting,
+therefore, either the foreground or distance must be partially
+sacrificed.</a></span>image to the eye, which we receive in nature from each, when
+we look at them separately;<a name="FnAnchor_24" href="#Footnote_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> and if we distinguish them from each
+other only by the air-tone; and indistinctness dependent on positive
+distance, we violate one of the most essential principles of nature; we
+represent that as seen at once which can only be seen by two separate
+acts of seeing, and tell a falsehood as gross as if we had represented
+four sides of a cubic object visible together.</p>
+
+<p>Now, to this fact and principle, no landscape painter of the old school,
+as far as I remember, ever paid the slightest attention. Finishing their
+foregrounds clearly and sharply, and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p5">§ 5. Which not being done by the
+old masters, they could not express space.</a></span>with vigorous impression on
+the eye, giving even the leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect
+edge and shape, they proceeded into the distance with equal attention to
+what they could see of its details&mdash;they gave all that the eye can
+perceive in a distance, when it is fully and entirely devoted to it, and
+therefore, though masters of aerial tone, though employing every
+expedient that art could supply to conceal the intersection of lines,
+though caricaturing the force and shadow of near objects to throw them
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188"></a>[Page 188]</span> close upon the eye, they <i>never</i> succeeded in truly
+representing <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p6">§ 6. But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying
+out this principle.</a></span>space. Turner introduced a new era in landscape art,
+by showing that the foreground might be sunk for the distance, and that
+it was possible to express immediate proximity to the spectator, without
+giving anything like completeness to the forms of the near objects. This
+is not done by slurred or soft lines, observe, (always the sign of vice
+in art,) but by a decisive imperfection, a firm, but partial assertion
+of form, which the eye feels indeed to be close home to it, and yet
+cannot rest upon, or cling to, nor entirely understand, and from which
+it is driven away of necessity, to those parts of distance on which it
+is intended to repose. And this principle, originated by Turner, though
+fully carried out by him only, has yet been acted on with judgment and
+success by several less powerful artists of the English school. Some six
+years ago, the brown moorland foregrounds of Copley Fielding were very
+instructive in this respect. Not a line in them was made out, not a
+single object clearly distinguishable. Wet broad sweeps of the brush,
+sparkling, careless, and accidental as nature herself, always truthful
+as far as they went, implying knowledge, though not expressing it,
+suggested everything, while they represented nothing. But far off into
+the mountain distance came the sharp edge and the delicate form; the
+whole intention and execution of the picture being guided and exerted
+where the great impression of space and size was to be given. The
+spectator was compelled to go forward into the waste of hills&mdash;there,
+where the sun broke wide upon the moor, he must walk and wander&mdash;he
+could not stumble and hesitate over the near rocks, nor stop to botanize
+on the first inches of his path.<a name="FnAnchor_25" href="#Footnote_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> And the impression of these
+pictures was always great and enduring, as it was simple and truthful. I
+do not know anything in art which has expressed more completely the
+force and feeling of nature in these particular scenes. And it is a
+farther illustration<a name="FnAnchor_26" href="#Footnote_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> <span class="pagenum"><a name="page189"></a>[Page 189]</span> of the principle we are insisting
+upon, that where, as in some of his later works, he has bestowed more
+labor on the foreground, the picture has lost both in space and
+sublimity. And among artists in general, who are either not aware of the
+principle, or fear to act upon it, (for it requires no small courage, as
+well as skill, to treat a foreground with that indistinctness and
+mystery which they have been accustomed to consider as characteristic of
+distance,) the foreground is not only felt, as every landscape painter
+will confess, to be the most embarrassing and unmanageable part of the
+picture, but, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, will go near to
+destroy the effect of the rest of the composition. Thus Callcott's Trent
+is severely injured by the harsh group of foreground figures; and
+Stanfield very rarely gets through an Academy picture without destroying
+much of its space, by too much determination of near form; while Harding
+constantly sacrifices his distance, and compels the spectator to dwell
+on the foreground altogether, though indeed, with such foregrounds as he
+gives us, we are most happy so to do. But it <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p7">§ 7. Especially of
+Turner.</a></span>is in Turner only that we see a bold and decisive choice of the
+distance and middle distance, as his great object of attention; and by
+him only that the foreground is united and adapted to it, not by any
+want of drawing, or coarseness, or carelessness of execution, but by the
+most precise and beautiful indication or suggestion of just so much of
+even the minutest forms as the eye can see when its focus is not adapted
+to them. And herein is another reason for the vigor and wholeness of the
+effect of Turner's works at any distance; while those of almost all
+other artists are sure to lose space as soon as we lose sight of the
+details.</p>
+
+<p>And now we see the reason for the singular, and to the ignorant in art,
+the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert
+that there is any reason whatsoever, for <i>bad</i> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c4p8">§ 8. Justification of the
+want of drawing in Turner's figures.</a></span>drawing, (though in landscape it
+matters exceedingly little;) but that there is both reason and necessity
+for that <i>want</i> of drawing which gives even the nearest figures round
+balls with four pink spots in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page190"></a>[Page 190]</span> them instead of faces, and
+four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally
+impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding
+from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the
+distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and
+features of near figures than Turner gives. And how absolutely necessary
+to the faithful representation of space this indecision really is, might
+be proved with the utmost ease by any one who had veneration enough for
+the artist to sacrifice one of his pictures to his fame; who would take
+some one of his works in which the figures were most incomplete, and
+have them painted in by any of our delicate and first-rate
+figure-painters, absolutely preserving every color and shade of Turner's
+group, so as not to lose one atom of the composition, but giving eyes
+for the pink spots, and feet for the white ones. Let the picture be so
+exhibited in the Academy, and even novices in art would feel at a glance
+that its truth of space was gone, that every one of its beauties and
+harmonies had undergone decomposition, that it was now a grammatical
+solecism, a painting of impossibilities, a thing to torture the eye, and
+offend the mind.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23" href="#FnAnchor_23">[23]</a> I have left this chapter in its original place, because I am more
+than ever convinced of the truth of the position advanced in the 8th
+paragraph; nor can I at present assign any other cause, than that here
+given, for what is there asserted; and yet I cannot but think that I
+have allowed far too much influence to a change so slight as that which
+we insensibly make in the focus of the eye; and that the real
+justification of Turner's practice, with respect to some of his
+foregrounds, is to be elsewhere sought. I leave the subject, therefore,
+to the reader's consideration.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24" href="#FnAnchor_24">[24]</a> This incapacity of the eye must not be confounded with its
+incapability to comprehend a large portion of <i>lateral</i> space at once.
+We indeed can see, at any one moment, little more than one point, the
+objects beside it being confused and indistinct; but we need pay no
+attention to this in art, because we can see just as little of the
+picture as we can of the landscape without turning the eye, and hence
+any slurring or confusing of one part of it, laterally, more than
+another, is not founded on any truth of nature, but is an expedient of
+the artist&mdash;and often an excellent and desirable one&mdash;to make the eye
+rest where he wishes it. But as the touch expressive of a distant object
+is as near upon the canvas as that expressive of a near one, both are
+seen distinctly and with the same focus of the eye, and hence an
+immediate contradiction of nature results, unless one or other be given
+with an artificial and increased indistinctness, expressive of the
+appearance peculiar to the unadapted focus. On the other hand, it must
+be noted that the greater part of the effect above described is
+consequent not on variation of focus, but on the different angle at
+which near objects are seen by each of the two eyes, when both are
+directed towards the distance.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25" href="#FnAnchor_25">[25]</a> There is no inconsistency, observe, between this passage and what
+was before asserted respecting the necessity of botanical
+fidelity&mdash;where the foreground is the object of attention. Compare Part
+II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. § 10:&mdash;"To paint mist rightly, space rightly,
+and light rightly, it may be often necessary to paint <i>nothing else</i>
+rightly."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26" href="#FnAnchor_26">[26]</a> Hardly. It would have been so only had the recently finished
+foregrounds been as accurate in detail as they are abundant: they are
+painful, I believe, not from their finish, but their falseness.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page191"></a>[Page 191]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF SPACE:&mdash;SECONDLY, AS ITS APPEARANCE IS<br />
+DEPENDENT ON THE POWER OF THE EYE.</h5>
+
+<p>In the last chapter, we have seen how indistinctness of individual
+distances becomes necessary in order to express the adaptation of the
+eye to one or other of them; we have now to <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p1">§ 1. The peculiar
+indistinctness dependent on the retirement of objects from the
+eye.</a></span>examine that kind of indistinctness which is dependent on real
+retirement of the object even when the focus of the eye is fully
+concentrated upon it. The first kind of indecision is that which belongs
+to all objects which the eye is not adapted to, whether near or far off:
+the second is that consequent upon the want of power in the eye to
+receive a clear image of objects at a great distance from it, however
+attentively it may regard them.</p>
+
+<p>Draw on a piece of white paper, a square and a circle, each about a
+twelfth or eighth of an inch in diameter, and blacken them so that their
+forms may be very distinct; place your paper against the wall at the end
+of the room, and retire from it a greater or less distance according as
+you have drawn the figures larger or smaller. You will come to a point
+where, though you can see both the spots with perfect plainness, you
+cannot tell which is the square and which the circle.</p>
+
+<p>Now this takes place of course with every object in a landscape, in
+proportion to its distance and size. The definite forms of the leaves of
+a tree, however sharply and separately they may <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p2">§ 2. Causes confusion,
+but not annihilation of details.</a></span>appear to come against the sky, are
+quite indistinguishable at fifty yards off, and the form of everything
+becomes confused before we finally lose sight of it. Now if the
+character of an object, say the front of a house, be explained by a
+variety of forms in it, as the shadows in the tops of the windows, the
+lines of the architraves, the seams of the masonry, etc.; these lesser
+details, as the object falls into distance, become confused and
+undecided, each of them losing <span class="pagenum"><a name="page192"></a>[Page 192]</span> their definite forms, but all
+being perfectly visible as something, a white or a dark spot or stroke,
+not lost sight of, observe, but yet so seen that we cannot tell what
+they are. As the distance increases, the confusion becomes greater,
+until at last the whole front of the house becomes merely a flat, pale
+space, in which, however, there is still observable a kind of richness
+and checkering, caused by the details in it, which, though totally
+merged and lost in the mass, have still an influence on the texture of
+that mass; until at last the whole house itself becomes a mere light or
+dark spot which we can plainly see, but cannot tell what it is, nor
+distinguish it from a stone or any other object.</p>
+
+<p>Now what I particularly wish to insist upon, is the state of vision in
+which all the details of an object are seen, and yet seen in such
+confusion and disorder that we cannot in the least tell <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p3">§3. Instances in
+various objects.</a></span>what they are, or what they mean. It is not mist between
+us and the object, still less is it shade, still less is it want of
+character; it is a confusion, a mystery, an interfering of undecided
+lines with each other, not a diminution of their number; window and
+door, architrave and frieze, all are there: it is no cold and vacant
+mass, it is full and rich and abundant, and yet you cannot see a single
+form so as to know what it is. Observe your friend's face as he is
+coming up to you; first it is nothing more than a white spot; now it is
+a face, but you cannot see the two eyes, nor the mouth, even as spots;
+you see a confusion of lines, a something which you know from experience
+to be indicative of a face, and yet you cannot tell how it is so. Now he
+is nearer, and you can see the spots for the eyes and mouth, but they
+are not blank spots neither; there is detail in them; you cannot see the
+lips, nor the teeth, nor the brows, and yet you see more than mere
+spots; it is a mouth and an eye, and there is light and sparkle and
+expression in them, but nothing distinct. Now he is nearer still, and
+you can see that he is like your friend, but you cannot tell whether he
+is or not; there is a vagueness and indecision of line still. Now you
+are sure, but even yet there are a thousand things in his face which
+have their effect in inducing the recognition, but which you cannot see
+so as to know what they are.</p>
+
+<p>Changes like these, and states of vision corresponding to them, take
+place with each and all of the objects of nature, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page193"></a>[Page 193]</span> two
+great principles of truth are deducible from their observation. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p4">§ 4. Two
+great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct, and never
+vacant.</a></span>First, place an object as close to the eye as you like, there is
+always something in it which you <i>cannot</i> see, except in the hinted and
+mysterious manner above described. You can see the texture of a piece of
+dress, but you cannot see the individual threads which compose it,
+though they are all felt, and have each of them influence on the eye.
+Secondly, place an object as far from the eye as you like, and until it
+becomes itself a mere spot, there is always something in it which you
+<i>can</i> see, though only in the hinted manner above described. Its shadows
+and lines and local colors are not lost sight of as it retires; they get
+mixed and indistinguishable, but they are still there, and there is a
+difference always perceivable between an object possessing such details
+and a flat or vacant space. The grass blades of a meadow a mile off, are
+so far discernible that there will be a marked difference between its
+appearance and that of a piece of wood painted green. And thus nature is
+never distinct and never vacant, she is always mysterious, but always
+abundant; you always see something, but you never see all.</p>
+
+<p>And thus arise that exquisite finish and fulness which God has appointed
+to be the perpetual source of fresh pleasure to the cultivated and
+observant eye,&mdash;a finish which no distance can render invisible, and no
+nearness comprehensible; which in every stone, every bough, every cloud,
+and every wave is multiplied around us, forever presented, and forever
+exhaustless. And hence in art, every space or touch in which we can see
+everything, or in which we can see nothing, is false. Nothing can be
+true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does
+not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which
+represents nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I would not wish for any more illustrative or marked examples of
+the total contradiction of these two great principles, than the
+landscape works of the old masters, taken as a body:&mdash;the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p5">§ 5. Complete
+violation of both these principles by the old masters. They are either
+distinct or vacant.</a></span>Dutch masters furnishing the cases of seeing
+everything, and the Italians of seeing nothing. The rule with both is
+indeed the same, differently applied. "You shall see the bricks in the
+wall, and be able to count them, or you shall see nothing but <span class="pagenum"><a name="page194"></a>[Page
+194]</span> a dead flat;" but the Dutch give you the bricks, and the Italians
+the flat. Nature's rule being the precise reverse&mdash;"You shall never be
+able to count the bricks, but you shall never see a dead space."</p>
+
+<p>Take, for instance, the street in the centre of the really great
+landscape of Poussin (great in feeling at least) marked 260 in the
+Dulwich Gallery. The houses are dead square masses with <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p6">§ 6. Instances
+from Nicholas Poussin.</a></span>a light side and a dark side, and black touches
+for windows. There is no suggestion of anything in any of the spaces,
+the light wall is dead gray, the dark wall dead gray, and the windows
+dead black. How differently would nature have treated us. She would have
+let us see the Indian corn hanging on the walls, and the image of the
+Virgin at the angles, and the sharp, broken, broad shadows of the tiled
+eaves, and the deep ribbed tiles with the doves upon them, and the
+carved Roman capital built into the wall, and the white and blue stripes
+of the mattresses stuffed out of the windows, and the flapping corners
+of the mat blinds. All would have been there; not as such, not like the
+corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not to be comprehended nor understood, but
+a confusion of yellow and black spots and strokes, carried far too fine
+for the eye to follow, microscopic in its minuteness, and filling every
+atom and part of space with mystery, out of which would have arranged
+itself the general impression of truth and life.</p>
+
+<p>Again, take the distant city on the right bank of the river in Claude's
+Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, in the National Gallery. I have seen many
+cities in my life, and drawn not a few; <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p7">§ 7. From Claude.</a></span>and I have seen
+many fortifications, fancy ones included, which frequently supply us
+with very new ideas indeed, especially in matters of proportion; but I
+do not remember ever having met with either a city or a fortress
+<i>entirely</i> composed of round towers of various heights and sizes, all
+facsimiles of each other, and absolutely agreeing in the number of
+battlements. I have, indeed, some faint recollection of having
+delineated such an one in the first page of a spelling-book when I was
+four years old; but, somehow or other, the dignity and perfection of the
+ideal were not appreciated, and the volume was not considered to be
+increased in value by the frontispiece. Without, however, venturing to
+doubt the entire sublimity of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page195"></a>[Page 195]</span> the same ideal as it occurs in
+Claude, let us consider how nature, if she had been fortunate enough to
+originate so perfect a conception, would have managed it in its details.
+Claude has permitted us to see every battlement, and the first impulse
+we feel upon looking at the picture is to count how many there are.
+Nature would have given us a peculiar confused roughness of the upper
+lines, a multitude of intersections and spots, which we should have
+known from experience was indicative of battlements, but which we might
+as well have thought of creating as of counting. Claude has given you
+the walls below in one dead void of uniform gray. There is nothing to be
+seen, nor felt, nor guessed at in it; it is gray paint or gray shade,
+whichever you may choose to call it, but it is nothing more. Nature
+would have let you see, nay, would have compelled you to see, thousands
+of spots and lines, not one to be absolutely understood or accounted
+for, but yet all characteristic and different from each other; breaking
+lights on shattered stones, vague shadows from waving vegetation,
+irregular stains of time and weather, mouldering hollows, sparkling
+casements&mdash;all would have been there&mdash;none, indeed, seen as such, none
+comprehensible or like themselves, but all visible; little shadows, and
+sparkles, and scratches, making that whole space of color a transparent,
+palpitating, various infinity.</p>
+
+<p>Or take one of Poussin's extreme distances, such as that in the
+Sacrifice of Isaac. It is luminous, retiring, delicate and perfect in
+tone, and is quite complete enough to deceive and delight <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p8">§ 8. And G.
+Poussin.</a></span>the careless eye to which all distances are alike; nay, it is
+perfect and masterly, and absolutely right if we consider it as a
+sketch,&mdash;as a first plan of a distance, afterwards to be carried out in
+detail. But we must remember that all these alternate spaces of gray and
+gold are not the landscape itself, but the treatment of it&mdash;not its
+substance, but its light and shade. They are just what nature would cast
+over it, and write upon it with every cloud, but which she would cast in
+play, and without carefulness, as matters of the very smallest possible
+importance. All her work and her attention would be given to bring out
+from underneath this, and through this, the forms and the material
+character which this can only be valuable to illustrate, not to conceal.
+Every one of those broad spaces she <span class="pagenum"><a name="page196"></a>[Page 196]</span> would linger over in
+protracted delight, teaching you fresh lessons in every hairsbreadth of
+it, and pouring her fulness of invention into it, until the mind lost
+itself in following her,&mdash;now fringing the dark edge of the shadow with
+a tufted line of level forest&mdash;now losing it for an instant in a breath
+of mist&mdash;then breaking it with the white gleaming angle of a narrow
+brook&mdash;then dwelling upon it again in a gentle, mounded, melting
+undulation, over the other side of which she would carry you down into a
+dusty space of soft, crowded light, with the hedges, and the paths, and
+the sprinkled cottages and scattered trees mixed up and mingled together
+in one beautiful, delicate, impenetrable mystery&mdash;sparkling and melting,
+and passing away into the sky, without one line of distinctness, or one
+instant of vacancy.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is, indeed, impossible for the painter to follow all this&mdash;he
+cannot come up to the same degree and order of infinity&mdash;but he can give
+us a lesser kind of infinity. He has not one-thousandth <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p9">§ 9. The
+imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness and finish.</a></span>part
+of the space to occupy which nature has; but he can, at least, leave no
+part of that space vacant and unprofitable. If nature carries out her
+minutię over miles, he has no excuse for generalizing in inches. And if
+he will only give us all he can, if he will give us a fulness as
+complete and as mysterious as nature's, we will pardon him for its being
+the fulness of a cup instead of an ocean. But we will not pardon him,
+if, because he has not the mile to occupy, he will not occupy the inch,
+and because he has fewer means at his command, will leave half of those
+in his power unexerted. Still less will we pardon him for mistaking the
+sport of nature for her labor, and for following her only in her hour of
+rest, without observing how she has worked for it. After spending
+centuries in raising the forest, and guiding the river, and modelling
+the mountain, she exults over her work in buoyancy of spirit, with
+playful sunbeam and flying cloud; but the painter must go through the
+same labor, or he must not have the same recreation. Let him chisel his
+rock faithfully, and tuft his forest delicately, and then we will allow
+him his freaks of light and shade, and thank him for them; but we will
+not be put off with the play before the lesson&mdash;with <span class="pagenum"><a name="page197"></a>[Page 197]</span> the
+adjunct instead of the essence&mdash;with the illustration instead of the
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>I am somewhat anticipating my subject here, because I can scarcely help
+answering the objections which I know must arise in the minds of most
+readers, especially of those who are <i>partially</i> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p10">§ 10. Breadth is not
+vacancy.</a></span>artistical, respecting "generalization," "breadth," "effect,"
+etc. It were to be wished that our writers on art would not dwell so
+frequently on the necessity of breadth, without explaining what it
+means; and that we had more constant reference made to the principle
+which I can only remember having seen once clearly explained and
+insisted on,&mdash;that breadth is not vacancy. Generalization is unity, not
+destruction of parts; and composition is not annihilation, but
+arrangement of materials. The breadth which unites the truths of nature
+with her harmonies, is meritorious and beautiful; but the breadth which
+annihilates those truths by the million, is not painting nature, but
+painting over her. And so the masses which result from right concords
+and relations of details, are sublime and impressive; but the masses
+which result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and
+painful.<a name="FnAnchor_27" href="#Footnote_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> And we shall show, in following parts of the work, that
+distances like those of Poussin are mere meaningless tricks of clever
+execution, which, when once discovered, the artist may repeat over and
+over again, with mechanical contentment and perfect satisfaction, both
+to himself and to his superficial admirers, with no more exertion of
+intellect nor awakening of feeling than any tradesman has in multiplying
+some ornamental pattern of furniture. Be this as it may, however, (for
+we cannot enter upon the discussion of the question here,) the falsity
+and imperfection of such distances admit of no dispute. Beautiful and
+ideal they may be; true they are not: and in the same way we might go
+through every part and portion of the works of the old masters, showing
+throughout, either that you have every leaf and blade of grass staring
+defiance to the mystery of nature, or that you have dead spaces of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198"></a>[Page 198]</span> absolute vacuity, equally determined in their denial of her
+fulness. And even if we ever find (as here and there, in their better
+pictures, we do) changeful passages of agreeable playing color, or
+mellow and transparent modulations of mysterious atmosphere, even here
+the touches, though satisfactory to the eye, are suggestive of
+nothing,&mdash;they are characterless,&mdash;they have none of the peculiar
+expressiveness and meaning by which nature maintains the variety and
+interest even of what she most conceals. She always tells a story,
+however hintedly and vaguely; each of her touches is different from all
+the others; and we feel with every one, that though we cannot tell what
+it is, it cannot be <i>anything</i>; while even the most dexterous distances
+of the old masters pretend to secrecy without having anything to
+conceal, and are ambiguous, not from the concentration of meaning, but
+from the want of it.</p>
+
+<p>And now, take up one of Turner's distances, it matters not which, or of
+what kind,&mdash;drawing or painting, small or great, done thirty years ago,
+or for last year's Academy, as you like; <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p11">§ 11. The fulness and mystery
+of Turner's distances.</a></span>say that of the Mercury and Argus, and look if
+every fact which I have just been pointing out in nature be not carried
+out in it. Abundant, beyond the power of the eye to embrace or follow,
+vast and various, beyond the power of the mind to comprehend, there is
+yet not one atom in its whole extent and mass which does not suggest
+more than it represents; nor does it suggest vaguely, but in such a
+manner as to prove that the conception of each individual inch of that
+distance is absolutely clear and complete in the master's mind, a
+separate picture fully worked out: but yet, clearly and fully as the
+idea is formed, just so much of it is given, and no more, as nature
+would have allowed us to feel or see; just so much as would enable a
+spectator of experience and knowledge to understand almost every minute
+fragment of separate detail, but appears, to the unpractised and
+careless eye, just what a distance of nature's own would appear, an
+unintelligible mass. Not one line out of the millions there is without
+meaning, yet there is not one which is not affected and disguised by the
+dazzle and indecision of distance. No form is made out, and yet no form
+is unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the truth of this system of drawing is better to be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page199"></a>[Page 199]</span>
+understood by observing the distant character of rich architecture, than
+of any other object. Go to the top of Highgate Hill <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p12">§ 12. Farther
+illustrations in architectural drawing.</a></span>on a clear summer morning at five
+o'clock, and look at Westminster Abbey. You will receive an impression
+of a building enriched with multitudinous vertical lines. Try to
+distinguish one of those lines all the way down from the one next to it:
+You cannot. Try to count them: You cannot. Try to make out the beginning
+or end of any one of them: You cannot. Look at it generally, and it is
+all symmetry and arrangement. Look at in its parts, and it is all
+inextricable confusion. Am not I, at this moment, describing a piece of
+Turner's drawing, with the same words by which I describe nature? And
+what would one of the old masters have done with such a building as this
+in his distance? Either he would only have given the shadows of the
+buttresses, and the light and dark sides of the two towers, and two dots
+for the windows; or if more ignorant and more ambitious, he had
+attempted to render some of the detail, it would have been done by
+distinct lines,&mdash;would have been broad caricature of the delicate
+building, felt at once to be false, ridiculous, and offensive. His most
+successful effort would only have given us, through his carefully toned
+atmosphere, the effect of a colossal parish church, without one line of
+carving on its economic sides. Turner, and Turner only, would follow and
+render on the canvas that mystery of decided line,&mdash;that distinct,
+sharp, visible, but unintelligible and inextricable richness, which,
+examined part by part, is to the eye nothing but confusion and defeat,
+which, taken as a whole, is all unity, symmetry, and truth.<a name="FnAnchor_28" href="#Footnote_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Nor is this mode of representation true only with respect to distances.
+Every object, however near the eye, has something about it which you
+cannot see, and which brings the mystery of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p13">§ 13. In near objects as
+well as distances.</a></span>distance even into every part and portion of what we
+suppose ourselves to see most distinctly. Stand in the Piazza di St.
+Marco at Venice, as close to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page200"></a>[Page 200]</span> the church as you can, without
+losing sight of the top of it. Look at the capitals of the columns on
+the second story. You see that they are exquisitely rich, carved all
+over. Tell me their patterns: You cannot. Tell me the direction of a
+single line in them: You cannot. Yet you see a multitude of lines, and
+you have so much feeling of a certain tendency and arrangement in those
+lines, that you are quite sure the capitals are beautiful, and that they
+are all different from each other. But <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p14">§ 14. Vacancy and falsehood of
+Canaletto.</a></span>I defy you to make out one single line in any one of them. Now
+go to Canaletto's painting of this church, in the Palazzo Manfrini,
+taken from the very spot on which you stood. How much has he represented
+of all this? A black dot under each capital for the shadow, and a yellow
+one above it for the light. There is not a vestige nor indication of
+carving or decoration of any sort or kind.</p>
+
+<p>Very different from this, but erring on the other side, is the ordinary
+drawing of the architect, who gives the principal lines of the design
+with delicate clearness and precision, but with no uncertainty or
+mystery about them; which mystery being removed, all space and size are
+destroyed with it, and we have a drawing of a model, not of a building.
+But in the capital lying on the foreground in Turner's Daphne hunting
+with Leucippus, we have the perfect truth. Not one jag of the acanthus
+leaves is absolutely visible, the lines are all disorder, but you feel
+in an instant that all are there. And so it will invariably be found
+through every portion of detail in his late and most perfect works.</p>
+
+<p>But if there be this mystery and inexhaustible finish merely in the more
+delicate instances of architectural decoration, how much more in the
+ceaseless and incomparable decoration of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p15">§ 15. Still greater fulness and
+finish in landscape foregrounds.</a></span>nature. The detail of a single weedy
+bank laughs the carving of ages to scorn. Every leaf and stalk has a
+design and tracery upon it,&mdash;every knot of grass an intricacy of shade
+which the labor of years could never imitate, and which, if such labor
+could follow it out even to the last fibres of the leaflets, would yet
+be falsely represented, for, as in all other cases brought forward, it
+is not clearly seen, but confusedly and mysteriously. That which is
+nearness for the bank, is distance for its details; and however near it
+may be, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page201"></a>[Page 201]</span> the greater part of those details are still a
+beautiful incomprehensibility.<a name="FnAnchor_29" href="#Footnote_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page202"></a>[Page 202]</span></p>
+
+<p>Hence, throughout the picture, the expression of space and size is
+dependent upon obscurity, united with, or rather resultant from,
+exceeding fulness. We destroy both space and size, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p16">§ 16. Space and size
+are destroyed alike by distinctness and by vacancy.</a></span>either by the
+vacancy, which affords us no measure of space, or by the distinctness,
+which gives us a false one. The distance of Poussin, having no
+indication of trees, nor of meadows, nor of character of any kind, may
+be fifty miles off, or may be five; we cannot tell&mdash;we have no measure,
+and in consequence, no vivid impression. But a middle distance of
+Hobbima's involves a contradiction in terms; it states a distance by
+perspective, which it contradicts by distinctness of detail.</p>
+
+<p>A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is more truly expressive of the
+infinity of foliage, than the niggling of Hobbima could have rendered
+his canvas, if he had worked on it till doomsday. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p17">§ 17. Swift execution
+best secures perfection of details.</a></span>What Sir J. Reynolds says of the
+misplaced labor of his Roman acquaintance on separate leaves of foliage,
+and the certainty he expresses that a man who attended to general
+character would in five minutes produce a more faithful representation
+of a tree, than the unfortunate mechanist in as many years, is thus
+perfectly true and well founded; but this is not because details are
+undesirable, but because they are best given by swift execution, and
+because, individually, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p18">§ 18. Finish is far more necessary in landscape
+than in historical subjects.</a></span>they cannot be given at all. But it should
+be observed (though we shall be better able to insist upon this point in
+future) that much of harm and error has arisen from the supposition and
+assertions of swift and brilliant historical painters, that the same
+principles of execution are entirely applicable to landscape, which are
+right for the figure. The artist who falls into extreme detail in
+drawing the human form, is apt to become disgusting rather than
+pleasing. It is more agreeable that the general outline and soft hues of
+flesh should alone be given, than its hairs, and veins, and lines of
+intersection. And even the most rapid and generalizing expression of the
+human body, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page203"></a>[Page 203]</span> if directed by perfect knowledge, and rigidly
+faithful in drawing, will commonly omit very little of what is agreeable
+or impressive. But the exclusively generalizing landscape painter omits
+the whole of what is valuable in his subject,&mdash;omits thoughts, designs,
+and beauties by the million, everything, indeed, which can furnish him
+with variety or expression. A distance in Lincolnshire, or in Lombardy,
+might both be generalized into such blue and yellow stripes as we see in
+Poussin; but whatever there is of beauty or character in either, depends
+altogether on our understanding the details, and feeling the difference
+between the morasses and ditches of the one, and the rolling sea of
+mulberry trees of the other. And so in every part of the subject. I have
+no hesitation in asserting that it is <i>impossible</i> to go too fine, or
+think too much about details in landscape, so that they be rightly
+arranged and rightly massed; but that it is equally impossible to render
+anything like the fulness or the space of nature, except by that mystery
+and obscurity of execution which she herself uses, and in which Turner
+only has followed her.</p>
+
+<p>We have now rapidly glanced at such general truths of nature as can be
+investigated without much knowledge of what is beautiful. Questions of
+arrangement, massing, and generalization, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s2c5p19">§ 19. Recapitulation of the
+section.</a></span>I prefer leaving untouched, until we know something about
+details, and something about what is beautiful. All that is desirable,
+even in these mere technical and artificial points, is based upon truths
+and habits of nature; but we cannot understand those truths until we are
+acquainted with the specific forms and minor details which they affect,
+or out of which they arise. I shall, therefore, proceed to examine the
+invaluable and essential truths of specific character and form&mdash;briefly
+and imperfectly, indeed, as needs must be, but yet at length sufficient
+to enable the reader to pursue, if he will, the subject for himself.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27" href="#FnAnchor_27">[27]</a> Of course much depends upon the kind of detail so lost. An artist
+may generalize the trunk of a tree, where he only loses lines of bark,
+and do us a kindness; but he must not generalize the details of a
+champaign, in which there is a history of creation. The full discussion
+of the subject belongs to a future part of our investigation.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28" href="#FnAnchor_28">[28]</a> Vide, for illustration, Fontainebleau, in the Illustrations to
+Scott; Vignette at opening of Human Life, in Rogers's Poems; Venice, in
+the Italy; Chateau de Blois; the Rouen, and Pont Neuf, Paris, in the
+Rivers of France. The distances of all the Academy pictures of Venice,
+especially the Shylock, are most instructive.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29" href="#FnAnchor_29">[29]</a> It is to be remembered, however, that these truths present
+themselves in all probability under very different phases to individuals
+of different powers of vision. Many artists who appear to generalize
+rudely or rashly are perhaps faithfully endeavoring to render the
+appearance which nature bears to sight of limited range. Others may be
+led by their singular keenness of sight into inexpedient detail. Works
+which are painted for effect at a certain distance must be always seen
+at disadvantage by those whose sight is of different range from the
+painter's. Another circumstance to which I ought above to have alluded
+is the scale of the picture; for there are different degrees of
+generalization, and different necessities of symbolism, belonging to
+every scale: the stipple of the miniature painter would be offensive on
+features of the life size, and the leaves with Tintoret may articulate
+on a canvas of sixty feet by twenty-five, must be generalized by Turner
+on one of four by three. Another circumstance of some importance is the
+assumed distance of the foreground; many landscape painters seem to
+think their nearest foreground is always equally near, whereas its
+distance from the spectator varies not a little, being always at least
+its own calculable breadth from side to side as estimated by figures or
+any other object of known size at the nearest part of it. With Claude
+almost always; with Turner often, as in the Daphne and Leucippus, this
+breadth is forty or fifty yards; and as the nearest foreground object
+<i>must</i> then be at least that distance removed, and <i>may</i> be much more,
+it is evident that no completion of close detail is in such cases
+allowable, (see here another proof of Claude's erroneous practice;) with
+Titian and Tintoret, on the contrary, the foreground is rarely more than
+five or six yards broad, and its objects therefore being only five or
+six yards distant are entirely detailed.</p>
+
+<p>None of these circumstances, however, in any wise affect the great
+principle, the confusion of detail taking place sooner or later in all
+cases. I ought to have noted, however, that many of the pictures of
+Turner in which the confused drawing has been least understood, have
+been luminous <i>twilights</i>; and that the uncertainty of twilight is
+therefore added to that of general distance. In the evenings of the
+south it not unfrequently happens that objects touched with the
+reflected light of the western sky, continue even for the space of half
+an hour after sunset, glowing, ruddy, and intense in color, and almost
+as bright as if they were still beneath actual sunshine, even till the
+moon begins to cast a shadow: but in spite of this brilliancy of color
+all the details become ghostly and ill-defined. This is a favorite
+moment of Turner's, and he invariably characterizes it, not by gloom,
+but by uncertainty of detail. I have never seen the effect of clear
+twilight thoroughly rendered by art; that effect in which all details
+are lost, while intense clearness and light are still felt in the
+atmosphere, in which nothing is distinctly seen, and yet it is not
+darkness, far less mist, that is the cause of concealment. Turner's
+efforts at rendering this effect (as the Wilderness of Engedi, Assos,
+Chateau de Blois, Caerlaverock, and others innumerable,) have always
+some slight appearance of mistiness, owing to the indistinctness of
+details; but it remains to be shown that any closer approximation to the
+effect is possible.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page204"></a>[Page 204]</span></p>
+<h3>SECTION III.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF TRUTH OF SKIES.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE OPEN SKY.</h5>
+
+<p>It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky.
+It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of
+pleasing man, more for the sole and evident <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p1">§ 1. The peculiar adaptation
+of the sky to the pleasing and teaching of man.</a></span>purpose of talking to him
+and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the
+part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other
+works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere
+pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but
+every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be
+answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great ugly black rain
+cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so
+all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a film of morning and
+evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any
+day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene,
+picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such
+exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is
+quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual
+pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources
+of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest
+scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended
+that man should live always in the midst of them, he injures them by his
+presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them; but the sky
+is for all; bright as it is, it is not "too bright, nor good, for human
+nature's daily food;" <span class="pagenum"><a name="page205"></a>[Page 205]</span> it is fitted in all its functions for
+the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and
+purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes
+capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together;
+almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost
+divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as
+distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p2">§ 2. The
+carelessness with which its lessons are received.</a></span>to what is mortal is
+essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a subject of
+thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations; we look upon
+all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes, upon all which
+bears witness to the intention of the Supreme, that we are to receive
+more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share
+with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and
+monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of
+watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of utter
+idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of
+its phenomena do we speak of? One says it has been wet, and another it
+has been windy, and another it has been warm. Who, among the whole
+chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the
+chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday?
+Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south, and smote upon
+their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue
+rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them
+last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves?
+All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy be ever shaken
+off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or what is
+extraordinary; and yet it <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p3">§ 3. The most essential of these lessons are
+the gentlest.</a></span>is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the
+elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the
+whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime are developed. God
+is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still small voice.
+They are but the blunt and the low faculties of our nature, which can
+only be addressed through lampblack and lightning. It is in quiet and
+subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the
+perpetual,&mdash;that which must be sought <span class="pagenum"><a name="page206"></a>[Page 206]</span> ere it is seen, and
+loved ere it is understood,&mdash;things which the angels work out for us
+daily, and yet vary eternally, which are never wanting, and never
+repeated, which are to be found always yet each found but once; it is
+through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and the
+blessing of beauty given. These are what the artist of highest aim must
+study; it <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p4">§4. Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional.</a></span>is these,
+by the combination of which his ideal is to be created; these, of which
+so little notice is ordinarily taken by common observers, that I fully
+believe, little as people in general are concerned with art, more of
+their ideas of sky are derived from pictures than from reality, and that
+if we could examine the conception formed in the minds of most educated
+persons when we talk of clouds, it would frequently be found composed of
+fragments of blue and white reminiscences of the old masters.</p>
+
+<p>I shall enter upon the examination of what is true in sky at greater
+length, because it is the only part of a picture of which all, if they
+will, may be competent judges. What I may have to assert respecting the
+rocks of Salvator, or the boughs of Claude, I can scarcely prove, except
+to those whom I can immure for a month or two in the fastnesses of the
+Apennines, or guide in their summer walks again and again through the
+ravines of Sorrento. But what I say of the sky can be brought to an
+immediate test by all, and I write the more decisively, in the hope that
+it may be so.</p>
+
+<p>Let us begin then with the simple open blue of the sky. This is of
+course the color of the pure atmospheric air, not the aqueous vapor, but
+the pure azote and oxygen, and it is the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p5">§ 5. Nature and essential
+qualities of the open blue.</a></span>total color of the whole mass of that air
+between us and the void of space. It is modified by the varying quantity
+of aqueous vapor suspended in it, whose color, in its most imperfect,
+and therefore most visible, state of solution, is pure white, (as in
+steam,) which receives, like any other white, the warm hues of the rays
+of the sun, and, according to its quantity and imperfect solution, makes
+the sky paler, and at the same time more or less gray, by mixing warm
+tones with its blue. This gray aqueous vapor, when very decided, becomes
+mist, and when local, cloud. Hence the sky is to be considered as a
+transparent blue liquid, in which, at <span class="pagenum"><a name="page207"></a>[Page 207]</span> various elevations,
+clouds are suspended, those clouds being themselves only particular
+visible spaces of a substance with which the whole mass of this liquid
+is more or less impregnated. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p6">§ 6. Its connection with clouds.</a></span>Now, we all
+know this perfectly well, and yet we so far forget it in practice, that
+we little notice the constant connection kept up by nature between her
+blue and her clouds, and we are not offended by the constant habit of
+the old masters, of considering the blue sky as totally distinct in its
+nature, and far separated from the vapors which float in it. With them,
+cloud is cloud, and blue is blue, and no kind of connection between them
+is ever hinted at. The sky is thought of as a clear, high material dome,
+the clouds as separate bodies, suspended beneath it, and in consequence,
+however delicate and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p7">§ 7. Its exceeding depth.</a></span>exquisitely removed in
+tone their skies may be, you always look <i>at</i> them, not <i>through</i> them.
+Now, if there be one characteristic of the sky more valuable or
+necessary to be rendered than another, it is that which Wordsworth has
+given in the second book of the Excursion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"><span style="padding-left: 5em; ">
+          "The chasm of sky above my head <br /></span>
+Is Heaven's profoundest azure. No domain <br />
+For fickle, short-lived clouds, to occupy, <br />
+Or to pass through;&mdash;but rather an <i>abyss</i> <br />
+In which the everlasting stars abide, <br />
+And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt <br />
+The curious eye to look for them by day."
+</p>
+
+<p>And, in his American Notes, I remember Dickens notices the same truth,
+describing himself as lying drowsily on the barge deck, looking not at,
+but <i>through</i> the sky. And if you look intensely at the pure blue of a
+serene sky, you will see that there is a variety and fulness in its very
+repose. It is not flat dead color, but a deep, quivering, transparent
+body of penetrable air, in which you trace or imagine short, falling
+spots of deceiving light, and dim shades, faint, veiled vestiges of dark
+vapor; and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p8">§ 8. These qualities are especially given by modern
+masters.</a></span>it is this trembling transparency which our great modern master
+has especially aimed at and given. His blue is never laid on in smooth
+coats, but in breaking, mingling, melting hues, a quarter of an inch of
+which, cut off from all the rest of the picture, is still <i>spacious</i>,
+still infinite and immeasurable in depth. It is a painting of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page208"></a>[Page
+208]</span> air, something into which you can see, through the parts which are
+near you into those which are far off; something which has no surface,
+and through which we can plunge far and farther, and without stay or
+end, into the profundity of space;&mdash;whereas, with all the old landscape
+painters, except Claude, you may indeed go a long way before you come to
+the sky, but you will strike hard against it at last. A perfectly
+genuine and untouched <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p9">§ 9. And by Claude.</a></span>sky of Claude is indeed most
+perfect, and beyond praise, in all qualities of air; though even with
+him, I often feel rather that there is a great deal of pleasant air
+between me and the firmament, than that the firmament itself is only
+air. I do not mean, however, to say a word against such skies as that of
+the Enchanted Castle, or that marked 30 in the National Gallery, or one
+or two which I remember at Rome; but how little and by how few these
+fine passages of Claude are appreciated, is sufficiently proved by the
+sufferance of such villainous and unpalliated copies as we meet with all
+over Europe, like the Marriage of Isaac, in our own Gallery, to remain
+under his name. In fact, I do not remember above ten pictures of
+Claude's, in which the skies, whether repainted or altogether copies, or
+perhaps from Claude's hand, but carelessly laid in, like that marked
+241, Dulwich Gallery, were not fully as feelingless and false as those
+of other masters; while, with the Poussins, there are no favorable
+exceptions. Their skies are systematically wrong; take, for instance,
+the sky of the Sacrifice of Isaac. It is here high noon, as is shown by
+the shadow of the figures; and what sort of color is the sky <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p10">§ 10. Total
+absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his general treatment of
+open sky.</a></span>at the top of the picture? Is it pale and gray with heat, full
+of sunshine, and unfathomable in depth? On the contrary, it is of a
+pitch of darkness which, except on the Mont Blanc or Chimborazo, is as
+purely impossible as color can be. He might as well have painted it coal
+black; and it is laid on with a dead coat of flat paint, having no one
+quality or resemblance of sky about it. It cannot have altered, because
+the land horizon is as delicate and tender in tone as possible, and is
+evidently unchanged; and to complete the absurdity of the whole thing,
+this color holds its own, without graduation or alteration, to within
+three or four degrees of the horizon, where it suddenly <span class="pagenum"><a name="page209"></a>[Page 209]</span>
+becomes bold and unmixed yellow. Now the horizon at noon may be yellow
+when the whole sky is covered with dark clouds, and only <i>one</i> open
+streak of light left in the distance from which the whole light
+proceeds; but with a clear, open sky, and opposite the sun, at noon,
+such a yellow horizon as this is physically impossible. Even supposing
+that the upper part of the sky were pale and warm, and that the
+transition from the one hue to the other were effected imperceptibly and
+gradually, as is invariably the case in reality, instead of taking place
+within a space of two or three degrees;&mdash;even then, this gold yellow
+would be altogether absurd; but as it is, we have in this sky (and it is
+a fine picture&mdash;one of the best of Gaspar's that I know,) a notable
+example of the truth of the old masters&mdash;two impossible colors
+impossibly united! Find such a color in Turner's noonday zenith as the
+blue at the top, or such a color at a noonday horizon as the yellow at
+the bottom, or such a connection of any colors whatsoever as that in the
+centre, and then you may talk about his being false to nature if you
+will. Nor is this a solitary instance; it is Gaspar Poussin's favorite
+and characteristic effect. I remember twenty such, most of them worse
+than this, in the downright surface and opacity of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p11">§ 11. Errors of Cuyp
+in graduation of color.</a></span>blue. Again, look at the large Cuyp in the
+Dulwich Gallery, which Mr. Hazlitt considers the "finest in the world,"
+and of which he very complimentarily says, "The tender green of the
+valleys, the gleaming lake, the purple light of the hills, have an
+effect like the <i>down</i> on an unripe nectarine!" I ought to have
+apologized before now, for not having studied sufficiently in Covent
+Garden to be provided with terms of correct and classical criticism. One
+of my friends begged me to observe, the other day, that Claude was
+"pulpy;" another added the yet more gratifying information that he was
+"juicy;" and it is now happily discovered that Cuyp is "downy." Now I
+dare say that the sky of this first-rate Cuyp is very like an unripe
+nectarine: all that I have to say about it is, that it is exceedingly
+unlike a sky. The blue remains unchanged and ungraduated over
+three-fourths of it, down to the horizon; while the sun, in the
+left-hand corner, is surrounded with a halo, first of yellow, and then
+of crude pink, both being separated from each other, and the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page210"></a>[Page 210]</span>
+last from the blue, as sharply as the belts of a rainbow, and both
+together not ascending ten degrees in the sky. Now it is difficult to
+conceive how any man calling himself a painter could impose such a thing
+on the public, and still more how the public can receive it, as a
+representation of that sunset purple which invariably extends its
+influence to the zenith, so that there is no pure blue anywhere, but a
+purple increasing in purity gradually down to its point of greatest
+intensity, (about forty-five degrees from the horizon,) and then melting
+imperceptibly into the gold, the three colors extending their influence
+over the whole sky; so that throughout the whole sweep of the heaven,
+there is no one spot where the color is not in an equal state of
+transition&mdash;passing from gold into orange, from that into rose, from
+that into purple, from that into blue, with absolute equality of change,
+so that in no place can it be said, "here it changes," and in no place,
+"here it is unchanging." This is invariably the case. There is no such
+thing&mdash;there never was, and never will be such a thing, while God's
+heaven remains as it is made&mdash;as a serene, sunset sky, with its purple
+and rose in <i>belts</i> about the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Such bold, broad examples of ignorance as these would soon set aside all
+the claims of the professed landscape painters to truth, with whatever
+delicacy of color or manipulation they may <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p12">§ 12. The exceeding value of
+the skies of the early Italian and Dutch schools. Their qualities are
+unattainable in modern times.</a></span>be disguised. But there are some skies, of
+the Dutch school, in which clearness and coolness have been aimed at,
+instead of depth; and some introduced merely as backgrounds to the
+historical subjects of the older Italians, which there is no matching in
+modern times; one would think angels had painted them, for all is now
+clay and oil in comparison. It seems as if we had totally lost the art,
+for surely otherwise, however little our painters might aim at it or
+feel it, they would touch the chord sometimes by accident; but they
+never do, and the mechanical incapacity is still more strongly evidenced
+by the muddy struggles of the unhappy Germans, who have the feeling,
+partially strained, artificial, and diseased, indeed, but still genuine
+enough to bring out the tone, if they had the mechanical means and
+technical knowledge. But, however they were obtained, the clear tones of
+this kind of the older Italians are <span class="pagenum"><a name="page211"></a>[Page 211]</span> glorious and enviable in
+the highest degree; and we shall show, when we come to speak of the
+beautiful, that they are one of the most just grounds of the fame of the
+old masters.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a series of phenomena connected with the open blue of the
+sky, which we must take especial notice of, as it is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p13">§ 13. Phenomena of
+visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause.</a></span>of constant occurrence in the
+works of Turner and Claude, the effects, namely, of visible sunbeams. It
+will be necessary for us thoroughly to understand the circumstances
+under which such effects take place.</p>
+
+<p>Aqueous vapor or mist, suspended in the atmosphere, becomes visible
+exactly as dust does in the air of a room. In the shadows you not only
+cannot see the dust itself, because unillumined, but you can see other
+objects through the dust without obscurity, the air being thus actually
+rendered more transparent by a deprivation of light. Where a sunbeam
+enters, every particle of dust becomes visible, and a palpable
+interruption to the sight, so that a transverse sunbeam is a real
+obstacle to the vision, you cannot see things clearly through it.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way, wherever vapor is illuminated by transverse rays, there
+it becomes visible as a whiteness more or less affecting the purity of
+the blue, and destroying it exactly in proportion to the degree of
+illumination. But where vapor is in shade, it has very little effect on
+the sky, perhaps making it a little deeper and grayer than it otherwise
+would be, but not itself, unless very dense, distinguishable or felt as
+mist.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of mist or whiteness in the blue of the sky, is thus a
+circumstance which more or less accompanies sunshine, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p14">§ 14. They are
+only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky is free from
+vapor, nor when it is without clouds.</a></span>and which, supposing the quantity
+of vapor constant, is greatest in the brightest sunlight. When there are
+no clouds in the sky, the whiteness, as it affects the whole sky
+equally, is not particularly noticeable. But when there are clouds
+between us and the sun, the sun being low, those clouds cast shadows
+along and through the mass of suspended vapor. Within the space of these
+shadows, the vapor, as above stated, becomes transparent and invisible,
+and the sky appears of a pure blue. But where the sunbeams strike, the
+vapor becomes visible in the form of the beams, occasioning those
+radiating shafts of light which are one of the most valuable and
+constant accompaniments <span class="pagenum"><a name="page212"></a>[Page 212]</span> of a low sun. The denser the mist,
+the more distinct and sharp-edged will these rays be; when the air is
+very clear, they are mere vague, flushing, gradated passages of light;
+when it is very thick, they are keen-edged and decisive in a high
+degree.</p>
+
+<p>We see then, first, that a quantity of mist dispersed through the whole
+space of the sky, is necessary to this phenomenon; and secondly, that
+what we usually think of as beams of greater brightness than the rest of
+the sky, are in reality only a part of that sky in its natural state of
+illumination, cut off and rendered brilliant by the shadows from the
+clouds,&mdash;that these shadows are in reality the source of the appearance
+of beams,&mdash;that, therefore, no part of the sky can present such an
+appearance, except when there are broken clouds between it and the sun;
+and lastly, that the shadows cast from such clouds are not necessarily
+gray or dark, but very nearly of the natural pure blue of a sky
+destitute of vapor.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as it has been proved that the appearance of beams can only take
+place in a part of the sky which has clouds between it <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p15">§ 15. Erroneous
+tendency in the representation of such phenomena by the old masters.</a></span>and
+the sun, it is evident that no appearance of beams can ever begin from
+the orb itself, except when there is a cloud or solid body of some kind
+between us and it; but that such appearances will almost invariably
+begin on the dark side of some of the clouds around it, the orb itself
+remaining the centre of a broad blaze of united light. Wordsworth has
+given us in two lines, the only circumstances under which rays can ever
+appear to have origin in the orb itself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"><span style="padding-left: 7em; ">
+                        "But rays of light, <br /></span>
+Now <i>suddenly</i> diverging from the orb, <br />
+<i>Retired behind the mountain tops, or veiled <br />
+By the dense air</i>, shot upwards." <br />
+
+<span style="padding-left: 13em; "><span class="sc">Excursion</span>, Book IX.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>And Turner has given us the effect magnificently in the Dartmouth of the
+River Scenery. It is frequent among the old masters, and constant in
+Claude; though the latter, from drawing his beams too fine, represents
+the effect upon the dazzled eye rather than the light which actually
+exists, and approximates very closely to the ideal which we see in the
+sign of the Rising <span class="pagenum"><a name="page213"></a>[Page 213]</span> Sun; nay, I am nearly sure that I
+remember cases in which he has given us the diverging beam, without any
+cloud or hill interfering <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p16">§ 16. The ray which appears in the dazzled eye
+should not be represented.</a></span>with the orb. It may, perhaps, be somewhat
+difficult to say how far it is allowable to represent that kind of ray
+which is seen by the dazzled eye. It is very certain that we never look
+towards a bright sun without seeing glancing rays issue from it; but it
+is equally certain that those rays are no more real existences than the
+red and blue circles which we see after having been so dazzled, and that
+if we are to represent the rays we ought also to cover our sky with pink
+and blue circles. I should on the whole consider it utterly false in
+principle to represent the visionary beam, and that we ought only to
+show <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p17">§ 17. The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more
+delicate phenomena of rays.</a></span>that which has actual existence. Such we find
+to be the constant practice of Turner. Even where, owing to interposed
+clouds, he has beams appearing to issue from the orb itself, they are
+broad bursts of light, not spiky rays; and his more usual practice is to
+keep all near the sun in one simple blaze of intense light, and from the
+first clouds to throw beams to the zenith, though he often does not
+permit any appearance of rays until close to the zenith itself. Open at
+the 80th page of the Illustrated edition of Rogers's poems. You have
+there a sky blazing with sunbeams; but they all begin a long way from
+the sun, and they are accounted for by a mass of dense clouds
+surrounding the orb itself. Turn to the 7th page. Behind the old oak,
+where the sun is supposed to be, you have only a blaze of
+undistinguished light; but up on the left, over the edge of the cloud,
+on its dark side, the sunbeam. Turn to page 192,&mdash;blazing rays again,
+but all beginning where the clouds do, not one can you trace to the sun;
+and observe how carefully the long shadow on <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p18">§ 18. The total absence of
+any evidence of such perception in the works of the old masters.</a></span>the
+mountain is accounted for by the dim dark promontory projecting out near
+the sun. I need not multiply examples; you will find various
+modifications and uses of these effects throughout his works. But you
+will not find a single trace of them in the old masters. They give you
+the rays issuing from behind black clouds, and because they are a coarse
+and common effect which could not possibly escape their observation, and
+because they are <span class="pagenum"><a name="page214"></a>[Page 214]</span> easily imitated. They give you the spiky
+shafts issuing from the orb itself, because these are partially
+symbolical of light, and assist a tardy imagination, as two or three
+rays scratched round the sun with a pen would, though they would be rays
+of darkness instead of light.<a name="FnAnchor_30" href="#Footnote_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> But of the most beautiful phenomenon
+of all, the appearance of the delicate ray far in the sky, threading its
+way among the thin, transparent clouds, while all around the sun is
+unshadowed fire, there is no record nor example whatsoever in their
+works. It was too delicate and spiritual for them; probably their blunt
+and feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature, and their untaught
+imaginations were not likely to originate it in the study.</p>
+
+<p>Little is to be said of the skies of our other landscape artists. In
+paintings, they are commonly toneless, crude, and wanting in depth and
+transparency; but in drawings, some very <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p19">§ 19. Truth of the skies of
+modern drawings.</a></span>perfect and delicate examples have been produced by
+various members of the old water color Society, and one or two others;
+but with respect to the qualities of which we are at present speaking,
+it is not right to compare drawings with paintings, as the wash or
+spunging, or other artifices peculiar to water color, are capable of
+producing an appearance of quality which it needs much higher art to
+produce in oils.</p>
+
+<p>Taken generally, the open skies of the moderns are inferior in quality
+to picked and untouched skies of the greatest of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page215"></a>[Page 215]</span>
+ancients, but far superior to the average class of pictures which <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c1p20">§ 20.
+Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in quality,
+inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish.</a></span>we have every
+day fathered upon their reputation. Nine or ten skies of Claude might be
+named which are not to be contended with, in their way, and as many of
+Cuyp. Teniers has given some very wonderful passages, and the clearness
+of the early Italian and Dutch schools is beyond all imitation. But the
+common blue daubing which we hear every day in our best galleries
+attributed to Claude and Cuyp, and the genuine skies of Salvator, and of
+both the Poussins, are not to be compared for an instant with the best
+works of modern times, even in quality and transparency; while in all
+matters requiring delicate observation or accurate science,&mdash;in all
+which was not attainable by technicalities of art, and which depended
+upon the artist's knowledge and understanding of nature, all the works
+of the ancients are alike the productions of mere children, sometimes
+manifesting great sensibility, but proving at the same time, feebly
+developed intelligence and ill-regulated observation.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30" href="#FnAnchor_30">[30]</a> I have left this passage as it stood originally, because it is
+right as far as it goes; yet it speaks with too little respect of
+symbolism, which is often of the highest use in religious art, and in
+some measure is allowable in all art. In the works of almost all the
+greatest masters there are portions which are explanatory rather than
+representative, and typical rather than imitative; nor could these be
+parted with but at infinite loss. Note, with respect to the present
+question, the daring black sunbeams of Titian, in his woodcut of St.
+Francis receiving the stigmata, and compare here Part III. Sect. II.
+Chap. IV. § 18; Chap. V. § 13. And though I believe that I am right in
+considering all such symbolism as out of place in pure landscape, and in
+attributing that of Claude to ignorance or inability, and not to
+feeling, yet I praise Turner not so much for his absolute refusal to
+represent the spiky ray about the sun, as for his perceiving and
+rendering that which Claude never perceived, the multitudinous presence
+of radiating light in the upper sky and on all its countless ranks of
+subtile cloud.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page216"></a>[Page 216]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS:&mdash;FIRST, OF THE REGION OF THE CIRRUS.</h5>
+
+<p>Our next subject of investigation must be the specific character of
+clouds, a species of truth which is especially neglected by artists;
+first, because as it is within the limits of possibility <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p1">§ 1. Difficulty
+of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds consists.</a></span>that a cloud may
+assume almost any form, it is difficult to point out and not always easy
+to feel, where in error consists; and secondly, because it is totally
+impossible to study the forms of clouds from nature with care and
+accuracy, as a change in the subject takes place between every touch of
+the following pencil, and parts of an outline sketched at different
+instants cannot harmonize, nature never having intended them to come
+together. Still if artists were more in the habit of sketching clouds
+rapidly, and as accurately as possible in the outline, from nature,
+instead of daubing down what they call "effects" with the brush, they
+would soon find there is more beauty about their forms than can be
+arrived at by any random felicity of invention, however brilliant, and
+more essential character than can be violated without incurring the
+charge of falsehood,&mdash;falsehood as direct and definite, though not as
+traceable as error in the less varied features of organic form.</p>
+
+<p>The first and most important character of clouds, is dependent on the
+different altitudes at which they are formed. The atmosphere may be
+conveniently considered as divided into <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p2">§ 2. Variation of their
+character at different elevations. The three regions to which they may
+conveniently be considered as belonging.</a></span>three spaces, each inhabited by
+clouds of specific character altogether different, though, in reality
+there is no distinct limit fixed between them by nature, clouds being
+formed at <i>every</i> altitude, and partaking according to their altitude,
+more or less of the characters of the upper or lower regions. The
+scenery of the sky is thus formed of an infinitely graduated series of
+systematic forms of cloud, each of which has its own <span class="pagenum"><a name="page217"></a>[Page 217]</span> region
+in which alone it is formed, and each of which has specific characters
+which can only be properly determined by comparing them as they are
+found clearly distinguished by intervals of considerable space. I shall
+therefore consider the sky as divided into three regions&mdash;the upper
+region, or region of the cirrus; the central region, or region of the
+stratus; the lower region, or the region of the rain-cloud.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds which I wish to consider as included in the upper region,
+never touch even the highest mountains of Europe, and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p3">§ 3. Extent of the
+upper region.</a></span>may therefore be looked upon as never formed below an of at
+least 15,000 feet; they are the motionless multitudinous lines of
+delicate vapor with which the blue of the open sky is commonly streaked
+or speckled after several days of fine weather. I must be pardoned for
+giving a detailed description of their specific characters as they are
+of constant occurrence in the works of modern artists, and I shall have
+occasion to speak frequently of them in future parts <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p4">§ 4. The
+symmetrical arrangement of its clouds.</a></span>of the work. Their chief
+characters are&mdash;first, Symmetry: They are nearly always arranged in some
+definite and evident order, commonly in long ranks reaching sometimes
+from the zenith to the horizon, each rank composed of an infinite number
+of transverse bars of about the same length, each bar thickest in the
+middle, and terminating in a traceless vaporous point at each side; the
+ranks are in the direction of the wind, and the bars of course at right
+angles to it; these latter are commonly slightly bent in the middle.
+Frequently two systems of this kind, indicative of two currents of wind,
+at different altitudes intersect one another, forming a network. Another
+frequent arrangement is in groups of excessively fine, silky, parallel
+fibres, commonly radiating, or having a tendency to radiate, from one of
+their extremities, and terminating in a plumy sweep at the other:&mdash;these
+are vulgarly known as "mares' tails." The plumy and expanded extremity
+of these is often bent upwards, sometimes back and up again, giving an
+appearance of great flexibility and unity at the same time, as if the
+clouds were tough, and would hold together however bent. The narrow
+extremity is invariably turned to the wind, and the fibres are parallel
+with its direction. The upper clouds always fall into some modification
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218"></a>[Page 218]</span> of one or other of these arrangements. They thus differ from
+all other clouds, in having a plan and system; whereas other clouds,
+though there are certain laws which they cannot break, have yet perfect
+freedom from anything like a relative and general system of government.
+The upper clouds are to the lower, what soldiers on parade are to a
+mixed multitude; no men walk on their heads or their hands, and so there
+are certain laws which no clouds violate; but there is nothing except in
+the upper clouds resembling symmetrical discipline.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, Sharpness of Edge: The edges of the bars of the upper clouds
+which are turned to the wind, are often the sharpest which the sky
+shows; no outline whatever of any other kind <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p5">§ 5. Their exceeding
+delicacy.</a></span>of cloud, however marked and energetic, ever approaches the
+delicate decision of these edges. The outline of a black thunder-cloud
+is striking, from the great energy of the color or shade of the general
+mass; but as a line, it is soft and indistinct, compared with the edge
+of the cirrus, in a clear sky with a brisk breeze. On the other hand,
+the edge of the bar turned away from the wind is always soft, often
+imperceptible, melting into the blue interstice between it and its next
+neighbor. Commonly the sharper one edge is, the softer is the other, and
+the clouds look flat, and as if they slipped over each other like the
+scales of a fish. When both edges are soft, as is always the case when
+the sky is clear and windless, the cloud looks solid, round, and fleecy.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, Multitude: The delicacy of these vapors is sometimes carried
+into such an infinity of division, that no other sensation of number
+that the earth or heaven can give is so <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p6">§ 6. Their number.</a></span>impressive.
+Number is always most felt when it is symmetrical, (vide Burke on
+"Sublime," Part ii. sect. 8,) and, therefore, no sea-waves nor fresh
+leaves make their number so evident or so impressive as these vapors.
+Nor is nature content with an infinity of bars or lines alone&mdash;each bar
+is in its turn severed into a number of small undulatory masses, more or
+less connected according to the violence of the wind. When this division
+is merely effected by undulation, the cloud exactly resembles sea-sand
+ribbed by the tide; but when the division amounts to real separation we
+have the mottled or mackerel skies. Commonly, the greater the division
+of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page219"></a>[Page 219]</span> its bars, the broader and more shapeless is the rank or
+field, so that in the mottled sky it is lost altogether, and we have
+large irregular fields of equal size, masses like flocks of sheep; such
+clouds are three or four thousand feet below the legitimate cirrus. I
+have seen them cast a shadow on the Mont Blanc at sunset, so that they
+must descend nearly to within fifteen thousand feet of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Fourthly, Purity of Color: The nearest of these clouds&mdash;those over the
+observer's head, being at least three miles above <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p7">§ 7. Causes of their
+peculiarly delicate coloring.</a></span>him, and nearly all entering the ordinary
+sphere of vision, farther from him still,&mdash;their dark sides are much
+grayer and cooler than those of other clouds, owing to their distance.
+They are composed of the purest aqueous vapor, free from all foulness of
+earthy gases, and of this in the lightest and most ethereal state in
+which it can be, to be visible. Farther, they receive the light of the
+sun in a state of far greater intensity than lower objects, the beams
+being transmitted to them through atmospheric air far less dense, and
+wholly unaffected by mist, smoke, or any other impurity. Hence their
+colors are more pure and vivid, and their white less sullied than those
+of any other clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, Variety: Variety is never so conspicuous, as when it is united
+with symmetry. The perpetual change of form in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p8">§ 8. Their variety of
+form.</a></span>other clouds, is monotonous in its very dissimilarity, nor is
+difference striking where no connection is implied; but if through a
+range of barred clouds, crossing half the heaven, all governed by the
+same forces and falling into one general form, there be yet a marked and
+evident dissimilarity between each member of the great mass&mdash;one more
+finely drawn, the next more delicately moulded, the next more gracefully
+bent&mdash;each broken into differently modelled and variously numbered
+groups, the variety is doubly striking, because contrasted with the
+perfect symmetry of which it forms a part. Hence, the importance of the
+truth, that nature never lets one of the members of even her most
+disciplined groups of cloud be like another; but though each is adapted
+for the same function, and in its great features resembles all the
+others, not one, out of the millions with which the sky is checkered, is
+without a separate beauty and character, appearing to have had <span class="pagenum"><a name="page220"></a>[Page
+220]</span> distinct thought occupied in its conception, and distinct forces in
+its production; and in addition to this perpetual invention, visible in
+each member of each system, we find systems of separate cloud
+intersecting one another, the sweeping lines mingled and interwoven with
+the rigid bars, these in their turn melting into banks of sand-like
+ripple and flakes of drifted and irregular foam; under all, perhaps the
+massy outline of some lower cloud moves heavily across the motionless
+buoyancy of the upper lines, and indicates at once their elevation and
+their repose.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the great attributes of the upper cloud region; whether they
+are beautiful, valuable, or impressive, it is not our present business
+to decide, nor to endeavor to discover the reason <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p9">§ 9. Total absence of
+even the slightest effort at their representation, in ancient
+landscape.</a></span>of the somewhat remarkable fact, that the whole field of
+ancient landscape art affords, as far as we remember, but one instance
+of any effort whatever to represent the character of this cloud region.
+That one instance is the landscape of Rubens in our own gallery, in
+which the mottled or fleecy sky is given with perfect truth and
+exquisite beauty. To this should perhaps be added, some of the
+backgrounds of the historical painters, where horizontal lines were
+required, and a few level bars of white or warm color cross the serenity
+of the blue. These, as far as they go, are often very perfect, and the
+elevation and repose of their effect might, we should have thought, have
+pointed out to the landscape painters that there was something (I do not
+say much, but certainly something) to be made out of the high clouds.
+Not one of them, however, took the hint. To whom, among them all, can we
+look for the slightest realization of the fine and faithful descriptive
+passage of the "Excursion," already alluded to:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"><span style="padding-left: 8em; ">
+                 "But rays of light, <br /></span>
+Now suddenly diverging from the orb, <br />
+Retired behind the mountain tops, or veiled <br />
+By the dense air, shot upwards to the crown <br />
+Of the blue firmament&mdash;aloft&mdash;and wide: <br />
+And multitudes of little floating clouds, <br />
+Ere we, who saw, of change were conscious, pierced <br />
+Through their ethereal texture, had become <br />
+Vivid as fire,&mdash;Clouds separately poised, <br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221"></a>[Page 221]</span>
+Innumerable multitude of forms <br />
+Scattered through half the circle of the sky; <br />
+And giving back, and shedding each on each, <br />
+With prodigal communion, the bright hues <br />
+Which from the unapparent fount of glory <br />
+They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive. <br />
+That which the heavens displayed the liquid deep <br />
+Repeated, but with unity sublime."
+</p>
+
+<p>There is but one master whose works we can think of while we read this;
+one alone has taken notice of the neglected upper <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p10">§ 10. The intense and
+constant study of them by Turner.</a></span>sky; it is his peculiar and favorite
+field; he has watched its every modification, and given its every phase
+and feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has followed its passions
+and its changes, and has brought down and laid open to the world another
+apocalypse of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>There is scarcely a painting of Turner's, in which serenity of sky and
+intensity of light are aimed at together, in which these clouds are not
+used, though there are not two cases in which they are used altogether
+alike. Sometimes they are crowded together in masses of mingling light,
+as in the Shylock; every part and atom sympathizing in that continuous
+expression of slow movement which Shelley has so beautifully touched:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"><span style="padding-left: 3em; ">
+            "Underneath the young gray dawn <br /></span>
+A multitude of dense, white fleecy clouds, <br />
+Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains, <br />
+<i>Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind</i>."
+</p>
+
+<p>At other times they are blended with the sky itself, felt only here and
+there by a ray of light calling them into existence out of its misty
+shade, as in the Mercury and Argus; sometimes, where great repose is to
+be given, they appear in a few detached, equal, rounded flakes, which
+seem to hang motionless, each like the shadow of the other, in the deep
+blue of the zenith, as in the Acro-Corinth; sometimes they are scattered
+in fiery flying fragments, each burning with separate energy, as in the
+Temeraire; sometimes woven together with fine threads of intermediate
+darkness, melting into the blue as in the Napoleon. But in all cases the
+exquisite manipulation of the master gives to each atom of the multitude
+its own character and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page222"></a>[Page 222]</span> expression. Though they be countless
+as leaves, each has its portion of light, its shadow, its reflex, its
+peculiar and separating form.</p>
+
+<p>Take for instance the illustrated edition of Rogers's Poems,<a name="FnAnchor_31" href="#Footnote_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> and
+open it at the 80th page, and observe how every attribute which I have
+pointed out in the upper sky, is there rendered <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p11">§ 11. His vignette,
+Sunrise on the Sea.</a></span>with the faithfulness of a mirror; the long lines of
+parallel bars, the delicate curvature from the wind, which the
+inclination of the sail shows you to be from the west; the excessive
+sharpness of every edge which is turned to the wind, the faintness of
+every opposite one, the breaking up of each bar into rounded masses, and
+finally, the inconceivable variety with which individual form has been
+given to every member of the multitude, and not only individual form,
+but roundness and substance even where there is scarcely a hairbreadth
+of cloud to express it in. Observe, above everything, the varying
+indication of space and depth in the whole, so that you may look through
+and through from one cloud to another, feeling not merely how they
+retire to the horizon, but how they melt back into the recesses of the
+sky; every interval being filled with absolute air, and all its spaces
+so melting and fluctuating, and fraught with change as with repose, that
+as you look, you will fancy that the rays shoot higher and higher into
+the vault of light, and that the pale streak of horizontal vapor is
+melting away from the cloud that it crosses. Now watch for the next
+barred sunrise, and take this vignette to the window, and test it by
+nature's own clouds, among which you will find forms and passages, I do
+not say merely <i>like</i>, but apparently the actual originals of parts of
+this very drawing. And with whom will you do this, except with Turner?
+Will you do it with Claude, and set that blank square yard of blue, with
+its round, white, flat fixtures of similar cloud, beside the purple
+infinity of nature, with her countless multitude of shadowy lines, and
+flaky waves, and folded veils of variable mist? Will you do it with
+Poussin, and set those massy steps of unyielding solidity, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page223"></a>[Page 223]</span>
+with the chariot-and-four driving up them, by the side of the delicate
+forms which terminate in threads too fine for the eye to follow them,
+and of texture so thin woven that the earliest stars shine through them?
+Will you do it with Salvator, and set that volume of violent and
+restless manufactory smoke beside those calm and quiet bars, which pause
+in the heaven as if they would never leave it more?</p>
+
+<p>Now we have just seen how Turner uses the sharp-edged cirri when he aims
+at giving great transparency of air. But it was shown in the preceding
+chapter that sunbeams, or the appearance <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p12">§ 12. His use of the cirrus in
+expressing mist.</a></span>of them, are always sharper in their edge in proportion
+as the air is more misty, as they are most defined in a room where there
+is most dust flying about in it. Consequently, in the vignette we have
+been just noticing, where transparency is to be given, though there is a
+blaze of light, its beams are never edged; a tendency to rays is
+visible, but you cannot in any part find a single marked edge of a
+rising sunbeam, the sky is merely more flushed in one place than
+another. Now let us see what Turner does when he wants mist. Turn to the
+Alps at Daybreak, page 193, in the same book. Here we have the cirri
+used again, but now they have no sharp edges, they are all fleecy and
+mingling with each other, though every one of them has the most
+exquisite indication of individual form, and they melt back, not till
+they are lost in exceeding light, as in the other plate, but into a
+mysterious, fluctuating, shadowy sky, of which, though the light
+penetrates through it all, you perceive every part to be charged with
+vapor. Notice particularly the half-indicated forms even where it is
+most serene, behind the snowy mountains. And now, how are the sunbeams
+drawn? no longer indecisive, flushing, palpitating, every one is sharp
+and clear, and terminated by definite shadow; note especially the marked
+lines on the upper cloud; finally, observe the difference in the mode of
+indicating the figures, which are here misty and indistinguishable,
+telling only as shadows, though they are near and large, while those in
+the former vignette came clear upon the eye, though they were so far off
+as to appear mere points.</p>
+
+<p>Now is this perpetual consistency in all points, this concentration of
+every fact which can possibly bear upon what we are <span class="pagenum"><a name="page224"></a>[Page 224]</span> to be
+told, this watchfulness of the entire meaning and system <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p13">§ 13. His
+consistency in every minor feature.</a></span>of nature, which fills every part and
+space of the picture with coincidences of witness, which come out upon
+us, as they would from the reality, more fully and deeply in proportion
+to the knowledge we possess and the attention we give, admirable or not?
+I could go on writing page after page on every sky of Turner's, and
+pointing out fresh truths in every one. In the Havre, for instance, of
+the Rivers of France we have a new fact pointed out to us with respect
+to these cirri, namely, their being so faint and transparent as not to
+be distinguishable from the blue of the sky, (a frequent case,) except
+in the course of a sunbeam, which, however, does not illumine their
+edges, they being not solid enough to reflect light, but penetrates
+their whole substance, and renders them flat, luminous forms in its
+path, instantly and totally lost at its edge. And thus a separate essay
+would be required by every picture, to make fully understood the new
+phenomena which it treated and illustrated. But after once showing what
+are the prevailing characteristics of these clouds, we can only leave it
+to the reader to trace them wherever they occur. There are some fine and
+characteristic passages of this kind of cloud given by Stanfield, though
+he dares not use them in multitude, and is wanting in those refined
+qualities of form which it is totally impossible to explain in words,
+but which, perhaps, by simple outlines, on a large scale, selected from
+the cloud forms of various artists, I may in following portions of the
+work illustrate with the pencil.</p>
+
+<p>Of the colors of these clouds I have spoken before, (Sec. I. Chap. II.;)
+but though I then alluded to their purity and vividness, I scarcely took
+proper notice of their variety; there is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p14">§ 14. The color of the upper
+clouds.</a></span>indeed in nature variety in all things, and it would be absurd to
+insist on it in each case, yet the colors of these clouds are so
+marvellous in their changefulness, that they require particular notice.
+If you watch for the next sunset, when there are a considerable number
+of these cirri in the sky, you will see, especially at the zenith, that
+the sky does not remain of the same color for two inches together; one
+cloud has a dark side of cold blue, and a fringe of milky white;
+another, above it, has a dark side of purple and an edge of red; <span class="pagenum"><a name="page225"></a>[Page
+225]</span> another, nearer the sun, has an under-side of orange and an edge of
+gold; these you will find mingled with, and passing into the blue of the
+sky, which in places you will not be able to distinguish from the cool
+gray of the darker clouds, and which will be itself full of gradation,
+now pure and deep, now faint and feeble; and all this is done, not in
+large pieces, nor on a large scale, but over and over again in every
+square yard, so that there is no single part nor portion of the whole
+sky which has not in itself variety of color enough for a separate
+picture, and yet no single part which is like another, or which has not
+some peculiar source of beauty, and some peculiar arrangement of color
+of its own. Now, instead of this, you get in the old masters&mdash;Cuyp, or
+Claude, or whoever they may be&mdash;a field of blue, delicately,
+beautifully, and uniformly shaded down to the yellow sun, with a certain
+number of similar clouds, each with a dark side of the same gray, and an
+edge of the same yellow. I do not say that nature never does anything
+like this, but I say that her <i>principle</i> is to do a great deal more,
+and that what she does more than this,&mdash;what I have above described, and
+what you may see in nine sunsets out of ten,&mdash;has been observed,
+attempted, and rendered by Turner only, and by him with a fidelity and
+force which presents us with more essential truth, and more clear
+expression and illustration of natural laws, in every wreath of vapor,
+than composed the whole stock of heavenly information, which lasted Cuyp
+and Claude their lives.</p>
+
+<p>We close then our present consideration of the upper clouds, to return
+to them when we know what is beautiful; we have at present only to
+remember that of these clouds, and the truths <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c2p15">§ 15.
+Recapitulation.</a></span>connected with them, none before Turner had taken any
+notice whatsoever; that had they therefore been even feebly and
+imperfectly represented by him, they would yet have given him a claim to
+be considered more extended and universal in his statement of truths
+than any of his predecessors; how much more when we find that deep
+fidelity in his studied and perfect skies which opens new sources of
+delight to every advancement of our knowledge, and to every added moment
+of our contemplation.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31" href="#FnAnchor_31">[31]</a> I use this work frequently for illustration, because it is the only
+one I know in which the engraver has worked with delicacy enough to give
+the real forms and touches of Turner. I can reason from these plates,
+(in questions of form only,) nearly as well as I could from the
+drawings.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page226"></a>[Page 226]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS:&mdash;SECONDLY, OF THE CENTRAL CLOUD<br />
+REGION.</h5>
+
+<p>We have next to investigate the character of the Central Cloud Region,
+which I consider as including all clouds which are the usual
+characteristic of ordinary serene weather, and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p1">§ 1. Extent and typical
+character of the central cloud region.</a></span>which touch and envelop the
+mountains of Switzerland, but never affect those of our own island; they
+may therefore be considered as occupying a space of air ten thousand
+feet in height, extending from five to fifteen thousand feet above the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>These clouds, according to their elevation, appear with great variety of
+form, often partaking of the streaked or mottled character of the higher
+region, and as often, when the precursors of storm, manifesting forms
+closely connected with the lowest rain clouds; but the species
+especially characteristic of the central region is a white, ragged,
+irregular, and scattered vapor, which has little form and less color,
+and of which a good example may be seen in the largest landscape of
+Cuyp, in the Dulwich Gallery. When this vapor collects into masses, it
+is partially rounded, clumsy, and ponderous, as if it would tumble out
+of the sky, shaded with a dull gray, and totally devoid of any
+appearance of energy or motion. Even in nature, these clouds are
+comparatively uninteresting, scarcely worth raising <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p2">§ 2. Its
+characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought for their
+representation, are therefore favorite subjects with the old masters.</a></span>our
+heads to look at; and on canvas, valuable only as a means of introducing
+light, and breaking the monotony of blue; yet they are, perhaps, beyond
+all others the favorite clouds of the Dutch masters. Whether they had
+any motive for the adoption of such materials, beyond the extreme
+facility with which acres of canvas might thus be covered without any
+troublesome exertion of thought; or any temptation to such selections
+beyond the impossibility of error where nature <span class="pagenum"><a name="page227"></a>[Page 227]</span> shows no
+form, and the impossibility of deficiency where she shows no beauty, it
+is not here the place to determine. Such skies are happily beyond the
+reach of criticism, for he who tells you nothing cannot tell you a
+falsehood. A little flake-white, glazed with a light brush over the
+carefully toned blue, permitted to fall into whatever forms chance might
+determine, with the single precaution that their edges should be
+tolerably irregular, supplied, in hundreds of instances, a sky quite
+good enough for all ordinary purposes&mdash;quite good enough for cattle to
+graze, or boors to play at nine-pins under&mdash;and equally devoid of all
+that could gratify, inform, or offend.</p>
+
+<p>But although this kind of cloud is, as I have said, typical of the
+central region, it is not one which nature is fond of. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p3">§ 3. The clouds
+of Salvator and Poussin.</a></span>She scarcely ever lets an hour pass without some
+manifestation of finer forms, sometimes approaching the upper cirri,
+sometimes the lower cumulus. And then in the lower outlines, we have the
+nearest approximation which nature ever presents to the clouds of
+Claude, Salvator, and Poussin, to the characters of which I must request
+especial attention, as it is here only that we shall have a fair
+opportunity of comparing their skies with those of the modern school. I
+shall, as before, glance rapidly at the great laws of specific form, and
+so put it in the power of the reader to judge for himself of the truth
+of representation.</p>
+
+<p>Clouds, it is to be remembered, are not so much local vapor, as vapor
+rendered locally visible by a fall of temperature. Thus <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p4">§ 4. Their
+essential characters.</a></span>a cloud, whose parts are in constant motion, will
+hover on a snowy mountain, pursuing constantly the same track upon its
+flanks, and yet remaining of the same size, the same form, and in the
+same place, for half a day together. No matter how violent or how
+capricious the wind may be, the instant it approaches the spot where the
+chilly influence of the snow extends, the moisture it carries becomes
+visible, and then and there the cloud forms on the instant, apparently
+maintaining its form against the wind, though the careful and keen eye
+can see all its parts in the most rapid motion across the mountain. The
+outlines of such a cloud are of course not determined by the irregular
+impulses of the wind, but by the fixed lines of radiant heat which
+regulate the temperature <span class="pagenum"><a name="page228"></a>[Page 228]</span> of the atmosphere of the mountain.
+It is terminated, therefore, not by changing curves, but by steady right
+lines of more or less decision, often exactly correspondent with the
+outline of the mountain on which it is formed, and falling therefore
+into grotesque peaks and precipices. I have seen the marked and angular
+outline of the Grandes Jorasses, at Chamounix, mimicked in its every jag
+by a line of clouds above it. Another resultant phenomenon is the
+formation of cloud in the calm air to leeward of a steep summit; cloud
+whose edges are in rapid motion, where they are affected by the current
+of the wind above, and stream from the peak like the smoke of a volcano,
+yet always vanish at a certain distance from it as steam issuing from a
+chimney. When wet weather of some duration is approaching, a small white
+spot of cloud will sometimes appear low on the hill flanks; it will not
+move, but will increase gradually for some little time, then diminish,
+still without moving; disappear altogether, reappear ten minutes
+afterwards, exactly in the same spot; increase to a greater extent than
+before, again disappear, again return, and at last permanently; other
+similar spots of cloud forming simultaneously, with various
+fluctuations, each in its own spot, and at the same level on the
+hill-side, until all expand, join together, and form an unbroken veil of
+threatening gray, which darkens gradually into storm. What in such cases
+takes place palpably and remarkably, is more or less a law of formation
+in all clouds whatsoever; they being bounded rather by lines expressive
+of changes of temperature in the atmosphere, than by the impulses of the
+currents of wind in which those changes take place. Even when in rapid
+and visible motion across the sky, the variations which take place in
+their outlines are not so much alterations of position and arrangement
+of parts, as they are the alternate formation and disappearance of
+parts. There is, therefore, usually a parallelism and consistency in
+their great <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p5">§ 5. Their angular forms and general decision of
+outline.</a></span>outlines, which give system to the smaller curves of which they
+are composed; and if these great lines be taken, rejecting the minutię
+of variation, the resultant form will almost always be angular, and full
+of character and decision. In the flock-like fields of equal masses,
+each individual mass has the effect, not of an ellipse or circle, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page229"></a>[Page
+229]</span> but of a rhomboid; the sky is crossed and checkered, not
+honeycombed; in the lower cumuli, even though the most rounded of all
+clouds, the groups are not like balloons or bubbles, but like towers or
+mountains. And the result of this arrangement in masses more or less
+angular, varied with, and chiefly constructed of, curves of the utmost
+freedom and beauty, is that appearance of exhaustless and fantastic
+energy which gives every cloud a marked character of its own, suggesting
+resemblances to the specific outlines of organic objects. I do not say
+that such accidental resemblances are a character to be imitated; but
+merely that they bear witness to the originality and vigor of separate
+conception in cloud forms, which give to the scenery of the sky a force
+and variety no less delightful than that of the changes of mountain
+outline in a hill district of great elevation; and that there is added
+to this a spirit-like feeling, a capricious, mocking imagery of passion
+and life, totally different from any effects of inanimate form that the
+earth can show.</p>
+
+<p>The minor contours, out of which the larger outlines are composed, are
+indeed beautifully curvilinear; but they are never monotonous in their
+curves. First comes a concave line, then <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p6">§ 6. The composition of their
+minor curves.</a></span>a convex one, then an angular jag, breaking off into spray,
+then a downright straight line, then a curve again, then a deep gap, and
+a place where all is lost and melted away, and so on; displaying in
+every inch of the form renewed and ceaseless invention, setting off
+grace with rigidity, and relieving flexibility with force, in a manner
+scarcely less admirable, and far more changeful than even in the
+muscular forms of the human frame. Nay, such is the exquisite
+composition of all this, that you may take any single fragment of any
+cloud in the sky, and you will find it put together as if there had been
+a year's thought over the plan of it, arranged with the most studied
+inequality&mdash;with the most delicate symmetry&mdash;with the most elaborate
+contrast, a picture in itself. You may try every other piece of cloud in
+the heaven, and you will find them every one as perfect, and yet not one
+in the least like another.</p>
+
+<p>Now it may perhaps, for anything we know, or have yet proved, be highly
+expedient and proper, in art, that this variety, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page230"></a>[Page 230]</span>
+individuality, and angular character should be changed into a <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p7">§ 7. Their
+characters, as given by S. Rosa.</a></span>mass of convex curves, each precisely
+like its neighbor in all respects, and unbroken from beginning to
+end;&mdash;it may be highly original, masterly, bold, whatever you choose to
+call it; but it is <i>false</i>. I do not take upon me to assert that the
+clouds which in ancient Germany were more especially and peculiarly
+devoted to the business of catching princesses off desert islands, and
+carrying them to enchanted castles, might not have possessed something
+of the pillowy organization which we may suppose best adapted for
+functions of such delicacy and dispatch. But I do mean to say that the
+clouds which God sends upon his earth as the ministers of dew, and rain,
+and shade, and with which he adorns his heaven, setting them in its
+vault for the thrones of his spirits, have not in one instant or atom of
+their existence, one feature in common with such conceptions and
+creations. And there are, beyond dispute, more direct and unmitigated
+falsehoods told, and more laws of nature set at open defiance in <i>one</i>
+of the "rolling" skies of Salvator, such as that marked 159 in the
+Dulwich Gallery, than were ever attributed, even by the ignorant and
+unfeeling, to all the wildest flights of Turner put together.</p>
+
+<p>And it is not as if the error were only occasional. It is systematic and
+constant in all the Italian masters of the seventeenth century, and in
+most of the Dutch. They looked at <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p8">§ 8. Monotony and falsehood of the
+clouds of the Italian School generally.</a></span>clouds as at everything else
+which did not particularly help them in their great end of deception,
+with utter carelessness and bluntness of feeling,&mdash;saw that there were a
+great many rounded passages in them,&mdash;found it much easier to sweep
+circles than to design beauties, and sat down in their studies,
+contented with perpetual repetitions of the same spherical conceptions,
+having about the same relation to the clouds of nature, that a child's
+carving of a turnip has to the head of the Apollo. Look at the round
+things about the sun in the bricky Claude, the smallest of the three
+Seaports in the National Gallery. They are a great deal more like
+half-crowns than clouds. Take the ropy, tough-looking wreath in the
+Sacrifice of Isaac, and find one part of it, if you can, which is not
+the repetition of every other part <span class="pagenum"><a name="page231"></a>[Page 231]</span> of it, all together being
+as round and vapid as the brush could draw them; or take the two
+cauliflower-like protuberances in No. 220 of the Dulwich Gallery, and
+admire the studied similarity between them; you cannot tell which is
+which; or take the so-called Nicholas Poussin, No. 212, Dulwich Gallery,
+in which, from the brown trees to the right-hand side of the picture,
+there is not one line which is not physically impossible.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not the outline only which is thus systematically false. The
+drawing of the solid form is worse still, for it is to be remembered
+that although clouds of course arrange themselves <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p9">§ 9. Vast size of
+congregated masses of cloud.</a></span>more or less into broad masses, with a light
+side and dark side, both their light and shade are invariably composed
+of a series of divided masses, each of which has in its outline as much
+variety and character as the great outline of the cloud; presenting,
+therefore, a thousand times repeated, all that I have described as
+characteristic of the general form. Nor are these multitudinous
+divisions a truth of slight importance in the character of sky, for they
+are dependent on, and illustrative of, a quality which is usually in a
+great degree overlooked,&mdash;the enormous retiring spaces of solid clouds.
+Between the illumined edge of a heaped cloud, and that part of its body
+which turns into shadow, there will generally be a clear distance of
+several miles, more or less of course, according to the general size of
+the cloud, but in such large masses as in Poussin and others of the old
+masters, occupy the fourth or fifth of the visible sky; the clear
+illumined breadth of vapor, from the edge to the shadow, involves at
+least a distance of five or six miles. We are little apt, in watching
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p10">§ 10. Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges.</a></span>the changes of a
+mountainous range of cloud, to reflect that the masses of vapor which
+compose it, are huger and higher than any mountain range of the earth;
+and the distances between mass and mass are not yards of air traversed
+in an instant by the flying form, but valleys of changing atmosphere
+leagues over; that the slow motion of ascending curves, which we can
+scarcely trace, is a boiling energy of exulting vapor rushing into the
+heaven a thousand feet in a minute; and that the toppling angle whose
+sharp edge almost escapes notice in the multitudinous forms around it,
+is a nodding precipice of storms, 3000 feet from base to summit. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page232"></a>[Page
+232]</span> It is not until we have actually compared the forms of the sky with
+the hill ranges of the earth, and seen the soaring Alp overtopped and
+buried in one surge of the sky, that we begin to conceive or appreciate
+the colossal scale of the phenomena of the latter. But of this there can
+be no doubt in the mind of any one accustomed to trace the forms of
+clouds among hill ranges&mdash;as it is there a demonstrable and evident
+fact, that the space of vapor visibly extended over an ordinarily cloudy
+sky, is not less, from the point nearest to the observer to the horizon,
+than twenty leagues; that the size of every mass of separate form, if it
+be at all largely divided, is to be expressed in terms of <i>miles</i>; and
+that every boiling heap of illuminated mist in the nearer sky, is an
+enormous mountain, fifteen or twenty thousand feet in height, six or
+seven miles over an illuminated surface, furrowed by a thousand colossal
+ravines, torn by local tempests into peaks and promontories, and
+changing its features with the majestic velocity of the volcano.</p>
+
+<p>To those who have once convinced themselves of these proportions of the
+heaven, it will be immediately evident, that though we might, without
+much violation of truth, omit the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p11">§ 11. And consequent divisions and
+varieties of feature.</a></span>minor divisions of a cloud four yards over, it is
+the veriest audacity of falsehood to omit those of masses where for
+yards we have to read miles; first, because it is physically impossible
+that such a space should be without many and vast divisions; secondly,
+because divisions at such distances must be sharply and forcibly marked
+by aerial perspective, so that not only they must be there, but they
+must be visible and evident to the eye; and thirdly, because these
+multitudinous divisions are absolutely necessary, in order to express
+this space and distance, which cannot but be fully and imperfectly felt,
+even with every aid and evidence that art can give of it.</p>
+
+<p>Now if an artist taking for his subject a chain of vast mountains,
+several leagues long, were to unite all their varieties of ravine, crag,
+chasm, and precipice, into one solid, unbroken <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p12">§ 12. Not lightly to be
+omitted.</a></span>mass, with one light side and one dark side, looking like a
+white ball or parallelopiped two yards broad, the words "breadth,"
+"boldness," or, "generalization," would scarcely be received as a
+sufficient apology for a <span class="pagenum"><a name="page233"></a>[Page 233]</span> proceeding so glaringly false, and
+so painfully degrading. But when, instead of the really large and simple
+forms of mountains, united, as they commonly are, by some great
+principle of common organization, and so closely resembling each other
+as often to correspond in line, and join in effect; when instead of
+this, we have to do with spaces of cloud twice as vast, broken up into a
+multiplicity of forms necessary to, and characteristic of, their very
+nature&mdash;those forms subject to a thousand local changes, having no
+association with each other, and rendered visible in a thousand places
+by their own transparency or cavities, where the mountain forms would be
+lost in shade,&mdash;that this far greater space, and this far more
+complicated arrangement, should be all summed up into one round mass,
+with one swell of white, and one flat side of unbroken gray, is
+considered an evidence of the sublimest powers in the artist of
+generalization and breadth. Now it may be broad, it may be grand, it may
+be beautiful, artistical, and in every way desirable. I don't say it is
+not&mdash;I merely say it is a concentration of every kind of falsehood: it
+is depriving heaven of its space, clouds of their buoyancy, winds of
+their motion, and distance of its blue.</p>
+
+<p>This is done, more or less, by all the old masters, without an
+exception.<a name="FnAnchor_32" href="#Footnote_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> Their idea of clouds was altogether similar; more or less
+perfectly carried out, according to their <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p13">§ 13. Imperfect conceptions of
+this size and extent in ancient landscape.</a></span>power of hand and accuracy of
+eye, but universally the same in conception. It was the idea of a
+comparatively small, round, puffed-up white body, irregularly associated
+with other round and puffed-up white bodies, each with a white light
+side, and a gray dark side, and a soft reflected light, floating a great
+way below a blue dome. Such is the idea of a cloud formed by most
+people; it is the first, general, uncultivated notion of what we see
+every day. People think of the clouds as about as large as they
+look&mdash;forty yards over, perhaps; they see generally that they are solid
+bodies subject to the same laws as other solid bodies, roundish,
+whitish, and apparently suspended a great way under a high blue
+concavity. So that these ideas be tolerably given with smooth paint,
+they are content, and call it nature. How different <span class="pagenum"><a name="page234"></a>[Page 234]</span> it is
+from anything that nature ever did, or ever will do, I have endeavored
+to show; but I cannot, and do not, expect the contrast to be fully felt,
+unless the reader will actually go out on days when, either before or
+after rain, the clouds arrange themselves into vigorous masses, and
+after arriving at something like a conception of their distance and
+size, from the mode in which they retire over the horizon, will for
+himself trace and watch their varieties of form and outline, as mass
+rises over mass in their illuminated bodies. Let him climb from step to
+step over their craggy and broken slopes, let him plunge into the long
+vistas of immeasurable perspective, that guide back to the blue sky; and
+when he finds his imagination lost in their immensity, and his senses
+confused with their multitude, let him go to Claude, to Salvator, or to
+Poussin, and ask them for a like space, or like infinity.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps the most grievous fault of all, in the clouds of these
+painters, is the utter want of transparency. Not in her most ponderous
+and lightless masses will nature ever leave us <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p14">§ 14. Total want of
+transparency and evanescence in the clouds of ancient landscape.</a></span>without
+some evidence of transmitted sunshine; and she perpetually gives us
+passages in which the vapor becomes visible only by the sunshine which
+it arrests and holds within itself, not caught on its surface, but
+entangled in its mass&mdash;floating fleeces, precious with the gold of
+heaven; and this translucency is especially indicated on the dark sides
+even of her heaviest wreaths, which possess opalescent and delicate hues
+of partial illumination, far more dependent upon the beams which pass
+through them than on those which are reflected upon them. Nothing, on
+the contrary, can be more painfully and ponderously opaque than the
+clouds of the old masters universally. However far removed in aerial
+distance, and however brilliant in light, they never appear filmy or
+evanescent, and their light is always on them, not in them. And this
+effect is much increased by the positive and persevering determination
+on the part of their outlines not to be broken in upon, nor interfered
+with in the slightest degree, by any presumptuous blue, or impertinent
+winds. There is no inequality, no variation, no losing or disguising of
+line, no melting into nothingness, nor shattering into spray; edge
+succeeds edge with imperturbable <span class="pagenum"><a name="page235"></a>[Page 235]</span> equanimity, and nothing
+short of the most decided interference on the part of tree-tops, or the
+edge of the picture, prevents us from being able to follow them all the
+way round, like the coast of an island.</p>
+
+<p>And be it remembered that all these faults and deficiencies are to be
+found in their drawing merely of the separate masses of the solid
+cumulus, the easiest drawn of all clouds. But <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p15">§ 15. Farther proof of
+their deficiency in space.</a></span>nature scarcely ever confines herself to such
+masses; they form but the thousandth part of her variety of effect. She
+builds up a pyramid of their boiling volumes, bars this across like a
+mountain with the gray cirrus, envelops it in black, ragged, drifting
+vapor, covers the open part of the sky with mottled horizontal fields,
+breaks through these with sudden and long sunbeams, tears up their edges
+with local winds, scatters over the gaps of blue the infinity of
+multitude of the high cirri, and melts even the unoccupied azure into
+palpitating shades. And all this is done over and over again in every
+quarter of a mile. Where Poussin or Claude have three similar masses,
+nature has fifty pictures, made up each of millions of minor
+thoughts&mdash;fifty aisles penetrating through angelic chapels to the
+Shechinah of the blue&mdash;fifty hollow ways among bewildered hills&mdash;each
+with their own nodding rocks, and cloven precipices, and radiant
+summits, and robing vapors, but all unlike each other, except in beauty,
+all bearing witness to the unwearied, exhaustless operation of the
+Infinite Mind. Now, in cases like these especially, as we observed
+before of general nature, though it is altogether hopeless to follow out
+in the space of any one picture this incalculable and inconceivable
+glory, yet the painter can at least see that the space he has at his
+command, narrow and confined as it is, is made complete use of, and that
+no part of it shall be without entertainment and food for thought. If he
+could subdivide it by millionths of inches, he could not reach the
+multitudinous majesty of nature; but it is at least incumbent upon him
+to make the most of what he has, and not, by exaggerating the
+proportions, banishing the variety and repeating the forms of his
+clouds, to set at defiance the eternal principles of the
+heavens&mdash;fitfulness and infinity. And now let us, keeping in memory what
+we have seen of Poussin and Salvator, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page236"></a>[Page 236]</span> take up one of
+Turner's skies, and see whether <i>he</i> is as narrow <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p16">§ 16. Instance of
+perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon.</a></span>in his conception, or as
+niggardly in his space. It does not matter which we take, his sublime
+Babylon<a name="FnAnchor_33" href="#Footnote_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a> is a fair example for our present purpose. Ten miles away,
+down the Euphrates, where it gleams last along the plain, he gives us a
+drift of dark elongated vapor, melting beneath into a dim haze which
+embraces the hills on the horizon. It is exhausted with its own motion,
+and broken up by the wind in its own body into numberless groups of
+billowy and tossing fragments, which, beaten by the weight of storm down
+to the earth, are just lifting themselves again on wearied wings, and
+perishing in the effort. Above these, and far beyond them, the eye goes
+back to a broad sea of white, illuminated mist, or rather cloud melted
+into rain, and absorbed again before that rain has fallen, but
+penetrated throughout, whether it be vapor or whether it be dew, with
+soft sunshine, turning it as white as snow. Gradually as it rises, the
+rainy fusion ceases, you cannot tell where the film of blue on the left
+begins&mdash;but it is deepening, deepening still,&mdash;and the cloud, with its
+edge first invisible, then all but imaginary, then just felt when the
+eye is <i>not</i> fixed on it, and lost when it is, at last rises, keen from
+excessive distance, but soft and mantling in its body, as a swan's bosom
+fretted by faint wind, heaving fitfully against the delicate deep blue,
+with white waves, whose forms are traced by the pale lines of opalescent
+shadow, shade only because the light is within it, and not upon it, and
+which break with their own swiftness into a driven line of level spray,
+winnowed into threads by the wind, and flung before the following vapor
+like those swift shafts of arrowy water which a great cataract shoots
+into the air beside it, trying to find the earth. Beyond these, again,
+rises a colossal mountain of gray cumulus, through whose shadowed sides
+the sunbeams penetrate in dim, sloping, rain-like shafts; and over which
+they fall in a broad burst of streaming light, sinking to the earth, and
+showing through their own visible radiance the three successive ranges
+of hills which connect its desolate plain with space. Above, the edgy
+summit of the cumulus, broken into fragments, recedes <span class="pagenum"><a name="page237"></a>[Page 237]</span> into
+the sky, which is peopled in its serenity with quiet multitudes of the
+white, soft, silent cirrus; and under these again, drift near the
+zenith, disturbed and impatient shadows of a darker spirit, seeking rest
+and finding none.</p>
+
+<p>Now this is nature! It is the exhaustless living energy with which the
+universe is filled; and what will you set beside it of the works of
+other men? Show me a single picture, in the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p17">§ 17. And in his Pools of
+Solomon.</a></span>whole compass of ancient art, in which I can pass from cloud to
+cloud, from region to region, from first to second and third heaven, as
+I can here, and you may talk of Turner's want of truth. Turn to the
+Pools of Solomon, and walk through the passages of mist as they melt on
+the one hand into those stormy fragments of fiery cloud, or, on the
+other, into the cold solitary shadows that compass the sweeping hill,
+and when you find an inch without air and transparency, and a
+hairbreadth without changefulness and thought; and when you can count
+the torn waves of tossing radiance that gush from the sun, as you can
+count the fixed, white, insipidities of Claude; or when you can measure
+the modulation and the depth of that hollow mist, as you can the
+flourishes of the brush upon the canvas of Salvator, talk of Turner's
+want of truth!</p>
+
+<p>But let us take up simpler and less elaborate works, for there is too
+much in these to admit of being analyzed.</p>
+
+<p>In the vignette of the Lake of Como, in Rogers's Italy, the space is so
+small that the details have been partially lost by the engraver; but
+enough remain to illustrate the great principles <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p18">§ 18. Truths of outline
+and character in his Como.</a></span>of cloud from which we have endeavored to
+explain. Observe first the general angular outline of the volumes on the
+left of the sun. If you mark the points where the direction of their
+outline changes, and connect those points by right lines, the cloud will
+touch, but will not cut, those lines throughout. Yet its contour is as
+graceful as it is full of character&mdash;toppling, ready to change&mdash;fragile
+as enormous&mdash;evanescent as colossal. Observe how, where it crosses the
+line of the sun, it becomes luminous, illustrating what has been
+observed of the visibility of mist in sunlight. Observe, above all, the
+multiplicity of its solid form, the depth of its shadows in perpetual
+transition: it is not round and swelled, half light and half dark, but
+full of breaking irregular <span class="pagenum"><a name="page238"></a>[Page 238]</span> shadow and transparency&mdash;variable
+as the wind, and melting imperceptibly above into the haziness of the
+sunlighted atmosphere, contrasted in all its vast forms with the
+delicacy and the multitude of the brightly touched cirri. Nothing can
+surpass the truth of this; the cloud is as gigantic in its simplicity as
+the Alp which it opposes; but how various, how transparent, how infinite
+in its organization!</p>
+
+<p>I would draw especial attention, both here and in all other works of
+Turner, to the beautiful use of the low horizontal bars or fields of
+cloud, (cirrostratus,) which associate themselves so <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p19">§ 19. Association
+of the cirrostratus with the cumulus.</a></span>frequently&mdash;more especially before
+storms&mdash;with the true cumulus, floating on its flanks, or capping it, as
+if it were a mountain, and seldom mingling with its substance, unless in
+the very formation of rain. They supply us with one of those beautiful
+instances of natural composition, by which the artist is superseded and
+excelled&mdash;for, by the occurrence of these horizontal flakes, the rolling
+form of the cumulus is both opposed in its principal lines, and gifted
+with an apparent solidity and vastness, which no other expedient could
+have exhibited, and which far exceed in awfulness the impression of the
+noblest mountains of the earth. I have seen in the evening light of
+Italy, the Alps themselves out-towered by ranges of these mighty clouds,
+alternately white in the starlight, and inhabited by fire.</p>
+
+<p>Turn back to the first vignette in the Italy. The angular outlines and
+variety of modulation in the clouds above the sail, and the delicate
+atmosphere of morning into which they are <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p20">§ 20. The deep-based knowledge
+of the Alps in Turner's Lake of Geneva.</a></span>dissolved about the breathing
+hills, require no comment; but one part of this vignette demands
+especial notice; it is the repetition of the outline of the snowy
+mountain by the light cloud above it. The cause of this I have already
+explained (vide <a href="#page228">page 228</a>,) and its occurrence here is especially
+valuable as bearing witness to the thorough and scientific knowledge
+thrown by Turner into his slightest works. The thing cannot be seen once
+in six months; it would not have been noticed, much less introduced by
+an ordinary artist, and to the public it is a dead letter, or an
+offence. Ninety-nine persons in a hundred would not have observed this
+pale wreath of parallel cloud above the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page239"></a>[Page 239]</span> hill, and the
+hundredth in all probability says it is unnatural. It requires the most
+intimate and accurate knowledge of the Alps before such a piece of
+refined truth can be understood.</p>
+
+<p>At the 216th page we have another and a new case, in which clouds in
+perfect repose, unaffected by wind, or any influence but that of their
+own elastic force, boil, rise, and melt in the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p21">§ 21. Further principles
+of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.</a></span>heaven with more approach to
+globular form than under any other circumstances is possible. I name
+this vignette, not only because it is most remarkable for the buoyancy
+and elasticity of inward energy, indicated through the most ponderous
+forms, and affords us a beautiful instance of the junction of the
+cirrostratus with the cumulus, of which we have just been speaking (§
+19,) but because it is a characteristic example of Turner's use of one
+of the facts of nature not hitherto noticed, that the edge of a
+partially transparent body is often darker than its central surface,
+because at the edge the light penetrates and passes through, which from
+the centre is reflected to the eye. The sharp, cutting edge of a wave,
+if not broken into foam, frequently appears for an instant almost black;
+and the outlines of these massy clouds, where their projecting forms
+rise in relief against the light of their bodies, are almost always
+marked clearly and firmly by very dark edges. Hence we have frequently,
+if not constantly, multitudinous forms indicated only by outline, giving
+character and solidity to the great masses of light, without taking away
+from their breadth. And Turner avails himself of these boldly and
+constantly,&mdash;outlining forms with the brush of which no other indication
+is given. All the grace and solidity of the white cloud on the
+right-hand side of the vignette before us, depends upon such outlines.</p>
+
+<p>As I before observed of mere execution, that one of the best tests of
+its excellence was the expression of <i>infinity</i>; so it may be noticed
+with respect to the painting of details generally, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p22">§ 22. Reasons for
+insisting on the <i>infinity</i> of Turner's works. Infinity is almost an
+unerring test of <i>all</i> truth.</a></span>that more difference lies between one
+artist and another, in the attainment of this quality, than in any other
+of the efforts of art; and that if we wish, without reference to beauty
+of composition, or any other interfering circumstances, to form a
+judgment of the truth of painting, perhaps the very first thing <span class="pagenum"><a name="page240"></a>[Page
+240]</span> we should look for, whether in one thing or another&mdash;foliage, or
+clouds, or waves&mdash;should be the expression of <i>infinity</i> always and
+everywhere, in all parts and divisions of parts. For we may be quite
+sure that what is not infinite, cannot be true; it does not, indeed,
+follow that what is infinite, always is true, but it cannot be
+altogether false, for this simple reason; that it is impossible for
+mortal mind to compose an infinity of any kind for itself, or to form an
+idea of perpetual variation, and to avoid all repetition, merely by its
+own combining resources. The moment that we trust to ourselves, we
+repeat ourselves, and therefore the moment we see in a work of any kind
+whatsoever, the expression of infinity, we may be certain that the
+workman has gone to nature for it; while, on the other hand, the moment
+we see repetition, or want of infinity, we may be certain that the
+workman has <i>not</i> gone to nature for it.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, in the picture of Salvator before noticed, No. 220 in the
+Dulwich Gallery, as we see at once that the two <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p23">§ 23. Instances of the
+total want of it in the works of Salvator.</a></span>masses of cloud absolutely
+repeat each other in every one of their forms, and that each is composed
+of about twelve white sweeps of the brush, all forming the same curve,
+and all of the same length; and as we can count these, and measure their
+common diameter, and by stating the same to anybody else, convey to him
+a full and perfect idea and knowledge of that sky in all its parts and
+proportions,&mdash;as we can do this, we may be absolutely certain, without
+reference to the real sky, or to any other part of nature, without even
+knowing what the white things were intended for, we may be certain that
+they cannot possibly resemble <i>anything</i>; that whatever they were meant
+for, they can be nothing but a violent contradiction of all nature's
+principles and forms. When, on the other hand, we take up such a sky as
+that of Turner's Rouen, seen from St. Catherine's Hill, in the Rivers of
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p24">§ 24. And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The
+conclusions which may be arrived at from it.</a></span>France, and find, in the
+first place, that he has given us a distance over the hills in the
+horizon, into which, when we are tired of penetrating, we must turn and
+come back again, there being not the remotest chance of getting to the
+end of it; and when we see that from this measureless distance up to the
+zenith, the whole sky is one ocean of alternate waves of cloud <span class="pagenum"><a name="page241"></a>[Page
+241]</span> and light, so blended together that the eye cannot rest on any one
+without being guided to the next, and so to a hundred more, till it is
+lost over and over again in every wreath&mdash;that if it divides the sky
+into quarters of inches, and tries to count or comprehend the component
+parts of any single one of those divisions, it is still as utterly
+defied and defeated by the part as by the whole&mdash;that there is not one
+line out of the millions there which repeats another, not one which is
+unconnected with another, not one which does not in itself convey
+histories of distance and space, and suggest new and changeful form;
+then we may be all but certain, though these forms are too mysterious
+and too delicate for us to analyze&mdash;though all is so crowded and so
+connected that it is impossible to test any single part by particular
+laws&mdash;yet without any such tests, we may be sure that this infinity can
+only be based on truth&mdash;that it <i>must</i> be nature, because man could not
+have originated it, and that every form must be faithful, because none
+is like another. And therefore it is that I insist so constantly on this
+great quality of landscape painting, as it appears in Turner; because it
+is not merely a constant and most important truth in itself, but it
+almost amounts to a demonstration of every other truth. And it will be
+found a far rarer attainment in the works of other <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p25">§ 25. The
+multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will not give the
+impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices.</a></span>men than is
+commonly supposed, and the sign, wherever it is really found, of the
+very highest art. For we are apt to forget that the greatest <i>number</i> is
+no nearer infinity than the least, if it be definite number; and the
+vastest bulk is no nearer infinity than the most minute, if it be
+definite bulk; so that a man may multiply his objects forever and ever,
+and be no nearer infinity than he had reached with one, if he do not
+vary them and confuse them; and a man may reach infinity in every touch
+and line, and part, and unit, if in these he be truthfully various and
+obscure. And we shall find, the more we examine the works of the old
+masters, that always, and in all parts, they are totally wanting in
+every feeling of infinity, and therefore in <i>all</i> truth: and even in the
+works of the moderns, though the aim is far more just, we shall
+frequently perceive an erroneous choice of means, and a substitution of
+mere number or bulk for real infinity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page242"></a>[Page 242]</span></p>
+
+<p>And therefore, in concluding our notice of the central cloud region, I
+should wish to dwell particularly on those skies of Turner's, in which
+we have the whole space of the heaven covered <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p26">§ 26. Farther instances of
+infinity in the gray skies of Turner.</a></span>with the delicate dim flakes of
+gathering vapor, which are the intermediate link between the central
+region and that of the rain-cloud, and which assemble and grow out of
+the air; shutting up the heaven with a gray interwoven veil, before the
+approach of storm, faint, but universal, letting the light of the upper
+sky pass pallidly through their body, but never rending a passage for
+the ray. We have the first approach and gathering of this kind of sky
+most gloriously given in the vignette at page 115 of Rogers's Italy,
+which is one of the most perfect pieces of feeling (if I may transgress
+my usual rules for an instant) extant in art, owing to the extreme
+grandeur and stern simplicity of the strange and ominous forms of level
+cloud behind the building. In that at page 223, there are passages of
+the same kind, of exceeding perfection. The sky through which the dawn
+is breaking in the Voyage of Columbus, and that with the Moonlight under
+the Rialto, in Rogers's Poems, the skies of the Bethlehem, and the
+Pyramids in Finden's Bible series, and among the Academy pictures, that
+of the Hero and Leander, and Flight into Egypt, are characteristic and
+noble examples, as far as any individual works can be characteristic of
+the universality of this mighty mind. I ought not to forget the
+magnificent solemnity and fulness of the wreaths of gathering darkness
+in the Folkestone.</p>
+
+<p>We must not pass from the consideration of the central cloud region
+without noticing the general high quality of the cloud-drawing <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p27">§ 27. The
+excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield.</a></span>of Stanfield. He is limited
+in his range, and is apt in extensive compositions to repeat himself,
+neither is he ever very refined; but his cloud-form is firmly and
+fearlessly chiselled, with perfect knowledge, though usually with some
+want of feeling. As far as it goes, it is very grand and very tasteful,
+beautifully developed in the space of its solid parts and full of
+action. Next to Turner, he is incomparably the noblest master of
+cloud-form of all our artists; in fact, he is the only one among them
+who really can <i>draw</i> a cloud. For it is a very different thing to rub
+out an irregular white space neatly with the handkerchief, or to leave a
+bright <span class="pagenum"><a name="page243"></a>[Page 243]</span> little bit of paper in the middle of a wash, and to
+give the real <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c3p28">§ 28. The average standing of the English school.</a></span>anatomy
+of cloud-form with perfect articulation of chiaroscuro. We have
+multitudes of painters who can throw a light bit of straggling vapor
+across their sky, or leave in it delicate and tender passages of
+breaking light; but this is a very different thing from taking up each
+of those bits or passages, and giving it structure, and parts, and
+solidity. The eye is satisfied with exceedingly little, as an indication
+of cloud, and a few clever sweeps of the brush on wet paper may give all
+that it requires; but this is not <i>drawing</i> clouds, nor will it ever
+appeal fully and deeply to the mind, except when it occurs only as a
+part of a higher system. And there is not one of our modern artists,
+except Stanfield, who can do much more than this. As soon as they
+attempt to lay detail upon their clouds, they appear to get bewildered,
+forget that they are dealing with forms regulated by precisely the same
+simple laws of light and shade as more substantial matter, overcharge
+their color, confuse their shadows and dark sides, and end in mere
+ragged confusion. I believe the evil arises from their never attempting
+to render clouds except with the brush; other objects, at some period of
+study, they take up with the chalk or lead, and so learn something of
+their form; but they appear to consider clouds as altogether dependent
+on cobalt and camel's hair, and so never understand anything of their
+real anatomy. But whatever the cause, I cannot point to any central
+clouds of the moderns, except those of Turner and Stanfield, as really
+showing much knowledge of, or feeling for, nature, though <i>all</i> are
+superior to the conventional and narrow conceptions of the ancients. We
+are all right as far as we go, our work may be incomplete, but it is not
+false; and it is far better, far less injurious to the mind, that we
+should be little attracted to the sky, and taught to be satisfied with a
+light suggestion of truthful form, than that we should be drawn to it by
+violently pronounced outline and intense color, to find in its finished
+falsehood everything to displease or to mislead&mdash;to hurt our feelings,
+if we have foundation for them, and corrupt them, if we have none.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32" href="#FnAnchor_32">[32]</a> Here I include even the great ones&mdash;even Titian and
+Veronese,&mdash;excepting only Tintoret and the religious schools.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33" href="#FnAnchor_33">[33]</a> Engraved in Findel's Bible Illustrations.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page244"></a>[Page 244]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: THIRDLY, OF THE REGION OF THE<br />
+RAIN-CLOUD.</h5>
+
+<p>The clouds which I wish to consider as characteristic of the lower, or
+rainy region, differ not so much in their real nature <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p1">§ 1. The apparent
+difference in character between the lower and central clouds is
+dependent chiefly on proximity.</a></span>from those of the central and uppermost
+regions, as in appearance, owing to their greater nearness. For the
+central clouds, and perhaps even the high cirri, deposit moisture, if
+not distinctly rain, as is sufficiently proved by the existence of snow
+on the highest peaks of the Himaleh; and when, on any such mountains, we
+are brought into close contact with the central clouds,<a name="FnAnchor_34" href="#Footnote_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> we find them
+little differing from the ordinary rain-cloud of the plains, except by
+being slightly less dense and dark. But the apparent differences,
+dependent on proximity, are most marked and important.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the clouds of the central region have, as has been
+before observed, pure and aerial grays for their dark sides, owing to
+their necessary distance from the observer; and as this <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p2">§ 2. Their
+marked difference in color.</a></span>distance permits a multitude of local
+phenomena capable of influencing color, such as accidental sunbeams,
+refractions, transparencies, or local mists and showers, to be collected
+into a space comparatively small, the colors of these clouds are always
+changeful and palpitating; and whatever degree of gray or of gloom may
+be mixed with them is invariably pure and aerial. But the nearness of
+the rain-cloud rendering it impossible for a number of phenomena to be
+at once <span class="pagenum"><a name="page245"></a>[Page 245]</span> visible, makes its hue of gray monotonous, and (by
+losing the blue of distance) warm and brown compared to that of the
+upper clouds. This is especially remarkable on any part of it which may
+happen to be illumined, which is of a brown, bricky, ochreous tone,
+never bright, always coming in dark outline on the lights of the central
+clouds. But it is seldom that this takes place, and when it does, never
+over large spaces, little being usually seen of the rain-cloud but its
+under and dark side. This, when the cloud above is dense, becomes of an
+inky and cold gray, and sulphureous and lurid if there be thunder in the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>With these striking differences in color, it presents no fewer nor less
+important in form, chiefly from losing almost all definiteness of
+character and outline. It is sometimes nothing more <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p3">§ 3. And in
+definiteness of form.</a></span>than a thin mist, whose outline cannot be traced,
+rendering the landscape locally indistinct or dark; if its outline be
+visible, it is ragged and torn; rather a spray of cloud, taken off its
+edge and sifted by the wind, than an edge of the cloud itself. In fact,
+it rather partakes of the nature, and assumes the appearance, of real
+water in the state of spray, than of elastic vapor. This appearance is
+enhanced by the usual presence of formed rain, carried along with it in
+a columnar form, ordinarily, of course, reaching the ground like a veil,
+but very often suspended with the cloud, and hanging from it like a
+jagged fringe, or over it in light, rain being always lighter than the
+cloud it falls from. These columns, or fringes, of rain are often waved
+and bent by the wind, or twisted, sometimes even swept upwards from the
+cloud. The velocity of these vapors, though not necessarily in reality
+greater than that of the central clouds, appears greater, owing to their
+proximity, and, of course, also to the usual presence of a more violent
+wind. They are also apparently much more in the power of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p4">§ 4. They are
+subject to precisely the same great laws.</a></span>the wind, having less elastic
+force in themselves; but they are precisely subject to the same great
+laws of form which regulate the upper clouds. They are not solid bodies
+borne about with the wind, but they carry the wind with them, and cause
+it. Every one knows, who has ever been out in a storm, that the time
+when it rains heaviest is precisely the time when he cannot hold up his
+umbrella; that the wind is carried with the cloud, and lulls when it has
+passed. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page246"></a>[Page 246]</span> Every one who has ever seen rain in a hill country,
+knows that a rain-cloud, like any other, may have all its parts in rapid
+motion, and yet, as a whole, remain in one spot. I remember once, when
+in crossing the Tźte Noire, I had turned up the valley towards Trient, I
+noticed a rain-cloud forming on the Glacier de Trient. With a west wind,
+it proceeded towards the Col de Balme, being followed by a prolonged
+wreath of vapor, always forming exactly at the same spot over the
+glacier. This long, serpent-like line of cloud went on at a great rate
+till it reached the valley leading down from the Col de Balme, under the
+slate rocks of the Croix de Fer. There it turned sharp round, and came
+down this valley, at right angles to its former progress, and finally
+directly contrary to it, till it came down within five hundred feet of
+the village, where it disappeared; the line behind always advancing, and
+always disappearing, at the same spot. This continued for half an hour,
+the long line describing the curve of a horseshoe; always coming into
+existence, and always vanishing at exactly the same places; traversing
+the space between with enormous swiftness. This cloud, ten miles off,
+would have looked like a perfectly motionless wreath, in the form of a
+horseshoe, hanging over the hills.</p>
+
+<p>To the region of the rain-cloud belong also all those phenomena of
+drifted smoke, heat-haze, local mists in the morning or evening; in
+valleys, or over water, mirage, white <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p5">§ 5. Value, to the painter, of the
+rain-cloud.</a></span>steaming vapor rising in evaporation from moist and open
+surfaces, and everything which visibly affects the condition of the
+atmosphere without actually assuming the form of cloud. These phenomena
+are as perpetual in all countries as they are beautiful, and afford by
+far the most effective and valuable means which the painter possesses,
+for modification of the forms of fixed objects. The upper clouds are
+distinct and comparatively opaque, they do not modify, but conceal; but
+through the rain-cloud, and its accessory phenomena, all that is
+beautiful may be made manifest, and all that is hurtful concealed; what
+is paltry may be made to look vast, and what is ponderous, aerial;
+mystery may be obtained without obscurity, and decoration without
+disguise. And, accordingly, nature herself uses it constantly, as one of
+her chief means of most perfect effect; not in one country, nor another,
+but everywhere&mdash;everywhere; <span class="pagenum"><a name="page247"></a>[Page 247]</span> at least, where there is
+anything worth calling landscape. I cannot answer for the desert of the
+Sahara, but I know that there can be no greater mistake, than supposing
+that delicate and variable effects of mist and rain-cloud are peculiar
+to northern climates. I have never seen in any place or country effects
+of mist more perfect than in the Campagna of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p6">§ 6. The old masters have
+not left a single instance of the painting of the rain-cloud, and very
+few efforts at it. Gaspar Poussin's storms.</a></span>Rome, and among the hills of
+Sorrento. It is therefore matter of no little marvel to me, and I
+conceive that it can scarcely be otherwise to any reflecting person,
+that throughout the whole range of ancient landscape art, there occurs
+no instance of the painting of a real rain-cloud, still less of any of
+the more delicate phenomena characteristic of the region. "Storms"
+indeed, as the innocent public persist in calling such abuses of nature
+and abortions of art as the two windy Gaspars in our National Gallery,
+are common enough; massive concretions of ink and indigo, wrung and
+twisted very hard, apparently in a vain effort to get some moisture out
+of them; bearing up courageously and successfully against a wind, whose
+effects on the trees in the foreground can be accounted for only on the
+supposition that they are all of the India-rubber species. Enough of
+this in all conscience, we have, and to spare; but for the legitimate
+rain-cloud, with its ragged and spray-like edge, its veilly
+transparency, and its columnar burden of blessing, neither it, nor
+anything like it, or approaching it, occurs in any painting of the old
+masters that I have ever seen; and I have seen enough to warrant my
+affirming that if it occur anywhere, it must be through accident rather
+than intention. Nor is there stronger evidence of any perception, on the
+part of these much respected artists, that there were such things in the
+world as mists or vapors. If a cloud under their direction ever touches
+a mountain, it does it effectually and as if it meant to do it. There is
+no mystifying the matter; here is a cloud, and there is a hill; if it is
+to come on at all, it comes on to some purpose, and there is no hope of
+its ever going off again. We have, therefore, little to say of the
+efforts of the old masters, in any scenes which might naturally have
+been connected with the clouds of the lowest region, except that the
+faults of form specified in considering the central clouds, are, by way
+of being energetic or <span class="pagenum"><a name="page248"></a>[Page 248]</span> sublime, more glaringly and
+audaciously committed in their "storms;" and that what is a wrong form
+among clouds possessing form, is there given with increased generosity
+of fiction to clouds which have no form at all.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing that we had nothing to show in modern art, of the region of
+the rain-cloud, but the dash of Cox, the blot of de <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p7">§ 7. The great power
+of the moderns in this respect.</a></span>Wint, or even the ordinary stormy skies
+of the body of our inferior water-color painters, we might yet laugh all
+efforts of the old masters to utter scorn. But one among our water-color
+artists, deserves especial notice&mdash;before we ascend the steps of the
+solitary throne&mdash;as having done in his peculiar walk, what for faithful
+and pure truth, truth indeed of a limited range and unstudied
+application, but yet most faithful and most pure, will remain
+unsurpassed if not unrivalled,&mdash;Copley Fielding. We are well aware how
+much of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p8">§ 8. Works of Copley Fielding.</a></span>what he has done depends in a
+great degree upon particular tricks of execution, or on a labor somewhat
+too mechanical to be meritorious; that it is rather the <i>texture</i> than
+the <i>plan</i> of his sky which is to be admired, and that the greater part
+of what is pleasurable in it will fall rather under the head of
+dexterous imitation than of definite thought. But whatever detractions
+from his merit we may be compelled to make on these grounds, in
+considering art as the embodying of beauty, or the channel of mind, it
+is impossible, when we are speaking of truth only, to pass by his down
+scenes and moorland showers, of some years ago, in which he produced
+some of the most perfect and faultless passages of mist and rain-cloud
+which art has ever seen. Wet, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p9">§ 9. His peculiar truth.</a></span>transparent,
+formless, full of motion, felt rather by their shadows on the hills than
+by their presence in the sky, becoming dark only through increased depth
+of space, most translucent where most sombre, and light only through
+increased buoyancy of motion, letting the blue through their
+interstices, and the sunlight through their chasms, with the irregular
+playfulness and traceless gradation of nature herself, his skies will
+remain, as long as their colors stand, among the most simple,
+unadulterated, and complete transcripts of a particular nature which art
+can point to. Had he painted five instead of five hundred such, and gone
+on to other sources of beauty, he might, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page249"></a>[Page 249]</span> there can be little
+doubt, have been one of our greatest artists. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p10">§ 10. His weakness and its
+probable cause.</a></span>But it often grieves us to see how his power is limited
+to a particular moment, to that easiest moment for imitation, when
+knowledge of form may be superseded by management of the brush, and the
+judgment of the colorist by the manufacture of a color; the moment when
+all form is melted down and drifted away in the descending veil of rain,
+and when the variable and fitful colors of the heaven are lost in the
+monotonous gray of its storm tones.<a name="FnAnchor_35" href="#Footnote_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> We can only account for this by
+supposing that there is something radically wrong in his method of
+study; for a man of his evident depth of feeling and pure love of truth
+ought not to be, cannot be, except from some strange error in his mode
+of out-of-door practice, thus limited in his range, and liable to
+decline of power. We have little doubt that almost all such failures
+arise from the artist's neglecting the use of the chalk, and supposing
+that either the power of drawing forms, or the sense of their beauty,
+can be maintained unweakened or unblunted, without constant and
+laborious studies in simple light and shade, of form only. The brush is
+at once the artist's greatest aid and enemy; it enables him to make his
+power available, but at the same time, it undermines his power, and
+unless it be constantly rejected for the pencil, never can be rightly
+used. But whatever the obstacle be, we do not doubt that it is one
+which, once seen, may be overcome or removed; and we are in the constant
+hope of seeing this finely-minded artist shake off his lethargy, break
+the shackles of habit, seek in extended and right study the sources of
+real power, and become, what we have full faith in his capability of
+being, one of the leading artists of his time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page250"></a>[Page 250]</span></p>
+
+<p>In passing to the works of our greatest modern master, it must be
+premised that the qualities which constitute a most essential <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p11">§ 11.
+Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from
+engravings.</a></span>part of the truth of the rain-cloud, are in no degree to be
+rendered by engraving. Its indefiniteness of torn and transparent form
+is far beyond the power of even our best engravers: I do not say beyond
+their <i>possible</i> power, if they would make themselves artists as well as
+workmen, but far beyond the power they actually possess; while the depth
+and delicacy of the grays which Turner employs or produces, as well as
+the refinement of his execution, are, in the nature of things, utterly
+beyond all imitation by the opaque and lifeless darkness of the steel.
+What we say of his works, therefore, must be understood as referring
+only to the original drawings; though we may name one or two instances
+in which the engraver has, to a certain degree, succeeded in distantly
+following the intention of the master.</p>
+
+<p>Jumieges, in the Rivers of France, ought perhaps, after what we have
+said of Fielding, to be our first object of attention, because <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p12">§ 12. His
+rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges.</a></span>it is a
+rendering by Turner of Fielding's particular moment, and the only one
+existing, for Turner never repeats himself. One picture is allotted to
+one truth; the statement is perfectly and gloriously made, and he passes
+on to speak of a fresh portion of God's revelation.<a name="FnAnchor_36" href="#Footnote_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> The haze of
+sunlit rain of this most magnificent picture, the gradual retirement of
+the dark wood into its depth, and the sparkling and evanescent light
+which sends its variable flashes on the abbey, figures, foliage, and
+foam, require no comment&mdash;they speak home at once. But there is added to
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p13">§ 13. Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of smoke
+and steam.</a></span>this noble composition an incident which may serve us at once
+for a farther illustration of the nature and forms of cloud, and for a
+final proof how deeply and philosophically Turner has studied them.</p>
+
+<p>We have on the right of the picture, the steam and the smoke of a
+passing steamboat. Now steam is nothing but an artificial cloud in the
+process of dissipation; it is as much a cloud as those of the sky
+itself, that is, a quantity of moisture rendered visible in the air by
+imperfect solution. Accordingly, observe <span class="pagenum"><a name="page251"></a>[Page 251]</span> how exquisitely
+irregular and broken are its forms, how sharp and spray-like; but with
+all the facts observed which were pointed out in Chap. II. of this
+Section, the convex side to the wind, the sharp edge on that side, the
+other soft and lost. Smoke, on the contrary, is an actual substance
+existing independently in the air, a solid opaque body, subject to no
+absorption nor dissipation but that of tenuity. Observe its volumes;
+there is no breaking up nor disappearing here; the wind carries its
+elastic globes before it, but does not dissolve nor break them.<a name="FnAnchor_37" href="#Footnote_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a>
+Equally convex and void of angles on all sides, they are the exact
+representatives of the clouds of the old masters, and serve at once to
+show the ignorance and falsehood of these latter, and the accuracy of
+study which has guided Turner to the truth.</p>
+
+<p>From this picture we should pass to the Llanthony,<a name="FnAnchor_38" href="#Footnote_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> which is the
+rendering of the moment immediately following that given in the
+Jumieges. The shower is here half exhausted, half <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p14">§ 14. Moment of
+retiring rain in the Llanthony.</a></span>passed by, the last drops are rattling
+faintly through the glimmering hazel boughs, the white torrent, swelled
+by the sudden storm, flings up its hasty jets of springing spray to meet
+the returning light; and these, as if the heaven regretted what it had
+given, and were taking it back, pass, as they leap, into vapor, and fall
+not again, but vanish in the shafts of the sunlight<a name="FnAnchor_39" href="#Footnote_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a>&mdash;hurrying,
+fitful, wind-woven sunlight&mdash;which glides through the thick leaves, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252"></a>[Page 252]</span> paces along the pale rocks like rain; half conquering, half
+quenched by the very mists which it summons itself from the lighted
+pastures as it passes, and gathers out of the drooping herbage and from
+the streaming crags; sending them with messages of peace to the far
+summits of the yet unveiled mountains whose silence is still broken by
+the sound of the rushing rain.</p>
+
+<p>With this noble work we should compare one of which we can better judge
+by the engraving&mdash;the Loch Coriskin, in the illustrations to Scott,
+because it introduces us to another and a most <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p15">§ 15. And of commencing,
+chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch Coriskin.</a></span>remarkable instance of
+the artist's vast and varied knowledge. When rain falls on a mountain
+composed chiefly of barren rocks, their surfaces, being violently heated
+by the sun, whose most intense warmth always precedes rain, occasion
+sudden and violent evaporation, actually converting the first shower
+into steam. Consequently, upon all such hills, on the commencement of
+rain, white volumes of vapor are instantaneously and universally formed,
+which rise, are absorbed by the atmosphere, and again descend in rain,
+to rise in fresh volumes until the surfaces of the hills are cooled.
+Where there is grass or vegetation, this effect is diminished; where
+there is foliage it scarcely takes place at all. Now this effect has
+evidently been especially chosen by Turner for Loch Coriskin, not only
+because it enabled him to relieve its jagged forms with veiling vapor,
+but to tell the tale which no pencilling could, the story of its utter
+absolute barrenness of unlichened, dead, desolated rock:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1">
+"The wildest glen, but this, can show <br />
+Some touch of nature's genial glow, <br />
+On high Benmore green mosses grow, <br />
+And heath-bells bud in deep Glencoe. <br />
+And copse on Cruchan Ben; <br />
+But here, above, around, below, <br />
+On mountain, or in glen, <br />
+Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower, <br />
+Nor aught of vegetative power, <br />
+The wearied eye may ken; <br />
+But all its rocks at random thrown, <br />
+Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone." <br />
+
+<span style="padding-left: 11em; "><span class="sc">Lord of the Isles</span>, Canto III</span>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page253"></a>[Page 253]</span></p>
+
+<p>Here, again, we see the absolute necessity of scientific and entire
+acquaintance with nature, before this great artist can be understood.
+That which, to the ignorant, is little more than an unnatural and
+meaningless confusion of steam-like vapor, is to the experienced such a
+full and perfect expression of the character of the spot, as no means of
+art could have otherwise given.</p>
+
+<p>In the Long Ships Lighthouse, Land's End, we have clouds without
+rain&mdash;at twilight&mdash;enveloping the cliffs of the coast, but concealing
+nothing, every outline being visible through their <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p16">§ 16. The drawing of
+transparent vapor in the Land's End.</a></span>gloom; and not only the outline&mdash;for
+it is easy to do this&mdash;but the <i>surface</i>. The bank of rocky coast
+approaches the spectator inch by inch, felt clearer and clearer as it
+withdraws from the garment of cloud&mdash;not by edges more and more defined,
+but by a surface more and more unveiled. We have thus the painting, not
+of a mere transparent veil, but of a solid body of cloud, every inch of
+whose increasing distance is marked and felt. But the great wonder of
+the picture is the intensity of gloom which is attained in pure warm
+gray, without either blackness or blueness. It is a gloom, dependent
+rather on the enormous space and depth indicated, than on actual pitch
+of color, distant by real drawing, without a grain of blue, dark by real
+substance, without a stroke of blackness; and with all this, it is not
+formless, but full of indications of character, wild, irregular,
+shattered, and indefinite&mdash;full of the energy of storm, fiery in haste,
+and yet flinging back out of its motion the fitful swirls of bounding
+drift, of tortured vapor tossed up like men's hands, as in defiance of
+the tempest, the jets of resulting whirlwind, hurled back from the rocks
+into the face of the coming darkness; which, beyond all other
+characters, mark the raised passion of the elements. It is this
+untraceable, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p17">§ 17. The individual character of its parts.</a></span>unconnected,
+yet perpetual form&mdash;this fulness of character absorbed in the universal
+energy&mdash;which distinguish nature and Turner from all their imitators. To
+roll a volume of smoke before the wind, to indicate motion or violence
+by monotonous similarity of line and direction, is for the multitude;
+but to mark the independent passion, the tumultuous separate existence
+of every wreath of writhing vapor, yet swept away and overpowered by one
+omnipotence of storm, and thus to bid us</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page254"></a>[Page 254]</span></p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"> <br />
+"Be as a Presence or a motion&mdash;one <br />
+Among the many there&mdash;--while the mists <br />
+Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes <br />
+And phantoms from the crags and solid earth, <br />
+As fast as a musician scatters sounds <br />
+Out of an instrument,"&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noind">this belongs only to nature and to him.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing of Coventry may be particularized as a farther example of
+this fine suggestion of irregularity and fitfulness, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p18">§ 18. Deep studied
+form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry.</a></span>through very constant
+parallelism of direction, both in rain and clouds. The great mass of
+cloud, which traverses the whole picture, is characterized throughout by
+severe right lines, nearly parallel with each other, into which every
+one of its wreaths has a tendency to range itself; but no one of these
+right lines is actually and entirely parallel to any other, though all
+have a certain tendency, more or less defined in each, which impresses
+the mind with the most distinct <i>idea</i> of parallelism. Neither are any
+of the lines actually straight and unbroken; on the contrary, they are
+all made up of the most exquisite and varied curves, and it is the
+imagined line which joins the apices of these&mdash;a tangent to them all,
+which is in reality straight.<a name="FnAnchor_40" href="#Footnote_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> They are suggested, not represented,
+right lines; but the whole volume of cloud is visibly and totally
+bounded by them; and, in consequence, its whole body is felt to be
+dragged out and elongated by the force of the tempest which it carries
+with it, and every one of its wreaths to be (as was before explained)
+not so much something borne <i>before</i> or <i>by</i> the wind, as the visible
+form and presence of the wind itself. We could not possibly point out a
+more magnificent piece <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p19">§ 19. Compared with forms given by Salvator.</a></span>
+drawing as a contrast to such works of Salvator as that before alluded
+to (159 Dulwich Gallery). Both are rolling masses of connected cloud;
+but in Turner's, there is not one curve that repeats another, nor one
+curve in itself monotonous, nor without character, and yet every part
+and portion of the cloud is rigidly subjected to the same forward,
+fierce, inevitable influence of storm. In Salvator's, every curve
+repeats its neighbor, every curve is monotonous in itself, and yet the
+whole cloud is curling about hither and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page255"></a>[Page 255]</span> thither, evidently
+without the slightest notion where it is going to, and unregulated by
+any general influence whatsoever. I could not bring together two finer
+or more instructive examples, the one of everything that is perfect, the
+other of everything that is childish or abominable, in the
+representation of the same facts.</p>
+
+<p>But there is yet more to be noticed in this noble sky of Turner's. Not
+only are the lines of the rolling cloud thus irregular in their
+parallelism, but those of the falling rain are equally <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p20">§ 20. Entire
+expression of tempest by minute touches and circumstances in the
+Coventry.</a></span>varied in their direction, indicating the gusty changefulness
+of the wind, and yet kept so straight and stern in their individual
+descent, that we are not suffered to forget its strength. This
+impression is still farther enhanced by the drawing of the smoke, which
+blows every way at once, yet turning perpetually in each of its swirls
+back in the direction of the wind, but so suddenly and violently, as
+almost to assume the angular lines of lightning. Farther, to complete
+the impression, be it observed that all the cattle, both upon the near
+and distant hill-side, have left off grazing, and are standing stock
+still and stiff, with their heads down and their backs to the wind; and
+finally, that we may be told not only what the storm is, but what it has
+been, the gutter at the side of the road is gushing in a complete
+torrent, and particular attention is directed to it by the full burst of
+light in the sky being brought just above it, so that all its waves are
+bright with the reflection.</p>
+
+<p>But I have not quite done with this noble picture yet. Impetuous clouds,
+twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and
+oppressed cattle, all speak the same <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p21">§ 21. Especially by contrast with a
+passage of extreme repose.</a></span>story of tumult, fitfulness, power, and
+velocity. Only one thing is wanted, a passage of repose to contrast with
+it all, and it is given. High and far above the dark volumes of the
+swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left, through their opening, the
+quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the highest cirrus, resting in the
+repose of the deep sky. Of all else that we have noticed in this
+drawing, some faint idea can be formed from the engraving: but not the
+slightest of the delicate and soft forms of these pausing vapors, and
+still less of the exquisite depth and palpitating tenderness of the blue
+with <span class="pagenum"><a name="page256"></a>[Page 256]</span> which they are islanded. Engravers, indeed, invariably
+lose the effect of all passages of cold color, under the mistaken idea
+that it is to be kept <i>pale</i> in order to indicate distance; whereas it
+ought commonly to be darker than the rest of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>To appreciate the full truth of this passage, we must understand another
+effect peculiar to the rain-cloud, that its openings <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p22">§ 22. The truth of
+this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky only seen after rain,
+and how seen.</a></span>exhibit the purest blue which the sky ever shows. For, as
+we saw in the first chapter of this section, that aqueous vapor always
+turns the sky more or less gray, it follows that we never can see the
+azure so intense as when the greater part of this vapor has just fallen
+in rain. Then, and then only, pure blue sky becomes visible in the first
+openings, distinguished especially by the manner in which the clouds
+melt into it; their edges passing off in faint white threads and
+fringes, through which the blue shines more and more intensely, till the
+last trace of vapor is lost in its perfect color. It is only the upper
+white clouds, however, which do this, or the last fragments of
+rain-clouds, becoming white as they disappear, so that the blue is never
+<i>corrupted</i> by the cloud, but only paled and broken with pure white, the
+purest white which the sky ever shows. Thus we have a melting and
+palpitating color, never the same for two inches together, deepening and
+broadening here and there into intensity of perfect azure, then drifted
+and dying away through every tone of pure pale sky, into the snow white
+of the filmy cloud. Over this roll the determined edges of the
+rain-clouds, throwing it all far back, as a retired scene, into the
+upper sky. Of this <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p23">§ 23. Absence of this effect in the works of the old
+masters.</a></span>effect the old masters, as far as I remember, have taken no
+cognizance whatsoever; all with them is, as we partially noticed before,
+either white cloud or pure blue: they have no notion of any
+double-dealing or middle measures. They bore a hole in the sky, and let
+you up into a pool of deep, stagnant blue, marked off by the clear round
+edges of imperturbable, impenetrable cloud on all sides&mdash;beautiful in
+positive color, but totally destitute of that exquisite gradation and
+change, that fleeting, panting, hesitating effort, with which the first
+glance of the natural sky is shed through the turbulence of the
+earth-storm.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page257"></a>[Page 257]</span></p>
+
+<p>They have some excuse, however, for not attempting this, in the nature
+of their material, as one accidental dash of the brush with water-color
+on a piece of wet or damp paper, will come <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p24">§ 24. Success of our
+water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it by Turner.</a></span>nearer the
+truth and transparency of this rain-blue than the labor of a day in
+oils; and the purity and felicity of some of the careless, melting
+water-color skies of Cox and Tayler may well make us fastidious in all
+effects of this kind. It is, however, only in the drawings of Turner
+that we have this perfect transparency and variation of blue, given in
+association with the perfection of considered form. In Tayler and Cox
+the forms are always partially accidental and unconsidered, often
+essentially bad, and always incomplete; in Turner the dash of the brush
+is as completely under the rule of thought and feeling as its slowest
+line; all that it does is perfect, and could not be altered, even in a
+hairbreadth, without injury; in addition to this, peculiar management
+and execution are used in obtaining quality in the color itself, totally
+different from the manipulation of any other artist; and none, who have
+ever spent so much as one hour of their lives over his drawing, can
+forget those dim passages of dreamy blue, barred and severed with a
+thousand delicate and soft and snowy forms, which, gleaming in their
+patience of hope between the troubled rushing of the racked earth-cloud,
+melt farther and farther back into the height of heaven, until the eye
+is bewildered and the heart lost in the intensity of their peace. I do
+not say that this is beautiful&mdash;I do not say it is ideal, nor refined&mdash;I
+only ask you to watch for the first opening of the clouds after the next
+south rain, and tell me if it be not <i>true</i>?</p>
+
+<p>The Gosport affords us an instance more exquisite even than the passage
+above named in the Coventry, of the use of this melting and dewy blue,
+accompanied by two distances of rain-cloud, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p25">§ 25. Expression of near
+rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works.</a></span>one towering over the
+horizon, seen blue with excessive distance through crystal atmosphere;
+the other breaking overhead in the warm, sulphurous fragments of spray,
+whose loose and shattering transparency, being the most essential
+characteristic of the near rain-cloud, is precisely that which the old
+masters are sure to contradict. Look, for instance, at the wreaths of
+<i>cloud</i>? in the Dido and Ęneas of Gaspar Poussin, with their unpleasant
+edges cut as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page258"></a>[Page 258]</span> hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick
+black paint can <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p26">§ 26. Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the
+Dido and Ęneas.</a></span>make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail
+badly reefed; or look at the agreeable transparency and variety of the
+cloud-edge where it cuts the Mountain in N. Poussin's Phocion, and
+compare this with the wreaths which float across the precipice in the
+second vignette in Campbell, or which gather around the Ben Lomond, the
+white rain gleaming beneath their dark transparent shadows; or which
+drift up along the flanks of the wooded hills, called from the river by
+the morning light, in the Oakhampton; or which island the crags of
+Snowdon in the Llanberis, or melt along the Cumberland hills, while
+Turner leads us across the sands of Morecambe Bay. This last drawing
+deserves especial notice; it is of an evening in spring, when the south
+rain has ceased at sunset, and through the lulled and golden air, the
+confused and fantastic mists float up along the hollows of the
+mountains, white and pure, the resurrection in spirit of the new-fallen
+rain, catching shadows from the precipices, and mocking the dark peaks
+with their own mountain-like but melting forms till the solid mountains
+seem in motion like those waves of cloud, emerging and vanishing as the
+weak wind passes by their summits; while the blue, level night advances
+along the sea, and the surging breakers leap up to catch the last light
+from the path of the sunset.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/img258.jpg" width="650" height="441" alt="OKEHAMPTON CASTLE." title="OKEHAMPTON CASTLE." /></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">OKEHAMPTON CASTLE.<br /><span style="font-size: 0.8em; ">From a painting by Turner.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>I need not, however, insist upon Turner's peculiar power of rendering
+<i>mist</i>, and all those passages of intermediate mystery, between earth
+and air, when the mountain is melting into the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p27">§ 27. Turner's power of
+rendering mist.</a></span>cloud, or the horizon into the twilight; because his
+supremacy in these points is altogether undisputed, except by persons to
+whom it would be impossible to prove anything which did not fall under
+the form of a Rule of Three. Nothing is more natural than that the
+studied form and color of this great artist should be little understood,
+because they require for the full perception of their meaning and truth,
+such knowledge and such time as not one in a thousand possesses, or can
+bestow; but yet the truth of them for that very reason is capable of
+demonstration, and there is hope of our being able to make it in some
+degree felt and comprehended even by those to whom it is now a dead
+letter, or an <span class="pagenum"><a name="page259"></a>[Page 259]</span> offence. But the aerial and misty effects of
+landscape, being <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p28">§ 28. His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at
+once understood, they can no more be explained or reasoned on than
+nature herself.</a></span>matters of which the eye should be simply cognizant, and
+without effort of thought, as it is of light, must, where they are
+exquisitely rendered, either be felt at once, or prove that degree of
+blindness and bluntness in the feelings of the observer which there is
+little hope of ever conquering. Of course for persons who have never
+seen in their lives a cloud vanishing on a mountain-side, and whose
+conceptions of mist or vapor are limited to ambiguous outlines of
+spectral hackney-coaches and bodiless lamp-posts, discern through a
+brown combination of sulphur, soot, and gaslight, there is yet some
+hope; we cannot, indeed, tell them what the morning mist is like in
+mountain air, but far be it from us to tell them that they are incapable
+of feeling its beauty if they will seek it for themselves. But if you
+have ever in your life had one opportunity with your eyes and heart
+open, of seeing the dew rise from a hill-pasture, or the storm gather on
+a sea-cliff, and if you have yet no feeling for the glorious passages of
+mingled earth and heaven which Turner calls up before you into
+breathing, tangible being, there is indeed no hope for your apathy&mdash;art
+will never touch you, nor nature inform.</p>
+
+<p>It would be utterly absurd, among the innumerable passages of this kind
+given throughout his works, to point to one as more characteristic or
+more perfect than another. The Simmer Lake, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p29">§ 29. Various instances.</a></span>near
+Askrig, for expression of mist pervaded with sunlight,&mdash;the Lake
+Lucerne, a recent and unengraved drawing, for the recession of near
+mountain form, not into dark, but into <i>luminous</i> cloud, the most
+difficult thing to do in art,&mdash;the Harlech, for expression of the same
+phenomena, shown over vast spaces in distant ranges of hills, the
+Ehrenbreitstein, a recent drawing, for expression of mist, rising from
+the surface of water at sunset,&mdash;and, finally, the glorious Oberwesel
+and Nemi,<a name="FnAnchor_41" href="#Footnote_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> for passages of all united, may, however, be named, as
+noble instances, though in naming five works I insult five hundred.</p>
+
+<p>One word respecting Turner's more violent storms, for we <span class="pagenum"><a name="page260"></a>[Page 260]</span>
+have hitherto been speaking only of the softer rain-clouds, associated
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p30">§ 30. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by
+engravers.</a></span>with gusty tempest, but not of the thunder-cloud and the
+whirlwind. If there be any one point in which engravers disgrace
+themselves more than in another, it is in their rendering of dark and
+furious storm. It appears to be utterly impossible to force it into
+their heads, that an artist does <i>not</i> leave his color with a sharp edge
+and an angular form by accident, or that they may have the pleasure of
+altering it and improving upon it; and equally impossible to persuade
+them that energy and gloom may <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p31">§ 31. General system of landscape
+engraving.</a></span>in <i>some</i> circumstances be arrived at without any
+extraordinary expenditure of ink. I am aware of no engraver of the
+present day whose ideas of a storm-cloud are not comprised under two
+heads, roundness and blackness; and, indeed, their general principles of
+translation (as may be distinctly gathered from their larger works) are
+the following: 1. Where the drawing is gray, make the paper black. 2.
+Where the drawing is white, cover the page with zigzag lines. 3. Where
+the drawing has particularly tender tones, cross-hatch them. 4. Where
+any outline is particularly angular, make it round. 5. Where there are
+vertical reflections in water, express them with very distinct
+horizontal lines. 6. Where there is a passage of particular simplicity,
+treat it in sections. 7. Where there is anything intentionally
+concealed, make it out. Yet, in spite of the necessity which all
+engravers impose upon themselves, of rigidly observing this code of
+general laws, it is difficult to conceive how such pieces of work, as
+the plates of Stonehenge and Winchelsea, can ever have been <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p32">§ 32. The
+storm in the Stonehenge.</a></span>presented to the public, as in any way
+resembling, or possessing even the most fanciful relation to the Turner
+drawings of the same subjects. The original of the Stonehenge is perhaps
+the standard of storm-drawing, both for the overwhelming power and
+gigantic proportions and spaces of its cloud-forms, and for the
+tremendous qualities of lurid and sulphurous colors which are gained in
+them. All its forms are marked with violent angles, as if the whole
+muscular energy&mdash;so to speak&mdash;of the cloud, were writhing in every fold,
+and their fantastic and fiery volumes have a peculiar horror&mdash;an awful
+life&mdash;shadowed out in their strange, swift, fearful outlines, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page261"></a>[Page
+261]</span> which oppress the mind more than even the threatening of their
+gigantic gloom. The white lightning, not as it is drawn by less
+observant or less capable painters, in zigzag fortifications, but in its
+own dreadful irregularity of streaming fire, is brought down, not merely
+over the dark clouds, but through the full light of an illumined opening
+to the blue, which yet cannot abate the brilliancy of its white line;
+and the track of the last flash along the ground is fearfully marked by
+the dog howling over the fallen shepherd, and the ewe pressing her head
+upon the body of her dead lamb.</p>
+
+<p>I have not space, however, to enter into examination of Turner's
+storm-drawing; I can only warn the public against supposing that its
+effect is ever rendered by engravers. The <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p33">§ 33. General character of
+such effects given by Turner. His expression of falling rain.</a></span>great
+principles of Turner are angular outline, vastness and energy of form,
+infinity of gradation, and depth without blackness. The great principles
+of the engravers (<i>vide</i> Pęstum, in Rogers's Italy, and the Stonehenge,
+above alluded to) are rounded outline, no edges, want of character,
+equality of strength, and blackness without depth.</p>
+
+<p>I have scarcely, I see, on referring to what I have written,
+sufficiently insisted on Turner's rendering of the rainy <i>fringe</i>,
+whether in distances, admitting or concealing more or less of the
+extended plain, as in the Waterloo, and Richmond (with the girl and dog
+in the foreground,) or as in the Dunstaffnage, Glencoe, St. Michael's
+Mount, and Slave Ship, not reaching the earth, but suspended in waving
+and twisted lines from the darkness of the zenith. But I have no time
+for farther development of particular points; I must defer discussion of
+them until we <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p34">§ 34. Recapitulation of the section.</a></span>take up each picture
+to be viewed as a whole; for the division of the sky which I have been
+obliged to make, in order to render fully understood the peculiarities
+of character in the separate cloud regions, prevents my speaking of any
+one work with justice to its concentration of various truth. Be it
+always remembered that we pretend not, at present, to give any account
+or idea of the sum of the works of any painter, much less of the
+universality of Turner's; but only to explain in what real truth, as far
+as it is explicable, consists, and to illustrate it by those pictures in
+which it most distinctly <span class="pagenum"><a name="page262"></a>[Page 262]</span> occurs, or from which it is most
+visibly absent. And it will only be in the full and separate discussion
+of individual works, when we are acquainted also with what is beautiful,
+that we shall be completely able to prove or disprove the presence of
+the truth of nature.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion, then, to which we are led by our present examination of
+the truth of clouds, is, that the old masters attempted the
+representation of only one among the thousands of their systems of
+scenery, and were altogether false in the little they attempted; while
+we can find records in modern art of every form or phenomenon of the
+heavens, from the highest film that glorifies the ether to the wildest
+vapor that darkens the dust, and in all these records we find the most
+clear language and close thought, firm words, and true message,
+unstinted fulness and unfailing faith.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed it is difficult for us to conceive how, even without such
+laborious investigation as we have gone through, any person can go to
+nature for a single day or hour, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p35">§ 35. Sketch of a few of the skies of
+nature, taken as a whole, compared with the works of Turner and of the
+old masters. Morning on the plains.</a></span>when she is really at work in any of
+her nobler spheres of action, and yet retain respect for the old
+masters; finding, as find he will, that every scene which rises, rests,
+or departs before him, bears with it a thousand glories of which there
+is not one shadow, one image, one trace or line, in any of their works;
+but which will illustrate to him, at every new instant, some passage
+which he had not before understood in the high works of modern art.
+Stand upon the peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, when the
+night mists first rise from off the plains, and watch their white and
+lake-like fields as they float in level bays and winding gulfs about the
+islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn,
+colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight;
+watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels, how the
+foam of their undulating surface parts and passes away; and down under
+their depths, the glittering city and green pasture lie like Atlantis,
+between the white paths of winding rivers; the flakes of light falling
+every moment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed
+surges break and vanish above them, and the confused crests and ridges
+of the dark hills <span class="pagenum"><a name="page263"></a>[Page 263]</span> shorten their gray shadows upon the plain.
+Has Claude given <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p36">§ 36. Noon with gathering storms.</a></span>this? Wait a little
+longer, and you shall see those scattered mists rallying in the ravines,
+and floating up towards you, along the winding valleys, till they couch
+in quiet masses, iridescent with the morning light,<a name="FnAnchor_42" href="#Footnote_42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> upon the broad
+breasts of the higher hills, whose leagues of massy undulation will melt
+back and back into that robe of material light, until they fade away,
+lost in its lustre, to appear again above, in the serene heaven, like a
+wild, bright, impossible dream, foundationless and inaccessible, their
+very bases vanishing in the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep
+lake below.<a name="FnAnchor_43" href="#Footnote_43"><sup>[43]</sup></a> Has Claude given this? Wait yet a little longer, and you
+shall see those mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand
+like fortresses along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piled
+with every instant higher and higher into the sky,<a name="FnAnchor_44" href="#Footnote_44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> and casting
+longer shadows athwart the rocks; and out of the pale blue of the
+horizon you will see forming and advancing a troop of narrow, dark,
+pointed vapors,<a name="FnAnchor_45" href="#Footnote_45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> which will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their
+gray network, and take the light off the landscape with an eclipse which
+will stop the singing of the birds and the motion of the leaves
+together; and then you will see horizontal bars of black shadow forming
+under them, and lurid wreaths create themselves, you know not how, along
+the shoulders of the hills; you never see them form, but when you look
+back to a place which was clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it,
+hanging by the precipices, as a hawk pauses over his prey.<a name="FnAnchor_46" href="#Footnote_46"><sup>[46]</sup></a> Has
+Claude given this? And then you will hear the sudden rush of the
+awakened wind, and you will see those watch-towers of vapor swept away
+from their foundations, and waving curtains of opaque rain let down to
+the valleys, swinging from the burdened clouds in black, bending
+fringes,<a name="FnAnchor_47" href="#Footnote_47"><sup>[47]</sup></a> or pacing in pale columns <span class="pagenum"><a name="page264"></a>[Page 264]</span> along the lake level,
+grazing its surface into foam as they go. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p37">§ 37. Sunset in tempest.
+Serene midnight.</a></span>And then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm
+drift for an instant from on the hills, leaving their broad sides
+smoking, and loaded yet with snow-white torn, steam-like rags of
+capricious vapor, now gone, now gathered again;<a name="FnAnchor_48" href="#Footnote_48"><sup>[48]</sup></a> while the
+smouldering sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball
+beside you, and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing
+wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no
+more, dyeing all the air about it with blood.<a name="FnAnchor_49" href="#Footnote_49"><sup>[49]</sup></a> Has Claude given this?
+And then you shall hear the fainting tempest die in the hollow of the
+night, and you shall see a green halo kindling on the summit of the
+eastern hills,<a name="FnAnchor_50" href="#Footnote_50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> brighter&mdash;brighter yet, till the large white circle
+of the slow moon is lifted up among the barred clouds,<a name="FnAnchor_51" href="#Footnote_51"><sup>[51]</sup></a> step by step,
+line by line; star after star she quenches with her kindling light,
+setting in their stead an army of pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in
+the heaven, to give light upon the earth, which move together, hand in
+hand, company by company, troop by troop, so measured in their unity of
+motion, that the whole heaven seems to roll with them, and the earth to
+reel under them. Ask Claude, or his brethren, for that. And then <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c4p38">§ 38.
+And sunrise on the Alps.</a></span>wait yet for one hour until the east again
+becomes purple,<a name="FnAnchor_52" href="#Footnote_52"><sup>[52]</sup></a> and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in
+darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory
+of its burning; watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths
+about the mountains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire; watch the
+columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm by chasm,
+each in itself a new morning; their long avalanches cast down in keen
+streams brighter than the lightning, sending each his tribute of driven
+snow, like altar-smoke, up to the heaven; the rose-light of their silent
+domes flushing that heaven about them and above them, piercing with
+purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new
+glory on every wreath as it passes by, until the whole <span class="pagenum"><a name="page265"></a>[Page 265]</span>
+heaven&mdash;one scarlet canopy,&mdash;is interwoven with a roof of waving flame,
+and tossing, vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many
+companies of angels; and then, when you can look no more for gladness,
+and when you are bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of
+this, tell me who has best delivered this His message unto men!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_34" href="#FnAnchor_34">[34]</a> I am unable to say to what height the real rain-cloud may extend;
+perhaps there are no mountains which rise altogether above storm. I have
+never been in a violent storm at a greater height than between 8000 and
+9000 feet above the level of the sea. There the rain-cloud is
+exceedingly light, compared to the ponderous darkness of the lower air.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_35" href="#FnAnchor_35">[35]</a> I ought here, however, to have noted another effect of the
+rain-cloud, which, so far as I know, has been rendered only by Copley
+Fielding. It is seen chiefly in clouds gathering for rain, when the sky
+is entirely covered with a gray veil rippled or waved with pendent
+swells of soft texture, but excessively hard and liny in their edges. I
+am not sure that this is an agreeable or impressive form of the
+rain-cloud, but it is a frequent one, and it is often most faithfully
+given by Fielding; only in some cases the edges becoming a little
+doubled and harsh have given a look of failure or misadventure to some
+even of the best studied passages; and something of the same hardness of
+line is occasionally visible in his drawing of clouds by whose nature it
+is not warranted.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_36" href="#FnAnchor_36">[36]</a> Compare Sect. I. Chap. IV. § 5.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_37" href="#FnAnchor_37">[37]</a> It does not do so until the volumes lose their density by
+inequality of motion, and by the expansion of the warm air which conveys
+them. They are then, of course, broken into forms resembling those of
+clouds.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_38" href="#FnAnchor_38">[38]</a> No conception can be formed of this picture from the engraving. It
+is perhaps the most marvellous piece of execution and of gray color
+existing, except perhaps the drawing presently to be noticed, Land's
+End. Nothing else can be set beside it, even of Turner's own works&mdash;much
+less of any other man's.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_39" href="#FnAnchor_39">[39]</a> I know no effect more strikingly characteristic of the departure of
+a storm than the <i>smoking</i> of the mountain torrents. The exhausted air
+is so thirsty of moisture, that every jet of spray is seized upon by it,
+and converted into vapor as it springs; and this vapor rises so densely
+from the surface of the stream as to give it the exact appearance of
+boiling water. I have seen the whole course of the Arve at Chamonix one
+line of dense cloud, dissipating as soon as it had risen ten or twelve
+feet from the surface, but entirely concealing the water from an
+observer placed above it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_40" href="#FnAnchor_40">[40]</a> Note especially the dark uppermost outline of the mass.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_41" href="#FnAnchor_41">[41]</a> In the possession of B. G. Windus, <span class="correction"
+title="originally was comma, not period">Esq.</span> of Tottenham.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_42" href="#FnAnchor_42">[42]</a> I have often seen the white thin, morning cloud, edged with the
+seven colors of the prism. I am not aware of the cause of this
+phenomenon, for it takes place not when we stand with our backs to the
+sun, but in clouds near the sun itself, irregularly and over indefinite
+spaces, sometimes taking place in the body of the cloud. The colors are
+distinct and vivid, but have a kind of metallic lustre upon them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_43" href="#FnAnchor_43">[43]</a> Lake Lucerne.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_44" href="#FnAnchor_44">[44]</a> St. Maurice (Rogers's Italy).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_45" href="#FnAnchor_45">[45]</a> Vignette, the Great St. Bernard.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_46" href="#FnAnchor_46">[46]</a> Vignette of the Andes.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_47" href="#FnAnchor_47">[47]</a> St. Michael's Mount&mdash;England series.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_48" href="#FnAnchor_48">[48]</a> Illustration to the Antiquary. Goldeau, a recent drawing of the
+highest order.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_49" href="#FnAnchor_49">[49]</a> Vignette to Campbell's Last Man.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_50" href="#FnAnchor_50">[50]</a> Caerlaverock.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_51" href="#FnAnchor_51">[51]</a> St. Denis.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_52" href="#FnAnchor_52">[52]</a> Alps at Daybreak (Rogers's Poems:) Delphi, and various vignettes.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page266"></a>[Page 266]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<h5>EFFECTS OF LIGHT RENDERED BY MODERN ART.</h5>
+
+<p>I have before given my reasons (Sect. II. Chap. III.) for not wishing at
+present to enter upon the discussion of particular effects of light. Not
+only are we incapable of rightly viewing <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c5p1">§ 1. Reasons for merely at
+present naming, without examining the particular effects of light
+rendered by Turner.</a></span>them, or reasoning upon them, until we are acquainted
+with the principles of the beautiful; but, as I distinctly limited
+myself, in the present portion of the work, to the examination of
+<i>general</i> truths, it would be out of place to take cognizance of the
+particular phases of light, even if it were possible to do so, before we
+have some more definite knowledge of the material objects which they
+illustrate. I shall therefore, at present, merely set down a rough
+catalogue of the effects of light at different hours of the day, which
+Turner has represented: naming a picture or two, as an example of each,
+which we will hereafter take up one by one, and consider the physical
+science and the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s3c5p2">§ 2. Hopes of the author for assistance in the future
+investigation of them.</a></span>feeling together. And I do this, in the hope that,
+in the mean time, some admirer of the old masters will be kind enough to
+select from the works of any one of them, a series of examples of the
+same effects, and to give me a reference to the pictures, so that I may
+be able to compare each with each; for, as my limited knowledge of the
+works of Claude or Poussin does not supply me with the requisite variety
+of effect, I shall be grateful for assistance.</p>
+
+<p>The following list, of course, does not name the hundredth part of the
+effects of light given by Turner; it only names those which are
+distinctly and markedly separate from each other, and representative
+each of an entire class. Ten or twelve examples, often many more, might
+be given of each; every one of which would display the effects of the
+same hour and light, modified by different circumstances of weather,
+situation, and character of objects subjected to them, and especially by
+the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page267"></a>[Page 267]</span> management of the sky; but it will be generally
+sufficient for our purposes to examine thoroughly one good example of
+each.</p>
+
+<p>The prefixed letters express the direction of the light. F. front light
+(the sun in the centre, or near the top of the picture;) L. lateral
+light, the sun out of the picture on the right or left of the spectator;
+L. F. the light partly lateral, partly fronting the spectator, as when
+he is looking south, with the sun in the south-west; L. B. light partly
+lateral, partly behind the spectator, as when he is looking north, with
+the sun in the south-west.</p>
+
+<h5>MORNING.</h5>
+<table class="nobctr" style="text-indent: -1em; " width="95%" summary="Morning">
+
+<tr>  <td class="center sc" style="width:70%; " colspan="2">effects.</td>
+      <td class="leftb" rowspan="15">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="center sc">names of pictures.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">An hour before sunrise in winter. Violent storm, with rain, on the sea. Light-houses seen through it.</td>
+      <td class="t">Lowestoffe, Suffolk.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">An hour before sunrise. Serene sky, with light clouds. Dawn in the distance.</td>
+      <td class="t">Vignette to Voyage of Columbus.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Ten minutes before sunrise. Violent storm. Torchlight.</td>
+      <td class="t">Fowey Harbor.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sunrise. Sun only half above the horizon. Clear sky, with light cirri.</td>
+      <td class="t">Vignette to Human Life.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun just disengaged from horizon. Misty, with light cirri.</td>
+      <td class="t">Alps at Daybreak.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun a quarter of an hour risen. Sky covered with scarlet clouds.</td>
+      <td class="t">Castle Upnor.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Serene sky. Sun emerging from a bank of cloud on horizon, a quarter of an hour risen.</td>
+      <td class="t">Orford, Suffolk.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Light mists in flakes on hill-sides. Clear air.</td>
+      <td class="t">Skiddaw.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Light flying rain-clouds gathering in valleys. Same hour.</td>
+      <td class="t">Oakhampton.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. A night storm rising off the mountains. Dead calm.</td>
+      <td class="t">Lake of Geneva.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun half an hour risen. Cloudless sky.</td>
+      <td class="t">Beaugency.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Light mists lying in the valleys.</td>
+      <td class="t">Kirby Lonsdale.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Bright cirri. Sun dimly seen through battle smoke, with conflagration.</td>
+      <td class="t">Hohenlinden.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun an hour risen. Cloudless and clear.</td>
+      <td class="t">Buckfastleigh.</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page268"></a>[Page 268]</span></p>
+
+<h5>NOON AND AFTERNOON.</h5>
+<table class="nobctr" style="text-indent: -1em; " width="95%" summary="Noon">
+
+<tr>  <td class="center sc" style="width:70%; " colspan="2">effects.</td>
+      <td class="leftb" rowspan="17">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="center sc">names of pictures.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Midday. Dead calm, with heat. Cloudless.</td>
+      <td class="t">Corinth.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Serene and bright, with streaky clouds.</td>
+      <td class="t">Lantern at St. Cloud.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Serene, with multitudes of the high cirrus.</td>
+      <td class="t">Shylock, and other Venices.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Bright sun, with light wind and clouds.</td>
+      <td class="t">Richmond, Middlesex.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Two o'clock. Clouds gathering for rain, with heat.</td>
+      <td class="t">Warwick. Blenheim.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Rain beginning, with light clouds and wind.</td>
+      <td class="t">Piacenza.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Soft rain, with heat.</td>
+      <td class="t">Caldron Snout Fall.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Great heat. Thunder gathering.</td>
+      <td class="t">Malvern.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Thunder breaking down, after intense heat, with furious wind.</td>
+      <td class="t">Winchelsea.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Violent rain and wind, but cool.</td>
+      <td class="t">Llamberis, Coventry, &amp;c.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Furious storm, with thunder.</td>
+      <td class="t">Stonehenge, Pęstum, &amp;c.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Thunder retiring, with rainbow. Dead calm, with heat.</td>
+      <td class="t">Nottingham.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">About three o'clock, summer. Air very cool and clear. Exhausted thunder-clouds low on hills.</td>
+      <td class="t">Bingen.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Descending sunbeams through soft clouds, after rain.</td>
+      <td class="t">Carew Castle.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Afternoon, very clear, after rain. A few clouds still on horizon. Dead calm.</td>
+      <td class="t">Saltash.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Afternoon of cloudless day, with heat.</td>
+      <td class="t">Mercury and Argus. Oberwesel. Nemi.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<h5>EVENING.</h5>
+<table class="nobctr" style="text-indent: -1em; " width="95%" summary="Evening">
+
+<tr>  <td class="center sc" style="width:70%; " colspan="2">effects.</td>
+      <td class="leftb" rowspan="19">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="center sc">names of pictures.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">An hour before sunset. Cloudless.</td>
+      <td class="t">Trematon Castle.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Half an hour before sunset. Light clouds. Misty air.</td>
+      <td class="t">Lake Albano. Florence.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Within a quarter of an hour of sunset. Mists rising. Light cirri.</td>
+      <td class="t">Dater Hora Quieti.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Ten minutes before sunset. Quite cloudless.</td>
+      <td class="t">Durham.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Tumultuous spray of illumined rain-cloud.</td>
+      <td class="t">Solomon's Pools. Slave ship.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Five minutes before sunset. Sky covered with illumined cirri. </td>
+      <td class="t">Temeraire. Napoleon. Various vignettes.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Serene sky. Full moon rising.</td>
+      <td class="t">Kenilworth. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page269"></a>[Page 269]</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun setting. Detached light cirri and clear air.</td>
+      <td class="t">Amboise.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Cloudless. New moon.</td>
+      <td class="t">Troyes.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Heavy storm clouds. Moonrise.</td>
+      <td class="t">First vignette. Pleasures of Memory.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun just set. Sky covered with clouds. New moon setting.</td>
+      <td class="t">Caudebec.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun five minutes set. Strong twilight, with storm clouds. Full moonrise.</td>
+      <td class="t">Wilderness of Engedi. Assos.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Serene, with light clouds.</td>
+      <td class="t">Montjan.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Serene. New moon.</td>
+      <td class="t">Pyramid of Caius Cestius.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.B.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun a quarter of an hour set. Cloudless.</td>
+      <td class="t">Chateau de Blois.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun half an hour set. Light cirri.</td>
+      <td class="t">Clairmont.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Dead calm at sea. New moon and evening star.</td>
+      <td class="t">Cowes.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Sun three quarters of an hour set. Moon struggling through storm clouds, over heavy sea.</td>
+      <td class="t">Folkestone.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<h5>NIGHT.</h5>
+<table class="nobctr" style="text-indent: -1em; " width="95%" summary="Night">
+
+<tr>  <td class="center sc" style="width:70%; " colspan="2">effects.</td>
+      <td class="leftb" rowspan="11">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="center sc">names of pictures.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">An hour after sunset. No moon. Torchlight.</td>
+      <td class="t">St. Julien. Tours.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour. Moon rising. Fire from furnaces.</td>
+      <td class="t">Dudley.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour, with storm clouds. Moon rising.</td>
+      <td class="t">Nantes.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">L.</td>
+      <td class="t">Same hour, with light of rockets and fire.</td>
+      <td class="t">Juliet and her Nurse.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Midnight. Moonless, with light-houses. Same hour, with fire-light.</td>
+      <td class="t">Calais. <br />Burning of Parliament Houses.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Ditto. Full moon. Clear air, with delicate clouds. Light-houses.</td>
+      <td class="t">Towers of the Hevé.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Ditto, with conflagration, battle smoke, and storm.</td>
+      <td class="t">Waterloo.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Ditto. Moonlight through mist. Buildings illuminated in interior.</td>
+      <td class="t">Vignette. St. Herbert's Isle.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Ditto. Full moon with halo. Light rain-clouds.</td>
+      <td class="t">St. Denis.</td></tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="t">F.</td>
+      <td class="t">Full moon. Perfectly serene. Sky covered with white cirri.</td>
+      <td class="t">Alnwick. Vignette of Rialto, and Bridge of Sighs.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page270"></a>[Page 270]</span></p>
+
+<h3>SECTION IV.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF TRUTH OF EARTH.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF GENERAL STRUCTURE.</h5>
+
+<p>By truth of earth, we mean the faithful representation of the facts and
+forms of the bare ground, considered as entirely divested of vegetation,
+through whatever disguise, or under whatever <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c1p1">§ 1. First laws of the
+organization of the earth, and their importance in art.</a></span>modification the
+clothing of the landscape may occasion. Ground is to the landscape
+painter what the naked human body is to the historical. The growth of
+vegetation, the action of water, and even of clouds upon it and around
+it, are so far subject and subordinate to its forms, as the folds of the
+dress and the fall of the hair are to the modulation of the animal
+anatomy. Nor is this anatomy always so concealed, but in all sublime
+compositions, whether of nature or art, it must be seen in its naked
+purity. The laws of the organization of the earth are distinct and fixed
+as those of the animal frame, simpler and broader, but equally
+authoritative and inviolable. Their results may be arrived at without
+knowledge of the interior mechanism; but for that very reason ignorance
+of them is the more disgraceful, and violation of them more
+unpardonable. They are in the landscape the foundation of all other
+truths&mdash;the most necessary, therefore, even if they were not in
+themselves attractive; but they are as beautiful as they are essential,
+and every abandonment of them by the artist must end in deformity as it
+begins in falsehood.</p>
+
+<p>That such abandonment is constant and total in the works of the old
+masters, has escaped detection, only because of persons <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c1p2">§ 2. The slight
+attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study by modern
+artists.</a></span>generally cognizant of art, few have spent time enough in hill
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271"></a>[Page 271]</span> countries to perceive the certainty of the laws of hill
+anatomy; and because few, even of those who possess such opportunities,
+ever think of the common earth beneath their feet, as anything
+possessing specific form, or governed by steadfast principles. That such
+abandonment should have taken place cannot be surprising, after what we
+have seen of their fidelity to skies. Those artists who, day after day,
+could so falsely represent what was forever before their eyes, when it
+was to be one of the most important and attractive parts of their
+picture, can scarcely be expected to give with truth what they could see
+only partially and at intervals, and what was only to be in their
+picture a blue line in the horizon, or a bright spot under the feet of
+their figures.</p>
+
+<p>That such should be all the space allotted by the old landscape painters
+to the most magnificent phenomena of nature; that the only traces of
+those Apennines, which in Claude's walks along the brow of the Pincian,
+forever bounded his horizon with their azure wall, should, in his
+pictures, be a cold white outline in the extreme of his tame distance;
+and that Salvator's sojourns among their fastnesses should only have
+taught him to shelter his banditti with such paltry morsels of crag as
+an Alpine stream would toss down before it like a foam-globe; though it
+may indeed excite our surprise, will, perhaps, when we have seen how
+these slight passages are executed, be rather a subject of
+congratulation than of regret. It might, indeed, have shortened our
+labor in the investigation of mountain truth, had not modern artists
+been so vast, comprehensive, and multitudinous in their mountain
+drawings, as to compel us, in order to form the slightest estimate of
+their knowledge, to enter into some examination of every variety of hill
+scenery. We shall first gain some general notion of the broad
+organization of large masses, and then take those masses to pieces,
+until we come down to the crumbling soil of the foreground.</p>
+
+<p>Mountains are, to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent
+muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its
+anatomy are, in the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c1p3">§ 3. General structure of the earth. The hills are
+its action, the plains its rest.</a></span>mountain, brought out with fierce and
+convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength; the plains
+and the lower hills are the repose and the effortless <span class="pagenum"><a name="page272"></a>[Page 272]</span> motion
+of the frame, when its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the
+lines of its beauty, yet ruling those lines in their every undulation.
+This, then, is the first grand principle of the truth of the earth. The
+spirit of the hills is action; that of the lowlands, repose; and between
+these there is to be found every variety of motion and of rest; from the
+inactive plain, sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to
+the fiery peaks, which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with the
+clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their
+Titan hands to Heaven, saying, "I live forever!"</p>
+
+<p>But there is this difference between the action of the earth, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c1p4">§ 4.
+Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their support.</a></span>and
+that of a living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones
+and tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh
+altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the bones
+of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its
+anatomy which in the plains lie buried under five and twenty thousand
+feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in
+the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their garment
+of earth away from them on each side. The masses of the lower hills are
+laid over and against their sides, like the masses of lateral masonry
+against the skeleton arch of an unfinished bridge, except that they
+slope up to and lean against the central ridge: and, finally, upon the
+slopes of these lower hills are strewed the level beds of sprinkled
+gravel, sand, and clay, which form the extent of the champaign. Here
+then is another grand principle of the truth of earth, that the
+mountains must come from under all, and be the support of all; and that
+everything else must be laid in their arms, heap above heap, the plains
+being the uppermost. Opposed to this truth is every appearance of the
+hills being laid upon the plains, or built upon them. Nor is this a
+truth only of the earth on a large scale, for every minor rock (in
+position) comes out from the soil about it as an island out of the sea,
+lifting the earth near it like waves beating on its sides.</p>
+
+<p>Such being the structure of the framework of the earth, it is next to be
+remembered that all soil whatsoever, wherever it is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c1p5">§ 5. Structure of
+the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when deposited by quiet
+water.</a></span>accumulated in greater quantity than is sufficient to nourish the
+moss of the wallflower, has been so, either by the direct transporting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"></a>[Page 273]</span> agency of water, or under the guiding influence and power of
+water. All plains capable of cultivation are deposits from some kind of
+water&mdash;some from swift and tremendous currents, leaving their soil in
+sweeping banks and furrowed ridges&mdash;others, and this is in mountain
+districts almost invariably the case, by slow deposit from a quiet lake
+in the mountain hollow, which has been gradually filled by the soil
+carried into it by streams, which soil is of course finally left spread
+at the exact level of the surface of the former lake, as level as the
+quiet water itself. Hence we constantly meet with plains in hill
+districts, which fill the hollows of the hills with as perfect and
+faultless a level as water, and out of which the steep rocks rise at the
+edge with as little previous disturbance, or indication of their forms
+beneath, as they do from the margin of a quiet lake. Every delta&mdash;and
+there is one at the head of every lake in every hill-district&mdash;supplies
+an instance of this. The rocks at Altorf plunge beneath the plain, which
+the lake has left, at as sharp an angle as they do into the lake itself
+beside the chapel of Tell. The plain of the Arve, at Sallenche, is
+terminated so sharply by the hills to the south-east, that I have seen a
+man sleeping with his back supported against the mountain, and his legs
+stretched on the plain; the slope which supported his back rising 5000
+feet above him, and the couch of his legs stretched for five miles
+before him. In distant effect these champaigns lie like deep, blue,
+undisturbed water, while the mighty hills around them burst out from
+beneath, raging and tossing like a tumultuous sea. The valleys of
+Meyringen, Interlachen, Altorf, Sallenche, St. Jean de Maurienne; the
+great plain of Lombardy itself, as seen from Milan or Padua, under the
+Alps, the Euganeans, and the Apennines; and the Campo Felice under
+Vesuvius, are a few, out of the thousand instances, which must occur at
+once to the mind of every traveller.</p>
+
+<p>Let the reader now open Rogers's Italy, at the seventeenth page, and
+look at the vignette which heads it of the battle of Marengo. It needs
+no comment. It cannot but carry with it, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c1p6">§ 6. Illustrated by Turner's
+Marengo.</a></span>after what has been said, the instant conviction that Turner is
+as much of a geologist as he is of a painter. It is a summary of all we
+have been saying, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page274"></a>[Page 274]</span> and a summary so distinct and clear, that
+without any such explanation it must have forced upon the mind the
+impression of such facts&mdash;of the plunging of the hills underneath the
+plain&mdash;of the perfect level and repose of this latter laid in their
+arms, and of the tumultuous action of the emergent summits.</p>
+
+<p>We find, according to this its internal structure, which, I believe,
+with the assistance of Turner, can scarcely now be misunderstood, that
+the earth may be considered as divided into three <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c1p7">§ 7. General divisions
+of formation resulting from this arrangement. Plan of
+investigation.</a></span>great classes of formation, which geology has already
+named for us. Primary&mdash;the rocks, which, though in position lower than
+all others, rise to form the central peaks, or interior nuclei of all
+mountain ranges. Secondary&mdash;the rocks which are laid in beds above
+these, and which form the greater proportion of all hill scenery.
+Tertiary&mdash;the light beds of sand, gravel, and clay, which are strewed
+upon the surface of all, forming plains and habitable territory for man.
+We shall find it convenient, in examining the truth of art, to adopt,
+with a little modification, the geological arrangement, considering
+first, the formation and character of the highest or central peaks; then
+the general structure of the lower mountains, including in this division
+those composed of the various slates which a geologist would call
+primary; and, lastly, the minutię and most delicate characters of the
+beds of these hills, when they are so near as to become foreground
+objects, and the structure of the common soil which usually forms the
+greater space of an artist's foreground. Hence our task will arrange
+itself into three divisions&mdash;the investigation of the central mountains,
+of the interior mountains, and of the foreground.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page275"></a>[Page 275]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE CENTRAL MOUNTAINS.</h5>
+
+<p>It does not always follow, because a mountain is the highest of its
+group, that it is in reality one of the central range. The <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p1">§ 1. Similar
+character of the central peaks in all parts of the world.</a></span>Jungfrau is
+only surpassed in elevation, in the chain of which it is a member, by
+the Schreckhorn and Finster-Aarhorn; but it is entirely a secondary
+mountain. But the central peaks are usually the highest, and may be
+considered as the chief components of all mountain scenery in the snowy
+regions. Being composed of the same rocks in all countries, their
+external character is the same everywhere. Its chief essential points
+are the following.</p>
+
+<p>Their summits are almost invariably either pyramids or wedges. Domes may
+be formed by superincumbent snow, or <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p2">§ 2. Their arrangements in pyramids
+or wedges, divided by vertical fissures.</a></span>appear to be formed by the
+continuous outline of a sharp ridge seen transversely, with its
+precipice to the spectator; but wherever a rock appears, the uppermost
+termination of that rock will be a steep edgy ridge, or a sharp point,
+very rarely presenting even a gentle slope on any of its sides, but
+usually inaccessible unless encumbered with snow.</p>
+
+<p>These pyramids and wedges split vertically, or nearly so, giving smooth
+faces of rock, either perpendicular or very steeply inclined, which
+appear to be laid against the central wedge or peak, like planks upright
+against a wall. The surfaces of these show close parallelism; their
+fissures are vertical, and cut them smoothly, like the edges of shaped
+planks. Often groups of these planks, if I may so call them, rise higher
+than those between them and the central ridge, forming detached ridges
+inclining towards the central one. The planks are cut transversely,
+sometimes by graceful curvilinear fissures; sometimes by straight
+fissures, which are commonly parallel to the slope of one of the sides
+of the peak, while the main direction of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page276"></a>[Page 276]</span> planks or
+leaves is parallel to that of its other side, or points directly to its
+summit. But the <i>universal</i> law of fracture is&mdash;first, that it is clean
+and sharp, having a perfectly smooth surface, and a perfectly sharp edge
+to all the fissures; secondly, that every fissure is steeply inclined,
+and that a horizontal line, or one approaching to it, is an
+impossibility, except in some turn of a curve.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, however the light may fall, these peaks are seen marked with
+sharp and defined shadows, indicating the square <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p3">§ 3. Causing groups of
+rock resembling an artichoke or rose.</a></span>edges of the planks of which they
+are made up, which shadows sometimes are vertical, pointing to the
+summit; but are oftener parallel to one of the sides of the peak, and
+intersected by a second series, parallel to the other side. Where there
+has been much disintegration, the peak is often surrounded with groups
+of lower ridges or peaks, like the leaves of an artichoke or a rose, all
+evidently part and parcel of the great peak; but falling back from it,
+as if it were a budding flower, expanding its leaves one by one.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if I were giving a lecture on geology, and were searching for some
+means of giving the most faithful idea possible of the external
+appearance caused by this structure of the primary <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p4">§ 4. The faithful
+statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps at Daybreak.</a></span>hills, I
+should throw my geological outlines aside, and take up Turner's vignette
+of the Alps at Daybreak. After what has been said, a single glance at it
+will be enough. Observe the exquisite decision with which the edge of
+the uppermost plank of the great peak is indicated by its clear dark
+side and sharp shadow; then the rise of the second low ridge on its
+side, only to descend again precisely in the same line; the two fissures
+of this peak, one pointing to its summit, the other rigidly parallel to
+the great slope which descends towards the sun; then the sharp white
+<i>aiguille</i> on the right, with the great fissure from its summit, rigidly
+and severely square, as marked below, where another edge of rock is laid
+upon it. But this is not all; the black rock in the foreground is
+equally a member of the mass, its chief slope parallel with that of the
+mountain, and all its fissures and lines inclined in the same direction;
+and, to complete the mass of evidence more forcibly still, we have the
+dark mass on the left articulated with absolute right lines, as parallel
+as if they <span class="pagenum"><a name="page277"></a>[Page 277]</span> had been drawn with a ruler, indicating the tops
+of two of these huge plates or planks, pointing, with the universal
+tendency, to the great ridge, and intersected by fissures parallel to
+it. Throughout the extent of mountain, not one horizontal line, nor an
+approach to it, is discernible. This cannot be chance&mdash;it cannot be
+composition&mdash;it may not be beautiful&mdash;perhaps nature is very wrong to be
+so parallel, and very disagreeable in being so straight;&mdash;but this <i>is</i>
+nature, whether we admire it or not.</p>
+
+<p>In the vignette illustration to Jacqueline, we have another series of
+peaks, whose structure is less developed, owing to their distance, but
+equally clear and faithful in all points, as far <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p5">§ 5. Vignette of the
+Andes and others.</a></span>as it is given. But the vignette of Aosta, <span
+class="correction" title="originally 'in the Italy'">in Italy</span>, is
+perhaps more striking than any that could be named for its rendering of
+the perfect parallelism of the lower and smaller peaks with the great
+lines of the mass they compose; and that of the Andes, the second in
+Campbell, for its indication of the multitudes of the vertical and
+plank-like beds arranged almost like the leaves of a flower. This last
+especially, one of the very noblest, most faithful, most scientific
+statements of mountain form which even Turner has ever made, can leave
+little more to be said or doubted.</p>
+
+<p>Now, whenever these vast peaks, rising from 12,000 to 24,000 feet above
+the sea, form part of anything like a landscape, that is to say,
+whenever the spectator beholds them from the region <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p6">§ 6. Necessary
+distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such mountains.</a></span>of
+vegetation, or even from any distance at which it is possible to get
+something like a view of their whole mass, they must be at so great a
+distance from him as to become aerial and faint in all their details.
+Their summits, and all those higher masses of whose character we have
+been speaking, can by no possibility be nearer to him than twelve or
+fifteen miles; to approach them nearer he must climb&mdash;must leave the
+region of vegetation, and must confine his view to a part, and that a
+very limited one, of the mountain he is ascending. Whenever, therefore,
+these mountains are seen over anything like vegetation, or are seen in
+mass, they <i>must</i> be in the far distance. Most artists would treat an
+horizon fifteen miles off very much as if it were mere air; and though
+the greater clearness of the upper air permits the high <span class="pagenum"><a name="page278"></a>[Page 278]</span>
+summits to be seen with extraordinary distinctness, yet they never can
+by any possibility have dark or deep shadows, or intense dark relief
+against a light. Clear they may be, but faint they must be, and their
+great and prevailing characteristic, as distinguished from other
+mountains, is want of apparent solidity. They rise in the morning light
+rather like sharp shades, cast up into the sky, than solid earth. Their
+lights are pure, roseate, and cloud-like&mdash;their shadows transparent,
+pale, and opalescent, and often indistinguishable from the air around
+them, so that the mountain-top is seen in the heaven only by its flakes
+of motionless fire.</p>
+
+<p>Now, let me once more ask, though I am sufficiently tired of asking,
+what record have we of anything like this in the works of the old
+masters? There is no vestige in any existing picture <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p7">§ 7. Total want of
+any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art.</a></span>of the slightest effort
+to represent the high hill ranges; and as for such drawing of their
+forms as we have found in Turner, we might as well look for them among
+the Chinese. Very possibly it may be all quite right,&mdash;very probably
+these men showed the most cultivated taste, the most unerring judgment,
+in filling their pictures with mole-hills and sand-heaps. Very probably
+the withered and poisonous banks of Avernus, and the sand and cinders of
+the Campagna, are much more sublime things than the Alps; but still what
+limited truth it is, if truth it be, when through the last fifty pages
+we have been pointing out fact after fact, scene after scene, in clouds
+and hills, (and not individual facts nor scenes, but great and important
+classes of them,) and still we have nothing to say when we come to the
+old masters; but, "they are not here." Yet this is what we hear so
+constantly called painting "general" nature.</p>
+
+<p>Although, however, there is no vestige among the old masters of any
+effort to represent the attributes of the higher mountains seen in
+comparative proximity, we are not altogether left without <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p8">§ 8. Character
+of the representations of Alps in the distances of Claude.</a></span>evidence of
+their having thought of them as sources of light in the extreme
+distance, as for example, in that of the reputed Claude in our National
+Gallery, called the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. I have not the
+slightest doubt of its being a most execrable copy; for there is not one
+touch nor line of even decent <span class="pagenum"><a name="page279"></a>[Page 279]</span> painting in the whole picture;
+but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in
+our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a
+Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it
+which are wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none
+of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned,
+and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts
+of form, which cannot have been much altered by the copyist. In the
+distance of that picture (as well as in that of the Sinon before Priam,
+which I have little doubt is at least partially original, and whose
+central group of trees is a very noble piece of painting) is something
+white, which I believe must be intended for a snowy mountain, because I
+do not see that it <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p9">§ 9. Their total want of magnitude and aerial
+distance.</a></span>can well be intended for anything else. Now no mountain of
+elevation sufficient to be so sheeted with perpetual snow, can by any
+possibility sink so low on the horizon as this something of Claude's,
+unless it be at a distance of from fifty to seventy miles. At such
+distances, though the outline is invariably sharp and edgy to an excess,
+yet all the circumstances of aerial perspective, faintness of shadow,
+and isolation of light, which I have described as characteristic of the
+Alps fifteen miles off, take place, of course, in a threefold degree;
+the mountains rise from the horizon like transparent films, only
+distinguishable from mist by their excessively keen edges, and their
+brilliant flashes of sudden light; they are as unsubstantial as the air
+itself, and impress their enormous size by means of this aerialness, in
+a far greater degree at these vast distances, than even when towering
+above the spectator's head. Now, I ask of the candid observer, if there
+be the smallest vestige of an effort to attain&mdash;if there be the most
+miserable, the most contemptible shadow of attainment of such an effect
+by Claude? Does that white thing on the horizon look seventy miles off?
+Is it faint, or fading, or to be looked for by the eye before it can be
+found out? Does it look high? does it look large? does it look
+impressive? You cannot but feel that there is not a vestige of any kind
+or species of truth in that horizon; and that, however artistical it may
+be, as giving brilliancy to the distance, (though, as far as I have any
+feeling in the matter, it only gives coldness,) it is, in the very
+branch of art on which <span class="pagenum"><a name="page280"></a>[Page 280]</span> Claude's reputation chiefly rests,
+aerial perspective, hurling defiance to nature in her very teeth.</p>
+
+<p>But there are worse failures yet in this unlucky distance. Aerial
+perspective is not a matter of paramount importance, because nature
+infringes its laws herself and boldly too, though <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p10">§ 10. And violation of
+specific form.</a></span>never in a case like this before us; but there are some
+laws which nature never violates&mdash;her laws of form. No mountain was ever
+raised to the level of perpetual snow, without an infinite multiplicity
+of form. Its foundation is built of a hundred minor mountains, and, from
+these, great buttresses run in converging ridges to the central peak.
+There is no exception to this rule; no mountain 15,000 feet high is ever
+raised without such preparation and variety of outwork. Consequently, in
+distant effect, when chains of such peaks are visible at once, the
+multiplicity of form is absolutely oceanic; and though it is possible in
+near scenes to find vast and simple masses composed of lines which run
+unbroken for a thousand feet, or more, it is physically impossible when
+these masses are thrown seventy miles back, to have simple outlines, for
+then these large features become mere jags, and hillocks, and are heaped
+and huddled together with endless confusion. To get a simple form,
+seventy miles away, mountain lines would be required unbroken for
+leagues; and this, I repeat, is physically impossible. Hence these
+mountains of Claude, having no indication of the steep vertical summits
+which we have shown to be the characteristic of the central ridges,
+having soft edges instead of decisive ones, simple forms (one line to
+the plain on each side) instead of varied and broken ones, and being
+painted with a crude raw white, having no transparency, nor filminess,
+nor air in it, instead of rising in the opalescent mystery which
+invariably characterizes the distant snows, have the forms and the
+colors of heaps of chalk in a lime-kiln, not of Alps. They are destitute
+of energy, of height, of distance, of splendor, and of variety, and are
+the work of a man, whether Claude or not, who had neither feeling for
+nature, nor knowledge of art.</p>
+
+<p>I should not, however, insist upon the faults of this picture, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p11">§ 11.
+Even in his best works.</a></span>believing it to be a copy, if I had ever seen,
+even in his most genuine works, an extreme distance of Claude with any
+of the essential characters of nature. But <span class="pagenum"><a name="page281"></a>[Page 281]</span> although in his
+better pictures we have always beautiful drawing of the <i>air</i>, which in
+the copy before us is entirely wanting, the real features of the extreme
+mountain distance are equally neglected or maligned in all. There is,
+indeed, air between us and it; but ten miles, not seventy miles, of
+space. Let us observe a little more closely the practice of nature in
+such cases.</p>
+
+<p>The multiplicity of form which I have shown to be necessary in the
+outline, is not less felt in the body of the mass. For, in <span
+class="correction" title="originally 'rll'">all</span> extensive hill ranges,
+there are five or six lateral chains separated <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p12">§ 12. Farther
+illustration of the distant character of mountain chains.</a></span>by deep
+valleys, which rise between the spectator and the central ridge, showing
+their tops one over another, wave beyond wave, until the eye is carried
+back to the faintest and highest forms of the principal chain. These
+successive ridges, and I speak now not merely of the Alps, but of
+mountains generally, even as low as 3000 feet above the sea, show
+themselves in extreme distance merely as vertical shades, with very
+sharp outlines, detached from one another by greater intensity,
+according to their nearness. It is with the utmost difficulty that the
+eye can discern any solidity or roundness in them; the lights and shades
+of solid form are both equally lost in the blue of the atmosphere, and
+the mountain tells only as a flat, sharp-edged film, of which multitudes
+intersect and overtop one another, separated by the greater faintness of
+the retiring masses. This is the most simple and easily imitated
+arrangement possible, and yet, both in nature and art, it expresses
+distance and size in a way otherwise quite unattainable. For thus, the
+whole mass of one mountain being of one shade only, the smallest
+possible difference in shade will serve completely to detach it from
+another, and thus ten or twelve distances may be made evident, when the
+darkest and nearest is an aerial gray as faint as the sky; and the
+beauty of such arrangements carried out as nature carries them, to their
+highest degree, is, perhaps, the most striking feature connected with
+hill scenery: you will never, by any chance, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p13">§ 13. Their excessive
+appearance of transparency.</a></span>perceive in extreme distance, anything like
+solid form or projection of the hills. Each is a dead, flat,
+perpendicular film or shade, with a sharp edge darkest at the summit,
+and lost as it descends, and about equally dark whether turned towards
+the light or from it; <span class="pagenum"><a name="page282"></a>[Page 282]</span> and of these successive films of
+mountain you will probably have half a dozen, one behind another, all
+showing with perfect clearness their every chasm and peak in the
+outline, and not one of them showing the slightest vestige of solidity,
+but on the contrary, looking so thoroughly transparent, that if it so
+happens, as I have seen frequently, that a conical near hill meets with
+its summit the separation of two distant ones, so that the right-hand
+slope of the nearer hill forms an apparent continuation of the
+right-hand slope of the left-hand farther hill, and <i>vice versa</i>, it is
+impossible to get rid of the impression that one or the more distant
+peaks is seen <i>through</i> the other.</p>
+
+<p>I may point out in illustration of these facts, the engravings of two
+drawings of precisely the same chain of distant hills,&mdash;Stanfield's
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p14">§ 14. Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The Borromean
+Islands of the latter.</a></span>Borromean Islands, with the St. Gothard in the
+distance, and Turner's Arona, also with the St. Gothard in the distance.
+Far be it from me to indicate the former of these plates as in any way
+exemplifying the power of Stanfield, or affecting his reputation; it is
+an unlucky drawing, murdered by the engraver, and as far from being
+characteristic of Stanfield as it is from being like nature, but it is
+just what I want, to illustrate the particular error of which I speak;
+and I prefer showing this error where it accidentally exists in the
+works of a really great artist, standing there alone, to point it out
+where it is confused with other faults and falsehoods in the works of
+inferior hands. The former of these plates is an example of everything
+which a hill distance is not, and the latter of everything which it is.
+In the former, we have the mountains covered with patchy lights, which
+being of equal intensity whether near or distant, confuse all the
+distances together; while the eye, perceiving that the light falls so as
+to give details of solid form, yet finding nothing but insipid and
+formless spaces displayed by it, is compelled to suppose that the whole
+body of the hill is equally monotonous and devoid of character; and the
+effect upon it is not one whit more impressive and agreeable than might
+be received from a group of sand-heaps, washed into uniformity by recent
+rain.</p>
+
+<p>Compare with this the distance of Turner in Arona. It is <span class="pagenum"><a name="page283"></a>[Page 283]</span>
+totally impossible here to say which way the light falls on the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p15">§ 15.
+Turner's Arona.</a></span>distant hills, except by the slightly increased decision
+of their edges turned towards it, but the greatest attention is paid to
+get these edges decisive, yet full of gradation, and perfectly true in
+character of form. All the rest of the mountain is then
+indistinguishable haze, and by the bringing of these edges more and more
+decisively over one another, Turner has given us between the right-hand
+side of the picture and the snow, fifteen distinct distances, yet every
+one of these distances in itself palpitating, changeful, and suggesting
+subdivision into countless multitude. Something of this is traceable
+even in the engraving, and all the essential characters are perfectly
+well marked. I think even the least experienced eye can scarcely but
+feel the truth of this distance as compared with Stanfield's. In the
+latter, the eye gets something of the form, and therefore wonders it
+sees no more; the impression on it, therefore, is of hills within
+distinctly visible distance, indiscernible through want of light or dim
+atmosphere; and the effect is, of course, smallness of space, with
+obscurity of light and thickness of air. In Turner's the eye gets
+nothing of the substance, and wonders it sees so much of the outline;
+the impression is, therefore, of mountains too far off to be ever
+distinctly seen, rendered clear by brilliancy of light and purity of
+atmosphere; and the effect, consequently, vastness of space, with
+intensity of light and crystalline transparency of air.</p>
+
+<p>These truths are invariably given in every one of Turner's distances,
+that is to say, we have always in them two principal <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p16">§ 16. Extreme
+distance of large objects always characterized by very sharp
+outline.</a></span>facts forced on our notice; transparency, or filminess of mass,
+and excessive sharpness of edge. And I wish particularly to insist upon
+this sharpness of edge, because it is not a casual or changeful habit of
+nature; it is the unfailing characteristic of all very great distances.
+It is quite a mistake to suppose that slurred or melting lines are
+characteristic of distant <i>large</i> objects; they may be so, as before
+observed, (Sec. II. Chap. IV. § 4,) when the focus of the eye is not
+adapted to them; but, when the eye is really directed to the distance,
+melting lines are characteristic only of thick mist and vapor between us
+and the object, not of the removal of the object. If a thing has
+character upon its <span class="pagenum"><a name="page284"></a>[Page 284]</span> outline, as a tree for instance, or a
+mossy stone, the farther it is removed from us, the sharper the outline
+of the whole mass will become, though in doing so, the particular
+details which make up the character will become confused in the manner
+described in the same chapter. A tree fifty yards from us, taken as a
+mass, has a soft outline, because the leaves and interstices have some
+effect on the eye. But put it ten miles off against the sky, and its
+outline will be so sharp that you cannot tell it from a rock. There are
+three trees on the Mont Saleve, about five miles from Geneva, which from
+the city, as they stand on the ridge of the hill, are seen defined
+against the sky. The keenest eye in the world could not tell them from
+stones. So in a mountain five or six miles off, bushes, and heather, and
+roughnesses of knotty ground and rock, have still some effect on the
+eye, and by becoming confused and mingled as before described, soften
+the outline. But let the mountain be thirty miles off, and its edge will
+be as sharp as a knife. Let it, as in the case of the Alps, be seventy
+or eighty miles off, and though it has become so faint that the morning
+mist is not so transparent, its outline will be beyond all imitation for
+excessive sharpness. Thus, then, the character of extreme distance is
+always excessive keenness of edge. If you soften your outline, you
+either put mist between you and the object, and in doing so diminish,
+your distance, for it is impossible you should see so far through mist
+as through clear air; or, if you keep an impression of clear air, you
+bring the object close to the observer, diminish its size in proportion,
+and if the aerial colors, excessive blues, etc., be retained, represent
+an impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>Take Claude's distance (in No. 244, Dulwich Gallery,)<a name="FnAnchor_53" href="#Footnote_53"><sup>[53]</sup></a> on <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p17">§17. Want
+of this decision in Claude.</a></span>the right of the picture. It is as pure blue
+as ever came from the pallet, laid on thick; you cannot see through it,
+there is not the slightest vestige of transparency or filminess about
+it, and its edge is soft and blunt. Hence, if it be meant for near
+hills, the blue is impossible, and the want of details impossible, in
+the clear atmosphere indicated through the whole picture. If it be meant
+for extreme distance, the blunt edge is impossible, and the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page285"></a>[Page 285]</span>
+opacity is impossible. I do not know a single distance of the Italian
+school to which the same observation is not entirely applicable, except,
+perhaps, one or two of Nicholas Poussin's. They always involve, under
+any supposition whatsoever, at least two impossibilities.</p>
+
+<p>I need scarcely mention in particular any more of the works of Turner,
+because there is not one of his mountain distances in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p18">§ 18. The
+perpetual rendering of it by Turner.</a></span>which these facts are not fully
+exemplified. Look at the last vignette&mdash;the Farewell, in Rogers's Italy;
+observe the excessive sharpness of all the edges, almost amounting to
+lines, in the distance, while there is scarcely one decisive edge in the
+foreground. Look at the hills of the distance in the Dunstaffnage,
+Glencoe, and Loch Achray, (illustrations to Scott,) in the latter of
+which the left-hand side of the Benvenue is actually marked with a dark
+line. In fact, Turner's usual mode of executing these passages is
+perfectly evident in all his drawings; it is not often that we meet with
+a very broad dash of wet color in his finished works, but in these
+distances, as we before saw of his shadows, all the effect has been
+evidently given by a dash of very moist pale color, probably turning the
+paper upside down, so that a very firm edge may be left at the top of
+the mountain as the color dries. And in the Battle of Marengo we find
+the principle carried so far as to give nothing more than actual outline
+for the representation of the extreme distance, while all the other
+hills in the picture are distinctly darkest at the edge. This plate,
+though coarsely executed, is yet one of the noblest illustrations of
+mountain character and magnitude existing.</p>
+
+<p>Such, then, are the chief characteristics of the highest peaks and
+extreme distances of all hills, as far as the forms of the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p19">§ 19. Effects
+of snow, how imperfectly studied.</a></span>rocks themselves, and the aerial
+appearances especially belonging to them, are alone concerned. There is,
+however, yet another point to be considered&mdash;the modification of their
+form caused by incumbent snow.</p>
+
+<p>Pictures of winter scenery are nearly as common as moonlights, and are
+usually executed by the same order of artists, that is to say, the most
+incapable; it being remarkably easy to represent the moon as a white
+wafer on a black ground, or to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page286"></a>[Page 286]</span> scratch out white branches on
+a cloudy sky. Nevertheless, among Flemish paintings several valuable
+representations of winter are to be found, and some clever pieces of
+effect among the moderns, as Hunt's, for instance, and De Wint's. But
+all such efforts end in effect alone, nor have I ever in any single
+instance seen a snow <i>wreath</i>, I do not say thoroughly, but even
+decently, drawn.</p>
+
+<p>In the range of inorganic nature, I doubt if any object can be found
+more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snow-drift, seen under warm
+light.<a name="FnAnchor_54" href="#Footnote_54"><sup>[54]</sup></a> Its curves are of inconceivable perfection and changefulness,
+its surface and transparency alike exquisite, its light and shade of
+inexhaustible variety and inimitable finish, the shadows sharp, pale,
+and of heavenly color, the reflected lights intense and multitudinous,
+and mingled with the sweet occurrences of transmitted light. No mortal
+hand can approach the majesty or loveliness of it, yet it is possible by
+care and skill at least to suggest the preciousness of its forms and
+intimate the nature of its light and shade; but this has never been
+attempted; it could not be done except by artists of a rank exceedingly
+high, and there is something about the feeling of snow in ordinary
+scenery which such men do not like. But when the same qualities are
+exhibited on a magnificent Alpine scale and in a position where they
+interfere with no feeling of life, I see not why they should be
+neglected, as they have hitherto been, unless that the difficulty of
+reconciling the brilliancy of snow with a picturesque light and shade,
+is so great that most good artists disguise or avoid the greater part of
+upper Alpine scenery, and hint at the glacier so slightly, that they do
+not feel the necessity of careful study of its forms. Habits of
+exaggeration increase the evil: I have seen a sketch from nature, by one
+of the most able of our landscape painters, in which a cloud had been
+mistaken for a snowy summit, and the hint thus taken exaggerated, as was
+likely, into an enormous mass of impossible height, and unintelligent
+form, when the mountain itself, for which the cloud had been mistaken,
+though subtending an angle of about eighteen or twenty degrees, instead
+of the fifty attributed to it, was of a form so exquisite that it <span class="pagenum"><a name="page287"></a>[Page
+287]</span> might have been a profitable lesson truly studied to Phidias.
+Nothing but failure can result from such methods of sketching, nor have
+I ever seen a single instance of an earnest study of snowy mountains by
+any one. Hence, wherever they are introduced, their drawing is utterly
+unintelligent, the forms being those of white rocks, or of rocks lightly
+powdered with snow, showing sufficiently that not only the painters have
+never studied the mountain carefully from below, but that they have
+never climbed into the snowy region. Harding's rendering of the high
+Alps (<i>vide</i> the engraving of Chamonix, and of the Wengern Alp, in the
+illustrations to Byron) is best; but even he shows no perception of the
+real anatomy. Stanfield paints only white rocks instead of snow. Turner
+invariably avoids the difficulty, though he has shown himself capable of
+grappling with it in the ice of the Liber Studiorum, (Mer de Glace,)
+which is very cold and slippery and very like ice; but of the crusts and
+wreaths of the higher snow he has taken no cognizance. Even the
+vignettes to Rogers's Poems fail in this respect. It would be vain to
+attempt in this place to give any detailed account of the phenomena of
+the upper snows; but it may be well to note those general principles
+which every artist ought to keep in mind when he has to paint an Alp.</p>
+
+<p>Snow is modified by the under forms of the hill in some sort, as dress
+is by the anatomy of the human frame. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p20">§ 20. General principles of its
+forms on the Alps.</a></span>And as no dress can be well laid on without conceiving
+the body beneath, so no Alp can be drawn unless its under form is
+conceived first, and its snow laid on afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Every high Alp has as much snow upon it as it can hold or carry. It is
+not, observe, a mere coating of snow of given depth throughout, but it
+is snow loaded on until the rocks can hold no more. The surplus does not
+fall in the winter, because, fastened by continual frost, the quantity
+of snow which an Alp can carry is greater than each single winter can
+bestow; it falls in the first mild days of spring in enormous
+avalanches. Afterwards the melting continues, gradually removing from
+all the steep rocks the small quantity of snow which was all they could
+hold, and leaving them black and bare among the accumulated fields of
+unknown depth, which occupy <span class="pagenum"><a name="page288"></a>[Page 288]</span> the capacious valleys and less
+inclined superfices of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it follows that the deepest snow does not take nor indicate the
+actual forms of the rocks on which it lies, but it hangs from peak to
+peak in unbroken and sweeping festoons, or covers whole groups of peaks,
+which afford it sufficient hold, with vast and unbroken domes: these
+festoons and domes being guided in their curves, and modified in size,
+by the violence and prevalent direction of the winter winds.</p>
+
+<p>We have, therefore, every variety of indication of the under mountain
+form; first, the mere coating, which is soon to be withdrawn, and which
+shows as a mere sprinkling or powdering after a storm on the higher
+peaks; then the shallow incrustation on the steep sides glazed by the
+running down of its frequent meltings, frozen again in the night; then
+the deep snow more or less cramped or modified by sudden eminences of
+emergent rock, or hanging in fractured festoons and huge blue irregular
+cliffs on the mountain flanks, and over the edges and summits of their
+precipices in nodding drifts, far overhanging, like a cornice, (perilous
+things to approach the edge of from above;) finally, the pure
+accumulation of overwhelming depth, smooth, sweeping, and almost
+cleftless, and modified only by its lines of drifting. Countless
+phenomena of exquisite beauty belong to each of these conditions, not to
+speak of the transition of the snow into ice at lower levels; but all on
+which I shall at present insist is that the artist should not think of
+his Alp merely as a white mountain, but conceive it as a group of peaks
+loaded with an accumulation of snow, and that especially he should avail
+himself of the exquisite curvatures, never failing, by which the snow
+unites and opposes the harsh and broken lines of the rock. I shall enter
+into farther detail on this subject hereafter; at present it is useless
+to do so, as I have no examples to refer to, either in ancient or modern
+art. No statement of these facts has hitherto been made, nor any
+evidence given even of their observation, except by the most inferior
+painters.<a name="FnAnchor_55" href="#Footnote_55"><sup>[55]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Various works in green and white appear from time to time <span class="pagenum"><a name="page289"></a>[Page 289]</span> on
+the walls of the Academy, <i>like</i> the Alps indeed, but so frightfully
+like, that we shudder and sicken at the sight of them, as <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c2p21">§ 21. Average
+paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has scarcely yet been
+caught.</a></span>we do when our best friend shows us into his dining-room, to see
+a portrait of himself, which "everybody thinks very like." We should be
+glad to see fewer of these, for Switzerland is quite beyond the power of
+any but first-rate men, and is exceedingly bad practice for a rising
+artist; but, let us express a hope that Alpine scenery will not continue
+to be neglected as it has been, by those who alone are capable of
+treating it. We love Italy, but we have had rather a surfeit of it
+lately;&mdash;too many peaked caps and flat-headed pines. We should be very
+grateful to Harding and Stanfield if they would refresh us a little
+among the snow, and give us, what we believe them to be capable of
+giving us, a faithful expression of Alpine ideal. We are well aware of
+the pain inflicted on an artist's mind by the preponderance of black,
+and white, and green, over more available colors; but there is
+nevertheless in generic Alpine scenery, a fountain of feeling yet
+unopened&mdash;a chord of harmony yet untouched by art. It will be struck by
+the first man who can separate what is national, in Switzerland, from
+what is ideal. We do not want chalets and three-legged stools, cow-bells
+and buttermilk. We want the pure and holy hills, treated as a link
+between heaven and earth.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_53" href="#FnAnchor_53">[53]</a> One of the most genuine Claudes I know.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_54" href="#FnAnchor_54">[54]</a> Compare Part III. Sect. I. Chap. 9, § 5.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_55" href="#FnAnchor_55">[55]</a> I hear of some study of Alpine scenery among the professors at
+Geneva; but all foreign landscape that I have ever met with has been so
+utterly ignorant that I hope for nothing except from our own painters.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page290"></a>[Page 290]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAINS.</h5>
+
+<p>We have next to investigate the character of those intermediate masses
+which constitute the greater part of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p1">§ 1. The inferior mountains are
+distinguished from the central by being divided into beds.</a></span>all hill
+scenery, forming the outworks of the high ranges, and being almost the
+sole constituents of such lower groups as those of Cumberland, Scotland,
+or South Italy.</p>
+
+<p>All mountains whatsoever, not composed of the granite or gneiss rocks
+described in the preceding chapter, nor volcanic, (these latter being
+comparatively rare,) are composed of <i>beds</i>, not of homogeneous, heaped
+materials, but of accumulated layers, whether of rock or soil. It may be
+slate, sandstone, limestone, gravel, or clay; but whatever the
+substance, it is laid in layers, not in a mass. These layers are
+scarcely ever horizontal, and may slope to any degree, often occurring
+vertical, the boldness of the hill outline commonly depending in a great
+degree on their inclination. In consequence of this division into beds,
+every mountain will have two great sets of lines more or less prevailing
+in its contours&mdash;one indicative of the surfaces of the beds, where they
+come out from under each other&mdash;and the other indicative of the
+extremities or edges of the beds, where their continuity has been
+interrupted. And these two great sets of lines will commonly be at right
+angles with each other, or nearly so. If the surface of the bed approach
+a horizontal line, its termination will approach the vertical, and this
+is the most usual and ordinary way in which a precipice is produced.</p>
+
+<p>Farther, in almost all rocks there is a third division of substance,
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p2">§ 2. Farther division of these beds by joints.</a></span>which gives to their beds
+a tendency to split transversely in some directions rather than others,
+giving rise to what geologists call "joints," and throwing the whole
+rock into blocks more or less rhomboidal; so that the beds are not
+terminated by torn or ragged edges, but by faces comparatively smooth
+and even, usually inclined to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page291"></a>[Page 291]</span> each other at some definite
+angle. The whole arrangement may be tolerably represented by the bricks
+of a wall, whose tiers may be considered as strata, and whose sides and
+extremities will represent the joints by which those strata are divided,
+varying, however, their direction in different rocks, and in the same
+rock under differing circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, in the slates, grauwackes, and some calcareous beds, in the
+greater number, indeed, of <i>mountain</i> rocks, we find <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p3">§ 3. And by lines
+of lamination.</a></span>another most conspicuous feature of general structure&mdash;the
+lines of lamination, which divide the whole rock into an infinite number
+of delicate plates or layers, sometimes parallel to the direction or
+"strike" of the strata, oftener obliquely crossing it, and sometimes,
+apparently, altogether independent of it, maintaining a consistent and
+unvarying slope through a series of beds contorted and undulating in
+every conceivable direction. These lines of lamination extend their
+influence to the smallest fragment, causing it (as, for example, common
+roofing slate) to break smooth in one direction, and with a ragged edge
+in another, and marking the faces of the beds and joints with distinct
+and numberless lines, commonly far more conspicuous in a near view than
+the larger and more important divisions.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it cannot be too carefully held in mind, in examining the
+principles of mountain structure, that nearly all the laws of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p4">§ 4.
+Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are
+manifested.</a></span>nature with respect to external form are rather universal
+tendencies, evidenced by a plurality of instances, than imperative
+necessities complied with by all. For instance, it may be said to be a
+universal law with respect to the boughs of all trees that they incline
+their extremities more to the ground in proportion as they are lower on
+the trunk, and that the higher their point of insertion is, the more
+they share in the upward tendency of the trunk itself. But yet there is
+not a single group of boughs in any one tree which does not show
+exceptions to the rule, and present boughs lower in insertion, and yet
+steeper in inclination, than their neighbors. Nor is this defect or
+deformity, but the result of the constant habit of nature to carry
+variety into her very principles, and make the symmetry and beauty of
+her laws the more felt by the grace and accidentalism with which they
+are <span class="pagenum"><a name="page292"></a>[Page 292]</span> carried out. No one familiar with foliage could doubt
+for an instant of the necessity of giving evidence of this downward
+tendency in the boughs; but it would be nearly as great an offence
+against truth to make the law hold good with every individual branch, as
+not to exhibit its influence on the majority. Now, though the laws of
+mountain form are more rigid and constant than those of vegetation, they
+are subject to the same species of exception in carrying out. Though
+every mountain has these great tendencies in its lines, not one in a
+thousand of those lines is absolutely consistent with and obedient to
+this universal tendency. There are lines in every direction, and of
+almost every kind, but the sum and aggregate of those lines will
+invariably indicate the <i>universal</i> force and influence to which they
+are all subjected; and of these lines there will, I repeat, be two
+principal sets or classes, pretty nearly at right angles with each
+other. When both are inclined, they give rise to peaks or ridges; when
+one is nearly horizontal and the other vertical, to table-lands and
+precipices.</p>
+
+<p>This then is the broad organization of all hills, modified afterwards by
+time and weather, concealed by superincumbent soil and vegetation, and
+ramified into minor and more delicate details in a way presently to be
+considered, but nevertheless universal in its great first influence, and
+giving to all mountains a particular cast and inclination; like the
+exertion of voluntary power in a definite direction, an internal spirit,
+manifesting itself in every crag, and breathing in every slope, flinging
+and forcing the mighty mass towards the heaven with an expression and an
+energy like that of life.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as in the case of the structure of the central peaks described
+above, so also here, if I had to give a clear idea of this organization
+of the lower hills, where it is seen in its greatest <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p5">§ 5. The perfect
+expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin.</a></span>perfection, with a mere
+view to geological truth, I should not refer to any geological drawings,
+but I should take the Loch Coriskin of Turner. It has luckily been
+admirably engraved, and for all purposes of reasoning or form, is nearly
+as effective in the print as in the drawing. Looking at any group of the
+multitudinous lines which make up this mass of mountain, they appear to
+be running anywhere and everywhere; there are none parallel to each
+other, none resembling <span class="pagenum"><a name="page293"></a>[Page 293]</span> each other for a moment; yet the
+whole mass is felt at once to be composed with the most rigid
+parallelism, the surfaces of the beds towards the left, their edges or
+escarpments towards the right. In the centre, near the top of the ridge,
+the edge of a bed is beautifully defined, casting its shadow on the
+surface of the one beneath it; this shadow marking by three jags the
+chasms caused in the inferior one by three of its parallel joints. Every
+peak in the distance is evidently subject to the same great influence,
+and the evidence is completed by the flatness and evenness of the steep
+surfaces of the beds which rise out of the lake on the extreme right,
+parallel with those in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>Turn to Glencoe, in the same series (the Illustrations to Scott). We
+have in the mass of mountain on the left, the most beautiful <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p6">§ 6.
+Glencoe and other works.</a></span>indication of vertical beds of a finely
+laminated rock, terminated by even joints towards the precipice; while
+the whole sweep of the landscape, as far as the most distant peaks, is
+evidently governed by one great and simple tendency upwards to the left,
+those most distant peaks themselves lying over one another in the same
+direction. In the Daphne hunting with Leucippus, the mountains on the
+left descend in two precipices to the plain, each of which is formed by
+a vast escarpment of the beds whose upper surfaces are shown between the
+two cliffs, sinking with an even slope from the summit of the lowest to
+the base of the highest, under which they evidently descend, being
+exposed in this manner for a length of five or six miles. The same
+structure is shown, though with more complicated development, on the
+left of the Loch Katrine. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p7">§ 7. Especially the Mount Lebanon.</a></span>But perhaps
+the finest instance, or at least the most marked of all, will be found
+in the exquisite Mount Lebanon, with the convent of St. Antonio,
+engraved in Finden's Bible. There is not one shade nor touch on the rock
+which is not indicative of the lines of stratification; and every
+fracture is marked with a straightforward simplicity which makes you
+feel that the artist has nothing in his heart but a keen love of the
+pure unmodified truth; there is no effort to disguise the repetition of
+forms, no apparent aim at artificial arrangement or scientific grouping;
+the rocks are laid one above another with unhesitating decision; every
+shade is understood in a moment, felt as a dark side, or a shadow, or a
+fissure, and you may step <span class="pagenum"><a name="page294"></a>[Page 294]</span> from one block or bed to another
+until you reach the mountain summit. And yet, though there seems no
+effort to disguise the repetition of forms, see how it <i>is</i> disguised,
+just as nature would have done it, by the perpetual play and
+changefulness of the very lines which appear so parallel; now bending a
+little up, or down, or losing themselves, or running into each other,
+the old story over and over again,&mdash;infinity. For here is still the
+great distinction between Turner's work and that of a common artist.
+Hundreds could have given the parallelism of blocks, but none but
+himself could have done so without the actual repetition of a single
+line or feature.</p>
+
+<p>Now compare with this the second mountain from the left in the picture
+of Salvator, No. 220 in the Dulwich Gallery. The whole is first laid in
+with a very delicate and masterly gray, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p8">§ 8. Compared with the work of
+Salvator;</a></span>right in tone, agreeable in color, quite unobjectionable for a
+beginning. But how is this made into rock? On the light side Salvator
+gives us a multitude of touches, all exactly like one another, and
+therefore, it is to be hoped, quite patterns of perfection in
+rock-drawing, since they are too good to be even varied. Every touch is
+a dash of the brush, as nearly as possible in the shape of a comma,
+round and bright at the top, convex on its right side, concave on its
+left, and melting off at the bottom into the gray. These are laid in
+confusion one above another, some paler, some brighter, some scarcely
+discernible, but all alike in shape. Now, I am not aware myself of any
+particular object, either in earth or heaven, which these said touches
+do at all resemble or portray. I do not, however, assert that they may
+not resemble something&mdash;feathers, perhaps; but I do say, and say with
+perfect confidence, that they may be Chinese for rocks, or Sanscrit for
+rocks, or symbolical of rocks in some mysterious and undeveloped
+character; but that they are no more <i>like</i> rocks than the brush that
+made them. The dark sides appear to embrace and overhang the lights;
+they cast no shadows, are broken by no fissures, and furnish, as food
+for contemplation, nothing but a series of concave curves.</p>
+
+<p>Yet if we go on to No. 269, we shall find something a great deal worse.
+I can believe Gaspar Poussin capable of committing as much sin against
+nature as most people; but I certainly <span class="pagenum"><a name="page295"></a>[Page 295]</span> do not suspect him of
+having had any hand in this thing, at least <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p9">§ 9. And of Poussin.</a></span>after he
+was ten years old. Nevertheless, it shows what he is supposed capable of
+by his admirers, and will serve for a broad illustration of all those
+absurdities which he himself in a less degree, and with feeling and
+thought to atone for them, perpetually commits. Take the white bit of
+rock on the opposite side of the river, just above the right arm of the
+Niobe, and tell me of what the square green daubs of the brush at its
+base can be conjectured to be typical. Rocks with pale-brown light
+sides, and rich green dark sides, are a phenomenon perhaps occurring in
+some of the improved passages of nature among our Cumberland lakes;
+where I remember once having seen a bed of roses, of peculiar
+magnificence, tastefully and artistically assisted in effect by the
+rocks above it being painted pink to match; but I do not think that they
+are a kind of thing which the clumsiness and false taste of nature can
+be supposed frequently to produce; even granting that these same sweeps
+of the brush could, by any exercise of the imagination, be conceived
+representative of a dark, or any other side, which is far more than I am
+inclined to grant; seeing that there is no east shadow, no appearance of
+reflected light, of substance, or of character on the edge; nothing, in
+short, but pure, staring green paint, scratched heavily on a white
+ground. Nor is there a touch in the picture more expressive. All are the
+mere dragging of the brush here and there and everywhere, without
+meaning or intention; winding, twisting, zigzagging, doing anything in
+fact which may serve to break up the light and destroy its breadth,
+without bestowing in return one hint or shadow of anything like form.
+This picture is, indeed, an extraordinary case, but the Salvator above
+mentioned is a characteristic and exceedingly favorable example of the
+usual mode of mountain drawing among the old landscape painters.<a name="FnAnchor_56" href="#Footnote_56"><sup>[56]</sup></a>
+Their admirers may be challenged to bring forward a single instance of
+their expressing, or even appearing to have noted, the great laws of
+structure above explained. Their hills are, without exception, irregular
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296"></a>[Page 296]</span> earthy heaps, without energy or direction of any kind,
+marked with shapeless shadows and meaningless lines; sometimes, indeed,
+where great sublimity has been aimed at, approximating to the pure and
+exalted ideal of rocks, which, in the most artistical specimens of China
+cups and plates, we see suspended from aerial pagodas, or balanced upon
+peacocks' tails, but never warranting even the wildest theorist in the
+conjecture that their perpetrators had ever seen a mountain in their
+lives. Let us, however, look farther into the modifications of character
+by which nature conceals the regularity of her first plan; for although
+all mountains are organized as we have seen, their organization is
+always modified, and often nearly concealed, by changes wrought upon
+them by external influence.</p>
+
+<p>We ought, when speaking of their stratification, to have noticed another
+great law, which must, however, be understood with greater latitude of
+application than any of the others, as <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p10">§ 10. Effects of external
+influence on mountain form.</a></span>very far from imperative or constant in
+particular cases, though universal in its influence on the aggregate of
+all. It is that the lines by which rocks are terminated, are always
+steeper and more inclined to the vertical as we approach the summit of
+the mountain. Thousands of cases are to be found in every group, of
+rocks and lines horizontal at the top of the mountain and vertical at
+the bottom; but they are still the exceptions, and the average out of a
+given number of lines in any rock formation whatsoever, will be found
+increasing in perpendicularity as they rise. Consequently the great
+skeleton lines of rock outline are always concave; that is to say, all
+distant ranges of rocky mountain approximate more or less to a series of
+concave curves, meeting in peaks, like a range of posts with chains
+hanging between. I do not say that convex forms will not perpetually
+occur, but that the tendency of the majority will always be to assume
+the form of sweeping, curved valleys, with angular peaks; not of rounded
+convex summits, with angular valleys. This structure is admirably
+exemplified in the second vignette in Rogers's Italy, and in Piacenza.</p>
+
+<p>But although this is the primary form of all hills, and that which will
+always cut against the sky in every distant range, there are two great
+influences whose tendency is directly the reverse, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page297"></a>[Page 297]</span> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p11">§ 11. The
+gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion.</a></span>and which modify, to a great
+degree, both the evidences of stratification and this external form.
+These are aqueous erosion and disintegration. The latter only is to be
+taken into consideration when we have to do with minor features of crag;
+but the former is a force in constant action&mdash;of the very utmost
+importance&mdash;a force to which one-half of the great outlines of all
+mountains is entirely owing, and which has much influence upon every one
+of their details.</p>
+
+<p>Now the tendency of aqueous action over a large elevated surface is
+<i>always</i> to make that surface symmetrically and evenly convex and
+dome-like, sloping gradually more and more as it descends, until it
+reaches an inclination of about 40°, at which slope it will descend
+perfectly straight to the valley; for at that slope the soil washed from
+above will accumulate upon the hill-side, as it cannot lie in steeper
+beds. This influence, then, is exercised more or less on all mountains,
+with greater or less effect in proportion as the rock is harder or
+softer, more or less liable to decomposition, more or less recent in
+date of elevation, and more or less characteristic in its original
+forms; but it universally induces, in the lower parts of mountains, a
+series of the most exquisitely symmetrical convex curves, terminating,
+as they descend to the valley, in uniform and uninterrupted slopes; this
+symmetrical structure being perpetually interrupted by cliffs and
+projecting masses, which give evidence of the interior parallelism of
+the mountain anatomy, but which interrupt the convex forms more
+frequently by rising out of them, than by indentation.</p>
+
+<p>There remains but one fact more to be noticed. All mountains, in some
+degree, but especially those which are composed of soft or decomposing
+substance, are delicately and symmetrically <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p12">§ 12. And the effect of the
+action of torrents.</a></span>furrowed by the descent of streams. The traces of
+their action commence at the very summits, fine threads, and
+multitudinous, like the uppermost branches of a delicate tree. They
+unite in groups as they descend, concentrating gradually into dark
+undulating ravines, into which the body of the mountain descends on each
+side, at first in a convex curve, but at the bottom with the same
+uniform slope on each side which it assumes in its final descent to the
+plain, unless the rock be very hard, when the stream will cut <span class="pagenum"><a name="page298"></a>[Page
+298]</span> itself a vertical chasm at the bottom of the curves, and there will
+be no even slope.<a name="FnAnchor_57" href="#Footnote_57"><sup>[57]</sup></a> If, on the other hand, the rock be very soft, the
+slopes will increase rapidly in height and depth from day to day; washed
+away at the bottom and crumbling at the top, until, by their reaching
+the summit of the masses of rock which separate the active torrents, the
+whole mountain is divided into a series of penthouse-like ridges, all
+guiding to its summit, and becoming steeper and narrower as they ascend;
+these in their turn being divided by similar, but smaller
+ravines&mdash;caused in the same manner&mdash;into the same kind of ridges; and
+these again by another series, the arrangement being carried finer and
+farther according to the softness of the rock. The south side of
+Saddleback, in Cumberland, is a characteristic example; and the Montagne
+du Tacondy, in Chamonix, a noble instance of one of these ridges or
+buttresses, with all its subdivisions, on a colossal scale.</p>
+
+<p>Now we wish to draw especial attention to the broad and bold simplicity
+of mass, and the excessive complication of details, which influences
+like these, acting on an enormous scale, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p13">§ 13. The exceeding simplicity
+of contour caused by these influences.</a></span>must inevitably produce in all
+mountain groups; because each individual part and promontory, being
+compelled to assume the same symmetrical curves as its neighbors, and to
+descend at precisely the same slope to the valley, falls in with their
+prevailing lines, and becomes a part of a great and harmonious whole,
+instead of an unconnected and discordant individual. It is true that
+each of these members has its own touches of specific character, its own
+projecting crags and peculiar hollows; but by far the greater portion of
+its lines will be such as unite with, though they do not repeat, those
+of its neighbors, and carry out the evidence of one great influence and
+spirit to the limits of the scene. This effort is farther aided by the
+original unity and connection of the rocks themselves, which though it
+often may be violently interrupted, is never without evidence of
+existence; for the very interruption itself forces the eye to feel that
+there is something <span class="pagenum"><a name="page299"></a>[Page 299]</span> to be interrupted, a sympathy and
+similarity of lines and fractures, which, however full of variety and
+change of direction, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p14">§ 14. And multiplicity of feature.</a></span>never lose the
+appearance of symmetry of one kind or another. But, on the other hand,
+it is to be remembered that these great sympathizing masses are not one
+mountain, but a thousand mountains; that they are originally composed of
+a multitude of separate eminences, hewn and chiselled indeed into
+associating form, but each retaining still its marked points and
+features of character,&mdash;that each of these individual members has, by
+the very process which assimilated it to the rest, been divided and
+subdivided into equally multitudinous groups of minor mountains;
+finally, that the whole complicated system is interrupted forever and
+ever by daring manifestations of the inward mountain will&mdash;by the
+precipice which has submitted to no modulation of the torrent, and the
+peak which has bowed itself to no terror of the storm. Hence we see that
+the same imperative laws which require perfect simplicity of mass,
+require infinite and termless complication of detail,&mdash;that there will
+not be an inch nor a hairbreadth of the gigantic heap which has not its
+touch of separate character, its own peculiar curve, stealing out for an
+instant and then melting into the common line; felt for a moment by the
+blue mist of the hollow beyond, then lost when it crosses the
+enlightened slope,&mdash;that all this multiplicity will be grouped into
+larger divisions, each felt by their increasing aerial perspective, and
+their instants of individual form, these into larger, and these into
+larger still, until all are merged in the great impression and
+prevailing energy of the two or three vast dynasties which divide the
+kingdom of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>There is no vestige nor shadow of approach to such treatment as this in
+the whole compass of ancient art. Whoever the master, his hills,
+wherever he has attempted them, have not the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p15">§ 15. Both utterly
+neglected in ancient art.</a></span>slightest trace of association or connection;
+they are separate, conflicting, confused, petty and paltry heaps of
+earth; there is no marking of distances or divisions in their body; they
+may have holes in them, but no valleys,&mdash;protuberances and excrescences,
+but no parts; and in consequence are invariably diminutive and
+contemptible in their whole appearance and impression.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page300"></a>[Page 300]</span></p>
+
+<p>But look at the mass of mountain on the right in Turner's Daphne hunting
+with Leucippus. It is simple, broad, and united as one surge of a
+swelling sea; it rises in an unbroken <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p16">§ 16. The fidelity of treatment in
+Turner's Daphne and Leucippas.</a></span>line along the valley, and lifts its
+promontories with an equal slope. But it contains in its body ten
+thousand hills. There is not a quarter of an inch of its surface without
+its suggestion of increasing distance and individual form. First, on the
+right, you have a range of tower-like precipices, the clinging wood
+climbing along their ledges and cresting their summits, white waterfalls
+gleaming through its leaves; not, as in Claude's scientific ideals,
+poured in vast torrents over the top, and carefully keeping all the way
+down on the most projecting parts of the sides; but stealing down,
+traced from point to point, through shadow after shadow, by their
+evanescent foam and flashing light,&mdash;here a wreath, and there a
+ray,&mdash;through the deep chasms and hollow ravines, out of which rise the
+soft rounded slopes of mightier mountain, surge beyond surge, immense
+and numberless, of delicate and gradual curve, accumulating in the sky
+until their garment of forest is exchanged for the shadowy fold of
+slumbrous morning cloud, above which the utmost silver peak shines
+islanded and alone. Put what mountain painting you will beside this, of
+any other artist, and its heights will look like mole-hills in
+comparison, because it will not have the unity nor the multiplicity
+which are in nature, and with Turner, the signs of size.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in the Avalanche and Inundation, we have for the whole subject
+nothing but one vast bank of united mountain, and one stretch of
+uninterrupted valley. Though the bank is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p17">§ 17. And in the Avalanche and
+Inundation.</a></span>broken into promontory beyond promontory, peak above peak,
+each the abode of a new tempest, the arbiter of a separate desolation,
+divided from each other by the rushing of the snow, by the motion of the
+storm, by the thunder of the torrent; the mighty unison of their dark
+and lofty line, the brotherhood of ages, is preserved unbroken; and the
+broad valley at their feet, though measured league after league away by
+a thousand passages of sun and darkness, and marked with fate beyond
+fate of hamlet and of inhabitant, lies yet but as a straight and narrow
+channel, a filling furrow before the flood. Whose work will you compare
+with this? Salvator's <span class="pagenum"><a name="page301"></a>[Page 301]</span> gray heaps of earth, seven yards high,
+covered with bunchy brambles, that we may be under no mistake about the
+size, thrown about at random in a little plain, beside a zigzagging
+river, just wide enough to admit of the possibility of there being fish
+in it, and with banks just broad enough to allow the respectable angler
+or hermit to sit upon them conveniently in the foreground? Is there more
+of nature in such paltriness, think you, than in the valley and the
+mountain which bend to each other like the trough of the sea; with the
+flank of the one swept in one surge into the height of heaven, until the
+pine forests lie on its immensity like the shadows of narrow clouds, and
+the hollow of the other laid league by league into the blue of the air,
+until its white villages flash in the distance only like the fall of a
+sunbeam?</p>
+
+<p>But let us examine by what management of the details themselves this
+wholeness and vastness of effect are given. We have just seen (§ 11)
+that it is impossible for the slope of a mountain, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p18">§ 18. The rarity
+among secondary hills of steep slopes or high precipices.</a></span>not actually a
+precipice of rock, to exceed 35° or among secondary 40°, and that by far
+the greater part of all hill-surface is composed of graceful curves of
+much less degree than this, reaching 40° only as their ultimate and
+utmost inclination. It must be farther observed that the interruptions
+to such curves, by precipices or steps, are always small in proportion
+to the slopes themselves. Precipices rising vertically more than 100
+feet are very rare among the secondary hills of which we are speaking. I
+am not aware of any cliff in England or Wales where a plumb-line can
+swing clear for 200 feet; and even although sometimes, with intervals,
+breaks, and steps, we get perhaps 800 feet of a slope of 60° or 70°, yet
+not only are these cases very rare, but even these have little influence
+on the great contours of a mountain 4000 or 5000 feet in elevation,
+being commonly balanced by intervals of ascent not exceeding 6° or 8°.
+The result of which is, first, that the peaks and precipices of a
+mountain appear as little more than jags or steps emerging from its
+great curves; and, secondly, that the bases of all hills are enormously
+extensive as compared with their elevation, so that there must be always
+a horizontal distance between the observer and the summit five or six
+times exceeding the perpendicular one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page302"></a>[Page 302]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now it is evident, that whatever the actual angle of elevation of the
+mountain may be, every exhibition of this horizontal distance between us
+and the summit is an addition to its height, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p19">§ 19. And consequent
+expression of horizontal distance in their ascent.</a></span>and of course to its
+impressiveness; while every endeavor to exhibit its slope as steep and
+sudden, is diminution at once of its distance and elevation. In
+consequence nature is constantly endeavoring to impress upon us this
+horizontal distance, which, even in spite of all her means of
+manifesting it, we are apt to forget or underestimate; and all her
+noblest effects depend on the full measurement and feeling of it. And it
+is to the abundant and marvellous expression of it by Turner, that I
+would direct especial attention, as being that which is in itself
+demonstrative of the highest knowledge and power&mdash;knowledge, in the
+constant use of lines of subdued slope in preference to steep or violent
+ascents, and in the perfect subjection of all such features, when they
+necessarily occur, to the larger masses; and power, in the inimitable
+statements of retiring space by mere painting of surface details,
+without the aid of crossing shadows, divided forms, or any other
+artifice.</p>
+
+<p>The Caudebec, in the Rivers of France, is a fine instance of almost
+every fact which we have been pointing out. We have in it, first, the
+clear expression of what takes place constantly <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p20">§ 20. Full statement of
+all these facts in various works of Turner, Caudebec, etc.</a></span>among
+hills,&mdash;that the river, as it passes through the valley, will fall
+backwards and forwards from side to side, lying first, if I may so
+speak, with all its weight against the hills on the one side, and then
+against those on the other; so that, as here it is exquisitely told, in
+each of its circular sweeps the whole force of its current is brought
+deep and close to the bases of the hills, while the water on the side
+next the plain is shallow, deepening gradually. In consequence of this,
+the hills are cut away at their bases by the current, so that their
+slopes are interrupted by precipices mouldering to the water. Observe
+first, how nobly Turner has given us the perfect unity of the whole mass
+of hill, making us understand that every ravine in it has been cut
+gradually by streams. The first eminence, beyond the city, is not
+disjointed from, or independent of, the one succeeding, but evidently
+part of the same whole, originally united, separated only by the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page303"></a>[Page
+303]</span> action of the stream between. The association of the second and
+third is still more clearly told, for we see that there has been a
+little longitudinal valley running along the brow of their former united
+mass, which, after the ravine had been cut between, formed the two jags
+which Turner has given us at the same point in each of their curves.
+This great triple group has, however, been originally distinct from
+those beyond it; for we see that these latter are only the termination
+of the enormous even slope, which appears again on the extreme right,
+having been interrupted by the rise of the near hills. Observe how the
+descent of the whole series is kept gentle and subdued, never suffered
+to become steep except where it has been cut away by the river, the
+sudden precipice caused by which is exquisitely marked in the last two
+promontories, where they are defined against the bright horizon; and,
+finally, observe how, in the ascent of the nearest eminence beyond the
+city, without one cast shadow or any division of distances, every yard
+of surface is felt to be retiring by the mere painting of its
+details,&mdash;how we are permitted to walk up it, and along its top, and are
+carried, before we are half way up, a league or two forward into the
+picture. The difficulty of doing this, however, can scarcely be
+appreciated except by an artist.</p>
+
+<p>I do not mean to assert that this great painter is acquainted with the
+geological laws and facts he has thus illustrated; I am not aware
+whether he be or not; I merely wish to demonstrate, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p21">§ 21. The use of
+considering geological truths.</a></span>in points admitting of demonstration, that
+intense observation of, and strict adherence to truth, which it is
+impossible to demonstrate in its less tangible and more delicate
+manifestations. However I may <i>feel</i> the truth of every touch and line,
+I cannot <i>prove</i> truth, except in large and general features; and I
+leave it to the arbitration of every man's reason, whether it be not
+likely that the painter who is thus so rigidly faithful in great things
+that every one of his pictures might be the illustration of a lecture on
+the physical sciences, is not likely to be faithful also in small.</p>
+
+<p>Honfleur, and the scene between Clairmont and Mauves, supply us with
+farther instances of the same grand simplicity of treatment; and the
+latter is especially remarkable for its expression of the furrowing of
+the hills by descending water, in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page304"></a>[Page 304]</span> the complete roundness and
+symmetry of their curves, and in the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p22">§ 22. Expression of retiring
+surface by Turner contrasted with the work of Claude.</a></span>delicate and sharp
+shadows which are cast in the undulating ravines. It is interesting to
+compare with either of these noble works such hills as those of Claude,
+on the left of the picture marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery. There is
+no detail nor surface in one of them; not an inch of ground for us to
+stand upon; we must either sit astride upon the edge, or fall to the
+bottom. I could not point to a more complete instance of mountain
+calumniation; nor can I oppose it more completely, in every
+circumstance, than with the Honfleur of Turner, already mentioned; in
+which there is not one edge nor division admitted, and yet we are
+permitted to climb up the hill from the town, and pass far into the mist
+along its top, and so descend mile after mile along the ridge to
+seaward, until, without one break in the magnificent unity of progress,
+we are carried down to the utmost horizon. And contrast the brown paint
+of Claude, which you can only guess to be meant for rock or soil because
+it <i>is</i> brown, with Turner's profuse, pauseless richness of feature,
+carried through all the enormous space&mdash;the unmeasured wealth of
+exquisite detail, over which the mind can dwell, and walk, and wander,
+and feast forever, without finding either one break in its vast
+simplicity, or one vacuity in its exhaustless splendor.</p>
+
+<p>But these, and hundreds of others which it is sin not to dwell
+upon&mdash;wooded hills and undulating moors of North England&mdash;rolling surges
+of park and forest of the South&mdash;soft and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p23">§ 23. The same moderation of
+slope in the contours of his higher hills.</a></span>vine-clad ranges of French
+coteaux, casting their oblique shadows on silver leagues of glancing
+rivers,&mdash;and olive-whitened promontories of Alp and Apennine, are only
+instances of Turner's management of the lower and softer hills. In the
+bolder examples of his powers, where he is dealing with lifted masses of
+enormous mountain, we shall still find him as cautious in his use of
+violent slopes or vertical lines, and still as studied in his expression
+of retiring surface. We never get to the top of one of his hills without
+being tired with our walk; not by the steepness, observe, but by the
+stretch; for we are carried up towards the heaven by such delicate
+gradation of line, that we scarcely feel that we have left the earth
+before we find ourselves among the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page305"></a>[Page 305]</span> clouds. The Skiddaw, in
+the illustrations to Scott, is a noble instance of this majestic
+moderation. The mountain lies in the morning light, like a level vapor;
+its gentle lines of ascent are scarcely felt by the eye; it rises
+without effort or exertion, by the mightiness of its mass; every slope
+is full of slumber; and we know not how it has been exalted, until we
+find it laid as a floor for the walking of the eastern clouds. So again
+in the Fort Augustus, where the whole elevation of the hills depends on
+the soft lines of swelling surface which undulate back through leagues
+of mist carrying us unawares higher and higher above the diminished
+lake, until, when we are all but exhausted with the endless distance,
+the mountains make their last spring, and bear us, in that instant of
+exertion, half way to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>I ought perhaps rather to have selected, as instances of mountain form,
+such elaborate works as the Oberwesel or Lake of Uri, but I have before
+expressed my dislike of speaking of such magnificent <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p24">§ 24. The peculiar
+difficulty of investigating the more essential truths of hill
+outline.</a></span>pictures as these by parts. And indeed all proper consideration
+of the hill drawing of Turner must be deferred until we are capable of
+testing it by the principles of beauty; for, after all, the most
+essential qualities of line,&mdash;those on which all right delineation of
+mountain character must depend, are those which are only to be explained
+or illustrated by appeals to our feeling of what is beautiful. There is
+an expression and a feeling about all the hill lines of nature, which I
+think I shall be able, hereafter, to explain; but it is not to be
+reduced to line and rule&mdash;not to be measured by angles or described by
+compasses&mdash;not to be chipped out by the geologist, or equated by the
+mathematician. It is intangible, incalculable&mdash;a thing to be felt, not
+understood&mdash;to be loved, not comprehended&mdash;a music of the eyes, a melody
+of the heart, whose truth is known only by its sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>I can scarcely, without repeating myself to tediousness, enter at
+present into proper consideration of the mountain drawing of other
+modern painters. We have, fortunately, several by whom <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p25">§ 25. Works of
+other modern artists. Clarkson Stanfield.</a></span>the noble truths which we have
+seen so fully exemplified by Turner are also deeply felt and faithfully
+rendered; though there is a necessity, for the perfect statement of
+them, of such an unison of freedom of thought with perfect mastery over
+the greatest mechanical difficulties, as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page306"></a>[Page 306]</span> we can scarcely
+hope to see attained by more than one man in our age. Very nearly the
+same words which we used in reference to Stanfield's drawings of the
+central clouds, might be applied to his rendering of mountain truth. He
+occupies exactly the same position with respect to other artists in
+earth as in cloud. None can be said really to <i>draw</i> the mountain as he
+will, to have so perfect a mastery over its organic development; but
+there is, nevertheless, in all his works, some want of feeling and
+individuality. He has studied and mastered his subject to the bottom,
+but he trusts too much to that past study, and rather invents his hills
+from his possessed stores of knowledge, than expresses in them the fresh
+ideas received from nature. Hence, in all that he does, we feel a little
+too much that the hills are his own. We cannot swear to their being the
+particular crags and individual promontories which break the cone of
+Ischia, or shadow the waves of Maggiore. We are nearly sure, on the
+contrary, that nothing but the outline is local, and that all the
+filling up has been done in the study. Now, we have <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p26">§ 26. Importance of
+particular and individual truth in hill drawing.</a></span>already shown (Sect. I.
+Chap. III.) that particular truths are more important than general ones,
+and this is just one of the cases in which that rule especially applies.
+Nothing is so great a sign of truth and beauty in mountain drawing as
+the appearance of individuality&mdash;nothing is so great a proof of real
+imagination and invention, as the appearance that nothing has been
+imagined or invented. We ought to feel of every inch of mountain, that
+it <i>must</i> have existence in reality, that if we had lived near the place
+we should have known every crag of it, and that there must be people to
+whom every crevice and shadow of the picture is fraught with
+recollections, and colored with associations. The moment the artist can
+make us feel this&mdash;the moment he can make us think that <i>he</i> has done
+nothing, that nature has done all&mdash;that moment he becomes ennobled, he
+proves himself great. As long as we remember him, we cannot respect him.
+We honor him most when we most forget him. He becomes great when he
+becomes invisible. And we may, perhaps, be permitted to express our hope
+that Mr. Stanfield will&mdash;our conviction that he must&mdash;if he would
+advance in his rank as an artist, attend more to local character, and
+give us generally less of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page307"></a>[Page 307]</span> the Stanfield limestone. He ought
+to study with greater attention the rocks which afford finer divisions
+and more delicate parts (slates and gneiss;) and he ought to observe
+more fondly and faithfully those beautiful laws and lines of swell and
+curvature, by intervals of which nature sets off and relieves the energy
+of her peaked outlines. He is at present apt to be too rugged, and, in
+consequence, to lose size. Of his best manner of drawing hills, I
+believe I can scarcely give a better example than the rocks of Suli,
+engraved in Finden's illustrations to Byron. It is very grand and
+perfect in all parts and points.</p>
+
+<p>Copley Fielding is peculiarly graceful and affectionate in his drawing
+of the inferior mountains. But as with his clouds so with his hills; as
+long as he keeps to silvery films of misty outline, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p27">§ 27. Works of
+Copley Fielding. His hill feeling.</a></span>or purple shadows mingled with the
+evening light, he is true and beautiful; but the moment he withdraws the
+mass out of its veiling mystery, he is lost. His worst drawings,
+therefore, are those on which he has spent most time; for he is sure to
+show weakness wherever he gives detail. We believe that all his errors
+proceed, as we observed before, from his not working with the chalk or
+pencil; and that if he would paint half the number of pictures in the
+year which he usually produces, and spend his spare time in hard dry
+study of forms, the half he painted would be soon worth double the
+present value of all. For he really has deep and genuine feeling of hill
+character&mdash;a far higher perception of space, elevation, incorporeal
+color, and all those qualities which are the poetry of mountains, than
+any other of our water-color painters; and it is an infinite pity that
+he should not give to these delicate feelings the power of realization,
+which might be attained by a little labor. A few thorough studies of his
+favorite mountains, Ben-Venue or Ben-Cruachan, in clear, strong, front
+chiaroscuro, allowing himself neither color nor mist, nor any means of
+getting over the ground but downright drawing, would, we think, open his
+eyes to sources of beauty of which he now takes no cognizance. He ought
+not, however, to repeat the same subjects so frequently, as the casting
+about of the mind for means of varying them blunts the feelings to
+truth. And he should remember that an artist, who is not making
+progress, is nearly certain to be retrograding; and that progress is not
+to be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page308"></a>[Page 308]</span> made by working in the study, or by mere labor
+bestowed on the repetition of unchanging conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>J. D. Harding would paint mountains very nobly, if he made them of more
+importance in his compositions, but they are usually little more than
+backgrounds for his foliage or buildings; <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c3p28">§ 28. Works of J. D. Harding
+and others.</a></span>and it is his present system to make his backgrounds very
+slight. His color is very beautiful: indeed, both his and Fielding's are
+far more refined than Stanfield's. We wish he would oftener take up some
+wild subject dependent for interest on its mountain forms alone, as we
+should anticipate the highest results from his perfect drawing; and we
+think that such an exercise, occasionally gone completely through, would
+counteract a tendency which we perceive in his present distances, to
+become a little thin and cutting, if not incomplete.</p>
+
+<p>The late G. Robson was a man most thoroughly acquainted with all the
+characteristics of our own island hills; and some of the outlines of
+John Varley showed very grand feeling of energy of form.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_56" href="#FnAnchor_56">[56]</a> I have above exhausted all terms of vituperation, and probably
+disgusted the reader; and yet I have not spoken with enough severity: I
+know not any terms of blame that are bitter enough to chastise justly
+the mountain drawings of Salvator in the pictures of the Pitti Palace.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_57" href="#FnAnchor_57">[57]</a> Some terrific cuts and chasms of this kind occur on the north side
+of the Valais, from Sion to Briey. The torrent from the great Aletsch
+glacier descends through one of them. Elsewhere chasms may be found as
+narrow, but few so narrow and deep.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page309"></a>[Page 309]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF THE FOREGROUND.</h5>
+
+<p>We have now only to observe the close characteristics of the rocks and
+soils to which the large masses of which we have been speaking, owe
+their ultimate characters.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p1">§ 1. What rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape
+foreground.</a></p> <p>We have already seen that there exists a marked distinction
+between those stratified rocks whose beds are amorphous and without
+subdivision, as many limestones and sandstones, and those which are
+divided by lines of lamination, as all slates. The last kind of rock is
+the more frequent in nature, and forms the greater part of all hill
+scenery; it has, however, been successfully grappled with by few, even
+of the moderns, except Turner; while there is no single example of any
+aim at it or thought of it among the ancients, whose foregrounds, as far
+as it is possible to guess at their intention through their concentrated
+errors, are chosen from among the tufa and travertin of the lower
+Apennines, (the ugliest as well as the least characteristic rocks of
+nature,) and whose larger features of rock scenery, if we look at them
+with a predetermination to find in them a resemblance of <i>something</i>,
+may be pronounced at least liker the mountain limestone than anything
+else. I shall glance, therefore, at the general characters of these
+materials first, in order that we may be able to appreciate the fidelity
+of rock-drawing on which Salvator's reputation has been built.</p>
+
+<p>The massive limestones separate generally into irregular blocks, tending
+to the form of cubes or parallelopipeds, and terminated by tolerably
+smooth planes. The weather, acting on <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p2">§ 2. Salvator's limestones. The
+real characters of the rock. Its fractures and obtuseness of angles.</a></span>the
+edges of these blocks, rounds them off; but the frost, which, while it
+cannot penetrate nor split the body of the stone, acts energetically on
+the angles, splits off the rounded fragments, and supplies sharp, fresh,
+and complicated edges. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page310"></a>[Page 310]</span> Hence the angles of such blocks are
+usually marked by a series of steps and fractures, in which the peculiar
+character of the rock is most distinctly seen; the effect being
+increased in many limestones by the interposition of two or three
+thinner beds between the large strata of which the block has been a
+part; these thin laminę breaking easily, and supplying a number of
+fissures and lines at the edge of the detached mass. Thus, as a general
+principle, if a rock have character anywhere, it will be on the angle,
+and however even and smooth its great planes may be, it will usually
+break into variety where it turns a corner. In one of the most exquisite
+pieces of rock truth ever put on canvas, the foreground of the Napoleon
+in the Academy, 1842, this principle was beautifully exemplified in the
+complicated fractures of the upper angle just where it turned from the
+light, while the planes of the rock were varied only by the modulation
+they owed to the waves. It follows from this structure that the edges of
+all rock being partially truncated, first by large fractures, and then
+by the rounding of the fine edges of these by the weather, perpetually
+present <i>convex</i> transitions from the light to the dark side, the planes
+of the rock almost always swelling a little <i>from</i> the angle.</p>
+
+<p>Now it will be found throughout the works of Salvator, that his most
+usual practice was to give a <i>concave</i> sweep of the brush for his first
+expression of the dark side, leaving the paint darkest <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p3">§ 3. Salvator's
+acute angles caused by the meeting of concave curves.</a></span>towards the light;
+by which daring and original method of procedure he has succeeded in
+covering his foregrounds with forms which approximate to those of
+drapery, of ribbons, of crushed cocked hats, of locks of hair, of waves,
+leaves, or anything, in short, flexible or tough, but which of course
+are not only unlike, but directly contrary to the forms which nature has
+impressed on rocks.<a name="FnAnchor_58" href="#Footnote_58"><sup>[58]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page311"></a>[Page 311]</span></p>
+
+<p>And the circular and sweeping strokes or stains which are dashed at
+random over their surfaces, only fail of destroying all resemblance
+whatever to rock structure from their frequent <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p4">§ 4. Peculiar
+distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of nature.</a></span>want of any
+meaning at all, and from the impossibility of our supposing any of them
+to be representative of shade. Now, if there be any part of landscape in
+which nature develops her principles of light and shade more clearly
+than another, it is rock; for the dark sides of fractured stone receive
+brilliant reflexes from the lighted surfaces, on which the shadows are
+marked with the most exquisite precision, especially because, owing to
+the parallelism of cleavage, the surfaces lie usually in directions
+nearly parallel. Hence every crack and fissure has its shadow and
+reflected light separated with the most delicious distinctness, and the
+organization and solid form of all parts are told with a decision of
+language, which, to be followed with anything like fidelity, requires
+the most transparent color, and the most delicate <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p5">§ 5. Peculiar
+confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator.</a></span>and scientific drawing. So
+far are the works of the old landscape-painters from rendering this,
+that it is exceedingly rare to find a single passage in which the shadow
+can even be distinguished from the dark side&mdash;they scarcely seem to know
+the one to be darker than the other; and the strokes of the brush are
+not used to explain or express a form known or conceived, but are dashed
+and daubed about without any aim beyond the covering of the canvas. "A
+rock," the old masters appear to say to themselves, "is a great
+irregular, formless, characterless lump; but it must have shade upon it,
+and any gray marks will do for that shade."</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p6">§ 6. And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness.</a></p>
+<p>Finally, while few, if any, of the rocks of nature are untraversed by
+delicate and slender fissures, whose black sharp lines are the only
+means by which the peculiar quality in which rocks most differ from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312"></a>[Page 312]</span> the other objects of the landscape, brittleness, can be
+effectually suggested, we look in vain among the blots and stains with
+which the rocks of ancient art are loaded, for any vestige or appearance
+of fissure or splintering. Toughness and malleability appear to be the
+qualities whose expression is most aimed at; <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p7">§ 7. Instances in
+particular pictures.</a></span>sometimes sponginess, softness, flexibility,
+tenuity, and occasionally transparency. Take, for instance, the
+foreground of Salvator, in No. 220 of the Dulwich Gallery. There is, on
+the right-hand side of it, an object, which I never walk through the
+room without contemplating for a minute or two with renewed solicitude
+and anxiety of mind, indulging in a series of very wild and imaginative
+conjectures as to its probable or possible meaning. I think there is
+reason to suppose that the artist intended it either for a very large
+stone, or for the trunk of a tree; but any decision as to its being
+either one or the other of these must, I conceive, be the extreme of
+rashness. It melts into the ground on one side, and might reasonably be
+conjectured to form a part of it, having no trace of woody structure or
+color; but on the other side it presents a series of concave curves,
+interrupted by cogs like those of a water-wheel, which the boldest
+theorist would certainly not feel himself warranted in supposing
+symbolical of rock. The forms which this substance, whatever it be,
+assumes, will be found repeated, though in a less degree, in the
+foreground of No. 159, where they are evidently meant for rock.</p>
+
+<p>Let us contrast with this system of rock-drawing, the faithful,
+scientific, and dexterous studies of nature which we find in the works
+of Clarkson Stanfield. He is a man especially to be opposed <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p8">§ 8.
+Compared with the works of Stanfield.</a></span>to the old masters, because he
+usually confines himself to the same rock subjects as they&mdash;the
+mouldering and furrowed crags of the secondary formation which arrange
+themselves more or less into broad and simple masses; and in the
+rendering of these it is impossible to go beyond him. Nothing can
+surpass his care, his firmness, or his success, in marking the distinct
+and sharp light and shade by which the form is explained, never
+confusing it with local color, however richly his surface-texture may be
+given; while the wonderful play of line with which he will vary, and
+through which he will indicate, the regularity of stratification, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page313"></a>[Page
+313]</span> is almost as instructive as that of nature herself. I cannot point
+to any of his works as better or more characteristic than others; but
+his Ischia, in the present British Institution, may be taken as a fair
+average example. The Botallack Mine, Cornwall, engraved in the Coast
+Scenery, gives us a very finished and generic representation of rock,
+whose primal organization has been violently affected by external
+influences. We have the stratification and cleavage indicated at its
+base, every fissure being sharp, angular, and decisive, disguised
+gradually as it rises by the rounding of the surface and the successive
+furrows caused by the descent of streams. But the exquisite drawing of
+the foreground is especially worthy of notice. No huge concave sweeps of
+the brush, no daubing or splashing here. Every inch of it is brittle and
+splintery, and the fissures are explained to the eye by the most
+perfect, speaking light and shade,&mdash;we can stumble over the edges of
+them. The East Cliff, Hastings, is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p9">§ 9. Their absolute opposition in
+every particular.</a></span>another very fine example, from the exquisite
+irregularity with which its squareness of general structure is varied
+and disguised. Observe how totally contrary every one of its lines is to
+the absurdities of Salvator. Stanfield's are all angular and straight,
+every apparent curve made up of right lines, while Salvator's are all
+sweeping and flourishing like so much penmanship. Stanfield's lines pass
+away into delicate splintery fissures. Salvator's are broad daubs
+throughout. Not one of Stanfield's lines is like another. Every one of
+Salvator's mocks all the rest. All Stanfield's curves, where his
+universal angular character is massed, as on the left-hand side, into
+large sweeping forms, are convex. Salvator's are every one concave.</p>
+
+<p>The foregrounds of J. D. Harding and rocks of his middle distances are
+also thoroughly admirable. He is not quite so various and undulating in
+his line as Stanfield, and sometimes, in his middle distances, is
+wanting in solidity, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p10">§ 10. The rocks of J. D. Harding.</a></span>owing to a little
+confusion of the dark side and shadow with each other, or with the local
+color. But his work, in near passages of fresh-broken, sharp-edged rock,
+is absolute perfection, excelling Stanfield in the perfect freedom and
+facility with which his fragments are splintered and scattered; true in
+every line without the least apparent effort. Stanfield's best <span class="pagenum"><a name="page314"></a>[Page
+314]</span> works are laborious, but Harding's rocks fall from under his hand
+as if they had just crashed down the hill-side, flying on the instant
+into lovely form. In color also he incomparably surpasses Stanfield, who
+is apt to verge upon mud, or be cold in his gray. The rich, lichenous,
+and changeful warmth, and delicate weathered grays of Harding's rock,
+illustrated as they are by the most fearless, firm, and unerring
+drawing, render his wild pieces of torrent shore the finest things, next
+to the work of Turner, in English foreground art.</p>
+
+<p>J. B. Pyne has very accurate knowledge of limestone rock, and expresses
+it clearly and forcibly; but it is much to be regretted that this clever
+artist appears to be losing all sense of color and is getting more and
+more mannered in execution, evidently never studying from nature except
+with the previous determination to Pynize everything.<a name="FnAnchor_59" href="#Footnote_59"><sup>[59]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Before passing to Turner, let us take one more glance at the foregrounds
+of the old masters, with reference, not to their management of rock,
+which is comparatively a rare component part <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p11">§ 11. Characters of loose
+earth and soil.</a></span>of their foregrounds, but to the common soil which they
+were obliged to paint constantly, and whose forms and appearances are
+the same all over the world. A steep bank of loose earth of any kind,
+that has been at all exposed to the weather, contains in it, though it
+may not <span class="pagenum"><a name="page315"></a>[Page 315]</span> be three feet high, features capable of giving high
+gratification to a careful observer. It is almost a fac-simile of a
+mountain slope of soft and decomposing rock; it possesses nearly as much
+variety of character, and is governed by laws of organization no less
+rigid. It is furrowed in the first place by undulating lines, by the
+descent of the rain, little ravines, which are cut precisely at the same
+slope as those of the mountain, and leave ridges scarcely less graceful
+in their contour, and beautifully sharp in their chiselling. Where a
+harder knot of ground or a stone occurs, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p12">§ 12. Its exceeding grace and
+fulness of feature.</a></span>the earth is washed from beneath it, and accumulates
+above it, and there we have a little precipice connected by a sweeping
+curve at its summit with the great slope, and casting a sharp dark
+shadow; where the soil has been soft, it will probably be washed away
+underneath until it gives way, and leaves a jagged, hanging, irregular
+line of fracture; and all these circumstances are explained to the eye
+in sunshine with the most delicious clearness; every touch of shadow
+being expressive of some particular truth of structure, and bearing
+witness to the symmetry into which the whole mass has been reduced.
+Where this operation has gone on long, and vegetation has assisted in
+softening the outlines, we have our ground brought into graceful and
+irregular curves, of infinite variety, but yet always so connected with
+each other, and guiding to each other, that the eye never feels them as
+<i>separate</i> things, nor feels inclined to count them, nor perceives a
+likeness in one to the other; they are not repetitions of each other,
+but are different parts of one system. Each would be imperfect without
+the one next to it.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is all but impossible to express distinctly the particulars
+wherein this fine character of curve consists, and to show in definite
+examples, what it is which makes one representation <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p13">§ 13. The ground of
+Teniers.</a></span>right, and another wrong. The ground of Teniers for instance, in
+No. 139 in the Dulwich Gallery, is an example of all that is wrong. It
+is a representation of the forms of shaken and disturbed soil, such as
+we should see here and there after an earthquake, or over the ruins of
+fallen buildings. It has not one contour nor character of the soil of
+nature, and yet I can scarcely tell you why, except that the curves
+repeat one another, and are monotonous in their flow, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page316"></a>[Page 316]</span> and
+are unbroken by the delicate angle and momentary pause with which the
+feeling of nature would have touched them, and are disunited; so that
+the eye leaps from this to that, and does not pass from one to the other
+without being able to stop, drawn on by the continuity of line; neither
+is there any undulation or furrowing of watermark, nor in one spot or
+atom of the whole surface, is there distinct explanation of form to the
+eye by means of a determined shadow. All is mere sweeping of the brush
+over the surface with various ground colors, without a single indication
+of character by means of real shade.</p>
+
+<p>Let not these points be deemed unimportant; the truths of form in common
+ground are quite as valuable, (let me anticipate myself for a moment,)
+quite as beautiful, as any others which <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p14">§ 14. Importance of these minor
+parts and points.</a></span>nature presents, and in lowland landscape they present
+us with a species of line which it is quite impossible to obtain in any
+other way,&mdash;the alternately flowing and broken line of mountain scenery,
+which, however small its scale, is always of inestimable value,
+contrasted with the repetitions of organic form which we are compelled
+to give in vegetation. A really great artist dwells on every inch of
+exposed soil with care and delight, and renders it one of the most
+essential, speaking and pleasurable parts of his composition. And be it
+remembered, that the man who, in the most conspicuous part of his
+foreground, will violate truth with every stroke of the pencil, is not
+likely to be more careful in other parts of it; and that in the little
+bits which I fix upon for animadversion, I am not pointing out solitary
+faults, but only the most characteristic examples of the falsehood which
+is everywhere, and which renders the whole foreground one mass of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p15">§ 15.
+The observance of them is the real distinction between the master and
+the novice.</a></span>contradictions and absurdities. Nor do I myself see wherein
+the great difference lies between a master and a novice, except in the
+rendering of the finer truths, of which I am at present speaking. To
+handle the brush freely, and to paint grass and weeds with accuracy
+enough to satisfy the eye, are accomplishments which a year or two's
+practice will give any man; but to trace among the grass and weeds those
+mysteries of invention and combination, by which nature appeals to the
+intellect&mdash;to render the delicate fissure, and descending curve, and
+undulating shadow <span class="pagenum"><a name="page317"></a>[Page 317]</span> of the mouldering soil, with gentle and
+fine finger, like the touch of the rain itself&mdash;to find even in all that
+appears most trifling or contemptible, fresh evidence of the constant
+working of the Divine power "for glory and for beauty," and to teach it
+and proclaim it to the unthinking and the unregardless&mdash;this, as it is
+the peculiar province and faculty of the master-mind, so it is the
+peculiar duty which is demanded of it by the Deity.</p>
+
+<p>It would take me no reasonable nor endurable time, if I were to point
+out one half of the various kinds and classes of falsehood which the
+inventive faculties of the old masters succeeded <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p16">§ 16. The ground of
+Cuyp.</a></span>in originating, in the drawing of foregrounds. It is not this man,
+nor that man, nor one school nor another; all agree in entire
+repudiation of everything resembling facts, and in the high degree of
+absurdity of what they substitute for them. Even Cuyp, who evidently saw
+and studied <i>near</i> nature, as an artist should do&mdash;not fishing for
+idealities, but taking what nature gave him, and thanking her for
+it&mdash;even he appears to have supposed that the drawing of the earth might
+be trusted to chance or imagination, and, in consequence, strews <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p17">§ 17.
+And of Claude.</a></span>his banks with lumps of dough, instead of stones. Perhaps,
+however, the "beautiful foregrounds" of Claude afford the most
+remarkable instances of childishness and incompetence of all. That of
+his morning landscape, with the large group of trees and high
+single-arched bridge, in the National Gallery, is a pretty fair example
+of the kind of error which he constantly falls into. I will not say
+anything of the agreeable composition of the three banks, rising one
+behind another from the water. I merely affirm that it amounts to a
+demonstration that all three were painted in the artist's study, without
+any reference to nature whatever. In fact, there is quite enough
+intrinsic evidence in each of them to prove this, seeing that what
+appears to be meant for vegetation upon them, amounts to nothing more
+than a green stain on their surfaces, the more evidently false because
+the leaves of the trees twenty yards farther off are all perfectly
+visible and distinct; and that the sharp lines with which each cuts
+against that beyond it, are not only such as crumbling earth could never
+show or assume, but are maintained through their whole progress
+ungraduated, unchanging, and unaffected by any of the circumstances of
+varying <span class="pagenum"><a name="page318"></a>[Page 318]</span> shade to which every one of nature's lines is
+inevitably subjected. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p18">§ 18. The entire weakness and childishness of the
+latter.</a></span>In fact, the whole arrangement is the impotent struggle of a tyro
+to express, by successive edges, that approach of earth which he finds
+himself incapable of expressing by the drawing of the surface. Claude
+wished to make you understand that the edge of his pond came nearer and
+nearer: he had probably often tried to do this with an unbroken bank, or
+a bank only varied by the delicate and harmonized anatomy of nature; and
+he had found that owing to his total ignorance of the laws of
+perspective, such efforts on his part invariably ended in his reducing
+his pond to the form of a round O, and making it look perpendicular.
+Much comfort and solace of mind, in such unpleasant circumstances, may
+be derived from instantly dividing the obnoxious bank into a number of
+successive promontories, and developing their edges with completeness
+and intensity. Every school-girl's drawing, as soon as her mind has
+arrived at so great a degree of enlightenment as to perceive that
+perpendicular water is objectionable, will supply us with edifying
+instances of this unfailing resource; and this foreground of Claude's is
+only one out of the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p19">§ 19. Compared with the work of Turner.</a></span>thousand
+cases in which he has been reduced to it. And if it be asked, how the
+proceeding differs from that of nature, I have only to point to nature
+herself, as she is drawn in the foreground of Turner's Mercury and
+Argus, a case precisely similar to Claude's, of earthy crumbling banks
+cut away by water. It will be found in this picture (and I am now
+describing nature's work and Turner's with the same words) that the
+whole distance is given by retirement of solid surface; and that if ever
+an edge is expressed, it is only felt for an instant, and then lost
+again; so that the eye cannot stop at it and prepare for a long jump to
+another like it, but is guided over it, and round it, into the hollow
+beyond; and thus the whole receding mass of ground, going back for more
+than a quarter of a mile, is made completely <i>one</i>&mdash;no part of it is
+separated from the rest for an instant&mdash;it is all united, and its
+modulations are <i>members</i>, not <i>divisions</i> of its mass. But those
+modulations are countless&mdash;heaving here, sinking there&mdash;now swelling,
+now mouldering, now blending, now breaking&mdash;giving, in fact, to the
+foreground <span class="pagenum"><a name="page319"></a>[Page 319]</span> of this universal master, precisely the same
+qualities which we have before seen in his hills, as Claude gave to his
+foreground precisely the same qualities which we had before found in
+<i>his</i> hills,&mdash;infinite unity in the one case, finite division in the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, then, having now obtained some insight into the principles of
+the old masters in foreground drawing, contrast them throughout with
+those of our great modern master. The <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p20">§ 20. General features of Turner's
+foreground.</a></span>investigation of the excellence of Turner's drawing becomes
+shorter and easier as we proceed, because the great distinctions between
+his work and that of other painters are the same, whatever the object or
+subject may be; and after once showing the general characters of the
+particular specific forms under consideration, we have only to point, in
+the works of Turner, to the same principles of infinity and variety in
+carrying them out, which we have before insisted upon with reference to
+other subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The Upper Fall of the Tees, Yorkshire, engraved in the England series,
+may be given as a standard example of rock-drawing to be opposed to the
+work of Salvator. We have, in the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p21">§ 21. Geological structure of his
+rocks in the Fall of the Tees.</a></span>great face of rock which divides the two
+streams, horizontal lines which indicate the real direction of the
+strata, and these same lines are given in ascending perspective all
+along the precipice on the right. But we see also on the central
+precipice fissures absolutely vertical, which inform us of one series of
+joints dividing these horizontal strata; and the exceeding smoothness
+and evenness of the precipice itself inform us that it has been caused
+by a great separation of substance in the direction of another more
+important line of joints, running in a direction across the river.
+Accordingly, we see on the left that the whole summit of the precipice
+is divided again and again by this great series of joints into vertical
+beds, which lie against each other with their sides towards us, and are
+traversed downwards by the same vertical lines traceable on the face of
+the central cliff. Now, let me direct especial attention to the way in
+which Turner has marked over this general <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p22">§ 22. Their convex surfaces
+and fractured edges.</a></span>and grand unity of structure, the modifying effects
+of the weather and the torrent. Observe how the whole surface of the
+hill above the precipice <span class="pagenum"><a name="page320"></a>[Page 320]</span> on the left<a name="FnAnchor_60" href="#Footnote_60"><sup>[60]</sup></a> is brought into one
+smooth, unbroken curvature of gentle convexity, until it comes to the
+edge of the precipice, and then, just on the angle, (compare § 2,)
+breaks into the multiplicity of fissure which marks its geological
+structure. Observe how every one of the separate blocks, into which it
+divides, is rounded and convex in its salient edges turned to the
+weather, and how every one of their inward angles is marked clear and
+sharp by the determined shadow and transparent reflex. Observe how
+exquisitely graceful are all the curves of the convex surfaces,
+indicating that every one of them has been modelled by the winding and
+undulating of running water; and how gradually they become steeper as
+they descend, until they are torn <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p23">§ 23. And perfect unity.</a></span>down into the
+face of the precipice. Finally, observe the exquisite variety of all the
+touches which express fissure or shade; every one in varying directions
+and with new forms, and yet throughout indicating that perfect
+parallelism which at once explained to us the geology of the rock, and
+falling into one grand mass, treated with the same simplicity of light
+and shade which a great portrait painter adopts in treating the features
+of the human face; which, though each has its own separate chiaroscuro,
+never disturb the wholeness and grandeur of the head, considered as one
+ball or mass. So here, one deep and marked piece of shadow indicates the
+greatest proximity of the rounded mass; and from this every shade
+becomes fainter and fainter, until all are lost in the obscurity and
+dimness of the hanging precipice and the shattering fall. Again, see how
+the same fractures just upon the edge take place with the central cliff
+above the right-hand fall, and how the force of the water is told us by
+the confusion of débris accumulated in its channel. In fact, the great
+quality about Turner's drawings which more especially proves their
+transcendent truth, is the capability they afford us of reasoning on
+past and future phenomena, just as if we had the actual rocks before us;
+for this indicates not that one truth is given, nor another, not that a
+pretty or interesting morsel has been selected here and there, but that
+the whole truth has been given, with all the relations of its parts; so
+that we can pick and choose our points of pleasure <span class="pagenum"><a name="page321"></a>[Page 321]</span> or of
+thought for ourselves, and reason upon the whole with the same certainty
+which we should after having climbed and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p24">§ 24. Various parts whose
+history is told us by the details of the drawing.</a></span>hammered over the rocks
+bit by bit. With this drawing before him, a geologist could give a
+lecture upon the whole system of aqueous erosion, and speculate as
+safely upon the past and future states of this very spot, as if he were
+standing and getting wet with the spray. He would tell you, at once,
+that the waterfall was in a state of rapid recession; that it had once
+formed a wide cataract just at the spot where the figure is sitting on
+the heap of débris; and that when it was there, part of it came down by
+the channel on the left, its bed being still marked by the delicately
+chiselled lines of fissure. He would tell you that the foreground had
+also once been the top of the fall, and that the vertical fissures on
+the right of it were evidently then the channel of a side stream. He
+would tell you that the fall was then much lower than it is now, and
+that being lower, it had less force, and cut itself a narrower bed; and
+that the spot where it reached the higher precipice is marked by the
+expansion of the wide basin which its increased violence has excavated,
+and by the gradually increasing concavity of the rocks below, which we
+see have been hollowed into a complete vault by the elastic bound of the
+water. But neither he nor I could tell you with what exquisite and
+finished marking of every fragment and particle of soil or rock, both in
+its own structure and the evidence it bears of these great influences,
+the whole of this is confirmed and carried out.</p>
+
+<p>With this inimitable drawing we may compare the rocks in the foreground
+of the Llanthony. These latter are not divided by joints, but into thin
+horizontal and united beds, which the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p25">§ 25. Beautiful instance of an
+exception to general rules in the Llanthony.</a></span>torrent in its times of
+flood has chiselled away, leaving one exposed under another, with the
+sweeping marks of its eddies upon their edges. And here we have an
+instance of an exception to a general rule, occasioned by particular and
+local action. We have seen that the action of water over any surface
+<i>universally</i>, whether falling, as in rain, or sweeping, as a torrent,
+induces convexity of form. But when we have rocks <i>in situ</i>, as here,
+exposed at their edges to the violent action of an eddy, that eddy will
+cut a vault or circular space for itself, (as we saw on a large <span class="pagenum"><a name="page322"></a>[Page
+322]</span> scale with the high waterfall,) and we have a concave curve
+interrupting the general contours of the rock. And thus Turner (while
+every edge of his masses is rounded, and, the moment we rise above the
+level of the water, all is convex) has interrupted the great contours of
+his strata with concave curves, precisely where the last waves of the
+torrent have swept against the exposed edges of the beds. Nothing could
+more strikingly prove the depth of that knowledge by which every touch
+of this consummate artist is regulated, that universal command of
+subject which never acts for a moment on anything conventional or
+habitual, but fills every corner and space with new evidence of
+knowledge, and fresh manifestation of thought.</p>
+
+<p>The Lower Fall of the Tees, with the chain-bridge, might serve us for an
+illustration of all the properties and forms of vertical <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p26">§ 26. Turner's
+drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone.</a></span>beds of rock, as the upper
+fall has of horizontal; but we pass rather to observe, in detached
+pieces of foreground, the particular modulation of parts which cannot be
+investigated in the grand combinations of general mass.</p>
+
+<p>The blocks of stone which form the foreground of the Ulleswater are, I
+believe, the finest example in the world of the finished drawing of
+rocks which have been subjected to violent aqueous action. Their
+surfaces seem to palpitate from the fine touch of the waves, and every
+part of them is rising or falling in soft swell or gentle depression,
+though the eye can scarcely trace the fine shadows on which this
+chiselling of the surface depends. And with all this, every block of
+them has individual character, dependent on the expression of the
+angular lines of which its contours were first formed, and which is
+retained and felt through all the modulation and melting of the
+water-worn surface. And what is done here in the most important part of
+the picture, to be especially attractive to the eye, is often done by
+Turner with lavish and overwhelming power, in the accumulated débris of
+a wide foreground, strewed with the ruin of ages, as, for instance, in
+the Junction of the Greta and Tees, where he has choked the torrent bed
+with a mass of shattered rock, thrown down with the profusion and
+carelessness of nature herself; and yet every separate block is a study,
+(and has evidently been drawn from nature,) chiselled and varied in its
+parts, as if <span class="pagenum"><a name="page323"></a>[Page 323]</span> it were to be the chief member of a separate
+subject; yet without ever losing, in a single instance, its subordinate
+position, or occasioning, throughout the whole accumulated multitude,
+the repetition of a single line.</p>
+
+<p>I consider cases like these, of perfect finish and new conception,
+applied and exerted in the drawing of every member of a confused and
+almost countlessly-divided system, about the most <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p27">§ 27. And of
+complicated foreground.</a></span>wonderful, as well as the most characteristic
+passages of Turner's foregrounds. It is done not less marvellously,
+though less distinctly, in the individual parts of all his broken
+ground, as in examples like these of separate blocks. The articulation
+of such a passage as the nearest bank, in the picture we have already
+spoken of at so great length, the Upper Fall of the Tees, might serve us
+for a day's study, if we were to go into it part by part; but it is
+impossible to do this, except with the pencil; we can only repeat the
+same general observations, about eternal change and unbroken unity, and
+tell you to observe how the eye is kept throughout on solid and retiring
+surfaces, instead of being thrown, as by Claude, on flat and equal
+edges. You cannot find a single edge in Turner's work; you are
+everywhere kept upon round surfaces, and you go back on these you cannot
+tell how&mdash;never taking a leap, but progressing imperceptibly along the
+unbroken bank, till you find yourself a quarter of a mile into the
+picture, beside the figure at the bottom of the waterfall.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the bank of earth on the right of the grand drawing of Penmaen
+Mawr, may be taken as the standard of the representation of soft soil
+modelled by descending rain; and may <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p28">§ 28. And of loose soil.</a></span>serve to
+show us how exquisite in character are the resultant lines, and how full
+of every species of attractive and even sublime quality, if we only are
+wise enough not to scorn the study of them. The higher the mind, it may
+be taken as a universal rule, the less it will scorn that which appears
+to be small or unimportant; and the rank of a painter may always be
+determined by observing how he uses, and with what respect he views the
+minutię of nature. Greatness of mind is not shown by admitting small
+things, but by making small things great under its influence. He who can
+take no interest in what is small, will take false interest in what is
+great; <span class="pagenum"><a name="page324"></a>[Page 324]</span> he who cannot make a bank sublime, will make a
+mountain ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>It is not until we have made ourselves acquainted with these simple
+facts of form, as they are illustrated by the slighter works of Turner,
+that we can become at all competent to enjoy the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p29">§ 29. The unison of all
+in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy pictures.</a></span>combination of all, in
+such works as the Mercury and Argus, or Bay of Baię, in which the mind
+is at first bewildered by the abundant outpouring of the master's
+knowledge. Often as I have paused before these noble works, I never felt
+on returning to them as if I had ever seen them before; for their
+abundance is so deep and various that the mind, according to its own
+temper at the time of seeing, perceives some new series of truths
+rendered in them, just as it would on revisiting a natural scene; and
+detects new relations and associations of these truths which set the
+whole picture in a different light at every return to it. And this
+effect is especially caused by the management of the foreground; for the
+more marked objects of the picture may be taken one by one, and thus
+examined and known; but the foregrounds of Turner are so united in all
+their parts that the eye cannot take them by divisions, but is guided
+from stone to stone, and bank to bank, discovering truths totally
+different in aspect, according to the direction in which it approaches
+them, and approaching them in a different direction, and viewing them as
+a part of a new system, every time that it begins its course at a new
+point. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s4c4p30">§ 30. And the great lesson to be received from all.</a></span>One lesson,
+however, we are invariably taught by all, however approached or
+viewed,&mdash;that the work of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and
+unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects,&mdash;that the Divine
+mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank
+and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and
+settling the foundation of the earth; and that to the rightly perceiving
+mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the
+same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of the clay
+as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering of the dust as in
+the kindling of the day-star.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_58" href="#FnAnchor_58">[58]</a> I have cut out a passage in this place which insisted on the
+<i>angular</i> character of rocks,&mdash;not because it was false, but because it
+was incomplete, and I cannot explain it nor complete it without example.
+It is not the absence of curves, but the suggestion of <i>hardness
+through</i> curves, and of the under tendencies of the inward structure,
+which form the true characteristics of rock form; and Salvator, whom
+neither here nor elsewhere I have abused enough, is not wrong because he
+paints curved rocks, but because his curves are the curves of ribbons
+and not of rocks; and the difference between rock curvature and other
+curvature I cannot explain verbally, but I hope to do it hereafter by
+illustration; and, at present, let the reader study the rock-drawing of
+the Mont St. Gothard subject, in the Liber Studiorum, and compare it
+with any examples of Salvator to which he may happen to have access. All
+the account of rocks here given is altogether inadequate, and I only do
+not alter it because I first wish to give longer study to the subject.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_59" href="#FnAnchor_59">[59]</a> A passage which I happened to see in an Essay of Mr. Pyne's, in the
+Art-Union, about nature's "foisting rubbish" upon the artist,
+sufficiently explains the cause of this decline. If Mr. Pyne will go to
+nature, as all great men have done, and as all men who mean to be great
+must do, that is not merely to be <i>helped</i>, but to be <i>taught</i> by her;
+and will once or twice take her gifts, without looking them in the
+mouth, he will most assuredly find&mdash;and I say this in no unkind or
+depreciatory feeling, for I should say the same of all artists who are
+in the habit of only sketching nature, and not studying her&mdash;that <i>her</i>
+worst is better than <i>his</i> best. I am quite sure that if Mr. Pyne, or
+any other painter who has hitherto been very careful in his choice of
+subject, will go into the next turnpike-road, and taking the first four
+trees that he comes to in the hedge, give them a day each, drawing them
+leaf for leaf, as far as may be, and even their smallest boughs with as
+much care as if they were rivers, or an important map of a
+newly-surveyed country, he will find, when he has brought them all home,
+that at least three out of the four are better than the best he ever
+invented. Compare Part III. Sect. I. Chap. III. § 12, 13, (the reference
+in the note ought to be to Chap. XV. § 7.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_60" href="#FnAnchor_60">[60]</a> In the light between the waterfall and the large dark mass on the
+extreme right.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page325"></a>[Page 325]</span></p>
+
+<h3>SECTION V.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF TRUTH OF WATER.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY THE ANCIENTS.</h5>
+
+<p>Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and
+without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we
+think of it as the source of all the changefulness <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p1">§ 1. Sketch of the
+functions and infinite agency of water.</a></span>and beauty which we have seen in
+clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated
+was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace; then as,
+in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made, with that
+transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen;
+then as it exists in the form of the torrent&mdash;in the iris which spans
+it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline
+pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing
+river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of
+unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless
+unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this mighty, this universal
+element for glory and for beauty? or how shall we follow its eternal
+changefulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul.</p>
+
+<p>To suggest the ordinary appearance of calm water&mdash;to lay on canvas as
+much evidence of surface and reflection as may make us understand that
+water is meant&mdash;is, perhaps, the easiest task <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p2">§ 2. The ease with which a
+common representation of it may be given. The impossibility of a
+faithful one.</a></span>of art; and even ordinary running or falling water may be
+sufficiently rendered, by observing careful curves of projection with a
+dark ground, and breaking a little white over it, as we see done with
+judgment and truth by Ruysdael. But to paint <span class="pagenum"><a name="page326"></a>[Page 326]</span> the actual play
+of hue on the reflective surface, or to give the forms and fury of water
+when it begins to show itself&mdash;to give the flashing and rocket-like
+velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision and grace of the sea
+waves, so exquisitely modelled, though so mockingly transient&mdash;so
+mountainous in its form, yet so cloud-like in its motion&mdash;with its
+variety and delicacy of color, when every ripple and wreath has some
+peculiar passage of reflection upon itself alone, and the radiating and
+scintillating sunbeams are mixed with the dim hues of transparent depth
+and dark rock below;&mdash;to do this perfectly, is beyond the power of man;
+to do it even partially, has been granted to but one or two, even of
+those few who have dared to attempt it.</p>
+
+<p>As the general laws which govern the appearances of water have equal
+effect on all its forms, it would be injudicious to treat the subject in
+divisions; for the same forces which govern <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p3">§ 3. Difficulty of properly
+dividing the subject.</a></span>the waves and foam of the torrent, are equally
+influential on those of the sea; and it will be more convenient to
+glance generally at the system of water-painting of each school and
+artist, than to devote separate chapters to the examination of the lake,
+river, or sea-painting of all. We shall, therefore, vary our usual plan,
+and look first at the water-painting of the ancients; then at that of
+the moderns generally; lastly, at that of Turner.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary in the outset to state briefly one or two of the optical
+conditions by which the appearance of the surface of water is affected;
+to describe them all would require a separate <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p4">§ 4. Inaccuracy of study
+of water-effect among all painters.</a></span>essay, even if I possessed the
+requisite knowledge, which I do not. The accidental modifications under
+which general laws come into play are innumerable, and often, in their
+extreme complexity, inexplicable, I suppose, even by men of the most
+extended optical knowledge. What I shall here state are a few only of
+the broadest laws verifiable by the reader's immediate observation, but
+of which nevertheless, I have found artists frequently ignorant; owing
+to their habit of sketching from nature without thinking or reasoning,
+and especially of finishing at home. It is not often, I believe, that an
+artist draws the reflections in water as he sees them; over large
+spaces, and in weather that is not very calm, it is nearly impossible to
+do so; when it is possible, sometimes <span class="pagenum"><a name="page327"></a>[Page 327]</span> in haste, and
+sometimes in idleness, and sometimes under the idea of improving nature,
+they are slurred or misrepresented; it is so easy to give something like
+a suggestive resemblance of calm water, that, even when the landscape is
+finished from nature, the water is merely indicated as something that
+may be done at any time, and then, in the home work, come the cold
+leaden grays with some, and the violent blues and greens with others,
+and the horizontal lines with the feeble, and the bright touches and
+sparkles with the dexterous, and everything that is shallow and
+commonplace with all. Now, the fact is, that there is hardly a roadside
+pond or pool which has not as much landscape <i>in</i> it as above it. It is
+not the brown, muddy, dull thing we suppose it to be; it has a heart
+like ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the
+tall trees, and the blades of the shaking-grass, and all manner of hues,
+of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; nay, the ugly gutter, that
+stagnates over the drain bars, in the heart of the foul city, is not
+altogether base; down in that, if you will look deep enough, you may see
+the dark, serious blue of far-off sky, and the passing of pure clouds.
+It is at your own will that you see in that despised stream, either the
+refuse of the street, or the image of the sky&mdash;so it is with almost all
+other things that we unkindly despise. Now, this farseeing is just the
+difference between the great and the vulgar painter; the common man
+<i>knows</i> the roadside pool is muddy, and draws its mud; the great painter
+sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will take him a day's
+work to follow, but he follows it, cost what it will. And if painters
+would only go out to the nearest common and take the nearest dirty pond
+among the furze, and draw that thoroughly, not considering that it is
+water that they are drawing, and that water must be done in a certain
+way; but drawing determinedly what they <i>see</i>, that is to say, all the
+trees, and their shaking leaves, and all the hazy passages of disturbing
+sunshine; and the bottom seen in the clearer little bits at the edge,
+and the stones of it, and all the sky, and the clouds far down in the
+middle, drawn as completely, and more delicately they must be, than the
+real clouds above, they would come home with such a notion of
+water-painting as might save me and every one else all trouble of
+writing more about the matter; but now they do nothing of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page328"></a>[Page 328]</span>
+the kind, but take the ugly, round, yellow surface for granted, or else
+improve it, and, instead of giving that refined, complex, delicate, but
+saddened and gloomy reflection in the polluted water, they clear it up
+with coarse flashes of yellow, and green, and blue, and spoil their own
+eyes, and hurt ours; failing, of course, still more hopelessly in
+touching the pure, inimitable light of waves thrown loose; and so
+Canaletto is still thought to have painted canals, and Vandevelde and
+Backhuysen to have painted sea, and the uninterpreted streams and
+maligned sea hiss shame upon us from all their rocky beds and hollow
+shores.</p>
+
+<p>I approach this part of my subject with more despondency than any other,
+and that for several reasons; first, the water painting of all the elder
+landscape painters, excepting a few of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p5">§ 5. Difficulty of treating this
+part of the subject.</a></span>the better passages of Claude and Ruysdael, is so
+execrable, so beyond all expression and explanation bad; Claude's and
+Ruysdael's best so cold and valueless, that I do not know how to address
+those who like such painting; I do not know what their sensations are
+respecting sea. I can perceive nothing in Vandevelde or Backhuysen of
+the lowest redeeming merit; no power, no presence of intellect&mdash;or
+evidence of perception&mdash;of any sort or kind; no resemblance&mdash;even the
+feeblest&mdash;of anything natural; no invention&mdash;even the most sluggish&mdash;of
+anything agreeable. Had they given us staring green seas with hatchet
+edges, such as we see Her Majesty's ships so-and-so fixed into by the
+heads or sterns in the first room of the Royal Academy, the admiration
+of them would have been comprehensible; there being a natural
+predilection in the mind of men for green waves with curling tops, but
+not for clay and wool; so that though I can understand, in some sort,
+why people admire everything else in old art, why they admire Salvator's
+rocks, and Claude's foregrounds, and Hobbima's trees, and Paul Potter's
+cattle, and Jan Steen's pans; and while I can perceive in all these
+likings a root which seems right and legitimate, and to be appealed to;
+yet when I find they can even <i>endure</i> the <i>sight</i> of a Backhuysen on
+their room walls (I speak seriously) it makes me hopeless at once. I may
+be wrong, or they may be wrong, but at least I can conceive of no
+principle or opinion common between us, which either can address or
+understand in the other; and yet I am wrong in this want of conception,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329"></a>[Page 329]</span> for I know that Turner once liked Vandevelde, and I can
+trace the evil influence of Vandevelde on most of his early sea
+painting, but Turner certainly could not have liked Vandevelde without
+<i>some</i> legitimate cause. Another discouraging point is that I cannot
+catch a wave, nor Daguerreotype it, and so there is no coming to pure
+demonstration; but the forms and hues of water must always be in some
+measure a matter of dispute and feeling, and the more so because there
+is no perfect or even tolerably perfect sea painting to refer to: the
+sea never has been, and I fancy never will be nor can be painted; it is
+only suggested by means of more or less spiritual and intelligent
+conventionalism; and though Turner has done enough to suggest the sea
+mightily and gloriously, after all it is by conventionalism still, and
+there remains so much that is unlike nature, that it is always possible
+for those who do not feel his power to justify their dislike, on very
+sufficient and reasonable grounds; and to maintain themselves
+obstinately unreceptant of the good, by insisting on the deficiency
+which no mortal hand can supply, and which commonly is most manifest on
+the one hand, where most has been achieved on the other.</p>
+
+<p>With calm water the case is different. Facts are ascertainable and
+demonstrable there, and by the notice of one or two of the simplest, we
+may obtain some notion of the little success and intelligence of the
+elder painters in this easier field, and so prove their probable failure
+in contending with greater difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>First: Water, of course, owing to its transparency, possesses not a
+perfectly reflective surface, like that of speculum metal, but a surface
+whose reflective power is dependent on the angle <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p6">§ 6. General laws which
+regulate the phenomena of water. First, the imperfection of its
+reflective surface.</a></span>at which the rays to be reflected fall. The smaller
+this angle, the greater are the number of rays reflected. Now, according
+to the number of rays reflected is the force of the image of objects
+above, and according to the number of rays transmitted is the
+perceptibility of objects below the water. Hence the visible
+transparency and reflective power of water are in inverse ratio. In
+looking down into it from above, we receive transmitted rays which
+exhibit either the bottom, or the objects floating in the water; or else
+if the water be deep and clear, we <span class="pagenum"><a name="page330"></a>[Page 330]</span> receive very few rays,
+and the water looks black. In looking along water we receive reflected
+rays, and therefore the image of objects above it. Hence, in shallow
+water on a level shore the bottom is seen at our feet, clearly; it
+becomes more and more obscure as it retires, even though the water do
+not increase in depth, and at a distance of twelve or twenty yards&mdash;more
+or less according to our height above the water&mdash;becomes entirely
+invisible, lost in the lustre of the reflected surface.</p>
+
+<p>Second: The brighter the objects reflected, the larger the angle at
+which reflection is visible; it is always to be remembered that,
+strictly speaking, only light objects are reflected, and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p7">§ 7. The
+inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does not affect
+bright ones.</a></span>that the darker ones are seen only in proportion to the
+number of rays of light that they can send; so that a dark object
+comparatively loses its power to affect the surface of water, and the
+water in the space of a dark reflection is seen partially with the image
+of the object, and partially transparent. It will be found on
+observation that under a bank&mdash;suppose with dark trees above showing
+spaces of bright sky, the bright sky is reflected distinctly, and the
+bottom of the water is in those spaces not seen; but in the dark spaces
+of reflection we see the bottom of the water, and the color of that
+bottom and of the water itself mingles with and modifies that of the
+color of the trees casting the dark reflection.</p>
+
+<p>This is one of the most beautiful circumstances connected with water
+surface, for by these means a variety of color and a grace and
+evanescence are introduced in the reflection otherwise impossible. Of
+course at great distances even the darkest objects cast distinct images,
+and the hue of the water cannot be seen, but in near water the
+occurrence of its own color modifying the dark reflections, while it
+leaves light ones unaffected, is of infinite value.</p>
+
+<p>Take, by way of example, an extract from my own diary at Venice.</p>
+
+<p>"May 17th, 4 <span class="sc">p.m.</span> Looking east the water is calm, and reflects the sky
+and vessels, with this peculiarity; the sky, which is pale blue, is in
+its reflection of the same kind of blue, only a little deeper; but the
+<i>vessels' hulls, which are black, are reflected in pale sea green</i>,
+<i>i.e.</i>, the natural color of the water under sunlight; while the <i>orange
+masts</i> of the vessels, wet with a recent <span class="pagenum"><a name="page331"></a>[Page 331]</span> shower, are
+reflected <i>without change of color</i>, only not quite so bright as above.
+One ship has a white, another a red stripe," (I ought to have said
+horizontal along the gunwales,) '<i>of these the water takes no notice</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>"What is curious, a boat passes across with white and dark figures, the
+water reflects the dark ones in green, and misses out all the white;
+this is chiefly owing to the dark images being opposed to the bright
+reflected sky."</p>
+
+<p>I have left the passage about the white and red stripe, because it will
+be useful to us presently; all that I wish to insist upon here is the
+showing of the local color (pea green) of the water in the spaces which
+were occupied by dark reflections, and the unaltered color of the bright
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>Third: Clear water takes no shadow, and that for two reasons; A perfect
+surface of speculum metal takes no shadow, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p8">§ 8. Water takes no
+shadow.</a></span>(this the reader may instantly demonstrate for himself,) and a
+perfectly transparent body as air takes no shadow; hence water, whether
+transparent or reflective, takes no shadow.</p>
+
+<p>But shadows, or the forms of them, appear on water frequently and
+sharply: it is necessary carefully to explain the causes of these, as
+they are one of the most eminent sources of error in water painting.</p>
+
+<p>First: Water in shade is much more reflective than water in sunlight.
+Under sunlight the local color of the water is commonly vigorous and
+active, and forcibly affects, as we have seen, all the dark reflections,
+commonly diminishing their depth. Under shade, the reflective power is
+in a high degree increased,<a name="FnAnchor_61" href="#Footnote_61"><sup>[61]</sup></a> and it will be found most frequently
+that the forms of shadows are expressed on the surface of water, not by
+actual shade, but by more genuine reflection of objects above. This is
+another most important and valuable circumstance, and we owe to it some
+phenomena of the highest beauty.</p>
+
+<p>A very muddy river, as the Arno for instance at Florence, is seen during
+sunshine of its own yellow color, rendering all reflections discolored
+and feeble. At twilight it recovers its <span class="pagenum"><a name="page332"></a>[Page 332]</span> reflective power to
+the fullest extent, and the mountains of Carrara are seen reflected in
+it as clearly as if it were a crystalline lake. The Mediterranean, whose
+determined blue yields to hardly any modifying color in daytime,
+receives at evening the image of its rocky shores. On our own seas,
+seeming shadows are seen constantly cast in purple and blue, upon pale
+green. These are no shadows, but the pure reflection of dark or blue sky
+above, seen in the shadowed space, refused by the local color of the sea
+in the sunlighted spaces, and turned more or less purple by the
+opposition of the vivid green.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen, however, above, that the local color of water, while it
+comparatively refuses dark reflections, accepts bright ones without
+deadening them. Hence when a shadow is thrown <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p9">§ 9. Modification of dark
+reflections by shadow.</a></span>across a space of water of strong local color,
+receiving, alternately, light and dark reflections, it has no power of
+increasing the reflectiveness of the water in the bright spaces, still
+less of diminishing it; hence, on all the dark reflections it is seen
+more or less distinctly, on all the light ones it vanishes altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take an instance of the exquisite complexity of effect induced by
+these various circumstances in co-operation.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose a space of clear water showing the bottom under a group of
+trees, showing sky through their branches, casting shadows on the
+surface of the water, which we will suppose also to possess some color
+of its own. Close to us, we shall see the bottom, with the shadows of
+the trees clearly thrown upon it, and the color of the water seen in its
+genuineness by transmitted light. Farther off, the bottom will be
+gradually lost sight of, but it will be seen in the dark reflections
+much farther than in the light ones. At last it ceases to affect even
+the former, and the pure surface effect takes place. The blue bright sky
+is reflected truly, but the dark trees are reflected imperfectly, and
+the color of the water is seen instead. Where the shadow falls on these
+dark reflections a darkness is seen plainly, which is found to be
+composed of the pure clear reflection of the dark trees; when it crosses
+the reflection of the sky, the shadow of course, being thus fictitious,
+vanishes.</p>
+
+<p>Farther, of course on whatever dust and other foulness may be present in
+water, real shadow falls clear and dark in proportion <span class="pagenum"><a name="page333"></a>[Page 333]</span> to the
+quantity of solid substance present. On very muddy rivers, real shadow
+falls in sunlight nearly as sharply as on land; on our own sea, the
+apparent shadow caused by increased reflection, is much increased in
+depth by the chalkiness and impurity of the water.</p>
+
+<p>Farther, when surface is rippled, every ripple, up to a certain variable
+distance on each side of the spectator, and at a certain angle between
+him and the sun, varying with the size and shape of the ripples,
+reflects to him a small image of the sun. Hence those dazzling fields of
+expanding light so often seen upon the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Any object that comes between the sun and these ripples, takes from them
+the power of reflecting the sun, and in consequence, all their light;
+hence any intervening objects cast apparent shadows upon such spaces of
+intense force, and of the exact shape, and in the exact place of real
+shadows, and yet which are no more real shadows than the withdrawal of
+an image of a piece of white paper from a mirror is a shadow on the
+mirror. Farther, in all shallow water, more or less in proportion to its
+shallowness, but in some measure, I suppose, up to depths of forty or
+fifty fathoms, and perhaps more, the local color of the water depends in
+great measure on light reflected from the bottom. This, however, is
+especially manifest in clear rivers like the Rhone, where the absence of
+the light reflected from below forms an apparent shadow, often visibly
+detached some distance from the floating object which casts it.</p>
+
+<p class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p10">§ 10. Examples on the water of the Rhone.</a></p> <p>The following extract from my
+own diary at Geneva, with the subsequent one, which is a continuation of
+that already given in part at Venice, will illustrate both this and the
+other points we have been stating.</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="padding-right: 1em; ">"<span class="sc">Geneva</span>, <i>21st April, Morning.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The sunlight falls from the cypresses of Rousseau's island straight
+towards the bridge. The shadows of the bridge and of the trees fall on
+the water in leaden purple, opposed to its general hue of aquamarine
+green. This green color is caused by the light being reflected from the
+bottom, though the bottom is not seen; as is evident by its becoming
+paler towards the middle of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page334"></a>[Page 334]</span> the river, where the water
+shoals, on which pale part the purple shadow of the small bridge falls
+most forcibly, which shadow, however, is still only apparent, being the
+absence of this reflected light, associated with the increased
+reflective power of the water, which in those spaces reflects blue sky
+above. A boat swings in the shoal water; its reflection is cast in a
+transparent pea-green, which is considerably darker than the pale
+aquamarine of the surface at the spot. Its shadow is detached from it
+just about half the depth of the reflection; which, therefore, forms a
+bright green light between the keel of the boat and its shadow; where
+the shadow cuts the reflection, the reflection is darkest and something
+like the true color of the boat; where the shadow falls out of the
+reflection, it is of a leaden purple, pale. The boat is at an angle of
+about 20° below. Another boat nearer, in deeper water, shows no shadow,
+whatsoever, and the reflection is marked by its transparent green, while
+the surrounding water takes a lightish blue reflection from the sky."</p>
+
+<p>The above notes, after what has been said, require no comment; but one
+more case must be stated belonging to rough water. Every large wave of
+the sea is in ordinary circumstances divided into, or rather covered by,
+innumerable smaller waves, each of which, in all probability, from some
+of its edges or surfaces reflects the sunbeams; and hence result a
+glitter, polish, and vigorous light over the whole flank of the wave,
+which are, of course, instantly withdrawn within the space of a cast
+shadow, whose form, therefore, though it does not affect the great body
+or ground of the water in the least, is sufficiently traceable by the
+withdrawal of the high lights; also every string and wreath of foam
+above or within the wave takes real shadow, and thus adds to the
+impression.</p>
+
+<p>I have not stated one-half of the circumstances which produce or
+influence effects of shadow on water; but lest I should confuse or weary
+the reader, I leave him to pursue the subject for himself; enough having
+been stated to establish this general principle, that whenever shadow is
+seen on clear water, and, in a measure, even on foul water, it is not,
+as on land, a dark shade subduing where it falls the sunny general hue
+to a lower tone; but it is a space of an entirely different color,
+subject itself, by its susceptibility of reflection, to infinite
+varieties of depth and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page335"></a>[Page 335]</span> hue, and liable, under certain
+circumstances, to disappear altogether; and that, therefore, whenever we
+have to paint such shadows, it is not only the hue of the water itself
+that we have to consider, but all the circumstances by which in the
+position attributed to them such shaded spaces could be affected.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth: If water be rippled, the side of every ripple next to us
+reflects a piece of the sky, and the side of every ripple farthest <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p11">§ 11.
+Effect of ripple on distant water.</a></span>from us reflects a piece of the
+opposite shore, or of whatever objects may be beyond the ripple. But as
+we soon lose sight of the farther sides of the ripples on the retiring
+surface, the whole rippled space will then be reflective of the sky
+only. Thus, where calm distant water receives reflections of high
+shores, every extent of rippled surface appears as a bright line
+interrupting that reflection with the color of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Fifth: When a ripple or swell is seen at such an angle as to afford a
+view of its farther side, it carries the reflection of objects farther
+down than calm water would. Therefore all motion <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p12">§ 12. Elongation of
+reflections by moving water.</a></span>in water elongates reflections, and throws
+them into confused vertical lines. The real amount of this elongation is
+not distinctly visible, except in the case of very bright objects, and
+especially of lights, as of the sun, moon, or lamps by a river shore,
+whose reflections are hardly ever seen as circles or points, which of
+course they are on perfectly calm water, but as long streams of
+tremulous light.</p>
+
+<p>But it is strange that while we are constantly in the habit of seeing
+the reflection of the sun, which ought to be a mere circle, elongated
+into a stream of light extending from the horizon to the shore, the
+elongation of the reflection of a sail or other object to one-half of
+this extent is received, if represented in a picture, with incredulity
+by the greater number of spectators. In one of Turner's Venices the
+image of the white lateen-sails of the principal boat is about twice as
+long as the sails themselves. I have heard the truth of this simple
+effect disputed over and over again by intelligent persons, and yet on
+any water so exposed as the lagoons of Venice, the periods are few and
+short when there is so little motion as that the reflection of sails a
+mile off shall not affect the swell within six feet of the spectator.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, a strange arbitrariness about this elongation <span class="pagenum"><a name="page336"></a>[Page
+336]</span> of reflection, which prevents it from being truly felt. If we see
+on an extent of lightly swelling water surface the image of a bank of
+white clouds, with masses of higher accumulation at intervals, the water
+will not usually reflect the whole bank in an elongated form, but it
+will commonly take the eminent parts, and reflect them in long straight
+columns of defined breadth, and miss the intermediate lower parts
+altogether; and even in doing this it will be capricious, for it will
+take one eminence, and miss another, with no apparent reason; and often
+when the sky is covered with white clouds, some of those clouds will
+cast long tower-like reflections, and others none, so arbitrarily that
+the spectator is often puzzled to find out which are the accepted and
+which the refused.</p>
+
+<p>In many cases of this kind it will be found rather that the eye is, from
+want of use and care, insensible to the reflection than that the
+reflection is not there; and a little thought and careful observation
+will show us that what we commonly suppose to be a surface of uniform
+color is, indeed, affected more or less by an infinite variety of hues,
+prolonged, like the sun image, from a great distance, and that our
+apprehension of its lustre, purity, and even of its surface, is in no
+small degree dependent on our feeling of these multitudinous hues, which
+the continual motion of that surface prevents us from analyzing or
+understanding for what they are.</p>
+
+<p>Sixth: Rippled water, of which we can see the farther side of the waves,
+will reflect a perpendicular line clearly, a bit of its <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p13">§ 13. Effect of
+rippled water on horizontal and inclined images.</a></span>length being given on
+the side of each wave, and easily joined by the eye. But if the line
+slope, its reflection will be excessively confused and disjointed; and
+if horizontal, nearly invisible. It was this circumstance which
+prevented the red and white stripe of the ships at Venice, noticed
+above, from being visible.</p>
+
+<p>Seventh: Every reflection is the image in reverse of just so much of the
+objects beside the water, as we could see if we were <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p14">§ 14. To what
+extent reflection is visible from above.</a></span>placed as much under the level
+of the water as we are actually above it. If an object be so far back
+from the bank, that if we were five feet under the water level we could
+not see it over the bank, then, standing five feet above the water, we
+shall not be able to see its image <span class="pagenum"><a name="page337"></a>[Page 337]</span> under the reflected bank.
+Hence the reflection of all objects that have any slope back from the
+water is shortened, and at last disappears as we rise above it. Lakes
+seen from a great height appear like plates of metal set in the
+landscape, reflecting the sky but none of their shores.</p>
+
+<p>Eighth: Any given point of the object above the water is reflected, if
+reflected at all, at some spot in a vertical line beneath <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p15">§ 15.
+Deflection of images on agitated water.</a></span>it, so long as the plane of the
+water is horizontal. On rippled water a slight deflection sometimes
+takes place, and the image of a vertical tower will slope a little away
+from the wind, owing to the casting of the image on the sloping sides of
+the ripples. On the sloping sides of large waves the deflection is in
+proportion to the slope. For rough practice, after the slope of the wave
+is determined, let the artist turn his paper until it becomes
+horizontal, and then paint the reflections of any object upon it as on
+level water, and he will be right.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the most common and general optical laws which are to be taken
+into consideration in the painting of water. Yet, in the application of
+them, as tests of good or bad water painting, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p16">§ 16. Necessity of
+watchfulness as well as of science.<br /><br /> Licenses, how taken by great men.</a></span>we
+must be cautious in the extreme. An artist may know all these laws, and
+comply with them, and yet paint water execrably; and he may be ignorant
+of every one of them, and, in their turn, and in certain places, violate
+every one of them, and yet paint water gloriously. Thousands of
+exquisite effects take place in nature, utterly inexplicable, and which
+can be believed only while they are seen; the combinations and
+applications of the above laws are so varied and complicated that no
+knowledge or labor could, if applied analytically, keep pace with them.
+Constant and eager watchfulness, and portfolios filled with actual
+statements of water-effect, drawn on the spot and on the instant, are
+worth more to the painter than the most extended optical knowledge;
+without these all his knowledge will end in a pedantic falsehood. With
+these it does not matter how gross or how daring here and there may be
+his violations of this or that law; his very transgressions will be
+admirable.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said, that this is a dangerous principle to advance in these
+days of idleness. I cannot help it; it is true, and must <span class="pagenum"><a name="page338"></a>[Page 338]</span> be
+affirmed. Of all contemptible criticism, the most to be contemned is
+that which punishes great works of art when they fight without armor,
+and refuses to feel or acknowledge the great spiritual refracted sun of
+their truth, because it has risen at a false angle, and burst upon them
+before its appointed time. And yet, on the other hand, let it be
+observed that it is not feeling, nor fancy, nor imagination, so called,
+that I have put before science, but watchfulness, experience, affection
+and trust in nature; and farther let it be observed, that there is a
+difference between the license taken by one man and another, which makes
+one license admirable, and the other punishable; and that this
+difference is of a kind sufficiently discernible by every earnest
+person, though it is not so explicable as that we can beforehand say
+where and when, or even to whom, the license is to be forgiven. In the
+Paradise of Tintoret, in the Academy of Venice, the Angel is seen in the
+distance driving Adam and Eve out of the garden. Not, for Tintoret, the
+leading to the gate with consolation or counsel; his strange ardor of
+conception is seen here as everywhere. Full speed they fly, the angel
+and the human creatures; the angel wrapt in an orb of light floats on,
+stooped forward in his fierce flight, and does not touch the ground; the
+chastised creatures rush before him in abandoned terror. All this might
+have been invented by another, though in other hands it would assuredly
+have been offensive; but one circumstance which completes the story
+could have been thought of or dared by none but Tintoret. The Angel
+casts a <span class="sc">shadow</span> before him towards Adam and Eve.</p>
+
+<p>Now that a globe of light should cast a shadow is a license, as far as
+mere optical matters are concerned, of the most audacious kind. But how
+beautiful is the circumstance in its application here, showing that the
+angel, who is light to all else around him, is darkness to those whom he
+is commissioned to banish forever.</p>
+
+<p>I have before noticed the license of Rubens in making his horizon an
+oblique line. His object is to carry the eye to a given point in the
+distance. The road winds to it, the clouds fly at it, the trees nod to
+it, a flock of sheep scamper towards it, a carter points his whip at it,
+his horses pull for it, the figures push for it, and the horizon slopes
+to it. If the horizon had <span class="pagenum"><a name="page339"></a>[Page 339]</span> been horizontal, it would have
+embarrassed everything and everybody.</p>
+
+<p>In Turner's Pas de Calais there is a buoy poised on the ridge of a near
+wave. It casts its reflection vertically down the flank of the wave,
+which slopes steeply. I cannot tell whether this is a license or a
+mistake; I suspect the latter, for the same thing occurs not
+unfrequently in Turner's seas; but I am almost certain that it would
+have been done wilfully in this case, even had the mistake been pointed
+out, for the vertical line is necessary to the picture, and the eye is
+so little accustomed to catch the real bearing of the reflections on the
+slopes of waves that it does not feel the fault.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the smaller rooms of the Uffizii at Florence, off the Tribune,
+there are two so-called Claudes; one a pretty wooded landscape, I think
+a copy, the other a marine with architecture, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p17">§ 17. Various licenses or
+errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp, Vandevelde.</a></span>very sweet and
+genuine. The sun is setting at the side of the picture, it casts a long
+stream of light upon the water. This stream of light is oblique, and
+comes from the horizon, where it is under the sun, to a point near the
+centre of the picture. If this had been done as a license, it would be
+an instance of most absurd and unjustifiable license, as the fault is
+detected by the eye in a moment, and there is no occasion nor excuse for
+it. But I imagine it to be an instance rather of the harm of imperfect
+science. Taking his impression instinctively from nature, Claude usually
+did what is right and put his reflection vertically under the sun;
+probably, however, he had read in some treatise on optics that every
+point in this reflection was in a vertical plane between the sun and
+spectator; or he might have noticed walking on the shore that the
+reflection came straight from the sun to his feet, and intending to
+indicate the position of the spectator, drew in his next picture the
+reflection sloping to the supposed point, the error being excusable
+enough, and plausible enough to have been lately revived and
+systematized.<a name="FnAnchor_62" href="#Footnote_62"><sup>[62]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page340"></a>[Page 340]</span></p>
+
+<p>In the picture of Cuyp, No. 83 in the Dulwich Gallery, the post at the
+end of the bank casts three or four radiating reflections. This is
+visibly neither license nor half science, but pure ignorance. Again, in
+the picture attributed to Paul Potter, No. 176, Dulwich Gallery, I
+believe most people must feel, the moment they look at it, that there is
+something wrong with the water, that it looks odd, and hard, and like
+ice or lead; and though they may not be able to tell the reason of the
+impression&mdash;for when they go near they will find it smooth and lustrous,
+and prettily painted&mdash;yet they will not be able to shake off the
+unpleasant sense of its being like a plate of bad mirror set in a model
+landscape among moss, rather than like a pond. The reason is, that while
+this water receives clear reflections from the fence and hedge on the
+left, and is everywhere smooth and evidently capable of giving true
+images, it yet reflects none of the cows.</p>
+
+<p>In the Vandevelde (113) there is not a line of ripple or swell in any
+part of the sea; it is absolutely windless, and the near boat casts its
+image with great fidelity, which being unprolonged downwards informs us
+that the calm is perfect, (Rule V.,) and being unshortened informs us
+that we are on a level with the water, or nearly so. (Rule VII.) Yet
+underneath the vessel on the right, the gray shade which stands for
+reflection breaks off immediately, descending like smoke a little way
+below the hull, then leaving the masts and sails entirely unrecorded.
+This I imagine to be not ignorance, but unjustifiable license.
+Vandevelde evidently desired to give an impression of great extent of
+surface, and thought that if he gave the reflection more faithfully, as
+the tops of the masts would come down to the nearest part of the
+surface, they would destroy the evidence of distance, and appear to set
+the ship above the boat instead of beyond it. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page341"></a>[Page 341]</span> I doubt not in
+such awkward hands that such would indeed have been the case, but he is
+not on that account to be excused for painting his surface with gray
+horizontal lines, as is done by nautically-disposed children; for no
+destruction of distance in the ocean is so serious a loss as that of its
+liquidity. It is better to feel a want of extent in the sea, than an
+extent which we might walk upon or play at billiards upon.</p>
+
+<p>Among all the pictures of Canaletto, which I have ever seen, and they
+are not a few, I remember but one or two where there is any variation
+from one method of treatment of the water. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p18">§ 18. And Canaletto.</a></span>He almost
+always covers the whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed
+of a coat of well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green,
+covered with a certain number, I cannot state the exact average, but it
+varies from three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards,
+according to the extent of canvas to be covered, of white concave
+touches, which are very properly symbolical of ripple.</p>
+
+<p>And, as the canal retires back from the eye, he very geometrically
+diminishes the size of his ripples, until he arrives at an even field of
+apparently smooth water. By our sixth rule, this rippling water as it
+retires should show more and more of the reflection of the sky above it,
+and less and less of that of objects beyond it, until, at two or three
+hundred yards down the canal, the whole field of water should be one
+even gray or blue, the color of the sky receiving no reflections
+whatever of other objects. What does Canaletto do? Exactly in proportion
+as he retires, he displays <i>more</i> and <i>more</i> of the reflection of
+objects, and less and less of the sky, until, three hundred yards away,
+all the houses are reflected as clear and sharp as in a quiet lake.</p>
+
+<p>This, again, is wilful and inexcusable violation of truth, of which the
+reason, as in the last case, is the painter's consciousness of weakness.
+It is one of the most difficult things in the world to express the light
+reflection of the blue sky on a distant ripple, and to make the eye
+understand the cause of the color, and the motion of the apparently
+smooth water, especially where there are buildings above to be
+reflected, for the eye never understands the want of the reflection. But
+it is the easiest and most agreeable thing in the world to give the
+inverted image: it occupies a vast space of otherwise troublesome
+distance in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page342"></a>[Page 342]</span> simplest way possible, and is understood by
+the eye at once. Hence Canaletto is glad, as any other inferior workman
+would be, not to say obliged, to give the reflections in the distance.
+But when he comes up close to the spectator, he finds the smooth surface
+just as troublesome near, as the ripple would have been far off. It is a
+very nervous thing for an ignorant artist to have a great space of
+vacant smooth water to deal with, close to him, too far down to take
+reflections from buildings, and yet which must be made to look flat and
+retiring and transparent. Canaletto, with his sea-green, did not at all
+feel himself equal to anything of this kind, and had therefore no
+resource but in the white touches above described, which occupy the
+alarming space without any troublesome necessity for knowledge or
+invention, and supply by their gradual diminution some means of
+expressing retirement of surface. It is easily understood, therefore,
+why he should adopt this system, which is just what any awkward workman
+would naturally cling to, trusting to the inaccuracy of observation of
+the public to secure him from detection.</p>
+
+<p>Now in all these cases it is not the mistake or the license itself, it
+is not the infringement of this or that law which condemns the picture,
+but it is the spirit and habit of mind in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p19">§ 19. Why unpardonable.</a></span>which
+the license is taken, the cowardice or bluntness of feeling, which
+infects every part alike, and deprives the whole picture of vitality.
+Canaletto, had he been a great painter, might have cast his reflections
+wherever he chose, and rippled the water wherever he chose, and painted
+his sea sloping if he chose, and neither I nor any one else should have
+dared to say a word against him; but he is a little and a bad painter,
+and so continues everywhere multiplying and magnifying mistakes, and
+adding apathy to error, until nothing can any more be pardoned in him.
+If it be but remembered that every one of the surfaces of those
+multitudinous ripples is in nature a mirror which catches, according to
+its position, either the image of the sky or of the silver beaks of the
+gondolas, or of their black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the
+white marble, or the green sea-weed on the low stones, it cannot but be
+felt that those waves would have something more of color upon them than
+that opaque dead green. Green they are by their own nature, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page343"></a>[Page 343]</span>
+but it is a transparent and emerald hue, mixing itself with the thousand
+reflected tints without overpowering the weakest of them; and thus, in
+every one of those individual waves, the truths of color are
+contradicted by Canaletto by the thousand.</p>
+
+<p>Venice is sad and silent now, to what she was in his time; the canals
+are choked gradually one by one, and the foul water laps more and more
+sluggishly against the rent foundations; but even yet, could I but place
+the reader at the early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the
+market boats, full laden, float into groups of golden color, and let him
+watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and
+under the shadows of the vine leaves, and show him the purple of the
+grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds carried away
+in long streams upon the waves, and among them, the crimson fish
+baskets, plashing and sparkling, and flaming as the morning sun falls on
+their wet tawny sides, and above, the painted sails of the fishing
+boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue, and better than all such
+florid color, the naked, bronzed, burning limbs of the seamen, the last
+of the old Venetian race, who yet keep the right Giorgione color on
+their brows and bosoms, in strange contrast with the sallow sensual
+degradation of the creatures that live in the cafés of the Piazza, he
+would not be merciful to Canaletto any more.</p>
+
+<p>Yet even Canaletto, in relation to the truths he had to paint, is
+spiritual, faithful, powerful, compared to the Dutch painters of sea. It
+is easily understood why his green paint and concave <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p20">§ 20. The Dutch
+painters of sea.</a></span>touches should be thought expressive of the water on
+which the real colors are not to be discerned but by attention, which is
+never given; but it is not so easily understood, considering how many
+there are who love the sea, and look at it, that Vandevelde and such
+others should be tolerated. As I before said, I feel utterly hopeless in
+addressing the admirers of these men, because I do not know what it is
+in their works which is supposed to be like nature. Foam appears to me
+to curdle and cream on the wave sides and to fly, flashing from their
+crests, and not to be set astride upon them like a peruke; and waves
+appear to me to fall, and plunge, and toss, and nod, and crash over, and
+not to curl up like shavings; and water appears to me, when it is gray,
+to have the gray of stormy air <span class="pagenum"><a name="page344"></a>[Page 344]</span> mixed with its own deep,
+heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not the gray of the first coat
+of cheap paint on a deal door; and many other such things appear to me
+which, as far as I can conjecture by what is admired of marine painting,
+appear to no one else; yet I shall have something more to say about
+these men presently, with respect to the effect they have had upon
+Turner; and something more, I hope, hereafter, with the help of
+illustration.</p>
+
+<p>There is a sea-piece of Ruysdael's in the Louvre<a name="FnAnchor_63" href="#Footnote_63"><sup>[63]</sup></a> which, though
+nothing very remarkable in any quality of art, is at least forceful,
+agreeable, and, as far as it goes, natural; the waves <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p21">§ 21. Ruysdael,
+Claude, and Salvator.</a></span>have much freedom of action, and power of color;
+the wind blows hard over the shore, and the whole picture may be studied
+with profit as a proof that the deficiency of color and everything else
+in Backhuysen's works, is no fault of the Dutch sea. There is sublimity
+and power in every field of nature from the pole to the line; and though
+the painters of one country are often better and greater, universally,
+than those of another, this is less because the subjects of art are
+wanting anywhere, than because one country or one age breeds mighty and
+thinking men, and another none.</p>
+
+<p>Ruysdael's painting of falling water and brook scenery is also generally
+agreeable&mdash;more than agreeable it can hardly be considered. There
+appears no exertion of mind in any of his works; nor are they calculated
+to produce either harm or good by their feeble influence. They are good
+furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page345"></a>[Page 345]</span></p>
+
+<p>The seas of Claude are the finest pieces of water-painting in ancient
+art. I do not say that I like them, because they appear to me selections
+of the particular moment when the sea is most insipid and characterless;
+but I think that they are exceedingly true to the forms and time
+selected, or at least that the fine instances of them are so, of which
+there are exceedingly few.</p>
+
+<p>On the right hand of one of the marines of Salvator, in the Pitti
+palace, there is a passage of sea reflecting the sunrise, which is
+thoroughly good, and very like Turner; the rest of the picture, as the
+one opposite to it, utterly virtueless. I have not seen any other
+instance of Salvator's painting water with any care, it is usually as
+conventional as the rest of his work, yet conventionalism is perhaps
+more tolerable in water-painting than elsewhere; and if his trees and
+rocks had been good, the rivers might have been generally accepted
+without objection.</p>
+
+<p>The merits of Poussin as a sea or water painter may, I think, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p22">§ 22.
+Nicholas Poussin.</a></span>be sufficiently determined by the Deluge in the Louvre,
+where the breaking up of the fountains of the deep is typified by the
+capsizing of a wherry over a weir.</p>
+
+<p>In the outer porch of St. Mark's at Venice, among the mosaics on the
+roof, there is a representation of the deluge. The ground is dark blue;
+the rain is represented in bright white undulating parallel stripes;
+between these stripes is seen the massy outline of the ark, a bit
+between each stripe, very dark and hardly distinguishable from the sky;
+but it has a square window with a bright golden border, which glitters
+out conspicuously, and leads the eye to the rest&mdash;the sea below is
+almost concealed with dead bodies.</p>
+
+<p>On the font of the church of San Frediano at Lucca, there is a
+representation of&mdash;possibly&mdash;the Israelites and Egyptians in the Red
+Sea. The sea is typified by undulating bands of stone, each band
+composed of three plies (almost the same type is to be seen in the
+glass-painting of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as especially at
+Chartres). These bands would perhaps be hardly felt as very aqueous, but
+for the fish which are interwoven with them in a complicated manner,
+their heads appearing at one side of every band, and their tails at the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Both of these representatives of deluge, archaic and rude as they are, I
+consider better, more suggestive, more inventive, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page346"></a>[Page 346]</span> more
+natural, than Poussin's. Indeed, this is not saying anything very
+depreciatory, as regards the St. Mark's one, for the glittering of the
+golden window through the rain is wonderfully well conceived, and almost
+deceptive, looking as if it had just caught a gleam of sunlight on its
+panes, and there is something very sublime in the gleam of this light
+above the floating corpses. But the other instance is sufficiently
+grotesque and imperfect, and yet, I speak with perfect seriousness, it
+is, I think, very far preferable to Poussin's.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, there is a just medium between the meanness and
+apathy of such a conception as his, and the extravagance, still more
+contemptible, with which the subject has been treated in modern
+days.<a name="FnAnchor_64" href="#Footnote_64"><sup>[64]</sup></a> I am not aware that I can refer to any instructive example of
+this intermediate course, for I fear the reader is by this time wearied
+of hearing of Turner, and the plate of Turner's picture of the deluge is
+so rare that it is of no use to refer to it.</p>
+
+<p>It seems exceedingly strange that the great Venetian painters should
+have left us no instance, as far as I know, of any marine effects
+carefully studied. As already noted, whatever passages of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c1p23">§ 23.
+Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion.</a></span>sea occur in their backgrounds are
+merely broad extents of blue or green surface, fine in color, and coming
+dark usually against the horizon, well enough to be understood as sea,
+(yet even that not always without the help of a ship,) but utterly
+unregarded in all questions of completion and detail. The water even in
+Titian's landscape is almost always violently though grandly
+conventional, and seldom forms an important feature. Among the religious
+schools very sweet motives occur, but nothing which for a moment can be
+considered as real water-painting. Perugino's sea is usually very
+beautifully felt; his river in the fresco of S^ta. Maddalena at Florence
+is freely indicated, and looks level and clear; the reflections of the
+trees given with a rapid zigzag stroke of the brush. On the whole, I
+suppose that the best imitations of level water surface to be found in
+ancient art are in the clear Flemish <span class="pagenum"><a name="page347"></a>[Page 347]</span> landscapes. Cuyp's are
+usually very satisfactory, but even the best of these attain nothing
+more than the agreeable suggestion of calm pond or river. Of any
+tolerable representation of water in agitation, or under any
+circumstances that bring out its power and character, I know no
+instance; and the more capable of noble treatment the subject happens to
+be, the more manifest invariably is the painter's want of feeling in
+every effort, and of knowledge in every line.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_61" href="#FnAnchor_61">[61]</a> I state this merely as a fact: I am unable satisfactorily to
+account for it on optical principles, and were it otherwise, the
+investigation would be of little interest to the general reader, and
+little value to the artist.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_62" href="#FnAnchor_62">[62]</a> Parsey's "Convergence of Perpendiculars." I have not space here to
+enter into any lengthy exposure of this mistake, but reasoning is
+fortunately unnecessary, the appeal to experiment being easy. Every
+picture is the representation, as before stated, of a vertical plate of
+glass, with what might be seen through it, drawn on its surface. Let a
+vertical plate of glass be taken, and wherever it be placed, whether the
+sun be at its side or at its centre, the reflection will always be found
+in a vertical line under the sun, parallel with the side of the glass.
+The pane of any window looking to sea is all the apparatus necessary for
+this experiment, and yet it is not long since this very principle was
+disputed with me by a man of much taste and information, who supposed
+Turner to be wrong in drawing the reflection straight down at the side
+of his picture, as in his Lancaster Sands, and innumerable other
+instances.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_63" href="#FnAnchor_63">[63]</a> In the last edition of this work was the following passage:&mdash;"I
+wish Ruysdael had painted one or two rough seas. I believe if he had he
+might have saved the unhappy public from much grievous victimizing, both
+in mind and pocket, for he would have shown that Vandevelde and
+Backhuysen were not quite sea-deities." The writer has to thank the
+editor of Murray's Handbook of Painting in Italy for pointing out the
+oversight. He had passed many days in the Louvre before the above
+passage was written, but had not been in the habit of pausing long
+anywhere except in the last two rooms, containing the pictures of the
+Italian school. The conjecture, however, shows that he had not
+ill-estimated the power of Ruysdael; nor does he consider it as in
+anywise unfitting him for the task he has undertaken, that for every
+hour passed in galleries he has passed days on the seashore.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_64" href="#FnAnchor_64">[64]</a> I am here, of course, speaking of the treatment of the subject as a
+landscape only; many mighty examples of its conception occur where the
+sea, and all other adjuncts, are entirely subservient to the figures, as
+with Raffaelle and M. Angelo.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page348"></a>[Page 348]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY THE MODERNS.</h5>
+
+<p>There are few men among modern landscape painters, who cannot paint
+quiet water at least suggestively, if not faithfully. Those who are
+incapable of doing this, would scarcely be considered <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p1">§ 1. General power
+of the moderns in painting quiet water. The lakes of Fielding.</a></span>artists at
+all; and anything like the ripples of Canaletto, or the black shadows of
+Vandevelde, would be looked upon as most unpromising, even in the work
+of a novice. Among those who most fully appreciate and render the
+qualities of space and surface in calm water, perhaps Copley Fielding
+stands first. His expanses of windless lake are among the most perfect
+passages of his works; for he can give surface as well as depth, and
+make his lake look not only clear, but, which is far more difficult,
+lustrous. He is less dependent than most of our artists upon
+reflections; and can give substance, transparency, and extent, where
+another painter would be reduced to paper; and he is exquisitely refined
+in his expression of distant breadth, by the delicate line of ripple
+interrupting the reflection, and by aerial qualities of color. Nothing,
+indeed, can be purer or more refined than his general feeling of lake
+sentiment, were it not for a want of simplicity&mdash;a fondness for pretty,
+rather than impressive color, and a consequent want of some of the
+higher expression of repose.</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of men might be named, whose works are highly instructive in
+the management of calm water. De Wint is singularly powerful and
+certain, exquisitely bright and vigorous in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p2">§ 2. The calm rivers of De
+Wint, J. Holland, etc.</a></span>color. The late John Varley produced some noble
+passages. I have seen, some seven years ago, works by J. Holland, which
+were, I think, as near perfection as water-color can be carried&mdash;for
+<i>bona fide</i> truth, refined and finished to the highest degree. But the
+power of modern artists is not brought out until they have greater
+difficulties <span class="pagenum"><a name="page349"></a>[Page 349]</span> to struggle with. Stand for half an hour beside
+the fall <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p3">§ 3. The character of bright and violent falling water.</a></span>of
+Schaffhausen, on the north side where the rapids are long, and watch how
+the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure, polished velocity,
+over the arching rocks at the brow of the cataract, covering them with a
+dome of crystal twenty feet thick&mdash;so swift that its motion is unseen
+except when a foam globe from above darts over it like a falling star;
+and how the trees are lighted above it under all their leaves, at the
+instant that it breaks into foam; and how all the hollows of that foam
+burn with green fire like so much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever
+and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps
+hissing out of the fall like a rocket, bursting in the wind and driven
+away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through the curdling
+wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue of the water,
+paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky through white
+rain-cloud; while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over
+all, fading and flushing alternately through the choking spray and
+shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves
+which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water; their dripping
+masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some
+stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as
+its roar dies away; the dew gushing from their thick branches through
+drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and sparkling in white threads
+along the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens which chase and
+checker them with purple and silver. I believe, when you have stood by
+this for half an hour, you will have discovered that there is something
+more in nature than has <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p4">§ 4. As given by Nesfield.</a></span>been given by
+Ruysdael. Probably you will not be much disposed to think of any mortal
+work at the time; but when you look back to what you have seen, and are
+inclined to compare it with art, you will remember&mdash;or ought to
+remember&mdash;Nesfield. He is a man of extraordinary feeling, both for the
+color and the spirituality of a great waterfall; exquisitely delicate in
+his management of the changeful veil of spray or mist; just in his
+curves and contours; and unequalled in color except by Turner. None of
+our water-color painters can approach him in the management of the
+variable hues of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page350"></a>[Page 350]</span> clear water over weeded rocks; but his
+feeling for it often leads him a little too far, and, like Copley
+Fielding, he loses sight of simplicity and dignity for the sake of
+delicacy or prettiness. His waterfalls are, however, unequalled in their
+way; and, if he would remember, that in all such scenes there is much
+gloom as well as much splendor, and relieve the lustre of his attractive
+passages of color with more definite and prevalent grays, and give a
+little more substance to parts of his picture unaffected by spray, his
+work would be nearly perfect. His seas are also most instructive; a
+little confused in chiaroscuro, but refined in form and admirable in
+color.</p>
+
+<p>J. D. Harding is, I think, nearly unequalled in the <i>drawing</i> of running
+water. I do not know what Stanfield would do; I have never seen an
+important piece of torrent drawn by him; but <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p5">§ 5. The admirable
+water-drawing of J. D. Harding.</a></span>I believe even he could scarcely contend
+with the magnificent <i>abandon</i> of Harding's brush. There is perhaps
+nothing which tells more in the drawing of water than decisive and swift
+execution; for, in a rapid touch the hand naturally falls into the very
+curve of projection which is the absolute truth; while in slow finish,
+all precision of curve and character is certain to be lost, except under
+the hand of an unusually powerful master. But Harding has both knowledge
+and velocity, and the fall of his torrents is beyond praise; impatient,
+chafing, substantial, shattering, crystalline, and capricious; full of
+various form, yet all apparently instantaneous and accidental, nothing
+conventional, nothing dependent upon parallel lines or radiating curves;
+all broken up and dashed to pieces over the irregular rock, and yet all
+in unity of motion. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p6">§ 6. His color; and painting of sea.</a></span>The color also
+of his <i>falling</i> and bright water is very perfect; but in the dark and
+level parts of his torrents he has taken up a bad gray, which has hurt
+some of his best pictures. His gray in shadows under rocks or dark
+reflections is admirable; but it is when the stream is in full light,
+and unaffected by reflections in distance, that he gets wrong. We
+believe that the fault is in a want of expression of darkness in the
+color, making it appear like a positive hue of the water, for which it
+is much too dead and cold.</p>
+
+<p>Harding seldom paints sea, and it is well for Stanfield that he does
+not, or the latter would have to look to his crown. All <span class="pagenum"><a name="page351"></a>[Page 351]</span> that
+we have seen from his hand is, as coast sea, quite faultless; we only
+wish he would paint it more frequently; always, however, with a veto
+upon French fishing-boats. In the Exhibition of 1842, he spoiled one of
+the most superb pieces of seashore and sunset which modern art has
+produced, with the pestilent square sail of one of these clumsy craft,
+which the eye could not escape from.</p>
+
+<p>Before passing to our great sea painter, we must again refer to the
+works of Copley Fielding. It is with his sea as with his sky, he can
+only paint one, and that an easy one, but it is, for <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p7">§ 7. The sea of
+Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity.</a></span>all that, an
+impressive and a true one. No man has ever given, with the same flashing
+freedom, the race of a running tide under a stiff breeze, nor caught,
+with the same grace and precision, the curvature of the breaking wave,
+arrested or accelerated by the wind. The forward fling of his foam, and
+the impatient run of his surges, whose quick, redoubling dash we can
+almost hear, as they break in their haste upon their own bosoms, are
+nature itself, and his sea gray or green was, nine years ago, very
+right, as color; always a little wanting in transparency, but never cold
+or toneless. Since that time, he seems to have lost the sense of
+greenness in water, and has verged more and more on the purple and
+black, with unhappy results. His sea was always dependent for effect on
+its light or dark relief against the sky, even when it possessed color;
+but it now has lost all local color and transparency together, and is
+little more than a study of chiaroscuro in an exceedingly ill-chosen
+gray. Besides, the perpetual repetition of the same idea is singularly
+weakening to the mind. Fielding, in all his life, can only be considered
+as having produced <i>one</i> sea picture. The others are duplicates. He
+ought to go to some sea of perfect clearness and brilliant color, as
+that on the coast of Cornwall, or of the Gulf of Genoa, and study it
+sternly in broad daylight, with no black clouds nor drifting rain to
+help him out of his difficulties. He would then both learn his strength
+and add to it.</p>
+
+<p>But there is one point in all his seas deserving especial praise&mdash;a
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p8">§ 8. Its high aim at character.</a></span>marked aim at <i>character</i>. He desires,
+especially in his latter works, not so much to produce an agreeable
+picture, a scientific piece of arrangement, or delightful <span class="pagenum"><a name="page352"></a>[Page 352]</span>
+melody of color, as to make us feel the utter desolation, the cold,
+withering, frozen hopelessness of the continuous storm and merciless
+sea. And this is peculiarly remarkable in his denying himself all color,
+just in the little bits which an artist of inferior mind would paint in
+sienna and cobalt. If a piece of broken wreck is allowed to rise for an
+instant through the boiling foam, though the blue stripe of a sailor's
+jacket, or a red rag of a flag would do all our hearts good, we are not
+allowed to have it; it would make us too comfortable, and prevent us
+from shivering and shrinking as we look, and the artist, with admirable
+intention, and most meritorious self-denial, expresses his <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p9">§ 9. But
+deficiency in the requisite quality of grays.</a></span>piece of wreck with a dark,
+cold brown. Now we think this aim and effort worthy of the highest
+praise, and we only wish the lesson were taken up and acted on by our
+other artists; but Mr. Fielding should remember that nothing of this
+kind can be done with success unless by the most studied management of
+the general tones of the picture; for the eye, deprived of all means of
+enjoying the gray hues, merely as a contrast to bright points, becomes
+painfully fastidious in the quality of the hues themselves, and demands
+for its satisfaction such melodies and richness of gray as may in some
+degree atone to it for the loss of points of stimulus. That gray which
+would be taken frankly and freely for an expression of gloom, if it came
+behind a yellow sail or a red cap, is examined with invidious and
+merciless intentness when there is nothing to relieve it, and, if not
+able to bear the investigation, if neither agreeable nor variable in its
+hue, renders the picture weak instead of impressive, and unpleasant
+instead of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p10">§ 10. Variety of the grays of nature.</a></span>awful. And indeed the
+management of nature might teach him this; for though, when using
+violent contrasts, she frequently makes her gloom somewhat monotonous,
+the moment she gives up her vivid color, and depends upon her
+desolation, that moment she begins to steal the greens into her
+sea-gray, and the browns and yellows into her cloud-gray, and the
+expression of variously tinted light through all. Nor is Mr. Fielding
+without a model in art, for the Land's End, and Lowestoffe, and
+Snowstorm, (in the Academy, 1842,) of Turner, are nothing more than
+passages of the most hopeless, desolate, uncontrasted grays, and yet are
+three of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page353"></a>[Page 353]</span> the very finest pieces of color that have come from
+his hand. And we sincerely hope that Mr. Fielding will gradually feel
+the necessity of such studied melodies of quiet color, and will neither
+fall back into the old tricks of contrast, nor continue to paint with
+purple and ink. If he will only make a few careful studies of gray from
+the mixed atmosphere of spray, rain, and mist of a gale that has been
+three days hard at work, not of a rainy squall, but of a persevering and
+powerful storm, and not where the sea is turned into milk and magnesia
+by a chalk coast, but where it breaks pure and green on gray slate or
+white granite, as along the cliffs of Cornwall, we think his pictures
+would present some of the finest examples of high intention and feeling
+to be found in modern art.</p>
+
+<p>The works of Stanfield evidently, and at all times, proceed from the
+hand of a man who has both thorough knowledge of his subject, and
+thorough acquaintance with all the means and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p11">§ 11. Works of Stanfield.
+His perfect knowledge and power.</a></span>principles of art. We never criticise
+them, because we feel, the moment we look carefully at the drawing of
+any single wave, that the knowledge possessed by the master is much
+greater than our own, and therefore believe that if anything offends us
+in any part of the work, it is nearly certain to be our fault, and not
+the painter's. The local color of Stanfield's sea is singularly true and
+powerful, and entirely independent of any tricks of chiaroscuro. He will
+carry a mighty wave up against the sky, and make its whole body dark and
+substantial against the distant light, using all the while nothing more
+than chaste and unexaggerated local color to gain the relief. His
+surface is at once lustrous, transparent, and accurate to a hairbreadth
+in every curve; and he is entirely independent of dark skies, deep
+blues, driving spray, or any other means of concealing want of form, or
+atoning for it. He fears no difficulty, desires no assistance, takes his
+sea in open daylight, under general sunshine, and paints the <i>element</i>
+in its pure color and complete forms. But <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c2p12">§ 12. But want of feeling.
+General sum of truth presented by modern art.</a></span>we wish that he were less
+powerful, and more interesting; or that he were a little less
+Diogenes-like, and did not scorn all that he does not want. Now that he
+has shown us what he can do without such aids, we wish he would show us
+what he can do with <span class="pagenum"><a name="page354"></a>[Page 354]</span> them. He is, as we have already said,
+wanting in what we have just been praising in Fielding&mdash;impressiveness.
+We should like him to be less clever, and more affecting&mdash;less
+wonderful, and more terrible; and as the very first step towards such an
+end, to learn how to conceal. We are, however, trenching upon matters
+with which we have at present nothing to do; our concern is now only
+with truth, and one work of Stanfield alone presents us with as much
+concentrated knowledge of sea and sky, as, diluted, would have lasted
+any one of the old masters his life. And let it be especially observed,
+how extensive and how varied is the truth of our modern masters&mdash;how it
+comprises a complete history of that nature of which, from the ancients,
+you only here and there can catch a stammering descriptive syllable&mdash;how
+Fielding has given us every character of the quiet lake, Robson<a name="FnAnchor_65" href="#Footnote_65"><sup>[65]</sup></a> of
+the mountain tarn, De Wint of the lowland river, Nesfield of the radiant
+cataract, Harding of the roaring torrent, Fielding of the desolate sea,
+Stanfield of the blue, open, boundless ocean. Arrange all this in your
+mind, observe the perfect truth of it in all its parts, compare it with
+the fragmentary falsities of the ancients, and then, come with me to
+Turner.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_65" href="#FnAnchor_65">[65]</a> I ought before to have alluded to the works of the late G. Robson.
+They are a little disagreeable in execution, but there is a feeling of
+the character of <i>deep</i> calm water in them quite unequalled, and
+different from the works and thoughts of all other men.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page355"></a>[Page 355]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY TURNER.</h5>
+
+<p>I believe it is a result of the experience of all artists, that it is
+the easiest thing in the world to give a certain degree of depth and
+transparency to water; but that it is next thing to <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p1">§ 1. The difficulty
+of giving surface to smooth water.</a></span>impossible, to give a full impression
+of surface. If no reflection be given&mdash;a ripple being supposed&mdash;the
+water looks like lead: if reflection be given, it in nine cases out of
+ten looks <i>morbidly</i> clear and deep, so that we always go down <i>into</i>
+it, even when the artist most wishes us to glide <i>over</i> it. Now, this
+difficulty arises from the very same circumstance which occasions the
+frequent failure in effect of the best drawn foregrounds, noticed in
+Section II. Chapter III., the change, namely, of focus necessary in the
+eye in order to receive <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p2">§ 2. Is dependent on the structure of the eye,
+and the focus by which the reflected rays are perceived.</a></span>rays of light
+coming from different distances. Go to the edge of a pond, in a
+perfectly calm day, at some place where there is duckweed floating on
+the surface,&mdash;not thick, but a leaf here and there. Now, you may either
+see in the water the reflection of the sky, or you may see the duckweed;
+but you cannot, by any effort, see both together. If you look for the
+reflection, you will be sensible of a sudden change or effort in the
+eye, by which it adapts itself to the reception of the rays which have
+come all the way from the clouds, have struck on the water, and so been
+sent up again to the eye. The focus you adopt is one fit for great
+distance; and, accordingly, you will feel that you are looking down a
+great way under the water, while the leaves of the duckweed, though they
+lie upon the water at the very spot on which you are gazing so intently,
+are felt only as a vague, uncertain interruption, causing a little
+confusion in the image below, but entirely indistinguishable as
+leaves,&mdash;and even their color unknown and unperceived. Unless you think
+of them, you will <span class="pagenum"><a name="page356"></a>[Page 356]</span> not even feel that anything interrupts
+your sight, so excessively slight is their effect. If, on the other
+hand, you make up your mind to look for the leaves of the duckweed, you
+will perceive an instantaneous change in the effort of the eye, by which
+it becomes adapted to receive near rays&mdash;those which have only come from
+the surface of the pond. You will then see the delicate leaves of the
+duckweed with perfect clearness, and in vivid green; but while you do
+so, you will be able to perceive nothing of the reflections in the very
+water on which they float&mdash;nothing but a vague flashing and melting of
+light and dark hues, without form or meaning, which, to investigate, or
+find out what they mean or are, you must quit your hold of the duckweed,
+and plunge down.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it appears, that whenever we see plain reflections of
+comparatively distant objects, in near water, we cannot possibly see the
+surface, and <i>vice versa</i>; so that when in a painting we <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p3">§ 3. Morbid
+clearness occasioned in painting of water by distinctness of
+reflections.</a></span>give the reflections with the same clearness with which they
+are visible in nature, we presuppose the effort of the eye to look under
+the surface, and, of course, destroy the surface, and induce an effect
+of clearness which, perhaps, the artist has not particularly wished to
+attain, but which he has found himself forced into, by his reflections,
+in spite of himself. And the reason of this effect of clearness
+appearing preternatural is, that people are not in the habit of looking
+at water with the distant focus adapted to the reflections, unless by
+particular effort. We invariably, under ordinary circumstances, use the
+surface focus; and, in consequence, receive nothing more than a vague
+and confused impression of the reflected colors and lines, however
+clearly, calmly, and vigorously all may be defined underneath, if we
+choose to look for them. We do not look for them, but glide along over
+the surface, catching only playing light and capricious color for
+evidence of reflection, except where we come to images of objects close
+to the surface, which the surface focus is of course adapted to receive;
+and these we see clearly, as of the weeds on the shore, or of sticks
+rising out of the water, etc. Hence, the ordinary effect of water is
+only to be rendered by giving the reflections of the <i>margin</i> clear and
+distinct (so clear they usually are in nature, that it is impossible to
+tell where the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page357"></a>[Page 357]</span> water begins;) but the moment we touch the
+reflection of distant objects, as of high trees or clouds, that instant
+we must become vague and uncertain in drawing, and, though vivid in
+color and light as the object itself, quite indistinct in form and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p4">§ 4.
+How avoided by Turner.</a></span>feature. If we take such a piece of water as that
+in the foreground of Turner's Chateau of Prince Albert, the first
+impression from it is,&mdash;"What a wide <i>surface</i>!" We glide over it a
+quarter of a mile into the picture before we know where we are, and yet
+the water is as calm and crystalline as a mirror; but we are not allowed
+to tumble into it, and gasp for breath as we go down,&mdash;we are kept upon
+the surface, though that surface is flashing and radiant with every hue
+of cloud, and sun, and sky, and foliage. But the secret is in the
+drawing of these reflections.<a name="FnAnchor_66" href="#Footnote_66"><sup>[66]</sup></a> We cannot tell when we look <i>at</i> them
+and <i>for</i> them, what they mean. They have all character, and are
+evidently reflections of something definite and determined; but yet they
+are all uncertain and inexplicable; playing color and palpitating shade,
+which, though we recognize in an instant for images of something, and
+feel that the water is bright, and lovely, and calm, we cannot penetrate
+nor interpret: we are not allowed to go down to them, and we repose, as
+we should in nature, upon the lustre of the level surface. It is in this
+power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the
+perfection of art here, as in all other cases, consists. But <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p5">§ 5. All
+reflections on distant water are distinct.</a></span>as it was before shown in
+Sect. II. Chap. III. that the focus of the eye required little
+alteration after the first half mile of distance, it is evident that on
+the <i>distant</i> surface of water, <i>all</i> reflections will be seen plainly;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358"></a>[Page 358]</span> for the same focus adapted to a moderate distance of surface
+will receive with distinctness rays coming from the sky, or from any
+other distance, however great. Thus we always see the reflection of Mont
+Blanc on the Lake of Geneva, whether we take pains to look for it or
+not, because the water upon which it is cast is itself a mile off; but
+if we would see the reflection of Mont Blanc in the Lac de Chede, which
+is close to us, we must take some trouble about the matter, leave the
+green snakes swimming upon the surface, and plunge for it. Hence
+reflections, if viewed collectively, are always clear in proportion to
+the distance of the water on which they are cast. And now look at
+Turner's Ulleswater, or any of his distant lake expanses, and you will
+find every crag and line of the hills rendered in them with absolute
+fidelity, while the near surface shows nothing but a vague confusion of
+exquisite and lustrous tint. The reflections even of the clouds will be
+given far off, while those of near boats and figures will be confused
+and mixed among each other, except just at the water-line.</p>
+
+<p>And now we see what Vandevelde <i>ought</i> to have done with the shadow of
+his ship spoken of in the first chapter of this section. In such a calm,
+we should in nature, if we had looked <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p6">§ 6. The error of Vandevelde.</a></span>for
+the reflection, have seen it clear from the water-line to the flag on
+the mainmast; but in so doing, we should have appeared to ourselves to
+be looking under the water, and should have lost all feeling of surface.
+When we looked at the surface of the sea,&mdash;as we naturally should,&mdash;we
+should have seen the image of the hull absolutely clear and perfect,
+because that image is cast on distant water; but we should have seen the
+image of the masts and sails gradually more confused as they descended,
+and the water close to us would have borne only upon its surface a maze
+of flashing color and indefinite hue. Had Vandevelde, therefore, given
+the perfect image of his ship, he would have represented a truth
+dependent on a particular effort of the eye, and destroyed his surface.
+But his business was to give, not a distinct reflection, but the colors
+of the reflection in mystery and disorder upon his near water, all
+perfectly vivid, but none intelligible; and had he done so, the eye
+would not have troubled itself to search them out; it would not have
+cared whence or how the colors came, but it would <span class="pagenum"><a name="page359"></a>[Page 359]</span> have felt
+them to be true and right, and rested satisfied upon the polished
+surface of the clear sea. Of the perfect truth, the best examples I can
+give are Turner's Saltash and Castle Upnor.</p>
+
+<p>Be it next observed that the reflection of all near objects is, by our
+fifth rule, not an exact copy of the parts of them which we see above
+the water, but a totally different view and arrangement <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p7">§ 7. Difference
+in arrangement of parts between the reflected object and its image.</a></span>of
+them, that which we should get if we were looking at them from beneath.
+Hence we see the dark sides of leaves hanging over a stream, in their
+reflection, though we see the light sides above, and all objects and
+groups of objects are thus seen in the reflection under different
+lights, and in different positions with respect to each other from those
+which they assume above; some which we see on the bank being entirely
+lost in their reflection, and others which we cannot see on the bank
+brought into view. Hence nature contrives never to repeat herself, and
+the surface of water is not a mockery, but a new view of what is above
+it. And this difference in what is represented, as well as the obscurity
+of the representation, is one of the chief sources by which the
+sensation of surface is kept up in the reality. The reflection is not so
+remarkable, it does not attract the eye in the same degree when it is
+entirely different from the images above, as when it mocks them and
+repeats them, and we feel that the space and surface have color and
+character of their own, and that the bank is one thing and the water
+another. It is by not making this change manifest, and giving underneath
+a mere duplicate of what is seen above, that artists are apt to destroy
+the essence and substance of water, and to drop us through it.</p>
+
+<p>Now one instance will be sufficient to show the exquisite care of Turner
+in this respect. On the left-hand side of his Nottingham, the water (a
+smooth canal) is terminated by a bank fenced <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p8">§ 8. Illustrated from the
+works of Turner.</a></span>up with wood, on which, just at the edge of the water,
+stands a white sign-post. A quarter of a mile back, the hill on which
+Nottingham Castle stands rises steeply nearly to the top of the picture.
+The upper part of this hill is in bright golden light, and the lower in
+very deep gray shadow, against which the white board of the sign-post is
+seen entirely in light relief, though, being turned from the light, it
+is itself in delicate middle tint, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page360"></a>[Page 360]</span> illumined only on the
+edge. But the image of all this in the canal is very different. First,
+we have the reflection of the piles of the bank, sharp and clear, but
+under this we have not what we see above it, the dark <i>base</i> of the
+hill, (for this being a quarter of a mile back, we could not see over
+the fence if we were looking from below,) but the golden summit of the
+hill, the shadow of the under part having no record nor place in the
+reflection. But this summit, being very distant, cannot be seen clearly
+by the eye while its focus is adapted to the surface of the water, and
+accordingly its reflection is entirely vague and confused; you cannot
+tell what it is meant for, it is mere playing golden light. But the
+sign-post, being on the bank close to us, will be reflected clearly, and
+accordingly its distinct image is seen in the midst of this confusion.
+But it now is relieved, not against the dark base, but against the
+illumined summit of the hill, and it appears, therefore, instead of a
+white space thrown out from blue shade, a dark gray space thrown out
+from golden light. I do not know that any more magnificent example could
+be given of concentrated knowledge, or of the daring <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p9">§ 9. The boldness
+and judgment shown in the observance of it.</a></span>statement of most difficult
+truth. For who but this consummate artist would have had courage, even
+if he had perceived the laws which required it, to undertake in a single
+small space of water, the painting of an entirely new picture, with all
+its tones and arrangements altered,&mdash;what was made above bright by
+opposition to blue, being underneath made cool and dark by opposition to
+gold;&mdash;or would have dared to contradict so boldly the ordinary
+expectation of the uncultivated eye, to find in the reflection a mockery
+for the reality? But the reward is immediate, for not only is the change
+most grateful to the eye, and most exquisite as composition, but the
+surface of the water in consequence of it is felt to be as spacious as
+it is clear, and the eye rests not on the inverted image of the material
+objects, but on the element which receives them. And we have a farther
+instance in this passage of the close study which is required to enjoy
+the works of Turner, for another artist might have altered the
+reflection or confused it, but he would not have reasoned upon it so as
+to find out <i>what the exact alteration must be</i>; and if we had tried to
+account for the reflection, we should have found it false or inaccurate.
+But <span class="pagenum"><a name="page361"></a>[Page 361]</span> the master mind of Turner, without effort, showers its
+knowledge into every touch, and we have only to trace out even his
+slightest passages, part by part, to find in them the universal working
+of the deepest thought, that consistency of every minor truth which
+admits of and invites the same ceaseless study as the work of nature
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, yet another peculiarity in Turner's painting of
+smooth water, which, though less deserving of admiration, as being
+merely a mechanical excellence, is not less wonderful <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p10">§ 10. The
+<i>texture</i> of surface in Turner's painting of calm water.</a></span>than its other
+qualities, nor less unique&mdash;a peculiar texture, namely, given to the
+most delicate tints of the surface, when there is little reflection from
+anything except sky or atmosphere, and which, just at the points where
+other painters are reduced to paper, gives to the surface of Turner the
+greatest appearance of substantial liquidity. It is impossible to say
+how it is produced; it looks like some modification of body color; but
+it certainly is not body color used as by other men, for I have seen
+this expedient tried over and over again without success; and it is
+often accompanied by crumbling touches of a dry brush, which never could
+have been put upon body color, and which could not have shown through
+underneath it. As a piece of mechanical excellence, it is one of the
+most remarkable things in the works of the master; and it brings the
+truth of his water-painting up to the last degree of perfection, often
+rendering those passages of it the most attractive and delightful, which
+from their delicacy and paleness of tint, would have been weak and
+papery in the hands of any other man. The best instance of it I can
+give, is, I think, the distance of the Devonport with the Dockyards.</p>
+
+<p>After all, however, there is more in Turner's painting of water surface
+than any philosophy of reflection, or any peculiarity of means, can
+account for or accomplish; there is a <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p11">§ 11. Its united qualities.</a></span>might
+and wonder about it which will not admit of our whys and hows. Take, for
+instance, the picture of the Sun of Venice going to Sea, of 1843,
+respecting which, however, there are one or two circumstances which may
+as well be noted besides its water-painting. The reader, if he has not
+been at Venice, ought to be made aware that the Venetian fishing-boats,
+almost without exception, carry canvas painted <span class="pagenum"><a name="page362"></a>[Page 362]</span> with bright
+colors, the favorite design for the centre being either a cross or a
+large sun with many rays, the favorite colors being red, orange, and
+black, blue occurring occasionally. The radiance of these sails and of
+the bright and grotesque vanes at the mast-heads under sunlight is
+beyond all painting, but it is strange that, of constant occurrence as
+these boats are on all the lagoons, Turner alone should have availed
+himself of them. Nothing could be more faithful than the boat which was
+the principal object in this picture, in the cut of the sail, the
+filling of it, the exact height of the boom above the deck, the
+quartering of it with color, finally and especially, the hanging of the
+fish-baskets about the bows. All these, however, are comparatively minor
+merits, (though not the blaze of color which the artist elicited from
+the right use of these circumstances,) but the peculiar power of the
+picture was the painting of the sea surface, where there were no
+reflections to assist it. A stream of splendid color fell from the boat,
+but that occupied the centre only; in the distance, the city and crowded
+boats threw down some playing lines, but these still left on each side
+of the boat a large space of water reflecting nothing but the morning
+sky. This was divided by an eddying swell, on whose continuous sides the
+local color of the water was seen, pure aquamarine, (a beautiful
+occurrence of closely-observed truth,) but still there remained a large
+blank space of pale water to be treated, the sky above had no distinct
+details and was pure faint gray, with broken white vestiges of cloud: it
+gave no help therefore. But there the water lay, no dead gray flat
+paint, but downright clear, playing, palpable surface, full of
+indefinite hue, and retiring as regularly and visibly back and far away,
+as if there had been objects all over it to tell the story by
+perspective. Now it is the doing of this which tries the painter, and it
+is his having done this which made me say above that "no man had ever
+painted the surface of calm water but Turner." The San Benedetto,
+looking towards Fusina, contained a similar passage, equally fine; in
+one of the Canale della Guidecca the specific green color of the water
+is seen in front, with the shadows of the boats thrown on it in purple;
+all, as it retires, passing into the pure reflective blue.</p>
+
+<p>But Turner is not satisfied with this. He is never altogether <span class="pagenum"><a name="page363"></a>[Page
+363]</span> content unless he can, at the same time that he takes advantage of
+all the placidity of repose, tell us something either about the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p12">§ 12.
+Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, etc., by the most
+trifling incidents, as in the Cowes.</a></span>past commotion of the water, or of
+some present stirring of tide or current which its stillness does not
+show, or give us something or other to think about and reason upon, as
+well as to look at. Take a few instances. His Cowes, Isle of Wight, is a
+summer twilight about half an hour, or more, after sunset. Intensity of
+repose is the great aim throughout, and the unity of tone of the picture
+is one of the finest things that Turner has ever done. But there is not
+only quietness, there is the very deepest solemnity in the whole of the
+light, as well as in the stillness of the vessels; and Turner wishes to
+enhance this feeling by representing not only repose, but <i>power</i> in
+repose, the emblem, in the sea, of the quiet ships of war. Accordingly,
+he takes the greatest possible pains to get his surface polished, calm,
+and smooth, but he indicates the reflection of a buoy, floating a full
+quarter of a mile off, by three black strokes with wide intervals
+between them, the last of which touches the water within twenty yards of
+the spectator. Now these three reflections can only indicate the farther
+sides of three rises of an enormous swell, and give by their intervals
+of separation, a space of from twelve to twenty yards for the breadth of
+each wave, including the sweep between them, and this swell is farther
+indicated by the reflection of the new moon falling, in a wide zigzag
+line. The exceeding majesty which this single circumstance gives to the
+whole picture, the sublime sensation of power and knowledge of former
+exertion which we instantly receive from it, if we have but acquaintance
+with nature enough to understand its language, render this work not only
+a piece of the most refined truth, (as which I have at present named
+it,) but to my mind, one of the highest pieces of intellectual art
+existing.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in the scene on the Loire, with the square precipice and fiery
+sunset, in the Rivers of France, repose has been aimed at in the same
+way, and most thoroughly given; but the immense <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p13">§ 13. In scenes on the
+Loire and Seine.</a></span>width of the river at this spot makes it look like a
+lake or sea, and it was therefore necessary that we should be made
+thoroughly to understand and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page364"></a>[Page 364]</span> feel that this is not the calm
+of still water, but the tranquillity of a majestic current. Accordingly,
+a boat swings at anchor on the right; and the stream, dividing at its
+bow, flows towards us in two long, dark waves, especial attention to
+which is enforced by the one on the left being brought across the
+reflected stream of sunshine, which it separates, and which is broken in
+the nearer water by the general undulation and agitation caused by the
+boat's wake; a wake caused by the waters passing it, not by <i>its</i> going
+through the water.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in the Confluence of the Seine and Marne, we have the repose of
+the wide river stirred by the paddles of the steamboat, (whose plashing
+we can almost hear, for we are especially <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p14">§ 14. Expression of contrary
+waves caused by recoil from shore.</a></span>compelled to look at them by their
+being made the central note of the composition&mdash;the blackest object in
+it, opposed to the strongest light,) and this disturbance is not merely
+caused by the two lines of surge from the boat's wake, for any other
+painter must have given these, but Turner never rests satisfied till he
+has told you <i>all</i> in his power; and he has not only given the receding
+surges, but these have gone on to the shore, have struck upon it, and
+been beaten back from it in another line of weaker contrary surges,
+whose point of intersection with those of the wake itself is marked by
+the sudden subdivision and disorder of the waves of the wake on the
+extreme left, and whose reverted direction is exquisitely given where
+their lines cross the calm water, close to the spectator, and marked
+also by the sudden vertical spring of the spray just where they
+intersect the swell from the boat; and in order that we may fully be
+able to account for these reverted waves, we are allowed, just at the
+extreme right-hand limit of the picture, to see the point where the
+swell from the boat meets the shore. In the Chaise de Gargantua we have
+the still water lulled by the dead calm which usually precedes the most
+violent storms, suddenly broken upon by a tremendous burst of wind from
+the gathered thunder-clouds, scattering the boats, and raising the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p15">§ 15.
+Various other instances.</a></span>water into rage, except where it is sheltered by
+the hills. In the Jumieges and Vernon we have farther instances of local
+agitation, caused, in the one instance, by a steamer, in the other, by
+the large water-wheels under the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page365"></a>[Page 365]</span> bridge, not, observe, a
+mere splashing about the wheel itself, this is too far off to be
+noticeable, so that we should not have even known that the objects
+beneath the bridge were water-wheels, but for the agitation recorded a
+quarter of a mile down the river, where its current crosses the
+sunlight. And thus there will scarcely ever be found a piece of quiet
+water by Turner, without some story in it of one kind or another;
+sometimes a slight, but beautiful incident&mdash;oftener, as in the Cowes,
+something on which the whole sentiment and intention of the picture in a
+great degree depends; but invariably presenting some new instance of
+varied knowledge and observation, some fresh appeal to the highest
+faculties of the mind.</p>
+
+<p>Of extended surfaces of water, as rendered by Turner, the Loch Katrine
+and Derwent-water, of the Illustrations to Scott, and the Loch Lomond,
+vignette in Rogers's Poems, are characteristic <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p16">§ 16. Turner's painting
+of distant expanses of water. Calm, interrupted by ripple.</a></span>instances. The
+first of these gives us the most distant part of the lake entirely under
+the influence of a light breeze, and therefore entirely without
+reflections of the objects on its borders; but the whole near half is
+untouched by the wind, and on that is cast the image of the upper part
+of Ben-Venue and of the islands. The second gives us the surface, with
+just so much motion upon it as to prolong, but not to destroy, the
+reflections of the dark woods,&mdash;reflections only interrupted by the
+ripple <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p17">§ 17. And ripple, crossed by sunshine.</a></span>of the boat's wake. And the
+third gives us an example of the whole surface so much affected by
+ripple as to bring into exercise all those laws which we have seen so
+grossly violated by Canaletto. We see in the nearest boat that though
+the lines of the gunwale are much blacker and more conspicuous than that
+of the cutwater, yet the gunwale lines, being nearly horizontal, have no
+reflection whatsoever; while the line of the cutwater, being vertical,
+has a distinct reflection of three times its own length. But even these
+tremulous reflections are only visible as far as the islands; beyond
+them, as the lake retires into distance, we find it receives only the
+reflection of the gray light from the clouds, and runs in one flat white
+field up between the hills; and besides all this, we have another
+phenomenon, quite new, given to us,&mdash;the brilliant gleam of light along
+the centre of the lake. This is not <span class="pagenum"><a name="page366"></a>[Page 366]</span> caused by ripple, for it
+is cast on a surface rippled all over; but it is what we could not have
+without ripple,&mdash;the light of a passage of sunshine. I have already
+(Chap. I., § 9) explained the cause of this phenomenon, which never can
+by any possibility take place on calm water, being the multitudinous
+reflection of the sun from the sides of the ripples, causing an
+appearance of local light and shadow; and being dependent, like real
+light and shadow, on the passage of the clouds, though the dark parts of
+the water are the reflections of the clouds, not the shadows of them;
+and the bright parts are the reflections of the sun, and not the light
+of it. This little vignette, then, will entirely complete the system of
+Turner's universal truth in quiet water. We have seen every phenomenon
+given by him,&mdash;the clear reflection, the prolonged reflection, the
+reflection broken by ripple, and finally the ripple broken by light and
+shade; and it is especially to be observed how careful he is, in this
+last case, when he uses the apparent light and shade, to account for it
+by showing us in the whiteness of the lake beyond, its universal
+subjection to ripple.</p>
+
+<p>We have not spoken of Turner's magnificent drawing of distant rivers,
+which, however, is dependent only on more complicated application of the
+same laws, with exquisite perspective. The sweeps of river in the
+Dryburgh, (Illustrations <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p18">§ 18. His drawing of distant rivers.</a></span>to Scott,)
+and Melrose, are bold and characteristic examples, as well as the Rouen
+from St. Catherine's Hill, and the Caudebec, in the Rivers of France.
+The only thing which in these works requires particular attention, is
+the care with which the height of the observer above the river is
+indicated by the loss of the reflections of its banks. This is, perhaps,
+shown most clearly in the Caudebec. If we had been on a level with the
+river, its whole surface would have been darkened by the reflection of
+the steep and high banks; but being far above it, we can see no more of
+the image than we could of the hill itself, if it were actually reversed
+under the water; and therefore we see that Turner gives us only a narrow
+line of dark water, immediately under the precipice, the broad surface
+reflecting only the sky. This is also finely shown on the left-hand side
+of the Dryburgh.</p>
+
+<p>But all these early works of the artist have been eclipsed by <span class="pagenum"><a name="page367"></a>[Page
+367]</span> some recent drawings of Switzerland. These latter are not to be
+described by any words, but they must be noted here not only <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p19">§ 19. And
+of surface associated with mist.</a></span>as presenting records of lake effect on
+grander scale, and of more imaginative character than any other of his
+works, but as combining effects of the surface of mist with the surface
+of water. Two or three of the Lake of Lucerne, seen from above, give the
+melting of the mountain promontories beneath into the clear depth, and
+above into the clouds; one of Constance shows the vast lake at evening,
+seen not as water, but its surface covered with low white mist, lying
+league beyond league in the twilight like a fallen space of moony cloud;
+one of Goldau shows the Lake of Zug appearing through the chasm of a
+thunder-cloud under sunset, its whole surface one blaze of fire, and the
+promontories of the hills thrown out against it, like spectres; another
+of Zurich gives the playing of the green waves of the river among white
+streams of moonlight: two purple sunsets on the Lake of Zug are
+distinguished for the glow obtained without positive color, the rose and
+purple tints being in great measure brought by opposition out of browns:
+finally, a drawing executed in 1845 of the town of Lucerne from the lake
+is unique for its expression of water surface reflecting the clear green
+hue of sky at twilight.</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered that it was said above, that Turner was the only
+painter who had ever represented the surface of calm or the <i>force</i> of
+agitated water. He obtains this expression <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p20">§ 20. His drawing of falling
+water, with peculiar expression of weight.</a></span>of force in falling or running
+water by fearless and full rendering of its forms. He never loses
+himself and his subject in the splash of the fall&mdash;his presence of mind
+never fails as he goes down; he does not blind us with the spray, or
+veil the countenance of his fall with its own drapery. A little
+crumbling white, or lightly rubbed paper, will soon give the effect of
+indiscriminate foam; but nature gives more than foam&mdash;she shows beneath
+it, and through it, a peculiar character of exquisitely studied form
+bestowed on every wave and line of fall; and it is this variety of
+definite character which Turner always aims at, rejecting, as much as
+possible, everything that conceals or overwhelms it. Thus, in the Upper
+Fall of the Tees, though the whole basin of the fall is blue and dim
+with the rising vapor, yet the whole <span class="pagenum"><a name="page368"></a>[Page 368]</span> attention of the
+spectator is directed to that which it was peculiarly difficult to
+render, the concentric zones and delicate curves of the falling water
+itself; and it is impossible to express with what exquisite accuracy
+these are given. They are the characteristic of a powerful stream
+descending without impediment or break, but from a narrow channel, so as
+to expand as it falls. They are the constant form which such a stream
+assumes as it descends; and yet I think it would be difficult to point
+to another instance of their being rendered in art. You will find
+nothing in the waterfalls even of our best painters, but springing lines
+of parabolic descent, and splashing, shapeless foam; and, in
+consequence, though they may make you understand the swiftness of the
+water, they never let you feel the weight of it; the stream in their
+hands looks <i>active</i>, not <i>supine</i>, as if it <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p21">§ 21. The abandonment and
+plunge of great cataracts. How given by him.</a></span>leaped, not as if it fell.
+Now water will leap a little way, it will leap down a weir or over a
+stone, but it <i>tumbles</i> over a high fall like this; and it is when we
+have lost the parabolic line, and arrived at the catenary,&mdash;when we have
+lost the <i>spring</i> of the fall, and arrived at the <i>plunge</i> of it, that
+we begin really to feel its weight and wildness. Where water takes its
+first leap from the top, it is cool, and collected, and uninteresting,
+and mathematical, but it is when it finds that it has got into a scrape,
+and has farther to go than it thought for, that its character comes out;
+it is then that it begins to writhe, and twist, and sweep out zone after
+zone in wilder stretching as it falls, and to send down the rocket-like,
+lance-pointed, whizzing shafts at its sides, sounding for the bottom.
+And it is this prostration, this hopeless abandonment of its ponderous
+power to the air, which is always peculiarly expressed by Turner, and
+especially in the case before us; while our other artists, keeping to
+the parabolic line, where they do not lose themselves in smoke and foam,
+make their cataract look muscular and wiry, and may consider themselves
+fortunate if they can keep it from stopping. I believe the majesty of
+motion which Turner has given by these concentric catenary lines must be
+felt even by those who have never seen a high waterfall, and therefore
+cannot appreciate their exquisite fidelity to nature.</p>
+
+<p>In the Chain Bridge over the Tees, this passiveness and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page369"></a>[Page 369]</span>
+swinging of the water to and fro are yet more remarkable; while we have
+another characteristic of a great waterfall given to us, that the wind,
+in this instance coming up the valley against the current, takes the
+spray up off the edges, and carries it back in little torn, reverted
+rags and threads, seen in delicate form against the darkness on the
+left. But we must understand a little more about the nature of running
+water before we can appreciate the drawing either of this, or any other
+of Turner's torrents.</p>
+
+<p>When water, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much interrupted
+by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in a pool as it goes
+along, it does not acquire a continuous <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p22">§ 22. Difference in the action
+of water, when continuous and when interrupted. The interrupted stream
+fills the hollows of its bed.</a></span>velocity of motion. It pauses after every
+leap, and curdles about, and rests a little, and then goes on again; and
+if in this comparatively tranquil and rational state of mind it meets
+with an obstacle, as a rock or stone, it parts on each side of it with a
+little bubbling foam, and goes round; if it comes to a step in its bed,
+it leaps it lightly, and then after a little plashing at the bottom,
+stops again to take breath. But if its bed be on a continuous slope, not
+much interrupted by hollows, so that it cannot rest, or if its own mass
+be so increased by flood that its usual resting-places are not
+sufficient for it, but that it is perpetually pushed out of them by the
+following current, before it has had time to tranquillize itself, it of
+course gains velocity with every yard that it runs; the impetus got at
+one leap is carried to the credit of the next, until the whole stream
+becomes one mass of unchecked, accelerating motion. Now when water in
+this state comes to an obstacle, it does not part at it, but clears it,
+like a racehorse; and when it comes to a hollow, it does not fill it up
+and run out leisurely at the other side, but it rushes down into it and
+comes up again on the other side, as a ship into the hollow of the sea.
+Hence the whole appearance of the bed of the stream is changed, and all
+the lines of the water altered in their nature. The quiet stream is a
+succession of leaps and pools; the leaps are light and springy, and
+parabolic, and make a great deal of splashing when they tumble into the
+pool; then we have a space of quiet curdling water, and another similar
+leap below. But the stream when it has gained <span class="pagenum"><a name="page370"></a>[Page 370]</span> an impetus
+takes the shape of its bed, never stops, is equally <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p23">§ 23. But the
+continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.</a></span>deep and equally swift
+everywhere, goes down into every hollow, not with a leap, but with a
+swing, not foaming, nor splashing, but in the bending line of a strong
+sea-wave, and comes up again on the other side, over rock and ridge,
+with the ease of a bounding leopard; if it meet a rock three or four
+feet above the level of its bed, it will neither part nor foam, nor
+express any concern about the matter, but clear it in a smooth dome of
+water, without apparent exertion, coming down again as smoothly on the
+other side; the whole surface of the surge being drawn into parallel
+lines by its extreme velocity, but foamless, except in places where the
+form of the bed opposes itself at some direct angle to such a line of
+fall, and causes a breaker; so that the whole river has the appearance
+of a deep and raging sea, with this only difference, that the
+torrent-waves always break backwards, and sea-waves forwards. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p24">§ 24. Its
+exquisite curved lines.</a></span>Thus, then, in the water which has gained an
+impetus, we have the most exquisite arrangements of curved lines,
+perpetually changing from convex to concave, and <i>vice versa</i>, following
+every swell and hollow of the bed with their modulating grace, and all
+in unison of motion, presenting perhaps the most beautiful series of
+inorganic forms which nature can possibly produce; for the sea runs too
+much into similar and concave curves with sharp edges, but every motion
+of the torrent is united, and all its curves are modifications of
+beautiful line.</p>
+
+<p>We see, therefore, why Turner seizes on these curved lines of the
+torrent, not only as being among the most beautiful forms of nature, but
+because they are an instant expression of the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p25">§ 25. Turner's careful
+choice of the historical truth.</a></span>utmost power and velocity, and tell us
+how the torrent has been flowing before we see it. For the leap and
+splash might be seen in the sudden freakishness of a quiet stream, or
+the fall of a rivulet over a mill-dam; but the undulating line is the
+<i>exclusive</i> attribute of the mountain-torrent,<a name="FnAnchor_67" href="#Footnote_67"><sup>[67]</sup></a> whose fall and fury
+have made the valleys <span class="pagenum"><a name="page371"></a>[Page 371]</span> echo for miles; and thus the moment we
+see one of its curves over a stone in the foreground, we know how far it
+has come, and how fiercely. And in the drawing we have been speaking of,
+the lower fall of the Tees, in the foreground of the Killiecrankie and
+Rhymer's Glen, and of the St. Maurice, in Rogers's Italy, we shall find
+the most exquisite instances of the use of such lines; but the most
+perfect of all in the Llanthony Abbey, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p26">§ 26. His exquisite drawing of
+the continuous torrent in the Llanthony Abbey.</a></span>which may be considered as
+the standard of torrent-drawing. The chief light of the picture here
+falls upon the surface of the stream, swelled by recent rain, and its
+mighty waves come rolling down close to the spectator, green and clear,
+but pale with anger, in gigantic, unbroken, oceanic curves, bending into
+each other without break or foam, though jets of fiery spray are cast
+into the air along the rocky shore, and rise in the sunshine in dusty
+vapor. The whole surface is one united race of mad motion; all the waves
+dragged, as I have described, into lines and furrows by their swiftness,
+and every one of these fine forms is drawn with the most studied
+chiaroscuro of delicate color, grays and greens, as silvery and pure as
+the finest passages of Paul Veronese, and with a refinement of execution
+which the eye strains itself in looking into. The rapidity and gigantic
+force of this torrent, the exquisite refinement of its color, and the
+vividness of foam which is obtained through a general middle <span class="pagenum"><a name="page372"></a>[Page 372]</span>
+tint, render it about the most perfect piece of painting of running
+water in existence.</p>
+
+<p>Now this picture is, as was noticed in our former reference to it, full
+of expression of every kind of motion: the clouds are in wild haste; the
+sun is gleaming fast and fitfully through the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p27">§ 27. And of the
+interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus.</a></span>leaves; the rain drifting
+away along the hill-side; and the torrent, the principal object, to
+complete the impression, is made the wildest thing of all and not only
+wild before us, and with us, but bearing with it in its every motion,
+from its long course, the record of its rage. Observe how differently
+Turner uses his torrent when the spirit of the picture is repose. In the
+Mercury and Argus, we have also a stream in the foreground; but, in
+coming down to us, we see it stopping twice in two quiet and glassy
+pools, upon which the drinking cattle cast an unstirred image. From the
+nearest of these, the water leaps in three cascades into another basin
+close to us; it trickles in silver threads through the leaves at its
+edge, and falls tinkling and splashing (though in considerable body)
+into the pool, stirring its quiet surface, at which a bird is stooping
+to drink, with concentric and curdling ripples which divide round the
+stone at its farthest border, and descend in sparkling foam over the lip
+of the basin. Thus we find, in every case, the system of Turner's truth
+entirely unbroken, each phase and phenomenon of nature being recorded
+exactly where it is most valuable and impressive.</p>
+
+<p>We have not, however, space to follow out the variety of his
+torrent-drawing. The above two examples are characteristic of the two
+great divisions or classes of torrents&mdash;that whose motion <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p28">§ 28. Various
+cases.</a></span>is continuous, and whose motion is interrupted: all drawing of
+running water will resolve itself into the representation of one or
+other of these. The descent of the distant stream in the vignette to the
+Boy of Egremond is slight, but very striking; and the Junction of the
+Greta and Tees, a singular instance of the bold drawing of the
+complicated forms of a shallow stream among multitudinous rocks. A still
+finer example occurs in a recent drawing of Dazio Grande, on the St.
+Gothard, the waves of the Toccia, clear and blue, fretting among the
+granite débris which were brought down by the storm that destroyed the
+whole road. In the Ivy bridge the subject is the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page373"></a>[Page 373]</span> rest of the
+torrent in a pool among fallen rocks, the forms of the stones are seen
+through the clear brown water, and their reflections mingle with those
+of the foliage.</p>
+
+<p>More determined efforts have at all periods been made in sea painting
+than in torrent painting, yet less successful. As above <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p29">§ 29. Sea
+painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.</a></span>stated, it is easy to
+obtain a resemblance of broken running water by tricks and dexterities,
+but the sea <i>must</i> be legitimately drawn; it cannot be given as utterly
+disorganized and confused, its weight and mass must be expressed, and
+the efforts at expression of it end in failure with all but the most
+powerful men; even with these few a partial success must be considered
+worthy of the highest praise.</p>
+
+<p>As the right rendering of the Alps depends on power of drawing snow, so
+the right painting of the sea must depend, at least in all coast
+scenery, in no small measure on the power of drawing foam. Yet there are
+two conditions of foam of invariable occurrence on breaking waves, of
+which I have never seen the slightest record attempted; first the thick
+creamy curdling overlapping massy form which remains for a moment only
+after the fall of the wave, and is seen in perfection in its running up
+the beach; and secondly, the thin white coating into which this
+subsides, which opens into oval gaps and clefts, marbling the waves over
+their whole surface, and connecting the breakers on a flat shore by long
+dragging streams of white.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident that the difficulty of expressing either of these two
+conditions must be immense. The lapping and curdling form is difficult
+enough to catch even when the lines of its undulation alone are
+considered; but the lips, so to speak, which lie along these lines, are
+full, projecting, and marked by beautiful light and shade; each has its
+high light, a gradation into shadow of indescribable delicacy, a bright
+reflected light and a dark cast shadow; to draw all this requires labor,
+and care, and firmness of work, which, as I imagine, must always,
+however skilfully bestowed, destroy all impression of wildness,
+accidentalism, and evanescence, and so kill the sea. Again, the openings
+in the thin subsided foam in their irregular modifications of circular
+and oval shapes dragged hither and thither, would be hard enough to draw
+even if they could be seen on a flat surface; <span class="pagenum"><a name="page374"></a>[Page 374]</span> instead of
+which, every one of the openings is seen in undulation on a tossing
+surface, broken up over small surges and ripples, and so thrown into
+perspectives of the most hopeless intricacy. Now it is not easy to
+express the lie of a pattern with oval openings on the folds of drapery.
+I do not know that any one under the mark of Veronese or Titian could
+even do this as it ought to be done, yet in drapery much stiffness and
+error may be overlooked; not so in sea,&mdash;the slightest inaccuracy, the
+slightest want of flow and freedom in the line, is attached by the eye
+in a moment of high treason, and I believe success to be impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there is not a wave or any violently agitated sea on which both
+these forms do not appear, the latter especially, after some time of
+storm, extends over their whole surfaces; the reader sees, therefore,
+why I said that sea could only be painted by means of more or less
+dexterous conventionalisms, since two of its most enduring phenomena
+cannot be represented at all.</p>
+
+<p>Again, as respects the form of breakers on an even shore, there is
+difficulty of no less formidable kind. There is in them an
+irreconcilable mixture of fury and formalism. Their hollow <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p30">§ 30.
+Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible.</a></span>surface is marked by
+parallel lines, like those of a smooth mill-weir, and graduated by
+reflected and transmitted lights of the most wonderful intricacy, its
+curve being at the same time necessarily of mathematical purity and
+precision; yet at the top of this curve, when it nods over, there is a
+sudden laxity and giving way, the water swings and jumps along the ridge
+like a shaken chain, and the motion runs from part to part as it does
+through a serpent's body. Then the wind is at work on the extreme edge,
+and instead of letting it fling itself off naturally, it supports it,
+and, drives it back, or scrapes it off, and carries it bodily away; so
+that the spray at the top is in a continual transition between forms
+projected by their own weight, and forms blown and carried off with
+their weight overcome; then at last, when it has come down, who shall
+say what shape that may be called, which shape has none of the great
+crash where it touches the beach.</p>
+
+<p>I think it is that last crash which is the great taskmaster. Nobody can
+do anything with it. I have seen Copley Fielding come very close to the
+jerk and nod of the lifted threatening <span class="pagenum"><a name="page375"></a>[Page 375]</span> edge, curl it very
+successfully, and without any look of its having been in papers, down
+nearly to the beach, but the final fall has no thunder in it. Turner has
+tried hard for it once or twice, but it will not do. The moment is given
+in the Sidon of the Bible Illustrations, and more elaborately in a
+painting of Bamborough; in both these cases there is little foam at the
+bottom, and the fallen breaker looks like a wall, yet grand always; and
+in the latter picture very beautifully assisted in expression by the
+tossing of a piece of cable, which some figures are dragging ashore, and
+which the breaker flings into the air as it falls. Perhaps the most
+successful rendering of the forms was in the Hero and Leander, but there
+the drawing was rendered easier by the powerful effect of light which
+disguised the foam.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, however, from the shore that Turner usually studies his sea.
+Seen from the land, the curl of the breakers, even in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p31">§ 31. Their
+effect, how injured when seen from the shore.</a></span>nature, is somewhat uniform
+and monotonous; the size of the waves out at sea is uncomprehended, and
+those nearer the eye seem to succeed and resemble each other, to move
+slowly to the beach, and to break in the same lines and forms.</p>
+
+<p>Afloat even twenty yards from the shore, we receive a totally different
+impression. Every wave around us appears vast&mdash;every one different from
+all the rest&mdash;and the breakers present, now that we see them with their
+backs towards us, the grand, extended, and varied lines of long
+curvature, which are peculiarly expressive both of velocity and power.
+Recklessness, before unfelt, is manifested in the mad, perpetual,
+changeful, undirected motion, not of wave after wave, as it appears from
+the shore, but of the very same water rising and falling. Of waves that
+successively approach and break, each appears to the mind a separate
+individual, whose part being performed, it perishes, and is succeeded by
+another; and there is nothing in this to impress us with the idea of
+restlessness, any more than in any successive and continuous functions
+of life and death. But it is when we perceive that it is no succession
+of wave, but the same water constantly rising, and crashing, and
+recoiling, and rolling in again in new forms and with fresh fury, that
+we perceive the perturbed spirit, and feel the intensity of its
+unwearied rage. The sensation of power is also trebled; for not only is
+the vastness <span class="pagenum"><a name="page376"></a>[Page 376]</span> of apparent size much increased, but the whole
+action is different; it is not a passive wave rolling sleepily forward
+until it tumbles heavily, prostrated upon the beach, but a sweeping
+exertion of tremendous and living strength, which does not now appear to
+<i>fall</i>, but to <i>burst</i> upon the shore; which never perishes, but recoils
+and recovers.</p>
+
+<p>Aiming at these grand characters of the Sea, Turner almost always places
+the spectator, not on the shore, but twenty or thirty yards from it,
+beyond the first range of the breakers, as in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p32">§ 32. Turner's expression
+of heavy rolling sea.</a></span>the Land's End, Fowey, Dunbar, and Laugharne. The
+latter has been well engraved, and may be taken as a standard of the
+expression of fitfulness and power. The grand division of the whole
+space of the sea by a few dark continuous furrows of tremendous swell,
+(the breaking of one of which alone has strewed the rocks in front with
+ruin,) furnishes us with an estimate of space and strength, which at
+once reduces the men upon the shore to insects; and yet through this
+terrific simplicity there is indicated a fitfulness and fury in the
+tossing of the individual lines, which give to the whole sea a wild,
+unwearied, reckless incoherency, like that of an enraged multitude,
+whose masses act together in frenzy, while not one individual feels as
+another. Especial attention is to be directed to the flatness of all the
+lines, for the same principle holds in sea which we have seen in
+mountains. All the size and sublimity of nature are given not by the
+height, but by the breadth of her masses: and Turner, by following her
+in her sweeping lines, while he does not lose the elevation of its
+surges, adds in a tenfold degree to their power: farther, observe the
+peculiar <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p33">§ 33. With peculiar expression of weight.</a></span>expression of <i>weight</i>
+which there is in Turner's waves, precisely of the same kind which we
+saw in his waterfall. We have not a cutting, springing, elastic line&mdash;no
+jumping or leaping in the waves: <i>that</i> is the characteristic of Chelsea
+Reach or Hampstead Ponds in a storm. But the surges roll and plunge with
+such prostration and hurling of their mass against the shore, that we
+feel the rocks are shaking under them; and, to add yet more to this
+impression, observe how little, comparatively, they are broken by the
+wind; above the floating wood, and along the shore, we have indication
+of a line of torn spray; but it is a mere fringe along <span class="pagenum"><a name="page377"></a>[Page 377]</span> the
+ridge of the surge&mdash;no interference with its gigantic body. The wind has
+no power over its tremendous unity of force and weight. Finally, observe
+how, on the rocks on the left, the violence and swiftness of the rising
+wave are indicated by precisely the same lines which we saw were
+indicative of fury in the torrent. The water on these rocks is the body
+of the wave which has just broken, rushing up over them; and in doing
+so, like the torrent, it does not break, nor foam, nor part upon the
+rock, but accommodates itself to every one of its swells and hollows,
+with undulating lines, whose grace and variety might alone serve us for
+a day's study; and it is only where two streams of this rushing water
+meet in the hollow of the rock, that their force is shown by the
+vertical bound of the spray.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/img376.jpg" width="650" height="474" alt="PORT RUYSDAEL." title="PORT RUYSDAEL." /></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">PORT RUYSDAEL.<br /><span style="font-size: 0.8em; ">From a painting by Turner.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In the distance of this grand picture, there are two waves which
+entirely depart from the principle observed by all the rest, and spring
+high into the air. They have a message for us <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p34">§ 34. Peculiar action of
+recoiling waves.</a></span>which it is important that we should understand. Their
+leap is not a preparation for breaking, neither is it caused by their
+meeting with a rock. It is caused by their encounter with the recoil of
+the preceding wave. When a large surge, in the act of breaking, just as
+it curls over, is hurled against the face either of a wall or of a
+vertical rock, the sound of the blow is not a crash nor a roar; it is a
+report as loud as, and in every respect similar to, that of a great gun,
+and the wave is dashed back from the rock with force scarcely
+diminished, but reversed in direction,&mdash;it now recedes from the shore,
+and at the instant that it encounters the following breaker, the result
+is the vertical bound of both which is here rendered by Turner. Such a
+recoiling wave will proceed out to sea through ten or twelve ranges of
+following breakers, before it is overpowered. The effect of the
+encounter is more completely and palpably given in the Quilleb&oelig;uf, in
+the Rivers of France. It is peculiarly instructive here, as informing us
+of the nature of the coast, and the force of the waves, far more clearly
+than any spray about the rocks themselves could have done. But the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p35">§ 35.
+And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore.</a></span>effect of the blow at the
+shore itself is given in the Land's End, and vignette to Lycidas. Under
+favorable circumstances, with an advancing tide under a heavy gale,
+where the breakers feel the shore underneath <span class="pagenum"><a name="page378"></a>[Page 378]</span> them a moment
+before they touch the rock, so as to nod over when they strike, the
+effect is nearly incredible except to an eyewitness. I have seen the
+whole body of the wave rise in one white, vertical, broad fountain,
+eighty feet above the sea, half of it beaten so fine as to be borne away
+by the wind, the rest turning in the air when exhausted, and falling
+back with a weight and crash like that of an enormous waterfall. This is
+given most completely in the Lycidas, and the blow of a less violent
+wave among broken rocks, not meeting it with an absolute wall, along the
+shore of the Land's End. This last picture is a study <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p36">§ 36. General
+character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in the Land's End.</a></span>of
+sea whose whole organization has been broken up by constant recoils from
+a rocky coast. The Laugharne gives the surge and weight of the ocean in
+a gale, on a comparatively level shore; but the Land's End, the entire
+disorder of the surges when every one of them, divided and entangled
+among promontories as it rolls in, and beaten back part by part from
+walls of rock on this side and that side, recoils like the defeated
+division of a great army, throwing all behind it into disorder, breaking
+up the succeeding waves into vertical ridges, which in their turn, yet
+more totally shattered upon the shore, retire in more hopeless
+confusion, until the whole surface of the sea becomes one dizzy whirl of
+rushing, writhing, tortured, undirected rage, bounding, and crashing,
+and coiling in an anarchy of enormous power, subdivided into myriads of
+waves, of which every one is not, be it remembered, a separate surge,
+but part and portion of a vast one, actuated by internal power, and
+giving in every direction the mighty undulation of impetuous line which
+glides over the rocks and writhes in the wind, overwhelming the one, and
+piercing the other with the form, fury, and swiftness of a sheet of
+lambent fire. And throughout the rendering of all this, there is not one
+false curve given, not one which is not the perfect expression of
+visible motion; and the forms of the infinite sea are drawn throughout
+with that utmost mastery of art which, through the deepest study of
+every line, makes every line appear the wildest child of chance, while
+yet each is in itself a subject and a picture different from all else
+around. Of the color of this magnificent sea I have before spoken; it is
+a solemn green gray, (with its foam seen dimly through the darkness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379"></a>[Page 379]</span> of twilight,) modulated with the fulness, changefulness, and
+sadness of a deep, wild melody.</p>
+
+<p>The greater number of Turner's paintings of open sea belong to a
+somewhat earlier period than these drawings; nor, generally speaking,
+are they of equal value. It appears to me that the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p37">§ 37. Open seas of
+Turner's earlier times.</a></span>artist had at that time either less knowledge of,
+or less delight in, the characteristics of deep water than of coast sea,
+and that, in consequence, he suffered himself to be influenced by some
+of the qualities of the Dutch sea-painters. In particular, he borrowed
+from them the habit of casting a dark shadow on the near waves, so as to
+bring out a stream of light behind; and though he did this in a more
+legitimate way than they, that is to say, expressing the light by
+touches on the foam, and indicating the shadow as cast on foamy surface,
+still the habit has induced much feebleness and conventionality in the
+pictures of the period. His drawing of the waves was also somewhat petty
+and divided, small forms covered with white flat spray, a condition
+which I doubt not the artist has seen on some of the shallow Dutch seas,
+but which I have never met with myself, and of the rendering of which
+therefore I cannot speak. Yet even in these, which I think among the
+poorest works of the painter, the expressions of breeze, motion, and
+light, are very marvellous; and it is instructive to compare them either
+with the lifeless works of the Dutch themselves, or with any modern
+imitations of them, as for instance with the seas of Callcott, where all
+the light is white and all the shadows gray, where no distinction is
+made between water and foam, or between real and reflective shadow, and
+which are generally without evidence of the artists having ever seen the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>Some pictures, however, belonging to this period of Turner are free from
+the Dutch infection, and show the real power of the artist. A very
+important one is in the possession of Lord Francis Egerton, somewhat
+heavy in its forms, but remarkable for the grandeur of distance obtained
+at the horizon; a much smaller, but more powerful example is the Port
+Ruysdael in the possession of E. Bicknell, Esq., with which I know of no
+work at all comparable for the expression of the white, wild, cold,
+comfortless waves of northern sea, even though the sea is almost <span class="pagenum"><a name="page380"></a>[Page
+380]</span> subordinate to the awful rolling clouds. Both these pictures are
+very gray. The Pas de Calais has more color, and shows more art than
+either, yet is less impressive. Recently, two marines of the same
+subdued color have appeared (1843) among his more radiant works. One,
+Ostend, somewhat forced and affected, but the other, also called Port
+Ruysdael, is among the most perfect sea pictures he has produced, and
+especially remarkable as being painted without one marked opposition
+either of color or of shade, all quiet and simple even to an extreme, so
+that the picture was exceedingly unattractive at first sight. The shadow
+of the pier-head on the near waves is marked solely by touches
+indicative of reflected light, and so mysteriously that when the picture
+is seen near, it is quite untraceable, and comes into existence as the
+spectator retires. It is thus of peculiar truth and value; and
+instructive as a contrast to the dark shadows of his earlier time.</p>
+
+<p>Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a
+powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and
+nights, and to those who have not, I believe it <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p38">§ 38. Effect of sea
+after prolonged storm.</a></span>must be unimaginable, not from the mere force or
+size of surge, but from the complete annihilation of the limit between
+sea and air. The water from its prolonged agitation is beaten, not into
+mere creaming foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast,<a name="FnAnchor_68" href="#Footnote_68"><sup>[68]</sup></a> which hang
+in ropes and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page381"></a>[Page 381]</span> wreaths from wave to wave, and where one curls
+over to break, form a festoon like a drapery, from its edge; these are
+taken up by the wind, not in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing,
+hanging, coiling masses, which make the air white and thick as with
+snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long each; the surges themselves
+are full of foam in their very bodies, underneath, making them white all
+through, as the water is under a great cataract; and their masses, being
+thus half water and half air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever
+they rise, and carried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles
+like actual water. Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of
+its moisture by long rain, the spray of the sea is caught by it as
+described above, (Section III. Chapter VI. § 13,) and covers its surface
+not merely with the smoke of finely divided water, but with boiling
+mist; imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of
+the sea, as I have often seen them, whirling and flying in rags and
+fragments from wave to wave; and finally, conceive the surges themselves
+in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lifting
+themselves in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent,
+through all this chaos; and you will understand that there is indeed no
+distinction left between the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon,
+nor any landmark or natural evidence of position is left; that the
+heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no
+farther in any direction than you could see through a cataract. Suppose
+the effect of the first sunbeam sent from above to show this
+annihilation to itself, and you have the sea picture of the Academy,
+1842&mdash;the Snowstorm, one of the very grandest statements of sea-motion,
+mist, and light that has ever been put on canvas, even by Turner. Of
+course it was not understood; his finest works never are; but <span class="pagenum"><a name="page382"></a>[Page
+382]</span> there was some apology for the public's not comprehending this, for
+few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time,
+and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a mast or a rock, and
+watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning which few people have
+courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest
+lessons of nature.</p>
+
+<p>But, I think, the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so,
+the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of the Slave Ship,
+the chief Academy picture of the Exhibition of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p39">§ 39. Turner's noblest
+work, the deep open sea in the Slave Ship.</a></span>1840. It is a sunset on the
+Atlantic after prolonged storm; but the storm is partially lulled, and
+the torn and streaming rain-clouds are moving in scarlet lines to lose
+themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of sea included
+in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell, not high,
+nor local, but a low, broad heaving of the whole ocean, like the lifting
+of its bosom by deep-drawn breath after the torture of the storm.
+Between these two ridges, the fire of the sunset falls along the trough
+of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious light, the intense and
+lurid splendor which burns like gold and bathes like blood. Along this
+fiery path and valley, the tossing waves by which the swell of the sea
+is restlessly divided, lift themselves in dark, indefinite, fantastic
+forms, each casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along the
+illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, but three or four together
+in wild groups, fitfully and furiously, as the under strength of the
+swell compels or permits them; leaving between them treacherous spaces
+of level and whirling water, now lighted with green and lamp-like fire,
+now flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now fearfully dyed from
+above with the indistinguishable images of the burning clouds, which
+fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and give to the
+reckless waves the added motion of their own fiery flying. Purple and
+blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of
+the night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of
+death upon the guilty<a name="FnAnchor_69" href="#Footnote_69"><sup>[69]</sup></a> ship as it labors amidst <span class="pagenum"><a name="page383"></a>[Page 383]</span> the
+lightning of the sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of
+blood, girded with condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky
+with horror, and mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight,&mdash;and cast
+far along the desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, incarnadines the
+multitudinous sea.</p>
+
+<p>I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any
+single work, I should choose this. Its daring conception&mdash;ideal in the
+highest sense of the word&mdash;is based on the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s5c3p40">§ 40. Its united excellences
+and perfection as a whole.</a></span>purest truth, and wrought out with the
+concentrated knowledge of a life; its color is absolutely perfect, not
+one false or morbid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every
+square inch of canvas is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate
+as fearless; the ship buoyant, bending, and full of motion; its tones as
+true as they are wonderful;<a name="FnAnchor_70" href="#Footnote_70"><sup>[70]</sup></a> and the whole picture dedicated to the
+most sublime of subjects and impressions&mdash;(completing thus the perfect
+system of all truth, which we have shown to be formed by Turner's
+works)&mdash;the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep,
+illimitable Sea.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_66" href="#FnAnchor_66">[66]</a> Not altogether. I believe here, as in a former case, I have
+attributed far too much influence to this change of focus. In Turner's
+earlier works the principle is not found. In the rivers of the Yorkshire
+drawings, every reflection is given clearly, even to the farthest depth,
+and yet the surface is not lost, and it would deprive the painter of
+much power if he were not sometimes so to represent them, especially
+when his object is repose; it being, of course, as lawful for him to
+choose one adaptation of the sight as another. I have, however, left the
+above paragraphs as first written, because they are true, although I
+think they make too much of an unimportant matter. The reader may
+attribute to them such weight as he thinks fit. He is referred to § 11
+of this chapter, and to § 4 of the first chapter of this section.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_67" href="#FnAnchor_67">[67]</a> On a large scale it is so, but the same lines are to be seen for
+the moment whenever water becomes exceedingly rapid, and yet feels the
+bottom as it passes, being not thrown up or cast clear of it. In
+general, the drawing of water fails from being too interrupted, the
+forms flung hither and thither, and broken up and covered with bright
+touches, instead of being wrought out in their real unities of
+curvature. It is difficult enough to draw a curved surface, even when it
+is rough and has texture; but to indicate the varied and sweeping forms
+of a crystalline and polished substance, requires far more skill and
+patience than most artists possess. In some respects, it is impossible.
+I do not suppose any means of art are capable of rightly expressing the
+smooth, multitudinous rippling of a rapid rivulet of shallow water,
+giving its transparency lustre and fully-developed forms; and the
+greater number of the lines and actions of torrent-waves are equally
+inexpressible. The effort should, nevertheless, always be made, and
+whatever is sacrificed in color, freedom, or brightness, the real
+contours ought always in some measure to be drawn, as a careful
+draughtsman secures those of flesh, or any other finely-modelled
+surface. It is better, in many respects, the drawing should miss of
+being <i>like</i> water, than that it should miss in this one respect the
+grandeur of water. Many tricks of scratching and dashing will bring out
+a deceptive resemblance; the determined and laborious rendering of
+contour alone secures sublimity.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_68" href="#FnAnchor_68">[68]</a> The "yesty waves" of Shakspeare have made the likeness familiar,
+and probably most readers take the expression as merely equivalent to
+"foamy;" but Shakspeare knew better. Sea-foam does not, under ordinary
+circumstances, last a moment after it is formed, but disappears, as
+above described, in a mere white film. But the foam of a prolonged
+tempest is altogether different; it is "whipped" foam,&mdash;thick,
+permanent, and, in a foul or discolored sea, very ugly, especially in
+the way it hangs about the tops of the waves, and gathers into clotted
+concretions before the driving wind. The sea looks truly working or
+fermenting. The following passage from Fenimore Cooper is an interesting
+confirmation of the rest of the above description, which may be depended
+upon as entirely free from exaggeration:&mdash;"For the first time I now
+witnessed a tempest at sea. Gales, and pretty hard ones, I had often
+seen, but the force of the wind on this occasion as much exceeded that
+in ordinary gales of wind, as the force of these had exceeded that of a
+whole-sail breeze. The seas seemed crushed; the pressure of the swooping
+atmosphere, as the currents of the air went howling over the surface of
+the ocean, fairly preventing them from rising; or where a mound of water
+did appear, it was scooped up and borne off in spray, as the axe dubs
+inequalities from the log. When the day returned, a species of lurid,
+sombre light was diffused over the watery waste, though nothing was
+visible but the ocean and the ship. Even the sea-birds seemed to have
+taken refuge in the caverns of the adjacent coast, none reappearing with
+the dawn. The air was full of spray, and it was with difficulty that the
+eye could penetrate as far into the humid atmosphere as half a
+mile,"&mdash;<i>Miles Wattingford</i>. Half a mile is an over-estimate in coast.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_69" href="#FnAnchor_69">[69]</a> She is a slaver, throwing her slaves overboard. The near sea is
+encumbered with corpses.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_70" href="#FnAnchor_70">[70]</a> There is a piece of tone of the same kind, equal in one part, but
+not so united with the rest of the picture, in the storm scene
+illustrative of the Antiquary,&mdash;a sunset light on polished sea. I ought
+to have particularly mentioned the sea in the Lowestoffe, as a piece of
+the cutting motion of shallow water, under storm, altogether in gray,
+which should be especially contrasted, as a piece of color, with the
+grays of Vandevelde. And the sea in the Great Yarmouth should have been
+noticed for its expression of water in violent agitation, seen in
+enormous extent from a great elevation. There is almost every form of
+sea in it,&mdash;rolling waves dashing on the pier&mdash;successive breakers
+rolling to the shore&mdash;a vast horizon of multitudinous waves&mdash;and winding
+canals of calm water along the sands, bringing fragments of bright sky
+down into their yellow waste. There is hardly one of the views of the
+Southern Coast which does not give some new condition or circumstance of
+sea.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page384"></a>[Page 384]</span></p>
+
+<h3>SECTION VI.</h3>
+
+<h4>OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.&mdash;CONCLUSION.</h4>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.</h5>
+
+<p>We have now arrived at the consideration of what was, with the old
+masters, the subject of most serious and perpetual study. If they do not
+give us truth here, they cannot have the faculty <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p1">§ 1. Frequent
+occurrence of foliage in the works of the old masters.</a></span>of truth in them;
+for foliage is the chief component part of all their pictures, and is
+finished by them with a care and labor which, if bestowed without
+attaining truth, must prove either their total bluntness of perception,
+or total powerlessness of hand. With the Italian school I can scarcely
+recollect a single instance in which foliage does not form the greater
+part of the picture; in fact, they are rather painters of tree-portrait
+than landscape painters; for rocks, and sky, and architecture are
+usually mere accessories and backgrounds to the dark masses of laborious
+foliage, of which the composition principally consists. Yet we shall be
+less detained by the examination of foliage than by our former subjects;
+since where specific form is organized and complete, and the occurrence
+of the object universal, it is easy, without requiring any laborious
+attention in the reader, to demonstrate to him quite as much of the
+truth or falsehood of various representations of it, as may serve to
+determine the character and rank of the painter.</p>
+
+<p>It will be best to begin as nature does, with the stems and branches,
+and then to put the leaves on. And in speaking of trees generally, be it
+observed, when I say <i>all</i> trees, I mean only those ordinary forest or
+copse trees of Europe, which are the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page385"></a>[Page 385]</span> chief subjects of the
+landscape painter. I do not mean to include every kind of foliage which
+by any accident can find its way into a picture, but the ordinary trees
+of Europe,&mdash;oak, elm, ash, hazel, willow, birch, beech, poplar,
+chestnut, pine, mulberry, olive, ilex, carubbe, and such others. I do
+not purpose to examine the characteristics of each tree; it will be
+enough <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p2">§ 2. Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not
+taper, but only divide.</a></span>to observe the laws common to all. First, then,
+neither the stems nor the boughs of any of the above trees <i>taper</i>,
+except where they fork. Wherever a stem sends off a branch, or a branch
+a lesser bough, or a lesser bough a bud, the stem or the branch is, on
+the instant, less in diameter by the exact quantity of the branch or the
+bough they have sent off, and they remain of the same diameter; or if
+there be any change, rather increase than diminish until they send off
+another branch or bough. This law is imperative and without exception;
+no bough, nor stem, nor twig, ever tapering or becoming narrower towards
+its extremity by a hairbreadth, save where it parts with some portion of
+its substance at a fork or bud, so that if all the twigs and sprays at
+the top and sides of the tree, which are, and <i>have been</i>, could be
+united without loss of space, they would form a round log of the
+diameter of the trunk from which they spring.</p>
+
+<p>But as the trunks of most trees send off twigs and sprays of light under
+foliage, of which every individual fibre takes precisely its own
+thickness of wood from the parent stem, and as <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p3">§ 3. Appearance of
+tapering caused by frequent buds.</a></span>many of these drop off, leaving nothing
+but a small excrescence to record their existence, there is frequently a
+slight and delicate appearance of tapering bestowed on the trunk itself;
+while the same operation takes place much more extensively in the
+branches, it being natural to almost all trees to send out from their
+young limbs more wood than they can support, which, as the stem
+increases, gets contracted at the point of insertion, so as to check the
+flow of the sap, and then dies and drops off, leaving all along the
+bough, first on one side, then on another, a series of small
+excrescences, sufficient to account for a degree of tapering, which is
+yet so very slight, that if we select a portion of a branch with no real
+fork or living bough to divide it or diminish it, the tapering is
+scarcely to be detected by the eye; and if we select a portion <span class="pagenum"><a name="page386"></a>[Page
+386]</span> without such evidences of past ramification, there will be found
+none whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p>But nature takes great care and pains to conceal this uniformity in her
+boughs. They are perpetually parting with little <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p4">§ 4. And care of nature
+to conceal the parallelism.</a></span>sprays here and there, which steal away their
+substance cautiously, and where the eye does not perceive the theft,
+until, a little way above, it feels the loss; and in the upper parts of
+the tree, the ramifications take place so constantly and delicately,
+that the effect upon the eye is precisely the same as if the boughs
+actually tapered, except here and there, where some avaricious one,
+greedy of substance, runs on for two or three yards without parting with
+anything, and becomes ungraceful in so doing.</p>
+
+<p>Hence we see that although boughs may, and must be represented as
+actually tapering, they must only be so when they are <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p5">§ 5. The degree of
+tapering which may be represented as continuous.</a></span>sending off foliage and
+sprays, and when they are at such a distance that the particular forks
+and divisions cannot be evident to the eye; and farther, even in such
+circumstances the tapering never can be sudden or rapid. No bough ever,
+with appearance of smooth tapering, loses more than one tenth of its
+diameter in a length of ten diameters. Any greater diminution than this
+must be accounted for by visible ramification, and must take place by
+steps, at each fork.</p>
+
+<p>And therefore we see at once that the stem of Gaspar Poussin's tall
+tree, on the right of the La Riccia, in the National Gallery, is a
+painting of a carrot or a parsnip, not of the trunk of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p6">§ 6. The trees of
+Gaspar Poussin;</a></span>a tree. For, being so near that every individual leaf is
+visible, we should not have seen, in nature, one branch or stem actually
+tapering. We should have received an <i>impression</i> of graceful
+diminution; but we should have been able, on examination, to trace it
+joint by joint, fork by fork, into the thousand minor supports of the
+leaves. Gaspar Poussin's stem, on the contrary, only sends off four or
+five minor branches altogether, and both it and they taper violently,
+and without showing why or wherefore&mdash;without parting with a single
+twig&mdash;without showing one vestige of roughness or excrescence&mdash;and
+leaving, therefore, their unfortunate leaves to hold on as best they
+may. The latter, however, are clever <span class="pagenum"><a name="page387"></a>[Page 387]</span> leaves, and support
+themselves as swarming bees do, hanging on by each other.</p>
+
+<p>But even this piece of work is a jest to the perpetration of the bough
+at the left-hand upper corner of the picture opposite to it,&mdash;the View
+near Albano. This latter is a representation of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p7">§ 7. And of the Italian
+school generally, defy this law.</a></span>an ornamental group of elephants' tusks,
+with feathers tied to the ends of them. Not the wildest imagination
+could ever conjure up in it the remotest resemblance to the bough of a
+tree. It might be the claws of a witch&mdash;the talons of an eagle&mdash;the
+horns of a fiend; but it is a full assemblage of every conceivable
+falsehood which can be told respecting foliage&mdash;a piece of work so
+barbarous in every way, that one glance at it ought to prove the
+complete charlatanism and trickery of the whole system of the old
+landscape painters. For I will depart for once from my usual plan, of
+abstaining from all assertion of a thing's being beautiful or otherwise;
+I will say here, at once, that such drawing as this is as ugly as it is
+childish, and as painful as it is false; and that the man who could
+tolerate, much more, who could deliberately set down such a thing on his
+canvas, had neither eye nor feeling for one single attribute or
+excellence of God's works. He might have drawn the other stem in
+excusable ignorance, or under some false impression of being able to
+improve upon nature; but <i>this</i> is conclusive and unpardonable. Again,
+take the stem of the chief tree in Claude's Narcissus. It is a very
+faithful portrait of a large boa-constrictor, with a handsome tail; the
+kind of trunk which young ladies at fashionable boarding-schools
+represent with nosegays at the top of them, by way of forest scenery.</p>
+
+<p>Let us refresh ourselves for a moment, by looking at the truth. We need
+not go to Turner, we will go to the man who, next to him, is
+unquestionably the greatest master of foliage in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p8">§ 8. The truth, as it
+is given by J. D. Harding.</a></span>Europe&mdash;J. D. Harding. Take the trunk of the
+largest stone-pine, Plate 25, in the Park and the Forest. For the first
+nine or ten feet from the ground it does not lose one hairbreadth of its
+diameter. But the shoot, broken off just under the crossing part of the
+distant tree, is followed by an instant diminution of the trunk,
+perfectly appreciable both by the eye and the compasses. Again, the stem
+maintains undiminished thickness, up to the two shoots on the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page388"></a>[Page
+388]</span> left, from the loss of which it suffers again perceptibly. On the
+right, immediately above, is the stump of a very large bough, whose loss
+reduces the trunk suddenly to about two-thirds of what it was at the
+root. Diminished again, less considerably, by the minor branch close to
+this stump, it now retains its diameter up to the three branches, broken
+off just under the head, where it once more loses in diameter, and
+finally branches into the multitude of head-boughs, of which not one
+will be found tapering in any part, but losing themselves gradually by
+division among their offshoots and spray. This is nature, and beauty
+too.</p>
+
+<p>But the old masters are not satisfied with drawing carrots for boughs.
+Nature can be violated in more ways than one, and the industry with
+which they seek out and adopt every conceivable <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p9">§ 9. Boughs, in
+consequence of this law, <i>must</i> diminish where they divide. Those of the
+old masters often do not.</a></span>mode of contradicting her is matter of no small
+interest. It is evident, from what we have above stated of the structure
+of all trees, that as no boughs diminish where they do not fork, so they
+cannot fork without diminishing. It is impossible that the smallest
+shoot can be sent out of a bough without a diminution of the diameter
+above it; and wherever a branch goes off it must not only be less in
+diameter than the bough from which it springs, but the bough beyond the
+fork must be less by precisely the quantity of the branch it has sent
+off.<a name="FnAnchor_71" href="#Footnote_71"><sup>[71]</sup></a> Now observe the bough underneath the first bend of the great
+stem in Claude's Narcissus; it sends off four branches like the ribs of
+a leaf. The two lowest of these are both quite as thick as the parent
+stem, and the stem itself is much thicker after it has sent off the
+first one than it was before. The top boughs of the central tree, in the
+Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, ramify in the same scientific way.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page389"></a>[Page 389]</span></p>
+
+<p>But there are further conclusions to be drawn from this great principle
+in trees. As they only diminish where they divide, their increase of
+number is in precise proportion to their diminution <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p10">§ 10. Boughs must
+multiply as they diminish. Those of the old masters do not.</a></span>of size, so
+that whenever we come to the extremities of boughs, we must have a
+multitude of sprays sufficient to make up, if they were united, the bulk
+of that from which they spring. Where a bough divides into two equal
+ramifications, the diameter of each of the two is about two-thirds that
+of the single one, and the sum of their diameters, therefore, one-fourth
+greater than the diameter of the single one. Hence, if no boughs died or
+were lost, the quantity of wood in the sprays would appear one-fourth
+greater than would be necessary to make up the thickness of the trunk.
+But the lost boughs remove the excess, and therefore, speaking broadly,
+the diameters of the outer boughs put together would generally just make
+up the diameter of the trunk. Precision in representing this is neither
+desirable nor possible. All that is required is just so much observance
+of the general principle as may make the eye feel satisfied that there
+is something like the same quantity of wood in the sprays which there is
+in the stem. But to do this, there must be, what there always is in
+nature, an exceeding complexity of the outer sprays. This complexity
+gradually increases towards their extremities, of course exactly in
+proportion to the slenderness of the twigs. The slenderer they become,
+the more there are of them, until at last, at the extremities of the
+tree, they form a mass of intricacy, which in winter, when it can be
+seen, is scarcely distinguishable from fine herbage, and is beyond all
+power of definite representation; it can only be expressed by a mass of
+involved strokes. Also, as they shoot out in every direction, some are
+nearer, some more distant; some distinct, some faint; and their
+intersections and relations of distance are marked with the most
+exquisite gradations of aerial perspective. Now it will be found
+universally in the works of Claude, Gaspar, and Salvator, that the
+boughs do <i>not</i> get in the least complex or multiplied towards the
+extremities&mdash;that each large limb forks only into two or three smaller
+ones, each of which vanishes into the air without any cause or reason
+for such unaccountable conduct&mdash;unless that the mass of leaves
+transfixed upon it or tied to it, entirely dependent <span class="pagenum"><a name="page390"></a>[Page 390]</span> on its
+single strength, have been too much, as well they may be, for its powers
+of solitary endurance. This total ignorance of tree structure is shown
+throughout their works. The Sinon before Priam is an instance of it in a
+really fine work of Claude's, but the most gross examples are in the
+works of Salvator. It <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p11">§ 11. Bough-drawing of Salvator.</a></span>appears that this
+latter artist was hardly in the habit of studying from nature at all
+after his boyish ramble among the Calabrian hills; and I do not
+recollect any instance of a piece of his bough-drawing which is not
+palpably and demonstrably a made-up phantasm of the studio, the proof
+derivable from this illegitimate tapering being one of the most
+convincing. The painter is always visibly embarrassed to reduce the
+thick boughs to spray, and <i>feeling</i> (for Salvator naturally had acute
+feeling for truth) that the bough was wrong when it tapered suddenly, he
+accomplishes its diminution by an impossible protraction; throwing out
+shoot after shoot until his branches straggle all across the picture,
+and at last disappear unwillingly where there is no room for them to
+stretch any farther. The consequence is, that whatever leaves are put
+upon such boughs have evidently no adequate support, their power of
+leverage is enough to uproot the tree; or if the boughs are left bare,
+they have the look of the long tentacula of some complicated marine
+monster, or of the waving endless threads of bunchy sea-weed, instead of
+the firm, upholding, braced, and bending grace of natural boughs. I
+grant that this is in a measure done by Salvator from a love of
+ghastliness, and that in certain scenes it is in a sort allowable; but
+it is in a far greater degree done from pure ignorance of tree
+structure, as is sufficiently proved by the landscape of the Pitti
+palace, Peace burning the arms of War; where the spirit of the scene is
+intended to be quite other than ghastly, and yet the tree branches show
+the usual errors in an extraordinary degree; every one of their
+arrangements is impossible, and the trunk of the tree could not for a
+moment support the foliage it is loaded with. So also in the pictures of
+the Guadagni palace. And even where the skeleton look of branches is
+justifiable or desirable, there is no occasion for any violation of
+natural laws. I have seen more spectral character in the real limbs of a
+blasted oak, than ever in Salvator's best monstrosities; more horror is
+to be obtained by right combination <span class="pagenum"><a name="page391"></a>[Page 391]</span> of inventive line, than
+by drawing tree branches as if they were wing-bones of a pterodactyle.
+All departure from natural forms to give fearfulness is mere Germanism;
+it is the work of fancy, not of imagination,<a name="FnAnchor_72" href="#Footnote_72"><sup>[72]</sup></a> and instantly degrades
+whatever it affects to third-rate level. There is nothing more marked in
+truly great men, than their power of being dreadful without being false
+or licentious. In Tintoret's Murder of Abel, the head of the sacrificed
+firstling lies in the corner of the foreground, obscurely sketched in,
+and with the light gleaming upon its glazed eyes. There is nothing
+exaggerated about the head, but there is more horror got out of it, and
+more of death suggested by its treatment, than if he had turned all the
+trees of his picture into skeletons, and raised a host of demons to
+drive the club.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious that in Salvator's sketches or etchings there is less that
+is wrong than in his paintings,&mdash;there seems a fresher remembrance of
+nature about them. Not so with Claude. It is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p12">§ 12. All these errors
+especially shown in Claude's sketches and concentrated in a work of G.
+Poussin's.</a></span>only by looking over his sketches, in the British Museum, that
+a complete and just idea is to be formed of his capacities of error; for
+the feeling and arrangement of many of them are those of an advanced
+age, so that we can scarcely set them down for what they resemble&mdash;the
+work of a boy ten years old; and the drawing being seen without any aids
+of tone or color to set it off, shows in its naked falsehood. The windy
+landscape of Poussin, opposite the Dido and Ęneas, in the National
+Gallery, presents us, in the foreground tree, with a piece of atrocity
+which I think, to any person who candidly considers it, may save me all
+farther trouble of demonstrating the errors of ancient art. I do not in
+the least suspect the picture: the tones of it, and much of the
+handling, are masterly; yet that foreground tree comprises every
+conceivable violation of truth which the human hand can commit, or head
+invent, in drawing a tree&mdash;except only, that it is not drawn root
+uppermost. It has no bark, no roughness nor character of stem; its
+boughs do not grow out of each other, but are stuck into each other;
+they ramify without diminishing, diminish without ramifying, are
+terminated by no <span class="pagenum"><a name="page392"></a>[Page 392]</span> complicated sprays, have their leaves tied
+to their ends, like the heads of Dutch brooms; and finally, and chiefly,
+they are evidently not made of wood, but of some soft elastic substance,
+which the wind can stretch out as it pleases, for there is not a vestige
+of an angle in any one of them. Now, the fiercest wind <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p13">§ 13.
+Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them by
+wind.</a></span>that ever blew upon the earth, could not take the angles out of the
+bough of a tree an inch thick. The whole bough bends together, retaining
+its elbows, and angles, and natural form, but affected throughout with
+curvature in each of its parts and joints. That part of it which was
+before perpendicular being bent aside, and that which was before
+sloping, being bent into still greater inclination, the angle at which
+the two parts meet remains the same; or if the strain be put in the
+opposite direction, the bough will break long before it loses its angle.
+You will find it difficult to bend the angles out of the youngest
+sapling, if they be marked; and absolutely impossible, with a strong
+bough. You may break it, but you will not destroy its angles. And if you
+watch a tree in the wildest storm, you will find that though all its
+boughs are bending, none lose their character but the utmost shoots and
+sapling spray. Hence Gaspar Poussin, by his bad drawing, does not make
+his storm strong, but his tree weak; he does not make his gust violent,
+but his boughs of India-rubber.</p>
+
+<p>These laws respecting vegetation are so far more imperative than those
+which were stated respecting water, that the greatest artist cannot
+violate them without danger, because they are laws <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p14">§ 14. Bough-drawing
+of Titian.</a></span>resulting from organic structure, which it is always painful
+to see interrupted; on the other hand, they have this in common with all
+laws, that they may be observed with mathematical precision, yet with no
+grateful result; the disciplined eye and the life in the woods are worth
+more than all botanical knowledge. For there is that about the growing
+of the tree trunk, and that grace in its upper ramification which cannot
+be taught, and which cannot even be seen but by eager watchfulness.
+There is not an Exhibition passes, but there appear in it hundreds of
+elaborate paintings of trees, many of them executed from nature. For
+three hundred years back, trees have been drawn with affection by all
+the civilized nations of Europe, and yet I repeat boldly, what I before
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393"></a>[Page 393]</span> asserted, that no men but Titian and Turner ever drew the
+stem of a tree.</p>
+
+<p>Generally, I think, the perception of the muscular qualities of the tree
+trunk incomplete, except in men who have studied the human figure, and
+in loose expression of those characters, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p"></a></span>the painter who can draw the
+living muscle seldom fails; but the thoroughly peculiar lines belonging
+to woody fibre, can only be learned by patient forest study; and hence
+in all the trees of the merely historical painters, there is fault of
+some kind or another, commonly exaggeration of the muscular swellings,
+or insipidity and want of spring in curvature, or fantasticism and
+unnaturalness of arrangement, and especially a want of the peculiar
+characters of bark which express the growth and age of the tree; for
+bark is no mere excrescence, lifeless and external&mdash;it is a skin of
+especial significance in its indications of the organic form beneath; in
+places under the arms of the tree it wrinkles up and forms fine lines
+<i>round</i> the trunk, inestimable in their indication of the direction of
+its surface; in others, it bursts or peels longitudinally, and the
+rending and bursting of it are influenced in direction and degree by the
+under-growth and swelling of the woody fibre, and are not a mere
+roughness and granulated pattern of the hide. Where there are so many
+points to be observed, some are almost always exaggerated, and others
+missed, according to the predilections of the painter. Rembrandt and
+Albert Durer have given some splendid examples of woody texture, but
+both miss the grace of the great lines. Titian took a larger view and
+reached a higher truth, yet (as before noticed) from the habit of
+drawing the figure, he admits too much flaccidity and bend, and
+sometimes makes his tree trunks look flexible like sea-weed. There is a
+peculiar stiffness and spring about the curves of the wood, which
+separates them completely from animal curves, and which especially
+defies recollection or invention; it is so subtile that it escapes but
+too often, even in the most patient study from nature; it lies within
+the thickness of a pencil line. Farther, the modes of ramification of
+the upper branches are so varied, inventive, and graceful, that the
+least alteration of them, even in the measure of a hairbreadth, spoils
+them; and though it is sometimes possible to get rid of a troublesome
+bough, accidentally awkward, or in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page394"></a>[Page 394]</span> some minor respects to
+assist the arrangement, yet so far as the real branches are copied, the
+hand libels their lovely curvatures even in its best attempts to follow
+them.</p>
+
+<p>These two characters, the woody stiffness hinted through muscular line,
+and the inventive grace of the upper boughs, have never been rendered
+except by Turner; he does not merely <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p15">§ 15. Bough-drawing of Turner.</a></span>draw
+them better than others, but he is the only man who has ever drawn them
+at all. Of the woody character, the tree subjects of the Liber Studiorum
+afford marked examples; the Cephalus and Procris, scenes near the Grand
+Chartreuse and Blair Athol, Juvenile Tricks, and Hedging and Ditching,
+may be particularized; in the England series, the Bolton Abbey is
+perhaps a more characteristic and thoroughly Turneresque example than
+any.</p>
+
+<p>Of the arrangement of the upper boughs, the Ęsacus and Hesperie is
+perhaps the most consummate example, the absolute truth and simplicity
+and freedom from anything like fantasticism or animal form being as
+marked on the one hand, as the exquisite imaginativeness of the lines on
+the other: among the Yorkshire subjects the Aske Hall, Kirby Lonsdale
+Churchyard, and Brignall Church are most characteristic: among the
+England subjects the Warwick, Dartmouth Cove, Durham, and Chain Bridge
+over the Tees, where the piece of thicket on the right has been well
+rendered by the engraver, and is peculiarly expressive of the aerial
+relations and play of light among complex boughs. The vignette at the
+opening of Rogers's Pleasures of Memory, that of Chiefswood Cottage in
+the Illustrations to Scott's Works, and the Chateau de la belle
+Gabrielle, engraved for the Keepsake, are among the most graceful
+examples accessible to every one; the Crossing the Brook will occur at
+once to those acquainted with the artist's gallery. The drawing of the
+stems in all these instances, and indeed in all the various and frequent
+minor occurrences of such subject throughout the painter's works is
+entirely unique, there is nothing of the same kind in art.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, however, pass to the leafage of the elder landscape <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p16">§ 16.
+Leafage. Its variety and symmetry.</a></span>painters, and see if it atones for the
+deficiencies of the stems. One of the most remarkable characters of
+natural leafage is the constancy with which, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page395"></a>[Page 395]</span> while the
+leaves are arranged on the spray with exquisite regularity, that
+regularity is modified in their actual effect. For as in every group of
+leaves some are seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some
+foreshortened, some crossing each other, every one differently turned
+and placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though in
+themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and differing forms
+in the group; and the shadows of some, passing over the others, still
+farther disguise and confuse the mass, until the eye can distinguish
+nothing but a graceful and flexible disorder of innumerable forms, with
+here and there a perfect leaf on the extremity, or a symmetrical
+association of one or two, just enough to mark the specific character
+and to give unity and grace, but never enough to repeat in one group
+what was done in another&mdash;never enough to prevent the eye from feeling
+that, however regular and mathematical may be the structure of parts,
+what is composed out of them is as various and infinite as any other
+part of nature. Nor does this take place in general effect only. Break
+off an elm bough, three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table
+before you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in
+the whole bough, (provided you do not twist it about as you work,) you
+find one form of a leaf exactly like another; perhaps you will not even
+have <i>one</i> complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or
+curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something
+or other the matter with it; and though the whole bough will look
+graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why
+it does so, since there is not one line of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p17">§ 17. Perfect regularity of
+Poussin.</a></span>it like another. Now go to Gaspar Poussin, and take one of his
+sprays where they come against the sky; you may count it all round, one,
+two, three, four, one bunch; five, six, seven, eight, two bunches; nine,
+ten, eleven, twelve, three bunches; with four leaves each,&mdash;and such
+leaves! every one precisely the same as its neighbor, blunt and round at
+the end, (where every forest leaf is sharp, except that of the
+fig-tree,) tied together by the roots, and so fastened on to the
+demoniacal claws above described, one bunch to each claw.</p>
+
+<p>But if nature is so various when you have a bough on the table before
+you, what must she be when she retires from you, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p18">§ 18. Exceeding
+intricacy of nature's foliage.</a></span>and gives you her whole mass and
+multitude? The leaves then <span class="pagenum"><a name="page396"></a>[Page 396]</span> at the extremities become as fine
+as dust, a mere confusion of points and lines between you and the sky, a
+confusion which you might as well hope to draw sea-sand particle by
+particle, as to imitate leaf for leaf. This, as it comes down into the
+body of the tree, gets closer, but never opaque; it is always
+transparent, with crumbling lights in it letting you through to the sky;
+then, out of this, come, heavier and heavier, the masses of illumined
+foliage, all dazzling and inextricable, save here and there a single
+leaf on the extremities; then, under these, you get deep passages of
+broken, irregular gloom, passing into transparent, green-lighted, misty
+hollows; the twisted stems glancing through them in their pale and
+entangled infinity, and the shafted sunbeams, rained from above, running
+along the lustrous leaves for an instant; then lost, then caught again
+on some emerald bank or knotted root, to be sent up again with a faint
+reflex on the white under-sides of dim groups of drooping foliage, the
+shadows of the upper boughs running in gray network down the glossy
+stems, and resting in quiet checkers upon the glittering earth; but all
+penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and
+incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and the mystery of
+the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to us, some
+solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the
+type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and imagine, but can
+never see.</p>
+
+<p>Now, with thus much of nature in your mind, go to Gaspar Poussin's View
+near Albano, in the National Gallery. It is the very subject to unite
+all these effects,&mdash;a sloping bank shaded <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p19">§ 19. How contradicted by the
+tree-patterns of G. Poussin.</a></span>with intertwined forest;&mdash;and what has
+Gaspar given us? A mass of smooth, opaque, varnished brown, without one
+interstice, one change of hue, or any vestige of leafy structure in its
+interior, or in those parts of it, I should say, which are intended to
+represent interior; but out of it, over it rather, at regular intervals,
+we have circular groups of greenish touches, always the same in size,
+shape, and distance from each other, containing so exactly the same
+number of touches each, that you cannot tell one from another. There are
+eight or nine and thirty of them, laid over each other like fish-scales;
+the shade being most carefully made darker and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page397"></a>[Page 397]</span> darker as it
+recedes from each until it comes to the edge of the next, against which
+it cuts in the same sharp circular line, and then begins to decline
+again, until the canvas is covered, with about as much intelligence or
+feeling of art as a house-painter has in marbling a wainscot, or a
+weaver in repeating an ornamental pattern. What is there in this, which
+the most determined prejudice in favor of the old masters can for a
+moment suppose to resemble trees? It is exactly what the most ignorant
+beginner, trying to make a complete drawing, would lay down,&mdash;exactly
+the conception of trees which we have in the works of our worst
+drawing-masters, where the shade is laid on with the black-lead and
+stump, and every human power exerted to make it look like a
+kitchen-grate well polished.</p>
+
+<p>Oppose to this the drawing even of our somewhat inferior tree-painters.
+I will not insult Harding by mentioning his work after it, but take
+Creswick, for instance, and match one of his sparkling <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p20">§ 20. How
+followed by Creswick.</a></span>bits of green leafage with this tree-pattern of
+Poussin's. I do not say there is not a dignity and impressiveness about
+the old landscape, owing to its simplicity; and I am very far from
+calling Creswick's good tree-painting; it is false in color and
+deficient in mass and freedom, and has many other defects, but it is the
+work of a man who has sought earnestly for truth; and who, with one
+thought or memory of nature in his heart, could look at the two
+landscapes, and receive Poussin's with ordinary patience? Take Creswick
+in black and white, where he is unembarrassed by his fondness for
+pea-green, the illustrations, for instance, to the Nut-brown Maid, in
+the Book of English Ballads. Look at the intricacy and fulness of the
+dark oak foliage where it bends over the brook, see how you can go
+through it, and into it, and come out behind it to the quiet bit of sky.
+Observe the gray, aerial transparency of the stunted copse on the left,
+and the entangling of the boughs where the light near foliage detaches
+itself. Above all, note the forms of the masses of light. Not things
+like scales or shells, sharp at the edge and flat in the middle, but
+irregular and rounded, stealing in and out accidentally from the shadow,
+and presenting, as the masses of all trees do, in general outline, a
+resemblance to the specific forms of the leaves of which they are
+composed. Turn over the page, and look into <span class="pagenum"><a name="page398"></a>[Page 398]</span> the weaving of
+the foliage and sprays against the dark night-sky, how near they are,
+yet how untraceable; see how the moonlight creeps up underneath them,
+trembling and shivering on the silver boughs above; note also, the
+descending bit of ivy on the left, of which only two leaves are made
+out, and the rest is confusion, or tells only in the moonlight like
+faint flakes of snow.</p>
+
+<p>But nature observes another principle in her foliage more important even
+than its intricacy. She always secures an exceeding harmony and repose.
+She is <i>so</i> intricate that her <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p21">§ 21. Perfect unity in nature's
+foliage.</a></span>minuteness of parts becomes to the eye, at a little distance,
+one united veil or cloud of leaves, to destroy the evenness of which is
+perhaps a greater fault than to destroy its transparency. Look at
+Creswick's oak again, in its dark parts. Intricate as it is, all is
+blended into a cloud-like harmony of shade, which becomes fainter and
+fainter, as it retires, with the most delicate flatness and unity of
+tone. And it is by this kind of vaporescence, so to speak, by this flat,
+misty, unison of parts, that nature, and her faithful followers, are
+enabled to keep the eye in perfect repose in the midst of profusion, and
+to display beauty of form, wherever they choose, to the greatest
+possible advantage, by throwing it across some quiet, visionary passage
+of dimness and rest.</p>
+
+<p>It is here that Hobbima and Both fail. They can paint oak leafage
+faithfully, but do not know where to stop, and by doing too much, lose
+the truth of all,&mdash;lose the very truth of detail at <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p22">§ 22. Total want of
+it in Both and Hobbima.</a></span>which they aim, for all their minute work only
+gives two leaves to nature's twenty. They are evidently incapable of
+even thinking of a tree, much more of drawing it, except leaf by leaf;
+they have no notion nor sense of simplicity, mass, or obscurity, and
+when they come to distance, where it is totally impossible that leaves
+should be separately seen, yet, being incapable of conceiving or
+rendering the grand and quiet forms of truth, they are reduced to paint
+their bushes with dots and touches expressive of leaves three feet broad
+each. Nevertheless there is a genuine aim in their works, and their
+failure is rather to be attributed to ignorance of art, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page399"></a>[Page 399]</span> than
+to such want of sense for nature as we find in Claude or Poussin; and
+when they come close home, we sometimes receive from them fine passages
+of mechanical truth.</p>
+
+<p>But let us oppose to their works the group of trees on the left in
+Turner's Marly.<a name="FnAnchor_73" href="#Footnote_73"><sup>[73]</sup></a> We have there perfect and ceaseless intricacy <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p23">§ 23.
+How rendered by Turner.</a></span>to oppose to Poussin,&mdash;perfect and unbroken
+repose to oppose to Hobbima; and in the unity of these the perfection of
+truth. This group may be taken as a fair standard of Turner's
+tree-painting. We have in it the admirably drawn stems, instead of the
+claws or the serpents; full, transparent, boundless intricacy, instead
+of the shell pattern; and misty depth of intermingled light and leafage,
+instead of perpetual repetition of one mechanical touch.</p>
+
+<p>I have already spoken (Section II. Chapter IV. § 15,) of the way in
+which mystery and intricacy are carried even into the nearest leaves of
+the foreground, and noticed the want of such <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p24">§ 24. The near leafage of
+Claude. His middle distances are good.</a></span>intricacy even in the best works
+of the old masters. Claude's are particularly deficient, for by
+representing every particular leaf of them, or trying to do so, he makes
+nature finite, and even his nearest bits of leafage are utterly false,
+for they have neither shadows modifying their form, (compare Section II.
+Chapter III. § 7,) nor sparkling lights, nor confused intersections of
+their own forms and lines; and the perpetual repetition of the same
+shape of leaves and the same arrangement, relieved from a black ground,
+is more like an ornamental pattern for dress than the painting of a
+foreground. Nevertheless, the foliage of Claude, in his middle
+distances, is the finest and truest part of his pictures, and, on the
+whole, affords the best example of good drawing to be found in ancient
+art. It is always false in color, and has not boughs enough amongst it,
+and the stems commonly look a great deal nearer than any part of it, but
+it is still graceful, flexible, abundant, intricate; and, in all but
+color and connection with stems, very nearly right. Of the perfect
+painting of thick, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page400"></a>[Page 400]</span> leafy foreground, Turner's Mercury and
+Argus, and Oakhampton, are the standards.<a name="FnAnchor_74" href="#Footnote_74"><sup>[74]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The last and most important truth to be observed respecting trees, is
+that their boughs always, in finely grown individuals, bear among
+themselves such a ratio of length as to describe with <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p25">§ 25. Universal
+termination of trees in symmetrical curves.</a></span>their extremities a
+symmetrical curve, constant for each species; and within this curve all
+the irregularities, segments, and divisions of the tree are included,
+each bough reaching the limit with its extremity, but not passing it.
+When a tree is perfectly grown, each bough starts from the trunk with
+just so much wood as, allowing for constant ramification, will enable it
+to reach the terminal line; or if by mistake, it start with too little,
+it will proceed without ramifying till within a distance where it may
+safely divide; if on the contrary it start with too much, it will ramify
+quickly and constantly; or, to express the real operation more
+accurately, each bough, growing on so as to keep even with its
+neighbors, takes so much wood from the trunk as is sufficient to enable
+it to do so, more or less in proportion as it ramifies fast <span class="pagenum"><a name="page401"></a>[Page 401]</span>
+or slowly. In badly grown trees, the boughs are apt to fall short of the
+curve, or at least, there are so many jags and openings that its
+symmetry is interrupted; and in young trees, the impatience of the upper
+shoots frequently breaks the line; but in perfect and mature trees,
+every bough does its duty completely, and the line of curve is quite
+filled up, and the mass within it unbroken, so that the tree assumes the
+shape of a dome, as in the oak, or, in tall trees, of a pear, with the
+stalk downmost. The old masters paid no attention whatsoever to <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p26">§ 26.
+Altogether unobserved by the old masters. Always given by Turner.</a></span>this
+great principle. They swing their boughs about, anywhere and everywhere;
+each stops or goes on just as it likes, nor will it be possible, in any
+of their works, to find a single example in which any symmetrical curve
+is indicated by the extremities.<a name="FnAnchor_75" href="#Footnote_75"><sup>[75]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>But I need scarcely tell any one in the slightest degree acquainted with
+the works of Turner, how rigidly and constantly he adheres to this
+principle of nature; taking in his highest compositions the perfect
+ideal form, every spray being graceful and varied in itself, but
+inevitably terminating at the assigned limit, and filling up the curve
+without break or gap; in his lower works, taking less perfect form, but
+invariably hinting the constant tendency in all, and thus, in spite of
+his abundant complexity, he arranges his trees under simpler and grander
+forms than any other artist, even among the moderns.</p>
+
+<p>It was above asserted that J. D. Harding is, after Turner, the greatest
+master of foliage in Europe; I ought, however, to state that my
+knowledge of the modern landscape of Germany is very <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p27">§ 27. Foliage
+painting on the Continent.</a></span>limited, and that, even with respect to France
+and Italy, I judge rather from the general tendency of study and
+character of mind visible in the annual <span class="pagenum"><a name="page402"></a>[Page 402]</span> Exhibition of the
+Louvre, and in some galleries of modern paintings at Milan, Venice, and
+Florence, than from any detailed acquaintance with the works of their
+celebrated painters. Yet I think I can hardly be mistaken. I have seen
+nothing to induce me to take a closer survey; no life knowledge or
+emotion in any quarter; nothing but the meanest and most ignorant
+copyism of vulgar details, coupled with a style of conception resembling
+that of the various lithographic ideals on the first leaves of the music
+of pastoral ballads. An exception ought, however, to be made in favor of
+French etching; some studies in black and white may be seen in the
+narrow passages of the Louvre of very high merit, showing great skill
+and delicacy of execution, and most determined industry; (in fact, I
+think when the French artist fails, it is never through fear of labor;)
+nay, more than this, some of them exhibit acute perception of landscape
+character and great power of reaching simple impressions of gloom,
+wildness, sound, and motion. Some of their illustrated works also
+exhibit these powers in a high degree; there is a spirit, fire, and
+sense of reality about some of the wood-cuts to the large edition of
+Paul and Virginia, and a determined rendering of separate feeling in
+each, such as we look for in vain in our own ornamental works.<a name="FnAnchor_76" href="#Footnote_76"><sup>[76]</sup></a> But
+the French appear to have no teaching such as might carry them beyond
+this; their entire ignorance of color renders the assumption of the
+brush instantly fatal, and the false, forced, and impious sentiment of
+the nation renders anything like grand composition altogether
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore only among good artists of our own school that I think
+any fair comparison can be instituted, and I wish to assert Harding's
+knowledge of foliage more distinctly, because <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p28">§ 28. Foliage of J. D.
+Harding. Its deficiencies.</a></span>he neither does justice to himself, nor is, I
+think, rightly estimated by his fellow-artists. I shall not make any
+invidious remarks respecting individuals, but I think it necessary to
+state generally, that the style of foliage painting chiefly
+characteristic of the pictures on the line of the Royal Academy is of
+the most degraded kind;<a name="FnAnchor_77" href="#Footnote_77"><sup>[77]</sup></a> <span class="pagenum"><a name="page403"></a>[Page 403]</span> and that, except Turner and
+Mulready, we have, as far as I know, no Royal Academician capable of
+painting even the smallest portion of foliage in a dignified or correct
+manner; all is lost in green shadows with glittering yellow lights,
+white trunks with black patches on them, and leaves of no species in
+particular. Much laborious and clever foliage drawing is to be found in
+the rooms of the New Water-Color Society; but we have no one in any wise
+comparable to Harding for thorough knowledge of the subject, for power
+of expression in a sketch from nature, or for natural and unaffected
+conception in the study.</p>
+
+<p>Maintaining for him this high position, it is necessary that I should
+also state those deficiencies which appear to me to conceal his real
+power, and in no small degree to prevent his progress.</p>
+
+<p>His over-fondness for brilliant execution I have already noticed. He is
+fonder of seeing something tolerably like a tree produced with few
+touches, than something very like a tree produced <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p29">§ 29. His brilliancy
+of execution too manifest.</a></span>with many. Now, it is quite allowable that
+occasionally, and in portions of his picture, a great artist should
+indulge himself in this luxury of sketching, yet it is a perilous
+luxury; it blunts the feeling and weakens the hand. I have said enough
+in various places respecting the virtues of negligence and of finish,
+(compare above the chapter on Ideas of Power in Part I. Sect. II., and
+Part III. Sect. I. Ch. X. § 4,) and I need only say here, therefore,
+that Harding's foliage is never sufficiently finished, and has at its
+best the look of a rapid sketch from nature touched upon at home. In
+1843, (I think,) there was a pretty drawing in the rooms of the
+Water-Color Society,&mdash;the clear green water of a torrent resting among
+stones, with copse-like wood on each side, a bridge in the distance, a
+white flower (water-lily?) catching the eye in front; the tops of the
+trees on the left of this picture were mere broad blots of color dashed
+upon the sky and connected by stems. I allow the power necessary to
+attain any look of foliage by such means, but it is power abused: by no
+such means can any of the higher virtue and impressiveness of foliage be
+rendered. In the use of body color for near leaves, his execution <span class="pagenum"><a name="page404"></a>[Page
+404]</span> is also too hasty; often the touches are mere square or round dots,
+which can be understood only for foliage by their arrangement. This
+fault was especially marked in the trees of his picture painted for the
+Academy two years ago; they were very nearly shapeless, and could not
+stand even in courtesy for walnut leaves, for which judging by the make
+of the tree, they must have been intended.</p>
+
+<p>His drawing of boughs is, in all points of demonstrable law, right, and
+very frequently easy and graceful also; yet it has two eminent faults,
+the first, that the flow of the bough is sacrificed <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p30">§ 30. His
+bough-drawing and choice of form.</a></span>to its texture, the pencil checking
+itself and hesitating at dots, and stripes, and knots, instead of
+following the grand and unbroken tendency of growth: the second, that
+however good the arrangement may be as far as regards merely
+flexibility, intricacy, and freedom, there are none of those composed
+groups of line which are unfailing in nature. Harding's work is not
+grand enough to be natural. The drawings in the park and the forest,
+are, I believe, almost facsimiles of sketches made from nature; yet it
+is evident at once that in all of them nothing but the general lie and
+disposition of the boughs has been taken from the tree, and that no
+single branch or spray has been faithfully copied or patiently studied.</p>
+
+<p>This want of close study necessarily causes several deficiencies of
+feeling respecting general form. Harding's choice is always of tree
+forms comparatively imperfect, leaning this way and that, and unequal in
+the lateral arrangements of foliage. Such forms are often graceful,
+always picturesque, but rarely grand; and when systematically adopted,
+untrue. It requires more patient study to attain just feeling of the
+dignity and character of a purely formed tree with all its symmetries
+perfect.</p>
+
+<p>One more cause of incorrectness I may note, though it is not peculiar to
+the artist's tree-drawing, but attaches to his general system of
+sketching. In Harding's valuable work on the use of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p31">§ 31. Local color,
+how far expressible in black and white, and with what advantage.</a></span>the Lead
+Pencil, there is one principle advanced which I believe to be false and
+dangerous, that the local color of objects is not thereby to be
+rendered. I think the instance given is that of some baskets, whose
+darkness is occasioned solely by the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page405"></a>[Page 405]</span> touches indicating the
+wicker-work. Now, I believe, that an essential difference between the
+sketch of a great and of a comparatively inferior master is, that the
+former is conceived entirely in shade and color, and its masses are
+blocked out with reference to both, while the inferior draughtsman
+checks at textures and petty characters of object. If Rembrandt had had
+to sketch such baskets, he would have troubled himself very little about
+the wicker-work; but he would have looked to see where they came dark or
+light on the sand, and where there were any sparkling points of light on
+the wet osiers. These darks and lights he would have scratched in with
+the fastest lines he could, leaving no white paper but at the wet points
+of lustre; if he had had time, the wicker-work would have come
+afterwards.<a name="FnAnchor_78" href="#Footnote_78"><sup>[78]</sup></a> And I think, that the first thing to be taught to any
+pupil, is neither how to manage the pencil, nor how to attain character
+of outline, but rather to see where things are light and where they are
+dark, and to draw them as he sees them, never caring whether his lines
+be dexterous or slovenly. The result of such study is the immediate
+substitution of downright drawing for symbolism, and afterwards a
+judicious moderation in the use of extreme lights and darks; for where
+local colors are really drawn, so much of what seems violently dark is
+found to come light against something else, and so much of what seems
+high light to come dark against the sky, that the draughtsman trembles
+at finding himself plunged either into blackness or whiteness, and
+seeks, as he should, for means of obtaining force without either.</p>
+
+<p>It is in consequence of his evident habit of sketching more with a view
+to detail and character than to the great masses, that Harding's
+chiaroscuro is frequently crude, scattered, and petty. Black shadows
+occur under his distant trees, white high lights on his foreground
+rocks, the foliage and trunks are divided by violent oppositions into
+separate masses, and the branches <span class="pagenum"><a name="page406"></a>[Page 406]</span> lose in spots of moss and
+furrowings of bark their soft roundings of delicate form, and their
+grand relations to each other and the sky.</p>
+
+<p>It is owing to my respect for the artist, and my belief in his power and
+conscientious desire to do what is best, that I have thus extended these
+somewhat unkind remarks. On the other <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p32">§ 32. Opposition between great
+manner and great knowledge.</a></span>hand, it is to be remembered, that his
+knowledge of nature is most extended, and his dexterity of drawing most
+instructive, especially considering his range of subject; for whether in
+water, rock, or foliage, he is equally skilful in attaining whatever he
+desires, (though he does not always desire all that he ought;) and
+artists should keep in mind, that neither grandeur of manner nor truth
+of system can atone for the want of this knowledge and this skill.
+Constable's manner is good and great, but being unable to draw even a
+log of wood, much more a trunk of a tree or a stone, he left his works
+destitute of substance, mere studies of effect without any expression of
+specific knowledge; and thus even what is great in them has been
+productive, I believe, of very great injury in its encouragement of the
+most superficial qualities of the English school.</p>
+
+<p>The foliage of David Cox has been already noticed (preface to second
+edition.) It is altogether exquisite in color, and in its impressions of
+coolness, shade, and mass; of its drawing I cannot <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p33">§ 33. Foliage of Cox,
+Fielding, and Cattermole.</a></span>say anything, but that I should be sorry to see
+it better. Copley Fielding's is remarkable for its intricacy and
+elegance; it is, however, not free from affectation, and, as has been
+before remarked, is always evidently composed in the study. The
+execution is too rough and woolly; it is wanting in simplicity,
+sharpness, and freshness,&mdash;above all in specific character: not,
+however, in his middle distances, where the rounded masses of forest and
+detached blasted trunks of fir are usually very admirable. Cattermole
+has very grand conceptions of general form, but wild and without
+substance, and therefore incapable of long maintaining their
+attractiveness, especially lately, the execution having become in the
+last degree coarse and affected. This is bitterly to be regretted, for
+few of our artists would paint foliage better, if he would paint it from
+nature, and with reverence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page407"></a>[Page 407]</span></p>
+
+<p>Hunt, I think, fails, and fails only, in foliage; fails, as the
+Daguerreotype does, from over-fidelity; for foliage will <i>not</i> be
+imitated, it must be reasoned out and suggested; yet Hunt is <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p34">§ 34. Hunt
+and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of light, and
+offensive if otherwise.</a></span>the only man we have who can paint the real leaf
+green under sunlight, and, in this respect, his trees are
+delicious,&mdash;summer itself. Creswick has sweet feeling, and tries for the
+real green too, but, from want of science in his shadows, ends in green
+paint instead of green light; in mere local color, instead of color
+raised by sunshine. One example is enough to show where the fault lies.
+In his picture of the Weald of Kent, in the British Institution this
+year, there was a cottage in the middle distance with white walls, and a
+red roof. The dark sides of the white walls and of the roof were of the
+same color, a dark purple&mdash;wrong for both. Repeated inaccuracies of this
+kind necessarily deprive even the most brilliant color of all appearance
+of sunshine, and they are much to be deprecated in Creswick, as he is
+one of the very few artists who <i>do</i> draw from nature and try for
+nature. Some of his thickets and torrent-beds are most painfully
+studied, and yet he cannot draw a bough nor a stone. I suspect he is too
+much in the habit of studying only large views on the spot, and not of
+drawing small portions thoroughly. I trust it will be seen that these,
+as all other remarks that I have made throughout this volume on
+particular works, are not in depreciation of, or unthankfulness for,
+what the artist has done, but in the desire that he should do himself
+more justice and more honor. I have much pleasure in Creswick's works,
+and I am glad always to see them admired by others.</p>
+
+<p>I shall conclude this sketch of the foliage art of England, by mention
+of two artists, whom I believe to be representative of a considerable
+class, admirable in their reverence and patience <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c1p35">§ 35. Conclusion. Works
+of J. Linnell and S. Palmer.</a></span>of study, yet unappreciated by the public,
+because what they do is unrecommended by dexterities of handling. The
+forest studies of J. Linnell are peculiarly elaborate, and, in many
+points, most skilful; they fail perhaps of interest, owing to
+over-fulness of detail and a want of generalization in the effect; but
+even a little more of the Harding sharpness of touch would set off their
+sterling qualities, and make them felt. A less known artist, S. Palmer,
+lately <span class="pagenum"><a name="page408"></a>[Page 408]</span> admitted a member of the Old Water-Color Society, is
+deserving of the very highest place among faithful followers of nature.
+His studies of foreign foliage especially are beyond all praise for care
+and fulness. I have never seen a stone pine or a cypress drawn except by
+him; and his feeling is as pure and grand as his fidelity is exemplary.
+He has not, however, yet, I think, discovered what is necessary and
+unnecessary in a great picture; and his works, sent to the Society's
+rooms, have been most unfavorable examples of his power, and have been
+generally, as yet, in places where all that is best in them is out of
+sight. I look to him, nevertheless, unless he lose himself in
+over-reverence for certain conventionalisms of the elder schools, as one
+of the probable renovators and correctors of whatever is failing or
+erroneous in the practice of English art.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_71" href="#FnAnchor_71">[71]</a> It sometimes happens that a morbid direction of growth will cause
+an exception here and there to this rule, the bough swelling beyond its
+legitimate size; knots and excrescences, of course, sometimes interfere
+with the effect of diminution. I believe that in the laurel, when it
+grows large and old, singular instances may be found of thick upper
+boughs and over quantity of wood at the extremities. All these accidents
+or exceptions are felt as such by the eye. They may occasionally be used
+by the painter in savage or grotesque scenery, or as points of contrast,
+but are no excuse for his ever losing sight of the general law.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_72" href="#FnAnchor_72">[72]</a> Compare Part III. Sect. II. Chap. IV. § 6, 7.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_73" href="#FnAnchor_73">[73]</a> This group I have before noticed as singularly (but, I doubt not,
+accidentally, and in consequence of the love of the two great painters
+for the same grand forms) resembling that introduced by Tintoret in the
+background of his Cain and Abel.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_74" href="#FnAnchor_74">[74]</a> The above paragraphs I have left as originally written, because
+they are quite true as far as they reach; but like many other portions
+of this essay, they take in a very small portion of the truth. I shall
+not add to them at present, because I can explain my meaning better in
+our consideration of the laws of beauty; but the reader must bear in
+mind that what is above stated refers, <span class="correction"
+title="changed from thoughout">throughout</span>, to large masses of foliage
+seen under broad sunshine,&mdash;and it has especial reference to Turner's
+enormous scale of scene, and intense desire of light. In twilight, when
+tree-forms are seen against sky, other laws come into operation, as well
+as in subject of narrow limits and near foreground. It is, I think, to
+be regretted that Turner does not in his Academy pictures sometimes take
+more confined and gloomy subjects, like that grand one, near the
+Chartreuse, of the Liber Studiorum, wherein his magnificent power of
+elaborating close foliage might be developed; but, for the present, let
+the reader, with respect to what has been here said of close foliage,
+note the drawing of the leaves in that plate, in the Ęsacus and
+Hesperie, and the Cephalus, and the elaboration of the foregrounds in
+the Yorkshire drawings; let him compare what is said of Turner's foliage
+painting above in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. § 40, § 41, and of
+Titian's previously, as well as Part III. Sect. I. Chap. VIII., and
+Sect. II. Chap. IV. § 21. I shall hereafter endeavor to arrange the
+subject in a more systematic manner; but what additional observations I
+may have to make will none of them be in any wise more favorable to
+Gaspar, Salvator, or Hobbima, than the above paragraphs.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_75" href="#FnAnchor_75">[75]</a> Perhaps in some instances, this may be the case with the trees of
+Nicholas Poussin; but even with him the boughs only touch the line of
+limit with their central <i>points</i> of extremity, and are not <i>sectors</i> of
+the great curve&mdash;forming a part of it with expanded extremities, as in
+nature. Draw a few straight lines, from the centre to the circumference
+of a circle. The forms included between them are the forms of the
+individual boughs of a fine tree, with all their ramifications (only the
+external curve is not a circle, but more frequently two
+parabolas&mdash;which, I believe, it is in the oak&mdash;or an ellipse.) But each
+bough of the old masters is club-shaped, and broadest, not at the
+outside of the tree, but a little way towards its centre.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_76" href="#FnAnchor_76">[76]</a> On the other hand, nothing can be more exquisitely ridiculous than
+the French illustrations of a second or third-rate order, as those to
+the Harmonies of Lamartine.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_77" href="#FnAnchor_77">[77]</a> Of Stanfield's foliage I remember too little to enable me to form
+any definite judgment; it is a pity that he so much neglects this noble
+element of landscape.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_78" href="#FnAnchor_78">[78]</a> It is true that many of Rembrandt's etchings are merely in line,
+but it may be observed that the subject is universally <i>conceived</i> in
+light and shade, and that the lines are either merely guides in the
+arrangement, or an exquisite indication of the key-notes of shade, on
+which the after-system of it is to be based&mdash;portions of fragmentary
+finish, showing the completeness of the conception.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page409"></a>[Page 409]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>GENERAL REMARKS RESPECTING THE TRUTH OF TURNER.</h5>
+
+<p>We have now arrived at some general conception of the extent of Turner's
+knowledge, and the truth of his practice, by the deliberate examination
+of the characteristics of the four great <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p1">§ 1. No necessity of entering
+into discussion of architectural truth.</a></span>elements of landscape&mdash;sky,
+earth, water, and vegetation. I have not thought it necessary to devote
+a chapter to architecture, because enough has been said on this subject
+in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII.; and its general truths, which are those
+with which the landscape painter, as such, is chiefly concerned, require
+only a simple and straightforward application of those rules of which
+every other material object of a landscape has required a most difficult
+and complicated application. Turner's knowledge of perspective probably
+adds to his power in the arrangement of every order of subject; but
+ignorance on this head is rather disgraceful than knowledge meritorious.
+It is disgraceful, for instance, that any man should commit such
+palpable and atrocious errors in ordinary perspective as are seen in the
+quay in Claude's sea-piece, No. 14, National Gallery, or in the curved
+portico of No. 30; but still these are not points to be taken into
+consideration as having anything to do with artistical rank, just as,
+though we should say it was disgraceful if a great poet could not spell,
+we should not consider such a defect as in any way taking from his
+poetical rank. Neither is there anything particularly belonging to
+architecture, as such, which it is any credit to an artist to observe or
+represent; it is only a simple and clear field for the manifestation of
+his knowledge of general laws. Any surveyor or engineer could have drawn
+the steps and balustrade in the Hero and Leander, as well as Turner has;
+but there is no man living but himself who could have thrown the
+accidental shadows upon them. I may, however, refer for general
+illustration <span class="pagenum"><a name="page410"></a>[Page 410]</span> of Turner's power as an architectural
+draughtsman, to the front of Rouen Cathedral, engraved in the Rivers of
+France, and to the Ely in the England. I know nothing in art which can
+be set beside the former of these for overwhelming grandeur and
+simplicity of effect, and inexhaustible intricacy of parts. I have then
+only a few remarks farther to offer respecting the general character of
+all those truths which we have been hitherto endeavoring to explain and
+illustrate.</p>
+
+<p>The difference in the accuracy of the lines of the Torso of the Vatican,
+(the Maestro of M. Angelo,) from those in one of M. Angelo's finest
+works, could perhaps scarcely be appreciated <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p2">§ 2. Extreme difficulty of
+illustrating or explaining the highest truth.</a></span>by any eye or feeling
+undisciplined by the most perfect and practical anatomical knowledge. It
+rests on points of such traceless and refined delicacy, that though we
+feel them in the result, we cannot follow them in the details. Yet they
+are such and so great as to place the Torso alone in art, solitary and
+supreme; while the finest of M. Angelo's works, considered with respect
+to truth alone, are said to be only on a level with antiques of the
+second class, under the Apollo and Venus, that is, two classes or grades
+below the Torso. But suppose the best sculptor in the world, possessing
+the most entire appreciation of the excellence of the Torso, were to sit
+down, pen in hand, to try and tell us wherein the peculiar truth of each
+line consisted? Could any words that he could use make us feel the
+hairbreadth of depth and distance on which all depends? or end in
+anything more than bare assertions of the inferiority of this line to
+that, which, if we did not perceive for ourselves, no explanation could
+ever illustrate to us? He might as well endeavor to explain to us by
+words some taste or other subject of sense, of which we had no
+experience. And so it is with all truths of the highest order; they are
+separated from those of average precision by points of extreme delicacy,
+which none but the cultivated eye can in the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p3">§ 3. The <i>positive</i> rank of
+Turner is in no degree shown in the foregoing pages, but only his
+relative rank.</a></span>least feel, and to express which, all words are absolutely
+meaningless and useless. Consequently, in all that I have been saying of
+the truth of artists, I have been able to point out only coarse, broad,
+and explicable matters; I have been perfectly unable to express (and
+indeed I have made no endeavor to express) the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page411"></a>[Page 411]</span> finely drawn
+and distinguished truth in which all the real excellence of art
+consists. All those truths which I have been able to explain and
+demonstrate in Turner, are such as any artist of ordinary powers of
+observation ought to be capable of rendering. It is disgraceful to omit
+them; but it is no very great credit to observe them. I have indeed
+proved that they have been neglected, and disgracefully so, by those men
+who are commonly considered the Fathers of Art; but in showing that they
+have been observed by Turner, I have only proved him to be <i>above</i> other
+men in knowledge of truth, I have not given any conception of his own
+positive rank as a Painter of Nature. But it stands to reason, that the
+men, who in broad, simple, and demonstrable matters are perpetually
+violating truth, will not be particularly accurate or careful in
+carrying out delicate and refined, and undemonstrable matters; and it
+stands equally to reason, that the man who, as far as argument or
+demonstration can go, is found invariably truthful, will, in all
+probability, be truthful to the last line, and shadow of a line. And
+such is, indeed, the case with <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p4">§ 4. The exceeding refinement of his
+truth.</a></span>every touch of this consummate artist; the essential
+excellence&mdash;all that constitutes the real and exceeding value of his
+works&mdash;is beyond and above expression; it is a truth inherent in every
+line, and breathing in every hue, too delicate and exquisite to admit of
+any kind of proof, nor to be ascertained except by the highest of
+tests&mdash;the keen feeling attained by extended knowledge and long study.
+Two lines are laid on canvas; one is right and another wrong. There is
+no difference between them appreciable by the compasses&mdash;none
+appreciable by the ordinary eye&mdash;none which can be pointed out, if it is
+not seen. One person feels it,&mdash;another does not; but the feeling or
+sight of the one can by no words be communicated to the other: it would
+be unjust if it could, for <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p5">§ 5. There is nothing in his works which can
+be enjoyed without knowledge.</a></span>that feeling and sight have been the reward
+of years of labor. And there is, indeed, nothing in Turner&mdash;not one dot
+nor line&mdash;whose meaning can be understood without knowledge; because he
+never aims at sensual impressions, but at the deep final truth, which
+only meditation can discover, and only experience recognize. There is
+nothing done or omitted by him, which does not imply such a comparison
+of ends, such rejection of the least worthy, (as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page412"></a>[Page 412]</span> far as they
+are incompatible with the rest,) such careful selection and arrangement
+of all that can be united, as can only be enjoyed by minds capable of
+going through the same process, and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p6">§ 6. And nothing which knowledge
+will not enable us to enjoy.</a></span>discovering the reasons for the choice. And,
+as there is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without knowledge,
+so there is nothing in them which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy.
+There is no test of our acquaintance with nature so absolute and
+unfailing as the degree of admiration we feel for Turner's painting.
+Precisely as we are shallow in our knowledge, vulgar in our feeling, and
+contracted in our views of principles, will the works of this artist be
+stumbling-blocks or foolishness to us:&mdash;precisely in the degree in which
+we are familiar with nature, constant in our observation of her, and
+enlarged in our understanding of her, will they expand before our eyes
+into glory and beauty. In every new insight which we obtain into the
+works of God, in every new idea which we receive from His creation, we
+shall find ourselves possessed of an interpretation and a guide to
+something in Turner's works which we had not before understood. We may
+range over Europe, from shore to shore; and from every rock that we
+tread upon, every sky that passes over our heads, every local form of
+vegetation or of soil, we shall receive fresh illustration of his
+principles&mdash;fresh confirmation of his facts. We shall feel, wherever we
+go, that he has been there before us&mdash;whatever we see, that he has seen
+and seized before us: and we shall at last cease the investigation, with
+a well-grounded trust, that whatever we have been unable to account for,
+and what we still dislike in his works, has reason for it, and
+foundation like the rest; and that even where he has failed or erred,
+there is a beauty in the failure which none are able to equal, and a
+dignity in the error which none are worthy to reprove.</p>
+
+<p>There has been marked and constant progress in his mind; he has not,
+like some few artists, been without childhood; his course of study has
+been as evidently as it has been swiftly progressive, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p7">§ 7. His former
+rank and progress.</a></span>and in different stages of the struggle, sometimes one
+order of truth, sometimes another, has been aimed at or omitted. But
+from the beginning to the present height of his career, he has never
+sacrificed a <span class="pagenum"><a name="page413"></a>[Page 413]</span> greater truth to a less. As he advanced, the
+previous knowledge <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c2p8">§ 8. Standing of his present works. Their mystery is
+the consequence of their fullness.</a></span>or attainment was absorbed in what
+succeeded, or abandoned only if incompatible, and never abandoned
+without a gain; and his present works present the sum and perfection of
+his accumulated knowledge, delivered with the impatience and passion of
+one who feels too much, and knows too much, and has too little time to
+say it in, to pause for expression, or ponder over his syllables. There
+is in them the obscurity, but the truth, of prophecy; the instinctive
+and burning language, which would express less if it uttered more, which
+is indistinct only by its fulness, and dark with its abundant meaning.
+He feels now, with long-trained vividness and keenness of sense, too
+bitterly the impotence of the hand, and the vainness of the color to
+catch one shadow or one image of the glory which God has revealed to
+him. He has dwelt and communed with nature all the days of his life; he
+knows her now too well, he cannot palter over the material littleness of
+her outward form; he must give her soul, or he has done nothing, and he
+cannot do this with the flax, and the earth, and the oil. "I cannot
+gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make <i>them</i> tell you
+what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us remember
+together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the night-sky, or I would
+make that teach you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this,
+and let us feel together. And if you have not that within you which I
+can summon to my aid, if you have not the sun in your spirit, and the
+passion in your heart, which my words may awaken, though they be
+indistinct and swift, leave me; for I will give you no patient mockery,
+no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am and whom I
+serve. Let other servants imitate the voice and the gesture of their
+master, while they forget his message. Hear that message from me; but
+remember, that the teaching of Divine truth must still be a mystery."</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page414"></a>[Page 414]</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>CONCLUSION.&mdash;MODERN ART AND MODERN CRITICISM.</h5>
+
+<p>We have only, in conclusion, to offer a few general remarks respecting
+modern art and modern criticism.</p>
+
+<p>We wish, in the first place, to remove the appearance of invidiousness
+and partiality which the constant prominence <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p1">§ 1. The entire prominence
+hitherto given to the works of one artist caused only by our not being
+able to take cognizance of character.</a></span>given in the present portion of the
+work to the productions of one artist, can scarcely fail of bearing in
+the minds of most readers. When we pass to the examination of what is
+beautiful and expressive in art, we shall frequently find distinctive
+qualities in the minds even of inferior artists, which have led them to
+the pursuit and embodying of particular trains of thought, altogether
+different from those which direct the compositions of other men, and
+incapable of comparison with them. Now, when this is the case, we should
+consider it in the highest degree both invidious and illogical, to say
+of such different modes of exertion of the intellect, that one is in all
+points greater or nobler than another. We shall probably find something
+in the working of all minds which has an end and a power peculiar to
+itself, and which is deserving of free and full admiration, without any
+reference whatsoever to what has, in other fields, been accomplished by
+other modes of thought, and directions of aim. We shall, indeed, find a
+wider range and grasp in one man than in another; but yet it will be our
+own fault if we do not discover something in the most limited range of
+mind which is different from, and in its way better than, anything
+presented to us by the more grasping intellect. We all know that the
+nightingale sings more nobly than the lark; but who, therefore, would
+wish the lark not to sing, or would deny that it had a character of its
+own, which bore a part among the melodies of creation no less essential
+than that of the more richly-gifted <span class="pagenum"><a name="page415"></a>[Page 415]</span> bird? And thus we shall
+find and feel that whatever difference <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p2">§ 2. The feelings of different
+artists are incapable of full comparison.</a></span>may exist between the
+intellectual powers of one artist and another, yet wherever there is any
+true genius, there will be some peculiar lesson which even the humblest
+will teach us more sweetly and perfectly than those far above them in
+prouder attributes of mind; and we should be as mistaken as we should be
+unjust and invidious, if we refused to receive this their peculiar
+message with gratitude <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p3">§ 3. But the fidelity and truth of each are
+capable of real comparison.</a></span>and veneration, merely because it was a
+sentence and not a volume. But the case is different when we examine
+their relative fidelity to given facts. That fidelity depends on no
+peculiar modes of thought or habits of character; it is the result of
+keen sensibility, combined with high powers of memory and association.
+These qualities, as such, are the same in all men; character or feeling
+may direct their choice to this or that object, but the fidelity with
+which they treat either the one or the other, is dependent on those
+simple powers of sense and intellect which are like and comparable in
+all, and of which we can always say that they are greater in this man,
+or less in that without reference to the character of the individual.
+Those feelings which direct Cox to the painting of wild, weedy banks,
+and cool, melting skies, and those which directed Barret to the painting
+of glowing foliage and melancholy twilight, are both just and beautiful
+in their way, and are both worthy of high praise and gratitude, without
+necessity, nay, without <i>proper</i> possibility of comparing one with the
+other. But the degree of fidelity with which the leaves of the one and
+the light of the other are rendered, depends upon faculties of sight,
+sense, and memory common to both, and perfectly comparable; and we may
+say fearlessly, and without injustice, that one or the other, as the
+case may be, is more faithful in that which they have chosen to
+represent. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p4">§ 4. Especially because they are equally manifested in the
+treatment of all subjects.</a></span>It is also to be remembered that these
+faculties of sense and memory are not partial in their effect; they will
+not induce fidelity in the rendering of one class of object, and fail of
+doing so in another. They act equally, and with equal results, whatever
+may be the matter subjected to them; the same delicate sense which
+perceives the utmost grace of the fibres of a tree, will be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page416"></a>[Page 416]</span>
+equally unerring in tracing the character of cloud; and the quick memory
+which seizes and retains the circumstances of a flying effect of shadow
+or color, will be equally effectual in fixing the impression of the
+instantaneous form of a moving figure or a breaking wave. There are
+indeed one or two broad distinctions in the nature of the senses,&mdash;a
+sensibility to color, for instance, being very different from a
+sensibility to form; so that a man may possess one without the other,
+and an artist may succeed in mere imitation of what is before him, of
+air, sunlight, etc., without possessing sensibility at all. But wherever
+we have, in the drawing of any one object, sufficient evidence of real
+intellectual power, of the sense which perceives the essential qualities
+of a thing, and the judgment which arranges them so as to illustrate
+each other, we may be quite certain that the same sense and judgment
+will operate equally on whatever is subjected to them, and that the
+artist will be equally great and masterly <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p5">§ 5. No man draws one thing
+well, if he can draw nothing else.</a></span>in his drawing of all that he
+attempts. Hence we may be quite sure that wherever an artist appears to
+be truthful in one branch of art, and not in another, the apparent truth
+is either owing to some trickery of imitation, or is not so great as we
+suppose it to be. In nine cases out of ten, people who are celebrated
+for drawing only one thing, and <i>can</i> only draw one thing, draw that one
+thing worse than anybody else. An artist may indeed confine himself to a
+limited range of subject, but if he be really true in his rendering of
+this, his power of doing more will be perpetually showing itself in
+accessories and minor points. There are few men, for instance, more
+limited in subject than Hunt, and yet I do not think there is another
+man in the old Water-Color Society, with so keen an eye for truth, or
+with power so universal. And this is the reason for the exceeding
+prominence which in the foregoing investigation one or two artists have
+always assumed over the rest, for the habits of accurate observation and
+delicate powers of hand which they possess, have equal effect, and
+maintain the same superiority in their works, to whatever class of
+subject they may be directed. And thus we have been compelled, however
+unwillingly, to pass hastily by the works of many gifted men, because,
+however pure their feeling, or original their conceptions, they were
+wanting in those faculties <span class="pagenum"><a name="page417"></a>[Page 417]</span> of the hand and mind which insure
+perfect fidelity to nature: it will be only hereafter, when we are at
+liberty to take full cognizance of the thought, however feebly it may be
+clothed in language, that we shall be able to do real justice to the
+disciples either of modern or of ancient art.</p>
+
+<p>But as far as we have gone at present, and with respect only to the
+<i>material</i> truth, which is all that we have been able to <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p6">§ 6. General
+conclusions to be derived from our past investigation.</a></span>investigate, the
+conclusion to which we must be led is as clear as it is inevitable; that
+modern artists, as a body, are far more just and full in their views of
+material things than any landscape painters whose works are extant&mdash;but
+that J. M. W. Turner is the only man who has ever given an entire
+transcript of the whole system of nature, and is, in this point of view,
+the only perfect landscape painter whom the world has ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are we disposed to recede from our assertion made in Sec. I. Ch. I.
+§ 10, that this material truth is indeed a perfect test of the relative
+rank of painters, though it does not in itself <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p7">§ 7. Truth, a standard of
+all excellence.</a></span>constitute that rank. We shall be able to prove that
+truth and beauty, knowledge and imagination, invariably are associated
+in art; and we shall be able to show that not only in truth to nature,
+but in all other points, Turner is the greatest landscape painter who
+has ever lived. But his superiority is, in matters of feeling, one of
+kind, not of degree. Superiority of degree implies a superseding of
+others, superiority of kind only sustaining a more important, but not
+more necessary part, than others. If <i>truth</i> were all that we required
+from art, all other painters might cast aside their brushes in despair,
+for all that they have done he has done more fully and accurately; but
+when we pass to the higher requirements of art, beauty and character,
+their contributions are all equally necessary and desirable, because
+different, and however inferior in position or rank, are still perfect
+of their kind; their inferiority is only that of the lark to the
+nightingale, or of the violet to the rose.</p>
+
+<p>Such then is the rank and standing of our modern artists. We have,
+living with us, and painting for us, the greatest painter of <i>all</i> time;
+a man with whose supremacy of power no intellect of past ages can be put
+in comparison for a moment. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page418"></a>[Page 418]</span> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p8">§ 8. Modern criticism.
+Changefulness of public taste.</a></span>Let us next inquire what is the rank of
+our critics. Public taste, I believe, as far as it is the encourager and
+supporter of art has been the same in all ages,&mdash;a fitful and
+vacillating current of vague impression, perpetually liable to change,
+subject to epidemic desires, and agitated by infectious passion, the
+slave of fashion, and the fool of fancy, but yet always distinguishing
+with singular clearsightedness, between that which is best and that
+which is worst of the particular class of food which its morbid appetite
+may call for; never failing to distinguish that which is produced by
+intellect, from that which is not, though it may be intellect degraded
+by <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p9">§ 9. Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment.</a></span>ministering to
+its misguided will. Public taste may thus degrade a race of men capable
+of the highest efforts in art into the portrait painters of ephemeral
+fashions, but it will yet not fail of discovering who, among these
+portrait painters, is the man of most mind. It will separate the man who
+would have become Buonaroti from the man who would have become
+Bandinelli, though it will employ both in painting curls, and feathers,
+and bracelets. Hence, generally speaking, there is no <i>comparative</i>
+injustice done, no false elevation of the fool above the man of mind,
+provided only that the man of mind will condescend to supply the
+particular article which the public chooses to want. Of course a
+thousand modifying circumstances interfere with the action of the
+general rule; but, taking one case with another, we shall very
+constantly find the price which the picture commands in the market a
+pretty fair standard of the artist's rank of intellect. <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p10">§ 10. Duty of
+the press.</a></span>The press, therefore, and all who pretend to lead the public
+taste, have not so much to direct the multitude whom to go to, as what
+to ask for. Their business is not to tell us which is our best painter,
+but to tell us whether we are making our best painter do his best.</p>
+
+<p>Now none are capable of doing this, but those whose principles of
+judgment are based both on thorough <i>practical</i> knowledge of art, and on
+broad general views of what is true and right, <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p11">§ 11. Qualifications
+necessary for discharging it.</a></span>without reference to what has been done at
+one time or another, or in one school or another. Nothing can be more
+perilous to the cause of art, than the constant ringing in our painters'
+ears of the names of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page419"></a>[Page 419]</span> great predecessors, as their examples
+or masters. I had rather hear a great poet, entirely original in his
+feeling and aim, rebuked or maligned for not being like Wordsworth or
+Coleridge, than a great painter criticised for not putting us in mind of
+Claude or Poussin. But such references to former excellence are the only
+refuge and resource of persons endeavoring to be critics without being
+artists. They cannot tell you whether a thing is right or not; but they
+can tell you whether it is like <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p12">§ 12. General incapability of modern
+critics.</a></span>something else or not. And the whole tone of modern
+criticism&mdash;as far as it is worthy of being called
+criticism&mdash;sufficiently shows it to proceed entirely from persons
+altogether unversed in practice, and ignorant of truth, but possessing
+just enough of feeling to enjoy the solemnity of ancient art, who, not
+distinguishing that which is really exalted and valuable in the modern
+school, nor having any just idea of the real ends or capabilities of
+landscape art, consider nothing right which is not based on the
+conventional principles of the ancients, and nothing true which has more
+of <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p13">§ 13. And inconsistency with themselves.</a></span>nature in it than of Claude.
+But it is strange that while the noble and unequalled works of modern
+landscape painters are thus maligned and misunderstood, our historical
+painters&mdash;such as we have&mdash;are permitted to pander more fatally every
+year to the vicious English taste, which can enjoy nothing but what is
+theatrical, entirely unchastised, nay, encouraged and lauded by the very
+men who endeavor to hamper our great landscape painters with rules
+derived from consecrated blunders. The very critic who has just passed
+one of the noblest works of Turner&mdash;that is to say, a masterpiece of
+art, to which Time can show no parallel&mdash;with a ribald jest, will yet
+stand gaping in admiration before the next piece of dramatic glitter and
+grimace, suggested by the society, and adorned with the appurtenances of
+the greenroom, which he finds hung low upon the wall as a brilliant
+example of the ideal of English art. It is natural enough indeed, that
+the persons who are disgusted by what is pure and noble, should be
+delighted with what is vicious and degraded; but it is singular that
+those who are constantly talking of Claude and Poussin, should never
+even pretend to a thought of Raffaelle. We could excuse them for not
+comprehending Turner, if they only would <span class="pagenum"><a name="page420"></a>[Page 420]</span> apply the same
+cut-and-dried criticisms where they might be applied with truth, and
+productive of benefit; but we endure not the paltry compound of
+ignorance, false taste, and pretension, which assumes the dignity of
+classical feeling, that it may be able to abuse whatever is above the
+level of its understanding, but bursts into genuine rapture with all
+that is meretricious, if sufficiently adapted to the calibre of its
+comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>To notice such criticisms, however, is giving them far more importance
+than they deserve. They can lead none astray but <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p14">§ 14. How the press may
+really advance the cause of art.</a></span>those whose opinions are absolutely
+valueless, and we did not begin this chapter with any intent of wasting
+our time on these small critics, but in the hope of pointing out to the
+periodical press what kind of criticism is now most required by our
+school of landscape art, and how it may be in their power, if they will,
+to regulate its impulses, without checking its energies, and really to
+advance both the cause of the artist, and the taste of the public.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most morbid symptoms of the general taste of the present day,
+is a too great fondness for unfinished works. Brilliancy and rapidity of
+execution are everywhere sought as the <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p15">§ 15. Morbid fondness at the
+present day for unfinished works.</a></span>highest good, and so that a picture be
+cleverly handled as far as it is carried, little regard is paid to its
+imperfection as a whole. Hence some artists are permitted, and others
+compelled, to confine themselves to a manner of working altogether
+destructive of their powers, and to tax their energies, not to
+concentrate the greatest quantity of thought on the least possible space
+of canvas, but to produce the greatest quantity of glitter and claptrap
+in the shortest possible time. To the idler and the trickster in art, no
+system can be more advantageous; but to the man who is really desirous
+of doing something worth having lived for&mdash;to a man of industry, energy,
+or feeling, we believe it to be the cause of the most bitter
+discouragement. If ever, working upon a favorite subject or a beloved
+idea, he is induced to tax his powers to the utmost, and to spend as
+much time upon his picture as he feels necessary for its perfection, he
+will not be able to get so high a price for the result, perhaps, of a
+twelvemonth's thought, as he might have obtained for half-a-dozen
+sketches with a forenoon's work in each, and he is compelled either to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page421"></a>[Page 421]</span> fall back upon mechanism, or to starve. Now the press should
+<span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p16">§ 16. By which the public defraud themselves.</a></span>especially endeavor to
+convince the public, that by this purchase of imperfect pictures they
+not only prevent all progress and development of high talent, and set
+tricksters and mechanics on a level with men of mind, but defraud and
+injure themselves. For there is no doubt whatever, that, estimated
+merely by the quantity of pleasure it is capable of conveying, a
+well-finished picture is worth to its possessor half-a-dozen incomplete
+ones; and that a perfect drawing is, simply as a source of delight,
+better worth a hundred <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p17">§ 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin
+themselves.</a></span>guineas than a drawing half as finished is worth thirty. On
+the other hand, the body of our artists should be kept in mind, that by
+indulging the public with rapid and unconsidered work, they are not only
+depriving themselves of the benefit which each picture ought to render
+to them, as a piece of practice and study, but they are destroying the
+refinement of general taste, and rendering it impossible for themselves
+ever to find a market for more careful works, supposing that they were
+inclined to execute them. Nor need any single artist be afraid of
+setting the example, and producing labored works, at advanced prices,
+among the cheap, quick drawings of the day. The public will soon find
+the value of the complete work, and will be more ready to give a large
+sum for that which is inexhaustible, than a quota of it for that which
+they are wearied of in a month. The artist who never lets the price
+command the picture, will soon find the picture command <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p18">§ 18. Necessity
+of finishing works of art perfectly.</a></span>the price. And it ought to be a rule
+with every painter never to let a picture leave his easel while it is
+yet capable of improvement, or of having more thought put into it. The
+general effect is often perfect and pleasing, and not to be improved
+upon, when the details and facts are altogether imperfect and
+unsatisfactory. It may be difficult&mdash;perhaps the most difficult task of
+art&mdash;to complete these details, and not to hurt the general effect; but
+until the artist can do this, his art is imperfect and his picture
+unfinished. That only is a complete picture which has both the general
+wholeness and effect of nature, and the inexhaustible perfection of
+nature's details. And it is only in the effort to unite these that a
+painter really improves. By aiming only at details, he <span class="pagenum"><a name="page422"></a>[Page 422]</span>
+becomes a mechanic; by aiming only at generals, he becomes a trickster:
+his fall in both cases is sure. Two questions the artist has, therefore,
+always to ask himself,&mdash;first, "Is my whole right?" Secondly, "Can my
+details be added to? Is there a single space in the picture where I can
+crowd in another thought? Is there a curve in it which I can modulate&mdash;a
+line which I can graduate&mdash;a vacancy I can fill? Is there a single spot
+which the eye, by any peering or prying, can fathom or exhaust? If so,
+my picture is imperfect; and if, in modulating the line or filling the
+vacancy, I hurt the general effect, my art is imperfect."</p>
+
+<p>But, on the other hand, though incomplete pictures ought neither to be
+produced nor purchased, careful and real <i>sketches</i> <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p19">§ 19. <i>Sketches</i> not
+sufficiently encouraged.</a></span>ought to be valued much more highly than they
+are. Studies in chalk, of landscape, should form a part of every
+Exhibition, and a room should be allotted to drawings and designs of
+figures in the Academy. We should be heartily glad to see the room which
+is now devoted to bad drawings of incorporeal and imaginary
+architecture&mdash;of things which never were, and which, thank Heaven! never
+will be&mdash;occupied instead, by careful studies for historical pictures;
+not blots of chiaroscuro, but delicate outlines with the pen or crayon.</p>
+
+<p>From young artists, in landscape, nothing ought to be tolerated but
+simple <i>bona fide imitation</i> of nature. They have no business to ape the
+execution of masters,&mdash;to utter weak and <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p20">§ 20. Brilliancy of execution
+or efforts at invention not to be tolerated in young artists.</a></span>disjointed
+repetitions of other men's words, and mimic the gestures of the
+preacher, without understanding his meaning or sharing in his emotions.
+We do not want their crude ideas of composition, their unformed
+conceptions of the Beautiful, their unsystematized experiments upon the
+Sublime. We scorn their velocity; for it is without direction: we reject
+their decision; for it is without grounds: we contemn their composition;
+for it is without materials: we reprobate their choice; for it is
+without comparison. Their duty is neither to choose, nor compose, nor
+imagine, nor experimentalize; but to be humble and earnest in following
+the steps of nature, and tracing the finger of God. Nothing is so bad a
+symptom, in the work of young artists, as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page423"></a>[Page 423]</span> too much dexterity
+of handling; for it is a sign that they are <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p21">§ 21. The duty and after
+privileges of all students. </a></span>satisfied with their work, and have tried to
+do nothing more than they were able to do. Their work should be full of
+failures; for these are the signs of efforts. They should keep to quiet
+colors&mdash;grays and browns; and, making the early works of Turner their
+example, as his latest are to be their object of emulation, should go to
+nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and
+trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her
+meaning, and remember her instruction, rejecting nothing, selecting
+nothing, and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and
+good, and rejoicing always in the truth. Then, when their memories are
+stored, and their imaginations fed, and their hands firm, let them take
+up the scarlet and the gold, give the reins to their fancy, and show us
+what their heads are made of. We will follow them wherever they choose
+to lead; we will check at nothing; they are then our masters, and are
+fit to be so. They have placed themselves above our criticism, and we
+will listen to their words in all faith and humility; but not unless
+they themselves have before bowed, in the same submission, to a higher
+Authority and Master.</p>
+
+<p>Among our greater artists, the chief want, at the present day, is that
+of <i>solemnity</i> and definite purpose. We have too much
+picture-manufacturing, too much making up of lay figures <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p22">§ 22. Necessity
+among our greater artists of more singleness of aim.</a></span>with a certain
+quantity of foliage, and a certain quantity of sky, and a certain
+quantity of water,&mdash;a little bit of all that is pretty, a little sun,
+and a little shade,&mdash;a touch of pink, and a touch of blue,&mdash;a little
+sentiment, and a little sublimity, and a little humor, and a little
+antiquarianism,&mdash;all very neatly associated in a very charming picture,
+but not working together for a definite end. Or if the aim be higher, as
+was the case with Barrett and Varley, we are generally put off with
+stale repetitions of eternal composition; a great tree, and some goats,
+and a bridge and a lake, and the Temple at Tivoli, etc. Now we should
+like to see our artists working out, with all exertion of their
+concentrated powers, such marked pieces of landscape character as might
+bear upon them the impression of solemn, earnest, and pervading thought,
+definitely directed, and aided by every accessory of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page424"></a>[Page 424]</span> detail,
+color, and idealized form, which the disciplined feeling, accumulated
+knowledge, and unspared labor of the painter could supply. I have
+alluded, in the second preface, to the deficiency of our modern artists
+in these great points of earnestness and completeness; and I revert to
+it, in conclusion, as their paramount failing, and one fatal in many
+ways to the interests of art. Our landscapes are all descriptive, not
+reflective, agreeable and conversational, but not impressive nor
+didactic. They have no other foundation than</p>
+
+<p class="poemq1"><span style="padding-left: 4em; ">
+          "That vivacious versatility, <br /></span>
+Which many people take for want of heart. <br />
+They err; 'tis merely what is called "mobility;" <br />
+A thing of temperament, and <i>not of art, <br />
+Though seeming so from its supposed facility</i>. <br />
+
+<span style="letter-spacing: 1em; font-size: 1.5em; "> . . . . . . . </span> <br />
+
+This makes your actors, <i>artists</i>, and romancers; <br />
+Little that's great&mdash;but much of what is clever."
+</p>
+
+<p>Only it is to be observed that&mdash;in painters&mdash;this vivacity is <i>not</i>
+always versatile. It is to be wished that it were, but it is no such
+easy matter to be versatile in painting. Shallowness of thought insures
+not its variety, nor rapidity of production its originality. Whatever
+may be the case in literature, facility is in art inconsistent with
+invention. The artist who covers most canvas always shows, even in the
+sum of his works, the least expenditure of thought.<a name="FnAnchor_79" href="#Footnote_79"><sup>[79]</sup></a> I have never
+seen more than four works of John Lewis on the walls of the Water-Color
+Exhibition; I have counted forty from other hands; but have found in the
+end that the forty were a multiplication of one, and the four a
+concentration of forty. And therefore I would earnestly plead with all
+our artists, that they should make it a law <i>never</i> to repeat
+themselves; for he who never repeats himself will not produce an
+inordinate number of pictures, and he who limits himself in number gives
+himself at least the opportunity of completion. Besides, all repetition
+is degradation of the art; it reduces it from headwork to handwork; and
+indicates something <span class="pagenum"><a name="page425"></a>[Page 425]</span> like a persuasion on the part of the
+artist that nature is exhaustible or art perfectible; perhaps, even, by
+him exhausted and perfected. All copyists are contemptible, but the
+copyist of himself the most so, for he has the worst original.</p>
+
+<p>Let then every picture be painted with earnest intention of impressing
+on the spectator some elevated emotion, and exhibiting to him some one
+particular, but exalted, beauty. Let a real <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p23">§ 23. What should be their
+general aim.</a></span>subject be carefully selected, in itself suggestive of, and
+replete with, this feeling and beauty; let an effect of light and color
+be taken which may harmonize with both; and a sky, not invented, but
+recollected, (in fact, all so-called invention is in landscape nothing
+more than appropriate recollection&mdash;good in proportion as it is
+distinct.) Then let the details of the foreground be separately studied,
+especially those plants which appear peculiar to the place: if any one,
+however unimportant, occurs there, which occurs not elsewhere, it should
+occupy a prominent position; for the other details, the highest examples
+of the ideal forms<a name="FnAnchor_80" href="#Footnote_80"><sup>[80]</sup></a> <span class="pagenum"><a name="page426"></a>[Page 426]</span> or characters which he requires are
+to be selected by the artist from his former studies, or fresh studies
+made expressly for the purpose, leaving as little as possible&mdash;nothing,
+in fact, beyond their connection and arrangement&mdash;to mere imagination.
+Finally, when his picture is thus perfectly realized in all its parts,
+let him dash as much of it out as he likes; throw, if he will, mist
+around it&mdash;darkness&mdash;or dazzling and confused light&mdash;whatever, in fact,
+impetuous feeling or vigorous imagination may dictate or desire; the
+forms, once so laboriously realized, will come out whenever they <i>do</i>
+occur with a startling and impressive truth, which the uncertainty in
+which they are veiled will enhance rather than diminish; and the
+imagination, strengthened by discipline and fed with truth, will achieve
+the utmost of creation that is possible to finite mind.</p>
+
+<p>The artist who thus works will soon find that he cannot repeat himself
+if he would; that new fields of exertion, new <span class="pagenum"><a name="page427"></a>[Page 427]</span> subjects of
+contemplation open to him in nature day by day, and that, while others
+lament the weakness of their invention, <i>he</i> has nothing to lament but
+the shortness of life.</p>
+
+<p>And now but one word more, respecting the great artist whose works have
+formed the chief subject of this treatise. All the <i>greatest</i> qualities
+of those works&mdash;all that is mental in <span class="sidenote"><a name="b2s6c3p24">§ 24. Duty of the press with
+respect to the works of Turner.</a></span>them, has not yet been so much as touched
+upon. None but their lightest and least essential excellences have been
+proved, and, therefore, the enthusiasm with which I speak of them must
+necessarily appear overcharged and absurd. It, might, perhaps, have been
+more prudent to have withheld the full expression of it till I had shown
+the full grounds for it; but once written, such expression must remain
+till I have justified it. And, indeed, I think there is enough, even in
+the foregoing pages, to show that these works are, as far as concerns
+the ordinary critics of the press, above all animadversion, and above
+all praise; and that, by the public, they are not to be received as in
+any way subjects or matters of opinion, but of Faith. We are not to
+approach them to be pleased, but to be taught; not to form a judgment,
+but to receive a lesson. Our periodical writers, therefore, may save
+themselves the trouble either of blaming or praising: their duty is not
+to pronounce opinions upon the work of a man who has walked with nature
+threescore years; but to impress upon the public the respect with which
+they are to be received, and to make request to him, on the part of the
+people of England, that he would now touch no unimportant work&mdash;that he
+would not spend time on slight or small pictures, but give to the nation
+a series of grand, consistent, systematic, and completed poems. We
+desire that he should follow out his own thoughts and intents of heart,
+without reference to any human authority. But we request, in all
+humility, that those thoughts may be seriously and loftily given; and
+that the whole power of his unequalled intellect may be exerted in the
+production of such works as may remain forever for the teaching of the
+nations. In all that he says, we believe; in all that he does we
+trust.<a name="FnAnchor_81" href="#Footnote_81"><sup>[81]</sup></a> It <span class="pagenum"><a name="page428"></a>[Page 428]</span> is therefore that we pray him to utter nothing
+lightly&mdash;to do nothing regardlessly. He stands upon an eminence, from
+which he looks back over the universe of God, and forward over the
+generations of men. Let every work of his hand be a history of the one,
+and a lesson to the other. Let each exertion of his mighty mind be both
+hymn and prophecy,&mdash;adoration, to the Deity,&mdash;revelation to mankind.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_79" href="#FnAnchor_79">[79]</a> Of course this assertion does not refer to the differences in mode
+of execution, which enable one painter to work faster or slower than
+another, but only to the exertion of mind, commonly manifested by the
+artist, according as he is sparing or prodigal of production.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_80" href="#FnAnchor_80">[80]</a> "Talk of improving nature when it <i>is</i> nature&mdash;Nonsense."&mdash;<i>E. V.
+Rippingille</i>. I have not yet spoken of the difference&mdash;even in what we
+commonly call Nature&mdash;between imperfect and ideal form: the study of
+this difficult question must, of course, be deferred until we have
+examined the nature of our impressions of beauty; but it may not be out
+of place here to hint at the want of care in many of our artists to
+distinguish between the real work of nature and the diseased results of
+man's interference with her. Many of the works of our greatest artists
+have for their subjects nothing but hacked and hewn remnants of
+farm-yard vegetation, branded root and branch, from their birth, by the
+prong and the pruning-hook; and the feelings once accustomed to take
+pleasure in such abortions, can scarcely become perceptive of forms
+truly ideal. I have just said (423) that young painters should go to
+nature trustingly,&mdash;rejecting nothing, and selecting nothing: so they
+should; but they must be careful that it <i>is</i> nature to whom they
+go&mdash;nature in her liberty&mdash;not as servant-of-all-work in the hands of
+the agriculturist, nor stiffened into court-dress by the landscape
+gardener. It must be the pure, wild volition and energy of the creation
+which they follow&mdash;not subdued to the furrow, and cicatrized to the
+pollard&mdash;not persuaded into proprieties, nor pampered into diseases. Let
+them work by the torrent-side, and in the forest shadows; not by purling
+brooks and under "tonsile shades." It is impossible to enter here into
+discussion of what man can or cannot do, by assisting natural
+operations: it is an intricate question: nor can I, without anticipating
+what I shall have hereafter to advance, show how or why it happens that
+the racehorse is <i>not</i> the artist's ideal of a horse, nor a prize tulip
+his ideal of a flower; but so it is. As far as the painter is concerned,
+man never touches nature but to spoil;&mdash;he operates on her as a barber
+would on the Apollo; and if he sometimes increases some particular power
+or excellence,&mdash;strength or agility in the animal&mdash;tallness, or
+fruitfulness, or solidity in the tree,&mdash;he invariably loses that
+<i>balance</i> of good qualities which is the chief sign of perfect specific
+form; above all, he destroys the appearance of free <i>volition</i> and
+<i>felicity</i>, which, as I shall show hereafter, is one of the essential
+characters of organic beauty. Until, however, I can enter into the
+discussion of the nature of beauty, the only advice I can safely give
+the young painter, is to keep clear of clover-fields and parks, and to
+hold to the unpenetrated forest and the unfurrowed hill. There he will
+find that every influence is noble, even when destructive&mdash;that decay
+itself is beautiful,&mdash;and that, in the elaborate and lovely composition
+of all things, if at first sight it seems less studied than the works of
+men, the appearance of Art is only prevented by the presence of Power.</p>
+
+<p class="poemq"><span style="padding-left: 4em; ">
+         "Nature never did betray <br /></span>
+The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege, <br />
+Through all the years of this our life, to lead <br />
+From joy to joy; for she can so inform <br />
+The mind that is within us, so impress <br />
+With quietness and beauty, and so feed <br />
+With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, <br />
+Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men <br />
+Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb <br />
+Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold <br />
+Is full of blessings." <br />
+
+<span class="sc" style="padding-left: 24em; ">Wordsworth.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_81" href="#FnAnchor_81">[81]</a> It has been hinted, in some of the reviews of the Second Volume of
+this work, that the writer's respect for Turner has diminished since the
+above passage was written. He would, indeed, have been deserving of
+little attention if, with the boldness manifested on the preceding
+pages, he had advanced opinions based on so shallow foundation as that
+the course of three years could effect modification of them. He was
+justified by the sudden accession of power which the great artist
+exhibited at the period when this volume was first published, as well as
+by the low standard of the criticism to which he was subjected, in
+claiming, with respect to his then works, a submission of judgment,
+greater indeed than may generally be accorded to even the highest human
+intellect, yet not greater than such a master might legitimately claim
+from such critics; and the cause of the peculiar form of advocacy into
+which the preceding chapters necessarily fell, has been already stated
+more than once. In the following sections it became necessary, as they
+treated a subject of intricate relations, and peculiar difficulty, to
+obtain a more general view of the scope and operation of art, and to
+avoid all conclusions in any wise referable to the study of particular
+painters. The reader will therefore find, not that lower rank is
+attributed to Turner, but that he is now compared with the greatest men,
+and occupies his true position among the most noble of all time.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>POSTSCRIPT.</h3>
+
+<p>The above passage was written in the year 1843; too late. It is true
+that soon after the publication of this work, the abuse of the press,
+which had been directed against Turner with unceasing virulence during
+the production of his noblest works, sank into timid animadversion, or
+changed into unintelligent praise; but not before illness, and, in some
+degree, mortification, had enfeebled the hand and chilled the heart of
+the painter.</p>
+
+<p>This year (1851) he has no picture on the walls of the Academy; and the
+<i>Times</i> of May 3d says, "We miss those works of INSPIRATION!"</p>
+
+<p>We miss! Who misses?&mdash;The populace of England rolls by to weary itself
+in the great bazaar of Kensington, little thinking <span class="pagenum"><a name="page429"></a>[Page 429]</span> that a
+day will come when those veiled vestals and prancing amazons, and goodly
+merchandise of precious stones and gold, will all be forgotten as though
+they had not been, but that the light which has faded from the walls of
+the Academy is one which a million of Koh-i-Noors could not rekindle,
+and that the year 1851 will in the far future be remembered less for
+what it has displayed than for what it has withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Denmark Hill</span>, <i>June</i>, 1851.</p>
+
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center">END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Modern Painters Volume I (of V), by John Ruskin
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+Project Gutenberg's Modern Painters Volume I (of V), by John Ruskin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Modern Painters Volume I (of V)
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+Release Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #29907]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN PAINTERS VOLUME I (OF V) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they
+  are listed at the end of the text.
+
+  Chapter headings were originally constructed as side-notes. They were
+  placed here at the head of their respective paragraphs, and moved to
+  paragraph's start where given at paragraph's middle. See HTML version
+  for the original headers placement.
+
+
+
+
+                            Library Edition
+
+                          THE COMPLETE WORKS
+
+                                  OF
+
+                             JOHN RUSKIN
+
+                        POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE
+                             SEVEN LAMPS
+                           MODERN PAINTERS
+                              VOLUME I
+
+                     NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
+                     NEW YORK             CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+                          THE COMPLETE WORKS
+
+                                  OF
+
+                             JOHN RUSKIN
+
+                              VOLUME II
+
+                           MODERN PAINTERS
+
+                              VOLUME I
+
+
+
+
+                           MODERN PAINTERS.
+
+                                  BY
+
+                         A GRADUATE OF OXFORD.
+
+                                VOL. I.
+
+                             PART I--II.
+
+
+
+                                 TO
+
+                   THE LANDSCAPE ARTISTS OF ENGLAND
+
+                             This Work
+
+                      IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
+
+                      BY THEIR SINCERE ADMIRER,
+
+                                          _THE AUTHOR_
+
+
+
+
+                    PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
+
+The work now laid before the public originated in indignation at the
+shallow and false criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works
+of the great living artist to whom it principally refers. It was
+intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobating the matter and style of
+those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency, as guides of
+public feeling. But, as point after point presented itself for
+demonstration, I found myself compelled to amplify what was at first a
+letter to the Editor of a Review, into something very like a treatise on
+art, to which I was obliged to give the more consistency and
+completeness, because it advocated opinions which, to the ordinary
+connoisseur, will sound heretical. I now scarcely know whether I should
+announce it is an Essay on Landscape Painting, and apologize for its
+frequent reference to the works of a particular master; or, announcing
+it as a critique on particular works, apologize for its lengthy
+discussion of general principles. But of whatever character the work may
+be considered, the motives which led me to undertake it must not be
+mistaken. No zeal for the reputation of any individual, no personal
+feeling of any kind, has the slightest weight or influence with me. The
+reputation of the great artist to whose works I have chiefly referred,
+is established on too legitimate grounds among all whose admiration is
+honorable, to be in any way affected by the ignorant sarcasms of
+pretension and affectation. But when _public_ taste seems plunging
+deeper and deeper into degradation day by day, and when the press
+universally exerts such power as it possesses to direct the feeling of
+the nation more completely to all that is theatrical, affected, and
+false in art; while it vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted
+truth, and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any other age
+has ever witnessed, it becomes the imperative duty of all who have any
+perception or knowledge of what is really great in art, and any desire
+for its advancement in England, to come fearlessly forward, regardless
+of such individual interests as are likely to be injured by the
+knowledge of what is good and right, to declare and demonstrate,
+wherever they exist, the essence and the authority of the Beautiful and
+the True.
+
+Whatever may seem invidious or partial in the execution of my task is
+dependent not so much on the tenor of the work, as on its
+incompleteness. I have not entered into systematic criticism of all the
+painters of the present day; but I have illustrated each particular
+excellence and truth of art by the works in which it exists in the
+highest degree, resting satisfied that if it be once rightly felt and
+enjoyed in these, it will be discovered and appreciated wherever it
+exists in others. And although I have never suppressed any conviction of
+the superiority of one artist over another, which I believed to be
+grounded on truth, and necessary to the understanding of truth, I have
+been cautious never to undermine positive rank, while I disputed
+relative rank. My uniform desire and aim have been, not that the present
+favorite should be admired less, but that the neglected master should be
+admired more. And I know that an increased perception and sense of truth
+and beauty, though it may interfere with our estimate of the comparative
+rank of painters, will invariably tend to increase our admiration of all
+who are really great; and he who now places Stanfield and Callcott above
+Turner, will admire Stanfield and Callcott more than he does now, when
+he has learned to place Turner far above them both.
+
+In three instances only have I spoken in direct depreciation of the
+works of living artists, and these are all cases in which the reputation
+is so firm and extended, as to suffer little injury from the opinion of
+an individual, and where the blame has been warranted and deserved by
+the desecration of the highest powers.
+
+Of the old masters I have spoken with far greater freedom; but let it be
+remembered that only a portion of the work is now presented to the
+public, and it must not be supposed, because in that particular portion,
+and with reference to particular excellencies, I have spoken in constant
+depreciation, that I have no feeling of other excellencies of which
+cognizance can only be taken in future parts of the work. Let me not be
+understood to mean more than I have said, nor be made responsible for
+conclusions when I have only stated facts. I have said that the old
+masters did not give the truth of Nature; if the reader chooses, thence,
+to infer that they were not masters at all, it is his conclusion, not
+mine.
+
+Whatever I have asserted throughout the work, I have endeavored to
+ground altogether on demonstrations which must stand or fall by their
+own strength, and which ought to involve no more reference to authority
+or character than a demonstration in Euclid. Yet it is proper for the
+public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has been
+devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art.
+
+Whatever has been generally affirmed of the old schools of
+landscape-painting is founded on familiar acquaintance with every
+important work of art, from Antwerp to Naples. But it would be useless,
+where close and immediate comparison with works in our own Academy is
+desirable, to refer to the details of pictures at Rome or Munich; and it
+would be impossible to speak at once with just feeling, as regarded the
+possessor, and just freedom, as regarded the public, of pictures in
+private galleries. Whatever particular references have been made for
+illustration, have been therefore confined, as far as was in my power,
+to works in the National and Dulwich Galleries.
+
+Finally, I have to apologize for the imperfection of a work which I
+could have wished not to have executed, but with years of reflection and
+revisal. It is owing to my sense of the necessity of such revisal, that
+only a portion of the work is now presented to the public; but that
+portion is both complete in itself, and is more peculiarly directed
+against the crying evil which called for instant remedy. Whether I ever
+completely fulfil my intention, will partly depend upon the spirit in
+which the present volume is received. If it be attributed to an
+invidious spirit, or a desire for the advancement of individual
+interests, I could hope to effect little good by farther effort. If, on
+the contrary, its real feeling and intention be understood, I shall
+shrink from no labor in the execution of a task which may tend, however
+feebly, to the advancement of the cause of real art in England, and to
+the honor of those great living Masters whom we now neglect or malign,
+to pour our flattery into the ear of Death, and exalt, with vain
+acclamation, the names of those who neither demand our praise, nor
+regard our gratitude.
+
+                                                             THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+                     PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
+
+It is allowed by the most able writers on naval and military tactics,
+that although the attack by successive divisions absolutely requires in
+the attacking party such an inherent superiority in quality of force,
+and such consciousness of that superiority, as may enable his front
+columns, or his leading ships, to support themselves for a considerable
+period against overwhelming numbers; it yet insures, if maintained with
+constancy, the most total ruin of the opposing force. Convinced of the
+truth, and therefore assured of the ultimate prevalence and victory of
+the principles which I have advocated, and equally confident that the
+strength of the cause must give weight to the strokes of even the
+weakest of its defenders, I permitted myself to yield to a somewhat
+hasty and hot-headed desire of being, at whatever risk, in the thick of
+the fire, and began the contest with a part, and that the weakest and
+least considerable part, of the forces at my disposal. And I now find
+the volume thus boldly laid before the public in a position much
+resembling that of the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, receiving,
+unsupported, the broadsides of half the enemy's fleet, while unforeseen
+circumstances have hitherto prevented, and must yet for a time prevent,
+my heavier ships of the line from taking any part in the action. I
+watched the first moments of the struggle with some anxiety for the
+solitary vessel,--an anxiety which I have now ceased to feel,--for the
+flag of truth waves brightly through the smoke of the battle, and my
+antagonists, wholly intent on the destruction of the leading ship, have
+lost their position, and exposed themselves in defenceless disorder to
+the attack of the following columns.
+
+If, however, I have had no reason to regret my hasty advance, as far as
+regards the ultimate issue of the struggle, I have yet found it to
+occasion much misconception of the character, and some diminution of
+the influence, of the present essay. For though the work has been
+received as only in sanguine moments I had ventured to hope, though I
+have had the pleasure of knowing that in many instances its principles
+have carried with them a strength of conviction amounting to a
+demonstration of their truth, and that, even where it has had no other
+influence, it has excited interest, suggested inquiry, and prompted to a
+just and frank comparison of Art with Nature; yet this effect would have
+been greater still, had not the work been supposed, as it seems to have
+been by many readers, a completed treatise, containing a systematized
+statement of the whole of my views on the subject of modern art.
+Considered as such, it surprises me that the book should have received
+the slightest attention. For what respect could be due to a writer who
+pretended to criticise and classify the works of the great painters of
+landscape, without developing, or even alluding to, one single principle
+of the beautiful or sublime? So far from being a completed essay, it is
+little more than the introduction to the mass of evidence and
+illustration which I have yet to bring forward; it treats of nothing but
+the initiatory steps of art, states nothing but the elementary rules of
+criticism, touches only on merits attainable by accuracy of eye and
+fidelity of hand, and leaves for future consideration every one of the
+eclectic qualities of pictures, all of good that is prompted by feeling,
+and of great that is guided by judgment; and its function and scope
+should the less have been mistaken, because I have not only most
+carefully arranged the subject in its commencement, but have given
+frequent references throughout to the essays by which it is intended to
+be succeeded, in which I shall endeavor to point out the signification
+and the value of those phenomena of external nature which I have been
+hitherto compelled to describe without reference either to their
+inherent beauty, or to the lessons which may be derived from them.
+
+Yet, to prevent such misconception in future, I may perhaps be excused
+for occupying the reader's time with a fuller statement of the feelings
+with which the work was undertaken, of its general plan, and of the
+conclusions and positions which I hope to be able finally to deduce and
+maintain.
+
+Nothing, perhaps, bears on the face of it more appearance of folly,
+ignorance, and impertinence, than any attempt to diminish the honor of
+those to whom the assent of many generations has assigned a throne; for
+the truly great of later times have, almost without exception, fostered
+in others the veneration of departed power which they felt themselves,
+satisfied in all humility to take their seat at the feet of those whose
+honor is brightened by the hoariness of time, and to wait for the period
+when the lustre of many departed days may accumulate on their own heads,
+in the radiance which culminates as it recedes. The envious and
+incompetent have usually been the leaders of attack, content if, like
+the foulness of the earth, they may attract to themselves notice by
+their noisomeness, or, like its insects, exalt themselves by virulence
+into visibility. While, however, the envy of the vicious, and the
+insolence of the ignorant, are occasionally shown in their nakedness by
+_futile_ efforts to degrade the dead, it is worthy of consideration
+whether they may not more frequently escape detection in _successful_
+efforts to degrade the living,--whether the very same malice may not be
+gratified, the very same incompetence demonstrated in the unjust
+lowering of present greatness, and the unjust exaltation of a perished
+power, as, if exerted and manifested in a less safe direction, would
+have classed the critic with Nero and Caligula, with Zoilus and
+Perrault. Be it remembered, that the spirit of detraction is detected
+only when unsuccessful, and receives least punishment where it effects
+the greatest injury; and it cannot but be felt that there is as much
+danger that the rising of new stars should be concealed by the mists
+which are unseen, as that those throned in heaven should be darkened by
+the clouds which are visible.
+
+There is, I fear, so much malice in the hearts of most men, that they
+are chiefly jealous of that praise which can give the greatest pleasure,
+and are then most liberal of eulogium when it can no longer be enjoyed.
+They grudge not the whiteness of the sepulchre, because by no honor they
+can bestow upon it can the senseless corpse be rendered an object of
+envy; but they are niggardly of the reputation which contributes to
+happiness, or advances to fortune. They are glad to obtain credit for
+generosity and humility by exalting those who are beyond the reach of
+praise, and thus to escape the more painful necessity of doing homage to
+a living rival. They are rejoiced to set up a standard of imaginary
+excellence, which may enable them, by insisting on the inferiority of a
+contemporary work to the things that have been, to withdraw the
+attention from its superiority to the things that are. The same
+undercurrent of jealousy operates in our reception of animadversion. Men
+have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that
+which is innocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks
+hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently on the
+grave.
+
+And thus well says the good and deep-minded Richard Hooker: "To the best
+and wisest, while they live, the world is continually a froward
+opposite; and a curious observer of their defects and imperfections,
+their virtues afterwards it as much admireth. And for this cause, many
+times that which deserveth admiration would hardly be able to find
+favor, if they which propose it were not content to profess themselves
+therein scholars and followers of the ancient. For the world will not
+endure to hear that we are wiser than any have been which went
+before."--Book v. ch. vii. 3. He therefore who would maintain the cause
+of contemporary excellence against that of elder time, must have almost
+every class of men arrayed against him. The generous, because they would
+not find matter of accusation against established dignities; the
+envious, because they like not the sound of a living man's praise; the
+wise, because they prefer the opinion of centuries to that of days; and
+the foolish, because they are incapable of forming an opinion of their
+own. Obloquy so universal is not lightly to be risked, and the few who
+make an effort to stem the torrent, as it is made commonly in favor of
+their own works, deserve the contempt which is their only reward. Nor is
+this to be regretted, in its influence on the progress and preservation
+of things technical and communicable. Respect for the ancients is the
+salvation of art, though it sometimes blinds us to its _ends_. It
+increases the power of the painter, though it diminishes his liberty;
+and if it be sometimes an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is
+oftener a protection from the consequences of audacity. The whole system
+and discipline of art, the collected results of the experience of ages,
+might, but for the fixed authority of antiquity, be swept away by the
+rage of fashion, or lost in the glare of novelty; and the knowledge
+which it had taken centuries to accumulate, the principles which mighty
+minds had arrived at only in dying, might be overthrown by the frenzy of
+a faction, and abandoned in the insolence of an hour.
+
+Neither, in its general application, is the persuasion of the
+superiority of former works less just than useful. The greater number
+of them are, and must be, immeasurably nobler than any of the results of
+present effort, because that which is best of the productions of four
+thousand years must necessarily be in its accumulation, beyond all
+rivalry from the works of any given generation; but it should always be
+remembered that it is improbable that many, and impossible that all, of
+such works, though the greatest yet produced, should approach abstract
+perfection; that there is certainly something left for us to carry
+farther, or complete; that any given generation has just the same chance
+of producing some individual mind of first-rate calibre, as any of its
+predecessors; and that if such a mind _should_ arise, the chances are,
+that with the assistance of experience and example, it would, in its
+particular and chosen path, do greater things than had been before done.
+
+We must therefore be cautious not to lose sight of the real use of what
+has been left us by antiquity, nor to take that for a model of
+perfection which is, in many cases, only a guide to it. The picture
+which is looked to for an interpretation of nature is invaluable, but
+the picture which is taken as a substitute for nature, had better be
+burned; and the young artist, while he should shrink with horror from
+the iconoclast who would tear from him every landmark and light which
+has been bequeathed him by the ancients, and leave him in a liberated
+childhood, may be equally certain of being betrayed by those who would
+give him the power and the knowledge of past time, and then fetter his
+strength from all advance, and bend his eyes backward on a beaten
+path--who would thrust canvas between him and the sky, and tradition
+between him and God.
+
+And such conventional teaching is the more to be dreaded, because all
+that is highest in art, all that is creative and imaginative, is formed
+and created by every great master for himself, and cannot be repeated or
+imitated by others. We judge of the excellence of a rising writer, not
+so much by the resemblance of his works to what has been done before, as
+by their difference from it; and while we advise him, in his first
+trials of strength, to set certain models before him with respect to
+inferior points,--one for versification, another for arrangement,
+another for treatment,--we yet admit not his greatness until he has
+broken away from all his models, and struck forth versification,
+arrangement, and treatment of his own.
+
+Three points, therefore, I would especially insist upon as necessary to
+be kept in mind in all criticism of modern art. First, that there are
+few, very few of even the best productions of antiquity, which are not
+visibly and palpably imperfect in some kind or way, and conceivably
+improvable by farther study; that every nation, perhaps every generation,
+has in all probability some peculiar gift, some particular character of
+mind, enabling it to do something different from, or something in some
+sort better than what has been before done; and that therefore, unless
+art be a trick, or a manufacture, of which the secrets are lost, the
+greatest minds of existing nations, if exerted with the same industry,
+passion, and honest aim as those of past time, have a chance in their
+particular walk of doing something as great, or, taking the advantage of
+former example into account, even greater and better. It is difficult to
+conceive by what laws of logic some of the reviewers of the following
+Essay have construed its first sentence into a denial of this
+principle,--a denial such as their own conventional and shallow criticism
+of modern works invariably implies. I have said that "nothing has been
+for centuries consecrated by public admiration without possessing in a
+_high_ degree _some_ species of sterling excellence." Does it thence
+follow that it possesses in the _highest_ degree _every_ species of
+sterling excellence? "Yet thus," says the sapient reviewer, "he admits
+the fact against which he mainly argues,--namely, the superiority of
+these time-honored productions." As if the possession of an abstract
+excellence of some kind necessarily implied the possession of an
+incomparable excellence of every kind! There are few works of man so
+perfect as to admit of no conception of their being excelled,[A]--there
+are thousands which have been for centuries, and will be for centuries
+more, consecrated by public admiration, which are yet imperfect in many
+respects, and have been excelled, and may be excelled again. Do my
+opponents mean to assert that nothing good can ever be bettered, and that
+what is best of past time is necessarily best of all time? Perugino, I
+suppose, possessed some species of sterling excellence, but Perugino was
+excelled by Raffaelle; and so Claude possesses some species of sterling
+excellence, but it follows not that he may not be excelled by Turner.
+
+The second point on which I would insist is that if a mind _were_ to
+arise of such power as to be capable of equalling or excelling some of
+the greatest works of past ages, the productions of such a mind would,
+in all probability, be totally different in manner and matter from all
+former productions; for the more powerful the intellect, the less will
+its works resemble those of other men, whether predecessors or
+contemporaries. Instead of reasoning, therefore, as we commonly do, in
+matters of art, that because such and such a work does not resemble that
+which has hitherto been a canon, therefore it _must_ be inferior and
+wrong in principle; let us rather admit that there is in its very
+dissimilarity an increased chance of its being itself a new, and
+perhaps, a higher canon. If any production of modern art can be shown to
+have the authority of nature on its side, and to be based on eternal
+truths, it is all so much more in its favor, so much farther proof of
+its power, that it is totally different from all that have been before
+seen.[B]
+
+The third point on which I would insist, is that if such a mind were to
+arise, it would necessarily divide the world of criticism into two
+factions; the one, necessarily the largest and loudest, composed of men
+incapable of judging except by precedent, ignorant of general truth, and
+acquainted only with such particular truths as may have been illustrated
+or pointed out to them by former works, which class would of course be
+violent in vituperation, and increase in animosity as the master
+departed farther from their particular and preconceived canons of
+right,--thus wounding their vanity by impugning their judgment; the
+other, necessarily narrow of number, composed of men of general
+knowledge and unbiassed habits of thought, who would recognize in the
+work of the daring innovator a record and illustration of facts before
+unseized, who would justly and candidly estimate the value of the truths
+so rendered, and would increase in fervor of admiration as the master
+strode farther and deeper, and more daringly into dominions before
+unsearched or unknown; yet diminishing in multitude as they increased in
+enthusiasm: for by how much their leader became more impatient in his
+step--more impetuous in his success--more exalted in his research, by so
+much must the number capable of following him become narrower, until at
+last, supposing him never to pause in his advance, he might be left in
+the very culminating moment of his consummate achievement, with but a
+faithful few by his side, his former disciples fallen away, his former
+enemies doubled in numbers and virulence, and the evidence of his
+supremacy only to be wrought out by the devotion of men's lives to the
+earnest study of the new truths he had discovered and recorded.
+
+Such a mind has arisen in our days. It has gone on from strength to
+strength, laying open fields of conquest peculiar to itself. It has
+occasioned such schism in the schools of criticism as was beforehand to
+be expected, and it is now at the zenith of its power, and,
+_consequently_, in the last phase of declining popularity.
+
+This I know, and can prove. No man, says Southey, was ever yet convinced
+of any momentous truth without feeling in himself the power, as well as
+the desire of communicating it. In asserting and demonstrating the
+supremacy of this great master, I shall both do immediate service to the
+cause of right art, and shall be able to illustrate many principles of
+landscape painting which are of general application, and have hitherto
+been unacknowledged.
+
+For anything like immediate effect on the public mind, I do not hope.
+"We mistake men's diseases," says Richard Baxter, "when we think there
+needeth nothing to cure them of their errors but the evidence of truth.
+Alas! there are many distempers of mind to be removed before they
+receive that evidence." Nevertheless, when it is fully laid before them,
+my duty will be done. Conviction will follow in due time. I do not
+consider myself as in any way addressing, or having to do with, the
+ordinary critics of the press. Their writings are not the guide, but the
+expression, of public opinion. A writer for a newspaper naturally and
+necessarily endeavors to meet, as nearly as he can, the feelings of the
+majority of his readers; his bread depends on his doing so. Precluded by
+the nature of his occupations from gaining any knowledge of art, he is
+sure that he can gain credit for it by expressing the opinions of his
+readers. He mocks the picture which the public pass, and bespatters with
+praise the canvas which a crowd concealed from him.
+
+Writers like the present critic of Blackwood's Magazine[C] deserve more
+respect--the respect due to honest, hopeless, helpless imbecility. There
+is something exalted in the innocence of their feeblemindedness: one
+cannot suspect them of partiality, for it implies feeling; nor of
+prejudice, for it implies some previous acquaintance with their subject.
+I do not know that even in this age of charlatanry, I could point to a
+more barefaced instance of imposture on the simplicity of the public,
+than the insertion of these pieces of criticism in a respectable
+periodical. We are not insulted with opinions on music from persons
+ignorant of its notes; nor with treatises on philology by persons
+unacquainted with the alphabet; but here is page after page of
+criticism, which one may read from end to end, looking for something
+which the writer knows, and finding nothing. Not his own language, for
+he has to look in his dictionary, by his own confession, for a word[D]
+occurring in one of the most important chapters of his Bible; not the
+commonest traditions of the schools, for he does not know why Poussin
+was called "learned;"[E] not the most simple canons of art, for he
+prefers Lee to Gainsborough;[F] not the most ordinary facts of nature,
+for we find him puzzled by the epithet "silver," as applied to the
+orange blossom,--evidently never having seen anything silvery about an
+orange in his life, except a spoon. Nay, he leaves us not to conjecture
+his calibre from internal evidence; he candidly tells us (Oct. 1842)
+that he has been studying trees only for the last week, and bases his
+critical remarks chiefly on his practical experience of birch. More
+disinterested than our friend Sancho, he would disenchant the public
+from the magic of Turner by virtue of his own flagellation;
+Xanthias-like, he would rob his master of immortality by his own powers
+of endurance. What is Christopher North about? Does he receive his
+critiques from Eaton or Harrow--based on the experience of a week's
+birds'-nesting and its consequences? How low must art and its interests
+sink, when the public mind is inadequate to the detection of this
+effrontery of incapacity! In all kindness to Maga, we warn her, that,
+though the nature of this work precludes us from devoting space to the
+exposure, there may come a time when the public shall be themselves able
+to distinguish ribaldry from reasoning, and may require some better and
+higher qualifications in their critics of art, than the experience of a
+school-boy, and the capacities of a buffoon.
+
+It is not, however, merely to vindicate the reputation of those whom
+writers like these defame, which would but be to anticipate by a few
+years the natural and inevitable reaction of the public mind, that I am
+devoting years of labor to the development of the principles on which
+the great productions of recent art are based. I have a higher end in
+view--one which may, I think, justify me, not only in the sacrifice of
+my own time, but in calling on my readers to follow me through an
+investigation far more laborious than could be adequately rewarded by
+mere insight into the merits of a particular master, or the spirit of a
+particular age.
+
+It is a question which, in spite of the claims of Painting to be
+called the Sister of Poetry, appears to me to admit of considerable
+doubt, whether art has ever, except in its earliest and rudest stages,
+possessed anything like efficient moral influence on mankind. Better the
+state of Rome when "magnorum artificum frangebat pocula miles, ut
+phaleris gauderet equus," than when her walls flashed with the marble
+and the gold, "nec cessabat luxuria id agere, ut quam plurimum incendiis
+perdat." Better the state of religion in Italy, before Giotto had broken
+on one barbarism of the Byzantine schools, than when the painter of the
+Last Judgment, and the sculptor of the Perseus, sat revelling side by
+side. It appears to me that a rude symbol is oftener more efficient than
+a refined one in touching the heart, and that as pictures rise in rank
+as works of art, they are regarded with less devotion and more
+curiosity.
+
+But, however this may be, and whatever influence we may be disposed to
+admit in the great works of sacred art, no doubt can, I think, be
+reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility of all that has been
+hitherto accomplished by the painters of landscape. No moral end has
+been answered, no permanent good effected, by any of their works. They
+may have amused the intellect, or exercised the ingenuity, but they
+never have spoken to the heart. Landscape art has never taught us one
+deep or holy lesson; it has not recorded that which is fleeting, nor
+penetrated that which was hidden, nor interpreted that which was
+obscure; it has never made us feel the wonder, nor the power, nor the
+glory, of the universe; it has not prompted to devotion, nor touched
+with awe; its power to move and exalt the heart has been fatally abused,
+and perished in the abusing. That which ought to have been a witness to
+the omnipotence of God, has become an exhibition of the dexterity of
+man, and that which should have lifted our thoughts to the throne of the
+Deity, has encumbered them with the inventions of his creatures.
+
+If we stand for a little time before any of the more celebrated works of
+landscape, listening to the comments of the passers-by, we shall hear
+numberless expressions relating to the skill of the artist, but very few
+relating to the perfection of nature. Hundreds will be voluble in
+admiration, for one who will be silent in delight. Multitudes will laud
+the composition, and depart with the praise of Claude on their
+lips,--not one will feel as if it were _no_ composition, and depart
+with the praise of God in his heart.
+
+These are the signs of a debased, mistaken, and false school of
+painting. The skill of the artist, and the perfection of his art, are
+never proved until both are forgotten. The artist has done nothing till
+he has concealed himself,--the art is imperfect which is visible,--the
+feelings are but feebly touched, if they permit us to reason on the
+methods of their excitement. In the reading of a great poem, in the
+hearing of a noble oration, it is the subject of the writer, and not his
+skill,--his passion, not his power, on which our minds are fixed. We see
+as he sees, but we see not him. We become part of him, feel with him,
+judge, behold with him; but we think _of_ him as little as of ourselves.
+Do we think of Aeschylus while we wait on the silence of Cassandra,[G] or
+of Shakspeare, while we listen to the wailing of Lear? Not so. The power
+of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation. It is commensurate
+with the degree in which they themselves appear not in their work. The
+harp of the minstrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it
+records. Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding the mind
+far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his creation, and the
+knowledge which is past his finding out.
+
+And must it ever be otherwise with painting, for otherwise it has ever
+been. Her subjects have been regarded as mere themes on which the
+artist's power is to be displayed; and that power, be it of imitation,
+composition, idealization, or of whatever other kind, is the chief
+object of the spectator's observation. It is man and his fancies, man
+and his trickeries, man and his inventions,--poor, paltry, weak,
+self-sighted man,--which the connoisseur forever seeks and worships.
+Among potsherds and dunghills, among drunken boors and withered
+beldames, through every scene of debauchery and degradation, we follow
+the erring artist, not to receive one wholesome lesson, not to be
+touched with pity, nor moved with indignation, but to watch the
+dexterity of the pencil, and gloat over the glittering of the hue.
+
+I speak not only of the works of the Flemish School--I wage no war with
+their admirers; they may be left in peace to count the spiculae of
+haystacks and the hairs of donkeys--it is also of works of real mind
+that I speak,--works in which there are evidences of genius and workings
+of power,--works which have been held up as containing all of the
+beautiful that art can reach or man conceive. And I assert with sorrow,
+that all hitherto done in landscape, by those commonly conceived its
+masters, has never prompted one holy thought in the minds of nations. It
+has begun and ended in exhibiting the dexterities of individuals, and
+conventionalities of systems. Filling the world with the honor of Claude
+and Salvator, it has never once tended to the honor of God.
+
+Does the reader start in reading these last words, as if they were those
+of wild enthusiasm,--as if I were lowering the dignity of religion by
+supposing that its cause could be advanced by such means? His surprise
+proves my position. It _does_ sound like wild, like absurd enthusiasm,
+to expect any definite moral agency in the painters of landscape; but
+ought it so to sound? Are the gorgeousness of the visible hue, the glory
+of the realized form, instruments in the artist's hand so ineffective,
+that they can answer no nobler purpose than the amusement of curiosity,
+or the engagement of idleness? Must it not be owing to gross neglect or
+misapplication of the means at his command, that while words and tones
+(means of representing nature surely less powerful than lines and
+colors) can kindle and purify the very inmost souls of men, the painter
+can only hope to entertain by his efforts at expression, and must remain
+forever brooding over his incommunicable thoughts?
+
+The cause of the evil lies, I believe, deep-seated in the system of
+ancient landscape art; it consists, in a word, in the painter's taking
+upon him to modify God's works at his pleasure, casting the shadow of
+himself on all he sees, constituting himself arbiter where it is honor
+to be a disciple, and exhibiting his ingenuity by the attainment of
+combinations whose highest praise is that they are impossible. We shall
+not pass through a single gallery of old art, without hearing this topic
+of praise confidently advanced. The sense of artificialness, the
+absence of all appearance of reality, the clumsiness of combination by
+which the meddling of man is made evident, and the feebleness of his
+hand branded on the inorganization of his monstrous creature, is
+advanced as a proof of inventive power, as an evidence of abstracted
+conception;--nay, the violation of specific form, the utter abandonment
+of all organic and individual character of object, (numberless examples
+of which from the works of the old masters are given in the following
+pages,) is constantly held up by the unthinking critic as the foundation
+of the grand or historical style, and the first step to the attainment
+of a pure ideal. Now, there is but one grand style, in the treatment of
+all subjects whatsoever, and that style is based on the _perfect_
+knowledge, and consists in the simple, unencumbered rendering, of the
+specific characters of the given object, be it man, beast, or flower.
+Every change, caricature, or abandonment of such specific character, is
+as destructive of grandeur as it is of truth, of beauty as of propriety.
+Every alteration of the features of nature has its origin either in
+powerless indolence or blind audacity, in the folly which forgets, or
+the insolence which desecrates, works which it is the pride of angels to
+know, and their privilege to love.
+
+We sometimes hear such infringement of universal laws justified on the
+plea, that the frequent introduction of mythological abstractions into
+ancient landscape requires an imaginary character of form in the
+material objects with which they are associated. Something of this kind
+is hinted in Reynolds's 14th Discourse; but nothing can be more false
+than such reasoning. If there be any truth or beauty in the original
+conception of the spiritual being so introduced, there must be a true
+and real connection between that abstract idea[H] and the features of
+nature as she was and is. The woods and waters which were peopled by the
+Greek with typical life were not different from those which now wave and
+murmur by the ruins of his shrines. With their visible and actual forms
+was his imagination filled, and the beauty of its incarnate creatures
+can only be understood among the pure realities which originally
+modelled their conception. If divinity be stamped upon the features, or
+apparent in the form of the spiritual creature, the mind will not be
+shocked by its appearing to ride upon the whirlwind, and trample on the
+storm; but if mortality, no violation of the characters of the earth
+will forge one single link to bind it to the heaven.
+
+Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal character of landscape?
+Undoubtedly; and Sir Joshua, with the great master of this character,
+Nicolo Poussin, present to his thoughts, ought to have arrived at more
+true conclusions respecting its essence than, as we shall presently see,
+are deducible from his works. The true ideal of landscape is precisely
+the same as that of the human form; it is the expression of the
+specific--not the individual, but the specific--characters of every
+object, in their perfection; there is an ideal form of every herb,
+flower, and tree: it is that form to which every individual of the
+species has a tendency to arrive, freed from the influence of accident
+or disease. Every landscape painter should know the specific characters
+of every object he has to represent, rock, flower, or cloud; and in his
+highest ideal works, all their distinctions will be perfectly expressed,
+broadly or delicately, slightly or completely, according to the nature
+of the subject, and the degree of attention which is to be drawn to the
+particular object by the part it plays in the composition. Where the
+sublime is aimed at, such distinctions will be indicated with severe
+simplicity, as the muscular markings in a colossal statue; where beauty
+is the object, they must be expressed with the utmost refinement of
+which the hand is capable.
+
+This may sound like a contradiction of principles advanced by the
+highest authorities; but it is only a contradiction of a particular and
+most mistaken application of them. Much evil has been done to art by
+the remarks of historical painters on landscape. Accustomed themselves
+to treat their backgrounds slightly and boldly, and feeling (though, as
+I shall presently show, only in consequence of their own deficient
+powers) that any approach to completeness of detail therein, injures
+their picture by interfering with its principal subject, they naturally
+lose sight of the peculiar and intrinsic beauties of things which to
+them are injurious, unless subordinate. Hence the frequent advice given
+by Reynolds and others, to neglect _specific_ form in landscape, and
+treat its materials in large masses, aiming only at general truths,--the
+flexibility of foliage, but not its kind; the rigidity of rock, but not
+its mineral character. In the passage more especially bearing on this
+subject (in the eleventh lecture of Sir J. Reynolds), we are told that
+"the landscape painter works not for the virtuoso or the naturalist, but
+for the general observer of life and nature." This is true, in precisely
+the same sense that the sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but
+for the common observer of life and nature. Yet the sculptor is not, for
+this reason, permitted to be wanting either in knowledge or expression
+of anatomical detail; and the more refined that expression can be
+rendered, the more perfect is his work. That which, to the anatomist, is
+the end,--is, to the sculptor, the means. The former desires details,
+for their own sake; the latter, that by means of them, he may kindle his
+work with life, and stamp it with beauty. And so in landscape;--botanical
+or geological details are not to be given as matter of curiosity or
+subject of search, but as the ultimate elements of every species of
+expression and order of loveliness.
+
+In his observations on the foreground of the St. Pietro Martire, Sir
+Joshua advances, as matter of praise, that the plants are discriminated
+"just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more." Had this
+foreground been occupied by a group of animals, we should have been
+surprised to be told that the lion, the serpent, and the dove, or
+whatever other creatures might have been introduced, were distinguished
+from each other just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more.
+Yet is it to be supposed that the distinctions of the vegetable world
+are less complete, less essential, or less divine in origin, than those
+of the animal? If the distinctive forms of animal life are meant for our
+reverent observance, is it likely that those of vegetable life are made
+merely to be swept away? The latter are indeed less obvious and less
+obtrusive; for which very reason there is less excuse for omitting them,
+because there is less danger of their disturbing the attention or
+engaging the fancy.
+
+But Sir Joshua is as inaccurate in fact, as false in principle. He
+himself furnishes a most singular instance of the very error of which he
+accuses Vaseni,--the seeing what he expects; or, rather, in the present
+case, not seeing what he does not expect. The great masters of Italy,
+almost without exception, and Titian perhaps more than any, (for he had
+the highest knowledge of landscape,) are in the constant habit of
+rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the most laborious
+botanical fidelity: witness the "Bacchus and Ariadne," in which the
+foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia, and the
+wild rose; _every stamen_ of which latter is given, while the blossoms
+and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have been
+studied with the most exquisite accuracy. The foregrounds of Raffaelle's
+two cartoons,--"The Miraculous Draught of Fishes" and "The Charge to
+Peter,"--are covered with plants of the common sea colewort, (_crambe
+maritima_,) of which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would
+have exhausted the patience of any other artist; but have appeared
+worthy of prolonged and thoughtful labor to the great mind of Raffaelle.
+
+It appears then, not only from natural principles, but from the highest
+of all authority, that thorough knowledge of the lowest details is
+necessary and full expression of them right, even in the highest class
+of historical painting; that it will not take away from, nor interfere
+with, the interest of the figures; but, rightly managed, must add to and
+elucidate it; and, if further proof be wanting, I would desire the
+reader to compare the background of Sir Joshua's "Holy Family," in the
+National Gallery, with that of Nicolo Poussin's "Nursing of Jupiter," in
+the Dulwich Gallery. The first, owing to the utter neglect of all
+botanical detail, has lost every atom of ideal character, and reminds us
+of nothing but an English fashionable flower garden;--the formal
+pedestal adding considerably to the effect. Poussin's, in which every
+vine leaf is drawn with consummate skill and untiring diligence,
+produces not only a tree group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but
+one which, in its pure and simple truth, belongs to every age of nature,
+and adapts itself to the history of all time. If, then, such entire
+rendering of specific character be necessary to the historical painter,
+in cases where these lower details are entirely subordinate to his human
+subject, how much more must it be necessary in landscape, where they
+themselves constitute the subject, and where the undivided attention is
+to be drawn to them.
+
+There is a singular sense in which the child may peculiarly be said to
+be father of the man. In many arts and attainments, the first and last
+stages of progress--the infancy and the consummation--have many features
+in common; while the intermediate stages are wholly unlike either, and
+are farthest from the right. Thus it is in the progress of a painter's
+handling. We see the perfect child,--the absolute beginner, using of
+necessity a broken, imperfect, inadequate line, which, as he advances,
+becomes gradually firm, severe, and decided. Yet before he becomes a
+perfect artist, this severity and decision will again be exchanged for a
+light and careless stroke, which in many points will far more resemble
+that of his childhood than of his middle age--differing from it only by
+the consummate effect wrought out by the apparently inadequate means. So
+it is in many matters of opinion. Our first and last coincide, though on
+different grounds; it is the middle stage which is farthest from the
+truth. Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers, which the
+grasp of manhood cannot retain,--which it is the pride of utmost age to
+recover.
+
+Perhaps this is in no instance more remarkable than in the opinion we
+form upon the subject of detail in works of art. Infants in judgment, we
+look for specific character, and complete finish--we delight in the
+faithful plumage of the well-known bird--in the finely drawn leafage of
+the discriminated flower. As we advance in judgment, we scorn such
+detail altogether; we look for impetuosity of execution, and breadth of
+effect. But, perfected in judgment, we return in a great measure to our
+early feelings, and thank Raffaelle for the shells upon his sacred
+beach, and for the delicate stamens of the herbage beside his inspired
+St. Catherine.[I]
+
+Of those who take interest in art, nay, even of artists themselves,
+there are an hundred in the middle stage of judgment, for one who is in
+the last; and this not because they are destitute of the power to
+discover, or the sensibility to enjoy the truth, but because the truth
+bears so much semblance of error--the last stage of the journey to the
+first,--that every feeling which guides to it is checked in its origin.
+The rapid and powerful artist necessarily looks with such contempt on
+those who seek minutiae of detail _rather_ than grandeur of impression,
+that it is almost impossible for him to conceive of the great last step
+in art, by which both become compatible. He has so often to dash the
+delicacy out of the pupil's work, and to blot the details from his
+encumbered canvas; so frequently to lament the loss of breadth and
+unity, and so seldom to reprehend the imperfection of minutiae, that he
+necessarily looks upon complete _parts_ as the very sign of error,
+weakness, and ignorance. Thus, frequently to the latest period of his
+life, he separates, like Sir Joshua, as chief enemies, the details and
+the whole, which an artist cannot be great unless he reconciles; and
+because details alone, and unreferred to a final purpose, are the sign
+of a tyro's work, he loses sight of the remoter truth, that details
+perfect in unity, and, contributing to a final purpose, are the sign of
+the production of a consummate master.
+
+It is not, therefore, detail sought for its own sake,--not the
+calculable bricks of the Dutch house-painters, nor the numbered hairs
+and mapped wrinkles of Denner, which constitute great art,--they are the
+lowest and most contemptible art; but it is detail referred to a great
+end,--sought for the sake of the inestimable beauty which exists in the
+slightest and least of God's works, and treated in a manly, broad, and
+impressive manner. There may be as much greatness of mind, as much
+nobility of manner in a master's treatment of the smallest features, as
+in his management of the most vast; and this greatness of manner chiefly
+consists in seizing the specific character of the object, together with
+all the great qualities of beauty which it has in common with higher
+orders of existence,[J] while he utterly rejects the meaner beauties
+which are accidentally peculiar to the object, and yet not specifically
+characteristic of it. I cannot give a better instance than the painting
+of the flowers in Titian's picture above mentioned. While every stamen
+of the rose is given, because this was necessary to mark the flower, and
+while the curves and large characters of the leaves are rendered with
+exquisite fidelity, there is no vestige of particular texture, of moss,
+bloom, moisture, or any other accident--no dew-drops, nor flies, nor
+trickeries of any kind; nothing beyond the simple forms and hues of the
+flowers,--even those hues themselves being simplified and broadly
+rendered. The varieties of aquilegia have, in reality, a grayish and
+uncertain tone of color; and, I believe, never attain the intense purity
+of blue with which Titian has gifted his flower. But the master does not
+aim at the particular color of individual blossoms; he seizes the type
+of all, and gives it with the utmost purity and simplicity of which
+color is capable.
+
+These laws being observed, it will not only be in the power, it will be
+the duty,--the imperative duty,--of the landscape painter, to descend to
+the lowest details with undiminished attention. Every herb and flower of
+the field has its specific, distinct, and perfect beauty; it has its
+peculiar habitation, expression, and function. The highest art is that
+which seizes this specific character, which develops and illustrates it,
+which assigns to it its proper position in the landscape, and which, by
+means of it, enhances and enforces the great impression which the
+picture is intended to convey. Nor is it of herbs and flowers alone that
+such scientific representation is required. Every class of rock, every
+kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied with equal industry,
+and rendered with equal precision. And thus we find ourselves
+unavoidably led to a conclusion directly opposed to that constantly
+enunciated dogma of the parrot-critic, that the features of nature must
+be "generalized,"--a dogma whose inherent and broad absurdity would long
+ago have been detected, if it had not contained in its convenient
+falsehood an apology for indolence, and a disguise for incapacity.
+Generalized! As if it were possible to generalize things generically
+different. Of such common cant of criticism I extract a characteristic
+passage from one of the reviews of this work, that in this year's
+Athenaeum for February 10th: "He (the author) would have geological
+landscape painters, dendrologic, meteorologic, and doubtless
+entomologic, ichthyologic, every kind of physiologic painter united in
+the same person; yet, alas, for true poetic art among all these learned
+Thebans! No; landscape painting must not be reduced to mere portraiture
+of inanimate substances, Denner-like portraiture of the earth's face.
+*  *  *  *  *  Ancient landscapists took a broader, deeper, higher view
+of their art; they neglected particular traits, and gave only general
+features. Thus they attained mass and force, harmonious union and simple
+effect, the elements of grandeur and beauty."
+
+To all such criticism as this (and I notice it only because it expresses
+the feelings into which many sensible and thoughtful minds have been
+fashioned by infection) the answer is simple and straightforward. It is
+just as impossible to generalize granite and slate, as it is to
+generalize a man and a cow. An animal must be either one animal or
+another animal; it cannot be a general animal, or it is no animal; and
+so a rock must be either one rock or another rock; it cannot be a
+general rock, or it is no rock. If there were a creature in the
+foreground of a picture, of which he could not decide whether it were a
+pony or a pig, the Athenaeum critic would perhaps affirm it to be a
+generalization of pony and pig, and consequently a high example of
+"harmonious union and simple effect." But _I_ should call it simple bad
+drawing. And so when there are things in the foreground of Salvator of
+which I cannot pronounce whether they be granite or slate, or tufa, I
+affirm that there is in them neither harmonious union nor simple effect,
+but simple monstrosity. There is no grandeur, no beauty of any sort or
+kind; nothing but destruction, disorganization, and ruin, to be obtained
+by the violation of natural distinctions. The elements of brutes can
+only mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic nature only in
+annihilation. We may, if we choose, put together centaur monsters; but
+they must still be half man, half horse; they cannot be both man and
+horse, nor either man or horse. And so, if landscape painters choose,
+they may give us rocks which shall be half granite and half slate; but
+they cannot give us rocks which shall be either granite or slate, nor
+which shall be both granite and slate. Every attempt to produce that
+which shall be _any_ rock, ends in the production of that which is _no_
+rock.
+
+It is true that the distinctions of rocks and plants and clouds are less
+conspicuous, and less constantly subjects of observation than those of
+the animal creation; but the difficulty of observing them proves not
+the merit of overlooking them. It only accounts for the singular fact,
+that the world has never yet seen anything like a perfect school of
+landscape. For just as the highest historical painting is based on
+perfect knowledge of the workings of the human form, and human mind, so
+must the highest landscape painting be based on perfect cognizance of
+the form, functions, and system of every organic or definitely
+structured existence which it has to represent. This proposition is
+self-evident to every thinking mind; and every principle which appears
+to contradict it is either misstated or misunderstood. For instance, the
+Athenaeum critic calls the right statement of generic difference
+"_Denner_-like portraiture." If he can find anything like Denner in what
+I have advanced as the utmost perfection of landscape art--the recent
+works of Turner--he is welcome to his discovery and his theory. No;
+Denner-like portraiture would be the endeavor to paint the separate
+crystals of quartz and felspar in the granite, and the separate flakes
+of mica in the mica slate,--an attempt just as far removed from what I
+assert to be great art, (the bold rendering of the generic characters of
+form in both rocks,) as modern sculpture of lace and button-holes is
+from the Elgin marbles. Martin has attempted this Denner-like
+portraiture of sea-foam with the assistance of an acre of canvas--with
+what success, I believe the critics of his last year's Canute had, for
+once, sense enough to decide.
+
+Again, it does not follow that because such accurate knowledge is
+_necessary_ to the painter that it should constitute the painter, nor
+that such knowledge is valuable in itself, and without reference to high
+ends. Every kind of knowledge may be sought from ignoble motives, and
+for ignoble ends; and in those who so possess it, it is ignoble
+knowledge; while the very same knowledge is in another mind an
+attainment of the highest dignity, and conveying the greatest blessing.
+This is the difference between the mere botanist's knowledge of plants,
+and the great poet's or painter's knowledge of them. The one notes their
+distinctions for the sake of swelling his herbarium, the other, that he
+may render them vehicles of expression and emotion. The one counts the
+stamens, and affixes a name, and is content; the other observes every
+character of the plant's color and form; considering each of its
+attributes as an element of expression, he seizes on its lines of grace
+or energy, rigidity or repose; notes the feebleness or the vigor, the
+serenity or tremulousness of its hues; observes its local habits, its
+love or fear of peculiar places, its nourishment or destruction by
+particular influences; he associates it in his mind with all the
+features of the situations it inhabits, and the ministering agencies
+necessary to its support. Thenceforward the flower is to him a living
+creature, with histories written on its leaves, and passions breathing
+in its motion. Its occurrence in his picture is no mere point of color,
+no meaningless spark of light. It is a voice rising from the earth,--a
+new chord of the mind's music,--a necessary note in the harmony of his
+picture, contributing alike to its tenderness and its dignity, nor less
+to its loveliness than its truth.
+
+The particularization of flowers by Shakspeare and Shelley affords us
+the most frequent examples of the exalted use of these inferior details.
+It is true that the painter has not the same power of expressing the
+thoughts with which his symbols are connected; he is dependent in some
+degree on the knowledge and feeling of the spectator; but, by the
+destruction of such details, his foreground is not rendered more
+intelligible to the ignorant, although it ceases to have interest for
+the informed. It is no excuse for illegible writing that there are
+persons who could not have read it had it been plain.
+
+I repeat then, generalization, as the word is commonly understood, is
+the act of a vulgar, incapable, and unthinking mind. To see in all
+mountains nothing but similar heaps of earth; in all rocks, nothing but
+similar concretions of solid matter; in all trees, nothing but similar
+accumulations of leaves, is no sign of high feeling or extended thought.
+The more we know, and the more we feel, the more we separate; we
+separate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the thoughts of the
+peasant, lie as they do on his field, one is like another, and there is
+no connection between any of them. The geologist distinguishes, and in
+distinguishing connects them. Each becomes different from its fellow,
+but in differing from, assumes a relation to its fellow; they are no
+more each the repetition of the other,--they are parts of a system, and
+each implies and is connected with the existence of the rest. That
+generalization then is right, true, and noble, which is based on the
+knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relations of
+individual kinds. That generalization is wrong, false, and contemptible,
+which is based on ignorance of the one, and disturbance of the other.
+It is indeed no generalization, but confusion and chaos; it is the
+generalization of a defeated army into indistinguishable impotence--the
+generalization of the elements of a dead carcass into dust.
+
+Let us, then, without farther notice of the dogmata of the schools of
+art, follow forth those conclusions to which we are led by observance of
+the laws of nature.
+
+I have just said that every class of rock, earth and cloud, must be
+known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic accuracy.[K] Nor is
+this merely for the sake of obtaining the character of these minor
+features themselves, but more especially for the sake of reaching that
+simple, earnest, and consistent character which is visible in the
+_whole_ effect of every natural landscape. Every geological formation
+has features entirely peculiar to itself; definite lines of fracture,
+giving rise to fixed resultant forms of rock and earth; peculiar
+vegetable products, among which still farther distinctions are wrought
+out by variations of climate and elevation. From such modifying
+circumstances arise the infinite varieties of the orders of landscape,
+of which each one shows perfect harmony among its several features, and
+possesses an ideal beauty of its own; a beauty not distinguished merely
+by such peculiarities as are wrought on the human form by change of
+climate, but by generic differences the most marked and essential; so
+that its classes cannot be generalized or amalgamated by any expedients
+whatsoever. The level marshes and rich meadows of the tertiary, the
+rounded swells and short pastures of the chalk, the square-built cliffs
+and cloven dells of the lower limestone, the soaring peaks and ridgy
+precipices of the primaries, having nothing in common among
+them--nothing which is not distinctive and incommunicable. Their very
+atmospheres are different--their clouds are different--their humors of
+storm and sunshine are different--their flowers, animals and forests are
+different. By each order of landscape--and its orders, I repeat, are
+infinite in number, corresponding not only to the several species of
+rock, but to the particular circumstances of the rocks' deposition or
+after treatment, and to the incalculable varieties of climate, aspect,
+and human interference:--by each order of landscape, I say, peculiar
+lessons are intended to be taught, and distinct pleasures to be
+conveyed; and it is as utterly futile to talk of generalizing their
+impressions into an ideal landscape, as to talk of amalgamating all
+nourishment into one ideal food, gathering all music into one ideal
+movement, or confounding all thought into one ideal idea.
+
+There is, however, such a thing as composition of different orders of
+landscape, though there can be no generalization of them. Nature herself
+perpetually brings together elements of various expression. Her barren
+rocks stoop through wooded promontories to the plain; and the wreaths of
+the vine show through their green shadows the wan light of unperishing
+snow.
+
+The painter, therefore, has the choice of either working out the
+isolated character of some one distinct class of scene, or of bringing
+together a multitude of different elements, which may adorn each other
+by contrast.
+
+I believe that the simple and uncombined landscape, if wrought out with
+due attention to the ideal beauty of the features it includes, will
+always be the most powerful in its appeal to the heart. Contrast
+increases the splendor of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds
+to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power. On this subject I shall
+have much to say hereafter; at present I merely wish to suggest the
+possibility, that the single-minded painter, who is working out on broad
+and simple principles, a piece of unbroken, harmonious landscape
+character, may be reaching an end in art quite as high as the more
+ambitious student who is always "within five minutes' walk of
+everywhere," making the ends of the earth contribute to his pictorial
+guazzetto;[L] and the certainty, that unless the composition of the
+latter be regulated by severe judgment, and its members connected by
+natural links, it must become more contemptible in its motley, than an
+honest study of roadside weeds.
+
+Let me, at the risk of tediously repeating what is universally known,
+refer to the common principles of historical composition, in order that
+I may show their application to that of landscape. The merest tyro in
+art knows that every figure which is unnecessary to his picture, is an
+encumbrance to it, and that every figure which does not sympathize with
+the action, interrupts it. He that gathereth not with me,
+scattereth,--is, or ought to be, the ruling principle of his plan: and
+the power and grandeur of his result will be exactly proportioned to the
+unity of feeling manifested in its several parts, and to the propriety
+and simplicity of the relations in which they stand to each other.
+
+All this is equally applicable to the materials of inanimate nature.
+Impressiveness is destroyed by a multitude of contradictory facts, and
+the accumulation, which is not harmonious, is discordant. He who
+endeavors to unite simplicity with magnificence, to guide from solitude
+to festivity, and to contrast melancholy with mirth, must end by the
+production of confused inanity. There is a peculiar spirit; possessed by
+every kind of scene; and although a point of contrast may sometimes
+enhance and exhibit this particular feeling more intensely, it must be
+only a point, not an equalized opposition. Every introduction of new and
+different feeling weakens the force of what has already been impressed,
+and the mingling of all emotions must conclude in apathy, as the
+mingling of all colors in white.
+
+Let us test by these simple rules one of the "ideal" landscape
+compositions of Claude, that known to the Italians as "Il Mulino."
+
+The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery,
+with a dance of peasants by a brookside; quite enough subject to form,
+in the hands of a master, an impressive and complete picture. On the
+other side of the brook, however, we have a piece of pastoral life, a
+man with some bulls and goats tumbling headforemost into the water,
+owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this
+group is one too many; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock
+so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle.
+But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive a
+sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance, amidst things
+pastoral and musical, of the military: a number of Roman soldiers riding
+in on hobby-horses, with a leader on foot, apparently encouraging them
+to make an immediate and decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the
+soldiers is a circular temple, in exceedingly bad repair, and close
+beside it, built against its very walls, a neat water-mill in full work.
+By the mill flows a large river, with a weir all across it. The weir has
+not been made for the mill, (for that receives its water from the hills
+by a trough carried over the temple,) but it is particularly ugly and
+monotonous in its line of fall, and the water below forms a dead-looking
+pond, on which some people are fishing in punts. The banks of this river
+resemble in contour the later geological formations around London,
+constituted chiefly of broken pots and oyster-shells. At an inconvenient
+distance from the water-side stands a city, composed of twenty-five
+round towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge; beyond
+the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of aqueducts; beyond
+the Campagna, the chain of the Alps; on the left, the cascades of
+Tivoli.
+
+This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an "ideal
+landscape," _i.e._, a group of the artist's studies from nature,
+individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as may
+insure their neutralizing each other's effect, and united with
+sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association to insure their
+producing a general sensation of the impossible. Let us analyze the
+separate subjects a little in this ideal work of Claude's.
+
+Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary
+extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader
+imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the
+living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The
+earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly,
+for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of
+the bones of men.[M] The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in
+the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along
+the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of
+mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were
+struggling in their sleep; scattered blocks of black stone, four-square,
+remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to
+keep them down. A dull purple, poisonous haze stretches level along the
+desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the
+red light rests like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the
+Alban mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet
+sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the
+promontories, of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains, the
+shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like
+shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, passing from a
+nation's grave.
+
+Let us, with Claude, make a few "ideal" alterations in this landscape.
+First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices of the Apennines to
+four sugar-loaves. Secondly, we will remove the Alban mount, and put a
+large dust-heap in its stead. Next, we will knock down the greater part
+of the aqueducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of
+length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist
+and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with round
+white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant ruins in the
+foreground; we will plant some handsome trees therein, we will send for
+some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and a picnic party.
+
+It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species of
+improvement is made on the materials which Claude had ready to his hand.
+The descending slopes of the city of Rome, towards the pyramid of Caius
+Cestius, supply not only lines of the most exquisite variety and beauty,
+but matter for contemplation and reflection in every fragment of their
+buildings. This passage has been idealized by Claude into a set of
+similar round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that
+they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached, beyond
+the difficulty of conjecturing what they could have been built for. The
+ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive by the juxtaposition of
+the water-mill, and inexplicable by the introduction of the Roman
+soldiers. The glide of the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and
+Anio through the Campagna, is impressive in itself, but altogether
+ceases to be so, when we disturb their stillness of motion by a weir,
+adorn their neglected flow with a handsome bridge, and cover their
+solitary surface with punts, nets, and fishermen.
+
+It cannot, I think, be expected, that landscapes like this should have
+any effect on the human heart, except to harden or to degrade it; to
+lead it from the love of what is simple, earnest and pure, to what is as
+sophisticated and corrupt in arrangement, as erring and imperfect in
+detail. So long as such works are held up for imitation, landscape
+painting must be a manufacture, its productions must be toys, and its
+patrons must be children.
+
+My purpose then, in the present work, is to demonstrate the utter
+falseness both of the facts and principles; the imperfection of
+material, and error of arrangement, on which works such as these are
+based; and to insist on the necessity, as well as the dignity, of an
+earnest, faithful, loving, study of nature as she is, rejecting with
+abhorrence all that man has done to alter and modify her. And the praise
+which, in this first portion of the work, is given to many English
+artists, would be justifiable on this ground only, that although
+frequently with little power and desultory effort, they have yet, in an
+honest and good heart, received the word of God from clouds, and leaves,
+and waves, and kept it,[N] and endeavored in humility to render to the
+world that purity of impression which can alone render the result of
+art an instrument of good, or its labor deserving of gratitude.
+
+If, however, I shall have frequent occasion to insist on the necessity
+of this heartfelt love of, and unqualified submission to, the teaching
+of nature, it will be no less incumbent upon me to reprobate the
+careless rendering of casual impression, and the mechanical copyism of
+unimportant subject, which are too frequently visible in our modern
+school.[O] Their lightness and desultoriness of intention, their
+meaningless multiplication of unstudied composition, and their want of
+definiteness and loftiness of aim, bring discredit on their whole system
+of study, and encourage in the critic the unhappy prejudice that the
+field and the hill-side are less fit places of study than the gallery
+and the garret. Not every casual idea caught from the flight of a shower
+or the fall of a sunbeam, not every glowing fragment of harvest light,
+nor every flickering dream of copsewood coolness, is to be given to the
+world as it came, unconsidered, incomplete, and forgotten by the artist
+as soon as it has left his easel. That only should be considered a
+picture, in which the spirit, (not the materials, observe,) but the
+animating emotion of many such studies is concentrated, and exhibited by
+the aid of long-studied, painfully-chosen forms; idealized in the right
+sense of the word, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of degrading
+God's works which man calls his "imagination," but by perfect assertion
+of entire knowledge of every part and character and function of the
+object, and in which the details are completed to the last line
+compatible with the dignity and simplicity of the whole, wrought out
+with that noblest industry which concentrates profusion into point, and
+transforms accumulation into structure; neither must this labor be
+bestowed on every subject which appears to afford a capability of good,
+but on chosen subjects in which nature has prepared to the artist's hand
+the purest sources of the impression he would convey. These may be
+humble in their order, but they must be perfect of their kind. There is
+a perfection of the hedgerow and cottage, as well as of the forest and
+the palace, and more ideality in a great artist's selection and
+treatment of roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles, than in all the
+struggling caricature of the meaner mind which heaps its foreground with
+colossal columns, and heaves impossible mountains into the encumbered
+sky. Finally, these chosen subjects must not be in any way repetitions
+of one another, but each founded on a new idea, and developing a totally
+distinct train of thought; so that the work of the artist's life should
+form a consistent series of essays, rising through the scale of creation
+from the humblest scenery to the most exalted; each picture being a
+necessary link in the chain, based on what preceded, introducing to what
+is to follow, and all, in their lovely system, exhibiting and drawing
+closer the bonds of nature to the human heart. Since, then, I shall
+have to reprobate the absence of study in the moderns nearly as much as
+its false direction in the ancients, my task will naturally divide
+itself into three portions. In the first, I shall endeavor to
+investigate and arrange the facts of nature with scientific accuracy;
+showing as I proceed, by what total neglect of the very first base and
+groundwork of their art the idealities of some among the old masters are
+produced. This foundation once securely laid, I shall proceed, in the
+second portion of the work, to analyze and demonstrate the nature of the
+emotions of the Beautiful and Sublime; to examine the particular
+characters of every kind of scenery, and to bring to light, as far as
+may be in my power, that faultless, ceaseless, inconceivable,
+inexhaustible loveliness, which God has stamped upon all things, if man
+will only receive them as He gives them. Finally, I shall endeavor to
+trace the operation of all this on the hearts and minds of men; to
+exhibit the moral function and end of art, to prove the share which it
+ought to have in the thoughts, and influence on the lives of all of us;
+to attach to the artist the responsibility of a preacher, and to kindle
+in the general mind that regard which such an office must demand.
+
+It must be evident that the first portion of this task, which is all
+that I have yet been enabled to offer to the reader, cannot but be the
+least interesting and the most laborious, especially because it is
+necessary that it should be executed without reference to any principles
+of beauty or influences of emotion. It is the hard, straightforward
+classification of material things, not the study of thought or passion;
+and therefore let me not be accused of the feelings which I choose to
+repress. The consideration of the high qualities of art must not be
+interrupted by the work of the hammer and the eudiometer.
+
+Again, I would request that the frequent passages of reference to the
+great masters of the Italian school may not be looked upon as mere modes
+of conventional expression. I think there is enough in the following
+pages to prove that I am not likely to be carried away by the celebrity
+of a name; and therefore that the devoted love which I profess for the
+works of the great historical and sacred painters is sincere and
+well-grounded. And indeed every principle of art which I may advocate, I
+shall be able to illustrate by reference to the works of men universally
+allowed to be the masters of masters; and the public, so long as my
+teaching leads them to higher understanding and love of the works of
+Buonaroti, Leonardo, Raffaelle, Titian, and Cagliari, may surely concede
+to me without fear, the right of striking such blows as I may deem
+necessary to the establishment of my principles, at Gasper Poussin, or
+Vandevelde.
+
+Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the present day,
+for advocacy of Michael Angelo against the pettiness of the moderns, as
+there is for support of Turner against the conventionalities of the
+ancients. For, though the names of the fathers of sacred art are on all
+our lips, our faith in them is much like that of the great world in its
+religion--nominal, but dead. In vain our lecturers sound the name of
+Raffaelle in the ears of their pupils, while their own works are visibly
+at variance with every principle deducible from his. In vain is the
+young student compelled to produce a certain number of school copies of
+Michael Angelo, when his bread must depend on the number of gewgaws he
+can crowd into his canvas. And I could with as much zeal exert myself
+against the modern system of English historical art, as I have in favor
+of our school of landscape, but that it is an ungrateful and painful
+task to attack the works of living painters, struggling with adverse
+circumstances of every kind, and especially with the false taste of a
+nation which regards matters of art either with the ticklishness of an
+infant, or the stolidity of a Megatherium.
+
+I have been accused, in the execution of this first portion of my work,
+of irreverent and scurrile expression towards the works which I have
+depreciated. Possibly I may have been in some degree infected by reading
+those criticisms of our periodicals, which consist of nothing else; but
+I believe in general that my words will be found to have sufficient
+truth in them to excuse their familiarity; and that no other weapons
+could have been used to pierce the superstitious prejudice with which
+the works of certain painters are shielded from the attacks of reason.
+My answer is that given long ago to a similar complaint, uttered under
+the same circumstances by the foiled sophist:--"[Greek: (Hos d'estin ho
+anthropos; hos apaideutos tis, os ouio phaula onomata onomazein tolma en
+semno pragmati.) Toioutos tis, o Hippia, ouden allo phrontizon e to
+alethes]."
+
+It is with more surprise that I have heard myself accused of thoughtless
+severity with respect to the works of contemporary painters, for I fully
+believe that whenever I attack them, I give myself far more pain than I
+can possibly inflict; and, in many instances, I have withheld
+reprobation which I considered necessary to the full understanding of my
+work, in the fear of grieving or injuring men of whose feelings and
+circumstances I was ignorant. Indeed, the apparently false and
+exaggerated bias of the whole book in favor of modern art, is in great
+degree dependent on my withholding the animadversions which would have
+given it balance, and keeping silence where I cannot praise. But I had
+rather be a year or two longer in effecting my purposes, than reach them
+by trampling on men's hearts and hearths; and I have permitted myself to
+express unfavorable opinions only where the popularity and favor of the
+artist are so great as to render the opinion of an individual a matter
+of indifference to him.
+
+And now--but one word more. For many a year we have heard nothing with
+respect to the works of Turner but accusations of their want of _truth_.
+To every observation on their power, sublimity, or beauty, there has
+been but one reply: They are not like nature. I therefore took my
+opponents on their own ground, and demonstrated, by thorough
+investigation of actual facts, that Turner _is_ like nature, and paints
+more of nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition
+(the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been disputed with
+desperate struggles, and that I should have had to fight my way to my
+position inch by inch. Not at all. My opponents yield me the field at
+once. One (the writer for the Athenaeum) has no other resource than the
+assertion, that "he disapproves the natural style in painting. If people
+want to see _nature_, let them go and look at herself. Why should they
+see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other, (Blackwood,)
+still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more remarkable
+line of defence. "It is not," he says, "what things in all respects
+really are, but how they are convertible by the mind into what they are
+_not_, that we have to consider." (October, 1843, p. 485.) I leave
+therefore the reader to choose whether, with Blackwood and his fellows,
+he will proceed to consider how things are convertible by the mind into
+what they are _not_, or whether, with me, he will undergo the harder,
+but perhaps on the whole more useful, labor of ascertaining--What they
+are.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [A] One or two fragments of Greek sculpture, the works of Michael
+    Angelo, considered with reference to their general conception and
+    power, and the Madonna di St. Sisto, are all that I should myself
+    put into such a category, not that even these are without defect,
+    but their defects are such as mortality could never hope to rectify.
+
+  [B] This principle is dangerous, but not the less true, and
+    necessary to be kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does
+    not admit of being wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny
+    the desirableness of originality, because men may err in seeking for
+    it, or because a pretence to it may be made, by presumption, a cloak
+    for its incompetence. Nevertheless, originality is never to be
+    sought for its own sake--otherwise it will be mere aberration--it
+    should arise naturally out of hard, independent study of nature; and
+    it should be remembered that in many things technical, it is
+    impossible to alter without being inferior, for therein, as says
+    Spencer, "Truth is one, and right is ever one;" but wrongs are
+    various and multitudinous. "Vice," says Byron, in Marino Faliero,
+    "must have variety; but Virtue stands like the sun, and all which
+    rolls around drinks life from her aspect."
+
+  [C] It is with regret that, in a work of this nature, I take notice
+    of criticisms, which, after all, are merely intended to amuse the
+    careless reader, and be forgotten as soon as read; but I do so in
+    compliance with wishes expressed to me since the publication of this
+    work, by persons who have the interests of art deeply at heart, and
+    who, I find, attach more importance to the matter than I should have
+    been disposed to do. I have, therefore, marked two or three passages
+    which _may_ enable the public to judge for themselves of the quality
+    of these critiques; and this I think a matter of justice to those
+    who might otherwise have been led astray by them--more than this I
+    cannot consent to do. I should have but a hound's office if I had to
+    tear the tabard from every Rouge Sanglier of the arts--with bell and
+    bauble to back him.
+
+  [D] Chrysoprase, (Vide No. for October, 1843, p. 502.)
+
+  [E] Every school-boy knows that this epithet was given to Poussin in
+    allusion to the profound classical knowledge of the painter. The
+    reviewer, however, (September, 1841,) informs us that the expression
+    refers to his skill in "Composition."
+
+  [F] Critique on Royal Academy, 1842. "He" (Mr. Lee) "often reminds
+    us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is _superior_ to him always
+    in subject, composition, and variety."--Shade of
+    Gainsborough!--deep-thoughted, solemn Gainsborough,--forgive us for
+    re-writing this sentence; we do so to gibbet its perpetrator
+    forever,--and leave him swinging in the winds of the Fool's
+    Paradise. It is with great pain that I ever speak with severity of
+    the works of living masters, especially when, like Mr. Lee's, they
+    are well-intentioned, simple, free from affectation or imitation,
+    and evidently painted with constant reference to nature. But I
+    believe that these qualities will always secure him that admiration
+    which he deserves--that there will be many unsophisticated and
+    honest minds always ready to follow his guidance, and answer his
+    efforts with delight; and therefore, that I need not fear to point
+    out in him the want of those technical qualities which are more
+    especially the object of an artist's admiration. Gainsborough's
+    power of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift)
+    is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens; he is the purest
+    colorist--Sir Joshua himself not excepted--of the whole English
+    school; with him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part
+    die, and exists not now in Europe. Evidence enough will be seen in
+    the following pages of my devoted admiration of Turner; but I
+    hesitate not to say, that in management and quality of single and
+    particular tint, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is
+    a child of Gainsborough. Now, Mr. Lee never aims at color; he does
+    not make it his object in the slightest degree--the spring green of
+    vegetation is all that he desires; and it would be about as rational
+    to compare his works with studied pieces of coloring, as the
+    modulation of the Calabrian pipe to the harmony of a full orchestra.
+    Gainsborough's hand is as light as the sweep of a cloud--as swift as
+    the flash of a sunbeam; Lee's execution is feeble and spotty.
+    Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division in heaven
+    of light from darkness; Lee's (perhaps necessarily, considering the
+    effects of flickering sunlight at which he aims) are as fragmentary
+    as his leaves, and as numerous. Gainsborough's forms are grand,
+    simple, and ideal; Lee's are small, confused, and unselected.
+    Gainsborough never loses sight of his picture as a whole; Lee is but
+    too apt to be shackled by its parts. In a word, Gainsborough is an
+    immortal painter; and Lee, though on the right road, is yet in the
+    early stages of his art; and the man who could imagine any
+    resemblance or point of comparison between them, is not only a
+    novice in art, but has not capacity ever to be anything more. He may
+    be pardoned for not comprehending Turner, for long preparation and
+    discipline are necessary before the abstract and profound philosophy
+    of that artist can be met; but Gainsborough's excellence is based on
+    principles of art long acknowledged, and facts of nature universally
+    apparent; and I insist more particularly on the reviewer's want of
+    feeling for his works, because it proves a truth of which the public
+    ought especially to be assured that those who lavish abuse on the
+    great men of modern times, are equally incapable of perceiving the
+    real excellence of established canons, are ignorant of the commonest
+    and most acknowledged principia of the art, blind to the most
+    palpable and comprehensible of its beauties, incapable of
+    distinguishing, if left to themselves, a master's work from the
+    vilest school copy, and founding their applause of those great works
+    which they praise, either in pure hypocrisy, or in admiration of
+    their defects.
+
+  [G] There is a fine touch in the Frogs in Aristophanes, alluding
+    probably to this part of the Agamemnon. "[Greek: Ego d' hechairon te
+    siope kai me tout' heterpeu ouk hettou e nun hoi lalountes]." The
+    same remark might be well applied to the seemingly vacant or
+    incomprehensible portions of Turner's canvas. In their mysterious,
+    and intense fire, there is much correspondence between the mind of
+    Aeschylus and that of our great painter. They share at least one
+    thing in common--unpopularity. [Greek: 'Ho demos aneboa krisin
+    poiein, XA. o ton panourgon; Ai. ne Di, ouranion g' hoson. XA. met'
+    Aischylou ho ouk esan heteroi symmachoi; AI. oligon to chreston
+    estin].
+
+  [H] I do not know any passage in ancient literature in which this
+    connection is more exquisitely illustrated than in the lines,
+    burlesque though they be, descriptive of the approach of the chorus
+    in the Clouds of Aristophanes,--a writer, by the way, who, I
+    believe, knew and felt more of the noble landscape character of his
+    country than any whose works have come down to us except Homer. The
+    individuality and distinctness of conception--the visible cloud
+    character which every word of this particular passage brings out
+    into more dewy and bright existence, are to me as refreshing as the
+    real breathing of mountain winds. The line "[Greek: dia ton koilon
+    kai ton daseon, plagiai]," could have been written by none but an
+    ardent lover of hill scenery--one who had watched, hour after hour,
+    the peculiar oblique, sidelong action of descending clouds, as they
+    form along the hollows and ravines of the hills. There are no
+    lumpish solidities--no pillowy protuberances here. All is melting,
+    drifting, evanescent,--full of air, and light, and dew.
+
+  [I] Let not this principle be confused with Fuseli's, "love for what
+    is called deception in painting marks either the infancy or
+    decrepitude of a nation's taste." Realization to the mind
+    necessitates not deception of the eye.
+
+  [J] I shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are
+    principles of universal beauty common to all the creatures of God;
+    and that it is by the greater or less share of these that one form
+    becomes nobler or meaner than another.
+
+  [K] Is not this--it may be asked--demanding more from him than life
+    can accomplish? Not one whit. Nothing more than knowledge of
+    external characteristics is absolutely required; and even if, which
+    were more desirable, thorough scientific knowledge had to be
+    attained, the time which our artists spend in multiplying crude
+    sketches, or finishing their unintelligent embryos of the study,
+    would render them masters of every science that modern
+    investigations have organized, and familiar with every form that
+    Nature manifests. Martin, if the time which he must have spent on
+    the abortive bubbles of his Canute had been passed in working on the
+    seashore, might have learned enough to enable him to produce, with a
+    few strokes, a picture which would have smote like the sound of the
+    sea, upon men's hearts forever.
+
+  [L]         "A green field is a sight which makes us pardon
+               The absence of that more sublime construction
+               Which mixes up vines, olive, precipices,
+               Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices."
+
+                                                  _Don Juan._
+
+  [M] The vegetable soil of the Campagna is chiefly formed by
+    decomposed lavas, and under it lies a bed of white pumice, exactly
+    resembling remnants of bones.
+
+  [N] The feelings of Constable with respect to his art might be
+    almost a model for the young student, were it not that they err a
+    little on the other side, and are perhaps in need of chastening and
+    guiding from the works of his fellow-men. We should use pictures not
+    as authorities, but as comments on nature, just as we use divines,
+    not as authorities, but as comments on the Bible. Constable, in his
+    dread of saint-worship, excommunicates himself from all benefit of
+    the Church, and deprives himself of much instruction from the
+    Scripture to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the
+    reading of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beaumont,
+    on the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes given of him in
+    Constable's life, a melancholy instance of the degradation into
+    which the human mind may fall, when it suffers human works to
+    interfere between it and its Master. The recommending the color of
+    an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and the
+    vapid inquiry of the conventionalist, "Where do you put your brown
+    tree?" show a prostration of intellect so laughable and lamentable,
+    that they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery,
+    a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile
+    indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous
+    extremes to be shunned,--forgetfulness of the Scripture, and scorn
+    of the divine--slavery on the one hand, free-thinking on the other.
+    The mean is nearly as difficult to determine or keep in art as in
+    religion, but the great danger is on the side of superstition. He
+    who walks humbly with Nature will seldom be in danger of losing
+    sight of Art. He will commonly find in all that is truly great of
+    man's works, something of their original, for which he will regard
+    them with gratitude, and sometimes follow them with respect; while
+    he who takes Art for his authority may entirely lose sight of all
+    that it interprets, and sink at once into the sin of an idolater,
+    and the degradation of a slave.
+
+  [O] I should have insisted more on this fault (for it is a fatal
+    one) in the following Essay, but the cause of it rests rather with
+    the public than with the artist, and in the necessities of the
+    public as much as in their will. Such pictures as artists themselves
+    would wish to paint, could not be executed under very high prices;
+    and it must always be easier, in the present state of society, to
+    find ten purchasers of ten-guinea sketches, than one purchaser for a
+    hundred-guinea picture. Still, I have been often both surprised and
+    grieved to see that any effort on the part of our artists to rise
+    above manufacture--any struggle to something like completed
+    conception--was left by the public to be its own reward. In the
+    water-color exhibition of last year there was a noble work of David
+    Cox's, ideal in the right sense--a forest hollow with a few sheep
+    crushing down through its deep fern, and a solemn opening of evening
+    sky above its dark masses of distance. It was worth all his little
+    bits on the walls put together. Yet the public picked up all the
+    little bits--blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn--all
+    that was clever and petite; and the real picture--the full
+    development of the artist's mind--was left on his hands. How can I,
+    or any one else, with a conscience, advise him after this to aim at
+    anything more than may be struck out by the cleverness of a quarter
+    of an hour. Cattermole, I believe, is earthed and shackled in the
+    same manner. He began his career with finished and studied pictures,
+    which, I believe, never paid him--he now prostitutes his fine talent
+    to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his way to
+    emolument and oblivion. There is commonly, however, fault on both
+    sides; in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank
+    tricks of the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the
+    knowledge and labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he
+    has himself formed in his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a
+    common actor will oftentimes render apparently vapid the finished
+    touches of perfect nature; and in the public, for taking less real
+    pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate, the various
+    powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate the excellence
+    of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer.
+
+
+
+
+                       PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
+
+It is with much regret, and partly against my own judgment, that I
+republish the following chapters in their present form. The particular
+circumstances (stated in the first preface) under which they were
+originally written, have rendered them so unfit for the position they
+now hold as introductory to a serious examination of the general
+functions of art, that I should have wished first to complete the
+succeeding portions of the essay, and then to write another introduction
+of more fitting character. But as it may be long before I am able to do
+this, and as I believe what I have already written may still be of some
+limited and partial service, I have suffered it to reappear, trusting to
+the kindness of the reader to look to its intention rather than its
+temper, and forgive its inconsideration in its earnestness.
+
+Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever I have
+found a passage which I thought required modification or explanation, I
+have cut it out; what I have left, however imperfect, cannot I think be
+dangerously misunderstood: something I have added, not under the idea of
+rendering the work in any wise systematic or complete, but to supply
+gross omissions, answer inevitable objections, and give some substance
+to passages of mere declamation.
+
+Whatever inadequacy or error there may be, throughout, in materials or
+modes of demonstration, I have no doubt of the truth and necessity of
+the main result; and though the reader may, perhaps, find me frequently
+hereafter showing other and better grounds for what is here affirmed,
+yet the point and bearing of the book, its determined depreciation of
+Claude, Salvator, Gaspar, and Canaletto, and its equally determined
+support of Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of
+Turner's recent works as his finest, are good and right; and if the
+prevalence throughout of attack and eulogium be found irksome or
+offensive, let it be remembered that my object thus far has not been
+either the establishment or the teaching of any principles of art, but
+the vindication, most necessary to the prosperity of our present
+schools, of the uncomprehended rank of their greatest artist, and the
+diminution, equally necessary as I think to the prosperity of our
+schools, of the unadvised admiration of the landscape of the seventeenth
+century. For I believe it to be almost impossible to state in terms
+sufficiently serious and severe the depth and extent of the evil which
+has resulted (and that not in art alone, but in all other matters with
+which the contemplative faculties are concerned) from the works of those
+elder men. On the continent all landscape art has been utterly
+annihilated by them, and with it all sense of the power of nature. We in
+England have only done better because our artists have had strength of
+mind enough to form a school withdrawn from their influence.
+
+These points are somewhat farther developed in the general sketch of
+ancient and modern landscape, which I have added to the first section of
+the second part. Some important additions have also been made to the
+chapters on the painting of sea. Throughout the rest of the text, though
+something is withdrawn, little is changed; and the reader may rest
+assured that if I were now to bestow on this feeble essay the careful
+revision which it much needs, but little deserves, it would not be to
+alter its tendencies, or modify its conclusions, but to prevent
+indignation from appearing virulence on the one side, and enthusiasm
+partisanship on the other.
+
+
+
+
+                 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION (1873).
+
+I have been lately so often asked by friends on whose judgment I can
+rely, to permit the publication of another edition of "Modern Painters"
+in its original form, that I have at last yielded, though with some
+violence to my own feelings; for many parts of the first and second
+volumes are written in a narrow enthusiasm, and the substance of their
+metaphysical and religious speculation is only justifiable on the ground
+of its absolute honesty. Of the third, fourth, and fifth volumes I
+indeed mean eventually to rearrange what I think of permanent interest,
+for the complete edition of my works, but with fewer and less elaborate
+illustrations: nor have I any serious grounds for refusing to allow the
+book once more to appear in the irregular form which it took as it was
+written, since of the art-teaching and landscape description it contains
+I have little to retrench, and nothing to retract.
+
+This final edition must, however, be limited to a thousand copies, for
+some of the more delicate plates are already worn, that of the Mill
+Stream in the fifth volume, and of the Loire Side very injuriously;
+while that of the Shores of Wharfe had to be retouched by an engraver
+after the removal of the mezzotint for reprinting. But Mr. Armytage's,
+Mr. Cousen's, and Mr. Cuff's magnificent plates are still in good state,
+and my own etchings, though injured, are still good enough to answer
+their purpose.
+
+
+
+
+                      SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
+
+                            PART I.
+
+                   OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
+
+
+                           SECTION I.
+
+           OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Introductory.
+                                                                      PAGE
+  Sec.  1. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long
+          periods of time.                                               1
+  Sec.  2. And therefore obstinate when once formed.                        4
+  Sec.  3. The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances.    5
+  Sec.  4. But only on points capable of demonstration.                     5
+  Sec.  5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable.               6
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Definition of Greatness in Art.
+
+  Sec.  1. Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and
+          technical knowledge.                                           8
+  Sec.  2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language.                8
+  Sec.  3. "Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier."                  9
+  Sec.  4. Example in a painting of E. Landseer's.                          9
+  Sec.  5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and
+          thought.                                                       9
+  Sec.  6. Distinction between decorative and expressive language.         10
+  Sec.  7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools.                10
+  Sec.  8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself.       11
+  Sec.  9. The definition.                                                 12
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of Ideas of Power.
+
+  Sec.  1. What classes of ideas are conveyable by art.                    13
+  Sec.  2. Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity.                   13
+  Sec.  3. But are received from whatever has been the subject of
+          power. The meaning of the word "excellence."                  14
+  Sec.  4. What is necessary to the distinguishing of excellence.          15
+  Sec.  5. The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right.     16
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of Ideas of Imitation.
+
+  Sec.  1. False use of the term "imitation" by many writers on art.       17
+  Sec.  2. Real meaning of the term.                                       18
+  Sec.  3. What is requisite to the sense of imitation.                    18
+  Sec.  4. The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible
+          that can be derived from art.                                 19
+  Sec.  5. Imitation is only of contemptible subjects.                     19
+  Sec.  6. Imitation is contemptible because it is easy.                   20
+  Sec.  7. Recapitulation.                                                 20
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Of Ideas of Truth.
+
+  Sec.  1. Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art.                  21
+  Sec.  2. First difference between truth and imitation.                   21
+  Sec.  3. Second difference.                                              21
+  Sec.  4. Third difference.                                               22
+  Sec.  5. No accurate truths necessary to imitation.                      22
+  Sec.  6. Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation.        24
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Of Ideas of Beauty.
+
+  Sec.  1. Definition of the term "beautiful."                             26
+  Sec.  2. Definition of the term "taste."                                 26
+  Sec.  3. Distinction between taste and judgment.                         27
+  Sec.  4. How far beauty may become intellectual.                         27
+  Sec.  5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty.                  28
+  Sec.  6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."                             28
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.--Of Ideas of Relation.
+
+  Sec.  1. General meaning of the term.                                    29
+  Sec.  2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it.                     29
+  Sec.  3. The exceeding nobility of these ideas.                          30
+  Sec.  4. Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary.        31
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                                  OF POWER.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--General Principles respecting Ideas of Power.
+
+  Sec.  1. No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation.          32
+  Sec.  2. Nor for separate study of ideas of power.                       32
+  Sec.  3. Except under one particular form.                               33
+  Sec.  4. There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly
+          inconsistent.                                                 33
+  Sec.  5. First reason of the inconsistency.                              33
+  Sec.  6. Second reason for the inconsistency.                            34
+  Sec.  7. The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art. 34
+  Sec.  8. Instances in pictures of modern artists.                        35
+  Sec.  9. Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution.       35
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Ideas of Power, as they are dependent upon Execution.
+
+  Sec.  1. Meaning of the term "execution."                                36
+  Sec.  2. The first quality of execution is truth.                        36
+  Sec.  3. The second, simplicity.                                         36
+  Sec.  4. The third, mystery.                                             37
+  Sec.  5. The fourth, inadequacy; and the fifth, decision.                37
+  Sec.  6. The sixth, velocity.                                            37
+  Sec.  7. Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution.    37
+  Sec.  8. Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are
+          inconsistent with each other.                                 38
+  Sec.  9. And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the
+          lowest.                                                       39
+  Sec. 10. Therefore perilous.                                             40
+  Sec. 11. Recapitulation.                                                 40
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of the Sublime.
+
+  Sec.  1. Sublimity is the effect upon the mind of anything above it.     41
+  Sec.  2. Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and why. 41
+  Sec.  3. Danger is sublime, but not the fear of it.                      42
+  Sec.  4. The highest beauty is sublime.                                  42
+  Sec.  5. And generally whatever elevates the mind.                       42
+  Sec.  6. The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient.     42
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART II.
+
+                                OF TRUTH.
+
+
+                                SECTION I.
+
+                GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Ideas of Truth in their connection with those of
+            Beauty and Relation.
+
+  Sec.  1. The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation
+          of facts and thoughts.                                        44
+  Sec.  2. They induce a different choice of material subjects.            45
+  Sec.  3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and
+          repetition.                                                   45
+  Sec.  4. The second necessitating variety.                               45
+  Sec.  5. Yet the first is delightful to all.                             46
+  Sec.  6. The second only to a few.                                       46
+  Sec.  7. The first necessary to the second.                              47
+  Sec.  8. The exceeding importance of truth.                              48
+  Sec.  9. Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth.                    48
+  Sec. 10. How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art.        48
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--That the Truth of Nature is not to be discerned by the
+            Uneducated Senses.
+
+  Sec.  1. The common self-deception of men with respect to their
+          power of discerning truth.                                    50
+  Sec.  2. Men usually see little of what is before their eyes.            51
+  Sec.  3. But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to
+          what is beautiful.                                            52
+  Sec.  4. Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling.                52
+  Sec.  5. And of the intellectual powers.                                 53
+  Sec.  6. How sight depends upon previous knowledge.                      54
+  Sec.  7. The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature.    55
+  Sec.  8. We recognize objects by their least important attributes.
+          Compare Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4.                             55
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of the Relative Importance of Truths:--First, that
+            Particular Truths are more important than General Ones.
+
+  Sec.  1. Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths.     58
+  Sec.  2. Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more
+          important than particular ones."                              58
+  Sec.  3. Falseness of this maxim, taken without explanation.             59
+  Sec.  4. Generality important in the subject, particularity in the
+          predicate.                                                    59
+  Sec.  5. The importance of truths of species is not owing to their
+          generality.                                                   60
+  Sec.  6. All truths valuable as they are characteristic.                 61
+  Sec.  7. Otherwise truths of species are valuable, because beautiful.    61
+  Sec.  8. And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable
+          in connection with others.                                    62
+  Sec.  9. Recapitulation.                                                 63
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of the Relative Importance of Truths:--Secondly, that
+            Rare Truths are more important than Frequent Ones.
+
+  Sec.  1. No accidental violation of nature's principles should be
+          represented.                                                  64
+  Sec.  2. But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly
+          exemplified.                                                  65
+  Sec.  3. Which are comparatively rare.                                   65
+  Sec.  4. All repetition is blamable.                                     65
+  Sec.  5. The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher.      66
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Of the Relative Importance of Truths:--Thirdly, that
+            Truths of Color are the least important of all Truths.
+
+  Sec.  1. Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies.   67
+  Sec.  2. The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so.  67
+  Sec.  3. Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than
+          form.                                                         68
+  Sec.  4. Color no distinction between objects of the same species.       68
+  Sec.  5. And different in association from what it is alone.             69
+  Sec.  6. It is not certain whether any two people see the same colors
+          in things.                                                    69
+  Sec.  7. Form, considered as an element of landscape, includes light
+          and shade.                                                    69
+  Sec.  8. Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of
+          bodies, and unimportance of color.                            70
+  Sec.  9. Recapitulation.                                                 71
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Recapitulation.
+
+  Sec.  1. The importance of historical truths.                            72
+  Sec.  2. Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths.
+        Tone, light, and color, are secondary.                          72
+  Sec.  3. And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.                    73
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.--General Application of the Foregoing Principles.
+
+  Sec.  1. The different selection of facts consequent on the several aims
+          at imitation or at truth.                                     74
+  Sec.  2. The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation.              74
+  Sec.  3. What truths they gave.                                          75
+  Sec.  4. The principles of selection adopted by modern artists.          76
+  Sec.  5. General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted
+          with the freedom and vastness of nature.                      77
+  Sec.  6. Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret.             78
+  Sec.  7. Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools.          79
+  Sec.  8. The value of inferior works of art, how to be estimated.        80
+  Sec.  9. Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its
+          completion.                                                   81
+  Sec. 10. Finish, and the want of it, how right--and how wrong.           82
+  Sec. 11. The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain
+          drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione. 84
+  Sec. 12. Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.                               86
+  Sec. 13. Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna.                        88
+  Sec. 14. Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins.                             89
+  Sec. 15. German and Flemish landscape.                                   90
+  Sec. 16. The lower Dutch schools.                                        92
+  Sec. 17. English school, Wilson and Gainsborough.                        93
+  Sec. 18. Constable, Callcott.                                            94
+  Sec. 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.                          95
+  Sec. 20. G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style."               95
+  Sec. 21. Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color.                    97
+  Sec. 22. Beauty of mountain foreground.                                  99
+  Sec. 23. De Wint.                                                       101
+  Sec. 24. Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding.                         101
+  Sec. 25. Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient.   103
+  Sec. 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.              104
+  Sec. 27. Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of
+          detail.                                                      106
+  Sec. 28. Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor
+          Carpaccio.                                                   107
+  Sec. 29. And of the Venetians generally.                                109
+  Sec. 30. Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto.          110
+  Sec. 31. Expression of the effects of age on Architecture by S. Prout.  112
+  Sec. 32. His excellent composition and color.                           114
+  Sec. 33. Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole.        115
+  Sec. 34. The evil in an archaeological point of view of misapplied
+          invention, in architectural subject.                         117
+  Sec. 35. Works of David Roberts: their fidelity and grace.              118
+  Sec. 36. Clarkson Stanfield.                                            121
+  Sec. 37. J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great
+          painters.                                                    123
+  Sec. 38. Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject.  125
+  Sec. 39. Its peculiar manifestation in Turner.                          125
+  Sec. 40. The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.                  127
+  Sec. 41. Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter
+          deficient.                                                   129
+  Sec. 42. His rendering of Italian character still less successful. His
+          large compositions how failing                               130
+  Sec. 43. His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant
+          quantity.                                                    133
+  Sec. 44. Changes introduced by him in the received system of art.       133
+  Sec. 45. Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies.      134
+  Sec. 46. Reflection of his very recent works.                           137
+  Sec. 47. Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects.                  139
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                             OF GENERAL TRUTHS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Truth of Tone.
+
+  Sec.  1. Meanings of the word "tone:"--First, the right relation of
+          objects in shadow to the principal light.                    140
+  Sec.  2. Secondly, the quality of color by which it is felt to owe part
+          of its brightness to the hue of light upon it.               140
+  Sec.  3. Difference between tone in its first sense and aerial
+          perspective.                                                 141
+  Sec.  4. The pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle
+          tints to light.                                              141
+  Sec.  5. And consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to
+          darkness.                                                    141
+  Sec.  6. General falsehood of such a system.                            143
+  Sec.  7. The principle of Turner in this respect.                       143
+  Sec.  8. Comparison of N. Poussin's "Phocion."                          144
+  Sec.  9. With Turner's "Mercury and Argus."                             145
+  Sec. 10. And with the "Datur Hora Quieti."                              145
+  Sec. 11. The second sense of the word "tone."                           146
+  Sec. 12. Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings
+          and drawings of Turner.                                      146
+  Sec. 13. Not owing to want of power over the material                   146
+  Sec. 14. The two distinct qualities of light to be considered           147
+  Sec. 15. Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality
+          in light.                                                    148
+  Sec. 16. Turner will not use such means.                                148
+  Sec. 17. But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice.                 148
+  Sec. 18. The second quality of light.                                   148
+  Sec. 19. The perfection of Cuyp in this respect interfered with by
+          numerous solecisms.                                          150
+  Sec. 20. Turner is not so perfect in parts--far more so in the whole.   151
+  Sec. 21. The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones.              152
+  Sec. 22. Recapitulation.                                                153
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Truth of Color.
+
+  Sec.  1. Observations on the color of G. Poussin's La Riccia.           155
+  Sec.  2. As compared with the actual scene.                             155
+  Sec.  3. Turner himself is inferior in brilliancy to nature.            157
+  Sec.  4. Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian.                         157
+  Sec.  5. Poussin, and Claude.                                           158
+  Sec.  6. Turner's translation of colors.                                160
+  Sec.  7. Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even
+          approach that of reality.                                    161
+  Sec.  8. Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect
+          to their representation                                      162
+  Sec.  9. Color of the Napoleon.                                         163
+  Sec. 10. Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of
+          color and light.                                             164
+  Sec. 11. This discrepancy less in Turner than in other colorists.       165
+  Sec. 12. Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens.          165
+  Sec. 13. Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid color.                 166
+  Sec. 14. The basis of gray, under all his vivid hues.                   167
+  Sec. 15. The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones.         168
+  Sec. 16. Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature.   168
+  Sec. 17. His dislike of purple, and fondness for the opposition of
+          yellow and black. The principles of nature in this respect.  169
+  Sec. 18. His early works are false in color.                            170
+  Sec. 19. His drawings invariably perfect.                               171
+  Sec. 20. The subjection of his system of color to that of chiaroscuro.  171
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of Truth of Chiaroscuro.
+
+  Sec.  1. We are not at present to examine particular effects of light.  174
+  Sec.  2. And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means
+          of expressing vividness of light.                            175
+  Sec.  3. Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian
+          school.                                                      175
+  Sec.  4. And partial absence in the Dutch.                              176
+  Sec.  5. The perfection of Turner's works in this respect.              177
+  Sec.  6. The effect of his shadows upon the light.                      178
+  Sec.  7. The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the
+          ancient and modern schools.                                  179
+  Sec.  8. Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and
+          deep shadow are used in equal quantity, and only in points.  180
+  Sec.  9. Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art.  180
+  Sec. 10. And consequent misguiding of the student.                      181
+  Sec. 11. The great value of a simple chiaroscuro.                       182
+  Sec. 12. The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle tint.  182
+  Sec. 13. The truth of Turner.                                           183
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of Truth of Space:--First, as Dependent on the Focus of
+             the Eye.
+
+  Sec.  1. Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than
+          by their hue.                                                185
+  Sec.  2. It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances
+          distinctly at one moment.                                    186
+  Sec.  3. Especially such as are both comparatively near.                186
+  Sec.  4. In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must
+          be partially sacrificed.                                     187
+  Sec.  5. Which not being done by the old masters, they could not
+          express space.                                               187
+  Sec.  6. But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying out this
+          principle.                                                   188
+  Sec.  7. Especially of Turner.                                          189
+  Sec.  8. Justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures.      189
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Of Truth of Space:--Secondly, as its Appearance is
+            dependent on the Power of the Eye.
+
+  Sec.  1. The peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of
+          objects from the eye.                                        191
+  Sec.  2. Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details.             191
+  Sec.  3. Instances in various objects.                                  192
+  Sec.  4. Two great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct,
+          and never vacant.                                            193
+  Sec.  5. Complete violation of both these principles by the old
+          masters. They are either distinct or vacant.                 193
+  Sec.  6. Instances from Nicholas Poussin.                               194
+  Sec.  7. From Claude.                                                   194
+  Sec.  8. And G. Poussin.                                                195
+  Sec.  9. The imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness
+          and finish.                                                  196
+  Sec. 10. Breadth is not vacancy.                                        197
+  Sec. 11. The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances.                 198
+  Sec. 12. Farther illustrations in architectural drawing.                199
+  Sec. 13. In near objects as well as distances.                          199
+  Sec. 14. Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto.                            200
+  Sec. 15. Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds.     200
+  Sec. 16. Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by
+          vacancy.                                                     202
+  Sec. 17. Swift execution best secures perfection of details.            202
+  Sec. 18. Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical
+          subjects.                                                    202
+  Sec. 19. Recapitulation of the section.                                 203
+
+
+
+
+                                  SECTION III.
+
+                               OF TRUTH OF SKIES.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of the Open Sky.
+
+  Sec.  1. The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and
+          teaching of man.                                             204
+  Sec.  2. The carelessness with which its lessons are received.          205
+  Sec.  3. The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest.          205
+  Sec.  4. Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional.              205
+  Sec.  5. Nature, and essential qualities of the open blue.              206
+  Sec.  6. Its connection with clouds.                                    207
+  Sec.  7. Its exceeding depth.                                           207
+  Sec.  8. These qualities are especially given by modern masters.        207
+  Sec.  9. And by Claude.                                                 208
+  Sec. 10. Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his
+          general treatment of open sky.                               208
+  Sec. 11. Errors of Cuyp in graduation of color.                         209
+  Sec. 12. The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and
+          Dutch schools. Their qualities are unattainable in modern
+          times.                                                       210
+  Sec. 13. Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause.         211
+  Sec. 14. They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky
+          is free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds.           211
+  Sec. 15. Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by
+          the old masters.                                             212
+  Sec. 16. The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be
+          represented.                                                 213
+  Sec. 17. The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more
+          delicate phenomena of rays.                                  213
+  Sec. 18. The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the
+          works of the old masters.                                    213
+  Sec. 19. Truth of the skies of modern drawings.                         214
+  Sec. 20. Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in
+          _quality_, inimitable, but in rendering of various truth,
+          childish.                                                    215
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Truth of Clouds:--First, of the Region of the Cirrus.
+
+  Sec.  1. Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds
+          consists.                                                    216
+  Sec.  2. Variation of their character at different elevations. The
+          three regions to which they may conveniently be considered
+          as belonging.                                                216
+  Sec.  3. Extent of the upper region.                                    217
+  Sec.  4. The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds.                     217
+  Sec.  5. Their exceeding delicacy.                                      218
+  Sec.  6. Their number.                                                  218
+  Sec.  7. Causes of their peculiarly delicate coloring.                  219
+  Sec.  8. Their variety of form.                                         219
+  Sec.  9. Total absence of even the slightest effort at their
+          representation, in ancient landscape.                        220
+  Sec. 10. The intense and constant study of them by Turner.              221
+  Sec. 11. His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea.                              222
+  Sec. 12. His use of the cirrus in expressing mist.                      223
+  Sec. 13. His consistency in every minor feature.                        224
+  Sec. 14. The color of the upper clouds.                                 224
+  Sec. 15. Recapitulation.                                                225
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of  Truth of Clouds:--Secondly, of the Central Cloud
+              Region.
+
+  Sec.  1. Extent and typical character of the central cloud region.      226
+  Sec.  2. Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought
+          for their representation, are therefore favorite subjects
+          with the old masters.                                        226
+  Sec.  3. The clouds of Salvator and Poussin.                            227
+  Sec.  4. Their essential characters.                                    227
+  Sec.  5. Their angular forms and general decision of outline.           228
+  Sec.  6. The composition of their minor curves.                         229
+  Sec.  7. Their characters, as given by S. Rosa.                         230
+  Sec.  8. Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian school
+          generally.                                                   230
+  Sec.  9. Vast size of congregated masses of cloud.                      231
+  Sec. 10. Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges.               231
+  Sec. 11. And consequent divisions and varieties of feature.             232
+  Sec. 12. Not lightly to be omitted.                                     232
+  Sec. 13. Imperfect conceptions of this size and extent in ancient
+          landscape.                                                   233
+  Sec. 14. Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of
+          ancient landscape.                                           234
+  Sec. 15. Farther proof of their deficiency in space.                    235
+  Sec. 16. Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon.      236
+  Sec. 17. And in his Pools of Solomon.                                   237
+  Sec. 18. Truths of outline and character in his Como.                   237
+  Sec. 19. Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus.              238
+  Sec. 20. The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of
+          Geneva.                                                      238
+  Sec. 21. Farther principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.    239
+  Sec. 22. Reasons for insisting on the _infinity_ of Turner's works.
+          Infinity is almost an unerring test of _all_ truth.          239
+  Sec. 23. Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator.    240
+  Sec. 24. And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The
+          conclusions which may be arrived at from it.                 240
+  Sec. 25. The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will
+          not give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of
+          novices.                                                     241
+  Sec. 26. Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner.     242
+  Sec. 27. The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield.              242
+  Sec. 28. The average standing of the English school.                    243
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of Truth of Clouds:--Thirdly, of the Region of the
+             Rain-Cloud.
+
+  Sec.  1. The apparent difference in character between the lower and
+          central clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity.            244
+  Sec.  2. Their marked differences in color.                             244
+  Sec.  3. And in definiteness of form.                                   245
+  Sec.  4. They are subject to precisely the same great laws.             245
+  Sec.  5. Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud.                      246
+  Sec.  6. The old masters have not left a single instance of the
+          painting of the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it.
+          Gaspar Poussin's storms.                                     247
+  Sec.  7. The great power of the moderns in this respect.                248
+  Sec.  8. Works of Copley Fielding.                                      248
+  Sec.  9. His peculiar truth.                                            248
+  Sec. 10. His weakness, and its probable cause.                          249
+  Sec. 11. Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from
+          engravings.                                                  250
+  Sec. 12. His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges. 250
+  Sec. 13. Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of
+          smoke and steam.                                             250
+  Sec. 14. Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony.                      251
+  Sec. 15. And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch
+          Coriskin.                                                    252
+  Sec. 16. The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End.            253
+  Sec. 17. The individual character of its parts.                         253
+  Sec. 18. Deep-studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry.         254
+  Sec. 19. Compared with forms given by Salvator.                         254
+  Sec. 20. Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and
+          circumstances in the Coventry.                               255
+  Sec. 21. Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose.       255
+  Sec. 22. The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky
+          only seen after rain, and how seen.                          256
+  Sec. 23. Absence of this effect in the works of the old masters.        256
+  Sec. 24. Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it
+          by Turner.                                                   257
+  Sec. 25. Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works. 257
+  Sec. 26. Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and
+          Aeneas.                                                       258
+  Sec. 27. Turner's power of rendering mist.                              258
+  Sec. 28. His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once
+          understood, they can no more be explained or reasoned on
+          than nature herself.                                         259
+  Sec. 29. Various instances.                                             259
+  Sec. 30. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered
+          by engravers.                                                260
+  Sec. 31. General system of landscape engraving.                         260
+  Sec. 32. The storm in the Stonehenge.                                   260
+  Sec. 33. General character of such effects as given by Turner. His
+          expression of falling rain.                                  261
+  Sec. 34. Recapitulation of the section.                                 261
+  Sec. 35. Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole,
+          compared with the works of Turner and of the old masters.
+          Morning on the plains.                                       262
+  Sec. 36. Noon with gathering storms.                                    263
+  Sec. 37. Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight.                            264
+  Sec. 38. And sunrise on the Alps.                                       264
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--Effects of Light rendered by Modern Art.
+
+  Sec.  1. Reasons for merely, at present, naming, without examining the
+          particular effects of light rendered by Turner.              266
+  Sec.  2. Hopes of the author for assistance in the future investigation
+          of them.                                                     266
+
+
+
+
+                                   SECTION IV.
+
+                               OF TRUTH OF EARTH.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of General Structure.
+
+  Sec.  1. First laws of the organization of the earth, and their
+          importance in art.                                           270
+  Sec.  2. The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful
+          study by modern artists.                                     271
+  Sec.  3. General structure of the earth. The hills are its action, the
+          plains its rest.                                             271
+  Sec.  4. Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their
+          support.                                                     272
+  Sec.  5. Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when
+          deposited by quiet water.                                    273
+  Sec.  6. Illustrated by Turner's Marengo.                               273
+  Sec.  7. General divisions of formation resulting from this
+          arrangement. Plan of investigation.                          274
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of the Central Mountains.
+
+  Sec.  1. Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the
+          world.                                                       275
+  Sec.  2. Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical
+          fissures.                                                    275
+  Sec.  3. Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose.        276
+  Sec.  4. The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps
+          at Daybreak.                                                 276
+  Sec.  5. Vignette of the Andes and others.                              277
+  Sec.  6. Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such
+          mountains.                                                   277
+  Sec.  7. Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art. 278
+  Sec.  8. Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of
+          Claude.                                                      278
+  Sec.  9. Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance.             279
+  Sec. 10. And violation of specific form.                                280
+  Sec. 11. Even in his best works.                                        280
+  Sec. 12. Farther illustration of the distant character of mountain
+          chains.                                                      281
+  Sec. 13. Their excessive appearance of transparency.                    281
+  Sec. 14. Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The
+          Borromean Islands of the latter.                             282
+  Sec. 15. Turner's Arona.                                                283
+  Sec. 16. Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by
+          very sharp outline.                                          283
+  Sec. 17. Want of this decision in Claude.                               284
+  Sec. 18. The perpetual rendering of it by Turner.                       285
+  Sec. 19. Effects of snow, how imperfectly studied.                      285
+  Sec. 20. General principles of its forms on the Alps.                   287
+  Sec. 21. Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has
+          scarcely yet been caught.                                    289
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of the Inferior Mountains.
+
+  Sec.  1. The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central, by
+          being divided into beds.                                     290
+  Sec.  2. Farther division of these beds by joints.                      290
+  Sec.  3. And by lines of lamination.                                    291
+  Sec.  4. Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are
+          manifested.                                                  291
+  Sec.  5. The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin.      292
+  Sec.  6. Glencoe and other works.                                       293
+  Sec.  7. Especially the Mount Lebanon.                                  293
+  Sec.  8. Compared with the work of Salvator.                            294
+  Sec.  9. And of Poussin.                                                295
+  Sec. 10. Effects of external influence on mountain form.                296
+  Sec. 11. The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion.                297
+  Sec. 12. And the effect of the action of torrents.                      297
+  Sec. 13. The exceeding simplicity of contour caused by these
+          influences.                                                  298
+  Sec. 14. And multiplicity of feature.                                   299
+  Sec. 15. Both utterly neglected in ancient art.                         299
+  Sec. 16. The fidelity of treatment in Turner's Daphne and Leucippus.    300
+  Sec. 17. And in the Avalanche and Inundation.                           300
+  Sec. 18. The rarity among secondary hills of steep slopes or high
+          precipices.                                                  301
+  Sec. 19. And consequent expression of horizontal distance in their
+          ascent.                                                      302
+  Sec. 20. Full statement of all these facts in various works of
+          Turner.--Caudebec, etc.                                      302
+  Sec. 21. The use of considering geological truths.                      303
+  Sec. 22. Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the
+          work of Claude.                                              304
+  Sec. 23. The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher
+          hills.                                                       304
+  Sec. 24. The peculiar difficulty of investigating the more essential
+          truths of hill outline.                                      305
+  Sec. 25. Works of other modern artists.--Clarkson Stanfield.            305
+  Sec. 26. Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing. 306
+  Sec. 27. Works of Copley Fielding. His high feeling.                    307
+  Sec. 28. Works of J. D. Harding and others.                             308
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Of the Foreground.
+
+  Sec.  1. What rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape
+          foreground.                                                  309
+  Sec.  2. Salvator's limestones. The real characters of the rock. Its
+          fractures, and obtuseness of angles.                         309
+  Sec.  3. Salvator's acute angles caused by the meeting of concave
+          curves.                                                      310
+  Sec.  4. Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of
+          nature.                                                      311
+  Sec.  5. Peculiar confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator.           311
+  Sec.  6. And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness.   311
+  Sec.  7. Instances in particular pictures.                              312
+  Sec.  8. Compared with the works of Stanfield.                          312
+  Sec.  9. Their absolute opposition in every particular.                 313
+  Sec. 10. The rocks of J. D. Harding.                                    313
+  Sec. 11. Characters of loose earth and soil.                            314
+  Sec. 12. Its exceeding grace and fulness of feature.                    315
+  Sec. 13. The ground of Teniers.                                         315
+  Sec. 14. Importance of these minor parts and points.                    316
+  Sec. 15. The observance of them is the real distinction between the
+          master and the novice.                                       316
+  Sec. 16. Ground of Cuyp.                                                317
+  Sec. 17. And of Claude.                                                 317
+  Sec. 18. The entire weakness and childishness of the latter.            318
+  Sec. 19. Compared with the work of Turner.                              318
+  Sec. 20. General features of Turner's foreground.                       319
+  Sec. 21. Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees.     319
+  Sec. 22. Their convex surfaces and fractured edges.                     319
+  Sec. 23. And perfect unity.                                             320
+  Sec. 24. Various parts whose history is told us by the details of the
+          drawing.                                                     321
+  Sec. 25. Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the
+          Llanthony.                                                   321
+  Sec. 26. Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone.        322
+  Sec. 27. And of complicated foreground.                                 323
+  Sec. 28. And of loose soil.                                             323
+  Sec. 29. The unison of all in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy
+          pictures.                                                    324
+  Sec. 30. And the great lesson to be received from all.                  324
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION V.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF WATER.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Water, as Painted by the Ancients.
+
+  Sec.  1. Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water.          325
+  Sec.  2. The ease with which a common representation of it may be
+          given. The impossibility of a faithful one.                  325
+  Sec.  3. Difficulty of properly dividing the subject.                   326
+  Sec.  4. Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among all painters.        326
+  Sec.  5. Difficulty of treating this part of the subject.               328
+  Sec.  6. General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, The
+          imperfection of its reflective surface.                      329
+  Sec.  7. The inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does
+          not affect right ones.                                       330
+  Sec.  8. Water takes no shadow.                                         331
+  Sec.  9. Modification of dark reflections by shadow.                    332
+  Sec. 10. Examples on the waters of the Rhone.                           333
+  Sec. 11. Effect of ripple on distant water.                             335
+  Sec. 12. Elongation of reflections by moving water.                     335
+  Sec. 13. Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images.     336
+  Sec. 14. To what extent reflection is visible from above.               336
+  Sec. 15. Deflection of images on agitated water.                        337
+  Sec. 16. Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science. Licenses, how
+          taken by great men.                                          337
+  Sec. 17. Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp,
+          Vandevelde.                                                  339
+  Sec. 18. And Canaletto.                                                 341
+  Sec. 19. Why unpardonable.                                              342
+  Sec. 20. The Dutch painters of sea.                                     343
+  Sec. 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator.                                344
+  Sec. 22. Nicolo Poussin.                                                345
+  Sec. 23. Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion.                         346
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--Of Water, as Painted by the Moderns.
+
+  Sec.  1. General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. The
+          lakes of Fielding.                                           348
+  Sec.  2. The calm rivers of De Wint, J. Holland, &c.                    348
+  Sec.  3. The character of bright and violent falling water.             349
+  Sec.  4. As given by Nesfield.                                          349
+  Sec.  5. The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding.                  350
+  Sec.  6. His color; and painting of sea.                                350
+  Sec.  7. The sea of Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity.  351
+  Sec.  8. Its high aim at character.                                     351
+  Sec.  9. But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays.              352
+  Sec. 10. Variety of the grays of nature.                                352
+  Sec. 11. Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power.           353
+  Sec. 12. But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern
+          art.                                                         353
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Of Water, as Painted by Turner.
+
+  Sec.  1. The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water.              355
+  Sec.  2. Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by
+          which the reflected rays are perceived.                      355
+  Sec.  3. Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by
+          distinctness of reflections.                                 356
+  Sec.  4. How avoided by Turner.                                         357
+  Sec.  5. All reflections on distant water are distinct.                 357
+  Sec.  6. The error of Vandevelde.                                       358
+  Sec.  7. Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected
+          object and its image.                                        359
+  Sec.  8. Illustrated from the works of Turner.                          359
+  Sec.  9. The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it.       360
+  Sec. 10. The _texture_ of surface in Turner's painting of calm water.   361
+  Sec. 11. Its united qualities.                                          361
+  Sec. 12. Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, &c., by
+          the most trifling incidents, as in the Cowes.                363
+  Sec. 13. In scenes on the Loire and Seine.                              363
+  Sec. 14. Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore.      364
+  Sec. 15. Various other instances.                                       364
+  Sec. 16. Turner's painting of distant expanses of water.--Calm,
+          interrupted by ripple.                                       365
+  Sec. 17. And rippled, crossed by sunshine.                              365
+  Sec. 18. His drawing of distant rivers.                                 366
+  Sec. 19. And of surface associated with mist.                           367
+  Sec. 20. His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of
+          weight.                                                      367
+  Sec. 21. The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by
+          him.                                                         368
+  Sec. 22. Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when
+          interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of
+          its bed.                                                     369
+  Sec. 23. But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.          370
+  Sec. 24. Its exquisite curved lines.                                    370
+  Sec. 25. Turner's careful choice of the historical truth.               370
+  Sec. 26. His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the
+          Llanthony Abbey.                                             371
+  Sec. 27. And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus.       372
+  Sec. 28. Various cases.                                                 372
+  Sec. 29. Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.        373
+  Sec. 30. Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible.               374
+  Sec. 31. Their effect how injured when seen from the shore.             375
+  Sec. 32. Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea.                      376
+  Sec. 33. With peculiar expression of weight.                            376
+  Sec. 34. Peculiar action of recoiling waves.                            377
+  Sec. 35. And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore.                   377
+  Sec. 36. General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in
+          the Land's End.                                              378
+  Sec. 37. Open seas of Turner's earlier time.                            379
+  Sec. 38. Effect of sea after prolonged storm.                           380
+  Sec. 39. Turner's noblest work, the painting of the deep open sea in
+          the Slave Ship.                                              382
+  Sec. 40. Its united excellences and perfection as a whole.              383
+
+
+
+
+                                SECTION VI.
+
+                   OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.--CONCLUSION.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--Of Truth of Vegetation.
+
+  Sec.  1. Frequent occurrence of foliage in the works of the old
+          masters.                                                     384
+  Sec.  2. Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not taper,
+          but only divide.                                             385
+  Sec.  3. Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds.                385
+  Sec.  4. And care of nature to conceal the parallelism.                 386
+  Sec.  5. The degree of tapering which may be represented as continuous. 386
+  Sec.  6. The trees of Gaspar Poussin.                                   386
+  Sec.  7. And of the Italian school generally, defy this law.            387
+  Sec.  8. The truth, as it is given by J. D. Harding.                    387
+  Sec.  9. Boughs, in consequence of this law, _must_ diminish where they
+          divide. Those of the old masters often do not.               388
+  Sec. 10. Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old
+          masters do not.                                              389
+  Sec. 11. Bough-drawing of Salvator.                                     390
+  Sec. 12. All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches, and
+          concentrated in a work of G. Poussin's.                      391
+  Sec. 13. Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them
+          by wind.                                                     392
+  Sec. 14. Bough-drawing of Titian.                                       392
+  Sec. 15. Bough-drawing of Turner.                                       394
+  Sec. 16. Leafage. Its variety and symmetry.                             394
+  Sec. 17. Perfect regularity of Poussin.                                 395
+  Sec. 18. Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage.                       396
+  Sec. 19. How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin.           396
+  Sec. 20. How followed by Creswick.                                      397
+  Sec. 21. Perfect unity in nature's foliage.                             398
+  Sec. 22. Total want of it in Both and Hobbima.                          398
+  Sec. 23. How rendered by Turner.                                        399
+  Sec. 24. The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good.     399
+  Sec. 25. Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves.          400
+  Sec. 26. Altogether unobserved by the old masters. Always given by
+          Turner.                                                      401
+  Sec. 27. Foliage painting on the Continent.                             401
+  Sec. 28. Foliage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies.                    402
+  Sec. 29. His brilliancy of execution too manifest.                      403
+  Sec. 30. His bough-drawing, and choice of form.                         404
+  Sec. 31. Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with
+          what advantage.                                              404
+  Sec. 32. Opposition between great manner and great knowledge.           406
+  Sec. 33. Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattermole.                      406
+  Sec. 34. Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of
+          light, and offensive if otherwise.                           407
+  Sec. 35. Conclusion. Works of J. Linnel and S. Palmer.                  407
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--General remarks respecting the Truth of Turner.
+
+  Sec.  1. No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural
+          truth.                                                       409
+  Sec.  2. Extreme difficulty of illustrating or explaining the highest
+          truth.                                                       410
+  Sec.  3. The _positive_ rank of Turner is in no degree shown in the
+          foregoing pages, but only his relative rank.                 410
+  Sec.  4. The exceeding refinement of his truth.                         411
+  Sec.  5. There is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without
+          knowledge.                                                   411
+  Sec.  6. And nothing which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy.       412
+  Sec.  7. His former rank and progress.                                  412
+  Sec.  8. Standing of his present works. Their mystery is the
+          consequence of their fulness.                                413
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--Conclusion.--Modern Art and Modern Criticism.
+
+  Sec.  1. The entire prominence hitherto given to the works of one
+          artist caused only by our not being able to take
+          cognizance of _character_.                                   414
+  Sec.  2. The feelings of different artists are incapable of full
+          comparison.                                                  415
+  Sec.  3. But the fidelity and truth of each are capable of real
+          comparison.                                                  415
+  Sec.  4. Especially because they are equally manifested in the
+          treatment of all subjects.                                   415
+  Sec.  5. No man draws one thing well, if he can draw nothing else.      416
+  Sec.  6. General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation. 417
+  Sec.  7. Truth, a standard of all excellence.                           417
+  Sec.  8. Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste.               418
+  Sec.  9. Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment.              418
+  Sec. 10. Duty of the press.                                             418
+  Sec. 11. Qualifications necessary for discharging it.                   418
+  Sec. 12. General incapability of modern critics.                        419
+  Sec. 13. And inconsistency with themselves.                             419
+  Sec. 14. How the press may really advance the cause of art.             420
+  Sec. 15. Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works.       420
+  Sec. 16. By which the public defraud themselves.                        421
+  Sec. 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves.            421
+  Sec. 18. Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly.                 421
+  Sec. 19. _Sketches_ not sufficiently encouraged.                        422
+  Sec. 20. Brilliancy of execution or efforts at invention not to be
+          tolerated in young artists.                                  422
+  Sec. 21. The duty and after privileges of all students.                 423
+  Sec. 22. Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of aim. 423
+  Sec. 23. What should be their general aim.                              425
+  Sec. 24. Duty of the press with respect to the works of Turner.         427
+
+
+
+
+                       LIST OF PLATES TO VOLUME I.
+
+                                                                   _Page._
+
+  Casa Contarini Fasan, Venice                                         110
+                       From a drawing by Ruskin.
+
+  The Dogana, and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice                     136
+                       From a painting by Turner.
+
+  Okehampton Castle                                                    258
+                       From a painting by Turner.
+
+  Port Ruysdael                                                        376
+                       From a painting by Turner.
+
+
+
+
+                             MODERN PAINTERS.
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART I
+
+                         OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
+
+                               SECTION I.
+
+              OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                             INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long
+       periods of time.
+
+If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing has been
+for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing in a
+high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is not because the
+average intellect and feeling of the majority of the public are
+competent in any way to distinguish what is really excellent, but
+because all erroneous opinion is inconsistent, and all ungrounded
+opinion transitory; so that while the fancies and feelings which deny
+deserved honor and award what is undue have neither root nor strength
+sufficient to maintain consistent testimony for a length of time, the
+opinions formed on right grounds by those few who are in reality
+competent judges, being necessarily stable, communicate themselves
+gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend wider,
+until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by absolute authority, even
+where the grounds and reasons for them cannot be understood. On this
+gradual victory of what is consistent over what is vacillating, depends
+the reputation of all that is highest in art and literature. For It is
+an insult to what is really great in either, to suppose that it in any
+way addresses itself to mean or uncultivated faculties. It is a matter
+of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but
+by his equal or superior. His inferior may over-estimate him in
+enthusiasm; or, as is more commonly the case, degrade him, in ignorance;
+but he cannot form a grounded and just estimate. Without proving this,
+however--which it would take more space to do than I can spare--it is
+sufficiently evident that there is no process of amalgamation by which
+opinions, wrong individually, can become right merely by their
+multitude.[1] If I stand by a picture in the Academy, and hear twenty
+persons in succession admiring some paltry piece of mechanism or
+imitation in the lining of a cloak, or the satin of a slipper, it is
+absurd to tell me that they reprobate collectively what they admire
+individually: or, if they pass with apathy by a piece of the most noble
+conception or most perfect truth, because it has in it no tricks of the
+brush nor grimace of expression, it is absurd to tell me that they
+collectively respect what they separately scorn, or that the feelings
+and knowledge of such judges, by any length of time or comparison of
+ideas, could come to any right conclusion with respect to what is really
+high in art. The question is not decided by them, but for them;--decided
+at first by few: by fewer in proportion as the merits of the work are of
+a higher order. From these few the decision is communicated to the
+number next below them in rank of mind, and by these again to a wider
+and lower circle; each rank being so far cognizant of the superiority of
+that above it, as to receive its decision with respect; until, in
+process of time, the right and consistent opinion is communicated to
+all, and held by all as a matter of faith, the more positively in
+proportion as the grounds of it are less perceived.[2]
+
+
+Sec. 2. And therefore obstinate when once formed.
+
+Sec. 3. The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances.
+
+Sec. 4. But only on points capable of demonstration.
+
+But when this process has taken place, and the work has become sanctified
+by time in the minds of men, it is impossible that any new work of equal
+merit can be impartially compared with it, except by minds not only
+educated and generally capable of appreciating merit, but strong enough
+to shake off the weight of prejudice and association, which invariably
+incline them to the older favorite. It is much easier, says Barry, to
+repeat the character recorded of Phidias, than to investigate the merits
+of Agasias. And when, as peculiarly in the case of painting, much
+knowledge of what is technical and practical is necessary to a right
+judgment, so that those alone are competent to pronounce a true verdict
+who are themselves the persons to be judged, and who therefore can give
+no opinion, centuries may elapse before fair comparison can be made
+between two artists of different ages; while the patriarchal excellence
+exercises during the interval a tyrannical--perhaps, even a blighting,
+influence over the minds, both of the public and of those to whom,
+properly understood, it should serve for a guide and example. In no city
+of Europe where art is a subject of attention, are its prospects so
+hopeless, or its pursuits so resultless, as in Rome; because there, among
+all students, the authority of their predecessors in art is supreme and
+without appeal, and the mindless copyist studies Raffaelle, but not what
+Raffaelle studied. It thus becomes the duty of every one capable of
+demonstrating any definite points of superiority in modern art, and who
+is in a position in which his doing so will not be ungraceful, to
+encounter without hesitation whatever opprobrium may fall upon him from
+the necessary prejudice even of the most candid minds, and from the far
+more virulent opposition of those who have no hope of maintaining their
+own reputation for discernment but in the support of that kind of
+consecrated merit which may be applauded without an inconvenient
+necessity for reasons. It is my purpose, therefore, believing that there
+are certain points of superiority in modern artists, and especially in
+one or two of their number, which have not yet been fully understood,
+except by those who are scarcely in a position admitting the declaration
+of their conviction, to institute a close comparison between the great
+works of ancient and modern landscape art, to raise, as far as possible,
+the deceptive veil of imaginary light through which we are accustomed to
+gaze upon the patriarchal work, and to show the real relations, whether
+favorable or otherwise, subsisting between it and our own. I am fully
+aware that this is not to be done lightly or rashly; that it is the part
+of every one proposing to undertake such a task strictly to examine, with
+prolonged doubt and severe trial, every opinion in any way contrary to
+the sacred verdict of time, and to advance nothing which does not, at
+least in his own conviction, rest on surer ground than mere feeling or
+taste. I have accordingly advanced nothing in the following pages but
+with accompanying demonstration, which may indeed be true or
+false--complete or conditional, but which can only be met on its own
+grounds, and can in no way be borne down or affected by mere authority of
+great names. Yet even thus I should scarcely have ventured to speak so
+decidedly as I have, but for my full conviction that we ought not to
+class the historical painters of the fifteenth, and landscape painters of
+the seventeenth, centuries, together, under the general title of "old
+masters," as if they possessed anything like corresponding rank in their
+respective walks of art. I feel assured that the principles on which they
+worked are totally opposed, and that the landscape painters have been
+honored only because they exhibited in mechanical and technical qualities
+some semblance of the manner of the nobler historical painters, whose
+principles of conception and composition they entirely reversed. The
+course of study which has led me reverently to the feet of Michael Angelo
+and Da Vinci, has alienated me gradually from Claude and Gaspar--I cannot
+at the same time do homage to power and pettiness--to the truth of
+consummate science, and the mannerism of undisciplined imagination. And
+let it be understood that whenever hereafter I speak depreciatingly of
+the old masters as a body, I refer to none of the historical painters,
+for whom I entertain a veneration, which though I hope reasonable in its
+grounds, is almost superstitious in degree. Neither, unless he be
+particularly mentioned, do I intend to include Nicholas Poussin, whose
+landscapes have a separate and elevated character, which renders it
+necessary to consider them apart from all others. Speaking generally of
+the older masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa,
+Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers, (in his landscapes,) P.
+Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van somethings, and Back somethings,
+more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea.
+
+It will of course be necessary for me in the commencement of the work to
+state briefly those principles on which I conceive all right judgment of
+art must be founded. These introductory chapters I should wish to be
+read carefully, because all criticism must be useless when the terms or
+grounds of it are in any degree ambiguous; and the ordinary language of
+connoisseurs and critics, granting that they understand it themselves,
+is usually mere jargon to others, from their custom of using technical
+terms, by which everything is meant, and nothing is expressed.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable.
+
+And if, in the application of these principles, in spite of my endeavor
+to render it impartial, the feeling and fondness which I have for some
+works of modern art escape me sometimes where it should not, let it be
+pardoned as little more than a fair counterbalance to that peculiar
+veneration with which the work of the older master, associated as it has
+ever been in our ears with the expression of whatever is great or
+perfect, must be usually regarded by the reader. I do not say that this
+veneration is wrong, nor that we should be less attentive to the
+repeated words of time: but let us not forget, that if honor be for the
+dead, gratitude can only be for the living. He who has once stood beside
+the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever
+closed, feeling how impotent _there_ are the wild love, or the keen
+sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone
+in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness,
+will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart, which can
+only be discharged to the dust. But the lesson which men receive as
+individuals, they do not learn as nations. Again and again they have
+seen their noblest descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to
+garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow, and to pay the
+honor to the ashes, which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not
+displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of
+their busy life, to listen for the few voices, and watch for the few
+lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that
+they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by
+their decay.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [1] The opinion of a majority is right only when it is more probable
+    with each individual that he should be right than that he should be
+    wrong, as in the case of a jury. Where it is more probable, with
+    respect to each individual, that he should be wrong than right, the
+    opinion of the minority is the true one. Thus it is in art.
+
+  [2] There are, however, a thousand modifying circumstances which
+    render this process sometimes unnecessary,--sometimes rapid and
+    certain--sometimes impossible. It is unnecessary in rhetoric and the
+    drama, because the multitude is the only proper judge of those arts
+    whose end is to move the multitude (though more is necessary to a
+    fine play than is essentially dramatic, and it is only of the
+    dramatic part that the multitude are cognizant). It is unnecessary,
+    when, united with the higher qualities of a work, there are appeals
+    to universal passion, to all the faculties and feelings which are
+    general in man as an animal. The popularity is then as sudden as it
+    is well grounded,--it is hearty and honest in every mind, but it is
+    based in every mind on a different species of excellence. Such will
+    often be the case with the noblest works of literature. Take Don
+    Quixote for example. The lowest mind would find in it perpetual and
+    brutal amusement in the misfortunes of the knight, and perpetual
+    pleasure in sympathy with the squire. A mind of average feeling
+    would perceive the satirical meaning and force of the book, would
+    appreciate its wit, its elegance, and its truth. But only elevated
+    and peculiar minds discover, in addition to all this, the full moral
+    beauty of the love and truth which are the constant associates of
+    all that is even most weak and erring in the character of its hero,
+    and pass over the rude adventure and scurrile jest in haste--perhaps
+    in pain, to penetrate beneath the rusty corselet, and catch from the
+    wandering glance the evidence and expression of fortitude,
+    self-devotion, and universal love. So, again, with the works of
+    Scott and Byron; popularity was as instant as it was deserved,
+    because there is in them an appeal to those passions which are
+    universal in all men, as well as an expression of such thoughts as
+    can be received only by the few. But they are admired by the
+    majority of their advocates for the weakest parts of their works, as
+    a popular preacher by the majority of his congregation for the worst
+    part of his sermon.
+
+    The process is rapid and certain, when, though there may be little
+    to catch the multitude at once, there is much which they can enjoy
+    when their attention is authoritatively directed to it. So rests the
+    reputation of Shakspeare. No ordinary mind can comprehend wherein
+    his undisputed superiority consists, but there is yet quite as much
+    to amuse, thrill, or excite,--quite as much of what is, in the
+    strict sense of the word, dramatic, in his works as in any one
+    else's. They were received, therefore, when first written, with
+    average approval, as works of common merit: but when the high
+    decision was made, and the circle spread, the public took up the hue
+    and cry conscientiously enough. Let them have daggers, ghosts,
+    clowns, and kings, and with such real and definite sources of
+    enjoyment, they will take the additional trouble to learn half a
+    dozen quotations, without understanding them, and admit the
+    superiority of Shakspeare without further demur. Nothing, perhaps,
+    can more completely demonstrate the total ignorance of the public of
+    all that is great or valuable in Shakspeare than their universal
+    admiration of Maclise's Hamlet.
+
+    The process is impossible when there is in the work nothing to
+    attract and something to disgust the vulgar mind. Neither their
+    intrinsic excellence, nor the authority of those who can judge of
+    it, will ever make the poems of Wordsworth or George Herbert
+    popular, in the sense in which Scott and Byron are popular, because
+    it is to the vulgar a labor instead of a pleasure to read them; and
+    there are parts in them which to such judges cannot but be vapid or
+    ridiculous. Most works of the highest art,--those of Raffaelle, M.
+    Angelo, or Da Vinci,--stand as Shakspeare does,--that which is
+    commonplace and feeble in their excellence being taken for its
+    essence by the uneducated, imagination assisting the impression,
+    (for we readily fancy that we feel, when feeling is a matter of
+    pride or conscience,) and affectation and pretension increasing the
+    noise of the rapture, if not its degree. Giotto, Orgagna, Angelico,
+    Perugino, stand, like George Herbert, only with the few. Wilkie
+    becomes popular, like Scott, because he touches passions which all
+    feel, and expresses truths which all can recognize.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                       DEFINITION OF GREATNESS IN ART.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and technical
+       knowledge.
+
+In the 15th Lecture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, incidental notice is taken
+of the distinction between those excellences in the painter which belong
+to him _as such_, and those which belong to him in common with all men
+of intellect, the general and exalted powers of which art is the
+evidence and expression, not the subject. But the distinction is not
+there dwelt upon as it should be, for it is owing to the slight
+attention ordinarily paid to it, that criticism is open to every form of
+coxcombry, and liable to every phase of error. It is a distinction on
+which depend all sound judgment of the rank of the artist, and all just
+appreciation of the dignity of art.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language.
+
+Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its technicalities,
+difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive
+language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing.
+He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of
+painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object
+faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts
+are to be expressed. He has done just as much towards being that which
+we ought to respect as a great painter, as a man who has learned how to
+express himself grammatically and melodiously has towards being a great
+poet. The language is, indeed, more difficult of acquirement in the one
+case than in the other, and possesses more power of delighting the
+sense, while it speaks to the intellect, but it is, nevertheless,
+nothing more than language, and all those excellences which are peculiar
+to the painter as such, are merely what rhythm, melody, precision and
+force are in the words of the orator and the poet, necessary to their
+greatness, but not the tests of their greatness. It is not by the mode
+of representing and saying, but by what is represented and said, that
+the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be
+finally determined.
+
+
+Sec. 3. "Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier."
+
+Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we should call a man a great
+painter only as he excelled in precision and force in the language of
+lines, and a great versifier, as he excelled in precision or force in
+the language of words. A great poet would then be a term strictly, and
+in precisely the same sense applicable to both, if warranted by the
+character of the images or thoughts which each in their respective
+languages convey.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Example in a painting of E. Landseer's.
+
+Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the
+words as synonymous) which modern times have seen:--the "Old Shepherd's
+Chief-mourner." Here the exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp
+hair of the dog, the bright sharp touching of the green bough beside it,
+the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the
+blanket, are language--language clear and expressive in the highest
+degree. But the close pressure of the dog's breast against the wood, the
+convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the
+trestle, the total powerlessness of the head laid, close and motionless,
+upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter
+hopelessness, the rigidity of repose which marks that there has been no
+motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck
+on the coffin-lid, the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the
+spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating
+how lonely has been the life--how unwatched the departure of him who is
+now laid solitary in his sleep;--these are all thoughts--thoughts by
+which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as
+far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, and
+stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or
+the fold of a drapery, but as the Man of Mind.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought.
+
+It is not, however, always easy, either in painting or literature, to
+determine where the influence of language stops, and where that of
+thought begins. Many thoughts are so dependent upon the language in
+which they are clothed, that they would lose half their beauty if
+otherwise expressed. But the highest thoughts are those which are least
+dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to
+which it is entitled, are in exact proportion to its independency of
+language or expression. A composition is indeed usually most perfect,
+when to such intrinsic dignity is added all that expression can do to
+attract and adorn; but in every case of supreme excellence this all
+becomes as nothing. We are more gratified by the simplest lines or words
+which can suggest the idea in its own naked beauty, than by the robe or
+the gem which conceal while they decorate; we are better pleased to feel
+by their absence how little they would bestow, than by their presence
+how much they can destroy.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Distinction between decorative and expressive language.
+
+There is therefore a distinction to be made between what is ornamental
+in language and what is expressive. That part of it which is necessary
+to the embodying and conveying the thought is worthy of respect and
+attention as necessary to excellence, though not the test of it. But
+that part of it which is decorative has little more to do with the
+intrinsic excellence of the picture than the frame or the varnishing of
+it. And this caution in distinguishing between the ornamental and the
+expressive is peculiarly necessary in painting; for in the language of
+words it is nearly impossible for that which is not expressive to be
+beautiful, except by mere rhythm or melody, any sacrifice to which is
+immediately stigmatized as error. But the beauty of mere language in
+painting is not only very attractive and entertaining to the spectator,
+but requires for its attainment no small exertion of mind and devotion
+of time by the artist. Hence, in art, men have frequently fancied that
+they were becoming rhetoricians and poets when they were only learning
+to speak melodiously, and the judge has over and over again advanced to
+the honor of authors those who were never more than ornamental
+writing-masters.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools.
+
+Most pictures of the Dutch school, for instance, and excepting always
+those of Rubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt, are ostentatious exhibitions of
+the artist's power of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of
+useless and senseless words: while the early efforts of Cimabue and
+Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the
+stammering lips of infants. It is not by ranking the former as more than
+mechanics, or the latter as less than artists, that the taste of the
+multitude, always awake to the lowest pleasures which art can bestow,
+and blunt to the highest, is to be formed or elevated. It must be the
+part of the judicious critic carefully to distinguish what is language,
+and what is thought, and to rank and praise pictures chiefly for the
+latter, considering the former as a totally inferior excellence, and one
+which cannot be compared with nor weighed against thought in any way nor
+in any degree whatsoever. The picture which has the nobler and more
+numerous ideas, however awkwardly expressed, is a greater and a better
+picture than that which has the less noble and less numerous ideas,
+however beautifully expressed. No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of
+execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought. Three
+penstrokes of Raffaelle are a greater and a better picture than the most
+finished work that ever Carlo Dolci polished into inanity. A finished
+work of a great artist is only better than its sketch, if the sources of
+pleasure belonging to color and realization--valuable in
+themselves,--are so employed as to increase the impressiveness of the
+thought. But if one atom of thought has vanished, all color, all finish,
+all execution, all ornament, are too dearly bought. Nothing but thought
+can pay for thought, and the instant that the increasing refinement or
+finish of the picture begins to be paid for by the loss of the faintest
+shadow of an idea, that instant all refinement or finish is an
+excrescence, and a deformity.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself.
+
+Sec. 9. The definition.
+
+Yet although in all our speculations on art, language is thus to be
+distinguished from, and held subordinate to, that which it conveys, we
+must still remember that there are certain ideas inherent in language
+itself, and that strictly speaking, every pleasure connected with art
+has in it some reference to the intellect. The mere sensual pleasure of
+the eye, received from the most brilliant piece of coloring, is as
+nothing to that which it receives from a crystal prism, except as it
+depends on our perception of a certain meaning and intended arrangement
+of color, which has been the subject of intellect. Nay, the term idea,
+according to Locke's definition of it, will extend even to the sensual
+impressions themselves as far as they are "things which the mind
+occupies itself about in thinking," that is, not as they are felt by the
+eye only, but as they are received by the mind through the eye. So that,
+if I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of
+the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a
+definition which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure
+which art is capable of conveying. If I were to say, on the contrary,
+that the best picture was that which most closely imitated nature, I
+should assume that art could only please by imitating nature, and I
+should cast out of the pale of criticism those parts of works of art
+which are not imitative, that is to say, intrinsic beauties of color and
+form, and those works of art wholly, which, like the arabesques of
+Raffaelle in the Loggias, are not imitative at all. Now I want a
+definition of art wide enough to include all its varieties of aim: I do
+not say therefore that the art is greatest which gives most pleasure,
+because perhaps there is some art whose end is to teach, and not to
+please. I do not say that the art is greatest which teaches us most,
+because perhaps there is some art whose end is to please, and not to
+teach. I do not say that the art is greatest which imitates best,
+because perhaps there is some art whose end is to create, and not to
+imitate. But I say that the art is greatest, which conveys to the mind
+of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the
+greatest ideas, and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received
+by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in
+occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received.
+
+If this then be the definition of great art, that of a great artist
+naturally follows. He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the
+sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER III.
+
+                        OF IDEAS OF POWER.
+
+
+The definition of art which I have just given, requires me to determine
+what kinds of ideas can be received from works of art, and which of
+these are the greatest, before proceeding to any practical application
+of the test.
+
+
+Sec. 1. What classes of ideas are conveyable by art.
+
+I think that all the sources of pleasure, or any other good, to be
+derived from works of art, may be referred to five distinct heads.
+
+    I. Ideas of Power.--The perception or conception of the mental or
+         bodily powers by which the work has been produced.
+
+   II. Ideas of Imitation.--The perception that the thing produced
+         resembles something else.
+
+  III. Ideas of Truth.--The perception of faithfulness in a statement
+         of facts by the thing produced.
+
+   IV. Ideas of Beauty.--The perception of beauty, either in the thing
+         produced, or in what it suggests or resembles.
+
+    V. Ideas of Relation.--The perception of intellectual relations, in
+         the thing produced, or in what it suggests or resembles.
+
+I shall briefly distinguish the nature and effects of each of these
+classes of ideas.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity.
+
+I. Ideas of Power.--These are the simple perception of the mental or
+bodily powers exerted in the production of any work of art. According to
+the dignity and degree of the power perceived is the dignity of the
+idea; but the whole class of ideas is received by the intellect, and
+they excite the best of the moral feelings, veneration, and the desire
+of exertion. As a species, therefore, they are one of the noblest
+connected with art; but the differences in degree of dignity among
+themselves are infinite, being correspondent with every order of
+power,--from that of the fingers to that of the most exalted intellect.
+Thus, when we see an Indian's paddle carved from the handle to the
+blade, we have a conception of prolonged manual labor, and are gratified
+in proportion to the supposed expenditure of time and exertion. These
+are, indeed, powers of a low order, yet the pleasure arising from the
+conception of them enters very largely indeed into our admiration of all
+elaborate ornament, architectural decoration, etc. The delight with
+which we look on the fretted front of Rouen Cathedral depends in no
+small degree on the simple perception of time employed and labor
+expended in its production. But it is a right, that is, an ennobling
+pleasure, even in this its lowest phase; and even the pleasure felt by
+those persons who praise a drawing for its "finish," or its "work,"
+which is one precisely of the same kind, would be right, if it did not
+imply a want of perception of the higher powers which render work
+unnecessary. If to the evidence of labor be added that of strength or
+dexterity, the sensation of power is yet increased; if to strength and
+dexterity be added that of ingenuity and judgment, it is multiplied
+tenfold, and so on, through all the subjects of action of body or mind,
+we receive the more exalted pleasure from the more exalted power.
+
+
+Sec. 3. But are received from whatever has been the subject of power. The
+       meaning of the word "excellence."
+
+So far the nature and effects of ideas of power cannot but be admitted
+by all. But the circumstance which I wish especially to insist upon,
+with respect to them, is one which may not, perhaps, be so readily
+allowed, namely, that they are independent of the nature or worthiness
+of the object from which they are received, and that whatever has been
+the subject of a great power, whether there be intrinsic and apparent
+worthiness in itself or not, bears with it the evidence of having been
+so, and is capable of giving the ideas of power, and the consequent
+pleasures, in their full degree. For observe, that a thing is not
+properly said to have been the result of a great power, on which only
+some part of that power has been expended. A nut may be cracked by a
+steam-engine, but it has not, in being so, been the subject of the power
+of the engine. And thus it is falsely said of great men, that they waste
+their lofty powers on unworthy objects: the object may be dangerous or
+useless, but, as far as the phrase has reference to difficulty of
+performance, it cannot be unworthy of the power which it brings into
+exertion, because nothing can become a subject of action to a greater
+power which can be accomplished by a less, any more than bodily strength
+can be exerted where there is nothing to resist it.
+
+So then, men may let their great powers lie dormant, while they employ
+their mean and petty powers on mean and petty objects; but it is
+physically impossible to employ a great power, except on a great object.
+Consequently, wherever power of any kind or degree has been exerted, the
+marks and evidence of it are stamped upon its results: it is impossible
+that it should be lost or wasted, or without record, even in the
+"estimation of a hair:" and therefore, whatever has been the subject of
+a great power bears about with it the image of that which created it,
+and is what is commonly called "excellent." And this is the true meaning
+of the word excellent, as distinguished from the terms, "beautiful,"
+"useful," "good," etc.; and we shall always, in future, use the word
+excellent, as signifying that the thing to which it is applied required
+a great power for its production.[3]
+
+
+Sec. 4. What is necessary to the distinguishing of excellence.
+
+The faculty of perceiving what powers are required for the production of
+a thing, is the faculty of perceiving excellence. It is this faculty in
+which men, even of the most cultivated taste, must always be wanting,
+unless they have added practice to reflection; because none can estimate
+the power manifested in victory, unless they have personally measured
+the strength to be overcome. Though, therefore, it is possible, by the
+cultivation of sensibility and judgment, to become capable of
+distinguishing what is beautiful, it is totally impossible, without
+practice and knowledge, to distinguish or feel what is excellent. The
+beauty or the truth of Titian's flesh-tint may be appreciated by all;
+but it is only to the artist, whose multiplied hours of toil have not
+reached the slightest resemblance of one of its tones, that its
+_excellence_ is manifest.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right.
+
+Wherever, then, difficulty has been overcome, there is excellence: and
+therefore, in order to prove excellent, we have only to prove the
+difficulty of its production: whether it be useful or beautiful is
+another question; its excellence depends on its difficulty alone. For is
+it a false or diseased taste which looks for the overcoming of
+difficulties, and has pleasure in it, even without any view to resultant
+good. It has been made part of our moral nature that we should have a
+pleasure in encountering and conquering opposition, for the sake of the
+struggle and the victory, not for the sake of any after result; and not
+only our own victory, but the perception of that of another, is in all
+cases the source of pure and ennobling pleasure. And if we often hear it
+said, and truly said, that an artist has erred by seeking rather to show
+his skill in overcoming technical difficulties, than to reach a great
+end, be it observed that he is only blamed because he has sought to
+conquer an inferior difficulty rather than a great one; for it is much
+easier to overcome technical difficulties than to reach a great end.
+Whenever the visible victory over difficulties is found painful or in
+false taste, it is owing to the preference of an inferior to a great
+difficulty, or to the false estimate of what is difficult and what is
+not. It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far
+more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper
+place, than to expend both indiscriminately. We shall find, in the
+course of our investigation, that beauty and difficulty go together; and
+that they are only mean and paltry difficulties which it is wrong or
+contemptible to wrestle with. Be it remembered then--Power is never
+wasted. Whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in
+proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of
+perceiving this exertion, and appreciating this dignity, is the faculty
+of perceiving excellence.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [3] Of course the word "excellent" is primarily a mere synonym with
+    "surpassing," and when applied to persons, has the general meaning
+    given by Johnson--"the state of abounding in any good quality." But
+    when applied to things it has always reference to the power by which
+    they are produced. We talk of excellent music or poetry, because it
+    is difficult to compose or write such, but never of excellent
+    flowers, because all flowers being the result of the same power,
+    must be equally excellent. We distinguish them only as beautiful or
+    useful, and therefore, as there is no other one word to signify that
+    quality of a thing produced by which it pleases us merely as the
+    result of power, and as the term "excellent" is more frequently used
+    in this sense than in any other, I choose to limit it at once to
+    this sense, and I wish it, when I use it in future, to be so
+    understood.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+                           OF IDEAS OF IMITATION.
+
+
+Sec. 1. False use of the term "imitation" by many writers of art.
+
+Fuseli, in his lectures, and many other persons of equally just and
+accurate habits of thought, (among others, S. T. Coleridge,) make a
+distinction between imitation and copying, representing the first as the
+legitimate function of art--the latter as its corruption; but as such a
+distinction is by no means warranted, or explained by the common meaning
+of the words themselves, it is not easy to comprehend exactly in what
+sense they are used by those writers. And though, reasoning from the
+context, I can understand what ideas those words stand for in their
+minds, I cannot allow the terms to be properly used as symbols of those
+ideas, which (especially in the case of the word Imitation) are
+exceedingly complex, and totally different from what most people would
+understand by the term. And by men of less accurate thought, the word is
+used still more vaguely or falsely. For instance, Burke (Treatise on the
+Sublime, part i. sect. 16) says, "When the object represented in poetry
+or painting is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality,
+then we may be sure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the
+power of _imitation_." In which case the real pleasure may be in what we
+have been just speaking of, the dexterity of the artist's hand; or it
+may be in a beautiful or singular arrangement of colors, or a thoughtful
+chiaroscuro, or in the pure beauty of certain forms which art forces on
+our notice, though we should not have observed them in the reality; and
+I conceive that none of these sources of pleasure are in any way
+expressed or intimated by the term "imitation."
+
+But there is one source of pleasure in works of art totally different
+from all these, which I conceive to be properly and accurately expressed
+by the word "imitation:" one which, though constantly confused in
+reasoning, because it is always associated in fact, with other means of
+pleasure, is totally separated from them in its nature, and is the real
+basis of whatever complicated or various meaning may be afterwards
+attached to the word in the minds of men.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Real meaning of the term.
+
+Sec. 3. What is requisite to the sense of imitation.
+
+I wish to point out this distinct source of pleasure clearly at once,
+and only to use the word "imitation" in reference to it. Whenever
+anything looks like what it is not, the resemblance being so great as
+_nearly_ to deceive, we feel a kind of pleasurable surprise, an
+agreeable excitement of mind, exactly the same in its nature as that
+which we receive from juggling. Whenever we perceive this in something
+produced by art, that is to say, whenever the work is seen to resemble
+something which we know it is not, we receive what I call an idea of
+imitation. _Why_ such ideas are pleasing, it would be out of our present
+purpose to inquire; we only know that there is no man who does not feel
+pleasure in his animal nature from gentle surprise, and that such
+surprise can be excited in no more distinct manner than by the evidence
+that a thing is not what it appears to be.[4] Now two things are
+requisite to our complete and more pleasurable perception of this:
+first, that the resemblance be so perfect as to amount to a deception;
+secondly, that there be some means of proving at the same moment that it
+_is_ a deception. The most perfect ideas and pleasures of imitation are,
+therefore, when one sense is contradicted by another, both bearing as
+positive evidence on the subject as each is capable of alone; as when
+the eye says a thing is round, and the finger says it is flat; they are,
+therefore, never felt in so high a degree as in painting, where
+appearance of projection, roughness, hair, velvet, etc., are given with
+a smooth surface, or in wax-work, where the first evidence of the senses
+is perpetually contradicted by their experience; but the moment we come
+to marble, our definition checks us, for a marble figure does not look
+like what it is not: it looks like marble, and like the form of a man,
+but then it _is_ marble, and it _is_ the form of a man. It does not look
+like a man, which it is not, but like the form of a man, which it is.
+Form is form, _bona fide_ and actual, whether in marble or in
+flesh--not an imitation or resemblance of form, but real form. The chalk
+outline of the bough of a tree on paper, is not an imitation; it looks
+like chalk and paper--not like wood, and that which it suggests to the
+mind is not properly said to be _like_ the form of a bough, it _is_ the
+form of a bough. Now, then, we see the limits of an idea of imitation;
+it extends only to the sensation of trickery and deception occasioned by
+a thing's intentionally seeming different from what it is; and the
+degree of the pleasure depends on the degree of difference and the
+perfection of the resemblance, not on the nature of the thing resembled.
+The simple pleasure in the imitation would be precisely of the same
+degree, (if the accuracy could be equal,) whether the subject of it were
+the hero or his horse. There are other collateral sources of pleasure,
+which are necessarily associated with this, but that part of the
+pleasure which depends on the imitation is the same in both.
+
+
+Sec. 4. The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible that
+       can be derived from art.
+
+Ideas of imitation, then, act by producing the simple pleasure of
+surprise, and that not of surprise in its higher sense and function, but
+of the mean and paltry surprise which is felt in jugglery. These ideas
+and pleasures are the most contemptible which can be received from art;
+first, because it is necessary to their enjoyment that the mind should
+reject the impression and address of the thing represented, and fix
+itself only upon the reflection that it is not what it seems to be. All
+high or noble emotion or thought are thus rendered physically
+impossible, while the mind exults in what is very like a strictly
+sensual pleasure. We may consider tears as a result of agony or of art,
+whichever we please, but not of both at the same moment. If we are
+surprised by them as an attainment of the one, it is impossible we can
+be moved by them as a sign of the other.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Imitation is only of contemptible subjects.
+
+Ideas of imitation are contemptible in the second place, because not
+only do they preclude the spectator from enjoying inherent beauty in the
+subject, but they can only be received from mean and paltry subjects,
+because it is impossible to imitate anything really great. We can "paint
+a cat or a fiddle, so that they look as if we could take them up;" but
+we cannot imitate the ocean, or the Alps. We can imitate fruit, but not
+a tree; flowers, but not a pasture; cut-glass, but not the rainbow. All
+pictures in which deceptive powers of imitation are displayed are
+therefore either of contemptible subjects, or have the imitation shown
+in contemptible parts of them, bits of dress, jewels, furniture, etc.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Imitation is contemptible because it is easy.
+
+Thirdly, these ideas are contemptible, because no ideas of power are
+associated with them; to the ignorant, imitation, indeed, seems
+difficult, and its success praiseworthy, but even they can by no
+possibility see more in the artist than they do in a juggler, who
+arrives at a strange end by means with which they are unacquainted. To
+the instructed, the juggler is by far the more respectable artist of the
+two, for they know sleight of hand to be an art of immensely more
+difficult acquirement, and to imply more ingenuity in the artist than a
+power of deceptive imitation in painting, which requires nothing more
+for its attainment than a true eye, a steady hand, and moderate
+industry--qualities which in no degree separate the imitative artist
+from a watch-maker, pin-maker, or any other neat-handed artificer. These
+remarks do not apply to the art of the Diorama, or the stage, where the
+pleasure is not dependent on the imitation, but is the same which we
+should receive from nature herself, only far inferior in degree. It is a
+noble pleasure; but we shall see in the course of our investigation,
+both that it is inferior to that which we receive when there is no
+deception at all, and why it is so.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Recapitulation.
+
+Whenever then in future, I speak of ideas of imitation, I wish to be
+understood to mean the immediate and present perception that something
+produced by art is not what it seems to be. I prefer saying "that it is
+not what it seems to be," to saying "that it seems to be what it is
+not," because we perceive at once what it seems to be, and the idea of
+imitation, and the consequent pleasure, result from the subsequent
+perception of its being something else--flat, for instance, when we
+thought it was round.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [4] [Greek: syllogismos ettig, hoti touto ekeino].--Arist. Rhet. 1,
+    11, 23.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+                             OF IDEAS OF TRUTH.
+
+The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement,
+either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art.
+
+We receive an idea of truth, then, when we perceive the faithfulness of
+such a statement.
+
+The difference between ideas of truth and of imitation lies chiefly in
+the following points.
+
+
+Sec. 2. First difference between truth and imitation.
+
+First,--Imitation can only be of something material, but truth has
+reference to statements both of the qualities of material things, and of
+emotions, impressions, and thoughts. There is a moral as well as
+material truth,--a truth of impression as well as of form,--of thought
+as well as of matter; and the truth of impression and thought is a
+thousand times the more important of the two. Hence, truth is a term of
+universal application, but imitation is limited to that narrow field of
+art which takes cognizance only of material things.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Second difference.
+
+Secondly,--Truth may be stated by any signs or symbols which have a
+definite signification in the minds of those to whom they are addressed,
+although such signs be themselves no image nor likeness of anything.
+Whatever can excite in the mind the conception of certain facts, can
+give ideas of truth, though it be in no degree the imitation or
+resemblance of those facts. If there be--we do not say there is--but if
+there be in painting anything which operates, as words do, not by
+resembling anything, but by being taken as a symbol and substitute for
+it, and thus inducing the effect of it, then this channel of
+communication can convey uncorrupted truth, though it do not in any
+degree resemble the facts whose conception it induces. But ideas of
+imitation, of course, require the likeness of the object. They speak to
+the perceptive faculties only: truth to the conceptive.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Third difference.
+
+Thirdly,--And in consequence of what is above stated, an idea of truth
+exists in the statement of _one_ attribute of anything, but an idea of
+imitation requires the resemblance of as many attributes as we are
+usually cognizant of in its real presence. A pencil outline of the bough
+of a tree on white paper is a statement of a certain number of facts of
+form. It does not yet amount to the imitation of anything. The idea of
+that form is not given in nature by lines at all, still less by black
+lines with a white space between them. But those lines convey to the
+mind a distinct impression of a certain number of facts, which it
+recognizes as agreeable with its previous impressions of the bough of a
+tree; and it receives, therefore, an idea of truth. If, instead of two
+lines, we give a dark form with the brush, we convey information of a
+certain relation of shade between the bough and sky, recognizable for
+another idea of truth; but we have still no imitation, for the white
+paper is not the least like air, nor the black shadow like wood. It is
+not until after a certain number of ideas of truth have been collected
+together, that we arrive at an idea of imitation.
+
+
+Sec. 5. No accurate truths necessary to imitation.
+
+Hence it might at first sight appear, that an idea of imitation,
+inasmuch as several ideas of truth were united in it, was nobler than a
+simple idea of truth. And if it were necessary that the ideas of truth
+should be perfect, or should be subjects of contemplation _as such_, it
+would be so. But, observe, we require to produce the effect of imitation
+only so many and such ideas of truth as the _senses_ are usually
+cognizant of. Now the senses are not usually, nor unless they be
+especially devoted to the service, cognizant, with accuracy, of any
+truths but those of space and projection. It requires long study and
+attention before they give certain evidence of even the simplest truths
+of form. For instance, the quay on which the figure is sitting, with his
+hand at his eyes, in Claude's seaport, No. 14, in the National Gallery,
+is egregiously out of perspective. The eye of this artist, with all his
+study, had thus not acquired the power of taking cognizance of the
+apparent form even of a simple parallelopiped. How much less of the
+complicated forms of boughs, leaves, or limbs? Although, therefore,
+something resembling the real form is necessary to deception, this
+something is not to be called a _truth_ of form; for, strictly speaking,
+there are no degrees of truth, there are only degrees of approach to it;
+and an approach to it, whose feebleness and imperfection would instantly
+offend and give pain to a mind really capable of distinguishing truth,
+is yet quite sufficient for all the purposes of deceptive imagination.
+It is the same with regard to color. If we were to paint a tree
+sky-blue, or a dog rose-pink, the discernment of the public would be
+keen enough to discover the falsehood; but, so that there be just so
+much approach to truth of color as may come up to the common idea of it
+in men's minds, that is to say, if the trees be all bright green, and
+flesh unbroken buff, and ground unbroken brown, though all the real and
+refined truths of color be wholly omitted, or rather defied and
+contradicted, there is yet quite enough for all purposes of imitation.
+The only facts then, which we are usually and certainly cognizant of,
+are those of distance and projection, and if these be tolerably given,
+with something like truth of form and color to assist them, the idea of
+imitation is complete. I would undertake to paint an arm, with every
+muscle out of its place, and every bone of false form and dislocated
+articulation, and yet to observe certain coarse and broad resemblances
+of true outline, which, with careful shading, would induce deception,
+and draw down the praise and delight of the discerning public. The other
+day at Bruges, while I was endeavoring to set down in my note-book
+something of the ineffable expression of the Madonna in the cathedral, a
+French amateur came up to me, to inquire if I had seen the modern French
+pictures in a neighboring church. I had not, but felt little inclined to
+leave my marble for all the canvas that ever suffered from French
+brushes. My apathy was attacked with gradually increasing energy of
+praise. Rubens never executed--Titian never colored anything like them.
+I thought this highly probable, and still sat quiet. The voice continued
+at my ear. "Parbleu, Monsieur, Michel Ange n'a rien produit de plus
+beau!" "De plus _beau_?" repeated I, wishing to know what particular
+excellences of Michael Angelo were to be intimated by this expression.
+"Monsieur, on ne pent plus--c'est un tableau admirable--inconcevable:
+Monsieur," said the Frenchman, lifting up his hands to heaven, as he
+concentrated in one conclusive and overwhelming proposition the qualities
+which were to outshine Rubens and overpower Buonaroti--"Monsieur, IL
+SORT!"
+
+This gentleman could only perceive two truths--flesh color and
+projection. These constituted his notion of the perfection of painting;
+because they unite all that is necessary for deception. He was not
+therefore cognizant of many ideas of truth, though perfectly cognizant
+of ideas of imitation.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation.
+
+We shall see, in the course of our investigation of ideas of truth, that
+ideas of imitation not only do not imply their presence, but even are
+inconsistent with it; and that pictures which imitate so as to deceive,
+are never true. But this is not the place for the proof of this; at
+present we have only to insist on the last and greatest distinction
+between ideas of truth and of imitation--that the mind, in receiving one
+of the former, dwells upon its own conception of the fact, or form, or
+feeling stated, and is occupied only with the qualities and character of
+that fact or form, considering it as real and existing, being all the
+while totally regardless of the signs or symbols by which the notion of
+it has been conveyed. These signs have no pretence, nor hypocrisy, nor
+legerdemain about them;--there is nothing to be found out, or sifted, or
+surprised in them;--they bear their message simply and clearly, and it
+is that message which the mind takes from them and dwells upon,
+regardless of the language in which it is delivered. But the mind, in
+receiving an idea of imitation, is wholly occupied in finding out that
+what has been suggested to it is not what it appears to be: it does not
+dwell on the suggestion, but on the perception that it is a false
+suggestion: it derives its pleasure, not from the contemplation of a
+truth, but from the discovery of a falsehood. So that the moment ideas
+of truth are grouped together, so as to give rise to an idea of
+imitation, they change their very nature--lose their essence as ideas of
+truth--and are corrupted and degraded, so as to share in the treachery
+of what they have produced. Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the
+foundation, and ideas of imitation the destruction, of all art. We shall
+be better able to appreciate their relative dignity after the
+investigation which we propose of the functions of the former; but we
+may as well now express the conclusion to which we shall then be
+led--that no picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for
+the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VI.
+
+                             OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Definition of the term "beautiful."
+
+Any material object which can give us pleasure in the simple
+contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct and definite
+exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, or in some degree,
+beautiful. Why we receive pleasure from some forms and colors, and not
+from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar
+and dislike wormwood. The utmost subtilty of investigation will only
+lead us to ultimate instincts and principles of human nature, for which
+no farther reason can be given than the simple will of the Deity that we
+should be so created. We may, indeed, perceive, as far as we are
+acquainted with His nature, that we have been so constructed as, when in
+a healthy and cultivated state of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever
+things are illustrative of that nature; but we do not receive pleasure
+from them _because_ they are illustrative of it, nor from any perception
+that they are illustrative of it, but instinctively and necessarily, as
+we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose. On these primary
+principles of our nature, education and accident operate to an unlimited
+extent; they may be cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted
+by right guidance with the most acute and faultless sense, or subjected
+by neglect to every phase of error and disease. He who has followed up
+these natural laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more
+authoritative by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always
+from that which God originally intended should give him pleasure, and
+who derives the greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object,
+is a man of taste.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Definition of the term "taste."
+
+This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect taste is
+the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those
+material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity
+and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these sources,
+wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false
+or bad taste.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Distinction between taste and judgment.
+
+And it is thus that the term "taste" is to be distinguished from that of
+"judgment," with which it is constantly confounded. Judgment is a
+general term, expressing definite action of the intellect, and
+applicable to every kind of subject which can be submitted to it. There
+may be judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, judgment of justice,
+and judgment of difficulty and excellence. But all these exertions of
+the intellect are totally distinct from taste, properly so called, which
+is the instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to
+another without any obvious reason, except that it is proper to human
+nature in its perfection so to do.
+
+
+Sec. 4. How far beauty may become intellectual.
+
+Observe, however, I do not mean by excluding direct exertion of the
+intellect from ideas of beauty, to assert that beauty has no effect upon
+nor connection with the intellect. All our moral feelings are so
+in-woven with our intellectual powers, that we cannot affect the one
+without in some degree addressing the other; and in all high ideas of
+beauty, it is more than probable that much of the pleasure depends on
+delicate and untraceable perceptions of fitness, propriety, and
+relation, which are purely intellectual, and through which we arrive at
+our noblest ideas of what is commonly and rightly called "intellectual
+beauty." But there is yet no immediate _exertion_ of the intellect; that
+is to say, if a person receiving even the noblest ideas of simple beauty
+be asked _why_ he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able to
+give any distinct reason, nor to trace in his mind any formed thought,
+to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. He will say that the
+thing gratifies, fills, hallows, exalts his mind, but he will not be
+able to say why, or how. If he can, and if he can show that he perceives
+in the object any expression of distinct thought, he has received more
+than an idea of beauty--it is an idea of relation.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty.
+
+Ideas of beauty are among the noblest which can be presented to the
+human mind, invariably exalting and purifying it according to their
+degree; and it would appear that we are intended by the Deity to be
+constantly under their influence, because there is not one single object
+in nature which is not capable of conveying them, and which, to the
+rightly perceiving mind, does not present an incalculably greater number
+of beautiful than of deformed parts; there being in fact scarcely
+anything, in pure, undiseased nature, like positive deformity, but only
+degrees of beauty, or such slight and rare points of permitted contrast
+as may render all around them more valuable by their opposition, spots
+of blackness in creation, to make its colors felt.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."
+
+But although everything in nature is more or less beautiful, every
+species of object has its own kind and degree of beauty; some being in
+their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any,
+individuals possessing the utmost degree of beauty of which the species
+is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily
+coexistent with the utmost perfection of the object in other respects,
+is the ideal of the object.
+
+Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral, but
+not of intellectual perception. By the investigation of them we shall be
+led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VII.
+
+                            OF IDEAS OF RELATION.
+
+
+Sec. 1. General meaning of the term.
+
+I use this term rather as one of convenience than as adequately
+expressive of the vast class of ideas which I wish to be comprehended
+under it, namely, all those conveyable by art, which are the subjects of
+distinct intellectual perception and action, and which are therefore
+worthy of the name of thoughts. But as every thought, or definite
+exertion of intellect, implies two subjects, and some connection or
+relation inferred between them, the term "ideas of relation" is not
+incorrect, though it is inexpressive.
+
+
+Sec. 2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it.
+
+Under this head must be arranged everything productive of expression,
+sentiment, and character, whether in figures or landscapes, (for there
+may be as much definite expression and marked carrying out of particular
+thoughts in the treatment of inanimate as of animate nature,) everything
+relating to the conception of the subject and to the congruity and
+relation of its parts; not as they enhance each other's beauty by known
+and constant laws of composition, but as they give each other expression
+and meaning, by particular application, requiring distinct thought to
+discover or to enjoy: the choice, for instance, of a particular lurid or
+appalling light, to illustrate an incident in itself terrible, or of a
+particular tone of pure color to prepare the mind for the expression of
+refined and delicate feeling; and, in a still higher sense, the
+invention of such incidents and thoughts as can be expressed in words as
+well as on canvas, and are totally independent of any means of art but
+such as may serve for the bare suggestion of them. The principal object
+in the foreground of Turner's "Building of Carthage" is a group of
+children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as
+expressive of the ruling passion, which was to be the source of future
+greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming
+soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is
+seen,--it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a
+scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the
+intellect as much as the elaborate realizations of color. Such a thought
+as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest
+order. Claude, in subjects of the same kind, commonly introduces people
+carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and dwells, with infantine
+delight, on the lustre of the leather and the ornaments of the iron. The
+intellect can have no occupation here; we must look to the imitation or
+to nothing. Consequently, Turner rises above Claude in the very first
+instant of the conception of his picture, and acquires an intellectual
+superiority which no powers of the draughtsman or the artist (supposing
+that such existed in his antagonist) could ever wrest from him.
+
+
+Sec. 3. The exceeding nobility of these ideas.
+
+Such are the function and force of ideas of relation. They are what I
+have asserted in the second chapter of this section to be the noblest
+subjects of art. Dependent upon it only for expression, they cause all
+the rest of its complicated sources of pleasure to take, in comparison
+with them, the place of mere language or decoration; nay, even the
+noblest ideas of beauty sink at once beside these into subordination and
+subjection. It would add little to the influence of Landseer's picture
+above instanced, Chap. II., Sec. 4, that the form of the dog should be
+conceived with every perfection of curve and color which its nature was
+capable of, and that the ideal lines should be carried out with the
+science of a Praxiteles; nay, the instant that the beauty so obtained
+interfered with the impression of agony and desolation, and drew the
+mind away from the feeling of the animal to its outward form, that
+instant would the picture become monstrous and degraded. The utmost
+glory of the human body is a mean subject of contemplation, compared to
+the emotion, exertion and character of that which animates it; the
+lustre of the limbs of the Aphrodite is faint beside that of the brow of
+the Madonna; and the divine form of the Greek god, except as it is the
+incarnation and expression of divine mind, is degraded beside the
+passion and the prophecy of the vaults of the Sistine.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary.
+
+Ideas of relation are of course, with respect to art generally, the most
+extensive as the most important source of pleasure; and if we proposed
+entering upon the criticism of historical works, it would be absurd to
+attempt to do so without further subdivision and arrangement. But the
+old landscape painters got over so much canvas without either exercise
+of, or appeal to, the intellect, that we shall be little troubled with
+the subject as far as they are concerned; and whatever subdivision we
+may adopt, as it will therefore have particular reference to the works
+of modern artists, will be better understood when we have obtained some
+knowledge of them in less important points.
+
+By the term "ideas of relation," then, I mean in future to express all
+those sources of pleasure, which involve and require, at the instant of
+their perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                                  OF POWER.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF POWER.
+
+
+Sec. 1. No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation.
+
+We have seen in the last section, what classes of ideas may be conveyed
+by art, and we have been able so far to appreciate their relative worth
+as to see, that from the list, as it is to be applied to the purposes of
+legitimate criticism, we may at once throw out the ideas of imitation;
+first, because, as we have shown, they are unworthy the pursuit of the
+artist; and secondly, because they are nothing more than the result of a
+particular association of ideas of truth. In examining the truth of art,
+therefore, we shall be compelled to take notice of those particular
+truths, whose association gives rise to the ideas of imitation. We shall
+then see more clearly the meanness of those truths, and we shall find
+ourselves able to use them as tests of vice in art, saying of a
+picture,--"It deceives, therefore it must be bad."
+
+
+Sec. 2. Nor for separate study of ideas of power.
+
+Ideas of power, in the same way, cannot be completely viewed as a
+separate class; not because they are mean or unimportant, but because
+they are almost always associated with, or dependent upon, some of the
+higher ideas of truth, beauty, or relation, rendered with decision or
+velocity. That power which delights us in the chalk sketch of a great
+painter is not one of the fingers, not like that of the writing-master,
+mere dexterity of hand. It is the accuracy and certainty of the
+knowledge, rendered evident by its rapid and fearless expression, which
+is the real source of pleasure; and so upon each difficulty of art,
+whether it be to know, or to relate, or to invent, the sensation of
+power is attendant, when we see that difficulty totally and swiftly
+vanquished. Hence, as we determine what is otherwise desirable in art,
+we shall gradually develop the sources of the ideas of power; and if
+there be anything difficult which is not otherwise desirable, it must be
+afterwards considered separately.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Except under one particular form.
+
+But it will be necessary at present to notice a particular form of the
+ideas of power, which is partially independent of knowledge of truth, or
+difficulty, and which is apt to corrupt the judgment of the critic, and
+debase the work of the artist. It is evident that the conception of
+power which we receive from a calculation of unseen difficulty, and an
+estimate of unseen strength, can never be so impressive as that which we
+receive from the present sensation or sight of the one resisting, and
+the other overwhelming. In the one case the power is imagined, and in
+the other felt.
+
+
+Sec. 4. There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly
+       inconsistent.
+
+There are thus two modes in which we receive the conception of power;
+one, the most just, when by a perfect knowledge of the difficulty to be
+overcome, and the means employed, we form a right estimate of the
+faculties exerted; the other, when without possessing such intimate and
+accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a sensation of power in visible
+action. If these two modes of receiving the impression agree in the
+result, and if the sensation be equal to the estimate, we receive the
+utmost possible idea of power. But this is the case perhaps with the
+works of only one man out of the whole circle of the fathers of art, of
+him to whom we have just referred, Michael Angelo. In others, the
+estimate and the sensation are constantly unequal, and often
+contradictory.
+
+
+Sec. 5. First reason of the inconsistency.
+
+The first reason of this inconsistency is, that in order to receive a
+_sensation_ of power, we must see it in operation. Its victory,
+therefore, must not be achieved, but achieving, and therefore imperfect.
+Thus we receive a greater sensation of power from the half-hewn limbs of
+the Twilight to the Day of the Cappella de' Medici, than even from the
+divine inebriety of the Bacchus in the gallery--greater from the life
+dashed out along the Friezes of the Parthenon, than from the polished
+limbs of the Apollo,--greater from the ink sketch of the head of
+Raffaelle's St. Catherine, than from the perfection of its realization.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Second reason for the inconsistency.
+
+Another reason of the inconsistency is, that the sensation of power is
+in proportion to the apparent inadequacy of the means to the end; so
+that the impression is much greater from a partial success attained with
+slight effort, than from perfect success attained with greater
+proportional effort. Now, in all art, every touch or effort does
+individually less in proportion as the work approaches perfection. The
+first five chalk touches bring a head into existence out of nothing. No
+five touches in the whole course of the work will ever do so much as
+these, and the difference made by each touch is more and more
+imperceptible as the work approaches completion. Consequently, the ratio
+between the means employed and the effect produced is constantly
+decreasing, and therefore the least sensation of power is received from
+the most perfect work.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art.
+
+It is thus evident that there are sensations of power about imperfect
+art, so that it be right art as far as it goes, which must always be
+wanting in its perfection; and that there are sources of pleasure in the
+hasty sketch and rough hewn block, which are partially wanting in the
+tinted canvas and the polished marble. But it is nevertheless wrong to
+prefer the sensation of power to the intellectual perception of it.
+There is in reality greater power in the completion than in the
+commencement; and though it be not so manifest to the senses, it ought
+to have higher influence on the mind; and therefore in praising pictures
+for the ideas of power they convey, we must not look to the keenest
+sensation, but to the highest estimate, accompanied with as much of the
+sensation as is compatible with it; and thus we shall consider those
+pictures as conveying the highest ideas of power which attain the most
+_perfect_ end with the slightest possible means; not, observe, those in
+which, though much has been done with little, all has not been done, but
+from the picture, in which _all_ has been done, and yet not a touch
+thrown away. The quantity of work in the sketch is necessarily less in
+proportion to the effect obtained than in the picture; but yet the
+picture involves the greater power, if out of all the additional labor
+bestowed on it, not a touch has been lost.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Instances in pictures of modern artists.
+
+For instance, there are few drawings of the present day that involve
+greater sensations of power than those of Frederick Tayler. Every dash
+tells, and the quantity of effect obtained is enormous, in proportion to
+the apparent means. But the effect obtained is not complete. Brilliant,
+beautiful, and right, as a sketch, the work is still far from
+perfection, as a drawing. On the contrary, there are few drawings of the
+present day that bear evidence of more labor bestowed, or more
+complicated means employed, than those of John Lewis. The result does
+not, at first, so much convey an impression of inherent power as of
+prolonged exertion; but the result is complete. Water-color drawing can
+be carried no farther; nothing has been left unfinished or untold. And
+on examination of the means employed, it is found and felt that not one
+touch out of the thousands employed has been thrown away;--that not one
+dot nor dash could be spared without loss of effect;--and that the
+exertion has been as swift as it has been prolonged--as bold as it has
+been persevering. The power involved in such a picture is of the highest
+order, and the enduring pleasure following on the estimate of it pure.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution.
+
+But there is still farther ground for caution in pursuing the sensation
+of power, connected with the particular characters and modes of
+execution. This we shall be better able to understand by briefly
+reviewing the various excellences which may belong to execution, and
+give pleasure in it; though the full determination of what is desirable
+in it, and the critical examination of the execution of different
+artists, must be deferred, as will be immediately seen, until we are
+more fully acquainted with the principles of truth.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+           OF IDEAS OF POWER, AS THEY ARE DEPENDENT UPON EXECUTION.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Meaning of the term "execution."
+
+By the term "execution," I understand the right mechanical use of the
+means of art to produce a given end.
+
+
+Sec. 2. The first quality of execution is truth.
+
+All qualities of execution, properly so called, are influenced by, and
+in a great degree dependent on, a far higher power than that of mere
+execution,--knowledge of truth. For exactly in proportion as an artist
+is certain of his end, will he be swift and simple in his means; and, as
+he is accurate and deep in his knowledge, will he be refined and precise
+in his touch. The first merit of manipulation, then, is that delicate
+and ceaseless expression of refined truth which is carried out to the
+last touch, and shadow of a touch, and which makes every hairsbreadth of
+importance, and every gradation full of meaning. It is not, properly
+speaking, execution; but it is the only source of difference between the
+execution of a commonplace and of a perfect artist. The lowest
+draughtsman, if he have spent the same time in handling the brush, may
+be equal to the highest in the other qualities of execution (in
+swiftness, simplicity, and decision;) but not in truth. It is in the
+perfection and precision of the instantaneous line that the claim to
+immortality is laid. And if this truth of truths be present, all the
+other qualities of execution may well be spared; and to those artists
+who wish to excuse their ignorance and inaccuracy by a species of
+execution which is a perpetual proclamation, "qu'ils n'ont demeure qu'un
+quart d'heure a le faire," we may reply with the truthful Alceste,
+"Monsieur, le temps ne fait rien a l'affaire."
+
+
+Sec. 3. The second, simplicity.
+
+The second quality of execution is simplicity. The more unpretending,
+quiet, and retiring the means, the more impressive their effect. Any
+ostentation, brilliancy, or pretension of touch,--any exhibition of
+power or quickness, merely as such, above all, any attempt to render
+lines attractive at the expense of their meaning, is vice.
+
+
+Sec. 4. The third mystery.
+
+The third is mystery. Nature is always mysterious and secret in the use
+of her means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.
+That execution which is the most incomprehensible, and which therefore
+defies imitation, (other qualities being supposed alike,) is the best.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The fourth, inadequacy; and the fifth, decision.
+
+The fourth is inadequacy. The less sufficient the means appear to the
+end, the greater (as has been already noticed) will be the sensation of
+power.
+
+The fifth is decision: the appearance, that is, that whatever is done,
+has been done fearlessly and at once; because this gives us the
+impression that both the fact to be represented, and the means necessary
+to its representation, were perfectly known.
+
+
+Sec. 6. The sixth, velocity.
+
+The sixth is velocity. Not only is velocity, or the appearance of it,
+agreeable as decision is, because it gives ideas of power and knowledge;
+but of two touches, as nearly as possible the same in other respects,
+the quickest will invariably be the best. Truth being supposed equally
+present in the shape and direction of both, there will be more evenness,
+grace and variety, in the quick one than in the slow one. It will be
+more agreeable to the eye as a touch or line, and will possess more of
+the qualities of the lines of nature--gradation, uncertainty, and unity.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution.
+
+These six qualities are the only perfectly legitimate sources of
+pleasure in execution; but I might have added a seventh--strangeness,
+which in many cases is productive of a pleasure not altogether mean or
+degrading, though scarcely right. Supposing the other higher qualities
+first secured, it adds in no small degree to our impression of the
+artist's knowledge, if the means used be such as we should never have
+thought of, or should have thought adapted to a contrary effect. Let us,
+for instance, compare the execution of the bull's head in the left hand
+lowest corner of the Adoration of the Magi, in the Museum at Antwerp,
+with that in Berghem's landscape, No. 132 in the Dulwich Gallery. Rubens
+first scratches horizontally over his canvas a thin grayish brown,
+transparent and even, very much the color of light wainscot; the
+horizontal strokes of the bristles being left so evident, that the whole
+might be taken for an imitation of wood, were it not for its
+transparency. On this ground the eye, nostril, and outline of the cheek
+are given with two or three rude, brown touches, (about three or four
+minutes' work in all,) though the head is colossal. The background is
+then laid in with thick, solid, warm white, actually projecting all
+round the head, leaving it in dark intaglio. Finally, five thin and
+scratchy strokes of very cold bluish white are struck for the high light
+on the forehead and nose, and the head is complete. Seen within a yard
+of the canvas, it looks actually transparent--a flimsy, meaningless,
+distant shadow; while the background looks solid, projecting and near.
+From the right distance, (ten or twelve yards off, whence alone the
+whole of the picture can be seen,) it is a complete, rich, substantial,
+and living realization of the projecting head of the animal; while the
+background falls far behind. Now there is no slight nor mean pleasure in
+perceiving such a result attained by means so strange. By Berghem, on
+the other hand, a dark background is first laid in with exquisite
+delicacy and transparency, and on this the cow's head is actually
+modelled in luminous white, the separate locks of hair projecting from
+the canvas. No surprise, nor much pleasure of any kind, would be
+attendant on this execution, even were the result equally successful;
+and what little pleasure we had in it, vanishes, when on retiring from
+the picture, we find the head shining like a distant lantern, instead of
+substantial or near. Yet strangeness is not to be considered as a
+legitimate source of pleasure. That means which is most conducive to the
+end, should always be the most pleasurable; and that which is most
+conducive to the end, can be strange only to the ignorance of the
+spectator. This kind of pleasure is illegitimate, therefore, because it
+implies and requires, in those who feel it, ignorance of art.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are
+       inconsistent with each other.
+
+Sec. 9. And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the
+       lowest.
+
+Sec. 10. Therefore perilous.
+
+The legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are therefore truth,
+simplicity, mystery, inadequacy, decision, and velocity. But of these,
+be it observed, some are so far inconsistent with others, that they
+cannot be united in high degrees. Mystery with inadequacy, for
+instance; since to see that the means are inadequate, we must see what
+they are. Now the first three are the great qualities of execution, and
+the last three are the attractive ones, because on them are chiefly
+attendant the ideas of power. By the first three the attention is
+withdrawn from the means and fixed on the result: by the last three,
+withdrawn from the result and fixed on the means. To see that execution
+is swift or that it is decided, we must look away from its creation to
+observe it in the act of creating; we must think more of the pallet than
+of the picture, but simplicity and mystery compel the mind to leave the
+means and fix itself on the conception. Hence the danger of too great
+fondness for those sensations of power which are associated with the
+three last qualities of execution; for although it is most desirable
+that these should be present as far as they are consistent with the
+others, and though their visible absence is always painful and wrong,
+yet the moment the higher qualities are sacrificed to them in the least
+degree, we have a brilliant vice. Berghem and Salvator Rosa are good
+instances of vicious execution dependent on too great fondness for
+sensations of power, vicious because intrusive and attractive in itself,
+instead of being subordinate to its results and forgotten in them. There
+is perhaps no greater stumbling-block in the artist's way, than the
+tendency to sacrifice truth and simplicity to decision and velocity,[5]
+captivating qualities, easy of attainment, and sure to attract attention
+and praise, while the delicate degree of truth which is at first
+sacrificed to them is so totally unappreciable by the majority of
+spectators, so difficult of attainment to the artist, that it is no
+wonder that efforts so arduous and unrewarded should be abandoned. But
+if the temptation be once yielded to, its consequences are fatal; there
+is no pause in the fall. I could name a celebrated modern artist--once a
+man of the highest power and promise, who is a glaring instance of the
+peril of such a course. Misled by the undue popularity of his swift
+execution, he has sacrificed to it, first precision, and then truth, and
+her associate, beauty. What was first neglect of nature, has become
+contradiction of her; what was once imperfection, is now falsehood; and
+all that was meritorious in his manner, is becoming the worst, because
+the most attractive of vices; decision without a foundation, and
+swiftness without an end.
+
+
+Sec. 11. Recapitulation.
+
+Such are the principal modes in which the ideas of power may become a
+dangerous attraction to the artist--a false test to the critic. But in
+all cases where they lead us astray it will be found that the error is
+caused by our preferring victory over a small _apparent_ difficulty to
+victory over a great, but concealed one; and so that we keep this
+distinction constantly in view, (whether with reference to execution or
+to any other quality of art,) between the sensation and the intellectual
+estimate of power, we shall always find the ideas of power a just and
+high source of pleasure in every kind and grade of art.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [5] I have here noticed only noble vices, the sacrifices of one
+    excellence to another legitimate but inferior one. There are, on the
+    other hand, qualities of execution which are often sought for and
+    praised, though scarcely by the class of persons for whom I am
+    writing, in which everything is sacrificed to illegitimate and
+    contemptible sources of pleasure, and these are vice throughout, and
+    have no redeeming quality nor excusing aim. Such is that which is
+    often thought so desirable in the Drawing-master, under the title of
+    boldness, meaning that no touch is ever to be made less than the
+    tenth of an inch broad; such, on the other hand, the softness and
+    smoothness which are the great attraction of Carlo Dolci, and such
+    the exhibition of particular powers and tricks of the hand and
+    fingers, in total forgetfulness of any end whatsoever to be attained
+    thereby, which is especially characteristic of modern engraving.
+    Compare Sect. II. Chap. II. Sec. 21. Note.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                               OF THE SUBLIME.
+
+It may perhaps be wondered that in the division we have made of our
+subject, we have taken no notice of the sublime in art, and that in our
+explanation of that division we have not once used the word.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Sublimity is the effect upon the mind of anything above it.
+
+The fact is, that sublimity is not a specific term,--not a term
+descriptive of the effect of a particular class of ideas. Anything which
+elevates the mind is sublime, and elevation of mind is produced by the
+contemplation of greatness of any kind; but chiefly, of course, by the
+greatness of the noblest things. Sublimity is, therefore, only another
+word for the effect of greatness upon the feelings. Greatness of matter,
+space, power, virtue, or beauty, are thus all sublime; and there is
+perhaps no desirable quality of a work of art, which in its perfection
+is not, in some way or degree, sublime.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and why.
+
+Sec. 3. Danger is sublime, but not the fear of it.
+
+Sec. 4. The highest beauty is sublime.
+
+Sec. 5. And generally whatever elevates the mind.
+
+I am fully prepared to allow of much ingenuity in Burke's theory of the
+sublime, as connected with self-preservation. There are few things so
+great as death; and there is perhaps nothing which banishes all
+littleness of thought and feeling in an equal degree with its
+contemplation. Everything, therefore, which in any way points to it,
+and, therefore, most dangers and powers over which we have little
+control, are in some degree sublime. But it is not the fear, observe,
+but the contemplation of death; not the instinctive shudder and struggle
+of self-preservation, but the deliberate measurement of the doom, which
+are really great or sublime in feeling. It is not while we shrink, but
+while we defy, that we receive or convey the highest conceptions of the
+fate. There is no sublimity in the agony of terror. Whether do we trace
+it most in the cry to the mountains, "fall on us," and to the hills,
+"cover us," or in the calmness of the prophecy--"And though after my
+skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God?" A little
+reflection will easily convince any one, that so far from the feelings
+of self-preservation being necessary to the sublime, their greatest
+action is totally destructive of it; and that there are few feelings
+less capable of its perception than those of a coward. But the simple
+conception or idea of greatness of suffering or extent of destruction is
+sublime, whether there be any connection of that idea with ourselves or
+not. If we were placed beyond the reach of all peril or pain, the
+perception of these agencies in their influence on others would not be
+less sublime, not because peril or pain are sublime in their own nature,
+but because their contemplation, exciting compassion or fortitude,
+elevates the mind, and renders meanness of thought impossible. Beauty is
+not so often felt to be sublime; because, in many kinds of purely
+material beauty there is some truth in Burke's assertion, that
+"littleness" is one of its elements. But he who has not felt that there
+may be beauty without littleness, and that such beauty is a source of
+the sublime, is yet ignorant of the meaning of the ideal in art. I do
+not mean, in tracing the source of the sublime to greatness, to hamper
+myself with any fine-spun theory. I take the widest possible ground of
+investigation, that sublimity is found wherever anything elevates the
+mind; that is, wherever it contemplates anything above itself, and
+perceives it to be so. This is the simple philological signification of
+the word derived from _sublimis_; and will serve us much more easily,
+and be a far clearer and more evident ground of argument, than any mere
+metaphysical or more limited definition, while the proof of its justness
+will be naturally developed by its application to the different branches
+of art.
+
+
+Sec. 6. The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient.
+
+As, therefore, the sublime is not distinct from what is beautiful, nor
+from other sources of pleasure in art, but is only a particular mode and
+manifestation of them, my subject will divide itself into the
+investigation of ideas of truth, beauty, and relation; and to each of
+these classes of ideas I destine a separate part of the work. The
+investigation of ideas of truth will enable us to determine the
+relative rank of artists as followers and historians of nature.
+
+That of ideas of beauty will lead us to compare them in their
+attainment, first of what is agreeable in technical matters, then in
+color and composition, finally and chiefly, in the purity of their
+conceptions of the ideal.
+
+And that of ideas of relation will lead us to compare them as
+originators of just thought.
+
+
+
+
+                                  PART II.
+
+                                 OF TRUTH.
+
+                                 SECTION I.
+
+                GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+  OF IDEAS OF TRUTH IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH THOSE OF BEAUTY AND RELATION.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation of
+       facts and thoughts.
+
+It cannot but be evident from the above division of the ideas conveyable
+by art, that the landscape painter must always have two great and
+distinct ends; the first, to induce in the spectator's mind the faithful
+conception of any natural objects whatsoever; the second, to guide the
+spectator's mind to those objects most worthy of its contemplation, and
+to inform him of the thoughts and feelings with which these were
+regarded by the artist himself.
+
+In attaining the first end, the painter only places the spectator where
+he stands himself; he sets him before the landscape and leaves him. The
+spectator is alone. He may follow out his own thoughts as he would in
+the natural solitude, or he may remain untouched, unreflecting and
+regardless, as his disposition may incline him. But he has nothing of
+thought given to him, no new ideas, no unknown feelings, forced on his
+attention or his heart. The artist is his conveyance, not his
+companion,--his horse, not his friend. But in attaining the second end,
+the artist not only _places_ the spectator, but _talks_ to him; makes
+him a sharer in his own strong feelings and quick thoughts; hurries him
+away in his own enthusiasm; guides him to all that is beautiful;
+snatches him from all that is base, and leaves him more than
+delighted,--ennobled and instructed, under the sense of having not only
+beheld a new scene, but of having held communion with a new mind, and
+having been endowed for a time with the keen perception and the
+impetuous emotion of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence.
+
+
+Sec. 2. They induce a different choice of material subjects.
+
+Each of these different aims of art will necessitate a different system
+of choice of objects to be represented. The first does not indeed imply
+choice at all, but it is usually united with the selection of such
+objects as may be naturally and constantly pleasing to all men, at all
+times; and this selection, when perfect and careful, leads to the
+attainment of the pure ideal. But the artist aiming at the second end,
+selects his objects for their meaning and character, rather than for
+their beauty; and uses them rather to throw light upon the particular
+thought he wishes to convey, than as in themselves objects of
+unconnected admiration.
+
+
+Sec. 3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition.
+
+Now, although the first mode of selection, when guided by deep
+reflection, may rise to the production of works possessing a noble and
+ceaseless influence on the human mind, it is likely to degenerate into,
+or rather, in nine cases out of ten, it never goes beyond, a mere appeal
+to such parts of our animal nature as are constant and common--shared by
+all, and perpetual in all; such, for instance, as the pleasure of the
+eye in the opposition of a cold and warm color, or of a massy form with
+a delicate one. It also tends to induce constant repetition of the same
+ideas, and reference to the same principles; it gives rise to those
+_rules_ of art which properly excited Reynolds's indignation when
+applied to its higher efforts; it is the source of, and the apology for,
+that host of technicalities and absurdities which in all ages have been
+the curse of art and the crown of the connoisseur.
+
+
+Sec. 4. The second necessitating variety.
+
+But art, in its second and highest aim, is not an appeal to constant
+animal feelings, but an expression and awakening of individual thought:
+it is therefore as various and as extended in its efforts as the
+compass and grasp of the directing mind; and we feel, in each of its
+results, that we are looking, not at a specimen of a tradesman's wares,
+of which he is ready to make us a dozen to match, but at one coruscation
+of a perpetually active mind, like which there has not been, and will
+not be another.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Yet the first is delightful to all.
+
+Sec. 6. The second only to a few.
+
+Hence, although there can be no doubt which of these branches of art is
+the highest, it is equally evident that the first will be the most
+generally felt and appreciated. For the simple statement of the truths
+of nature must in itself be pleasing to every order of mind; because
+every truth of nature is more or less beautiful; and if there be just
+and right selection of the more important of these truths--based, as
+above explained, on feelings and desires common to all mankind--the
+facts so selected must, in some degree, be delightful to all, and their
+value appreciable by all: more or less, indeed, as their senses and
+instinct have been rendered more or less acute and accurate by use and
+study; but in some degree by all, and in the same way by all. But the
+highest art, being based on sensations of peculiar minds, sensations
+occurring to _them_ only at particular times, and to a plurality of
+mankind perhaps never, and being expressive of thoughts which could only
+rise out of a mass of the most extended knowledge, and of dispositions
+modified in a thousand ways by peculiarity of intellect--can only be met
+and understood by persons having some sort of sympathy with the high and
+solitary minds which produced it--sympathy only to be felt by minds in
+some degree high and solitary themselves. He alone can appreciate the
+art, who could comprehend the conversation of the painter, and share in
+his emotion, in moments of his most fiery passion and most original
+thought. And whereas the true meaning and end of his art must thus be
+sealed to thousands, or misunderstood by them; so also, as he is
+sometimes obliged, in working out his own peculiar end, to set at
+defiance those constant laws which have arisen out of our lower and
+changeless desires, that whose purpose is unseen, is frequently in its
+means and parts displeasing.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The first necessary to the second.
+
+Sec. 8. The exceeding importance of truth.
+
+But this want of extended influence in high art, be it especially
+observed, proceeds from no want of truth in the art itself, but from a
+want of sympathy in the spectator with those feelings in the artist
+which prompt him to the utterance of one truth rather than of another.
+For (and this is what I wish at present especially to insist upon)
+although it is possible to reach what I have stated to be the first end
+of art, the representation of facts, without reaching the second, the
+representation of thoughts, yet it is altogether impossible to reach the
+second without having previously reached the first. I do not say that a
+man cannot think, having false basis and material for thought; but that
+a false thought is worse than the want of thought, and therefore is not
+art. And this is the reason why, though I consider the second as the
+real and only important end of all art, I call the representation of
+facts the first end; because it is necessary to the other, and must be
+attained before it. It is the foundation of all art; like real
+foundations it may be little thought of when a brilliant fabric is
+raised on it; but it must be there: and as few buildings are beautiful
+unless every line and column of their mass have reference to their
+foundation, and are suggestive of its existence and strength, so nothing
+can be beautiful in art which does not in all its parts suggest and
+guide to the foundation, even where no undecorated portion of it is
+visible; while the noblest edifices of art are built of such pure and
+fine crystal that the foundation may all be seen through them; and then
+many, while they do not see what is built upon that first story, yet
+much admire the solidity of its brickwork; thinking they understand all
+that is to be understood of the matter; while others stand beside them,
+looking not at the low story, but up into the heaven at that building of
+crystal in which the builder's spirit is dwelling. And thus, though we
+want the thoughts and feelings of the artist as well as the truth, yet
+they must be thoughts arising out of the knowledge of truth, and
+feelings raising out of the contemplation of truth. We do not want his
+mind to be as badly blown glass, that distorts what we see through it;
+but like a glass of sweet and strange color, that gives new tones to
+what we see through it; and a glass of rare strength and clearness too,
+to let us see more than we could ourselves, and bring nature up to us
+and near to us. Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most
+brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling,
+(supposing that feeling _could_ be pure and false at the same time;) not
+the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of
+intellect, can make amends for the want of truth, and that for two
+reasons; first, because falsehood is in itself revolting and degrading;
+and secondly, because nature is so immeasurably superior to all that the
+human mind can conceive, that every departure from her is a fall beneath
+her, so that there can be no such thing as an ornamental falsehood. All
+falsehood must be a blot as well as a sin, an injury as well as a
+deception.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth.
+
+We shall, in consequence, find that no artist can be graceful,
+imaginative, or original, unless he be truthful; and that the pursuit of
+beauty, instead of leading us away from truth, increases the desire for
+it and the necessity of it tenfold; so that those artists who are really
+great in imaginative power, will be found to have based their boldness
+of conception on a mass of knowledge far exceeding that possessed by
+those who pride themselves on its accumulation without regarding its
+use. Coldness and want of passion in a picture, are not signs of the
+accuracy, but of the paucity of its statements; true vigor and
+brilliancy are not signs of audacity, but of knowledge.
+
+
+Sec. 10. How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art.
+
+Hence it follows that it is in the power of all, with care and time, to
+form something like a just judgment of the relative merits of artists;
+for although with respect to the feeling and passion of pictures, it is
+often as impossible to criticise as to appreciate, except to such as are
+in some degree equal in powers of mind, and in some respects the same in
+modes of mind, with those whose works they judge; yet, with respect to
+the representation of facts, it is possible for all, by attention, to
+form a right judgment of the respective powers and attainments of every
+artist. Truth is a bar of comparison at which they may all be examined,
+and according to the rank they take in this examination, will almost
+invariably be that which, if capable of appreciating them in every
+respect, we should be just in assigning them; so strict is the
+connection, so constant the relation between the sum of knowledge and
+the extent of thought, between accuracy of perception and vividness of
+idea.
+
+I shall endeavor, therefore, in the present portion of the work, to
+enter with care and impartiality into the investigation of the claims of
+the schools of ancient and modern landscape to faithfulness in
+representing nature. I shall pay no regard whatsoever to what may be
+thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative. I shall look only for
+truth; bare, clear, downright statement of facts; showing in each
+particular, as far as I am able, what the truth of nature is, and then
+seeking for the plain expression of it, and for that alone. And I shall
+thus endeavor, totally regardless of fervor of imagination or brilliancy
+of effect, or any other of their more captivating qualities, to examine
+and to judge the works of the great living painter, who is, I believe,
+imagined by the majority of the public to paint more falsehood and less
+fact than any other known master. We shall see with what reason.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+      THAT THE TRUTH OF NATURE IS NOT TO BE DISCERNED BY THE UNEDUCATED
+                                  SENSES.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The common self-deception of men with respect to their power of
+       discerning truth.
+
+It may be here inquired by the reader, with much appearance of reason,
+why I think it necessary to devote a separate portion of the work to the
+showing of what is truthful in art. "Cannot we," say the public, "see
+what nature is with our own eyes, and find out for ourselves what is
+like her?" It will be as well to determine this question before we go
+farther, because if this were possible, there would be little need of
+criticism or teaching with respect to art.
+
+Now I have just said that it is possible for all men, by care and
+attention, to form a just judgment of the fidelity of artists to nature.
+To do this, no peculiar powers of mind are required, no sympathy with
+particular feelings, nothing which every man of ordinary intellect does
+not in some degree possess,--powers, namely, of observation and
+intelligence, which by cultivation may be brought to a high degree of
+perfection and acuteness. But until this cultivation has been bestowed,
+and until the instrument thereby perfected has been employed in a
+consistent series of careful observation, it is as absurd as it is
+audacious to pretend to form any judgment whatsoever respecting the
+truth of art: and my first business, before going a step farther, must
+be to combat the nearly universal error of belief among the thoughtless
+and unreflecting, that they know either what nature is, or what is like
+her, that they can discover truth by instinct, and that their minds are
+such pure Venice glass as to be shocked by all treachery. I have to
+prove to them that there are more things in heaven and earth than are
+dreamed of in their philosophy, and that the truth of nature is a part
+of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness, as it
+is to him who does, infinity.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Men usually see little of what is before their eyes.
+
+The first great mistake that people make in the matter, is the
+supposition that they must _see_ a thing if it be before their eyes.
+They forget the great truth told them by Locke, Book ii. chap. 9, Sec.
+3:--"This is certain, that whatever alterations are made in the body, if
+they reach not the mind, whatever impressions are made on the outward
+parts, if they are not taken notice of within, there is no perception.
+Fire may burn our bodies, with no other effect than it does a billet,
+unless the motion be continued to the brain, and there the sense of heat
+or idea of pain be produced in the mind, wherein consists actual
+perception. How often may a man observe in himself, that while his mind
+is intently employed in the contemplation of some subjects and curiously
+surveying some ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions
+of sounding bodies, made upon the organ of hearing, with the same
+attention that uses to be for the producing the ideas of sound! A
+sufficient impulse there may be on the organ, but it not reaching the
+observation of the mind, there follows no perception, and though the
+motion that uses to produce the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no
+sound is heard." And what is here said, which all must feel by their own
+experience to be true, is more remarkably and necessarily the case with
+sight than with any other of the senses, for this reason, that the ear
+is not accustomed to exercise constantly its functions of hearing; it is
+accustomed to stillness, and the occurrence of a sound of any kind
+whatsoever is apt to awake attention, and be followed with perception,
+in proportion to the degree of sound; but the eye, during our waking
+hours, exercises constantly its function of seeing; it is its constant
+habit; we always, as far as the _bodily_ organ is concerned, see
+something, and we always see in the same degree, so that the occurrence
+of sight, as such, to the eye, is only the continuance of its necessary
+state of action, and awakes no attention whatsoever, except by the
+particular nature and quality of the sight. And thus, unless the minds
+of men are particularly directed to the impressions of sight, objects
+pass perpetually before the eyes without conveying any impression to the
+brain at all; and so pass actually unseen, not merely unnoticed, but in
+the full, clear sense of the word, unseen. And numbers of men being
+pre-occupied with business or care of some description, totally
+unconnected with the impressions of sight, such is actually the case
+with them, they receiving from nature only the inevitable sensations of
+blueness, redness, darkness, light, etc., and except at particular and
+rare moments, no more whatsoever.
+
+
+Sec. 3. But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to what
+       is beautiful.
+
+Sec. 4. Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling.
+
+The degree of ignorance of external nature in which men may thus remain,
+depends, therefore, partly on the number and character of the subjects
+with which their minds may be otherwise occupied, and partly on a
+natural want of sensibility to the power of beauty of form, and the
+other attributes of external objects. I do not think that there is ever
+such absolute incapacity in the eye for distinguishing and receiving
+pleasure from certain forms and colors, as there is in persons who are
+technically said to have no ear, for distinguishing notes, but there is
+naturally every degree of bluntness and acuteness, both for perceiving
+the truth of form, and for receiving pleasure from it when perceived.
+And although I believe even the lowest degree of these faculties can be
+expanded almost unlimitedly by cultivation, the pleasure received
+rewards not the labor necessary, and the pursuit is abandoned. So that
+while in those whose sensations are naturally acute and vivid, the call
+of external nature is so strong that it must be obeyed, and is ever
+heard louder as the approach to her is nearer,--in those whose
+sensations are naturally blunt, the call is overpowered at once by other
+thoughts, and their faculties of perception, weak originally, die of
+disuse. With this kind of bodily sensibility to color and form is
+intimately connected that higher sensibility which we revere as one of
+the chief attributes of all noble minds, and as the chief spring of real
+poetry. I believe this kind of sensibility may be entirely resolved into
+the acuteness of bodily sense of which I have been speaking, associated
+with love, love I mean in its infinite and holy functions, as it
+embraces divine and human and brutal intelligences, and hallows the
+physical perception of external objects by association, gratitude,
+veneration, and other pure feelings of our moral nature. And although
+the discovery of truth is in itself altogether intellectual, and
+dependent merely on our powers of physical perception and abstract
+intellect, wholly independent of our moral nature, yet these
+instruments (perception and judgment) are so sharpened and brightened,
+and so far more swiftly and effectively used, when they have the energy
+and passion of our moral nature to bring them into action--perception is
+so quickened by love, and judgment so tempered by veneration, that,
+practically, a man of deadened moral sensation is always dull in his
+perception of truth, and thousands of the highest and most divine truths
+of nature are wholly concealed from him, however constant and
+indefatigable may be his intellectual search. Thus, then, the farther we
+look, the more we are limited in the number of those to whom we should
+choose to appeal as judges of truth, and the more we perceive how great
+a number of mankind may be partially incapacitated from either
+discovering or feeling it.
+
+
+Sec. 5. And of the intellectual powers.
+
+Sec. 6. How sight depends upon previous knowledge.
+
+Next to sensibility, which is necessary for the perception of facts,
+come reflection and memory, which are necessary for the retention of
+them, and recognition of their resemblances. For a man may receive
+impression after impression, and that vividly and with delight, and yet,
+if he take no care to reason upon those impressions and trace them to
+their sources, he may remain totally ignorant of the facts that produced
+them; nay, may attribute them to facts with which they have no
+connection, or may coin causes for them that have no existence at all.
+And the more sensibility and imagination a man possesses, the more
+likely will he be to fall into error; for then he will see whatever he
+expects, and admire and judge with his heart, and not with his eyes. How
+many people are misled, by what has been said and sung of the serenity
+of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more _blue_ than the skies of
+the north, and think that they see them so; whereas, the sky of Italy is
+far more dull and gray in color than the skies of the north, and is
+distinguished only by its intense repose of light. And this is confirmed
+by Benvenuto Cellini, who, I remember, on his first entering France, is
+especially struck with the clearness of the sky, as contrasted with the
+_mist_ of Italy. And what is more strange still, when people see in a
+painting what they suppose to have been the source of their impressions,
+they will affirm it to be truthful, though they feel no such impression
+resulting from it. Thus, though day after day they may have been
+impressed by the tone and warmth of an Italian sky, yet not having
+traced the feeling to its source, and supposing themselves impressed by
+its _blueness_, they will affirm a blue sky in a painting to be
+truthful, and reject the most faithful rendering of all the real
+attributes of Italy as cold or dull. And this influence of the
+imagination over the senses, is peculiarly observable in the perpetual
+disposition of mankind to suppose that they _see_ what they _know_, and
+_vice versa_ in their not seeing what they do not know. Thus, if a child
+be asked to draw the corner of a house, he will lay down something in
+the form of the letter T. He has no conception that the two lines of the
+roof, which he knows to be level, produce on his eye the impression of a
+slope. It requires repeated and close attention before he detects this
+fact, or can be made to feel that the lines on his paper are false. And
+the Chinese, children in all things, suppose a good perspective drawing
+to be as false as we feel their plate patterns to be, or wonder at the
+strange buildings which come to a point at the end. And all the early
+works, whether of nations or of men, show, by their want of _shade_, how
+little the eye, without knowledge, is to be depended upon to discover
+truth. The eye of a Red Indian, keen enough to find the trace of his
+enemy or his prey, even in the unnatural turn of a trodden leaf, is yet
+so blunt to the impressions of shade, that Mr. Catlin mentions his once
+having been in great danger from having painted a portrait with the face
+in half-light, which the untutored observers imagined and affirmed to be
+the painting of half a face. Barry, in his sixth lecture, takes notice
+of the same want of actual _sight_ in the early painters of Italy. "The
+imitations," he says, "of early art are like those of children--nothing
+is seen in the spectacle before us, unless it be previously known and
+sought for; and numberless observable differences between the age of
+ignorance and that of knowledge, show how much the contraction or
+extension of our sphere of vision depends upon other considerations than
+the mere returns of our natural optics." And the deception which takes
+place so broadly in cases like these, has infinitely greater influence
+over our judgment of the more intricate and less tangible truths of
+nature. We are constantly supposing that we see what experience only
+has shown us, or can show us, to have existence, constantly missing the
+sight of what we do not know beforehand to be visible: and painters, to
+the last hour of their lives, are apt to fall in some degree into the
+error of painting what exists, rather than what they can see. I shall
+prove the extent of this error more completely hereafter.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature.
+
+Be it also observed, that all these difficulties would lie in the way,
+even if the truths of nature were always the same, constantly repeated
+and brought before us. But the truths of nature are one eternal
+change--one infinite variety. There is no bush on the face of the globe
+exactly like another bush;--there are no two trees in the forest whose
+boughs bend into the same network, nor two leaves on the same tree which
+could not be told one from the other, nor two waves in the sea exactly
+alike. And out of this mass of various, yet agreeing beauty, it is by
+long attention only that the conception of the constant character--the
+ideal form--hinted at by all, yet assumed by none, is fixed upon the
+imagination for its standard of truth.
+
+It is not singular, therefore, nor in any way disgraceful, that the
+majority of spectators are totally incapable of appreciating the truth
+of nature, when fully set before them; but it is both singular and
+disgraceful that it is so difficult to convince them of their own
+incapability. Ask the connoisseur, who has scampered over all Europe,
+the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that
+he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every
+painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid, and pretend to tell you
+whether they are like nature or not. Ask an enthusiastic chatterer in
+the Sistine Chapel how many ribs he has, and you get no answer; but it
+is odds that you do not get out of the door without his informing you
+that he considers such and such a figure badly drawn!
+
+
+Sec. 8. We recognize objects by their least important attributes. Compare
+       Part I., Sect. I., Chap. 4.
+
+A few such interrogations as these might indeed convict, if not convince
+the mass of spectators of incapability, were it not for the universal
+reply, that they can recognize what they cannot describe, and feel what
+is truthful, though they do not know what is truth. And this is, to a
+certain degree, true: a man may recognize the portrait of his friend,
+though he cannot, if you ask him apart, tell you the shape of his nose
+or the height of his forehead; and every one could tell nature herself
+from an imitation; why not then, it will be asked, what is like her from
+what is not? For this simple reason, that we constantly recognize things
+by their least important attributes, and by help of very few of those,
+and if these attributes exist not in the imitation, though there may be
+thousands of others far higher and more valuable, yet if those be
+wanting, or imperfectly rendered, by which we are accustomed to
+recognize the object, we deny the likeness; while if these be given,
+though all the great and valuable and important attributes may be
+wanting, we affirm the likeness. Recognition is no proof of real and
+intrinsic resemblance. We recognize our books by their bindings, though
+the true and essential characteristics lie inside. A man is known to his
+dog by the smell--to his tailor by the coat--to his friend by the smile:
+each of these know him, but how little, or how much, depends on the
+dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed
+characteristic of the man, is known only to God. One portrait of a man
+may possess exact accuracy of feature, and no atom of expression; it may
+be, to use the ordinary terms of admiration bestowed on such portraits
+by those whom they please, "as like as it can stare." Everybody, down to
+his cat, would know this. Another portrait may have neglected or
+misrepresented the features, but may have given the flash of the eye,
+and the peculiar radiance of the lip, seen on him only in his hours of
+highest mental excitement. None but his friends would know this. Another
+may have given none of his ordinary expressions, but one which he wore
+in the most excited instant of his life, when all his secret passions
+and all his highest powers were brought into play at once. None but
+those who had then seen him might recognize _this_ as like. But which
+would be the most truthful portrait of the _man_? The first gives the
+accidents of body--the sport of climate, and food, and time--which
+corruption inhabits, and the worm waits for. The second gives the stamp
+of the soul upon the flesh; but it is the soul seen in the emotions
+which it shares with many--which may not be characteristic of its
+essence--the results of habit, and education, and accident--a gloze,
+whether purposely worn or unconsciously assumed, perhaps totally
+contrary to all that is rooted and real in the mind that it conceals.
+The third has caught the trace of all that was most hidden and most
+mighty, when all hypocrisy, and all habit, and all petty and passing
+emotion--the ice, and the bank, and the foam of the immortal river--were
+shivered, and broken, and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward
+strength; when the call and claim of some divine motive had brought into
+visible being those latent forces and feelings which the spirit's own
+volition could not summon, nor its consciousness comprehend; which God
+only knew, and God only could awaken, the depth and the mystery of its
+peculiar and separating attributes. And so it is with external Nature:
+she has a body and a soul like man; but her soul is the Deity. It is
+possible to represent the body without the spirit; and this shall be
+like to those whose senses are only cognizant of body. It is possible to
+represent the spirit in its ordinary and inferior manifestations; and
+this shall be like to those who have not watched for its moments of
+power. It is possible to represent the spirit in its secret and high
+operations; and this shall be like only to those to whose watching they
+have been revealed. All these are truth; but according to the dignity of
+the truths he can represent or feel, is the power of the painter,--the
+justice of the judge.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+    OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:--FIRST, THAT PARTICULAR TRUTHS
+                     ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GENERAL ONES.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths.
+
+I have in the last chapter affirmed that we usually recognize objects by
+their least essential characteristics. This very naturally excites the
+inquiry what I consider their important characteristics, and why I call
+one truth more important than another. And this question must be
+immediately determined, because it is evident, that in judging of the
+truth of painters, we shall have to consider not only the accuracy with
+which individual truths are given, but the relative importance of the
+truths themselves; for as it constantly happens that the powers of art
+are unable to render _all_ truths, that artist must be considered the
+most truthful who has preserved the most important at the expense of the
+most trifling.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more important
+       than particular ones."
+
+Sec. 3. Falseness of this maxim taken without explanation.
+
+Sec. 4. Generality important in the subject, particularity in the
+       predicate.
+
+Now if we are to begin our investigation in Aristotle's way, and look at
+the [Greek: phainomena] of the subject, we shall immediately stumble
+over a maxim which is in everybody's mouth, and which, as it is
+understood in practice, is true and useful, as it is usually applied in
+argument, false and misleading. "General truths are more important than
+particular ones." Often, when in conversation, I have been praising
+Turner for his perpetual variety, and for giving so particular and
+separate a character to each of his compositions, that the mind of the
+painter can only be estimated by seeing all that he has ever done, and
+that nothing can be prophesied of a picture coming into existence on his
+easel, but that it will be totally different in idea from all that he
+has ever done before; and when I have opposed this inexhaustible
+knowledge or imagination, whichever it may be, to the perpetual
+repetition of some half-dozen conceptions by Claude and Poussin, I have
+been met by the formidable objection, enunciated with much dignity and
+self-satisfaction on the part of my antagonist--"That is not painting
+general truths, that is painting particular truths." Now there must be
+something wrong in that application of a principle which would make the
+variety and abundance which we look for as the greatest sign of
+intellect in the writer, the greatest sign of error in the painter; and
+we shall accordingly see, by an application of it to other matters,
+that, taken without limitation, the whole proposition is utterly false.
+For instance, Mrs. Jameson somewhere mentions the exclamation of a lady
+of her acquaintance, more desirous to fill a pause in conversation than
+abundant in sources of observation: "What an excellent book the Bible
+is!" This was a very general truth indeed, a truth predicable of the
+Bible in common with many other books, but it certainly is neither
+striking nor important. Had the lady exclaimed--"How evidently is the
+Bible a divine revelation!" she would have expressed a particular truth,
+one predicable of the Bible only; but certainly far more interesting and
+important. Had she, on the contrary, informed us that the Bible was a
+book, she would have been still more general, and still less
+entertaining. If I ask any one who somebody else is, and receive for
+answer that he is a man, I get little satisfaction for my pains; but if
+I am told that he is Sir Isaac Newton, I immediately thank my neighbor
+for his information. The fact is, and the above instances may serve at
+once to prove it if it be not self-evident, that generality gives
+importance to the _subject_, and limitation or particularity to the
+_predicate_. If I say that such and such a man in China is an
+opium-eater, I say nothing very interesting, because my subject (such a
+man) is particular. If I say that all men in China are opium-eaters, I
+say something interesting, because my subject (all men) is general. If I
+say that all men in China eat, I say nothing interesting, because my
+predicate (eat) is general. If I say that all men in China eat opium, I
+say something interesting, because my predicate (eat opium) is
+particular.
+
+Now almost everything which (with reference to a given subject) a
+painter has to ask himself whether he shall represent or not, is a
+predicate. Hence in art, particular truths are usually more important
+than general ones.
+
+How is it then that anything so plain as this should be contradicted by
+one of the most universally received aphorisms respecting art? A little
+reflection will show us under what limitations this maxim may be true in
+practice.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The importance of truths of species is not owing to their
+       generality.
+
+Sec. 6. All truths valuable as they are characteristic.
+
+It is self-evident that when we are painting or describing anything,
+those truths must be the most important which are most characteristic of
+what is to be told or represented. Now that which is first and most
+broadly characteristic of a thing, is that which distinguishes its
+genus, or which makes it what it is. For instance, that which makes
+drapery _be_ drapery, is not its being made of silk or worsted or flax,
+for things are made of all these which are not drapery, but the ideas
+peculiar to drapery; the properties which, when inherent in a thing,
+make it drapery, are extension, non-elastic flexibility, unity and
+comparative thinness. Everything which has these properties, a
+waterfall, for instance, if united and extended, or a net of weeds over
+a wall, is drapery, as much as silk or woollen stuff is. So that these
+ideas separate drapery in our minds from everything else; they are
+peculiarly characteristic of it, and therefore are the most important
+group of ideas connected with it; and so with everything else, that
+which makes the thing what it is, is the most important idea, or group
+of ideas connected with the thing. But as this idea must necessarily be
+common to all individuals of the species it belongs to, it is a general
+idea with respect to that species; while other ideas, which are not
+characteristic of the species, and are therefore in reality general, (as
+black or white are terms applicable to more things than drapery,) are
+yet particular with respect to that species, being predicable only of
+certain individuals of it. Hence it is carelessly and falsely said, that
+general ideas are more important than particular ones; carelessly and
+falsely, I say, because the so-called general idea is important, not
+because it is common to all the individuals of that species, but because
+it separates that species from everything else. It is the
+distinctiveness, not the universality of the truth, which renders it
+important. And the so-called particular idea is unimportant, not
+because it is not predicable of the whole species, but because it _is_
+predicable of things out of that species. It is not its individuality,
+but its generality which renders it unimportant. So, then, truths are
+important just in proportion as they are characteristic, and are
+valuable, primarily, as they separate the species from all other created
+things secondarily, as they separate the individuals of that species
+from one another: thus "silken" or "woollen" are unimportant ideas with
+respect to drapery, because they neither separate the species from other
+things, nor even the individuals of that species from one another,
+since, though not common to the whole of it, they are common to
+indefinite numbers of it; but the particular folds into which any piece
+of drapery may happen to fall, being different in many particulars from
+those into which any other piece of drapery will fall, are expressive
+not only of the characters of the species, flexibility, (non-elasticity,
+etc.,) but of individuality and definite character in the case
+immediately observed, and are consequently most important and necessary
+ideas. So in a man, to be short-legged or long-nosed or anything else of
+accidental quality, does not distinguish him from other short-legged or
+long-nosed animals; but the important truths respecting a man are,
+first, the marked development of that distinctive organization which
+separates him as man from other animals, and secondly, that group of
+qualities which distinguish the individual from all other men, which
+make him Paul or Judas, Newton or Shakspeare.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Otherwise truths of species are valuable because beautiful.
+
+Such are the real sources of importance in truths as far as they are
+considered with reference merely to their being general, or particular;
+but there are other sources of importance which give farther weight to
+the ordinary opinion of the greater value of those which are general,
+and which render this opinion right in practice; I mean the intrinsic
+beauty of the truths themselves, a quality which it is not here the
+place to investigate, but which must just be noticed, as invariably
+adding value to truths of species rather than to those of individuality.
+The qualities and properties which characterize man or any other animal
+as a species, are the perfection of his or its form of mind, almost all
+individual differences arising from imperfections; hence a truth of
+species is the more valuable to art, because it must always be a beauty,
+while a truth of individuals is commonly, in some sort or way, a defect.
+
+
+Sec. 8. And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in
+       connection with others.
+
+Again, a truth which may be of great interest, when an object is viewed
+by itself, may be objectionable when it is viewed in relation to other
+objects. Thus if we were painting a piece of drapery as our whole
+subject, it would be proper to give in it every source of entertainment,
+which particular truths could supply, to give it varied color and
+delicate texture; but if we paint this same piece of drapery, as part of
+the dress of a Madonna, all these ideas of richness or texture become
+thoroughly contemptible, and unfit to occupy the mind at the same moment
+with the idea of the Virgin. The conception of drapery is then to be
+suggested by the simplest and slightest means possible, and all notions
+of texture and detail are to be rejected with utter reprobation; but
+this, observe, is not because they are particular or general or anything
+else, with respect to the drapery itself, but because they draw the
+attention to the dress instead of the saint, and disturb and degrade the
+imagination and the feelings; hence we ought to give the conception of
+the drapery in the most unobtrusive way possible, by rendering those
+essential qualities distinctly, which are necessary to the very
+existence of drapery, and not one more.
+
+With these last two sources of the importance of truths, we have nothing
+to do at present, as they are dependent upon ideas of beauty and
+relation: I merely allude to them now, to show that all that is alleged
+by Sir J. Reynolds and other scientific writers respecting the kind of
+truths proper to be represented by the painter or sculptor is perfectly
+just and right; while yet the principle on which they base their
+selection (that general truths are more important than particular ones)
+is altogether false. Canova's Perseus in the Vatican is entirely spoiled
+by an unlucky _tassel_ in the folds of the mantle (which the next
+admirer of Canova who passes would do well to knock off;) but it is
+spoiled not because this is a particular truth, but because it is a
+contemptible, unnecessary, and ugly truth. The button which fastens the
+vest of the Sistine Daniel is as much a particular truth as this, but
+it is a necessary one, and the idea of it is given by the simplest
+possible means; hence it is right and beautiful.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Recapitulation.
+
+Finally, then, it is to be remembered that all truths as far as their
+being particular or general affects their value at all, are valuable in
+proportion as they are particular, and valueless in proportion as they
+are general; or to express the proposition in simpler terms, every truth
+is valuable in proportion as it is characteristic of the thing of which
+it is affirmed.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+        OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:--SECONDLY, THAT RARE TRUTHS
+                     ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN FREQUENT ONES.
+
+
+Sec. 1. No accidental violation of nature's principles should be
+       represented.
+
+It will be necessary next for us to determine how far frequency or
+rarity can affect the importance of truths, and whether the artist is to
+be considered the most truthful who paints what is common or what is
+unusual in nature.
+
+Now the whole determination of this question depends upon whether the
+unusual fact be a violation of nature's general principles, or the
+application of some of those principles in a peculiar and striking way.
+Nature sometimes, though very rarely, violates her own principles; it is
+her principle to make everything beautiful, but now and then, for an
+instant, she permits what, compared with the rest of her works, might be
+called ugly; it is true that even these rare blemishes are permitted, as
+I have above said, for a good purpose, (Part I. Sec. I. Chap. 5,) they
+are valuable in nature, and used as she uses them, are equally valuable
+(as instantaneous discords) in art; but the artist who should seek after
+these exclusively, and paint nothing else, though he might be able to
+point to something in nature as the original of every one of his
+uglinesses, would yet be, in the strict sense of the word, false,--false
+to nature, and disobedient to her laws. For instance, it is the practice
+of nature to give character to the outlines of her clouds, by perpetual
+angles and right lines. Perhaps once in a month, by diligent watching,
+we might be able to see a cloud altogether rounded and made up of
+curves; but the artist who paints nothing but curved clouds must yet be
+considered thoroughly and inexcusably false.
+
+
+Sec. 2. But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly
+       exemplified.
+
+Sec. 3. Which are comparatively rare.
+
+Sec. 4. All repetition is blamable.
+
+Sec. 5. The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher.
+
+But the case is widely different, when instead of a principle violated,
+we have one extraordinarily carried out or manifested under unusual
+circumstances. Though nature is constantly beautiful, she does not
+exhibit her highest powers of beauty constantly, for then they would
+satiate us and pall upon our senses. It is necessary to their
+appreciation that they should be rarely shown. Her finest touches are
+things which must be watched for; her most perfect passages of beauty
+are the most evanescent. She is constantly doing something beautiful for
+us, but it is something which she has not done before and will not do
+again; some exhibition of her general powers in particular circumstances
+which, if we do not catch at the instant it is passing, will not be
+repeated for us. Now they are these evanescent passages of perfected
+beauty, these perpetually varied examples of utmost power, which the
+artist ought to seek for and arrest. No supposition can be more absurd
+than that effects or truths frequently exhibited are more characteristic
+of nature than those which are equally necessary by her laws, though
+rarer in occurrence. Both the frequent and the rare are parts of the
+same great system; to give either exclusively is imperfect truth, and to
+repeat the same effect or thought in two pictures is wasted life. What
+should we think of a poet who should keep all his life repeating the
+same thought in different words? and why should we be more lenient to
+the parrot-painter who has learned one lesson from the page of nature,
+and keeps stammering it out with eternal repetition without turning the
+leaf? Is it less tautology to describe a thing over and over again with
+lines, than it is with words? The teaching of nature is as varied and
+infinite as it is constant; and the duty of the painter is to watch for
+every one of her lessons, and to give (for human life will admit of
+nothing more) those in which she has manifested each of her principles
+in the most peculiar and striking way. The deeper his research and the
+rarer the phenomena he has noted, the more valuable will his works be;
+to repeat himself, even in a single instance, is treachery to nature,
+for a thousand human lives would not be enough to give one instance of
+the perfect manifestation of each of her powers; and as for combining or
+classifying them, as well might a preacher expect in one sermon to
+express and explain every divine truth which can be gathered out of
+God's revelation, as a painter expect in one composition to express and
+illustrate every lesson which can be received from God's creation. Both
+are commentators on infinity, and the duty of both is to take for each
+discourse one essential truth, seeking particularly and insisting
+especially on those which are less palpable to ordinary observation, and
+more likely to escape an indolent research; and to impress that, and
+that alone, upon those whom they address, with every illustration that
+can be furnished by their knowledge, and every adornment attainable by
+their power. And the real truthfulness of the painter is in proportion
+to the number and variety of the facts he has so illustrated; those
+facts being always, as above observed, the realization, not the
+violation of a general principle. The quantity of truth is in proportion
+to the number of such facts, and its value and instructiveness in
+proportion to their rarity. All really great pictures, therefore,
+exhibit the general habits of nature, manifested in some peculiar, rare,
+and beautiful way.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+         OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS:--THIRDLY, THAT TRUTHS OF
+                 COLOR ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT OF ALL TRUTHS.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies.
+
+In the two last chapters, we have pointed out general tests of the
+importance of all truths, which will be sufficient at once to
+distinguish certain classes of properties in bodies, as more necessary
+to be told than others, because more characteristic, either of the
+particular thing to be represented, or of the principles of nature.
+
+According to Locke, Book ii. chap. 8, there are three sorts of qualities
+in bodies: first, the "bulk, figure, number, situation, and motion or
+rest of their solid parts: those that are in them, whether we perceive
+them or not." These he calls primary qualities. Secondly, "the power
+that is in any body to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our
+senses," (sensible qualities.) And thirdly, "the power that is in any
+body to make such a change in another body as that it shall operate on
+our senses differently from what it did before: these last being usually
+called _powers_."
+
+
+Sec. 2. The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so.
+
+Hence he proceeds to prove that those which he calls primary qualities
+are indeed part of the essence of the body, and characteristic of it;
+but that the two other kinds of qualities which together he calls
+secondary, are neither of them more than _powers_ of producing on other
+objects, or in us, certain effects and sensations. Now a power of
+influence is always equally characteristic of two objects--the active
+and passive; for it is as much necessary that there should be a power in
+the object suffering to receive the impression, as in the object acting
+to give the impression. (Compare Locke, Book ii. chap. 21, sect. 2.) For
+supposing two people, as is frequently the case, perceive different
+scents in the same flower, it is evident that the power in the flower
+to give this or that depends on the nature of their nerves, as well as
+on that of its own particles; and that we are as correct in saying it is
+a power in us to perceive, as in the object to impress. Every power,
+therefore, being characteristic of the nature of two bodies, is
+imperfectly and incompletely characteristic of either separately; but
+the primary qualities, being characteristic only of the body in which
+they are inherent, are the most important truths connected with it. For
+the question, what the thing _is_, must precede, and be of more
+importance than the question, what can it do.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than form.
+
+Now by Locke's definition above given, only bulk, figure, situation, and
+motion or rest of solid parts, are primary qualities. Hence all truths
+of color sink at once into the second rank. He, therefore, who has
+neglected a truth of form for a truth of color, has neglected a greater
+truth for a less one.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Color no distinction between objects of the same species.
+
+And that color is indeed a most unimportant characteristic of objects,
+will be farther evident on the slightest consideration. The color of
+plants is constantly changing with the season, and of everything with
+the quality of light falling on it; but the nature and essence of the
+thing are independent of these changes. An oak is an oak, whether green
+with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be
+yellow or crimson; and if some monster-hunting botanist should ever
+frighten the flower blue, still it will be a dahlia; but let one curve
+of the petals--one groove of the stamens be wanting, and the flower
+ceases to be the same. Let the roughness of the bark and the angles of
+the boughs be smoothed or diminished, and the oak ceases to be an oak;
+but let it retain its inward structure and outward form, and though its
+leaves grew white, or pink, or blue, or tri-color, it would be a white
+oak, or a pink oak, or a republican oak, but an oak still. Again, color
+is hardly ever even a _possible_ distinction between two objects of the
+same species. Two trees, of the same kind, at the same season, and of
+the same age, are of absolutely the same color; but they are not of the
+same form, nor anything like it. There can be no difference in the color
+of two pieces of rock broken from the same place; but it is impossible
+they should be of the same form. So that form is not only the chief
+characteristic of species, but the only characteristic of individuals of
+a species.
+
+
+Sec. 5. And different in association from what it is alone.
+
+Again, a color, in association with other colors, is different from the
+same color seen by itself. It has a distinct and peculiar power upon the
+retina dependent on its association. Consequently, the color of any
+object is not more dependent upon the nature of the object itself, and
+the eye beholding it, than on the color of the objects near it; in this
+respect also, therefore, it is no characteristic.
+
+
+Sec. 6. It is not certain whether any two people see the same color in
+       things.
+
+And so great is the uncertainty with respect to those qualities or
+powers which depend as much on the nature of the object suffering as of
+the object acting, that it is totally impossible to prove that one man
+sees in the same thing the same color that another does though he may
+use the same name for it. One man may see yellow where another sees
+blue, but as the effect is constant, they agree in the term to be used
+for it, and both call it blue, or both yellow, having yet totally
+different ideas attached to the term. And yet neither can be said to see
+falsely, because the color is not in the thing, but in the thing and
+them together. But if they see forms differently, one must see falsely,
+because the form is positive in the object. My friend may see boars blue
+for anything I know, but it is impossible he should see them with paws
+instead of hoofs, unless his eyes or brain are diseased. (Compare Locke,
+Book ii. chap. xxxii. Sec. 15.) But I do not speak of this uncertainty as
+capable of having any effect on art, because, though perhaps Landseer
+sees dogs of the color which I should call blue, yet the color he puts
+on the canvas, being in the same way blue to him, will still be brown or
+dog-color to me; and so we may argue on points of color just as if all
+men saw alike, as indeed in all probability they do; but I merely
+mention this uncertainty to show farther the vagueness and unimportance
+of color as a characteristic of bodies.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Form considered as an element of landscape, includes light and
+       shade.
+
+Sec. 8. Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of bodies
+       and unimportance of color.
+
+Before going farther, however, I must explain the sense in which I have
+used the word "form," because painters have a most inaccurate and
+careless habit of confining the term to the _outline_ of bodies, whereas
+it necessarily implies light and shade. It is true that the outline and
+the chiaroscuro must be separate subjects of investigation with the
+student; but no form whatsoever can be known to the eye in the slightest
+degree without its chiaroscuro; and, therefore, in speaking of form
+generally as an element of landscape, I mean that perfect and harmonious
+unity of outline with light and shade, by which all the parts and
+projections and proportions of a body are fully explained to the eye,
+being nevertheless perfectly independent of sight or power in other
+objects, the presence of light upon a body being a positive existence,
+whether we are aware of it or not, and in no degree dependent upon our
+senses. This being understood, the most convincing proof of the
+unimportance of color lies in the accurate observation of the way in
+which any material object impresses itself on the mind. If we look at
+nature carefully, we shall find that her colors are in a state of
+perpetual confusion and indistinctness, while her forms, as told by
+light and shade, are invariably clear, distinct, and speaking. The
+stones and gravel of the bank catch green reflections from the boughs
+above; the bushes receive grays and yellows from the ground; every
+hairbreadth of polished surface gives a little bit of the blue of the
+sky or the gold of the sun, like a star upon the local color; this local
+color, changeful and uncertain in itself, is again disguised and
+modified by the hue of the light, or quenched in the gray of the shadow;
+and the confusion and blending of tint is altogether so great, that were
+we left to find out what objects were by their colors only, we would
+scarcely in places distinguish the boughs of a tree from the air beyond
+them, or the ground beneath them. I know that people unpractised in art
+will not believe this at first; but if they have accurate powers of
+observation, they may soon ascertain it for themselves; they will find
+that, while they can scarcely ever determine the _exact_ hue of
+anything, except when it occurs in large masses, as in a green field or
+the blue sky, the form, as told by light and shade, is always decided
+and evident, and the source of the chief character of every object.
+Light and shade indeed so completely conquer the distinctions of local
+color, that the difference in hue between the illumined parts of a white
+and black object is not so great as the difference (in sunshine) between
+the illumined and dark side of either separately.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Recapitulation.
+
+We shall see hereafter, in considering ideas of beauty, that color, even
+as a source of pleasure, is feeble compared to form; but this we cannot
+insist upon at present; we have only to do with simple truth, and the
+observations we have made are sufficient to prove that the artist who
+sacrifices or forgets a truth of form in the pursuit of a truth of
+color, sacrifices what is definite to what is uncertain, and what is
+essential to what is accidental.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VI.
+
+                               RECAPITULATION.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The importance of historical truths.
+
+It ought farther to be observed respecting truths in general, that those
+are always most valuable which are most historical, that is, which tell
+us most about the past and future states of the object to which they
+belong. In a tree, for instance, it is more important to give the
+appearance of energy and elasticity in the limbs which is indicative of
+growth and life, than any particular character of leaf, or texture of
+bough. It is more important that we should feel that the uppermost
+sprays are creeping higher and higher into the sky, and be impressed
+with the current of life and motion which is animating every fibre, than
+that we should know the exact pitch of relief with which those fibres
+are thrown out against the sky. For the first truths tell us tales about
+the tree, about what it has been, and will be, while the last are
+characteristic of it only in its present state, and are in no way
+talkative about themselves. Talkative facts are always more interesting
+and more important than silent ones. So again the lines in a crag which
+mark its stratification, and how it has been washed and rounded by
+water, or twisted and drawn out in fire, are more important, because
+they tell more than the stains of the lichens which change year by year,
+and the accidental fissures of frost or decomposition; not but that both
+of these are historical, but historical in a less distinct manner, and
+for shorter periods.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths.
+       Tone, light and color are secondary.
+
+Hence in general the truths of specific form are the first and most
+important of all; and next to them, those truths of chiaroscuro which
+are necessary to make us understand every quality and part of forms, and
+the relative distances of objects among each other, and in consequence
+their relative bulks. Altogether lower than these, as truths, though
+often most important as beauties, stand all effects of chiaroscuro which
+are productive merely of imitations of light and tone, and all effects
+of color. To make us understand the _space_ of the sky, is an end worthy
+of the artist's highest powers; to hit its particular blue or gold is an
+end to be thought of when we have accomplished the first, and not till
+then.
+
+
+Sec. 3. And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.
+
+Finally, far below all these come those particular accuraciesor tricks
+of chiaroscuro which cause objects to look projecting from the canvas,
+not worthy of the name of truths, because they require for their
+attainment the sacrifice of all others; for not having at our disposal
+the same intensity of light by which nature illustrates her objects, we
+are obliged, if we would have perfect deception in one, to destroy its
+relation to the rest. (Compare Sect. II. chap. V.) And thus he who
+throws one object out of his picture, never lets the spectator into it.
+Michael Angelo bids you follow his phantoms into the abyss of heaven,
+but a modern French painter drops his hero out of the picture frame.
+
+This solidity or projection then, is the very lowest truth that art can
+give; it is the painting of mere matter, giving that as food for the eye
+which is properly only the subject of touch; it can neither instruct nor
+exalt, nor please except as jugglery; it addresses no sense of beauty
+nor of power; and wherever it characterizes the general aim of a
+picture, it is the sign and the evidence of the vilest and lowest
+mechanism which art can be insulted by giving name to.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VII.
+
+              GENERAL APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The different selection of facts consequent on the several aims at
+       imitation or at truth.
+
+We have seen, in the preceding chapters, some proof of what was before
+asserted, that the truths necessary for deceptive imitation are not only
+few, but of the very lowest order. We thus find painters ranging
+themselves into two great classes; one aiming at the development of the
+exquisite truths of specific form, refined color, and ethereal space,
+and content with the clear and impressive suggestion of any of these, by
+whatsoever means obtained; and the other casting all these aside, to
+attain those particular truths of tone and chiaroscuro, which may trick
+the spectator into a belief of reality. The first class, if they have to
+paint a tree, are intent upon giving the exquisite designs of
+intersecting undulation in its boughs, the grace of its leafage, the
+intricacy of its organization, and all those qualities which make it
+lovely or affecting of its kind. The second endeavor only to make you
+believe that you are looking at wood. They are totally regardless of
+truths or beauties of form; a stump is as good as a trunk for all their
+purposes, so that they can only deceive the eye into the supposition
+that it _is_ a stump and not canvas.
+
+
+Sec. 2. The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation.
+
+Sec. 3. What truths they gave.
+
+To which of these classes the great body of the old landscape painters
+belonged, may be partly gathered from the kind of praise which is
+bestowed upon them by those who admire them most, which either refers to
+technical matters, dexterity of touch, clever oppositions of color,
+etc., or is bestowed on the power of the painter to _deceive_. M. de
+Marmontel, going into a connoisseur's gallery, pretends to mistake a
+fine Berghem for a window. This, he says, was affirmed by its possessor
+to be the greatest praise the picture had ever received. Such is indeed
+the notion of art which is at the bottom of the veneration usually felt
+for the old landscape painters; it is of course the palpable, first idea
+of ignorance; it is the only notion which people unacquainted with art
+can by any possibility have of its ends; the only test by which people
+unacquainted with nature can pretend to form anything like judgment of
+art. It is strange that, with the great historical painters of Italy
+before them, who had broken so boldly and indignantly from the trammels
+of this notion, and shaken the very dust of it from their feet, the
+succeeding landscape painters should have wasted their lives in
+jugglery: but so it is, and so it will be felt, the more we look into
+their works, that the deception of the senses was the great and first
+end of all their art. To attain this they paid deep and serious
+attention to effects of light and tone, and to the exact degree of
+relief which material objects take against light and atmosphere; and
+sacrificing every other truth to these, not necessarily, but because
+they required no others for deception, they succeeded in rendering these
+particular facts with a fidelity and force which, in the pictures that
+have come down to us uninjured, are as yet unequalled, and never can be
+surpassed. They painted their foregrounds with laborious industry,
+covering them with details so as to render them deceptive to the
+ordinary eye, regardless of beauty or truth in the details themselves;
+they painted their trees with careful attention to their pitch of shade
+against the sky, utterly regardless of all that is beautiful or
+essential in the anatomy of their foliage and boughs: they painted their
+distances with exquisite use of transparent color and aerial tone,
+totally neglectful of all facts and forms which nature uses such color
+and tone to relieve and adorn. They had neither love of nature, nor
+feeling of her beauty; they looked for her coldest and most commonplace
+effects, because they were easiest to imitate; and for her most vulgar
+forms, because they were most easily to be recognized by the untaught
+eyes of those whom alone they could hope to please; they did it, like
+the Pharisee of old, to be seen of men, and they had their reward. They
+do deceive and delight the unpractised eye; they will to all ages, as
+long as their colors endure, be the standards of excellence with all,
+who, ignorant of nature, claim to be thought learned in art. And they
+will to all ages be, to those who have thorough love and knowledge of
+the creation which they libel, instructive proofs of the limited number
+and low character of the truths which are necessary, and the accumulated
+multitude of pure, broad, bold falsehoods which are admissible in
+pictures meant only to deceive.
+
+There is of course more or less accuracy of knowledge and execution
+combined with this aim at effect, according to the industry and
+precision of eye possessed by the master, and more or less of beauty in
+the forms selected, according to his natural taste; but both the beauty
+and truth are sacrificed unhesitatingly where they interfere with the
+great effort at deception. Claude had, if it had been cultivated, a fine
+feeling for beauty of form, and is seldom ungraceful in his foliage; but
+his picture, when examined with reference to essential truth, is one
+mass of error from beginning to end. Cuyp, on the other hand, could
+paint close truth of everything, except ground and water, with decision
+and success, but he has no sense of beauty. Gaspar Poussin, more
+ignorant of truth than Claude, and almost as dead to beauty as Cuyp, has
+yet a perception of the feeling and moral truth of nature which often
+redeems the picture; but yet in all of them, everything that they can do
+is done for deception, and nothing for the sake or love of what they are
+painting.
+
+
+Sec. 4. The principles of selection adopted by modern artists.
+
+Modern landscape painters have looked at nature with totally different
+eyes, seeking not for what is easiest to imitate, but for what is most
+important to tell. Rejecting at once all idea of _bona fide_ imitation,
+they think only of conveying the impression of nature into the mind of
+the spectator. And there is, in consequence, a greater sum of valuable,
+essential, and impressive truth in the works of two or three of our
+leading modern landscape painters, than in those of all the old masters
+put together, and of truth too, nearly unmixed with definite or
+avoidable falsehood; while the unimportant and feeble truths of the old
+masters are choked with a mass of perpetual defiance of the most
+authoritative laws of nature.
+
+
+Sec. 5. General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted
+       with the freedom and vastness of nature.
+
+I do not expect this assertion to be believed at present; it must rest
+for demonstration on the examination we are about to enter upon; yet,
+even without reference to any intricate or deep-laid truths, it appears
+strange to me, that any one familiar with nature, and fond of her,
+should not grow weary and sick at heart among the melancholy and
+monotonous transcripts of her which alone can be received from the old
+school of art. A man accustomed to the broad, wild seashore, with its
+bright breakers, and free winds, and sounding rocks, and eternal
+sensation of tameless power, can scarcely but be angered when Claude
+bids him stand still on some paltry, chipped and chiselled quay with
+porters and wheelbarrows running against him, to watch a weak, rippling
+bound and barriered water, that has not strength enough in one of its
+waves to upset the flower-pots on the wall, or even to fling one jet of
+spray over the confining stone. A man accustomed to the strength and
+glory of God's mountains, with their soaring and radiant pinnacles, and
+surging sweeps of measureless distance, kingdoms in their valleys, and
+climates upon their crests, can scarcely but be angered when Salvator
+bids him stand still under some contemptible fragment of splintery crag,
+which an Alpine snow-wreath would smother in its first swell, with a
+stunted bush or two growing out of it, and a volume of manufactory smoke
+for a sky. A man accustomed to the grace and infinity of nature's
+foliage, with every vista a cathedral, and every bough a revelation, can
+scarcely but be angered when Poussin mocks him with a black round mass
+of impenetrable paint, diverging into feathers instead of leaves, and
+supported on a stick instead of a trunk. The fact is, there is one thing
+wanting in all the doing of these men, and that is the very virtue by
+which the work of human mind chiefly rises above that of the
+Daguerreotype or Calotype, or any other mechanical means that ever have
+been or may be invented, Love: There is no evidence of their ever having
+gone to nature with any thirst, or received from her such emotion as
+could make them, even for an instant, lose sight of themselves; there is
+in them neither earnestness nor humility; there is no simple or honest
+record of any single truth; none of the plain words nor straight efforts
+that men speak and make when they once feel.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret.
+
+Nor is it only by the professed landscape painters that the great
+verities of the material world are betrayed: Grand as are the motives
+of landscape in the works of the earlier and mightier men, there is yet
+in them nothing approaching to a general view nor complete rendering of
+natural phenomena; not that they are to be blamed for this; for they
+took out of nature that which was fit for their purpose, and their
+mission was to do no more; but we must be cautious to distinguish that
+imaginative abstraction of landscape which alone we find in them, from
+the entire statement of truth which has been attempted by the moderns. I
+have said in the chapter on symmetry in the second volume, that all
+landscape grandeur vanishes before that of Titian and Tintoret; and this
+is true of whatever these two giants touched;--but they touched little.
+A few level flakes of chestnut foliage; a blue abstraction of hill forms
+from Cadore or the Euganeans; a grand mass or two of glowing ground and
+mighty herbage, and a few burning fields of quiet cloud were all they
+needed; there is evidence of Tintoret's having felt more than this, but
+it occurs only in secondary fragments of rock, cloud, or pine, hardly
+noticed among the accumulated interest of his human subject. From the
+window of Titian's house at Venice, the chain of the Tyrolese Alps is
+seen lifted in spectral power above the tufted plain of Treviso; every
+dawn that reddens the towers of Murano lights also a line of pyramidal
+fires along that colossal ridge; but there is, so far as I know, no
+evidence in any of the master's works of his ever having beheld, much
+less felt, the majesty of their burning. The dark firmament and saddened
+twilight of Tintoret are sufficient for their end; but the sun never
+plunges behind San Giorgio in Aliga without such retinue of radiant
+cloud, such rest of zoned light on the green lagoon, as never received
+image from his hand. More than this, of that which they loved and
+rendered much is rendered conventionally; by noble conventionalities
+indeed, but such nevertheless as would be inexcusable if the landscape
+became the principal subject instead of an accompaniment. I will
+instance only the San Pietro Martire, which, if not the most perfect, is
+at least the most popular of Titian's landscapes; in which, to obtain
+light on the flesh of the near figures the sky is made as dark as deep
+sea, the mountains are laid in with violent and impossible blue, except
+one of them on the left, which, to connect the distant light with the
+foreground, is thrown into light relief, unexplained by its materials,
+unlikely in its position, and in its degree impossible under any
+circumstances.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools.
+
+I do not instance these as faults in the picture: there are no works of
+very powerful color which are free from conventionality concentrated or
+diffused, daring or disguised; but as the conventionality of this whole
+picture is mainly thrown into the landscape, it is necessary, while we
+acknowledge the virtue of this distance as a part of the great
+composition, to be on our guard against the license it assumes and the
+attractiveness of its overcharged color. Fragments of far purer truth
+occur in the works of Tintoret; and in the drawing of foliage, whether
+rapid or elaborate, of masses or details, the Venetian painters, taken
+as a body, may be considered almost faultless models. But the whole
+field of what they have done is so narrow, and therein is so much of
+what is only relatively right, and in itself false or imperfect, that
+the young and inexperienced painter could run no greater risk than the
+too early taking them for teachers; and to the general spectator their
+landscape is valuable rather as a means of peculiar and solemn emotion
+than as ministering to, or inspiring the universal love of nature. Hence
+while men of serious mind, especially those whose pursuits have brought
+them into continued relations with the peopled rather than the lonely
+world, will always look to the Venetian painters as having touched those
+simple chords of landscape harmony which are most in unison with earnest
+and melancholy feeling; those whose philosophy is more cheerful and more
+extended, as having been trained and colored among simple and solitary
+nature, will seek for a wider and more systematic circle of teaching:
+they may grant that the barred horizontal gloom of the Titian sky, and
+the massy leaves of the Titian forest are among the most sublime of the
+conceivable forms of material things; but they know that the virtue of
+these very forms is to be learned only by right comparison of them with
+the cheerfulness, fulness and comparative inquietness of other hours and
+scenes; that they are not intended for the continual food, but the
+occasional soothing of the human heart; that there is a lesson of not
+less value in its place, though of less concluding and sealing
+authority, in every one of the more humble phases of material things:
+and that there are some lessons of equal or greater authority which
+these masters neither taught nor received. And until the school of
+modern landscape arose Art had never noted the links of this mighty
+chain; it mattered not that a fragment lay here and there, no heavenly
+lightning could descend by it; the landscape of the Venetians was
+without effect on any contemporary in subsequent schools; it still
+remains on the continent as useless as if it had never existed; and at
+this moment German and Italian landscapes, of which no words are
+scornful enough to befit the utter degradation, hang in the Venetian
+Academy in the next room to the Desert of Titian and the Paradise of
+Tintoret.[6]
+
+
+Sec. 8. The value of inferior works of art how to be estimated.
+
+That then which I would have the reader inquire respecting every work of
+art of undetermined merit submitted to his judgment, is not whether it
+be a work of especial grandeur, importance, or power; but whether it
+have _any_ virtue or substance as a link in this chain of truth, whether
+it have recorded or interpreted anything before unknown, whether it have
+added one single stone to our heaven-pointing pyramid, cut away one dark
+bough, or levelled one rugged hillock in our path. This, if it be an
+honest work of art, it must have done, for no man ever yet worked
+honestly without giving some such help to his race. God appoints to
+every one of his creatures a separate mission, and if they discharge it
+honorably, if they quit themselves like men and faithfully follow that
+light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching
+influence, there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its
+appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service
+constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but
+the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is
+peculiar to him, and which worthily used will be a gift also to his
+race forever--
+
+"Fool not," says George Herbert,
+
+                                   "For all may have,
+       If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave."
+
+If, on the contrary, there be nothing of this freshness achieved, if
+there be neither purpose nor fidelity in what is done, if it be an
+envious or powerless imitation of other men's labors, if it be a display
+of mere manual dexterity or curious manufacture, or if in any other mode
+it show itself as having its origin in vanity,--Cast it out. It matters
+not what powers of mind may have been concerned or corrupted in it, all
+have lost their savor, it is worse than worthless;--perilous--Cast it
+out.
+
+Works of art are indeed always of mixed kind, their honesty being more
+or less corrupted by the various weaknesses of the painter, by his
+vanity, his idleness, or his cowardice; (the fear of doing right has far
+more influence on art than is commonly thought,) that only is altogether
+to be rejected which is altogether vain, idle, and cowardly. Of the rest
+the rank is to be estimated rather by the purity of their metal than the
+coined value of it.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its completion.
+
+Keeping these principles in view, let us endeavor to obtain something
+like a general view of the assistance which has been rendered to our
+study of nature by the various occurrences of landscape in elder art,
+and by the more exclusively directed labors of modern schools.
+
+To the ideal landscape of the early religious painters of Italy I have
+alluded in the concluding chapter of the second volume. It is absolutely
+right and beautiful in its peculiar application; but its grasp of nature
+is narrow and its treatment in most respects too severe and conventional
+to form a profitable example when the landscape is to be alone the
+subject of thought. The great virtue of it is its entire, exquisite, and
+humble realization of those objects it selects; in this respect
+differing from such German imitations of it as I have met with, that
+there is no effort of any fanciful or ornamental modifications, but
+loving fidelity to the thing studied. The foreground plants are usually
+neither exaggerated nor stiffened; they do not form arches or frames or
+borders; their grace is unconfined, their simplicity undestroyed. Cima
+da Conegliano, in his picture in the church of the Madonna dell' Orto at
+Venice, has given us the oak, the fig, the beautiful "Erba della
+Madonna" on the wall, precisely such a bunch of it as may be seen
+growing at this day on the marble steps of that very church; ivy and
+other creepers, and a strawberry plant in the foreground, with a blossom
+and a berry just set, and one half ripe and one ripe, all patiently and
+innocently painted from the real thing, and therefore most divine. Fra
+Angelico's use of the oxalis acetosella is as faithful in representation
+as touching in feeling.[7] The ferns that grow on the walls of Fiesole
+may be seen in their simple verity on the architecture of Ghirlandajo.
+The rose, the myrtle, and the lily, the olive and orange, pomegranate
+and vine, have received their fairest portraiture where they bear a
+sacred character; even the common plantains and mallows of the waysides
+are touched with deep reverence by Raffaelle; and indeed for the perfect
+treatment of details of this kind, treatment as delicate and
+affectionate as it is elevated and manly, it is to the works of these
+schools alone that we can refer. And on this their peculiar excellence I
+should the more earnestly insist, because it is of a kind altogether
+neglected by the English school, and with most unfortunate result, many
+of our best painters missing their deserved rank solely from the want of
+it, as Gainsborough; and all being more or less checked in their
+progress or vulgarized in their aim.
+
+
+Sec. 10. Finish, and the want of it, how right and how wrong.
+
+It is a misfortune for all honest critics, that hardly any quality of
+art is independently to be praised, and without reference to the motive
+from which it resulted, and the place in which it appears; so that no
+principle can be simply enforced but it shall seem to countenance a
+vice; while the work of qualification and explanation both weakens the
+force of what is said, and is not perhaps always likely to be with
+patience received: so also those who desire to misunderstand or to
+oppose have it always in their power to become obtuse listeners or
+specious opponents. Thus I hardly dare insist upon the virtue of
+completion, lest I should be supposed a defender of Wouvermans or Gerard
+Dow; neither can I adequately praise the power of Tintoret, without
+fearing to be thought adverse to Holbein or Perugino. The fact is, that
+both finish and impetuosity, specific minuteness, or large abstraction,
+may be the signs of passion, or of its reverse; may result from
+affection or indifference, intellect or dulness. Some men finish from
+intense love of the beautiful in the smallest parts of what they do;
+others in pure incapability of comprehending anything but parts; others
+to show their dexterity with the brush, and prove expenditure of time.
+Some are impetuous and bold in their handling, from having great
+thoughts to express which are independent of detail; others because they
+have bad taste or have been badly taught; others from vanity, and others
+from indolence. (Compare Vol. II. Chap. IX. Sec. 8.) Now both the finish
+and incompletion are right where they are the signs of passion or of
+thought, and both are wrong, and I think the finish the more
+contemptible of the two, when they cease to be so. The modern Italians
+will paint every leaf of a laurel or rose-bush without the slightest
+feeling of their beauty or character; and without showing one spark of
+intellect or affection from beginning to end. Anything is better than
+this; and yet the very highest schools _do_ the same thing, or nearly
+so, but with totally different motives and perceptions, and the result
+is divine. On the whole, I conceive that the extremes of good and evil
+lie with the finishers, and that whatever glorious power we may admit in
+men like Tintoret, whatever attractiveness of method to Rubens,
+Rembrandt, or, though in far less degree, our own Reynolds, still the
+thoroughly great men are those who have done everything thoroughly, and
+who, in a word, have never despised anything, however small, of God's
+making. And this is the chief fault of our English landscapists, that
+they have not the intense all-observing penetration of well-balanced
+mind; they have not, except in one or two instances, anything of that
+feeling which Wordsworth shows in the following lines:--
+
+           "So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive;--
+            Would that the little flowers were born to live
+            Conscious of half the pleasure which they give.
+            That to this mountain daisy's self were known
+            _The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown
+            On the smooth surface of this naked stone._"
+
+That is a little bit of good, downright, foreground painting--no mistake
+about it; daisy, and shadow, and stone texture and all. Our painters
+must come to this before they have done their duty; and yet, on the
+other hand, let them beware of finishing, for the sake of finish, all
+over their picture. The ground is not to be all over daisies, nor is
+every daisy to have its star-shaped shadow; there is as much finish in
+the right concealment of things as in the right exhibition of them; and
+while I demand this amount of specific character where nature shows it,
+I demand equal fidelity to her where she conceals it. To paint mist
+rightly, space rightly, and light rightly, it may be often necessary to
+paint nothing else rightly, but the rule is simple for all that; if the
+artist is painting something that he knows and loves, as he knows it
+because he loves it, whether it be the fair strawberry of Cima, or the
+clear sky of Francia, or the blazing incomprehensible mist of Turner, he
+is all right; but the moment he does anything as he thinks it ought to
+be, because he does not care about it, he is all wrong. He has only to
+ask himself whether he cares for anything except himself; so far as he
+does he will make a good picture; so far as he thinks of himself a vile
+one. This is the root of the viciousness of the whole French school.
+Industry they have, learning they have, power they have, feeling they
+have, yet not so much feeling as ever to force them to forget themselves
+even for a moment; the ruling motive is invariably vanity, and the
+picture therefore an abortion.
+
+
+Sec. 11. The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain
+        drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione.
+
+Returning to the pictures of the religious schools, we find that their
+open skies are also of the highest value. Their preciousness is such
+that no subsequent schools can by comparison be said to have painted sky
+at all, but only clouds, or mist, or blue canopies. The golden sky of
+Marco Basaiti in the Academy of Venice altogether overpowers and renders
+valueless that of Titian beside it. Those of Francia in the gallery of
+Bologna are even more wonderful, because cooler in tone and behind
+figures in full light. The touches of white light in the horizon of
+Angelico's Last Judgment are felt and wrought with equal truth. The
+dignified and simple forms of cloud in repose are often by these
+painters sublimely expressed, but of changeful cloud form they show no
+examples. The architecture, mountains, and water of these distances are
+commonly conventional; motives are to be found in them of the highest
+beauty, and especially remarkable for quantity and meaning of incident;
+but they can only be studied or accepted in the particular feeling that
+produced them. It may generally be observed that whatever has been the
+result of strong emotion is ill seen unless through the medium of such
+emotion, and will lead to conclusions utterly false and perilous, if it
+be made a subject of cold-hearted observance, or an object of systematic
+imitation. One piece of genuine mountain drawing, however, occurs in the
+landscape of Masaccio's Tribute Money. It is impossible to say what
+strange results might have taken place in this particular field of art,
+or how suddenly a great school of landscape might have arisen, had the
+life of this great painter been prolonged. Of this particular fresco I
+shall have much to say hereafter. The two brothers Bellini gave a marked
+and vigorous impulse to the landscape of Venice, of Gentile's
+architecture I shall speak presently. Giovanni's, though in style less
+interesting and in place less prominent, occurring chiefly as a kind of
+frame to his pictures, connecting them with the architecture of the
+churches for which they were intended, is in refinement of realization,
+I suppose, quite unrivalled, especially in passages requiring pure
+gradation, as the hollows of vaultings. That of Veronese would look
+ghostly beside it; that of Titian lightless. His landscape is
+occasionally quaint and strange like Giorgione's, and as fine in color,
+as that behind the Madonna in the Brera gallery at Milan; but a more
+truthful fragment occurs in the picture in San Francesco della Vigna at
+Venice; and in the picture of St. Jerome in the church of San
+Grisostomo, the landscape is as perfect and beautiful as any background
+may legitimately be, and finer, as far as it goes, than anything of
+Titian's. It is remarkable for the absolute truth of its sky, whose
+blue, clear as crystal, and though deep in tone bright as the open air,
+is gradated to the horizon with a cautiousness and finish almost
+inconceivable; and to obtain light at the horizon without contradicting
+the system of chiaroscuro adopted in the figures which are lighted from
+the right hand, it is barred across with some glowing white cirri which,
+in their turn, are opposed by a single dark horizontal line of lower
+cloud; and to throw the whole farther back, there is a wreath of rain
+cloud of warmer color floating above the mountains, lighted on its under
+edge, whose faithfulness to nature, both in hue and in its light and
+shattering form, is altogether exemplary; the wandering of the light
+among the hills is equally studied, and the whole is crowned by the
+grand realization of the leaves of the fig-tree alluded to (Vol. II.
+Part III. Chap. 5,) as well as of the herbage upon the rocks.
+Considering that with all this care and completeness in the background,
+there is nothing that is not of meaning and necessity in reference to
+the figures, and that in the figures themselves the dignity and
+heavenliness of the highest religious painters are combined with a force
+and purity of color, greater I think than Titian's, it is a work which
+may be set before the young artist as in every respect a nearly
+faultless guide. Giorgione's landscape is inventive and solemn, but
+owing to the rarity even of his nominal works I dare not speak of it in
+general terms. It is certainly conventional, and is rather, I imagine,
+to be studied for its color and its motives than its details.
+
+
+Sec. 12. Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.
+
+Of Titian and Tintoret I have spoken already. The latter is every way
+the greater master, never indulging in the exaggerated color of Titian,
+and attaining far more perfect light; his grasp of nature is more
+extensive, and his view of her more imaginative, (incidental notices of
+his landscape will be found in the chapter on Imagination penetrative,
+of the second volume,) but he is usually too impatient to carry his
+thoughts as far out, or to realize with as much substantiality as
+Titian. In the St. Jerome of the latter in the gallery of the Brera,
+there is a superb example of the modes in which the objects of landscape
+may be either suggested or elaborated according to their place and
+claim. The larger features of the ground, foliage, and drapery, as well
+as the lion in the lower angle, are executed with a slightness which
+admits not of close examination, and which, if not in shade, would be
+offensive to the generality of observers. But on the rock above the
+lion, where it turns towards the light, and where the eye is intended to
+dwell, there is a wreath of ivy of which every leaf is separately drawn
+with the greatest accuracy and care, and beside it a lizard, studied
+with equal earnestness, yet always with that right grandeur of manner to
+which I have alluded in the preface. Tintoret seldom reaches or attempts
+the elaboration in substance and color of these objects, but he is even
+more truth-telling and certain in his rendering of all the great
+characters of specific form, and as the painter of Space he stands
+altogether alone among dead masters; being the first who introduced the
+slightness and confusion of touch which are expressive of the effects of
+luminous objects seen through large spaces of air, and the principles of
+aerial color which have been since carried out in other fields by
+Turner. I conceive him to be the most powerful painter whom the world
+has seen, and that he was prevented from being also the most perfect,
+partly by untoward circumstances in his position and education, partly
+by the very fulness and impetuosity of his own mind, partly by the want
+of religious feeling and its accompanying perception of beauty; for his
+noble treatment of religious subject, of which I have given several
+examples in the third part, appears to be the result only of that grasp
+which a great and well-toned intellect necessarily takes of any subject
+submitted to it, and is wanting in the signs of the more withdrawn and
+sacred sympathies.
+
+But whatever advances were made by Tintoret in modes of artistical
+treatment, he cannot be considered as having enlarged the sphere of
+landscape conception. He took no cognizance even of the materials and
+motives, so singularly rich in color, which were forever around him in
+his own Venice. All portions of Venetian scenery introduced by him are
+treated conventionally and carelessly; the architectural characters lost
+altogether, the sea distinguished from the sky only by a darker green,
+while of the sky itself only those forms were employed by him which had
+been repeated again and again for centuries, though in less tangibility
+and completion. Of mountain scenery he has left, I believe, no example
+so far carried as that of John Bellini above instanced.
+
+
+Sec. 13. Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna.
+
+The Florentine and Ambrian schools supply us with no examples of
+landscape, except that introduced by their earliest masters, gradually
+overwhelmed under renaissance architecture.
+
+Leonardo's landscape has been of unfortunate effect on art, so far as it
+has had effect at all. In realization of detail he verges on the
+ornamental, in his rock outlines he has all the deficiencies and little
+of the feeling of the earlier men. Behind the "Sacrifice for the
+Friends" of Giotto at Pisa, there is a sweet piece of rock incident, a
+little fountain breaking out at the mountain foot, and trickling away,
+its course marked by branches of reeds, the latter formal enough
+certainly, and always in triplets, but still with a sense of nature
+pervading the whole which is utterly wanting to the rocks of Leonardo in
+the Holy Family in the Louvre. The latter are grotesque without being
+ideal, and extraordinary without being impressive. The sketch in the
+Uffizii of Florence has some fine foliage, and there is of course a
+certain virtue in all the work of a man like Leonardo which I would not
+depreciate, but our admiration of it in this particular field must be
+qualified, and our following cautious.
+
+No advances were made in landscape, so far as I know, after the time of
+Tintoret; the power of art ebbed gradually away from the derivative
+schools; various degrees of cleverness or feeling being manifested in
+more or less brilliant conventionalism. I once supposed there was some
+life in the landscape of Domenichino, but in this I must have been
+wrong. The man who painted the Madonna del Rosario and Martyrdom of St.
+Agnes in the gallery of Bologna, is palpably incapable of doing anything
+good, great, or right in any field, way, or kind, whatsoever.[8]
+
+
+Sec. 14. Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins.
+
+Though, however, at this period the general grasp of the schools was
+perpetually contracting, a gift was given to the world by Claude, for
+which we are perhaps hardly enough grateful, owing to the very frequency
+of our after enjoyment of it. He set the sun in heaven, and was, I
+suppose, the first who attempted anything like the realization of actual
+sunshine in misty air. He gives the first example of the study of nature
+for her own sake, and allowing for the unfortunate circumstances of his
+education, and for his evident inferiority of intellect, more could
+hardly have been expected from him. His false taste, forced composition,
+and ignorant rendering of detail have perhaps been of more detriment to
+art than the gift he gave was of advantage. The character of his own
+mind is singular; I know of no other instance of a man's working from
+nature continually with the desire of being true, and never attaining
+the power of drawing so much as a bough of a tree rightly. Salvator, a
+man originally endowed with far higher power of mind than Claude, was
+altogether unfaithful to his mission, and has left us, I believe, no
+gift. Everything that he did is evidently for the sake of exhibiting his
+own dexterity; there is no love of any kind for anything; his choice of
+landscape features is dictated by no delight in the sublime, but by mere
+animal restlessness or ferocity, guided by an imaginative power of which
+he could not altogether deprive himself. He has done nothing which
+others have not done better, or which it would not have been better not
+to have done; in nature, he mistakes distortion for energy, and
+savageness for sublimity; in man, mendicity for sanctity, and conspiracy
+for heroism.
+
+The landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows much power, and is usually
+composed and elaborated on right principles, (compare preface to second
+edition,) but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or
+peculiar excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found
+in other masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to
+Leonardo's, in invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace
+to Raffaelle's. The landscapes of Gaspar have serious feeling and often
+valuable and solemn color; virtueless otherwise, they are full of the
+most degraded mannerism, and I believe the admiration of them to have
+been productive of extensive evil among recent schools.
+
+
+Sec. 15. German and Flemish landscape.
+
+The development of landscape north of the Alps, presents us with the
+same general phases under modifications dependent partly on less
+intensity of feeling, partly on diminished availableness of landscape
+material. That of the religious painters is treated with the same
+affectionate completion; but exuberance of fancy sometimes diminishes
+the influence of the imagination, and the absence of the Italian force
+of passion admits of more patient and somewhat less intellectual
+elaboration. A morbid habit of mind is evident in many, seeming to lose
+sight of the balance and relations of things, so as to become intense in
+trifles, gloomily minute, as in Albert Durer; and this mingled with a
+feverish operation of the fancy, which appears to result from certain
+habitual conditions of bodily health rather than of mental culture, (and
+of which the sickness without the power is eminently characteristic of
+the modern Germans;) but with all this there are virtues of the very
+highest order in those schools, and I regret that my knowledge is
+insufficient to admit of my giving any detailed account of them.
+
+In the landscape of Rembrandt and Rubens, we have the northern parallel
+to the power of the Venetians. Among the etchings and drawings of
+Rembrandt, landscape thoughts may be found not unworthy of Titian, and
+studies from nature of sublime fidelity; but his system of chiaroscuro
+was inconsistent with the gladness, and his peculiar modes of feeling
+with the grace, of nature; nor from my present knowledge can I name any
+work on canvas in which he has carried out the dignity of his etched
+conceptions, or exhibited any perceptiveness of new truths.
+
+Not so Rubens, who perhaps furnishes us with the first instances of
+complete unconventional unaffected landscape. His treatment is healthy,
+manly, and rational, not very affectionate, yet often condescending to
+minute and multitudinous detail; always as far as it goes pure,
+forcible, and refreshing, consummate in composition, and marvellous in
+color. In the Pitti palace, the best of its two Rubens landscapes has
+been placed near a characteristic and highly-finished Titian, the
+marriage of St. Catherine. But for the grandeur of line and solemn
+feeling in the flock of sheep, and the figures of the latter work, I
+doubt if all its glow and depth of tone could support its overcharged
+green and blue against the open breezy sunshine of the Fleming. I do not
+mean to rank the art of Rubens with that of Titian, but it is always to
+be remembered that Titian hardly ever paints sunshine, but a certain
+opalescent twilight which has as much of human emotion as of imitative
+truth in it,--
+
+         "The clouds that gather round the setting sun
+          Do take a sober coloring from an eye
+          That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality:"
+
+and that art of this kind must always be liable to some appearance of
+failure when compared with a less pathetic statement of facts.
+
+It is to be noted, however, that the licenses taken by Rubens in
+particular instances are as bold as his general statements are sincere.
+In the landscape just instanced the horizon is an oblique line; in the
+Sunset of our own gallery many of the shadows fall at right angles to
+the light; and in a picture in the Dulwich gallery a rainbow is seen by
+the spectator at the side of the sun.
+
+These bold and frank licenses are not to be considered as detracting
+from the rank of the painter; they are usually characteristic of those
+minds whose grasp of nature is so certain and extensive as to enable
+them fearlessly to sacrifice a truth of actuality to a truth of feeling.
+Yet the young artist must keep in mind that the painter's greatness
+consists not in his taking, but in his atoning for them.
+
+
+Sec. 16. The lower Dutch schools.
+
+Among the professed landscapists of the Dutch school, we find much
+dexterous imitation of certain kinds of nature, remarkable usually for
+its persevering rejection of whatever is great, valuable, or affecting
+in the object studied. Where, however, they show real desire to paint
+what they saw as far as they saw it, there is of course much in them
+that is instructive, as in Cuyp and in the etchings of Waterloo, which
+have even very sweet and genuine feeling; and so in some of their
+architectural painters. But the object of the great body of them is
+merely to display manual dexterities of one kind or another, and their
+effect on the public mind is so totally for evil, that though I do not
+deny the advantage an artist of real judgment may derive from the study
+of some of them, I conceive the best patronage that any monarch could
+possibly bestow upon the arts, would be to collect the whole body of
+them into a grand gallery and burn it to the ground.
+
+
+Sec. 17. English school, Wilson and Gainsborough.
+
+Passing to the English school, we find a connecting link between them
+and the Italians formed by Richard Wilson. Had this artist studied under
+favorable circumstances, there is evidence of his having possessed power
+enough to produce an original picture; but, corrupted by study of the
+Poussins, and gathering his materials chiefly in their field, the
+district about Rome--a district especially unfavorable, as exhibiting no
+pure or healthy nature, but a diseased and overgrown Flora among
+half-developed volcanic rocks, loose calcareous concretions, and
+mouldering wrecks of buildings--and whose spirit, I conceive, to be
+especially opposed to the natural tone of the English mind, his
+originality was altogether overpowered, and, though he paints in a manly
+way and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of color, as in the small
+and very precious picture belonging to Mr. Rogers, and sometimes
+manifests some freshness of feeling, as in the Villa of Maecenas of our
+National Gallery, yet his pictures are in general mere diluted
+adaptations from Poussin and Salvator, without the dignity of the one or
+the fire of the other.
+
+Not so Gainsborough, a great name his whether of the English or any
+other school. The greatest colorist since Rubens, and the last, I think,
+of legitimate colorists; that is to say, of those who were fully
+acquainted with the power of their material; pure in his English
+feeling, profound in his seriousness, graceful in his gayety, there are
+nevertheless certain deductions to be made from his worthiness which yet
+I dread to make, because my knowledge of his landscape works is not
+extensive enough to justify me in speaking of them decisively; but this
+is to be noted of all that I know, that they are rather motives of
+feeling and color than earnest studies; that their execution is in some
+degree mannered, and always hasty; that they are altogether wanting in
+the affectionate detail of which I have already spoken; and that their
+color is in some measure dependent on a bituminous brown and
+conventional green which have more of science than of truth in them.
+These faults may be sufficiently noted in the magnificent picture
+presented by him to the Royal Academy, and tested by a comparison of it
+with the Turner (Llanberis,) in the same room. Nothing can be more
+attractively luminous or aerial than the distance of the Gainsborough,
+nothing more bold or inventive than the forms of its crags and the
+diffusion of the broad distant light upon them, where a vulgar artist
+would have thrown them into dark contrast. But it will be found that the
+light of the distance is brought out by a violent exaggeration of the
+gloom in the valley; that the forms of the green trees which bear the
+chief light are careless and ineffective; that the markings of the crags
+are equally hasty; and that no object in the foreground has realization
+enough to enable the eye to rest upon it. The Turner, a much feebler
+picture in its first impression, and altogether inferior in the quality
+and value of its individual hues, will yet be found to the end more
+forcible, because unexaggerated; its gloom is moderate and aerial, its
+light deep in tone, its color entirely unconventional, and the forms of
+its rocks studied with the most devoted care. With Gainsborough
+terminates the series of painters connected with the elder schools. By
+whom, among those yet living or lately lost, the impulse was first given
+to modern landscape, I attempt not to decide. Such questions are rather
+invidious than interesting; the particular tone or direction of any
+school seems to me always to have resulted rather from certain phases
+of national character, limited to particular periods, than from
+individual teaching; and, especially among moderns, what has been good
+in each master has been commonly original.
+
+
+Sec. 18. Constable, Calcott.
+
+I have already alluded to the simplicity and earnestness of the mind of
+Constable; to its vigorous rupture with school laws, and to its
+unfortunate error on the opposite side. Unteachableness seems to have
+been a main feature of his character, and there is corresponding want of
+veneration in the way he approaches nature herself. His early education
+and associations were also against him; they induced in him a morbid
+preference of subjects of a low order. I have never seen any work of his
+in which there were any signs of his being able to draw, and hence even
+the most necessary details are painted by him inefficiently. His works
+are also eminently wanting both in rest and refinement, and Fuseli's
+jesting compliment is too true; for the showery weather in which the
+artist delights, misses alike the majesty of storm and the loveliness of
+calm weather: it is great-coat weather, and nothing more. There is
+strange want of depth in the mind which has no pleasure in sunbeams but
+when piercing painfully through clouds, nor in foliage but when shaken
+by the wind, nor in light itself but when flickering, glistening,
+restless, and feeble. Yet, with all these deductions, his works are to
+be deeply respected as thoroughly original, thoroughly honest, free from
+affectation, manly in manner, frequently successful in cool color, and
+especially realizing certain motives of English scenery with perhaps as
+much affection as such scenery, unless when regarded through media of
+feeling derived from higher sources, is calculated to inspire.
+
+On the works of Calcott, high as his reputation stands, I should look
+with far less respect; I see not any preference or affection in the
+artist; there is no tendency in him with which we can sympathize, nor
+does there appear any sign of aspiration, effort, or enjoyment in any
+one of his works. He appears to have completed them methodically, to
+have been content with them when completed, to have thought them good,
+legitimate, regular pictures; perhaps in some respects better than
+nature. He painted everything tolerably, and nothing excellently; he
+has given us no gift, struck for us no light, and though he has
+produced one or two valuable works, of which the finest I know is the
+Marine in the possession of Sir J. Swinburne, they will, I believe, in
+future have no place among those considered representative of the
+English school.
+
+
+Sec. 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.
+
+Throughout the range of elder art it will be remembered we have found no
+instance of the faithful painting of mountain scenery, except in a faded
+background of Masaccio's: nothing more than rocky eminences, undulating
+hills, or fantastic crags, and even these treated altogether under
+typical forms. The more specific study of mountains seems to have
+coincided with the most dexterous practice of water-color; but it admits
+of doubt whether the choice of subject has been directed by the vehicle,
+or whether, as I rather think, the tendency of national feeling has been
+followed in the use of the most appropriate means. Something is to be
+attributed to the increased demand for slighter works of art, and much
+to the sense of the quality of objects now called picturesque, which
+appears to be exclusively of modern origin. From what feeling the
+character of middle-age architecture and costume arose, or with what
+kind of affection their forms were regarded by the inventors, I am
+utterly unable to guess; but of this I think we may be assured, that the
+natural instinct and child-like wisdom of those days were altogether
+different from the modern feeling, which appears to have taken its
+origin in the absence of such objects, and to be based rather on the
+strangeness of their occurrence than on any real affection for them; and
+which is certainly so shallow and ineffective as to be instantly and
+always sacrificed by the majority to fashion, comfort, or economy. Yet I
+trust that there is a healthy though feeble love of nature mingled with
+it, nature pure, separate, felicitous, which is also peculiar to the
+moderns; and as signs of this feeling, or ministers to it, I look with
+veneration upon many works which, in a technical point of view, are of
+minor importance.
+
+
+Sec. 20. G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style."
+
+I have been myself indebted for much teaching and more delight to those
+of the late G. Robson. Weaknesses there are in them manifold, much bad
+drawing, much forced color, much over finish, little of what artists
+call composition; but there is thorough affection for the thing drawn;
+they are serious and quiet in the highest degree, certain qualities of
+atmosphere and texture in them have never been excelled, and certain
+facts of mountain scenery never but by them expressed, as, for instance,
+the stillness and depth of the mountain tarns, with the reversed imagery
+of their darkness signed across by the soft lines of faintly touching
+winds; the solemn flush of the brown fern and glowing heath under
+evening light; the purple mass of mountains far removed, seen against
+clear still twilight. With equal gratitude I look to the drawings of
+David Cox, which, in spite of their loose and seemingly careless
+execution, are not less serious in their meaning, nor less important in
+their truth. I must, however, in reviewing those modern works in which
+certain modes of execution are particularly manifested, insist
+especially on this general principle, applicable to all times of art;
+that what is usually called the style or manner of an artist is, in all
+good art, nothing but the best means of getting at the particular truth
+which the artist wanted; it is not a mode peculiar to himself of getting
+at the same truths as other men, but the _only_ mode of getting the
+particular facts he desires, and which mode, if others had desired to
+express those facts, they also must have adopted. All habits of
+execution persisted in under no such necessity, but because the artist
+has invented them, or desires to show his dexterity in them, are utterly
+base; for every good painter finds so much difficulty in reaching the
+end he sees and desires, that he has no time nor power left for playing
+tricks on the road to it; he catches at the easiest and best means he
+can get; it is possible that such means may be singular, and then it
+will be said that his _style_ is strange; but it is not a style at all,
+it is the saying of a particular thing in the only way in which it
+possibly can be said. Thus the reed pen outline and peculiar touch of
+Prout, which are frequently considered as mere manner, are in fact the
+only means of expressing the crumbling character of stone which the
+artist loves and desires. That character never has been expressed except
+by him, nor will it ever be expressed except by his means. And it is of
+the greatest importance to distinguish this kind of necessary and
+virtuous manner from the conventional manners very frequent in
+derivative schools, and always utterly to be contemned, wherein an
+artist, desiring nothing and feeling nothing, executes everything in his
+own particular mode, and teaches emulous scholars how to do with
+difficulty what might have been done with ease. It is true that there
+are sometimes instances in which great masters have employed different
+means of getting at the same end, but in these cases their choice has
+been always of those which to them appeared the shortest and most
+complete; their practice has never been prescribed by affectation or
+continued from habit, except so far as must be expected from such
+weakness as is common to all men; from hands that necessarily do most
+readily what they are most accustomed to do, and minds always liable to
+prescribe to the hands that which they can do most readily.
+
+The recollection of this will keep us from being offended with the loose
+and blotted handling of David Cox. There is no other means by which his
+object could be attained. The looseness, coolness, and moisture of his
+herbage; the rustling crumpled freshness of his broad-leaved weeds; the
+play of pleasant light across his deep heathered moor or plashing sand;
+the melting of fragments of white mist into the dropping blue above; all
+this has not been fully recorded except by him, and what there is of
+accidental in his mode of reaching it, answers gracefully to the
+accidental part of nature herself. Yet he is capable of more than this,
+and if he suffers himself uniformly to paint beneath his capability,
+that which began in feeling must necessarily end in manner. He paints
+too many small pictures, and perhaps has of late permitted his peculiar
+execution to be more manifest than is necessary. Of this, he is himself
+the best judge. For almost all faults of this kind the public are
+answerable, not the painter. I have alluded to one of his grander
+works--such as I should wish always to see him paint--in the preface;
+another, I think still finer, a red sunset on distant hills, almost
+unequalled for truth and power of color, was painted by him several
+years ago, and remains, I believe, in his own possession.
+
+
+Sec. 21. Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color.
+
+The deserved popularity of Copley Fielding has rendered it less
+necessary for me to allude frequently to his works in the following
+pages than it would otherwise have been, more especially as my own
+sympathies and enjoyments are so entirely directed in the channel which
+his art has taken, that I am afraid of trusting them too far. Yet I
+may, perhaps, be permitted to speak of myself so far as I suppose my own
+feelings to be representative of those of a class; and I suppose that
+there are many who, like myself, at some period of their life have
+derived more intense and healthy pleasure from the works of this painter
+than of any other whatsoever; healthy, because always based on his
+faithful and simple rendering of nature, and that of very lovely and
+impressive nature, altogether freed from coarseness, violence, or
+vulgarity. Various references to that which he has attained will be
+found subsequently: what I am now about to say respecting what he has
+_not_ attained, is not in depreciation of what he has accomplished, but
+in regret at his suffering powers of a high order to remain in any
+measure dormant.
+
+He indulges himself too much in the use of crude color. Pure cobalt,
+violent rose, and purple, are of frequent occurrence in his distances;
+pure siennas and other browns in his foregrounds, and that not as
+expressive of lighted but of local color. The reader will find in the
+following chapters that I am no advocate for subdued coloring; but crude
+color is not bright color, and there was never a noble or brilliant work
+of color yet produced, whose real form did not depend on the subduing of
+its tints rather than the elevation of them.
+
+It is perhaps one of the most difficult lessons to learn in art, that
+the warm colors of distance, even the most glowing, are subdued by the
+air so as in no wise to resemble the same color seen on a foreground
+object; so that the rose of sunset on clouds or mountains has a gray in
+it which distinguishes it from the rose color of the leaf of a flower;
+and the mingling of this gray of distance, without in the slightest
+degree taking away the expression of the intense and perfect purity of
+the color in and by itself, is perhaps the last attainment of the great
+landscape colorist. In the same way the blue of distance, however
+intense, is not the blue of a bright blue flower, and it is not
+distinguished from it by different texture merely, but by a certain
+intermixture and under current of warm color, which is altogether
+wanting in many of the blues of Fielding's distances; and so of every
+bright distant color; while in foreground where colors may be, and ought
+to be, pure, yet that any of them are expressive of light is only to be
+felt where there is the accurate fitting of them to their relative
+shadows which we find in the works of Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret,
+Veronese, Turner, and all other great colorists in proportion as they
+are so. Of this fitting of light to shadow Fielding is altogether
+regardless, so that his foregrounds are constantly assuming the aspect
+of overcharged local color instead of sunshine, and his figures and
+cattle look transparent.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Beauty of mountain foreground.
+
+Again, the finishing of Fielding's foregrounds, as regards their
+drawing, is minute without accuracy, multitudinous without thought, and
+confused without mystery. Where execution is seen to be in measure
+accidental, as in Cox, it may be received as representative of what is
+accidental in nature; but there is no part of Fielding's foreground that
+is accidental; it is evidently worked and reworked, dotted, rubbed, and
+finished with great labor, and where the virtue, playfulness, and
+freedom of accident are thus removed, one of two virtues must be
+substituted for them. Either we must have the deeply studied and
+imaginative foreground, of which every part is necessary to every other,
+and whose every spark of light is essential to the well-being of the
+whole, of which the foregrounds of Turner in the Liber Studiorum are the
+most eminent examples I know, or else we must have in some measure the
+botanical faithfulness and realization of the early masters. Neither of
+these virtues is to be found in Fielding's. Its features, though grouped
+with feeling, are yet scattered and inessential. Any one of them might
+be altered in many ways without doing harm; there is no proportioned,
+necessary, unalterable relation among them; no evidence of invention or
+of careful thought, while on the other hand there is no botanical or
+geological accuracy, nor any point on which the eye may rest with
+thorough contentment in its realization.
+
+It seems strange that to an artist of so quick feeling the details of a
+mountain foreground should not prove irresistibly attractive, and entice
+him to greater accuracy of study. There is not a fragment of its living
+rock, nor a tuft of its heathery herbage, that has not adorable
+manifestations of God's working thereupon. The harmonies of color among
+the native lichens are better than Titian's; the interwoven bells of
+campanula and heather are better than all the arabesques of the Vatican;
+they need no improvement, arrangement, nor alteration, nothing but love,
+and every combination of them is different from every other, so that a
+painter need never repeat himself if he will only be true; yet all these
+sources of power have been of late entirely neglected by Fielding; there
+is evidence through all his foregrounds of their being mere home
+inventions, and like all home inventions they exhibit perpetual
+resemblances and repetitions; the painter is evidently embarrassed
+without his rutted road in the middle, and his boggy pool at the side,
+which pool he has of late painted in hard lines of violent blue: there
+is not a stone, even of the nearest and most important, which has its
+real lichens upon it, or a studied form or anything more to occupy the
+mind than certain variations of dark and light browns. The same faults
+must be found with his present painting of foliage, neither the stems
+nor leafage being ever studied from nature; and this is the more to be
+regretted, because in the earlier works of the artist there was much
+admirable drawing, and even yet his power is occasionally developed in
+his larger works, as in a Bolton Abbey on canvas, which was,--I cannot
+say, exhibited,--but was in the rooms of the Royal Academy in 1843.[9] I
+should have made the preceding remarks with more hesitation and
+diffidence, but that, from a comparison of works of this kind with the
+slighter ornaments of the water-color rooms, it seems evident that the
+painter is not unaware of the deficiencies of these latter, and concedes
+something of what he would himself desire to what he has found to be the
+feeling of a majority of his admirers. This is a dangerous modesty, and
+especially so in these days when the judgment of the many is palpably as
+artificial as their feeling is cold.
+
+
+Sec. 23. De Wint.
+
+There is much that is instructive and deserving of high praise in the
+sketches of De Wint. Yet it is to be remembered that even the pursuit of
+truth, however determined, will have results limited and imperfect when
+its chief motive is the pride of being true; and I fear that these
+works, sublime as many of them have unquestionably been, testify more
+accuracy of eye and experience of color than exercise of thought. Their
+truth of effect is often purchased at too great an expense by the loss
+of all beauty of form, and of the higher refinements of color;
+deficiencies, however, on which I shall not insist, since the value of
+the sketches, as far as they go, is great; they have done good service
+and set good example, and whatever their failings may be, there is
+evidence in them that the painter has always done what he believed to be
+right.
+
+
+Sec. 24. Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding.
+
+The influence of the masters of whom we have hitherto spoken is confined
+to those who have access to their actual works, since the particular
+qualities in which they excel, are in no wise to be rendered by the
+engraver. Those of whom we have next to speak are known to the public in
+a great measure by the help of the engraver; and while their influence
+is thus very far extended, their modes of working are perhaps, in some
+degree modified by the habitual reference to the future translation into
+light and shade; reference which is indeed beneficial in the care it
+induces respecting the arrangement of the chiaroscuro and the
+explanation of the forms, but which is harmful, so far as it involves a
+dependence rather on quantity of picturesque material than on
+substantial color or simple treatment, and as it admits of indolent
+diminution of size and slightness of execution.
+
+We should not be just to the present works of J. D. Harding unless we
+took this influence into account. Some years back none of our artists
+realized more laboriously, nor obtained more substantial color and
+texture; a large drawing in the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq., of
+Tottenham, is of great value as an example of his manner at the period;
+a manner not only careful, but earnest, and free from any kind of
+affectation. Partly from the habit of making slight and small drawings
+for engravers, and partly also, I imagine, from an overstrained seeking
+after appearances of dexterity in execution, his drawings have of late
+years become both less solid and less complete; not, however, without
+attaining certain brilliant qualities in exchange which are very
+valuable in the treatment of some of the looser portions of subject. Of
+the extended knowledge and various powers of this painter, frequent
+instances are noted in the following pages. Neither, perhaps, are
+rightly estimated among artists, owing to a certain coldness of
+sentiment in his choice of subject, and a continual preference of the
+picturesque to the impressive; proved perhaps in nothing so distinctly
+as in the little interest usually attached to his skies, which, if
+aerial and expressive of space and movement, content him, though
+destitute of story, power, or character: an exception must be made in
+favor of the very grand sunrise on the Swiss Alps, exhibited in 1844,
+wherein the artist's real power was in some measure displayed, though I
+am convinced he is still capable of doing far greater things. So in his
+foliage he is apt to sacrifice the dignity of his trees to their
+wildness, and lose the forest in the copse, neither is he at all
+accurate enough in his expression of species or realization of near
+portions. These are deficiencies, be it observed, of sentiment, not of
+perception, as there are few who equal him in rapidity of seizure of
+material truth.
+
+
+Sec. 25. Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient.
+
+Very extensive influence in modern art must be attributed to the works
+of Samuel Prout; and as there are some circumstances belonging to his
+treatment of architectural subject which it does not come within the
+sphere of the following chapters to examine, I shall endeavor to note
+the more important of them here.
+
+Let us glance back for a moment to the architectural drawing of earlier
+times. Before the time of the Bellinis at Venice, and of Ghirlandajo at
+Florence, I believe there are no examples of anything beyond
+conventional representation of architecture, often rich, quaint, and
+full of interest, as Memmi's abstract of the Duomo at Florence at S^ta.
+Maria Novella; but not to be classed with any genuine efforts at
+representation. It is much to be regretted that the power and custom of
+introducing well-drawn architecture should have taken place only when
+architectural taste had been itself corrupted, and that the architecture
+introduced by Bellini, Ghirlandajo, Francia, and the other patient and
+powerful workmen of the fifteenth century, is exclusively of the
+renaissance styles; while their drawing of it furnishes little that is
+of much interest to the architectural draughtsman as such, being always
+governed by a reference to its subordinate position, so that all
+forceful shadow and play of color are (most justly) surrendered for
+quiet and uniform hues of gray and chiaroscuro of extreme simplicity.
+Whatever they chose to do they did with consummate grandeur, (note
+especially the chiaroscuro of the square window of Ghirlandajo's which
+so much delighted Vasari in S^ta. Maria Novella; and the daring
+management of a piece of the perspective in the Salutation, opposite
+where he has painted a flight of stairs descending in front, though the
+picture is twelve feet above the eye); and yet this grandeur, in all
+these men, results rather from the general power obtained in their
+drawing of the figure than from any definite knowledge respecting the
+things introduced in these accessory parts; so that while in some points
+it is impossible for any painter to equal these accessories, unless he
+were in all respects as great as Ghirlandajo or Bellini, in others it is
+possible for him, with far inferior powers, to attain a representation
+both more accurate and more interesting.
+
+In order to arrive at the knowledge of these, we must briefly take note
+of a few of the modes in which architecture itself is agreeable to the
+mind, especially of the influence upon the character of the building
+which is to be attributed to the signs of age.
+
+
+Sec. 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.
+
+It is evident, first, that if the design of the building be originally
+bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be in signs of antiquity.
+All that in this world enlarges the sphere of affection or imagination
+is to be reverenced, and all those circumstances enlarge it which
+strengthen our memory or quicken our conception of the dead; hence it is
+no light sin to destroy anything that is old, more especially because,
+even with the aid of all obtainable records of the past, we, the living,
+occupy a space of too large importance and interest in our own eyes; we
+look upon the world too much as our own, too much as if we had possessed
+it and should possess it forever, and forget that it is a mere hostelry,
+of which we occupy the apartments for a time, which others better than
+we have sojourned in before, who are now where we should desire to be
+with them. Fortunately for mankind, as some counterbalance to that
+wretched love of novelty which originates in selfishness, shallowness,
+and conceit, and which especially characterizes all vulgar minds, there
+is set in the deeper places of the heart such affection for the signs of
+age that the eye is delighted even by injuries which are the work of
+time; not but that there is also real and absolute beauty in the forms
+and colors so obtained, for which the original lines of the
+architecture, unless they have been very grand indeed, are well
+exchanged, so that there is hardly any building so ugly but that it may
+be made an agreeable object by such appearances. It would not be easy,
+for instance, to find a less pleasing piece of architecture than the
+portion of the front of Queen's College, Oxford, which has just been
+restored; yet I believe that few persons could have looked with total
+indifference on the mouldering and peeled surface of the oolite
+limestone previous to its restoration. If, however, the character of the
+building consist in minute detail or multitudinous lines, the evil or
+good effect of age upon it must depend in great measure on the kind of
+art, the material, and the climate. The Parthenon, for instance, would
+be injured by any markings which interfered with the contours of its
+sculptures; and any lines of extreme purity, or colors of original
+harmony and perfection are liable to injury, and are ill exchanged for
+mouldering edges or brown weatherstains.
+
+But as all architecture is, or ought to be, meant to be durable, and to
+derive part of its glory from its antiquity, all art that is liable to
+mortal injury from effects of time is therein out of place, and this is
+another reason for the principle I have asserted in the second part,
+page 204. I do not at this instant recollect a single instance of any
+very fine building which is not improved up to a certain period by all
+its signs of age, after which period, like all other human works, it
+necessarily declines, its decline being in almost all ages and countries
+accelerated by neglect and abuse in its time of beauty, and alteration
+or restoration in its time of age.
+
+Thus I conceive that all buildings dependent on color, whether of mosaic
+or painting, have their effect improved by the richness of the
+subsequent tones of age; for there are few arrangements of color so
+perfect but that they are capable of improvement by some softening and
+blending of this kind: with mosaic, the improvement may be considered as
+proceeding almost so long as the design can be distinctly seen; with
+painting, so long as the colors do not change or chip off.
+
+Again, upon all forms of sculptural ornament, the effect of time is
+such, that if the design be poor, it will enrich it; if overcharged,
+simplify it; if harsh and violent, soften it; if smooth and obscure,
+exhibit it; whatever faults it may have are rapidly disguised, whatever
+virtue it has still shines and steals out in the mellow light; and this
+to such an extent, that the artist is always liable to be tempted to the
+drawing of details in old buildings as of extreme beauty, which look
+cold and hard in their architectural lines; and I have never yet seen
+any restoration or cleaned portion of a building whose effect was not
+inferior to the weathered parts, even to those of which the design had
+in some parts almost disappeared. On the front of the church of San
+Michele at Lucca, the mosaics have fallen out of half the columns, and
+lie in weedy ruin beneath; in many, the frost has torn large masses of
+the entire coating away, leaving a scarred unsightly surface. Two of the
+shafts of the upper star window are eaten entirely away by the sea wind,
+the rest have lost their proportions, the edges of the arches are hacked
+into deep hollows, and cast indented shadows on the weed-grown wall.
+The process has gone too far, and yet I doubt not but that this building
+is seen to greater advantage now than when first built, always with
+exception of one circumstance, that the French shattered the lower wheel
+window, and set up in front of it an escutcheon with "Libertas" upon it,
+which abomination of desolation, the Lucchese have not yet had
+human-heartedness enough to pull down.
+
+Putting therefore the application of architecture as an accessory out of
+the question, and supposing our object to be the exhibition of the most
+impressive qualities of the building itself, it is evidently the duty of
+the draughtsman to represent it under those conditions, and with that
+amount of age-mark upon it which may best exalt and harmonize the
+sources of its beauty: this is no pursuit of mere picturesqueness, it is
+true following out of the ideal character of the building; nay, far
+greater dilapidation than this may in portions be exhibited, for there
+are beauties of other kinds, not otherwise attainable, brought out by
+advanced dilapidation; but when the artist suffers the mere love of
+ruinousness to interfere with his perception of the _art_ of the
+building, and substitutes rude fractures and blotting stains for all its
+fine chiselling and determined color, he has lost the end of his own
+art.
+
+
+Sec. 27. Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail.
+
+So far of aging; next of effects of light and color. It is, I believe,
+hardly enough observed among architects that the same decorations are of
+totally different effect according to their position and the time of
+day. A moulding which is of value on a building facing south, where it
+takes deep shadows from steep sun, may be utterly ineffective if placed
+west or east; and a moulding which is chaste and intelligible in shade
+on a north side, may be grotesque, vulgar, or confused when it takes
+black shadows on the south. Farther, there is a time of day in which
+every architectural decoration is seen to best advantage, and certain
+times in which its peculiar force and character are best explained; of
+these niceties the architect takes little cognizance, as he must in some
+sort calculate on the effect of ornament at all times; but to the artist
+they are of infinite importance, and especially for this reason, that
+there is always much detail on buildings which cannot be drawn as such,
+which is too far off, or too minute, and which must consequently be set
+down in short-hand of some kind or another; and, as it were, an
+abstract, more or less philosophical, made of its general heads. Of the
+style of this abstract, of the lightness, confusion, and mystery
+necessary in it, I have spoken elsewhere; at present I insist only on
+the arrangement and matter of it. All good ornament and all good
+architecture are capable of being put into short-hand; that is, each has
+a perfect system of parts, principal and subordinate, of which, even
+when the complemental details vanish in distance, the system and anatomy
+yet remain visible so long as anything is visible; so that the divisions
+of a beautiful spire shall be known as beautiful even till their last
+line vanishes in blue mist, and the effect of a well-designed moulding
+shall be visibly disciplined, harmonious, and inventive, as long as it
+is seen to be a moulding at all. Now the power of the artist of marking
+this character depends not on his complete knowledge of the design, but
+on his experimental knowledge of its salient and bearing parts, and of
+the effects of light and shadow, by which their saliency is best told.
+He must therefore be prepared, according to his subject, to use light,
+steep or level, intense or feeble, and out of the resulting chiaroscuro
+select those peculiar and hinging points on which the rest are based,
+and by which all else that is essential may be explained.
+
+The thoughtful command of all these circumstances constitutes the real
+architectural draughtsman; the habits of executing everything either
+under one kind of effect or in one manner, or of using unintelligible
+and meaningless abstracts of beautiful designs, are those which must
+commonly take the place of it and are the most extensively esteemed.[10]
+
+
+Sec. 28. Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio;
+
+Let us now proceed with our review of those artists who have devoted
+themselves more peculiarly to architectural subject.
+
+Foremost among them stand Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio, to whom
+we are indebted for the only existing faithful statements of the
+architecture of Old Venice, and who are the only authorities to whom we
+can trust in conjecturing the former beauty of those few desecrated
+fragments, the last of which are now being rapidly swept away by the
+idiocy of modern Venetians.
+
+Nothing can be more careful, nothing more delicately finished, or more
+dignified in feeling than the works of both these men; and as
+architectural evidence they are the best we could have had, all the
+gilded parts being gilt in the picture, so that there can be no mistake
+or confusion of them with yellow color or light, and all the frescoes or
+mosaics given with the most absolute precision and fidelity. At the same
+time they are by no means examples of perfect architectural drawing;
+there is little light and shade in them of any kind, and none whatever
+of the thoughtful observance of temporary effect of which we have just
+been speaking; so that, in rendering the character of the relieved
+parts, their solidity, depth, or gloom, the representation fails
+altogether, and it is moreover lifeless from its very completion, both
+the signs of age and the effects of use and habitation being utterly
+rejected; rightly so, indeed, in these instances, (all the architecture
+of these painters being in background to religious subject,) but wrongly
+so, if we look to the architecture alone. Neither is there anything like
+aerial perspective attempted; the employment of actual gold in the
+decoration of all the distances, and the entire realization of their
+details, as far as is possible on the scale compelled by perspective,
+being alone sufficient to prevent this, except in the hands of painters
+far more practised in effect than either Gentile or Carpaccio. But with
+all these discrepancies, Gentile Bellini's church of St. Mark's is the
+best church of St. Mark's that has ever been painted, so far as I know;
+and I believe the reconciliation of true aerial perspective and
+chiaroscuro with the splendor and dignity obtained by the real gilding
+and elaborate detail, is a problem yet to be accomplished. With the help
+of the Daguerreotype, and the lessons of color given by the later
+Venetians, we ought now to be able to accomplish it, more especially as
+the right use of gold has been shown us by the greatest master of effect
+whom Venice herself produced, Tintoret, who has employed it with
+infinite grace on the steps ascended by the young Madonna, in his large
+picture in the church of the Madonna dell' Orto. Perugino uses it also
+with singular grace, often employing it for golden light on distant
+trees, and continually on the high light of hair, and that without
+losing relative distances.
+
+
+Sec. 29. And of the Venetians generally.
+
+The great group of Venetian painters who brought landscape art, for that
+time, to its culminating point, have left, as we have already seen,
+little that is instructive in architectural painting. The causes of this
+I cannot comprehend, for neither Titian nor Tintoret appears to despise
+anything that affords them either variety of form or of color, the
+latter especially condescending to very trivial details,--as in the
+magnificent carpet painting of the Doge Mocenigo; so that it might have
+been expected that in the rich colors of St. Mark's, and the magnificent
+and fantastic masses of the Byzantine palaces, they would have found
+where-upon to dwell with delighted elaboration. This is, however, never
+the case, and although frequently compelled to introduce portions of
+Venetian locality in their backgrounds, such portions are always treated
+in a most hasty and faithless manner, missing frequently all character
+of the building, and never advanced to realization. In Titian's picture
+of Faith, the view of Venice below is laid in so rapidly and slightly,
+the houses all leaning this way and that, and of no color, the sea a
+dead gray green, and the ship-sails mere dashes of the brush, that the
+most obscure of Turner's Venices would look substantial beside it; while
+in the very picture of Tintoret in which he has dwelt so elaborately on
+the carpet, he has substituted a piece of ordinary renaissance
+composition for St. Mark's, and in the background has chosen the
+Sansovino side of the Piazzetta, treating even that so carelessly as to
+lose all the proportion and beauty of its design, and so flimsily that
+the line of the distant sea which has been first laid in, is seen
+through all the columns. Evidences of magnificent power of course exist
+in whatever he touches, but his full power is never turned in this
+direction. More space is allowed to his architecture by Paul Veronese,
+but it is still entirely suggestive, and would be utterly false except
+as a frame or background for figures. The same may be said with respect
+to Raffaelle and the Roman school.
+
+
+Sec. 30. Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto.
+
+If, however, these men laid architecture little under contribution to
+their own art, they made their own art a glorious gift to architecture,
+and the walls of Venice, which before, I believe, had received color
+only in arabesque patterns, were lighted with human life by Giorgione,
+Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese. Of the works of Tintoret and Titian,
+nothing now, I believe, remains; two figures of Giorgione's are still
+traceable on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, one of which, singularly
+uninjured, is seen from far above and below the Rialto, flaming like the
+reflection of a sunset. Two figures of Veronese were also traceable till
+lately, the head and arms of one still remain, and some glorious
+olive-branches which were beside the other; the figure having been
+entirely effaced by an inscription in large black letters on a whitewash
+tablet which we owe to the somewhat inopportunely expressed enthusiasm
+of the inhabitants of the district in favor of their new pastor.[11]
+Judging, however, from the rate at which destruction is at present
+advancing, and seeing that, in about seven or eight years more, Venice
+will have utterly lost every external claim to interest, except that
+which attaches to the group of buildings immediately around St. Mark's
+place, and to the larger churches, it may be conjectured that the
+greater part of her present degradation has taken place, at any rate,
+within the last forty years. Let the reader with such scraps of evidence
+as may still be gleaned from under the stucco and paint of the Italian
+committees of taste, and from among the drawing-room innovations of
+English and German residents restore Venice in his imagination to
+some resemblance of what she must have been before her fall. Let him,
+looking from Lido or Fusina, replace in the forest of towers those of
+the hundred and sixty-six churches which the French threw down; let him
+sheet her walls with purple and scarlet, overlay her minarets with
+gold,[12] cleanse from their pollution those choked canals which are now
+the drains of hovels, where they were once vestibules of palaces, and
+fill them with gilded barges and bannered ships; finally, let him
+withdraw from this scene, already so brilliant, such sadness and stain
+as had been set upon it by the declining energies of more than half a
+century, and he will see Venice as it was seen by Canaletto; whose
+miserable, virtueless, heartless mechanism, accepted as the
+representation of such various glory, is, both in its existence and
+acceptance, among the most striking signs of the lost sensation and
+deadened intellect of the nation at that time; a numbness and darkness
+more without hope than that of the grave itself, holding and wearing yet
+the sceptre and the crown like the corpses of the Etruscan kings, ready
+to sink into ashes at the first unbarring of the door of the sepulchre.
+
+[Illustration: CASA CONTARINI FASAN, VENICE.
+                 From a drawing by Ruskin.]
+
+The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole
+range of art. Professing the most servile and mindless imitation, it
+imitates nothing but the blackness of the shadows; it gives no one
+single architectural ornament, however near, so much form as might
+enable us even to guess at its actual one; and this I say not rashly,
+for I shall prove it by placing portions of detail accurately copied
+from Canaletto side by side with engravings from the Daguerreotype; it
+gives the buildings neither their architectural beauty nor their
+ancestral dignity, for there is no texture of stone nor character of age
+in Canaletto's touch; which is invariably a violent, black, sharp, ruled
+penmanlike line, as far removed from the grace of nature as from her
+faintness and transparency; and for his truth of color, let the single
+fact of his having omitted _all record, whatsoever, of the frescoes_
+whose wrecks are still to be found at least on one half of the
+unrestored palaces, and, with still less excusableness, all record of
+the magnificent colored marbles of many whose greens and purples are
+still undimmed upon the Casa Dario, Casa Bianca Capello, and multitudes
+besides, speak for him in this respect.
+
+Let it be observed that I find no fault with Canaletto, for his want of
+poetry, of feeling, of artistical thoughtfulness in treatment, or of the
+various other virtues which he does not so much as profess. He professes
+nothing but colored Daguerreotypeism. Let us have it: most precious and
+to be revered it would be: let us have fresco where fresco was, and that
+copied faithfully; let us have carving where carving is, and that
+architecturally true. I have seen Daguerreotypes in which every figure
+and rosette, and crack and stain, and fissure are given on a scale of an
+inch to Canaletto's three feet. What excuse is there to be offered for
+his omitting, on that scale, as I shall hereafter show, all statement of
+such ornament whatever? Among the Flemish schools, exquisite imitations
+of architecture are found constantly, and that not with Canaletto's
+vulgar, black exaggeration of shadow, but in the most pure and silvery
+and luminous grays. I have little pleasure in such pictures; but I blame
+not those who have more; they are what they profess to be, and they are
+wonderful and instructive, and often graceful, and even affecting, but
+Canaletto possesses no virtue except that of dexterous imitation of
+commonplace light and shade, and perhaps, with the exception of
+Salvator, no artist has ever fettered his unfortunate admirers more
+securely from all healthy or vigorous perception of truth, or been of
+more general detriment to all subsequent schools.
+
+
+Sec. 31. Expression of the effects of age on architecture by S. Prout.
+
+Neither, however, by the Flemings, nor by any other of the elder
+schools, was the effect of age or of human life upon architecture ever
+adequately expressed. What ruins they drew looked as if broken down on
+purpose, what weeds they put on seemed put on for ornament. Their
+domestic buildings had never any domesticity, the people looked out of
+their windows evidently to be drawn, or came into the street only to
+stand there forever. A peculiar studiousness infected all accident;
+bricks fell out methodically, windows opened and shut by rule; stones
+were chipped at regular intervals; everything that happened seemed to
+have been expected before; and above all, the street had been washed and
+the houses dusted expressly to be painted in their best. We owe to
+Prout, I believe, the first perception, and certainly the only existing
+expression of precisely the characters which were wanting to old art, of
+that feeling which results from the influence among the noble lines of
+architecture, of the rent and the rust, the fissure, the lichen, and the
+weed, and from the writing upon the pages of ancient walls of the
+confused hieroglyphics of human history. I suppose, from the deserved
+popularity of the artist, that the strange pleasure which I find myself
+in the deciphering of these is common to many; the feeling has been
+rashly and thoughtlessly contemned as mere love of the picturesque;
+there is, as I have above shown, a deeper moral in it, and we owe much,
+I am not prepared to say how much, to the artist by whom pre-eminently
+it has been excited. For, numerous as have been his imitators, extended
+as his influence, and simple as his means and manner, there has yet
+appeared nothing at all to equal him; there is _no_ stone drawing, _no_
+vitality of architecture like Prout's. I say not this rashly, I have
+Mackenzie in my eye and many other capital imitators; and I have
+carefully reviewed the Architectural work of the Academicians, often
+most accurate and elaborate. I repeat, there is nothing but the work of
+Prout which is true, living, or right in its general impression, and
+nothing, therefore, so inexhaustibly agreeable. Faults he has, manifold,
+easily detected, and much declaimed against by second-rate artists; but
+his excellence no one has ever touched, and his lithographic work,
+(Sketches in Flanders and Germany,) which was, I believe, the first of
+the kind, still remains the most valuable of all, numerous and elaborate
+as its various successors have been. The second series (in Italy and
+Switzerland) was of less value, the drawings seemed more laborious, and
+had less of the life of the original sketches, being also for the most
+part of subjects less adapted for the development of the artist's
+peculiar powers; but both are fine, and the Brussels, Louvain, Cologne,
+and Nuremberg, subjects of the one, together with the Tours, Amboise,
+Geneva, and Sion of the other, exhibit substantial qualities of stone
+and wood drawing, together with an ideal appreciation of the present
+active vital being of the cities, such as nothing else has ever
+approached. Their value is much increased by the circumstance of their
+being drawn by the artist's own hand upon the stone, and by the
+consequent manly recklessness of subordinate parts, (in works of this
+kind, be it remembered, much _is_ subordinate,) which is of all
+characters of execution the most refreshing. Note the scrawled middle
+tint of the wall behind the Gothic well at Ratisbonne, and compare this
+manly piece of work with the wretched smoothness of recent lithography.
+Let it not be thought that there is any inconsistency between what I say
+here and what I have said respecting finish. This piece of dead wall is
+as much finished in relation to its _function_ as a wall of
+Ghirlandajo's or Leonardo's in relation to theirs, and the refreshing
+quality is the same in both, and manifest in _all_ great masters,
+without exception, that of the utter regardlessness of the means so that
+their end be reached. The same kind of scrawling occurs often in the
+shade of Raffaelle.
+
+
+Sec. 32. His excellent composition and color.
+
+It is not only, however, by his peculiar stone touch nor perception of
+human character that he is distinguished. He is the most dexterous of
+all our artists in a certain kind of composition. No one can place
+figures like him, except Turner. It is one thing to know where a piece
+of blue or white is wanted, and another to make the wearer of the blue
+apron or white cap come there, and not look as if it were against her
+will. Prout's streets are the only streets that are accidentally
+crowded, his markets are the only markets where one feels inclined to
+get out of the way. With others we feel the figures so right where they
+are, that we have no expectation of their going anywhere else, and
+approve of the position of the man with the wheelbarrow, without the
+slightest fear of his running against our legs. One other merit he has,
+far less generally acknowledged than it should be: he is among our most
+sunny and substantial colorists. Much conventional color occurs in his
+inferior pictures (for he is very unequal) and some in all; but portions
+are always to be found of quality so luminous and pure that I have found
+these works the only ones capable of bearing juxtaposition with Turner
+and Hunt, who invariably destroy everything else that comes within
+range of them. His most beautiful tones occur in those drawings in which
+there is prevalent and powerful warm gray, his most failing ones in
+those of sandy red. On his deficiencies I shall not insist, because I am
+not prepared to say how far it is possible for him to avoid them. We
+have never seen the reconciliation of the peculiar characters he has
+obtained with the accurate following out of architectural detail. With
+his present modes of execution, farther fidelity is impossible, nor has
+any other mode of execution yet obtained the same results; and though
+much is unaccomplished by him in certain subjects, and something of
+over-mannerism may be traced in his treatment of others, as especially
+in his mode of expressing the decorative parts of Greek or Roman
+architecture, yet in his own peculiar Gothic territory, where the spirit
+of the subject itself is somewhat rude and grotesque, his abstract of
+decoration has more of the spirit of the reality than far more laborious
+imitation. The spirit of the Flemish Hotel de Ville and decorated street
+architecture has never been even in the slightest degree felt or
+conveyed except by him, and by him, to my mind, faultlessly and
+absolutely; and though his interpretation of architecture that contains
+more refined art in its details is far less satisfactory, still it is
+impossible, while walking on his favorite angle of the Piazzetta at
+Venice, either to think of any other artist than Prout or _not_ to think
+of _him_.
+
+
+Sec. 33. Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole.
+
+Many other dexterous and agreeable architectural artists we have of
+various degrees of merit, but of all of whom, it may be generally said,
+that they draw hats, faces, cloaks, and caps much better than Prout, but
+figures not so well; that they draw walls and windows but not cities,
+mouldings and buttresses but not cathedrals. Joseph Nash's work on the
+architecture of the middle ages is, however, valuable, and I suppose
+that Haghe's works may be depended on for fidelity. But it appears very
+strange that a workman capable of producing the clever drawings he has,
+from time to time, sent to the New Society of Painters in Water Colors,
+should publish lithographs so conventional, forced, and lifeless.
+
+It is not without hesitation, that I mention a name respecting which
+the reader may already have been surprised at my silence, that of G.
+Cattermole. There are signs in his works of very peculiar gifts, and
+perhaps also of powerful genius; their deficiencies I should willingly
+attribute to the advice of ill-judging friends, and to the applause of a
+public satisfied with shallow efforts, if brilliant; yet I cannot but
+think it one necessary characteristic of all true genius to be misled by
+no such false fires. The Antiquarian feeling of Cattermole is pure,
+earnest, and natural; and I think his imagination originally vigorous,
+certainly his fancy, his grasp of momentary passion considerable, his
+sense of action in the human body vivid and ready. But no original
+talent, however brilliant, can sustain its energy when the demands upon
+it are constant, and all legitimate support and food withdrawn. I do not
+recollect in any, even of the most important of Cattermole's works, so
+much as a fold of drapery studied out from nature. Violent
+conventionalism of light and shade, sketchy forms continually less and
+less developed, the walls and the faces drawn with the same stucco
+color, alike opaque, and all the shades on flesh, dress, or stone, laid
+in with the same arbitrary brown, forever tell the same tale of a mind
+wasting its strength and substance in the production of emptiness, and
+seeking, by more and more blindly hazarded handling, to conceal the
+weakness which the attempt at finish would betray.
+
+This tendency of late, has been painfully visible in his architecture.
+Some drawings made several years ago for an annual illustrative of
+Scott's works were for the most part pure and finely felt--(though
+irrelevant to our present subject, a fall of the Clyde should be
+noticed, admirable for breadth and grace of foliage, and for the bold
+sweeping of the water, and another subject of which I regret that I can
+only judge by the engraving; Glendearg at twilight--the monk Eustace
+chased by Christie of the Clint hill--which I think must have been one
+of the sweetest pieces of simple Border hill feeling ever painted)--and
+about that time his architecture, though always conventionally brown in
+the shadows, was generally well drawn, and always powerfully conceived.
+
+Since then, he has been tending gradually through exaggeration to
+caricature, and vainly endeavoring to attain by inordinate bulk of
+decorated parts, that dignity which is only to be reached by purity of
+proportion and majesty of line.
+
+
+Sec. 34. The evil in an archaeological point of view of misapplied invention
+        in architectural subject.
+
+It has pained me deeply, to see an artist of so great original power
+indulging in childish fantasticism and exaggeration, and substituting
+for the serious and subdued work of legitimate imagination, monstre
+machicolations and colossal cusps and crockets. While there is so much
+beautiful architecture daily in process of destruction around us, I
+cannot but think it treason to _imagine_ anything; at least, if we must
+have composition, let the design of the artist be such as the architect
+would applaud. But it is surely very grievous, that while our idle
+artists are helping their vain inventions by the fall of sponges on
+soiled paper, glorious buildings with the whole intellect and history of
+centuries concentrated in them, are suffered to fall into unrecorded
+ruin. A day does not now pass in Italy without the destruction of some
+mighty monument; the streets of all her cities echo to the hammer, half
+of her fair buildings lie in separate stones about the places of their
+foundation; would not time be better spent in telling us the truth about
+these perishing remnants of majestic thought, than in perpetuating the
+ill-digested fancies of idle hours? It is, I repeat, treason to the
+cause of art for any man to invent, unless he invents something better
+than has been invented before, or something differing in kind. There is
+room enough for invention in the pictorial treatment of what exists.
+There is no more honorable exhibition of imaginative power, than in the
+selection of such place, choice of such treatment, introduction of such
+incident, as may produce a noble picture without deviation from one line
+of the actual truth; and such I believe to be, indeed, in the end the
+most advantageous, as well as the most modest direction of the
+invention, for I recollect no single instance of architectural
+composition by any men except such as Leonardo or Veronese, who could
+design their architecture thoroughly before they painted it, which has
+not a look of inanity and absurdity. The best landscapes and the best
+architectural studies have been views; and I would have the artist take
+shame to himself in the exact degree in which he finds himself obliged
+in the production of his picture to lose any, even of the smallest parts
+or most trivial hues which bear a part in the great impression made by
+the reality. The difference between the drawing of the architect and
+artist[13] ought never to be, as it now commonly is, the difference
+between lifeless formality and witless license; it ought to be between
+giving the mere lines and measures of a building, and giving those lines
+and measures with the impression and soul of it besides. All artists
+should be ashamed of themselves when they find they have not the power
+of being true; the right wit of drawing is like the right wit of
+conversation, not hyperbole, not violence, not frivolity, only well
+expressed, laconic truth.
+
+
+Sec. 35. Works of David Roberts: their fidelity and grace.
+
+Among the members of the Academy, we have at present only one
+professedly architectural draughtsman of note, David Roberts, whose
+reputation is probably farther extended on the continent than that of
+any other of our artists, except Landseer. I am not certain, however,
+that I have any reason to congratulate either of my countrymen upon this
+their European estimation; for I think it exceedingly probable that in
+both instances it is exclusively based on their defects; and in the case
+of Mr. Roberts, in particular, there has of late appeared more ground
+for it than is altogether desirable in a smoothness and over-finish of
+texture which bears dangerous fellowship with the work of our Gallic
+neighbors.
+
+The fidelity of intention and honesty of system of Roberts have,
+however, always been meritorious; his drawing of architecture is
+dependent on no unintelligible lines, or blots, or substituted types:
+the main lines of the real design are always there, and its hollowness
+and undercuttings given with exquisite feeling; his sense of solidity of
+form is very peculiar, leading him to dwell with great delight on the
+roundings of edges and angles; his execution is dexterous and delicate,
+singularly so in oil, and his sense of chiaroscuro refined. But he has
+never done himself justice, and suffers his pictures to fall below the
+rank they should assume, by the presence of several marring characters,
+which I shall name, because it is perfectly in his power to avoid them.
+In looking over the valuable series of drawing of the Holy Land, which
+we owe to Mr. Roberts, we cannot but be amazed to find how frequently
+it has happened that there was something very white immediately in the
+foreground, and something very black exactly behind it. The same thing
+happens perpetually with Mr. Roberts's pictures; a white column is
+always coming out of a blue mist, or a white stone out of a green pool,
+or a white monument out of a brown recess, and the artifice is not
+always concealed with dexterity. This is unworthy of so skilful a
+composer, and it has destroyed the impressiveness as well as the color
+of some of his finest works. It shows a poverty of conception, which
+appears to me to arise from a deficient habit of study. It will be
+remembered that of the sketches for this work, several times exhibited
+in London, every one was executed in the same manner, and with about the
+same degree of completion: being all of them accurate records of the
+main architectural lines, the shapes of the shadows, and the remnants of
+artificial color, obtained, by means of the same grays, throughout, and
+of the same yellow (a singularly false and cold though convenient color)
+touched upon the lights. As far as they went, nothing could be more
+valuable than these sketches, and the public, glancing rapidly at their
+general and graceful effects, could hardly form anything like an
+estimate of the endurance and determination which must have been
+necessary in such a climate to obtain records so patient, entire, and
+clear, of details so multitudinous as (especially) the hieroglyphics of
+the Egyptian temples; an endurance which perhaps only artists can
+estimate, and for which we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Roberts most
+difficult to discharge. But if these sketches were all that the artist
+brought home, whatever value is to be attached to them as statements of
+fact, they are altogether insufficient for the producing of pictures. I
+saw among them no single instance of a downright study; of a study in
+which the real hues and shades of sky and earth had been honestly
+realized or attempted; nor were there, on the other hand, any of those
+invaluable-blotted-five-minutes works which record the unity of some
+single and magnificent impressions. Hence the pictures which have been
+painted from these sketches have been as much alike in their want of
+impressiveness as the sketches themselves, and have never borne the
+living aspect of the Egyptian light; it has always been impossible to
+say whether the red in them (not a pleasant one) was meant for hot
+sunshine or for red sandstone--their power has been farther destroyed by
+the necessity the artist seems to feel himself under of eking out their
+effect by points of bright foreground color, and thus we have been
+encumbered with caftans, pipes, scymetars, and black hair, when all that
+we wanted was a lizard, or an ibis. It is perhaps owing to this want of
+earnestness in study rather than to deficiency of perception, that the
+coloring of this artist is commonly untrue. Some time ago when he was
+painting Spanish subjects, his habit was to bring out his whites in
+relief from transparent bituminous browns, which though not exactly
+right in color, were at any rate warm and agreeable; but of late his
+color has become cold, waxy, and opaque, and in his deep shades he
+sometimes permits himself the use of a violent black which is altogether
+unjustifiable. A picture of Roslin Chapel exhibited in 1844, showed this
+defect in the recess to which the stairs descend, in an extravagant
+degree; and another exhibited in the British Institution, instead of
+showing the exquisite crumbling and lichenous texture of the Roslin
+stone, was polished to as vapid smoothness as every French historical
+picture. The general feebleness of the effect is increased by the
+insertion of the figures as violent pieces of local color unaffected by
+the light and unblended with the hues around them, and bearing evidence
+of having been painted from models or draperies in the dead light of a
+room instead of sunshine. On these deficiencies I should not have
+remarked, but that by honest and determined painting from and of nature,
+it is perfectly in the power of the artist to supply them; and it is
+bitterly to be regretted that the accuracy and elegance of his work
+should not be aided by that genuineness of hue and effect which can only
+be given by the uncompromising effort to paint not a fine picture but an
+impressive and known _verity_.
+
+The two artists whose works it remains for us to review, are men who
+have presented us with examples of the treatment of every kind of
+subject, and among the rest with portions of architecture which the best
+of our exclusively architectural draughtsmen could not excel.
+
+
+Sec. 36. Clarkson Stanfield.
+
+The frequent references made to the works of Clarkson Stanfield
+throughout the subsequent pages render it less necessary for me to
+speak of him here at any length. He is the leader of the English
+Realists, and perhaps among the more remarkable of his characteristics
+is the look of common-sense and rationality which his compositions will
+always bear when opposed to any kind of affectation. He appears to think
+of no other artist. What he has learned, has been from his own
+acquaintance with and affection for the steep hills and the deep sea;
+and his modes of treatment are alike removed from sketchiness or
+incompletion, and from exaggeration or effort. The somewhat over-prosaic
+tone of his subjects is rather a condescension to what he supposes to be
+public feeling, than a sign of want of feeling in himself; for in some
+of his sketches from nature or from fancy, I have seen powers and
+perceptions manifested of a far higher order than any that are traceable
+in his Academy works, powers which I think him much to be blamed for
+checking. The portion of his pictures usually most defective in this
+respect is the sky, which is apt to be cold and uninventive, always well
+drawn, but with a kind of hesitation in the clouds whether it is to be
+fair or foul weather; they having neither the joyfulness of rest, nor
+the majesty of storm. Their color is apt also to verge on a morbid
+purple, as was eminently the case in the large picture of the wreck on
+the coast of Holland exhibited in 1844, a work in which both his powers
+and faults were prominently manifested, the picture being full of good
+painting, but wanting in its entire appeal. There was no feeling of
+wreck about it; and, but for the damage about her bowsprit, it would
+have been impossible for a landsman to say whether the hull was meant
+for a wreck or a guardship. Nevertheless, it is always to be
+recollected, that in subjects of this kind it is probable that much
+escapes us in consequence of our want of knowledge, and that to the eye
+of the seaman much may be of interest and value which to us appears
+cold. At all events, this healthy and rational regard of things is
+incomparably preferable to the dramatic absurdities which weaker artists
+commit in matters marine; and from copper-colored sunsets on green waves
+sixty feet high, with cauliflower breakers, and ninepin rocks; from
+drowning on planks, and starving on rafts, and lying naked on beaches,
+it is really refreshing to turn to a surge of Stanfield's true salt,
+serviceable, unsentimental sea. It would be well, however, if he would
+sometimes take a higher flight. The castle of Ischia gave him a grand
+subject, and a little more invention in the sky, a little less muddiness
+in the rocks, and a little more savageness in the sea, would have made
+it an impressive picture; it just misses the sublime, yet is a fine
+work, and better engraved than usual by the Art Union.
+
+One fault we cannot but venture to find, even in our own extreme
+ignorance, with Mr. Stanfield's boats; they never look weather-beaten.
+There is something peculiarly precious in the rusty, dusty,
+tar-trickled, fishy, phosphorescent brown of an old boat, and when this
+has just dipped under a wave and rises to the sunshine it is enough to
+drive Giorgione to despair. I have never seen any effort at this by
+Stanfield; his boats always look new painted and clean; witness
+especially the one before the ship in the wreck picture above noticed;
+and there is some such absence of a right sense of color in other
+portions of his subject; even his fishermen have always clean jackets
+and unsoiled caps, and his very rocks are lichenless. And, by the way,
+this ought to be noted respecting modern painters in general, that they
+have not a proper sense of the value of dirt; cottage children never
+appear but in fresh got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed beggars
+excite compassion in unexceptionable rags. In reality, almost all the
+colors of things associated with human life derive something of their
+expression and value from the tones of impurity, and so enhance the
+value of the entirely pure tints of nature herself. Of Stanfield's rock
+and mountain drawing enough will be said hereafter. His foliage is
+inferior; his architecture admirably drawn, but commonly wanting in
+color. His picture of the Doge's palace at Venice was quite clay-cold
+and untrue. Of late he has shown a marvellous predilection for the
+realization, even to actually relieved texture, of old worm-eaten wood;
+we trust he will not allow such fancies to carry him too far.
+
+
+Sec. 37. J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great painters.
+
+The name I have last to mention is that of J. M. W. Turner. I do not
+intend to speak of this artist at present in general terms, because my
+constant practice throughout this work is to say, when I speak of an
+artist at all, the very truth of what I believe and feel respecting him;
+and the truth of what I believe and feel respecting Turner would appear
+in this place, unsupported by any proof, mere rhapsody. I shall
+therefore here confine myself to a rapid glance at the relations of his
+past and present works, and to some notice of what he has failed of
+accomplishing: the greater part of the subsequent chapters will be
+exclusively devoted to the examination of the new fields over which he
+has extended the range of landscape art.
+
+It is a fact more universally acknowledged than enforced or acted upon,
+that all great painters, of whatever school, have been great only in
+their rendering of what they had seen and felt from early childhood; and
+that the greatest among them have been the most frank in acknowledging
+this their inability to treat anything successfully but that with which
+they had been familiar. The Madonna of Raffaelle was born on the Urbino
+mountains, Ghirlandajo's is a Florentine, Bellini's a Venetian; there is
+not the slightest effort on the part of any one of these great men to
+paint her as a Jewess. It is not the place here to insist farther on a
+point so simple and so universally demonstrable. Expression, character,
+types of countenance, costume, color, and accessories are with all great
+painters whatsoever those of their native land, and that frankly and
+entirely, without the slightest attempt at modification; and I assert
+fearlessly that it is impossible that it should ever be otherwise, and
+that no man ever painted or ever will paint well anything but what he
+has early and long seen, early and long felt, and early and long loved.
+How far it is possible for the mind of one nation or generation to be
+healthily modified and taught by the work of another, I presume not to
+determine; but it depends upon whether the energy of the mind which
+receives the instruction be sufficient, while it takes out of what it
+feeds upon that which is universal and common to all nature, to resist
+all warping from national or temporary peculiarities. Nino Pisano got
+nothing but good, the modern French nothing but evil, from the study of
+the antique; but Nino Pisano had a God and a character. All artists who
+have attempted to assume, or in their weakness have been affected by,
+the national peculiarities of other times and countries, have instantly,
+whatever their original power, fallen to third-rate rank, or fallen
+altogether, and have invariably lost their birthright and blessing,
+lost their power over the human heart, lost all capability of teaching
+or benefiting others. Compare the hybrid classification of Wilson with
+the rich English purity of Gainsborough; compare the recent exhibition
+of middle-age cartoons for the Houses of Parliament with the works of
+Hogarth; compare the sickly modern German imitations of the great
+Italians with Albert Durer and Holbein; compare the vile classicality of
+Canova and the modern Italians with Mino da Fiesole, Luca della Robbia,
+and Andrea del Verrocchio. The manner of Nicolo Poussin is said to be
+Greek--it may be so; this only I know, that it is heartless and
+profitless. The severity of the rule, however, extends not in full force
+to the nationality, but only to the visibility of things; for it is very
+possible for an artist of powerful mind to throw himself well into the
+feeling of foreign nations of his own time. Thus John Lewis has been
+eminently successful in his seizing of Spanish character. Yet it may be
+doubted if the seizure be such as Spaniards themselves would
+acknowledge; it is probably of the habits of the people more than their
+hearts; continued efforts of this kind, especially if their subjects be
+varied, assuredly end in failure; Lewis, who seemed so eminently
+penetrative in Spain, sent nothing from Italy but complexions and
+costumes, and I expect no good from his stay in Egypt. English artists
+are usually entirely ruined by residence in Italy, but for this there
+are collateral causes which it is not here the place to examine. Be this
+as it may, and whatever success may be attained in pictures of slight
+and unpretending aim, of genre, as they are called, in the rendering of
+foreign character, of this I am certain, that whatever is to be truly
+great and affecting must have on it the strong stamp of the native land;
+not a law this, but a necessity, from the intense hold on their country
+of the affections of all truly great men; all classicality, all
+middle-age patent reviving, is utterly vain and absurd; if we are now to
+do anything great, good, awful, religious, it must be got out of our own
+little island, and out of this year 1846, railroads and all: if a
+British painter, I say this in earnest seriousness, cannot make
+historical characters out of the British House of Peers, he cannot paint
+history; and if he cannot make a Madonna of a British girl of the
+nineteenth century, he cannot paint one at all.
+
+
+Sec. 38. Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject.
+
+The rule, of course, holds in landscape; yet so far less
+authoritatively, that the material nature of all countries and times is
+in many points actually, and in all, in principle, the same; so that
+feelings educated in Cumberland, may find their food in Switzerland, and
+impressions first received among the rocks of Cornwall, be recalled upon
+the precipices of Genoa. Add to this actual sameness, the power of every
+great mind to possess itself of the spirit of things once presented to
+it, and it is evident, that little limitation can be set to the
+landscape painter as to the choice of his field; and that the law of
+nationality will hold with him only so far as a certain joyfulness and
+completion will be by preference found in those parts of his subject
+which remind him of his own land. But if he attempt to impress on his
+landscapes any other spirit than that he has felt, and to make them
+landscapes of other times, it is all over with him, at least, in the
+degree in which such reflected moonshine takes place of the genuine
+light of the present day.
+
+The reader will at once perceive how much trouble this simple principle
+will save both the painter and the critic; it at once sets aside the
+whole school of common composition, and exonerates us from the labor of
+minutely examining any landscape which has nymphs or philosophers in it.
+
+It is hardly necessary for us to illustrate this principle by any
+reference to the works of early landscape painters, as I suppose it is
+universally acknowledged with respect to them; Titian being the most
+remarkable instance of the influence of the native air on a strong mind,
+and Claude, of that of the classical poison on a weak one; but it is
+very necessary to keep it in mind in reviewing the works of our great
+modern landscape painter.
+
+
+Sec. 39. Its peculiar manifestation in Turner.
+
+I do not know in what district of England Turner first or longest
+studied, but the scenery whose influence I can trace most definitely
+throughout his works, varied as they are, is that of Yorkshire. Of all
+his drawings, I think, those of the Yorkshire series have the most heart
+in them, the most affectionate, simple, unwearied, serious finishing of
+truth. There is in them little seeking after effect, but a strong love
+of place, little exhibition of the artist's own powers or peculiarities,
+but intense appreciation of the smallest local minutiae. These drawings
+have unfortunately changed hands frequently, and have been abused and
+ill treated by picture dealers and cleaners; the greater number of them,
+are now mere wrecks. I name them not as instances, but as proofs of the
+artist's study in this district; for the affection to which they owe
+their excellence, must have been grounded long years before. It is to be
+traced, not only in these drawings of the places themselves, but in the
+peculiar love of the painter for rounded forms of hills; not but that he
+is right in this on general principles, for I doubt not, that, with his
+peculiar feeling for beauty of line, his hills would have been rounded
+still, even if he had studied first among the peaks of Cadore; but
+rounded to the same extent and with the same delight in their roundness,
+they would not have been. It is, I believe, to those broad wooded steeps
+and swells of the Yorkshire downs that we in part owe the singular
+massiveness that prevails in Turner's mountain drawing, and gives it one
+of its chief elements of grandeur. Let the reader open the Liber
+Studiorum, and compare the painter's enjoyment of the lines in the Ben
+Arthur, with his comparative uncomfortableness among those of the
+aiguilles about the Mer de Glace. Great as he is, those peaks would have
+been touched very differently by a Savoyard as great as he.
+
+I am in the habit of looking to the Yorkshire drawings, as indicating
+one of the culminating points in Turner's career. In these he attained
+the highest degree of what he had up to that time attempted, namely,
+finish and quantity of form united with expression of atmosphere, and
+light without color. His early drawings are singularly instructive in
+this definiteness and simplicity of aim. No complicated or brilliant
+color is ever thought of in them; they are little more than exquisite
+studies in light and shade, very green blues being used for the shadows,
+and golden browns for the lights. The difficulty and treachery of color
+being thus avoided, the artist was able to bend his whole mind upon the
+drawing, and thus to attain such decision, delicacy, and completeness as
+have never in any wise been equalled, and as might serve him for a
+secure foundation in all after experiments. Of the quantity and
+precision of his details, the drawings made for Hakewill's Italy, are
+singular examples. The most perfect gem in execution is a little bit on
+the Rhine, with reeds in the foreground, in the possession of B. G.
+Windus, Esq., of Tottenham; but the Yorkshire drawings seem to be on the
+whole the most noble representatives of his art at this period.
+
+About the time of their production, the artist seems to have felt that
+he had done either all that could be done, or all that was necessary, in
+that manner, and began to reach after something beyond it. The element
+of color begins to mingle with his work, and in the first efforts to
+reconcile his intense feeling for it with his careful form, several
+anomalies begin to be visible, and some unfortunate or uninteresting
+works necessarily belong to the period. The England drawings, which are
+very characteristic of it, are exceedingly unequal,--some, as the
+Oakhampton, Kilgarren, Alnwick, and Llanthony, being among his finest
+works; others, as the Windsor from Eton, the Eton College, and the
+Bedford, showing coarseness and conventionality.
+
+
+Sec. 40. The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.
+
+I do not know at what time the painter first went abroad, but among the
+earliest of the series of the Liber Studiorum (dates 1808, 1809,) occur
+the magnificent Mont St. Gothard, and little Devil's Bridge. Now it is
+remarkable that after his acquaintance with this scenery, so congenial
+in almost all respects with the energy of his mind, and supplying him
+with materials of which in these two subjects, and in the Chartreuse,
+and several others afterwards, he showed both his entire appreciation
+and command, the proportion of English to foreign subjects should in the
+rest of the work be more than two to one; and that those English
+subjects should be--many of them--of a kind peculiarly simple, and of
+every-day occurrence, such as the Pembury Mill, the Farm Yard
+Composition with the White Horse, that with the Cocks and Pigs, Hedging
+and Ditching, Watercress Gatherers (scene at Twickenham,) and the
+beautiful and solemn rustic subject called a Watermill; and that the
+architectural subjects instead of being taken, as might have been
+expected of an artist so fond of treating effects of extended space,
+from some of the enormous continental masses are almost exclusively
+British; Rivaulx, Holy Island, Dumblain, Dunstanborough, Chepstow, St.
+Catherine's, Greenwich Hospital, an English Parish Church, a Saxon Ruin,
+and an exquisite Reminiscence of the English Lowland Castle in the
+pastoral, with the brook, wooden bridge, and wild duck, to all of which
+we have nothing foreign to oppose but three slight, ill-considered, and
+unsatisfactory subjects, from Basle, Lauffenbourg, and another Swiss
+village; and, further, not only is the preponderance of subject British,
+but of affection also; for it is strange with what fulness and
+completion the home subjects are treated in comparison with the greater
+part of the foreign ones. Compare the figures and sheep in the Hedging
+and Ditching, and the East Gate Winchelsea, together with the near
+leafage, with the puzzled foreground and inappropriate figures of the
+Lake of Thun; or the cattle and road of the St. Catherine's Hill, with
+the foreground of the Bonneville; or the exquisite figure with the sheaf
+of corn, in the Watermill, with the vintages of the Grenoble subject.
+
+In his foliage the same predilections are remarkable. Reminiscences of
+English willows by the brooks, and English forest glades mingle even
+with the heroic foliage of the Aesacus and Hesperie, and the Cephalus;
+into the pine, whether of Switzerland or the glorious Stone, he cannot
+enter, or enters at his peril, like Ariel. Those of the Valley of
+Chamounix are fine masses, better pines than other people's, but not a
+bit like pines for all that; he feels his weakness, and tears them off
+the distant mountains with the mercilessness of an avalanche. The Stone
+pines of the two Italian compositions are fine in their arrangement, but
+they are very pitiful pines; the glory of the Alpine rose he never
+touches; he munches chestnuts with no relish; never has learned to like
+olives; and, by the vine, we find him in the foreground of the Grenoble
+Alps laid utterly and incontrovertibly on his back.
+
+I adduce these evidences of Turner's nationality (and innumerable others
+might be given if need were) not as proofs of weakness but of power; not
+so much as testifying want of perception in foreign lands, as strong
+hold on his own will; for I am sure that no artist who has not this hold
+upon his own will ever get good out of any other. Keeping this principle
+in mind, it is instructive to observe the depth and solemnity which
+Turner's feeling received from the scenery of the continent, the keen
+appreciation up to a certain point of all that is locally
+characteristic, and the ready seizure for future use of all valuable
+material.
+
+
+Sec. 41. Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter
+        deficient.
+
+Of all foreign countries he has most entirely entered into the spirit of
+France; partly because here he found more fellowship of scene with his
+own England, partly because an amount of thought which will miss of
+Italy or Switzerland, will fathom France; partly because there is in the
+French foliage and forms of ground, much that is especially congenial
+with his own peculiar choice of form. To what cause it is owing I cannot
+tell, nor is it generally allowed or felt; but of the fact I am certain,
+that for grace of stem and perfection of form in their transparent
+foliage, the French trees are altogether unmatched; and their modes of
+grouping and massing are so perfectly and constantly beautiful that I
+think of all countries for educating an artist to the perception of
+grace, France bears the bell; and that not romantic nor mountainous
+France, not the Vosges, nor Auvergne, nor Provence, but lowland France,
+Picardy and Normandy, the valleys of the Loire and Seine, and even the
+district, so thoughtlessly and mindlessly abused by English travellers,
+as uninteresting, traversed between Calais and Dijon; of which there is
+not a single valley but is full of the most lovely pictures, nor a mile
+from which the artist may not receive instruction; the district
+immediately about Sens being perhaps the most valuable from the grandeur
+of its lines of poplars and the unimaginable finish and beauty of the
+tree forms in the two great avenues without the walls. Of this kind of
+beauty Turner was the first to take cognizance, and he still remains the
+only, but in himself the sufficient painter of French landscape. One of
+the most beautiful examples is the drawing of trees engraved for the
+Keepsake, now in the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq.; the drawings made
+to illustrate the scenery of the Rivers of France supply instances of
+the most varied character.
+
+The artist appears, until very lately, rather to have taken from
+Switzerland thoughts and general conceptions of size and of grand form
+and effect to be used in his after compositions, than to have attempted
+the seizing of its actual character. This was beforehand to be expected
+from the utter physical impossibility of rendering certain effects of
+Swiss scenery, and the monotony and unmanageableness of others. The
+Valley of Chamounix in the collection of Walter Fawkes, Esq., I have
+never seen; it has a high reputation; the Hannibal passing the Alps in
+its present state exhibits nothing but a heavy shower and a crowd of
+people getting wet; another picture in the artist's gallery of a
+land-fall is most masterly and interesting, but more daring than
+agreeable. The Snowstorm, avalanche, and inundation, is one of his
+mightiest works, but the amount of mountain drawing in it is less than
+of cloud and effect; the subjects in the Liber Studiorum are on the
+whole the most intensely felt, and next to them the vignettes to
+Rogers's Poems and Italy. Of some recent drawings of Swiss subject I
+shall speak presently.
+
+
+Sec. 42. His rendering of Italian character still less successful. His
+        large compositions how failing.
+
+The effect of Italy upon his mind is very puzzling. On the one hand, it
+gave him the solemnity and power which are manifested in the historical
+compositions of the Liber Studiorum, more especially the Rizpah, the
+Cephalus, the scene from the Fairy Queen, and the Aesacus and Hesperie:
+on the other, he seems never to have entered thoroughly into the spirit
+of Italy, and the materials he obtained there were afterwards but
+awkwardly introduced in his large compositions.
+
+Of these there are very few at all worthy of him; none but the Liber
+Studiorum subjects are thoroughly great, and these are great because
+there is in them the seriousness without the materials of other
+countries and times. There is nothing particularly indicative of
+Palestine in the Barley Harvest of the Rizpah, nor in those round and
+awful trees; only the solemnity of the south in the lifting of the near
+burning moon. The rocks of the Jason may be seen in any quarry of
+Warwickshire sandstone. Jason himself has not a bit of Greek about
+him--he is a simple warrior of no period in particular, nay, I think
+there is something of the nineteenth century about his legs. When local
+character of this classical kind is attempted, the painter is visibly
+cramped: awkward resemblances to Claude testify the want of his usual
+forceful originality: in the tenth Plague of Egypt, he makes us think of
+Belzoni rather than of Moses; the fifth is a total failure, the pyramids
+look like brick-kilns, and the fire running along the ground bears
+brotherly resemblance to the burning of manure. The realization of the
+tenth plague now in his gallery is finer than the study, but still
+uninteresting; and of the large compositions which have much of Italy in
+them, the greater part are overwhelmed with quantity and deficient in
+emotion. The Crossing the Brook is one of the best of these hybrid
+pictures; incomparable in its tree drawing, it yet leaves us doubtful
+where we are to look and what we are to feel; it is northern in its
+color, southern in its foliage, Italy in its details, and England in its
+sensations, without the grandeur of the one, or the healthiness of the
+other.
+
+The two Carthages are mere rationalizations of Claude, one of them
+excessively bad in color, the other a grand thought, and yet one of the
+kind which does no one any good, because everything in it is
+reciprocally sacrificed; the foliage is sacrificed to the architecture,
+the architecture to the water, the water is neither sea, nor river, nor
+lake, nor brook, nor canal, and savors of Regent's Park; the foreground
+is uncomfortable ground,--let on building leases. So the Caligula's
+Bridge, Temple of Jupiter, Departure of Regulus, Ancient Italy, Cicero's
+Villa, and such others, come they from whose hand they may, I class
+under the general head of "nonsense pictures." There never can be any
+wholesome feeling developed in these preposterous accumulations, and
+where the artist's feeling fails, his art follows; so that the worst
+possible examples of Turner's color are found in pictures of this class;
+in one or two instances he has broken through the conventional rules,
+and then is always fine, as in the Hero and Leander; but in general the
+picture rises in value as it approaches to a view, as the Fountain of
+Fallacy, a piece of rich northern Italy, with some fairy waterworks;
+this picture was unrivalled in color once, but is now a mere wreck. So
+the Rape of Proserpine, though it is singular that in his Academy
+pictures even his simplicity fails of reaching ideality; in this picture
+of Proserpine the nature is not the grand nature of all time, it is
+indubitably modern,[14] and we are perfectly electrified at anybody's
+being carried away in the corner except by people with spiky hats and
+carabines. This is traceable to several causes; partly to the want of
+any grand specific form, partly to the too evident middle-age character
+of the ruins crowning the hills, and to a multiplicity of minor causes
+which we cannot at present enter into.
+
+
+Sec. 43. His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant quantity.
+
+Neither in his actual views of Italy has Turner ever caught her true
+spirit, except in the little vignettes to Rogers's Poems. The Villa of
+Galileo, the nameless composition with stone pines, the several villa
+moonlights, and the convent compositions in the Voyage of Columbus, are
+altogether exquisite; but this is owing chiefly to their simplicity and
+perhaps in some measure to their smallness of size. None of his large
+pictures at all equal them; the Bay of Baiae is encumbered with
+material, it contains ten times as much as is necessary to a good
+picture, and yet is so crude in color as to look unfinished. The
+Palestrina is fall of raw white, and has a look of Hampton Court about
+its long avenue; the modern Italy is purely English in its near foliage;
+it is composed from Tivoli material enriched and arranged most
+dexterously, but it has the look of a rich arrangement, and not the
+virtue of the real thing. The early Tivoli, a large drawing taken from
+below the falls, was as little true, and still less fortunate, the trees
+there being altogether affected and artificial. The Florence engraved in
+the Keepsake is a glorious drawing, as far as regards the passage with
+the bridge and sunlight on the Arno, the Cascine foliage, and distant
+plain, and the towers of the fortress on the left; but the details of
+the duomo and the city are entirely missed, and with them the majesty of
+the whole scene. The vines and melons of the foreground are disorderly,
+and its cypresses conventional; in fact, I recollect no instance of
+Turner's drawing a cypress except in general terms.
+
+The chief reason of these failures I imagine to be the effort of the
+artist to put joyousness and brilliancy of effect upon scenes eminently
+pensive, to substitute radiance for serenity of light, and to force the
+freedom and breadth of line which he learned to love on English downs
+and Highland moors, out of a country dotted by campaniles and square
+convents, bristled with cypresses, partitioned by walls, and gone up and
+down by steps.
+
+In one of the cities of Italy he had no such difficulties to encounter.
+At Venice he found freedom of space, brilliancy of light, variety of
+color, massy simplicity of general form; and to Venice we owe many of
+the motives in which his highest powers of color have been displayed
+after that change in his system of which we must now take note.
+
+
+Sec. 44. Changes introduced by him in the received system of art.
+
+Among the earlier paintings of Turner, the culminating period, marked by
+the Yorkshire series in his drawings, is distinguished by great
+solemnity and simplicity of subject, prevalent gloom in light and shade,
+and brown in the hue, the drawing manly but careful, the minutiae
+sometimes exquisitely delicate. All the finest works of this period are,
+I believe, without exception, views, or quiet single thoughts. The
+Calder Bridge, belonging to E. Bicknell, Esq., is a most pure and
+beautiful example. The Ivy Bridge I imagine to be later, but its rock
+foreground is altogether unrivalled and remarkable for its delicacy of
+detail; a butterfly is seen settled on one of the large brown stones in
+the midst of the torrent. Two paintings of Bonneville, in Savoy, one in
+the possession of Abel Allnutt, Esq., the other, and, I think, the
+finest, in a collection at Birmingham, show more variety of color than
+is usual with him at the period, and are in every respect magnificent
+examples. Pictures of this class are of peculiar value, for the larger
+compositions of the same period are all poor in color, and most of them
+much damaged, but the smaller works have been far finer originally, and
+their color seems secure. There is nothing in the range of landscape art
+equal to them in their way, but the full character and capacity of the
+painter is not in them. Grand as they are in their sobriety, they still
+leave much to be desired; there is great heaviness in their shadows, the
+material is never thoroughly vanquished, (though this partly for a very
+noble reason, that the painter is always thinking of and referring to
+nature, and indulges in no artistical conventionalities,) and sometimes
+the handling appears feeble. In warmth, lightness, and transparency they
+have no chance against Gainsborough; in clear skies and air tone they
+are alike unfortunate when they provoke comparison with Claude; and in
+force and solemnity they can in no wise stand with the landscape of the
+Venetians.
+
+The painter evidently felt that he had farther powers, and pressed
+forward into the field where alone they could be brought into play. It
+was impossible for him, with all his keen and long-disciplined
+perceptions, not to feel that the real color of nature had never been
+attempted by any school; and that though conventional representations
+had been given by the Venetians of sunlight and twilight, by invariably
+rendering the whites golden and the blues green, yet of the actual,
+joyous, pure, roseate hues of the external world no record had ever been
+given. He saw also that the finish and specific grandeur of nature had
+been given, but her fulness, space, and mystery never; and he saw that
+the great landscape painters had always sunk the lower middle tints of
+nature in extreme shade, bringing the entire melody of color as many
+degrees down as their possible light was inferior to nature's; and that
+in so doing a gloomy principle had influenced them even in their choice
+of subject.
+
+For the conventional color he substituted a pure straightforward
+rendering of fact, as far as was in his power; and that not of such fact
+as had been before even suggested, but of all that is _most_ brilliant,
+beautiful, and inimitable; he went to the cataract for its iris, to the
+conflagration for its flames, asked of the sea its intensest azure, of
+the sky its clearest gold. For the limited space and defined forms of
+elder landscape, he substituted the quantity and the mystery of the
+vastest scenes of earth; and for the subdued chiaroscuro he substituted
+first a balanced diminution of oppositions throughout the scale, and
+afterwards, in one or two instances, attempted the reverse of the old
+principle, taking the lowest portion of the scale truly, and merging the
+upper part in high light.
+
+
+Sec. 45. Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies.
+
+Innovations so daring and so various could not be introduced without
+corresponding peril: the difficulties that lay in his way were more than
+any human intellect could altogether surmount. In his time there has
+been no one system of color generally approved; every artist has his own
+method and his own vehicle; how to do what Gainsborough did, we know
+not; much less what Titian; to invent a new system of color can hardly
+be expected of those who cannot recover the old. To obtain perfectly
+satisfactory results in color under the new conditions introduced by
+Turner, would at least have required the exertion of all his energies in
+that sole direction. But color has always been only his second object.
+The effects of space and form, in which he delights, often require the
+employment of means and method totally at variance with those necessary
+for the obtaining of pure color. It is physically impossible, for
+instance, rightly to draw certain forms of the upper clouds with the
+brush; nothing will do it but the pallet knife with loaded white after
+the blue ground is prepared. Now it is impossible that a cloud so drawn,
+however glazed afterwards, should have the virtue of a thin warm tint of
+Titian's, showing the canvas throughout. So it happens continually. Add
+to these difficulties, those of the peculiar subjects attempted, and to
+these again, all that belong to the altered system of chiaroscuro, and
+it is evident that we must not be surprised at finding many deficiencies
+or faults in such works, especially in the earlier of them, nor even
+suffer ourselves to be withdrawn by the pursuit of what seems censurable
+from our devotion to what is mighty.
+
+Notwithstanding, in some chosen examples of pictures of this kind, I
+will name three: Juliet and her Nurse; the Old Temeraire, and the Slave
+Ship: I do not admit that there are at the time of their first appearing
+on the walls of the Royal Academy, any demonstrably avoidable faults. I
+do not deny that there may be, nay, that it is likely there are; but
+there is no living artist in Europe whose judgment might safely be taken
+on the subject, or who could without arrogance affirm of any part of
+such a picture, that it was _wrong_; I am perfectly willing to allow,
+that the lemon yellow is not properly representative of the yellow of
+the sky, that the loading of the color is in many places disagreeable,
+that many of the details are drawn with a kind of imperfection different
+from what they would have in nature, and that many of the parts fail of
+imitation, especially to an uneducated eye. But no living authority is
+of weight enough to prove that the virtues of the picture could have
+been obtained at a less sacrifice, or that they are not worth the
+sacrifice; and though it is perfectly possible that such may be the
+case, and that what Turner has done may hereafter in some respects be
+done better, I believe myself that these works are at the time of their
+first appearing as perfect as those of Phidias or Leonardo; that is to
+say, incapable in their way, of any improvement conceivable by human
+mind.
+
+Also, it is only by comparison with such that we are authorized to
+affirm definite faults in any of his others, for we should have been
+bound to speak, at least for the present, with the same modesty
+respecting even his worst pictures of this class, had not his more noble
+efforts given us canons of criticism.
+
+But, as was beforehand to be expected from the difficulties he grappled
+with, Turner is exceedingly unequal; he appears always as a champion in
+the thick of fight, sometimes with his foot on his enemies' necks,
+sometimes staggered or struck to his knee; once or twice altogether
+down. He has failed most frequently, as before noticed, in elaborate
+compositions, from redundant quantity; sometimes, like most other men,
+from over-care, as very signally in a large and most labored drawing of
+Bamborough; sometimes, unaccountably, his eye for color seeming to fail
+him for a time, as in a large painting of Rome from the Forum, and in
+the Cicero's Villa, Building of Carthage, and the picture of this year
+in the British Institution; and sometimes I am sorry to say, criminally,
+from taking licenses which he must know to be illegitimate, or indulging
+in conventionalities which he does not require.
+
+[Illustration: THE DOGANA, AND SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE.
+                 From a painting by Turner.]
+
+
+Sec. 46. Reflection of his very recent works.
+
+On such instances I shall not insist, for the finding fault with Turner
+is not, I think, either decorous in myself or like to be beneficial to
+the reader.[15] The greater number of failures took place in the
+transition period, when the artist was feeling for the new qualities,
+and endeavoring to reconcile them with more careful elaboration of form
+than was properly consistent with them. Gradually his hand became more
+free, his perception and grasp of the new truths more certain, and his
+choice of subject more adapted to the exhibition of them. But his powers
+did not attain their highest results till towards the year 1840, about
+which period they did so suddenly, and with a vigor and concentration
+which rendered his pictures at that time almost incomparable with those
+which had preceded them. The drawings of Nemi, and Oberwesel, in the
+possession of B. G. Windus, Esq., were among the first evidences of this
+sudden advance; only the foliage in both of these is inferior; and it is
+remarkable that in this phase of his art, Turner has drawn little
+foliage, and that little badly--the great characteristic of it being
+its power, beauty, and majesty of color, and its abandonment of all
+littleness and division of thought to a single impression. In the year
+1842, he made some drawings from recent sketches in Switzerland; these,
+with some produced in the following years, all of Swiss subject, I
+consider to be, on the whole, the most characteristic and perfect works
+he has ever produced. The Academy pictures were far inferior to them;
+but among these examples of the same power were not wanting, more
+especially in the smaller pictures of Venice. The Sun of Venice, going
+to sea; the San Benedetto, looking towards Fusina; and a view of Murano,
+with the Cemetery, were all faultless: another of Venice, seen from near
+Fusina, with sunlight and moonlight mixed (1844) was, I think, when I
+first saw it, (and it still remains little injured,) the most perfectly
+_beautiful_ piece of color of all that I have seen produced by human
+hands, by any means, or at any period. Of the exhibition of 1845, I have
+only seen a small Venice, (still I believe in the artist's possession,)
+and the two whaling subjects. The Venice is a second-rate work, and the
+two others altogether unworthy of him.
+
+In conclusion of our present sketch of the course of landscape art, it
+may be generally stated that Turner is the only painter, so far as I
+know, who has ever drawn the sky, (not the clear sky, which we before
+saw belonged exclusively to the religious schools, but the various forms
+and phenomena of the cloudy heavens,) all previous artists having only
+represented it typically or partially; but he absolutely and
+universally: he is the only painter who has ever drawn a mountain, or a
+stone; no other man ever having learned their organization, or possessed
+himself of their spirit, except in part and obscurely, (the one or two
+stones noted of Tintoret's, (Vol. II., Part III. Ch. 3,) are perhaps
+hardly enough on which to found an exception in his favor.) He is the
+only painter who ever drew the stem of a tree, Titian having come the
+nearest before him, and excelling him in the muscular development of the
+larger trunks, (though sometimes losing the woody strength in a
+serpent-like flaccidity,) but missing the grace and character of the
+ramifications. He is the only painter who has ever represented the
+surface of calm, or the force of agitated water; who has represented the
+effects of space on distant objects, or who has rendered the abstract
+beauty of natural color. These assertions I make deliberately, after
+careful weighing and consideration, in no spirit of dispute, or
+momentary zeal; but from strong and convinced feeling, and with the
+consciousness of being able to prove them.
+
+
+Sec. 47. Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects.
+
+This proof is only partially and incidentally attempted in the present
+portion of this work, which was originally written, as before explained,
+for a temporary purpose, and which, therefore, I should have gladly
+cancelled, but that, relating as it does only to simple matters of fact
+and not to those of feeling, it may still, perhaps, be of service to
+some readers who would be unwilling to enter into the more speculative
+fields with which the succeeding sections are concerned. I leave,
+therefore, nearly as it was originally written, the following
+examination of the relative truthfulness of elder and of recent art;
+always requesting the reader to remember, as some excuse for the
+inadequate execution, even of what I have here attempted, how difficult
+it is to express or explain, by language only, those delicate qualities
+of the object of sense, on the seizing of which all refined truth of
+representation depends. Try, for instance, to explain in language the
+exact qualities of the lines on which depend the whole truth and beauty
+of expression about the half-opened lips of Raffaelle's St. Catherine.
+There is, indeed, nothing in landscape so ineffable as this; but there
+is no part nor portion of God's works in which the delicacy appreciable
+by a cultivated eye, and necessary to be rendered in art, is not beyond
+all expression and explanation; I cannot tell it you, if you do not see
+it. And thus I have been entirely unable, in the following pages, to
+demonstrate clearly anything of really deep and perfect truth; nothing
+but what is coarse and commonplace, in matters to be judged of by the
+senses, is within the reach of argument. How much or how little I have
+done must be judged of by the reader: how much it is impossible to do I
+have more fully shown in the concluding section.
+
+I shall first take into consideration those general truths, common to
+all the objects of nature, which are productive of what is usually
+called "effect," that is to say, truths of tone, general color, space,
+and light. I shall then investigate the truths of specific form and
+color, in the four great component parts of landscape--sky, earth,
+water, and vegetation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [6] Not the large Paradise, but the Fall of Adam, a small picture
+    chiefly in brown and gray, near Titian's Assumption. Its companion,
+    the Death of Abel, is remarkable as containing a group of trees
+    which Turner, I believe accidentally, has repeated nearly mass for
+    mass in the "Marly." Both are among the most noble works of this or
+    any other master, whether for preciousness of color or energy of
+    thought.
+
+  [7] The triple leaf of this plant, and white flower, stained purple,
+    probably gave it strange typical interest among the Christian
+    painters. Angelico, in using its leaves mixed with daisies in the
+    foreground of his Crucifixion had, I imagine, a view also to its
+    chemical property.
+
+  [8] This is no rash method of judgment, sweeping and hasty as it may
+    appear. From the weaknesses of an artist, or failures, however
+    numerous, we have no right to conjecture his total inability; a time
+    may come when he may rise into sudden strength, or an instance occur
+    when his efforts shall be successful. But there are some pictures
+    which rank not under the head of failures, but of perpetrations or
+    commissions; some things which a man cannot do nor say without
+    sealing forever his character and capacity. The angel holding the
+    cross with his finger in his eye, the roaring red-faced children
+    about the crown of thorns, the blasphemous (I speak deliberately and
+    determinedly) head of Christ upon the handkerchief, and the mode in
+    which the martyrdom of the saint is exhibited (I do not choose to
+    use the expressions which alone could characterize it) are perfect,
+    sufficient, incontrovertible proofs that whatever appears good in
+    any of the doings of such a painter must be deceptive, and that we
+    may be assured that our taste is corrupted and false whenever we
+    feel disposed to admire him. I am prepared to support this position,
+    however uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted into a gross
+    sin by passion, and forgiven; and yet there are some kinds of sins
+    into which only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which
+    cannot be forgiven. It should be added, however, that the artistical
+    qualities of these pictures are in every way worthy of the
+    conceptions they realize; I do not recollect any instances of color
+    or execution so coarse and feelingless.
+
+  [9] It appears not to be sufficiently understood by those artists
+    who complain acrimoniously of their positions on the Academy walls,
+    that the Academicians have in their own rooms a right to the line
+    and the best places near it; in their taking this position there is
+    no abuse nor injustice; but the Academicians should remember that
+    with their rights they have their duties, and their duty is to
+    determine among the works of artists not belonging to their body
+    those which are most likely to advance public knowledge and
+    judgment, and to give these the best places next their own; neither
+    would it detract from their dignity if they occasionally ceded a
+    square even of their own territory, as they did gracefully and
+    rightly, and, I am sorry to add, disinterestedly, to the picture of
+    Paul de la Roche in 1844. Now the Academicians know perfectly well
+    that the mass of portrait which encumbers their walls at half height
+    is worse than useless, seriously harmful to the public taste, and it
+    was highly criminal (I use the word advisedly) that the valuable and
+    interesting work of Fielding, of which I have above spoken, should
+    have been placed where it was, above three rows of eye-glasses and
+    waistcoats. A very beautiful work of Harding's was treated either in
+    the same or the following exhibition with still greater injustice.
+    Fielding's was merely put out of sight; Harding's where its faults
+    were conspicuous and its virtues lost. It was an Alpine scene, of
+    which the foreground, rocks, and torrents were painted with
+    unrivalled fidelity and precision; the foliage was dexterous, the
+    aerial gradations of the mountains tender and multitudinous, their
+    forms carefully studied and very grand. The blemish of the picture
+    was a buff-colored tower with a red roof; singularly meagre in
+    detail, and conventionally relieved from a mass of gloom. The
+    picture was placed where nothing but this tower could be seen.
+
+  [10] I have not given any examples in this place, because it is
+    difficult to explain such circumstances of effect without diagrams:
+    I purpose entering into fuller discussion of the subject with the
+    aid of illustration.
+
+  [11] The inscription is to the following effect,--a pleasant thing
+    to see upon the walls, were it but more innocently placed:--
+
+                        CAMPO. DI. S. MAURIZIO
+                                ______
+
+                                D I O
+                            CONSERVI A NOI.
+                              LUNGAMENTE
+                       LO ZELANTIS. E. REVERENDIS
+                           D. LUIGI. PICCINI.
+                                 NOSTRO
+                     N O V E L L O  P I E V A N O.
+                                ______
+
+                       G L I  E S U L T A N T.
+                             PARROCCHIANI
+
+  [12] The quantity of gold with which the decorations of Venice were
+    once covered could not now be traced or credited without reference
+    to the authority of Gentile Bellini. The greater part of the marble
+    mouldings have been touched with it in lines and points, the
+    minarets of St. Mark's, and all the florid carving of the arches
+    entirely sheeted. The Casa d'Oro retained it on its lions until the
+    recent commencement of its Restoration.
+
+  [13] Indeed there should be no such difference at all. Every
+    architect ought to be an artist; every very great artist is
+    necessarily an architect.
+
+  [14] This passage seems at variance with what has been said of the
+    necessity of painting present times and objects. It is not so. A
+    great painter makes out of that which he finds before him something
+    which is independent of _all_ time. He can only do this out of the
+    materials ready to his hand, but that which he builds has the
+    dignity of dateless age. A little painter is annihilated by an
+    anachronism, and is conventionally antique, and involuntarily
+    modern.
+
+  [15] One point, however, it is incumbent upon me to notice, being no
+    question of art but of material. The reader will have observed that
+    I strictly limited the perfection of Turner's works to the time of
+    their first appearing on the walls of the Royal Academy. It bitterly
+    grieves me to have to do this, but the fact is indeed so. No
+    _picture_ of Turner's is seen in perfection a month after it is
+    painted. The Walhalla cracked before it had been eight days in the
+    Academy rooms; the vermilions frequently lose lustre long before the
+    exhibition is over; and when all the colors begin to get hard a year
+    or two after the picture is painted, a painful deadness and opacity
+    comes over them, the whites especially becoming lifeless, and many
+    of the warmer passages settling into a hard valueless brown, even if
+    the paint remains perfectly firm, which is far from being always the
+    case. I believe that in some measure these results are unavoidable,
+    the colors being so peculiarly blended and mingled in Turner's
+    present manner as almost to necessitate their irregular drying; but
+    that they are not necessary to the extent in which they sometimes
+    take place, is proved by the comparative safety of some even of the
+    more brilliant works. Thus the Old Temeraire is nearly safe in
+    color, and quite firm; while the Juliet and her Nurse is now the
+    ghost of what it was; the Slaver shows no cracks, though it is
+    chilled in some of the darker passages, while the Walhalla and
+    several of the recent Venices cracked in the Royal Academy. It is
+    true that the damage makes no further progress after the first year
+    or two, and that even in its altered state the picture is always
+    valuable and records its intention; but it is bitterly to be
+    regretted that so great a painter should not leave a single work by
+    which in succeeding ages he might be estimated. The fact of his
+    using means so imperfect, together with that of his utter neglect of
+    the pictures in his own gallery, are a phenomenon in human mind
+    which appears to me utterly inexplicable; and both are without
+    excuse. If the effects he desires cannot be to their full extent
+    produced except by these treacherous means, one picture only should
+    be painted each year as an exhibition of immediate power, and the
+    rest should be carried out, whatever the expense of labor and time
+    in safe materials, even at the risk of some deterioration of
+    immediate effect. That which is greatest in him is entirely
+    independent of means; much of what he now accomplishes
+    illegitimately might without doubt be attained in securer
+    modes--what cannot should without hesitation be abandoned.
+    Fortunately the drawings appear subject to no such deterioration.
+    Many of them are now almost destroyed, but this has been I think
+    always through ill treatment, or has been the case only with very
+    early works. I have myself known no instance of a drawing properly
+    protected, and not rashly exposed to light suffering the slightest
+    change. The great foes of Turner, as of all other great colorists
+    especially, are the picture cleaner and the mounter.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION II.
+
+                             OF GENERAL TRUTHS.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF TONE.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Meaning of the word "tone:" First, the right relation of objects in
+       shadow to the principal light.
+
+As I have already allowed, that in effects of tone, the old masters have
+never yet been equalled; and as this is the first, and nearly the last,
+concession I shall have to make to them, I wish it at once to be
+thoroughly understood how far it extends.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Secondly, the quality of color by which it is felt to owe part of
+       its brightness to the hue of light upon it.
+
+I understand two things by the word "tone:"--first, the exact relief and
+relation of objects against and to each other in substance and darkness,
+as they are nearer or more distant, and the perfect relation of the
+shades of all of them to the chief light of the picture, whether that be
+sky, water, or anything else. Secondly, the exact relation of the colors
+to the shadows to the colors of the lights, so that they may be at once
+felt to be merely different degrees of the same light; and the accurate
+relation among the illuminated parts themselves, with respect to the
+degree in which they are influenced by the color of the light itself,
+whether warm or cold; so that the whole of the picture (or, where
+several tones are united, those parts of it which are under each,) may
+be felt to be in one climate, under one kind of light, and in one kind
+of atmosphere; this being chiefly dependent on that peculiar and
+inexplicable quality of each color laid on, which makes the eye feel
+both what is the actual color of the object represented, and that it is
+raised to its apparent pitch by illumination. A very bright brown, for
+instance, out of sunshine, may be precisely of the same shade of color
+as a very dead or cold brown in sunshine, but it will be totally
+different in _quality_; and that quality by which the illuminated dead
+color would be felt in nature different from the unilluminated bright
+one, is what artists are perpetually aiming at, and connoisseurs talking
+nonsense about, under the name of "tone." The want of tone in pictures
+is caused by objects looking bright in their own positive hue, and not
+by illumination, and by the consequent want of sensation of the raising
+of their hues by light.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Difference between tone in its first sense and aerial perspective.
+
+The first of these meanings of the word "tone" is liable to be
+confounded with what is commonly called "aerial perspective." But aerial
+perspective is the expression of space, by any means whatsoever,
+sharpness of edge, vividness of color, etc., assisted by greater pitch
+of shadow, and requires only that objects should be detached from each
+other, by degrees of intensity in _proportion_ to their distance,
+without requiring that the difference between the farthest and nearest
+should be in positive quantity the same that nature has put. But what I
+have called "tone" requires that there should be the same sum of
+difference, as well as the same division of differences.
+
+
+Sec. 4. The pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle tints
+       to light.
+
+Now the finely toned pictures of the old masters are, in this respect,
+some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves below her key;
+the dark objects in the middle distance having precisely the same
+relation to the light of the sky which they have in nature, but the
+light being necessarily infinitely lowered, and the mass of the shadow
+deepened in the same degree. I have often been struck, when looking at a
+camera-obscuro on a dark day, with the exact resemblance the image bore
+to one of the finest pictures of the old masters; all the foliage coming
+dark against the sky, and nothing being seen in its mass but here and
+there the isolated light of a silvery stem or an unusually illumined
+cluster of leafage.
+
+
+Sec. 5. And consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to
+       darkness.
+
+Now if this could be done consistently, and all the notes of nature
+given in this way an octave or two down, it would be right and necessary
+so to do: but be it observed, not only does nature surpass us in power
+of obtaining light as much as the sun surpasses white paper, but she
+also infinitely surpasses us in her power of shade. Her deepest shades
+are void spaces from which no light whatever is reflected to the eye;
+ours are black surfaces from which, paint as black as we may, a great
+deal of light is still reflected, and which, placed against one of
+nature's deep bits of gloom, would tell as distinct light. Here we are
+then, with white paper for our highest light, and visible illumined
+surface for our deepest shadow, set to run the gauntlet against nature,
+with the sun for her light, and vacuity for her gloom. It is evident
+that _she_ can well afford to throw her material objects dark against
+the brilliant aerial tone of her sky, and yet give in those objects
+themselves a thousand intermediate distances and tones before she comes
+to black, or to anything like it--all the illumined surfaces of her
+objects being as distinctly and vividly brighter than her nearest and
+darkest shadows, as the sky is brighter than those illumined surfaces.
+But if we, against our poor, dull obscurity of yellow paint, instead of
+sky, insist on having the same relation of shade in material objects, we
+go down to the bottom of our scale at once; and what in the world are we
+to do then? Where are all our intermediate distances to come from?--how
+are we to express the aerial relations among the parts themselves, for
+instance, of foliage, whose most distant boughs are already almost
+black?--how are we to come up from this to the foreground, and when we
+have done so, how are we to express the distinction between its solid
+parts, already as dark as we can make them, and its vacant hollows,
+which nature has marked sharp and clear and black, among its lighted
+surfaces? It cannot but be evident at a glance, that if to any one of
+the steps from one distance to another, we give the same quantity of
+difference in pitch of shade which nature does, we must pay for this
+expenditure of our means by totally missing half a dozen distances, not
+a whit less important or marked, and so sacrifice a multitude of truths,
+to obtain one. And this, accordingly was the means by which the old
+masters obtained their (truth?) of tone. They chose those steps of
+distance which are the most conspicuous and noticeable--that for
+instance from sky to foliage, or from clouds to hills--and they gave
+these their precise pitch of difference in shade with exquisite accuracy
+of imitation. Their means were then exhausted, and they were obliged to
+leave their trees flat masses of mere filled-up outline, and to omit
+the truths of space in every individual part of their picture by the
+thousand. But this they did not care for; it saved them trouble; they
+reached their grand end, imitative effect; they thrust home just at the
+places where the common and careless eye looks for imitation, and they
+attained the broadest and most faithful appearance of truth of tone
+which art can exhibit.
+
+
+Sec. 6. General falsehood of such a system.
+
+But they are prodigals, and foolish prodigals, in art; they lavish their
+whole means to get one truth, and leave themselves powerless when they
+should seize a thousand. And is it indeed worthy of being called a
+truth, when we have a vast history given us to relate, to the fulness of
+which neither our limits nor our language are adequate, instead of
+giving all its parts abridged in the order of their importance, to omit
+or deny the greater part of them, that we may dwell with verbal fidelity
+on two or three? Nay, the very truth to which the rest are sacrificed is
+rendered falsehood by their absence, the relation of the tree to the sky
+is marked as an impossibility by the want of relation of its parts to
+each other.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The principle of Turner in this respect.
+
+Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle. He
+boldly takes pure white (and justly, for it is the sign of the most
+intense sunbeams) for his highest light, and lampblack for his deepest
+shade; and between these he makes every degree of shade indicative of
+separate degree of distance,[16] giving each step of approach, not the
+exact difference in pitch which it would have in nature, but a
+difference bearing the same proportion to that which his sum of possible
+shade bears to the sum of nature's shade; so that an object half way
+between his horizon and his foreground, will be exactly in half tint of
+force, and every minute division of intermediate space will have just
+its proportionate share of the lesser sum, and no more. Hence where the
+old masters expressed one distance, he expresses a hundred; and where
+they said furlongs, he says leagues. Which of these modes of procedure
+be most agreeable with truth, I think I may safely leave the reader to
+decide for himself. He will see in this very first instance, one proof
+of what we above asserted, that the deceptive imitation of nature is
+inconsistent with real truth; for the very means by which the old
+masters attained the apparent accuracy of tone which is so satisfying to
+the eye, compelled them to give up all idea of real relations of
+retirement, and to represent a few successive and marked stages of
+distance, like the scenes of a theatre, instead of the imperceptible,
+multitudinous, symmetrical retirement of nature, who is not more careful
+to separate her nearest bush from her farthest one, than to separate the
+nearest bough of that bush from the one next to it.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Comparison of N. Poussin's "Phocion,"
+
+Take for instance, one of the finest landscapes that ancient art has
+produced--the work of a really great and intellectual mind, the quiet
+Nicholas Poussin, in our own National Gallery, with the traveller
+washing his feet. The first idea we receive from this picture is, that
+it is evening, and all the light coming from the horizon. Not so. It is
+full moon, the light coming steep from the left, as is shown by the
+shadow of the stick on the right-hand pedestal,--(for if the sun were
+not very high, that shadow could not lose itself half way down, and if
+it were not lateral, the shadow would slope, instead of being vertical.)
+Now, ask yourself, and answer candidly, if those black masses of
+foliage, in which scarcely any form is seen but the outline, be a true
+representation of trees under noonday sunlight, sloping from the left,
+bringing out, as it necessarily would do, their masses into golden
+green, and marking every leaf and bough with sharp shadow and sparkling
+light. The only truth in the picture is the exact pitch of relief
+against the sky of both trees and hills, and to this the organization of
+the hills, the intricacy of the foliage, and everything indicative
+either of the nature of the light, or the character of the objects, are
+unhesitatingly sacrificed. So much falsehood does it cost to obtain two
+apparent truths of tone. Or take, as a still more glaring instance, No.
+260 in the Dulwich Gallery, where the trunks of the trees, even of those
+farthest off, on the left, are as black as paint can make them, and
+there is not, and cannot be, the slightest increase of force, or any
+marking whatsoever of distance by color, or any other means, between
+them and the foreground.
+
+
+Sec. 9. With Turner's "Mercury and Argus."
+
+Compare with these, Turner's treatment of his materials in the Mercury
+and Argus. He has here his light actually coming from the distance, the
+sun being nearly in the centre of the picture, and a violent relief of
+objects against it would be far more justifiable than in Poussin's case.
+But this dark relief is used in its full force only with the nearest
+_leaves_ of the nearest group of foliage overhanging the foreground
+from the left; and between these and the more distant members of the
+same group, though only three or four yards separate, distinct aerial
+perspective and intervening mist and light are shown; while the large
+tree in the centre, though very dark, as being very near, compared with
+all the distance, is much diminished in intensity of shade from this
+nearest group of leaves, and is faint compared with all the foreground.
+It is true that this tree has not, in consequence, the actual pitch of
+shade against the sky which it would have in nature; but it has
+precisely as much as it possibly can have, to leave it the same
+proportionate relation to the objects near at hand. And it cannot but be
+evident to the thoughtful reader, that whatever trickery or deception
+may be the result of a contrary mode of treatment, this is the only
+scientific or essentially truthful system, and that what it loses in
+tone it gains in aerial perspective.
+
+
+Sec. 10. And with the "Datur Hora Quieti."
+
+Compare again the last vignette in Rogers's Poems, the "Datur Hora
+Quieti," where everything, even the darkest parts of the trees, is kept
+pale and full of graduation; even the bridge where it crosses the
+descending stream of sunshine, rather lost in the light than relieved
+against it, until we come up to the foreground, and then the vigorous
+local black of the plough throws the whole picture into distance and
+sunshine. I do not know anything in art which can for a moment be set
+beside this drawing for united intensity of light and repose.
+
+Observe, I am not at present speaking of the beauty or desirableness of
+the system of the old masters; it may be sublime, and affecting, and
+ideal, and intellectual, and a great deal more; but all I am concerned
+with at present is, that it is not _true_; while Turner's is the
+closest and most studied approach to truth of which the materials of art
+admit.
+
+
+Sec. 11. The second sense of the word "tone."
+
+Sec. 12. Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings and
+        drawings of Turner.
+
+Sec. 13. Not owing to want of power over the material.
+
+It was not, therefore, with reference to this division of the subject
+that I admitted inferiority in our great modern master to Claude or
+Poussin, but with reference to the second and more usual meaning of the
+word "tone"--the exact relation and fitness of shadow and light, and of
+the hues of all objects under them; and more especially that precious
+quality of each color laid on, which makes it appear a quiet color
+illuminated, not a bright color in shade. But I allow this inferiority
+only with respect to the paintings of Turner, not to his drawings. I
+could select from among the works named in Chap. VI. of this section,
+pieces of tone absolutely faultless and perfect, from the coolest grays
+of wintry dawn to the intense fire of summer noon. And the difference
+between the prevailing character of these and that of nearly all the
+paintings, (for the early oil pictures of Turner are far less perfect in
+tone than the most recent,) it is difficult to account for, but on the
+supposition that there is something in the material which modern artists
+in general are incapable of mastering, and which compels Turner himself
+to think less of tone in oil color, than of other and more important
+qualities. The total failures of Callcott, whose struggles after tone
+ended so invariably in shivering winter or brown paint, the misfortune
+of Landseer with his evening sky in 1842, the frigidity of Stanfield,
+and the earthiness and opacity which all the magnificent power and
+admirable science of Etty are unable entirely to conquer, are too fatal
+and convincing proofs of the want of knowledge of means, rather than of
+the absence of aim, in modern artists as a body. Yet, with respect to
+Turner, however much the want of tone in his early paintings (the Fall
+of Carthage, for instance, and others painted at a time when he was
+producing the most exquisite hues of light in water-color) might seem to
+favor such a supposition, there are passages in his recent works (such,
+for instance, as the sunlight along the sea, in the Slaver) which
+directly contradict it, and which prove to us that where he now errs in
+tone, (as in the Cicero's Villa,) it is less owing to want of power to
+reach it, than to the pursuit of some different and nobler end. I shall
+therefore glance at the particular modes in which Turner manages his
+tone in his present Academy pictures; the early ones must be given up at
+once. Place a genuine untouched Claude beside the Crossing the Brook,
+and the difference in value and tenderness of tone will be felt in an
+instant, and felt the more painfully because all the cool and
+transparent qualities of Claude would have been here desirable, and in
+their place, and appear to have been aimed at. The foreground of the
+Building of Carthage, and the greater part of the architecture of the
+Fall, are equally heavy and evidently paint, if we compare them with
+genuine passages of Claude's sunshine. There is a very grand and simple
+piece of tone in the possession of J. Allnutt, Esq., a sunset behind
+willows, but even this is wanting in refinement of shadow, and is crude
+in its extreme distance. Not so with the recent Academy pictures; many
+of their passages are absolutely faultless; all are refined and
+marvellous, and with the exception of the Cicero's Villa, we shall find
+few pictures painted within the last ten years which do not either
+present us with perfect tone, or with some higher beauty, to which it is
+necessarily sacrificed. If we glance at the requirements of nature, and
+her superiority of means to ours, we shall see why and how it is
+sacrificed.
+
+
+Sec. 14. The two distinct qualities of light to be considered.
+
+Light, with reference to the tone it induces on objects, is either to be
+considered as neutral and white, bringing out local colors with
+fidelity; or colored, and consequently modifying these local tints, with
+its own. But the power of pure white light to exhibit local color is
+strangely variable. The morning light of about nine or ten is usually
+very pure; but the difference of its effect on different days,
+independently of mere brilliancy, is as inconceivable as inexplicable.
+Every one knows how capriciously the colors of a fine opal vary from day
+to day, and how rare the lights are which bring them fully out. Now the
+expression of the strange, penetrating, deep, neutral light, which,
+while it _alters_ no color, brings every color up to the highest
+possible pitch and key of pure, harmonious intensity, is the chief
+attribute of finely-toned pictures by the great _colorists_ as opposed
+to pictures of equally high tone, by masters who, careless of color, are
+content, like Cuyp, to lose local tints in the golden blaze of absorbing
+light.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality in
+        light.
+
+Falsehood, in this neutral tone, if it may be so called, is a matter far
+more of feeling than of proof, for any color is _possible_ under such
+lights; it is meagreness and feebleness only which are to be avoided;
+and these are rather matters of sensation than of reasoning. But it is
+yet easy enough to prove by what exaggerated and false means the
+pictures most celebrated for this quality are endowed with their
+richness and solemnity of color. In the Bacchus and Ariadne of Titian,
+it is difficult to imagine anything more magnificently impossible than
+the blue of the distant landscape;--impossible, not from its vividness,
+but because it is not faint and aerial enough to account for its purity
+of color; it is too dark and blue at the same time; and there is indeed
+so total a want of atmosphere in it, that, but for the difference of
+form, it would be impossible to tell the mountains (intended to be ten
+miles off) from the robe of Ariadne close to the spectator. Yet make
+this blue faint, aerial, and distant--make it in the slightest degree to
+resemble the truth of nature's color--and all the tone of the picture,
+all its intensity and splendor, will vanish on the instant. So again, in
+the exquisite and inimitable little bit of color, the Europa in the
+Dulwich Gallery; the blue of the dark promontory on the left is
+thoroughly absurd and impossible, and the warm tones of the clouds
+equally so, unless it were sunset; but the blue especially, because it
+is nearer than several points of land which are equally in shadow, and
+yet are rendered in warm gray. But the whole value and tone of the
+picture would be destroyed if this blue were altered.
+
+
+Sec. 16. Turner will not use such means.
+
+Sec. 17. But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice.
+
+Sec. 18. The second quality of light.
+
+Now, as much of this kind of richness of tone is always given by Turner
+as is compatible with truth of aerial effect; but he will not sacrifice
+the higher truths of his landscape to mere pitch of color as Titian
+does. He infinitely prefers having the power of giving extension of
+space, and fulness of form, to that of giving deep melodies of tone; he
+feels too much the incapacity of art, with its feeble means of light, to
+give the abundance of nature's gradations; and therefore it is, that
+taking pure white for his highest expression of light, that even pure
+yellow may give him one more step in the scale of shade, he becomes
+necessarily inferior in richness of effect to the old masters of tone,
+(who always used a golden highest light,) but gains by the sacrifice a
+thousand more essential truths. For, though we all know how much more
+like light, in the abstract, a finely-toned warm hue will be to the
+feelings than white, yet it is utterly impossible to mark the same
+number of gradations between such a sobered high light and the deepest
+shadow, which we can between this and white; and as these gradations are
+absolutely necessary to give the facts of form and distance, which, as
+we have above shown, are more important than any truths of tone,[17]
+Turner sacrifices the richness of his picture to its completeness--the
+manner of the statement to its matter. And not only is he right in doing
+this for the sake of space, but he is right also in the abstract
+question of color; for as we observed above (Sect. 14,) it is only the
+white light--the perfect unmodified group of rays--which will bring out
+local color perfectly; and if the picture, therefore, is to be complete
+in its system of color, that is, if it is to have each of the three
+primitives in their purity, it _must_ have white for its highest light,
+otherwise the purity of one of them at least will be impossible. And
+this leads us to notice the second and more frequent quality of light,
+(which is assumed if we make our highest representation of it yellow,)
+the positive hue, namely, which it may itself possess, of course
+modifying whatever local tints it exhibits, and thereby rendering
+certain colors necessary, and certain colors impossible. Under the
+direct yellow light of a descending sun, for instance, pure white and
+pure blue are both impossible; because the purest whites and blues that
+nature could produce would be turned in some degree into gold or green
+by it; and when the sun is within half a degree of the horizon, if the
+sky be clear, a rose light supersedes the golden one, still more
+overwhelming in its effect on local color. I have seen the pale fresh
+green of spring vegetation in the gardens of Venice, on the Lido side,
+turned pure russet, or between that and crimson, by a vivid sunset of
+this kind, every particle of green color being absolutely annihilated.
+And so under all colored lights, (and there are few, from dawn to
+twilight, which are not slightly tinted by some accident of
+atmosphere,) there is a change of local color, which, when in a picture
+it is so exactly proportioned that we feel at once both what the local
+colors are in themselves, and what is the color and strength of the
+light upon them, gives us truth of tone.
+
+
+Sec. 19. The perfection of Cuyp in this respect interfered with by numerous
+        solecisms.
+
+For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out
+of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art. But
+I much doubt if there be a single _bright_ Cuyp in the world, which,
+taken as a whole, does not present many glaring solecisms in tone. I
+have not seen many fine pictures of his, which were not utterly spoiled
+by the vermilion dress of some principal figure, a vermilion totally
+unaffected and unwarmed by the golden hue of the rest of the picture;
+and, what is worse, with little distinction, between its own illumined
+and shaded parts, so that it appears altogether out of sunshine, the
+color of a bright vermilion in dead, cold daylight. It is possible that
+the original color may have gone down in all cases, or that these parts
+may have been villanously repainted: but I am the rather disposed to
+believe them genuine, because even throughout the best of his pictures
+there are evident recurrences of the same kind of solecism in other
+colors--greens for instance--as in the steep bank on the right of the
+largest picture in the Dulwich Gallery; and browns, as in the lying cow
+in the same picture, which is in most visible and painful contrast with
+the one standing beside it, the flank of the standing one being bathed
+in breathing sunshine, and the reposing one laid in with as dead,
+opaque, and lifeless brown as ever came raw from a novice's pallet. And
+again, in that marked 83, while the figures on the right are walking in
+the most precious light, and those just beyond them in the distance
+leave a furlong or two of pure visible sunbeams between us and them, the
+cows in the centre are entirely deprived, poor things, of both light and
+air. And these failing parts, though they often escape the eye when we
+are near the picture and able to dwell upon what is beautiful in it, yet
+so injure its whole effect that I question if there be many Cuyps in
+which vivid colors occur, which will not lose their effect, and become
+cold and flat at a distance of ten or twelve paces, retaining their
+influence only when the eye is close enough to rest on the right parts
+without including the whole. Take, for instance, the large one in our
+National Gallery, seen from the opposite door, where the black cow
+appears a great deal nearer than the dogs, and the golden tones of the
+distance look like a sepia drawing rather than like sunshine, owing
+chiefly to the utter want of aerial grays indicated through them.
+
+
+Sec. 20. Turner is not so perfect in parts--far more so in the whole.
+
+Now, there is no instance in the works of Turner of anything so faithful
+and imitative of sunshine as the best parts of Cuyp; but at the same
+time, there is not a single vestige of the same kind of solecism. It is
+true, that in his fondness for color, Turner is in the habit of allowing
+excessively cold fragments in big warmest pictures; but these are never,
+observe, warm colors with no light upon them, useless as contrasts while
+they are discords in the tone; but they are bits of the very coolest
+tints, partially removed from the general influence, and exquisitely
+valuable as color, though, with all deference be it spoken, I think them
+sometimes slightly destructive of what would otherwise be perfect tone.
+For instance, the two blue and white stripes on the drifting flag of the
+Slave Ship, are, I think, the least degree too purely cool. I think both
+the blue and white would be impossible under such a light; and in the
+same way the white parts of the dress of the Napoleon interfered by
+their coolness with the perfectly managed warmth of all the rest of the
+picture. But both these lights are reflexes, and it is nearly impossible
+to say what tones may be assumed even by the warmest light reflected
+from a cool surface; so that we cannot actually convict these parts of
+falsehood, and though we should have liked the _tone_ of the picture
+better had they been slightly warmer, we cannot but like the _color_ of
+the picture better with them as they are; while Cuyp's failing portions
+are not only evidently and demonstrably false, being in direct light,
+but are as disagreeable in color as false in tone, and injurious to
+everything near them. And the best proof of the grammatical accuracy of
+the tones of Turner is in the perfect and unchanging influence of all
+his pictures at any distance. We approach only to follow the sunshine
+into every cranny of the leafage, and retire only to feel it diffused
+over the scene, the whole picture glowing like a sun or star at
+whatever distance we stand, and lighting the air between us and it;
+while many even of the best pictures of Claude must be looked close into
+to be felt, and lose light every foot that we retire. The smallest of
+the three seaports in the National Gallery is valuable and right in tone
+when we are close to it; but ten yards off, it is all brick-dust,
+offensively and evidently false in its whole hue.
+
+
+Sec. 21. The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones.
+
+The comparison of Turner with Cuyp and Claude may sound strange in most
+ears; but this is chiefly because we are not in the habit of analyzing
+and dwelling upon those difficult and daring passages of the modern
+master which do not at first appeal to our ordinary notions of truth,
+owing to his habit of uniting two, three, or even more separate tones in
+the same composition. In this also he strictly follows nature, for
+wherever climate changes, tone changes, and the climate changes with
+every 200 feet of elevation, so that the upper clouds are always
+different in tone from the lower ones, these from the rest of the
+landscape, and in all probability, some part of the horizon from the
+rest. And when nature allows this in a high degree, as in her most
+gorgeous effects she always will, she does not herself impress at once
+with intensity of tone, as in the deep and quiet yellows of a July
+evening, but rather with the magnificence and variety of associated
+color, in which, if we give time and attention to it, we shall gradually
+find the solemnity and the depth of twenty tones instead of one. Now in
+Turner's power of associating cold with warm light, no one has ever
+approached, or even ventured into the same field with him. The old
+masters, content with one simple tone, sacrificed to its unity all the
+exquisite gradations and varied touches of relief and change by which
+nature unites her hours with each other. They gave the warmth of the
+sinking sun, overwhelming all things in its gold; but they did not give
+those gray passages about the horizon where, seen through its dying
+light, the cool and the gloom of night gather themselves for their
+victory. Whether it was in them impotence or judgment, it is not for me
+to decide. I have only to point to the daring of Turner in this respect,
+as something to which art affords no matter of comparison, as that in
+which the mere attempt is, in itself, superiority. Take the evening
+effect with the Temeraire. That picture will not, at the first glance,
+deceive as a piece of actual sunlight; but this is because there is in
+it more than sunlight, because under the blazing veil of vaulted fire
+which lights the vessel on her last path, there is a blue, deep,
+desolate hollow of darkness, out of which you can hear the voice of the
+night wind, and the dull boom of the disturbed sea; because the cold,
+deadly shadows of the twilight are gathering through every sunbeam, and
+moment by moment as you look, you will fancy some new film and faintness
+of the night has risen over the vastness of the departing form.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Recapitulation.
+
+And if, in effects of this kind, time be taken to dwell upon the
+individual tones, and to study the laws of their reconcilement, there
+will be found in the recent Academy pictures of this great artist a mass
+of various truth to which nothing can be brought for comparison, which
+stands not only unrivalled, but uncontended with, and which, when in
+carrying out it may be inferior to some of the picked passages of the
+old masters, is so through deliberate choice rather to suggest a
+multitude of truths than to imitate one, and through a strife with
+difficulties of effect of which art can afford no parallel example. Nay,
+in the next chapter, respecting color, we shall see farther reason for
+doubting the truth of Claude, Cuyp, and Poussin, in tone,--reason so
+palpable that if these were all that were to be contended with, I should
+scarcely have allowed any inferiority in Turner whatsoever;[18] but I
+allow it, not so much with reference to the deceptive imitations of
+sunlight, wrought out with desperate exaggerations of shade, of the
+professed landscape painters, as with reference to the glory of Rubens,
+the glow of Titian, the silver tenderness of Cagliari, and perhaps more
+than all to the precious and pure passages of intense feeling and
+heavenly light, holy and undefiled, and glorious with the changeless
+passion of eternity, which sanctify with their shadeless peace the deep
+and noble conceptions of the early school of Italy,--of Fra Bartolomeo,
+Perugino, and the early mind of Raffaelle.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [16] Of course I am not speaking here of treatment of chiaroscuro,
+    but of that quantity of depth of shade by which, _coeteris
+    paribus_, a near object will exceed a distant one. For the truth of
+    the systems of Turner and the old masters, as regards chiaroscuro,
+    vide Chapter III. of this Section, Sec. 8.
+
+  [17] More important, observe, _as matters of truth or fact_. It may
+    often chance that, as a matter of feeling, the tone is the more
+    important of the two; but with this we have here no concern.
+
+  [18] We must not leave the subject of tone without alluding to the
+    works of the late George Barrett, which afford glorious and exalted
+    passages of light; and John Varley, who, though less truthful in his
+    aim, was frequently deep in his feeling. Some of the sketches of De
+    Wint are also admirable in this respect. As for our oil pictures,
+    the less that is said about them the better. Callcott has the truest
+    aim; but not having any eye for color, it is impossible for him to
+    succeed in tone.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF COLOR.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Observations on the color of G. Poussin's La Riccia.
+
+There is, in the first room of the National Gallery, a landscape
+attributed to Gaspar Poussin, called sometimes Aricia, sometimes Le or
+La Riccia, according to the fancy of catalogue printers. Whether it can
+be supposed to resemble the ancient Aricia, now La Riccia, close to
+Albano, I will not take upon me to determine, seeing that most of the
+towns of these old masters are quite as like one place as another; but,
+at any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes,
+of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of leaves
+each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque brown,
+becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and discover in one
+place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature have been cool and
+gray beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being
+moreover completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted
+of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick-red, the only thing like
+color in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road, which in order
+to make allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in
+light, and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vegetation usually
+present on carriage-roads, is given in a very cool green gray, and the
+truth of the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the
+right, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown.
+
+
+Sec. 2. As compared with the actual scene.
+
+Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage-road,
+the first turn after you leave Albano, not a little impeded by the
+worthy successors of the ancient prototypes of Veiento.[19] It had been
+wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds
+were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and
+breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct lighting up the
+infinity of its arches like the bridge of chaos. But as I climbed the
+long slope of the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and
+the noble outline of the domes of Albano and graceful darkness of its
+ilex grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the
+upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in
+deep, palpitating azure, half ether and half dew. The noonday sun came
+slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled
+and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure
+of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot
+call it color, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet,
+like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the
+valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant
+and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the
+sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of
+the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of
+some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks
+for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around
+them, breaking over the gray walls of rock into a thousand separate
+stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let
+them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven,
+opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as
+sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of
+dark rock--dark though flushed with scarlet lichen,--casting their quiet
+shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them
+filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over
+all--the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that
+have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless
+intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines,
+passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the
+measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Turner himself is inferior in brilliancy to nature.
+
+Tell me who is likest this, Poussin or Turner? Not in his most daring
+and dazzling efforts could Turner himself come near it; but you could
+not at the time have thought or remembered the work of any other man as
+having the remotest hue or resemblance of what you saw. Nor am I
+speaking of what is uncommon or unnatural; there is no climate, no
+place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color
+which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial
+pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and
+lightless beside her living color; the green of a growing leaf, the
+scarlet of a fresh flower, no art nor expedient can reach; but in
+addition to this, nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of
+sunlight which trebles their brilliancy, while the painter, deprived of
+this splendid aid, works still with what is actually a gray shadow
+compared to the force of nature's color. Take a blade of grass and a
+scarlet flower, and place them so as to receive sunlight beside the
+brightest canvas that ever left Turner's easel, and the picture will be
+extinguished. So far from out-facing nature, he does not, as far as mere
+vividness of color goes, one-half reach her;--but does he use this
+brilliancy of color on objects to which it does not properly belong? Let
+us compare his works in this respect with a few instances from the old
+masters.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian;
+
+There is, on the left hand side of Salvator's Mercury and the Woodman in
+our National Gallery, something, without doubt intended for a rocky
+mountain, in the middle distance, near enough for all its fissures and
+crags to be distinctly visible, or, rather, for a great many awkward
+scratches of the brush over it to be visible, which, though not
+particularly representative either of one thing or another, are without
+doubt intended to be symbolical of rocks. Now no mountain in full light,
+and near enough for its details of crag to be seen, is without great
+variety of delicate color. Salvator has painted it throughout without
+one instant of variation; but this, I suppose, is simplicity and
+generalization;--let it pass: but what is the color? _Pure sky blue_,
+without one grain of gray, or any modifying hue whatsoever;--the same
+brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more
+loaded at the same part of the pallet, and the whole mountain thrown in
+with unmitigated ultramarine. Now mountains only can become pure blue
+when there is so much air between us and them that they become mere
+flat, dark shades, every detail being totally lost: they become blue
+when they become air, and not till then. Consequently this part of
+Salvator's painting, being of hills perfectly clear and near, with all
+their details visible, is, as far as color is concerned, broad, bold
+falsehood--the direct assertion of direct impossibility.
+
+In the whole range of Turner's works, recent or of old date, you will
+not find an instance of anything near enough to have details visible,
+painted in sky blue. Wherever Turner gives blue, there he gives
+atmosphere; it is air, not object. Blue he gives to his sea; so does
+nature;--blue he gives, sapphire-deep, to his extreme distance; so does
+nature;--blue he gives to the misty shadows and hollows of his hills; so
+does nature: but blue he gives _not_, where detail and illumined surface
+are visible; as he comes into light and character, so he breaks into
+warmth and varied hue; nor is there in one of his works, and I speak of
+the Academy pictures especially, one touch of cold color which is not to
+be accounted for, and proved right and full of meaning.
+
+I do not say that Salvator's distance is not artist-like; both in that,
+and in the yet more glaringly false distances of Titian above alluded
+to, and in hundreds of others of equal boldness of exaggeration, I can
+take delight, and perhaps should be sorry to see them other than they
+are; but it is somewhat singular to hear people talking of Turner's
+exquisite care and watchfulness in color as false, while they receive
+such cases of preposterous and audacious fiction with the most generous
+and simple credulity.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Poussin, and Claude.
+
+Again, in the upper sky of the picture of Nicolas Poussin, before
+noticed, the clouds are of a very fine clear olive-green, about the same
+tint as the brightest parts of the trees beneath them. They cannot have
+altered, (or else the trees must have been painted in gray,) for the hue
+is harmonious and well united with the rest of the picture, and the blue
+and white in the centre of the sky are still fresh and pure. Now a green
+sky in open and illumined distance is very frequent, and very beautiful;
+but rich olive-green clouds, as far as I am acquainted with nature, are
+a piece of color in which she is not apt to indulge. You will be
+puzzled to show me such a thing in the recent works of Turner.[20]
+Again, take any important group of trees, I do not care whose--Claude's,
+Salvator's, or Poussin's--with lateral light (that in the Marriage of
+Isaac and Rebecca, or Gaspar's sacrifice of Isaac, for instance:) Can it
+be seriously supposed that those murky browns and melancholy greens are
+representative of the tints of leaves under full noonday sun? I know
+that you cannot help looking upon all these pictures as pieces of dark
+relief against a light wholly proceeding from the distances; but they
+are nothing of the kind--they are noon and morning effects with full
+lateral light. Be so kind as to match the color of a leaf in the sun
+(the darkest you like) as nearly as you can, and bring your matched
+color and set it beside one of these groups of trees, and take a blade
+of common grass, and set it beside any part of the fullest light of
+their foregrounds, and then talk about the truth of color of the old
+masters!
+
+And let not arguments respecting the sublimity or fidelity of
+_impression_ be brought forward here. I have nothing whatever to do with
+this at present. I am not talking about what is sublime, but about what
+is true. People attack Turner on this ground;--they never speak of
+beauty or sublimity with respect to him, but of nature and truth, and
+let them support their own favorite masters on the same grounds. Perhaps
+I may have the very deepest veneration for the _feeling_ of the old
+masters, but I must not let it influence me now--my business is to match
+colors, not to talk sentiment. Neither let it be said that I am going
+too much into details, and that general truths may be obtained by local
+falsehood. Truth is only to be measured by close comparison of actual
+facts; we may talk forever about it in generals, and prove nothing. We
+cannot tell what effect falsehood may produce on this or that person,
+but we can very well tell what is false and what is not, and if it
+produce on our senses the effect of truth, that only demonstrates their
+imperfection and inaccuracy, and need of cultivation. Turner's color is
+glaring to one person's sensations, and beautiful to another's. This
+proves nothing. Poussin's color is right to one, soot to another. This
+proves nothing. There is no means of arriving at any conclusion but
+close comparison of both with the known and demonstrable hues of nature,
+and this comparison will invariably turn Claude or Poussin into
+blackness, and even Turner into gray.
+
+Whatever depth of gloom may seem to invest the objects of a real
+landscape, yet a window with that landscape seen through it, will
+invariably appear a broad space of light as compared with the shade of
+the room walls; and this single circumstance may prove to us both the
+intensity and the diffusion of daylight in open air, and the necessity,
+if a picture is to be truthful in effect of color, that it should tell
+as a broad space of graduated illumination--not, as do those of the old
+masters, as a patch-work of black shades. Their works are nature in
+mourning weeds,--[Greek: oud hen helio katharo tethrammenoi, all hypo
+symmigei skia].
+
+
+Sec. 6. Turner's translation of colors.
+
+It is true that there are, here and there, in the Academy pictures,
+passages in which Turner has translated the unattainable intensity of
+one tone of color, into the attainable pitch of a higher one: the golden
+green for instance, of intense sunshine on verdure, into pure yellow,
+because he knows it to be impossible, with any mixture of blue
+whatsoever, to give faithfully its relative intensity of light, and
+Turner always will have his light and shade right, whatever it costs him
+in color. But he does this in rare cases, and even then over very small
+spaces; and I should be obliged to his critics if they would go out to
+some warm, mossy green bank in full summer sunshine, and try to reach
+its tone; and when they find, as find they will, Indian yellow and
+chrome look dark beside it, let them tell me candidly which is nearest
+truth, the gold of Turner, or the mourning and murky olive browns and
+verdigris greens in which Claude, with the industry and intelligence of
+a Sevres china painter, drags the laborious bramble leaves over his
+childish foreground.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even approach
+       that of reality.
+
+Sec. 8. Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect to
+       their representation.
+
+Sec. 9. Color of the Napoleon.
+
+But it is singular enough that the chief attacks on Turner for
+overcharged brilliancy, are made, not when there could by any
+possibility be any chance of his outstepping nature, but when he has
+taken subjects which no colors of earth could ever vie with or reach,
+such, for instance, as his sunsets among the high clouds. When I come to
+speak of skies, I shall point out what divisions, proportioned to their
+elevation, exist in the character of clouds. It is the highest
+region,--that exclusively characterized by white, filmy, multitudinous,
+and quiet clouds, arranged in bars, or streaks, or flakes, of which I
+speak at present, a region which no landscape painters have ever made
+one effort to represent, except Rubens and Turner--the latter taking it
+for his most favorite and frequent study. Now we have been speaking
+hitherto of what is constant and necessary in nature, of the ordinary
+effects of daylight on ordinary colors, and we repeat again, that no
+gorgeousness of the pallet can reach even these. But it is a widely
+different thing when nature herself takes a coloring fit, and does
+something extraordinary, something really to exhibit her power. She has
+a thousand ways and means of rising above herself, but incomparably the
+noblest manifestations of her capability of color are in these sunsets
+among the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment before the sun
+sinks, when his light turns pure rose-color, and when this light falls
+upon a zenith covered with countless cloud-forms of inconceivable
+delicacy, threads and flakes of vapor, which would in common daylight be
+pure snow white, and which give therefore fair field to the tone of
+light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check to the
+intensity of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the zenith to the
+horizon becomes one molten, mantling sea of color and fire; every black
+bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied,
+shadowless, crimson, and purple, and scarlet, and colors for which there
+are no words in language, and no ideas in the mind,--things which can
+only be conceived while they are visible,--the intense hollow blue of
+the upper sky melting through it all,--showing here deep, and pure, and
+lightless, there, modulated by the filmy, formless body of the
+transparent vapor, till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and
+gold. Now there is no connection, no one link of association or
+resemblance, between those skies and the work of any mortal hand but
+Turner's. He alone has followed nature in these her highest efforts; he
+follows her faithfully, but far behind; follows at such a distance below
+her intensity that the Napoleon of last year's exhibition, and the
+Temeraire of the year before, would look colorless and cold if the eye
+came upon them after one of nature's sunsets among the high clouds. But
+there are a thousand reasons why this should not be believed. The
+concurrence of circumstances necessary to produce the sunsets of which I
+speak does not take place above five or six times in the summer, and
+then only for a space of from five to ten minutes, just as the sun
+reaches the horizon. Considering how seldom people think of looking for
+sunset at all, and how seldom, if they do, they are in a position from
+which it can be fully seen, the chances that their attention should be
+awake, and their position favorable, during these few flying instants of
+the year, is almost as nothing. What can the citizen, who can see only
+the red light on the canvas of the wagon at the end of the street, and
+the crimson color of the bricks of his neighbor's chimney, know of the
+flood of fire which deluges the sky from the horizon to the zenith? What
+can even the quiet inhabitant of the English lowlands, whose scene for
+the manifestation of the fire of heaven is limited to the tops of
+hayricks, and the rooks' nests in the old elm-trees, know of the mighty
+passages of splendor which are tossed from Alp to Alp over the azure of
+a thousand miles of champaign? Even granting the constant vigor of
+observation, and supposing the possession of such impossible knowledge,
+it needs but a moment's reflection to prove how incapable the memory is
+of retaining for any time the distinct image of the sources even of its
+most vivid impressions. What recollection have we of the sunsets which
+delighted us last year? We may know that they were magnificent, or
+glowing, but no distinct image of color or form is retained--nothing of
+whose _degree_ (for the great difficulty with the memory is to retain,
+not facts, but _degrees_ of fact) we could be so certain as to say of
+anything now presented to us, that it is like it. If we did say so, we
+should be wrong; for we may be quite certain that the energy of an
+impression fades from the memory, and becomes more and more indistinct
+every day; and thus we compare a faded and indistinct image with the
+decision and certainty of one present to the senses. How constantly do
+we affirm that the thunder-storm of last week was the most terrible one
+we ever saw in our lives, because we compare it, not with the
+thunder-storm of last year, but with the faded and feeble recollection
+of it. And so, when we enter an exhibition, as we have no definite
+standard of truth before us, our feelings are toned down and subdued to
+the quietness of color which is all that human power can ordinarily
+attain to; and when we turn to a piece of higher and closer truth,
+approaching the pitch of the color of nature, but to which we are not
+guided, as we should be in nature, by corresponding gradations of light
+everywhere around us, but which is isolated and cut off suddenly by a
+frame and a wall, and surrounded by darkness and coldness, what can we
+expect but that it should surprise and shock the feelings? Suppose,
+where the Napoleon hung in the Academy last year, there could have been
+left, instead, an opening in the wall, and through that opening, in the
+midst of the obscurity of the dim room and the smoke-laden atmosphere,
+there could suddenly have been poured the full glory of a tropical
+sunset, reverberated from the sea: How would you have shrunk, blinded,
+from its scarlet and intolerable lightnings! What picture in the room
+would not have been blackness after it? And why then do you blame Turner
+because he dazzles you? Does not the falsehood rest with those who do
+_not_? There was not one hue in this whole picture which was not far
+below what nature would have used in the same circumstances, nor was
+there one inharmonious or at variance with the rest;--the stormy
+blood-red of the horizon, the scarlet of the breaking sunlight, the rich
+crimson browns of the wet and illumined sea-weed; the pure gold and
+purple of the upper sky, and, shed through it all, the deep passage of
+solemn blue, where the cold moonlight fell on one pensive spot of the
+limitless shore--all were given with harmony as perfect as their color
+was intense; and if, instead of passing, as I doubt not you did, in the
+hurry of your unreflecting prejudice, you had paused but so much as one
+quarter of an hour before the picture, you would have found the sense of
+air and space blended with every line, and breathing in every cloud, and
+every color instinct and radiant with visible, glowing, absorbing light.
+
+
+Sec. 10. Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of color
+        and light.
+
+It is to be observed, however, in general, that wherever in brilliant
+effects of this kind, we approach to anything like a true statement of
+nature's color, there must yet be a distinct difference in the
+impression we convey, because we cannot approach her _light_. All such
+hues are usually given by her with an accompanying intensity of sunbeams
+which dazzles and overpowers the eye, so that it cannot rest on the
+actual colors, nor understand what they are; and hence in art, in
+rendering all effects of this kind, there must be a want of the ideas of
+_imitation_, which are the great source of enjoyment to the ordinary
+observer; because we can only give one series of truths, those of color,
+and are unable to give the accompanying truths of light, so that the
+more true we are in color, the greater, ordinarily, will be the
+discrepancy felt between the intensity of hue and the feebleness of
+light. But the painter who really loves nature will not, on this
+account, give you a faded and feeble image, which indeed may appear to
+you to be right, because your feelings can detect no discrepancy in its
+parts, but which he knows to derive its apparent truth from a
+systematized falsehood. No; he will make you understand and feel that
+art _cannot_ imitate nature--that where it appears to do so, it must
+malign her, and mock her. He will give you, or state to you, such truths
+as are in his power, completely and perfectly; and those which he cannot
+give, he will leave to your imagination. If you are acquainted with
+nature, you will know all he has given to be true, and you will supply
+from your memory and from your heart that light which he cannot give. If
+you are unacquainted with nature, seek elsewhere for whatever may happen
+to satisfy your feelings; but do not ask for the truth which you would
+not acknowledge and could not enjoy.
+
+
+Sec. 11. This discrepancy less in Turner than in other colorists.
+
+Sec. 12. Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens.
+
+Nevertheless the aim and struggle of the artist must always be to do
+away with this discrepancy as far as the powers of art admit, not by
+lowering his color, but by increasing his light. And it is indeed by
+this that the works of Turner are peculiarly distinguished from those of
+all other colorists, by the dazzling intensity, namely, of the light
+which he sheds through every hue, and which, far more than their
+brilliant color, is the real source of their overpowering effect upon
+the eye, an effect so _reasonably_ made the subject of perpetual
+animadversion, as if the sun which they represent were quite a quiet,
+and subdued, and gentle, and manageable luminary, and never dazzled
+anybody, under any circumstances whatsoever. I am fond of standing by a
+bright Turner in the Academy, to listen to the unintentional compliments
+of the crowd--"What a glaring thing!" "I declare I can't look at it!"
+"Don't it hurt your eyes?"--expressed as if they were in the constant
+habit of looking the sun full in the face, with the most perfect comfort
+and entire facility of vision. It is curious after hearing people malign
+some of Turner's noble passages of light, to pass to some really
+ungrammatical and false picture of the old masters, in which we have
+color given _without_ light. Take, for instance, the landscape
+attributed to Rubens, No. 175, in the Dulwich Gallery. I never have
+spoken, and I never will speak of Rubens but with the most reverential
+feeling; and whatever imperfections in his art may have resulted from
+his unfortunate want of seriousness and incapability of true passion,
+his calibre of mind was originally such that I believe the world may see
+another Titian and another Raffaelle, before it sees another Rubens. But
+I have before alluded to the violent license he occasionally assumes;
+and there is an instance of it in this picture apposite to the immediate
+question. The sudden streak and circle of yellow and crimson in the
+middle of the sky of that picture, being the occurrence of a fragment of
+a sunset color in pure daylight, and in perfect isolation, while at the
+same time it is rather darker, when translated into light and shade,
+than brighter than the rest of the sky, is a case of such bold
+absurdity, come from whose pencil it may, that if every error which
+Turner has fallen into in the whole course of his life were concentrated
+into one, that one would not equal it; and as our connoisseurs gaze upon
+this with never-ending approbation, we must not be surprised that the
+accurate perceptions which thus take delight in pure fiction, should
+consistently be disgusted by Turner's fidelity and truth.
+
+
+Sec. 13. Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid color.
+
+Hitherto, however, we have been speaking of vividness of pure color, and
+showing that it is used by Turner only where nature uses it, and in no
+less degree. But we have hitherto, therefore, been speaking of a most
+limited and uncharacteristic portion of his works; for Turner, like all
+great colorists, is distinguished not more for his power of dazzling and
+overwhelming the eye with intensity of effect, than for his power of
+doing so by the use of subdued and gentle means. There is no man living
+more cautious and sparing in the use of pure color than Turner. To say
+that he never perpetrates anything like the blue excrescences of
+foreground, or hills _shot_ like a housekeeper's best silk gown, with
+blue and red, which certain of our celebrated artists consider the
+essence of the sublime, would be but a poor compliment. I might as well
+praise the portraits of Titian because they have not the grimace and
+paint of a clown in a pantomime; but I do say, and say with confidence,
+that there is scarcely a landscape artist of the present day, however
+sober and lightless their effects may look, who does not employ more
+pure and raw color than Turner; and that the ordinary tinsel and trash,
+or rather vicious and perilous stuff, according to the power of the mind
+producing it, with which the walls of our Academy are half covered,
+disgracing, in weak hands, or in more powerful, degrading and corrupting
+our whole school of art, is based on a system of color beside which
+Turner's is as Vesta to Cotytto--the chastity of fire to the foulness of
+earth. Every picture of this great colorist has, in one or two parts of
+it, (key-notes of the whole,) points where the system of each individual
+color is concentrated by a single stroke, as pure as it can come from
+the pallet; but throughout the great space and extent of even the most
+brilliant of his works, there will not be found a raw color; that is to
+say, there is no warmth which has not gray in it, and no blue which has
+not warmth in it; and the tints in which he most excels and distances
+all other men, the most cherished and inimitable portions of his color,
+are, as with all perfect colorists they must be, his grays.
+
+It is instructive in this respect, to compare the sky of the Mercury
+and Argus with the various illustrations of the serenity, space, and
+sublimity naturally inherent in blue and pink, of which every year's
+exhibition brings forward enough and to spare. In the Mercury and Argus,
+the pale and vaporous blue of the heated sky is broken with gray and
+pearly white, the gold color of the light warming it more or less as it
+approaches or retires from the sun; but throughout, there is not a grain
+of pure blue; all is subdued and warmed at the same time by the mingling
+gray and gold, up to the very zenith, where, breaking through the flaky
+mist, the transparent and deep azure of the sky is expressed with a
+single crumbling touch; the key-note of the whole is given, and every
+part of it passes at once far into glowing and aerial space. The reader
+can scarcely fail to remember at once sundry works in contradistinction
+to this, with great names attached to them, in which the sky is a sheer
+piece of plumber's and glazier's work, and should be valued per yard,
+with heavy extra charge for ultramarine.
+
+
+Sec. 14. The basis of gray, under all his vivid hues.
+
+Throughout the works of Turner, the same truthful principle of delicate
+and subdued color is carried out with a care and labor of which it is
+difficult to form a conception. He gives a dash of pure white for his
+highest light; but all the other whites of his picture are pearled down
+with gray or gold. He gives a fold of pure crimson to the drapery of his
+nearest figure; but all his other crimsons will be deepened with black,
+or warmed with yellow. In one deep reflection of his distant sea, we
+catch a trace of the purest blue; but all the rest is palpitating with a
+varied and delicate gradation of harmonized tint, which indeed looks
+vivid blue as a mass, but is only so by opposition. It is the most
+difficult, the most rare thing, to find in his works a definite space,
+however small, of unconnected color; that is, either of a blue which has
+nothing to connect it with the warmth, or of a warm color which has
+nothing to connect it with the grays of the whole; and the result is,
+that there is a general system and undercurrent of gray pervading the
+whole of his color, out of which his highest lights, and those local
+touches of pure color, which are, as I said before, the key-notes of the
+picture, flash with the peculiar brilliancy and intensity in which he
+stands alone.
+
+
+Sec. 15. The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones.
+
+Sec. 16. Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature.
+
+Intimately associated with this toning down and connection of the colors
+actually used, is his inimitable power of varying and blending them, so
+as never to give a quarter of an inch of canvas without a change in it,
+a melody as well as a harmony of one kind or another. Observe, I am not
+at present speaking of this as artistical or desirable in itself, not as
+a characteristic of the great colorist, but as the aim of the simple
+follower of nature. For it is strange to see how marvellously nature
+varies the most general and simple of her tones. A mass of mountain seen
+against the light, may, at first, appear all of one blue; and so it is,
+blue as a whole, by comparison with other parts of the landscape. But
+look how that blue is made up. There are black shadows in it under the
+crags, there are green shadows along the turf, there are gray
+half-lights upon the rocks, there are faint touches of stealthy warmth
+and cautious light along their edges; every bush, every stone, every
+tuft of moss has its voice in the matter, and joins with individual
+character in the universal will. Who is there who can do this as Turner
+will? The old masters would have settled the matter at once with a
+transparent, agreeable, but monotonous gray. Many among the moderns
+would probably be equally monotonous with absurd and false colors.
+Turner only would give the uncertainty--the palpitating, perpetual
+change--the subjection of all to a great influence, without one part or
+portion being lost or merged in it--the unity of action with infinity of
+agent. And I wish to insist on this the more particularly, because it is
+one of the eternal principles of nature, that she will not have one line
+nor color, nor one portion nor atom of space without a change in it.
+There is not one of her shadows, tints, or lines that is not in a state
+of perpetual variation: I do not mean in time, but in space. There is
+not a leaf in the world which has the _same color_ visible over its
+whole surface; it has a white high light somewhere; and in proportion as
+it curves to or from that focus, the color is brighter or grayer. Pick
+up a common flint from the roadside, and count, if you can, its changes
+and hues of color. Every bit of bare ground under your feet has in it a
+thousand such--the gray pebbles, the warm ochre, the green of incipient
+vegetation, the grays and blacks of its reflexes and shadows, might
+keep a painter at work for a month, if he were obliged to follow them
+touch for touch: how much more, when the same infinity of change is
+carried out with vastness of object and space. The extreme of distance
+may appear at first monotonous; but the least examination will show it
+to be full of every kind of change--that its outlines are perpetually
+melting and appearing again--sharp here, vague there--now lost
+altogether, now just hinted and still confused among each other--and so
+forever in a state and necessity of change. Hence, wherever in a
+painting we have unvaried color extended even over a small space, there
+is falsehood. Nothing can be natural which is monotonous; nothing true
+which only tells one story. The brown foreground and rocks of Claude's
+Sinon before Priam are as false as color can be: first, because there
+never was such a brown under sunlight, for even the sand and cinders
+(volcanic tufa) about Naples, granting that he had studied from these
+ugliest of all formations, are, where they are fresh fractured, golden
+and lustrous in full light compared to these ideals of crag, and become,
+like all other rocks, quiet and gray when weathered; and secondly,
+because no rock that ever nature stained is without its countless
+breaking tints of varied vegetation. And even Stanfield, master as he is
+of rock form, is apt in the same way to give us here and there a little
+bit of mud, instead of stone.
+
+
+Sec. 17. His dislike of purple and fondness for the opposition of yellow and
+        black. The principles of nature in this respect.
+
+What I am next about to say with respect to Turner's color, I should
+wish to be received with caution, as it admits of dispute. I think that
+the first approach to viciousness of color in any master is commonly
+indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple, and an absence of yellow. I
+think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues, never, or
+very rarely, using red without it, but frequently using yellow with
+scarcely any red; and I believe it will be in consequence found that her
+favorite opposition, that which generally characterizes and gives tone
+to her color, is yellow and black, passing, as it retires, into white
+and blue. It is beyond dispute that the great fundamental opposition of
+Rubens is yellow and black; and that on this, concentrated in one part
+of the picture, and modified in various grays throughout, chiefly depend
+the tones of all his finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far
+greater tendency to the purple than in Rubens, I believe no red is ever
+mixed with the pure blue, or glazed over it, which has not in it a
+modifying quantity of yellow. At all events, I am nearly certain that
+whatever rich and pure purples are introduced locally, by the great
+colorists, nothing is so destructive of all fine color as the slightest
+tendency to purple in general tone; and I am equally certain that Turner
+is distinguished from all the vicious colorists of the present day, by
+the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and the
+intermediate grays, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is
+invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples. So fond indeed is Turner
+of black and yellow, that he has given us more than one composition,
+both drawings and paintings, based on these two colors alone, of which
+the magnificent Quilleboeuf, which I consider one of the most perfect
+pieces of simple color existing, is a most striking example; and I think
+that where, as in some of the late Venices, there has been something
+like a marked appearance of purple tones, even though exquisitely
+corrected by vivid orange and warm green in the foreground, the general
+color has not been so perfect or truthful: my own feelings would always
+guide me rather to the warm grays of such pictures as the Snow Storm, or
+the glowing scarlet and gold of the Napoleon and Slave Ship. But I do
+not insist at present on this part of the subject, as being perhaps more
+proper for future examination, when we are considering the ideal of
+color.
+
+
+Sec. 18. His early works are false in color.
+
+The above remarks have been made entirely with reference to the recent
+Academy pictures, which have been chiefly attacked for their color. I by
+no means intend them to apply to the early works of Turner, those which
+the enlightened newspaper critics are perpetually talking about as
+characteristic of a time when Turner was "really great." He is, and was,
+really great, from the time when he first could hold a brush, but he
+never was so great as he is now. The Crossing the Brook, glorious as it
+is as a composition, and perfect in all that is most desirable and most
+ennobling in art, is scarcely to be looked upon as a piece of color; it
+is an agreeable, cool, gray rendering of space and form, but it is not
+color; if it be regarded as such, it is thoroughly false and vapid, and
+very far inferior to the tones of the same kind given by Claude. The
+reddish brown in the foreground of the Fall of Carthage, with all
+diffidence be it spoken, is, as far as my feelings are competent to
+judge, crude, sunless, and in every way wrong; and both this picture and
+the Building of Carthage, though this latter is far the finer of the
+two, are quite unworthy of Turner as a colorist.
+
+
+Sec. 19. His drawings invariably perfect.
+
+Not so with the drawings; these, countless as they are, from the
+earliest to the latest, though presenting an unbroken chain of
+increasing difficulty overcome, and truth illustrated, are all,
+according to their aim, equally faultless as to color. Whatever we have
+hitherto said, applies to them in its fullest extent; though each, being
+generally the realization of some effect actually seen, and realized but
+once, requires almost a separate essay. As a class, they are far quieter
+and chaster than the Academy pictures, and, were they better known,
+might enable our connoisseurs to form a somewhat more accurate judgment
+of the intense study of nature on which all Turner's color is based.
+
+
+Sec. 20. The subjection of his system of color to that of chiaroscuro.
+
+One point only remains to be noted respecting his system of color
+generally--its entire subordination to light and shade, a subordination
+which there is no need to prove here, as every engraving from his
+works--and few are unengraved--is sufficient demonstration of it. I have
+before shown the inferiority and unimportance in nature of color, as a
+truth, compared with light and shade. That inferiority is maintained and
+asserted by all really great works of color; but most by Turner's as
+their color is most intense. Whatever brilliancy he may choose to
+assume, is subjected to an inviolable law of chiaroscuro, from which
+there is no appeal. No richness nor depth of tint is considered of value
+enough to atone for the loss of one particle of arranged light. No
+brilliancy of hue is permitted to interfere with the depth of a
+determined shadow. And hence it is, that while engravings from works far
+less splendid in color are often vapid and cold, because the little
+color employed has not been rightly based on light and shade, an
+engraving from Turner is always beautiful and forcible in proportion as
+the color of the original has been intense, and never in a single
+instance has failed to express the picture as a perfect
+composition.[21] Powerful and captivating and faithful as his color is,
+it is the least important of all his excellences, because it is the
+least important feature of nature. He paints in color, but he thinks in
+light and shade; and were it necessary, rather than lose one line of his
+forms, or one ray of his sunshine, would, I apprehend, be content to
+paint in black and white to the end of his life. It is by mistaking the
+shadow for the substance, and aiming at the brilliancy and the fire,
+without perceiving of what deep-studied shade and inimitable form
+it is at once the result and the illustration, that the host of his
+imitators sink into deserved disgrace. With him, as with all the
+greatest painters, and in Turner's more than all, the hue is a beautiful
+auxiliary in working out the great impression to be conveyed, but is not
+the source nor the essence of that impression; it is little more than a
+visible melody, given to raise and assist the mind in the reception of
+nobler ideas--as sacred passages of sweet sound, to prepare the feelings
+for the reading of the mysteries of God.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [19]             "Caecus adulator--
+                    Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes,
+                    Blandaque devexae iactaret basia rhedae."
+
+  [20] There is perhaps nothing more characteristic of a great
+    colorist than his power of using greens in strange places without
+    their being felt as such, or at least than a constant preference of
+    green gray to purple gray. And this hue of Poussin's clouds would
+    have been perfectly agreeable and allowable, had there been gold or
+    crimson enough in the rest of the picture to have thrown it into
+    gray. It is only because the lower clouds are pure white and blue,
+    and because the trees are of the same color as the clouds, that the
+    cloud color becomes false. There is a fine instance of a sky, green
+    in itself, but turned gray by the opposition of warm color, in
+    Turner's Devonport with the Dockyards.
+
+  [21] This is saying too much; for it not unfrequently happens that
+    the light and shade of the original is lost in the engraving, the
+    effect of which is afterwards partially recovered, with the aid of
+    the artist himself, by introductions of new features. Sometimes,
+    when a drawing depends chiefly on color, the engraver gets
+    unavoidably embarrassed, and must be assisted by some change or
+    exaggeration of the effect; but the more frequent case is, that the
+    engraver's difficulties result merely from his inattention to, or
+    wilful deviations from his original; and that the artist is obliged
+    to assist him by such expedients as the error itself suggests.
+
+    Not unfrequently in reviewing a plate, as very constantly in
+    reviewing a picture after some time has elapsed since its
+    completion, even the painter is liable to make unnecessary or
+    hurtful changes. In the plate of the Old Temeraire, lately published
+    in Finden's gallery, I do not know whether it was Turner or the
+    engraver who broke up the water into sparkling ripple, but it was a
+    grievous mistake, and has destroyed the whole dignity and value of
+    the conception. The flash of lightning in the Winchelsea of the
+    England series does not exist in the original; it is put in to
+    withdraw the attention of the spectator from the sky which the
+    engraver destroyed.
+
+    There is an unfortunate persuasion among modern engravers that color
+    can be expressed by particular characters of line; and in the
+    endeavor to distinguish by different lines, different colors of
+    equal depth, they frequently lose the whole system of light and
+    shade. It will hardly be credited that the piece of foreground on
+    the left of Turner's Modern Italy, represented in the Art-Union
+    engraving as nearly coal black, is in the original of a pale warm
+    gray, hardly darker than the sky. All attempt to record color in
+    engraving, is heraldry out of its place: the engraver has no power
+    beyond that of expressing transparency or opacity by greater or less
+    openness of line, (for the same depth of tint is producible by lines
+    with very different intervals.)
+
+    Texture of surface is only in a measure in the power of the steel,
+    and ought not to be laboriously sought after; nature's surfaces are
+    distinguished more by form than texture; a stone is often smoother
+    than a leaf; but if texture is to be given, let the engraver at
+    least be sure that he knows what the texture of the object actually
+    is, and how to represent it. The leaves in the foreground of the
+    engraved Mercury and Argus have all of them three or four black
+    lines across them. What sort of leaf texture is supposed to be
+    represented by these? The stones in the foreground of Turner's
+    Llanthony received from the artist the powdery texture of sandstone;
+    the engraver covered them with contorted lines and turned them into
+    old timber.
+
+    A still more fatal cause of failure is the practice of making out or
+    finishing what the artist left incomplete. In the England plate of
+    Dudley, there are two offensive blank windows in the large building
+    with the chimney on the left. These _are_ engraver's improvements;
+    in the original they are barely traceable, their lines being
+    excessively faint and tremulous as with the movement of heated air
+    between them and the spectator: their vulgarity is thus taken away,
+    and the whole building left in one grand unbroken mass. It is almost
+    impossible to break engravers of this unfortunate habit. I have even
+    heard of their taking journeys of some distance in order to obtain
+    knowledge of the details which the artist intentionally omitted; and
+    the evil will necessarily continue until they receive something like
+    legitimate artistical education. In one or two instances, however,
+    especially in small plates, they have shown great feeling; the
+    plates of Miller (especially those of the Turner illustrations to
+    Scott) are in most instances perfect and beautiful interpretations
+    of the originals; so those of Goodall in Rogers's works, and
+    Cousens's in the Rivers of France; those of the Yorkshire series are
+    also very valuable, though singularly inferior to the drawings. But
+    none even of these men appear capable of producing a large plate.
+    They have no knowledge of the means of rendering their lines vital
+    or valuable; cross-hatching stands for everything; and inexcusably,
+    for though we cannot expect every engraver to etch like Rembrandt or
+    Albert Durer, or every wood-cutter to draw like Titian, at least
+    something of the system and power of the grand works of those men
+    might be preserved, and some mind and meaning stolen into the
+    reticulation of the restless modern lines.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                          OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO.
+
+
+Sec. 1. We are not at present to examine particular effects of light.
+
+It is not my intention to enter, in the present portion of the work,
+upon any examination of Turner's particular effects of light. We must
+know something about what is beautiful before we speak of these.
+
+At present I wish only to insist upon two great principles of
+chiaroscuro, which are observed throughout the works of the great modern
+master, and set at defiance by the ancients--great general laws, which
+may, or may not, be sources of beauty, but whose observance is
+indisputably necessary to truth.
+
+Go out some bright sunny day in winter, and look for a tree with a broad
+trunk, having rather delicate boughs hanging down on the sunny side,
+near the trunk. Stand four or five yards from it, with your back to the
+sun. You will find that the boughs between you and the trunk of the tree
+are very indistinct, that you confound them in places with the trunk
+itself, and cannot possibly trace one of them from its insertion to its
+extremity. But the shadows which they cast upon the trunk, you will find
+clear, dark, and distinct, perfectly traceable through their whole
+course, except when they are interrupted by the crossing boughs. And if
+you retire backwards, you will come to a point where you cannot see the
+intervening boughs at all, or only a fragment of them here and there,
+but can still see their shadows perfectly plain. Now, this may serve to
+show you the immense prominence and importance of shadows where there is
+anything like bright light. They are, in fact, commonly far more
+conspicuous than the thing which casts them, for being as large as the
+casting object, and altogether made up of a blackness deeper than the
+darkest part of the casting object, (while that object is also broken up
+with positive and reflected lights,) their large, broad, unbroken
+spaces, tell strongly on the eye, especially as all form is rendered
+partially, often totally invisible within them, and as they are suddenly
+terminated by the sharpest lines which nature ever shows. For no outline
+of objects whatsoever is so sharp as the edge of a close shadow. Put
+your finger over a piece of white paper in the sun, and observe the
+difference between the softness of the outline of the finger itself and
+the decision of the edge of the shadow. And note also the excessive
+gloom of the latter. A piece of black cloth, laid in the light, will not
+attain one-fourth of the blackness of the paper under the shadow.
+
+
+Sec. 2. And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means of
+       expressing vividness of light.
+
+Sec. 3. Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian
+       school.
+
+Sec. 4. And partial absence in the Dutch.
+
+Hence shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most
+conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights. All forms
+are understood and explained chiefly by their agency: the roughness of
+the bark of a tree, for instance, is not seen in the light, nor in the
+shade: it is only seen between the two, where the shadows of the ridges
+explain it. And hence, if we have to express vivid light, our very first
+aim must be to get the shadows sharp and visible; and this is not to be
+done by blackness, (though indeed chalk on white paper is the only thing
+which comes up to the intensity of real shadows,) but by keeping them
+perfectly flat, keen, and even. A very pale shadow, if it be quite
+flat--if it conceal the details of the objects it crosses--if it be gray
+and cold compared to their color, and very sharp edged, will be far more
+conspicuous, and make everything out of it look a great deal more like
+sunlight, than a shadow ten times its depth, shaded off at the edge, and
+confounded with the color of the objects on which it falls. Now the old
+masters of the Italian school, in almost all of their works, directly
+reverse this principle: they blacken their shadows till the picture
+becomes quite appalling, and everything in it invisible; but they make a
+point of losing their edges, and carrying them off by gradation; in
+consequence utterly destroying every appearance of sunlight. All their
+shadows are the faint, secondary darknesses of mere _daylight_; the sun
+has nothing whatever to do with them. The shadow between the pages of
+the book which you hold in your hand is distinct and visible enough,
+(though you are, I suppose, reading it by the ordinary daylight of your
+room,) out of the sun; and this weak and secondary shadow is all that we
+ever find in the Italian masters, as indicative of sunshine. Even Cuyp
+and Berghem, though they know thoroughly well what they are about in
+their foregrounds, forget the principle in their distances; and though
+in Claude's seaports, where he has plain architecture to deal with, he
+gives us something like real shadows along the stones, the moment we
+come to ground and foliage with lateral light, away go the shadows and
+the sun together. In the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, in our own
+gallery, the trunks of the trees between the water-wheel and the white
+figure in the middle distance, are dark and visible; but their shadows
+are scarcely discernible on the ground, and are quite vague and lost in
+the building. In nature, every bit of the shadow would have been darker
+than the darkest part of the trunks, and both on the ground and building
+would have been defined and conspicuous; while the trunks themselves
+would have been faint, confused, and indistinguishable, in their
+illumined parts, from the grass or distance. So in Poussin's Phocion,
+the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded
+off and lost, while you see the stick plain all the way. In nature's
+sunlight it would have been the direct reverse--you would have seen the
+shadow black and sharp all the way down, but you would have had to look
+for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have
+been confused with the stone behind it.
+
+And so throughout the works of Claude, Poussin, and Salvator, we shall
+find, especially in their conventional foliage, and unarticulated
+barbarisms of rock, that their whole sum and substance of chiaroscuro is
+merely the gradation and variation which nature gives in the _body_ of
+her shadows, and that all which they do to express sunshine, she does to
+vary shade. They take only one step, while she always takes two;
+marking, in the first place, with violent decision, the great transition
+from sun to shade, and then varying the shade itself with a thousand
+gentle gradations and double shadows, in themselves equivalent, and more
+than equivalent, to all that the old masters did for their entire
+chiaroscuro.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The perfection of Turner's works in this respect.
+
+Now if there be one principle, or secret more than another, on which
+Turner depends for attaining brilliancy of light, it is his clear and
+exquisite drawing of the _shadows_. Whatever is obscure, misty, or
+undefined in his objects or his atmosphere, he takes care that the
+shadows be sharp and clear--and then he knows that the light will take
+care of itself, and he makes them clear, not by blackness, but by
+excessive evenness, unity, and sharpness of edge. He will keep them
+clear and distinct, and make them felt as shadows, though they are so
+faint, that, but for their decisive forms, we should not have observed
+them for darkness at all. He will throw them one after another like
+transparent veils, along the earth and upon the air, till the whole
+picture palpitates with them, and yet the darkest of them will be a
+faint gray, imbued and penetrated with light. The pavement on the left
+of the Hero and Leander, is about the most thorough piece of this kind
+of sorcery that I remember in art; but of the general principle, not one
+of his works is without constant evidence. Take the vignette of the
+garden opposite the title-page of Rogers's Poems, and note the drawing
+of the nearest balustrade on the right. The balusters themselves are
+faint and misty, and the light through them feeble; but the shadows of
+them are sharp and dark, and the intervening light as intense as it can
+be left. And see how much more distinct the shadow of the running figure
+is on the pavement, than the checkers of the pavement itself. Observe
+the shadows on the trunk of the tree at page 91, how they conquer all
+the details of the trunk itself, and become darker and more conspicuous
+than any part of the boughs or limbs, and so in the vignette to
+Campbell's Beechtree's Petition. Take the beautiful concentration of all
+that is most characteristic of Italy as she is, at page 168 of Rogers's
+Italy, where we have the long shadows of the trunks made by far the most
+conspicuous thing in the whole foreground, and hear how Wordsworth, the
+keenest-eyed of all modern poets for what is deep and essential in
+nature, illustrates Turner here, as we shall find him doing in all other
+points.
+
+                                          "At the root
+           Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
+           And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
+           Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,
+           Traced faintly in the greensward."
+
+                                              EXCURSION, Book VI
+
+
+Sec. 6. The effect of his shadows upon the light.
+
+So again in the Rhymer's Glen, (Illustrations to Scott,) note the
+intertwining of the shadows across the path, and the checkering of the
+trunks by them; and again on the bridge in the Armstrong's Tower; and
+yet more in the long avenue of Brienne, where we have a length of two or
+three miles expressed by the playing shadows alone, and the whole
+picture filled with sunshine by the long lines of darkness cast by the
+figures on the snow. The Hampton Court in the England series, is another
+very striking instance. In fact, the general system of execution
+observable in all Turner's drawings, is to work his grounds richly and
+fully, sometimes stippling, and giving infinity of delicate, mysterious,
+and ceaseless detail; and on the ground so prepared to cast his shadows
+with one dash of the brush, leaving an excessively sharp edge of watery
+color. Such at least is commonly the case in such coarse and broad
+instances as those I have above given. Words are not accurate enough,
+nor delicate enough to express or trace the constant, all-pervading
+influence of the finer and vaguer shadows throughout his works, that
+thrilling influence which gives to the light they leave, its passion and
+its power. There is not a stone, not a leaf, not a cloud, over which
+light is not felt to be actually passing and palpitating before our
+eyes. There is the motion, the actual wave and radiation of the darted
+beam--not the dull universal daylight, which falls on the landscape
+without life, or direction, or speculation, equal on all things and dead
+on all things; but the breathing, animated, exulting light, which feels,
+and receives, and rejoices, and acts--which chooses one thing and
+rejects another--which seeks, and finds, and loses again--leaping from
+rock to rock, from leaf to leaf, from wave to wave,--glowing, or
+flashing, or scintillating, according to what it strikes, or in its
+holier moods, absorbing and enfolding all things in the deep fulness of
+its repose, and then again losing itself in bewilderment, and doubt, and
+dimness; or perishing and passing away, entangled in drifting mist, or
+melted into melancholy air, but still,--kindling, or declining,
+sparkling or still, it is the living light, which breathes in its
+deepest, most entranced rest, which sleeps, but never dies.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the
+       ancient and modern schools.
+
+I need scarcely insist farther on the marked distinction between the works
+of the old masters and those of the great modern landscape-painters in
+this respect. It is one which the reader can perfectly well work out for
+himself, by the slightest systematic attention,--one which he will find
+existing, not merely between this work and that, but throughout the whole
+body of their productions, and down to every leaf and line. And a little
+careful watching of nature, especially in her foliage and foregrounds,
+and comparison of her with Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator, will
+soon show him that those artists worked entirely on conventional
+principles, not representing what they saw, but what they thought would
+make a handsome picture; and even when they went to nature, which I
+believe to have been a very much rarer practice with them than their
+biographers would have us suppose, they copied her like children, drawing
+what they knew to be there, but not what they saw there.[22] I believe
+you may search the foregrounds of Claude, from one end of Europe to
+another, and you will not find the shadow of one leaf cast upon another.
+You will find leaf after leaf painted more or less boldly or brightly out
+of the black ground, and you will find dark leaves defined in perfect
+form upon the light; but you will not find the form of a single leaf
+disguised or interrupted by the shadow of another. And Poussin and
+Salvator are still farther from anything like genuine truth. There is
+nothing in their pictures which might not be manufactured in their
+painting-room, with a branch or two of brambles and a bunch or two of
+weeds before them, to give them the form of the leaves. And it is
+refreshing to turn from their ignorant and impotent repetitions of
+childish conception, to the clear, close, genuine studies of modern
+artists; for it is not Turner only, (though here, as in all other points,
+the first,) who is remarkable for fine and expressive decision of
+chiaroscuro. Some passages by J. D. Harding are thoroughly admirable in
+this respect, though this master is getting a little too much into a
+habit of general keen execution, which prevents the parts which ought to
+be especially decisive from being felt as such, and which makes his
+pictures, especially the large ones, look a little thin. But some of his
+later passages of rock foreground have, taken in the abstract, been
+beyond all praise, owing to the exquisite forms and firm expressiveness
+of their shadows. And the chiaroscuro of Stanfield is equally deserving
+of the most attentive study.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and deep
+       shadow are used in equal quantity and only in points.
+
+The second point to which I wish at present to direct attention has
+reference to the _arrangement_ of light and shade. It is the constant
+habit of nature to use both her highest lights and deepest shadows in
+exceedingly small quantity; always in points, never in masses. She will
+give a large mass of tender light in sky or water, impressive by its
+quantity, and a large mass of tender shadow relieved against it, in
+foliage, or hill, or building; but the light is always subdued if it be
+extensive--the shadow always feeble if it be broad. She will then fill
+up all the rest of her picture with middle tints and pale grays of some
+sort or another, and on this quiet and harmonious whole, she will touch
+her high lights in spots--the foam of an isolated wave--the sail of a
+solitary vessel--the flash of the sun from a wet roof--the gleam of a
+single whitewashed cottage--or some such sources of local brilliancy,
+she will use so vividly and delicately as to throw everything else into
+definite shade by comparison. And then taking up the gloom, she will use
+the black hollows of some overhanging bank, or the black dress of some
+shaded figure, or the depth of some sunless chink of wall or window, so
+sharply as to throw everything else into definite light by comparison;
+thus reducing the whole mass of her picture to a delicate middle tint,
+approaching, of course, here to light, and there to gloom; but yet
+sharply separated from the utmost degrees either of the one or the
+other.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art.
+
+Sec. 10. And consequent misguiding of the student.
+
+Now it is a curious thing that none of our writers on art seem to have
+noticed the great principle of nature in this respect. They all talk of
+deep shadow as a thing that may be given in quantity,--one fourth of the
+picture, or, in certain effects, much more. Barry, for instance, says
+that the practice of the great painters, who "best understood the
+effects of chiaroscuro," was, for the most part, to make the mass of
+middle tint larger than the light, and the mass of dark larger than the
+masses of light and middle tint together, _i.e._, occupying more than
+one-half of the picture. Now I do not know what we are to suppose is
+meant by "understanding chiaroscuro." If it means being able to
+manufacture agreeable patterns in the shape of pyramids, and crosses,
+and zigzags, into which arms and legs are to be persuaded, and passion
+and motion arranged, for the promotion and encouragement of the cant of
+criticism, such a principle may be productive of the most advantageous
+results. But if it means, being acquainted with the deep, perpetual,
+systematic, unintrusive simplicity and unwearied variety of nature's
+chiaroscuro--if it means the perception that blackness and sublimity are
+not synonymous, and that space and light may possibly be
+coadjutors--then no man, who ever advocated or dreamed of such a
+principle, is anything more than a novice, blunderer and trickster in
+chiaroscuro. And my firm belief is, that though color is inveighed
+against by all artists, as the great Circe of art--the great transformer
+of mind into sensuality--no fondness for it, no study of it, is half so
+great a peril and stumbling-block to the young student, as the
+admiration he hears bestowed on such artificial, false, and juggling
+chiaroscuro, and the instruction he receives, based on such principles
+as that given us by Fuseli--that "mere natural light and shade, however
+separately or individually true, is not always legitimate chiaroscuro in
+art." It may not always be _agreeable_ to a sophisticated, unfeeling,
+and perverted mind; but the student had better throw up his art at once,
+than proceed on the conviction that any other can ever be _legitimate_.
+I believe I shall be perfectly well able to prove, in following parts of
+the work, that "mere natural light and shade" is the only fit and
+faithful attendant of the highest art; and that all tricks--all visible,
+intended arrangement--all extended shadows and narrow lights--everything
+in fact, in the least degree artificial, or tending to make the mind
+dwell upon light and shade as such, is an injury, instead of an aid, to
+conceptions of high ideal dignity. I believe I shall be able also to
+show, that nature manages her chiaroscuro a great deal more neatly and
+cleverly than people fancy;--that "mere natural light and shade" is a
+very much finer thing than most artists can put together, and that none
+think they can improve upon it but those who never understood it.
+
+
+Sec. 11. The great value of a simple chiaroscuro.
+
+But however this may be, it is beyond dispute that every permission
+given to the student to amuse himself with painting one figure all
+black, and the next all white, and throwing them out with a background
+of nothing--every permission given to him to spoil his pocketbook with
+sixths of sunshine and sevenths of shade, and other such fractional
+sublimities, is so much more difficulty laid in the way of his ever
+becoming a master; and that none are in the right road to real
+excellence, but those who are struggling to render the simplicity,
+purity, and inexhaustible variety of nature's own chiaroscuro in open,
+cloudless daylight, giving the expanse of harmonious light--the
+speaking, decisive shadow--and the exquisite grace, tenderness, and
+grandeur of aerial opposition of local color and equally illuminated
+lines. No chiaroscuro is so difficult as this; and none so noble,
+chaste, or impressive. On this part of the subject, however, I must not
+enlarge at present. I wish now only to speak of those great principles
+of chiaroscuro, which nature observes, even when she is most working for
+effect--when she is playing with thunder-clouds and sunbeams, and
+throwing one thing out and obscuring another, with the most marked
+artistical feeling and intention;--even then, she never forgets her
+great rule, to give precisely the same quantity of deepest shade which
+she does of highest light, and no more; points of the one answering to
+points of the other, and both vividly conspicuous and separated from all
+the rest of the landscape.
+
+
+Sec. 12. The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle tint.
+
+And it is most singular that this separation, which is the great source
+of brilliancy in nature, should not only be unobserved, but absolutely
+forbidden by our great writers on art, who are always talking about
+connecting the light with the shade by _imperceptible gradations_. Now
+so surely as this is done, all sunshine is lost, for imperceptible
+gradation from light to dark is the characteristic of objects seen out
+of sunshine, in what is, in landscape, shadow. Nature's principle of
+getting light is the direct reverse. She will cover her whole landscape
+with middle tint, in which she will have as many gradations as you
+please, and a great many more than you can paint; but on this middle
+tint she touches her extreme lights, and extreme darks, isolated and
+sharp, so that the eye goes to them directly, and feels them to be
+key-notes of the whole composition. And although the dark touches are
+less attractive than the light ones, it is not because they are less
+distinct, but because they exhibit nothing; while the bright touches are
+in parts where everything is seen, and where in consequence the eye goes
+to rest. But yet the high lights do not exhibit anything in themselves,
+they are too bright and dazzle the eye; and having no shadows in them,
+cannot exhibit form, for form can only be seen by shadow of some kind or
+another. Hence the highest lights and deepest darks agree in this, that
+nothing is seen in either of them; that both are in exceedingly small
+quantity, and both are marked and distinct from the middle tones of the
+landscape--the one by their brilliancy, the other by their sharp edges,
+even though many of the more energetic middle tints may approach their
+intensity very closely.
+
+
+Sec. 13. The truth of Turner.
+
+I need scarcely do more than tell you to glance at any one of the works
+of Turner, and you will perceive in a moment the exquisite observation
+of all these principles; the sharpness, decision, conspicuousness, and
+excessively small quantity, both of extreme light and extreme shade, all
+the mass of the picture being graduated and delicate middle tint. Take
+up the Rivers of France, for instance, and turn over a few of the plates
+in succession.
+
+  1. Chateau Gaillard (vignette.)--Black figures and boats, points of
+shade; sun-touches on castle, and wake of boat, of light. See how the
+eye rests on both, and observe how sharp and separate all the lights
+are, falling in spots, edged by shadow, but not melting off into it.
+
+  2. Orleans.--The crowded figures supply both points of shade and light.
+Observe the delicate middle tint of both in the whole mass of buildings,
+and compare this with the blackness of Canaletto's shadows, against
+which neither figures nor anything else can ever tell, as points of
+shade.
+
+  3. Blois.--White figures in boats, buttresses of bridge, dome of church
+on the right, for light; woman on horseback, heads of boats, for shadow.
+Note especially the isolation of the light on the church dome.
+
+  4. Chateau de Blois.--Torches and white figures for light, roof of
+chapel and monks' dresses for shade.
+
+  5. Beaugency.--Sails and spire opposed to buoy and boats. An exquisite
+instance of brilliant, sparkling, isolated touches of morning light.
+
+  6. Amboise.--White sail and clouds; cypresses under castle.
+
+  7. Chateau of Amboise.--The boat in the centre, with its reflections,
+needs no comment. Note the glancing lights under the bridge. This is a
+very glorious and perfect instance.
+
+  8. St. Julien, Tours.--Especially remarkable for its preservation of
+deep points of gloom, because the whole picture is one of extended
+shade.
+
+I need scarcely go on. The above instances are taken as they happen to
+come, without selection. The reader can proceed for himself. I may,
+however, name a few cases of chiaroscuro more especially deserving of
+his study. Scene between Quilleboeuf and Villequier,--Honfleur,--Light
+Towers of the Heve,--On the Seine between Mantes and Vernon,--The
+Lantern at St. Cloud,--Confluence of Seine and Marne,--Troyes,--the
+first and last vignette, and those at pages 36, 63, 95, 184, 192, 203,
+of Rogers's poems; the first and second in Campbell, St. Maurice in the
+Italy, where note the black stork; Brienne, Skiddaw, Mayburgh, Melrose,
+Jedburgh, in the illustrations to Scott, and the vignettes to Milton,
+not because these are one whit superior to others of his works, but
+because the laws of which we have been speaking are more strikingly
+developed in them, and because they have been well engraved. It is
+impossible to reason from the larger plates, in which half the
+chiaroscuro is totally destroyed by the haggling, blackening, and
+"making out" of the engravers.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [22] Compare Sect. II. Chap. II. Sec. 6.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+   OF TRUTH OF SPACE:--FIRST AS DEPENDENT ON THE FOCUS OF THE EYE.[23]
+
+
+Sec. 1. Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than by
+       their hue.
+
+In the first chapter of this section I noticed the distinction between
+real aerial perspective, and that overcharged contrast of light and
+shade by which the old masters obtained their deceptive effect; and I
+showed that, though inferior to them in the precise quality or tone of
+aerial color, our great modern master is altogether more truthful in the
+expression of the proportionate relation of all his distances to one
+another. I am now about to examine those modes of expressing space, both
+in nature and art by far the most important, which are dependent, not on
+the relative hues of objects, but on the _drawing_ of them: by far the
+most important, I say, because the most constant and certain; for nature
+herself is not always aerial. Local effects are frequent which interrupt
+and violate the laws of aerial tone, and induce strange deception in our
+ideas of distance. I have often seen the summit of a snowy mountain look
+nearer than its base, owing to the perfect clearness of the upper air.
+But the _drawing_ of objects, that is to say, the degree in which their
+details and parts are distinct or confused, is an unfailing and certain
+criterion of their distance; and if this be rightly rendered in a
+painting, we shall have genuine truth of space, in spite of many errors
+in aerial tone; while, if this be neglected, all space will be
+destroyed, whatever dexterity of tint may be employed to conceal the
+defective drawing.
+
+
+Sec. 2. It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances distinctly at
+       one moment.
+
+First, then, it is to be noticed, that the eye, like any other lens,
+must have its focus altered, in order to convey a distinct image of
+objects at different distances; so that it is totally impossible to see
+distinctly, at the same moment, two objects, one of which is much
+farther off than another. Of this, any one may convince himself in an
+instant. Look at the bars of your window-frame, so as to get a clear
+image of their lines and form, and you cannot, while your eye is fixed
+on them, perceive anything but the most indistinct and shadowy images of
+whatever objects may be visible beyond. But fix your eyes on those
+objects, so as to see them clearly, and though they are just beyond and
+apparently beside the window-frame, that frame will only be felt or seen
+as a vague, flitting, obscure interruption to whatever is perceived
+beyond it. A little attention directed to this fact will convince every
+one of its universality, and prove beyond dispute that objects at
+unequal distances cannot be seen together, not from the intervention of
+air or mist, but from the impossibility of the rays proceeding from
+both, converging to the same focus, so that the whole impression, either
+of one or the other, must necessarily be confused, indistinct, and
+inadequate.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Especially such as are both comparatively near.
+
+But, be it observed (and I have only to request that whatever I say may
+be tested by immediate experiment,) the difference of focus necessary is
+greatest within the first five hundred yards, and therefore, though it
+is totally impossible to see an object ten yards from the eye, and one a
+quarter of a mile beyond it, at the same moment, it is perfectly
+possible to see one a quarter of a mile off, and one five miles beyond
+it, at the same moment. The consequence of this is, practically, that in
+a real landscape, we can see the whole of what would be called the
+middle distance and distance together, with facility and clearness; but
+while we do so we can see nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and
+indistinct arrangement of lines and colors; and that if, on the
+contrary, we look at any foreground object, so as to receive a distinct
+impression of it, the distance and middle distance become all disorder
+and mystery.
+
+
+Sec. 4. In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must be
+       partially sacrificed.
+
+And therefore, if in a painting our foreground is anything, our distance
+must be nothing, and _vice versa_; for if we represent our near and
+distant objects as giving both at once that distinct image to the eye,
+which we receive in nature from each, when we look at them
+separately;[24] and if we distinguish them from each other only by the
+air-tone; and indistinctness dependent on positive distance, we violate
+one of the most essential principles of nature; we represent that as
+seen at once which can only be seen by two separate acts of seeing, and
+tell a falsehood as gross as if we had represented four sides of a cubic
+object visible together.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Which not being done by the old masters, they could not express
+       space.
+
+Sec. 6. But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying out this
+       principle.
+
+Sec. 7. Especially of Turner.
+
+Now, to this fact and principle, no landscape painter of the old school,
+as far as I remember, ever paid the slightest attention. Finishing their
+foregrounds clearly and sharply, and with vigorous impression on the
+eye, giving even the leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge
+and shape, they proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what
+they could see of its details--they gave all that the eye can perceive
+in a distance, when it is fully and entirely devoted to it, and
+therefore, though masters of aerial tone, though employing every
+expedient that art could supply to conceal the intersection of lines,
+though caricaturing the force and shadow of near objects to throw them
+close upon the eye, they _never_ succeeded in truly representing space.
+Turner introduced a new era in landscape art, by showing that the
+foreground might be sunk for the distance, and that it was possible to
+express immediate proximity to the spectator, without giving anything
+like completeness to the forms of the near objects. This is not done by
+slurred or soft lines, observe, (always the sign of vice in art,) but by
+a decisive imperfection, a firm, but partial assertion of form, which
+the eye feels indeed to be close home to it, and yet cannot rest upon,
+or cling to, nor entirely understand, and from which it is driven away
+of necessity, to those parts of distance on which it is intended to
+repose. And this principle, originated by Turner, though fully carried
+out by him only, has yet been acted on with judgment and success by
+several less powerful artists of the English school. Some six years ago,
+the brown moorland foregrounds of Copley Fielding were very instructive
+in this respect. Not a line in them was made out, not a single object
+clearly distinguishable. Wet broad sweeps of the brush, sparkling,
+careless, and accidental as nature herself, always truthful as far as
+they went, implying knowledge, though not expressing it, suggested
+everything, while they represented nothing. But far off into the
+mountain distance came the sharp edge and the delicate form; the whole
+intention and execution of the picture being guided and exerted where
+the great impression of space and size was to be given. The spectator
+was compelled to go forward into the waste of hills--there, where the
+sun broke wide upon the moor, he must walk and wander--he could not
+stumble and hesitate over the near rocks, nor stop to botanize on the
+first inches of his path.[25] And the impression of these pictures was
+always great and enduring, as it was simple and truthful. I do not know
+anything in art which has expressed more completely the force and
+feeling of nature in these particular scenes. And it is a farther
+illustration[26] of the principle we are insisting upon, that where, as
+in some of his later works, he has bestowed more labor on the
+foreground, the picture has lost both in space and sublimity. And among
+artists in general, who are either not aware of the principle, or fear
+to act upon it, (for it requires no small courage, as well as skill, to
+treat a foreground with that indistinctness and mystery which they have
+been accustomed to consider as characteristic of distance,) the
+foreground is not only felt, as every landscape painter will confess, to
+be the most embarrassing and unmanageable part of the picture, but, in
+ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, will go near to destroy the effect
+of the rest of the composition. Thus Callcott's Trent is severely
+injured by the harsh group of foreground figures; and Stanfield very
+rarely gets through an Academy picture without destroying much of its
+space, by too much determination of near form; while Harding constantly
+sacrifices his distance, and compels the spectator to dwell on the
+foreground altogether, though indeed, with such foregrounds as he gives
+us, we are most happy so to do. But it is in Turner only that we see a
+bold and decisive choice of the distance and middle distance, as his
+great object of attention; and by him only that the foreground is united
+and adapted to it, not by any want of drawing, or coarseness, or
+carelessness of execution, but by the most precise and beautiful
+indication or suggestion of just so much of even the minutest forms as
+the eye can see when its focus is not adapted to them. And herein is
+another reason for the vigor and wholeness of the effect of Turner's
+works at any distance; while those of almost all other artists are sure
+to lose space as soon as we lose sight of the details.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures.
+
+And now we see the reason for the singular, and to the ignorant in art,
+the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert
+that there is any reason whatsoever, for _bad_ drawing, (though in
+landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but that there is both reason
+and necessity for that _want_ of drawing which gives even the nearest
+figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and
+four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally
+impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding
+from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the
+distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and
+features of near figures than Turner gives. And how absolutely necessary
+to the faithful representation of space this indecision really is, might
+be proved with the utmost ease by any one who had veneration enough for
+the artist to sacrifice one of his pictures to his fame; who would take
+some one of his works in which the figures were most incomplete, and
+have them painted in by any of our delicate and first-rate
+figure-painters, absolutely preserving every color and shade of Turner's
+group, so as not to lose one atom of the composition, but giving eyes
+for the pink spots, and feet for the white ones. Let the picture be so
+exhibited in the Academy, and even novices in art would feel at a glance
+that its truth of space was gone, that every one of its beauties and
+harmonies had undergone decomposition, that it was now a grammatical
+solecism, a painting of impossibilities, a thing to torture the eye, and
+offend the mind.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [23] I have left this chapter in its original place, because I am
+    more than ever convinced of the truth of the position advanced in
+    the 8th paragraph; nor can I at present assign any other cause, than
+    that here given, for what is there asserted; and yet I cannot but
+    think that I have allowed far too much influence to a change so
+    slight as that which we insensibly make in the focus of the eye; and
+    that the real justification of Turner's practice, with respect to
+    some of his foregrounds, is to be elsewhere sought. I leave the
+    subject, therefore, to the reader's consideration.
+
+  [24] This incapacity of the eye must not be confounded with its
+    incapability to comprehend a large portion of _lateral_ space at
+    once. We indeed can see, at any one moment, little more than one
+    point, the objects beside it being confused and indistinct; but we
+    need pay no attention to this in art, because we can see just as
+    little of the picture as we can of the landscape without turning the
+    eye, and hence any slurring or confusing of one part of it,
+    laterally, more than another, is not founded on any truth of nature,
+    but is an expedient of the artist--and often an excellent and
+    desirable one--to make the eye rest where he wishes it. But as the
+    touch expressive of a distant object is as near upon the canvas as
+    that expressive of a near one, both are seen distinctly and with the
+    same focus of the eye, and hence an immediate contradiction of
+    nature results, unless one or other be given with an artificial and
+    increased indistinctness, expressive of the appearance peculiar to
+    the unadapted focus. On the other hand, it must be noted that the
+    greater part of the effect above described is consequent not on
+    variation of focus, but on the different angle at which near objects
+    are seen by each of the two eyes, when both are directed towards the
+    distance.
+
+  [25] There is no inconsistency, observe, between this passage and
+    what was before asserted respecting the necessity of botanical
+    fidelity--where the foreground is the object of attention. Compare
+    Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. Sec. 10:--"To paint mist rightly, space
+    rightly, and light rightly, it may be often necessary to paint
+    _nothing else_ rightly."
+
+  [26] Hardly. It would have been so only had the recently finished
+    foregrounds been as accurate in detail as they are abundant: they
+    are painful, I believe, not from their finish, but their falseness.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+      OF TRUTH OF SPACE:--SECONDLY, AS ITS APPEARANCE IS DEPENDENT ON
+                            THE POWER OF THE EYE.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of objects
+       from the eye.
+
+In the last chapter, we have seen how indistinctness of individual
+distances becomes necessary in order to express the adaptation of the
+eye to one or other of them; we have now to examine that kind of
+indistinctness which is dependent on real retirement of the object even
+when the focus of the eye is fully concentrated upon it. The first kind
+of indecision is that which belongs to all objects which the eye is not
+adapted to, whether near or far off: the second is that consequent upon
+the want of power in the eye to receive a clear image of objects at a
+great distance from it, however attentively it may regard them.
+
+Draw on a piece of white paper, a square and a circle, each about a
+twelfth or eighth of an inch in diameter, and blacken them so that their
+forms may be very distinct; place your paper against the wall at the end
+of the room, and retire from it a greater or less distance according as
+you have drawn the figures larger or smaller. You will come to a point
+where, though you can see both the spots with perfect plainness, you
+cannot tell which is the square and which the circle.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details.
+
+Now this takes place of course with every object in a landscape, in
+proportion to its distance and size. The definite forms of the leaves of
+a tree, however sharply and separately they may appear to come against
+the sky, are quite indistinguishable at fifty yards off, and the form of
+everything becomes confused before we finally lose sight of it. Now if
+the character of an object, say the front of a house, be explained by a
+variety of forms in it, as the shadows in the tops of the windows, the
+lines of the architraves, the seams of the masonry, etc.; these lesser
+details, as the object falls into distance, become confused and
+undecided, each of them losing their definite forms, but all being
+perfectly visible as something, a white or a dark spot or stroke, not
+lost sight of, observe, but yet so seen that we cannot tell what they
+are. As the distance increases, the confusion becomes greater, until at
+last the whole front of the house becomes merely a flat, pale space, in
+which, however, there is still observable a kind of richness and
+checkering, caused by the details in it, which, though totally merged
+and lost in the mass, have still an influence on the texture of that
+mass; until at last the whole house itself becomes a mere light or dark
+spot which we can plainly see, but cannot tell what it is, nor
+distinguish it from a stone or any other object.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Instances in various objects.
+
+Now what I particularly wish to insist upon, is the state of vision in
+which all the details of an object are seen, and yet seen in such
+confusion and disorder that we cannot in the least tell what they are,
+or what they mean. It is not mist between us and the object, still less
+is it shade, still less is it want of character; it is a confusion, a
+mystery, an interfering of undecided lines with each other, not a
+diminution of their number; window and door, architrave and frieze, all
+are there: it is no cold and vacant mass, it is full and rich and
+abundant, and yet you cannot see a single form so as to know what it is.
+Observe your friend's face as he is coming up to you; first it is
+nothing more than a white spot; now it is a face, but you cannot see the
+two eyes, nor the mouth, even as spots; you see a confusion of lines, a
+something which you know from experience to be indicative of a face, and
+yet you cannot tell how it is so. Now he is nearer, and you can see the
+spots for the eyes and mouth, but they are not blank spots neither;
+there is detail in them; you cannot see the lips, nor the teeth, nor the
+brows, and yet you see more than mere spots; it is a mouth and an eye,
+and there is light and sparkle and expression in them, but nothing
+distinct. Now he is nearer still, and you can see that he is like your
+friend, but you cannot tell whether he is or not; there is a vagueness
+and indecision of line still. Now you are sure, but even yet there are a
+thousand things in his face which have their effect in inducing the
+recognition, but which you cannot see so as to know what they are.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Two great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct, and
+       never vacant.
+
+Changes like these, and states of vision corresponding to them, take
+place with each and all of the objects of nature, and two great
+principles of truth are deducible from their observation. First, place
+an object as close to the eye as you like, there is always something in
+it which you _cannot_ see, except in the hinted and mysterious manner
+above described. You can see the texture of a piece of dress, but you
+cannot see the individual threads which compose it, though they are all
+felt, and have each of them influence on the eye. Secondly, place an
+object as far from the eye as you like, and until it becomes itself a
+mere spot, there is always something in it which you _can_ see, though
+only in the hinted manner above described. Its shadows and lines and
+local colors are not lost sight of as it retires; they get mixed and
+indistinguishable, but they are still there, and there is a difference
+always perceivable between an object possessing such details and a flat
+or vacant space. The grass blades of a meadow a mile off, are so far
+discernible that there will be a marked difference between its
+appearance and that of a piece of wood painted green. And thus nature is
+never distinct and never vacant, she is always mysterious, but always
+abundant; you always see something, but you never see all.
+
+And thus arise that exquisite finish and fulness which God has appointed
+to be the perpetual source of fresh pleasure to the cultivated and
+observant eye,--a finish which no distance can render invisible, and no
+nearness comprehensible; which in every stone, every bough, every cloud,
+and every wave is multiplied around us, forever presented, and forever
+exhaustless. And hence in art, every space or touch in which we can see
+everything, or in which we can see nothing, is false. Nothing can be
+true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does
+not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which
+represents nothing.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Complete violation of both these principles by the old masters.
+       They are either distinct or vacant.
+
+Now, I would not wish for any more illustrative or marked examples of
+the total contradiction of these two great principles, than the
+landscape works of the old masters, taken as a body:--the Dutch masters
+furnishing the cases of seeing everything, and the Italians of seeing
+nothing. The rule with both is indeed the same, differently applied.
+"You shall see the bricks in the wall, and be able to count them, or you
+shall see nothing but a dead flat;" but the Dutch give you the bricks,
+and the Italians the flat. Nature's rule being the precise reverse--"You
+shall never be able to count the bricks, but you shall never see a dead
+space."
+
+
+Sec. 6. Instances from Nicholas Poussin.
+
+Take, for instance, the street in the centre of the really great
+landscape of Poussin (great in feeling at least) marked 260 in the
+Dulwich Gallery. The houses are dead square masses with a light side and
+a dark side, and black touches for windows. There is no suggestion of
+anything in any of the spaces, the light wall is dead gray, the dark
+wall dead gray, and the windows dead black. How differently would nature
+have treated us. She would have let us see the Indian corn hanging on
+the walls, and the image of the Virgin at the angles, and the sharp,
+broken, broad shadows of the tiled eaves, and the deep ribbed tiles with
+the doves upon them, and the carved Roman capital built into the wall,
+and the white and blue stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the
+windows, and the flapping corners of the mat blinds. All would have been
+there; not as such, not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not to be
+comprehended nor understood, but a confusion of yellow and black spots
+and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow, microscopic in
+its minuteness, and filling every atom and part of space with mystery,
+out of which would have arranged itself the general impression of truth
+and life.
+
+
+Sec. 7. From Claude.
+
+Again, take the distant city on the right bank of the river in Claude's
+Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, in the National Gallery. I have seen many
+cities in my life, and drawn not a few; and I have seen many
+fortifications, fancy ones included, which frequently supply us with
+very new ideas indeed, especially in matters of proportion; but I do not
+remember ever having met with either a city or a fortress _entirely_
+composed of round towers of various heights and sizes, all facsimiles of
+each other, and absolutely agreeing in the number of battlements. I
+have, indeed, some faint recollection of having delineated such an one
+in the first page of a spelling-book when I was four years old; but,
+somehow or other, the dignity and perfection of the ideal were not
+appreciated, and the volume was not considered to be increased in value
+by the frontispiece. Without, however, venturing to doubt the entire
+sublimity of the same ideal as it occurs in Claude, let us consider how
+nature, if she had been fortunate enough to originate so perfect a
+conception, would have managed it in its details. Claude has permitted
+us to see every battlement, and the first impulse we feel upon looking
+at the picture is to count how many there are. Nature would have given
+us a peculiar confused roughness of the upper lines, a multitude of
+intersections and spots, which we should have known from experience was
+indicative of battlements, but which we might as well have thought of
+creating as of counting. Claude has given you the walls below in one
+dead void of uniform gray. There is nothing to be seen, nor felt, nor
+guessed at in it; it is gray paint or gray shade, whichever you may
+choose to call it, but it is nothing more. Nature would have let you
+see, nay, would have compelled you to see, thousands of spots and lines,
+not one to be absolutely understood or accounted for, but yet all
+characteristic and different from each other; breaking lights on
+shattered stones, vague shadows from waving vegetation, irregular stains
+of time and weather, mouldering hollows, sparkling casements--all would
+have been there--none, indeed, seen as such, none comprehensible or like
+themselves, but all visible; little shadows, and sparkles, and
+scratches, making that whole space of color a transparent, palpitating,
+various infinity.
+
+
+Sec. 8. And G. Poussin.
+
+Or take one of Poussin's extreme distances, such as that in the
+Sacrifice of Isaac. It is luminous, retiring, delicate and perfect in
+tone, and is quite complete enough to deceive and delight the careless
+eye to which all distances are alike; nay, it is perfect and masterly,
+and absolutely right if we consider it as a sketch,--as a first plan of
+a distance, afterwards to be carried out in detail. But we must remember
+that all these alternate spaces of gray and gold are not the landscape
+itself, but the treatment of it--not its substance, but its light and
+shade. They are just what nature would cast over it, and write upon it
+with every cloud, but which she would cast in play, and without
+carefulness, as matters of the very smallest possible importance. All
+her work and her attention would be given to bring out from underneath
+this, and through this, the forms and the material character which this
+can only be valuable to illustrate, not to conceal. Every one of those
+broad spaces she would linger over in protracted delight, teaching you
+fresh lessons in every hairsbreadth of it, and pouring her fulness of
+invention into it, until the mind lost itself in following her,--now
+fringing the dark edge of the shadow with a tufted line of level
+forest--now losing it for an instant in a breath of mist--then breaking
+it with the white gleaming angle of a narrow brook--then dwelling upon
+it again in a gentle, mounded, melting undulation, over the other side
+of which she would carry you down into a dusty space of soft, crowded
+light, with the hedges, and the paths, and the sprinkled cottages and
+scattered trees mixed up and mingled together in one beautiful,
+delicate, impenetrable mystery--sparkling and melting, and passing away
+into the sky, without one line of distinctness, or one instant of
+vacancy.
+
+
+Sec. 9. The imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness and
+       finish.
+
+Now it is, indeed, impossible for the painter to follow all this--he
+cannot come up to the same degree and order of infinity--but he can give
+us a lesser kind of infinity. He has not one-thousandth part of the
+space to occupy which nature has; but he can, at least, leave no part of
+that space vacant and unprofitable. If nature carries out her minutiae
+over miles, he has no excuse for generalizing in inches. And if he will
+only give us all he can, if he will give us a fulness as complete and as
+mysterious as nature's, we will pardon him for its being the fulness of
+a cup instead of an ocean. But we will not pardon him, if, because he
+has not the mile to occupy, he will not occupy the inch, and because he
+has fewer means at his command, will leave half of those in his power
+unexerted. Still less will we pardon him for mistaking the sport of
+nature for her labor, and for following her only in her hour of rest,
+without observing how she has worked for it. After spending centuries in
+raising the forest, and guiding the river, and modelling the mountain,
+she exults over her work in buoyancy of spirit, with playful sunbeam and
+flying cloud; but the painter must go through the same labor, or he must
+not have the same recreation. Let him chisel his rock faithfully, and
+tuft his forest delicately, and then we will allow him his freaks of
+light and shade, and thank him for them; but we will not be put off with
+the play before the lesson--with the adjunct instead of the
+essence--with the illustration instead of the fact.
+
+
+Sec. 10. Breadth is not vacancy.
+
+I am somewhat anticipating my subject here, because I can scarcely help
+answering the objections which I know must arise in the minds of most
+readers, especially of those who are _partially_ artistical, respecting
+"generalization," "breadth," "effect," etc. It were to be wished that
+our writers on art would not dwell so frequently on the necessity of
+breadth, without explaining what it means; and that we had more constant
+reference made to the principle which I can only remember having seen
+once clearly explained and insisted on,--that breadth is not vacancy.
+Generalization is unity, not destruction of parts; and composition is
+not annihilation, but arrangement of materials. The breadth which unites
+the truths of nature with her harmonies, is meritorious and beautiful;
+but the breadth which annihilates those truths by the million, is not
+painting nature, but painting over her. And so the masses which result
+from right concords and relations of details, are sublime and
+impressive; but the masses which result from the eclipse of details are
+contemptible and painful.[27] And we shall show, in following parts of
+the work, that distances like those of Poussin are mere meaningless
+tricks of clever execution, which, when once discovered, the artist may
+repeat over and over again, with mechanical contentment and perfect
+satisfaction, both to himself and to his superficial admirers, with no
+more exertion of intellect nor awakening of feeling than any tradesman
+has in multiplying some ornamental pattern of furniture. Be this as it
+may, however, (for we cannot enter upon the discussion of the question
+here,) the falsity and imperfection of such distances admit of no
+dispute. Beautiful and ideal they may be; true they are not: and in the
+same way we might go through every part and portion of the works of the
+old masters, showing throughout, either that you have every leaf and
+blade of grass staring defiance to the mystery of nature, or that you
+have dead spaces of absolute vacuity, equally determined in their
+denial of her fulness. And even if we ever find (as here and there, in
+their better pictures, we do) changeful passages of agreeable playing
+color, or mellow and transparent modulations of mysterious atmosphere,
+even here the touches, though satisfactory to the eye, are suggestive of
+nothing,--they are characterless,--they have none of the peculiar
+expressiveness and meaning by which nature maintains the variety and
+interest even of what she most conceals. She always tells a story,
+however hintedly and vaguely; each of her touches is different from all
+the others; and we feel with every one, that though we cannot tell what
+it is, it cannot be _anything_; while even the most dexterous distances
+of the old masters pretend to secrecy without having anything to
+conceal, and are ambiguous, not from the concentration of meaning, but
+from the want of it.
+
+
+Sec. 11. The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances.
+
+And now, take up one of Turner's distances, it matters not which, or of
+what kind,--drawing or painting, small or great, done thirty years ago,
+or for last year's Academy, as you like; say that of the Mercury and
+Argus, and look if every fact which I have just been pointing out in
+nature be not carried out in it. Abundant, beyond the power of the eye
+to embrace or follow, vast and various, beyond the power of the mind to
+comprehend, there is yet not one atom in its whole extent and mass which
+does not suggest more than it represents; nor does it suggest vaguely,
+but in such a manner as to prove that the conception of each individual
+inch of that distance is absolutely clear and complete in the master's
+mind, a separate picture fully worked out: but yet, clearly and fully as
+the idea is formed, just so much of it is given, and no more, as nature
+would have allowed us to feel or see; just so much as would enable a
+spectator of experience and knowledge to understand almost every minute
+fragment of separate detail, but appears, to the unpractised and
+careless eye, just what a distance of nature's own would appear, an
+unintelligible mass. Not one line out of the millions there is without
+meaning, yet there is not one which is not affected and disguised by the
+dazzle and indecision of distance. No form is made out, and yet no form
+is unknown.
+
+
+Sec. 12. Farther illustrations in architectural drawing.
+
+Perhaps the truth of this system of drawing is better to be understood
+by observing the distant character of rich architecture, than of any
+other object. Go to the top of Highgate Hill on a clear summer morning
+at five o'clock, and look at Westminster Abbey. You will receive an
+impression of a building enriched with multitudinous vertical lines. Try
+to distinguish one of those lines all the way down from the one next to
+it: You cannot. Try to count them: You cannot. Try to make out the
+beginning or end of any one of them: You cannot. Look at it generally,
+and it is all symmetry and arrangement. Look at in its parts, and it is
+all inextricable confusion. Am not I, at this moment, describing a piece
+of Turner's drawing, with the same words by which I describe nature? And
+what would one of the old masters have done with such a building as this
+in his distance? Either he would only have given the shadows of the
+buttresses, and the light and dark sides of the two towers, and two dots
+for the windows; or if more ignorant and more ambitious, he had
+attempted to render some of the detail, it would have been done by
+distinct lines,--would have been broad caricature of the delicate
+building, felt at once to be false, ridiculous, and offensive. His most
+successful effort would only have given us, through his carefully toned
+atmosphere, the effect of a colossal parish church, without one line of
+carving on its economic sides. Turner, and Turner only, would follow and
+render on the canvas that mystery of decided line,--that distinct,
+sharp, visible, but unintelligible and inextricable richness, which,
+examined part by part, is to the eye nothing but confusion and defeat,
+which, taken as a whole, is all unity, symmetry, and truth.[28]
+
+
+Sec. 13. In near objects as well as distances.
+
+Sec. 14. Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto.
+
+Nor is this mode of representation true only with respect to distances.
+Every object, however near the eye, has something about it which you
+cannot see, and which brings the mystery of distance even into every
+part and portion of what we suppose ourselves to see most distinctly.
+Stand in the Piazza di St. Marco at Venice, as close to the church as
+you can, without losing sight of the top of it. Look at the capitals of
+the columns on the second story. You see that they are exquisitely rich,
+carved all over. Tell me their patterns: You cannot. Tell me the
+direction of a single line in them: You cannot. Yet you see a multitude
+of lines, and you have so much feeling of a certain tendency and
+arrangement in those lines, that you are quite sure the capitals are
+beautiful, and that they are all different from each other. But I defy
+you to make out one single line in any one of them. Now go to
+Canaletto's painting of this church, in the Palazzo Manfrini, taken from
+the very spot on which you stood. How much has he represented of all
+this? A black dot under each capital for the shadow, and a yellow one
+above it for the light. There is not a vestige nor indication of carving
+or decoration of any sort or kind.
+
+Very different from this, but erring on the other side, is the ordinary
+drawing of the architect, who gives the principal lines of the design
+with delicate clearness and precision, but with no uncertainty or
+mystery about them; which mystery being removed, all space and size are
+destroyed with it, and we have a drawing of a model, not of a building.
+But in the capital lying on the foreground in Turner's Daphne hunting
+with Leucippus, we have the perfect truth. Not one jag of the acanthus
+leaves is absolutely visible, the lines are all disorder, but you feel
+in an instant that all are there. And so it will invariably be found
+through every portion of detail in his late and most perfect works.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds.
+
+But if there be this mystery and inexhaustible finish merely in the more
+delicate instances of architectural decoration, how much more in the
+ceaseless and incomparable decoration of nature. The detail of a single
+weedy bank laughs the carving of ages to scorn. Every leaf and stalk has
+a design and tracery upon it,--every knot of grass an intricacy of shade
+which the labor of years could never imitate, and which, if such labor
+could follow it out even to the last fibres of the leaflets, would yet
+be falsely represented, for, as in all other cases brought forward, it
+is not clearly seen, but confusedly and mysteriously. That which is
+nearness for the bank, is distance for its details; and however near it
+may be, the greater part of those details are still a beautiful
+incomprehensibility.[29]
+
+
+Sec. 16. Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by
+        vacancy.
+
+Hence, throughout the picture, the expression of space and size is
+dependent upon obscurity, united with, or rather resultant from,
+exceeding fulness. We destroy both space and size, either by the
+vacancy, which affords us no measure of space, or by the distinctness,
+which gives us a false one. The distance of Poussin, having no
+indication of trees, nor of meadows, nor of character of any kind, may
+be fifty miles off, or may be five; we cannot tell--we have no measure,
+and in consequence, no vivid impression. But a middle distance of
+Hobbima's involves a contradiction in terms; it states a distance by
+perspective, which it contradicts by distinctness of detail.
+
+
+Sec. 17. Swift execution best secures perfection of details.
+
+Sec. 18. Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical
+        subjects.
+
+A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is more truly expressive of the
+infinity of foliage, than the niggling of Hobbima could have rendered
+his canvas, if he had worked on it till doomsday. What Sir J. Reynolds
+says of the misplaced labor of his Roman acquaintance on separate leaves
+of foliage, and the certainty he expresses that a man who attended to
+general character would in five minutes produce a more faithful
+representation of a tree, than the unfortunate mechanist in as many
+years, is thus perfectly true and well founded; but this is not because
+details are undesirable, but because they are best given by swift
+execution, and because, individually, they cannot be given at all. But
+it should be observed (though we shall be better able to insist upon
+this point in future) that much of harm and error has arisen from the
+supposition and assertions of swift and brilliant historical painters,
+that the same principles of execution are entirely applicable to
+landscape, which are right for the figure. The artist who falls into
+extreme detail in drawing the human form, is apt to become disgusting
+rather than pleasing. It is more agreeable that the general outline and
+soft hues of flesh should alone be given, than its hairs, and veins, and
+lines of intersection. And even the most rapid and generalizing
+expression of the human body, if directed by perfect knowledge, and
+rigidly faithful in drawing, will commonly omit very little of what is
+agreeable or impressive. But the exclusively generalizing landscape
+painter omits the whole of what is valuable in his subject,--omits
+thoughts, designs, and beauties by the million, everything, indeed,
+which can furnish him with variety or expression. A distance in
+Lincolnshire, or in Lombardy, might both be generalized into such blue
+and yellow stripes as we see in Poussin; but whatever there is of beauty
+or character in either, depends altogether on our understanding the
+details, and feeling the difference between the morasses and ditches of
+the one, and the rolling sea of mulberry trees of the other. And so in
+every part of the subject. I have no hesitation in asserting that it is
+_impossible_ to go too fine, or think too much about details in
+landscape, so that they be rightly arranged and rightly massed; but that
+it is equally impossible to render anything like the fulness or the
+space of nature, except by that mystery and obscurity of execution which
+she herself uses, and in which Turner only has followed her.
+
+
+Sec. 19. Recapitulation of the section.
+
+We have now rapidly glanced at such general truths of nature as can be
+investigated without much knowledge of what is beautiful. Questions of
+arrangement, massing, and generalization, I prefer leaving untouched,
+until we know something about details, and something about what is
+beautiful. All that is desirable, even in these mere technical and
+artificial points, is based upon truths and habits of nature; but we
+cannot understand those truths until we are acquainted with the specific
+forms and minor details which they affect, or out of which they arise. I
+shall, therefore, proceed to examine the invaluable and essential truths
+of specific character and form--briefly and imperfectly, indeed, as
+needs must be, but yet at length sufficient to enable the reader to
+pursue, if he will, the subject for himself.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [27] Of course much depends upon the kind of detail so lost. An
+    artist may generalize the trunk of a tree, where he only loses lines
+    of bark, and do us a kindness; but he must not generalize the
+    details of a champaign, in which there is a history of creation. The
+    full discussion of the subject belongs to a future part of our
+    investigation.
+
+  [28] Vide, for illustration, Fontainebleau, in the Illustrations to
+    Scott; Vignette at opening of Human Life, in Rogers's Poems; Venice,
+    in the Italy; Chateau de Blois; the Rouen, and Pont Neuf, Paris, in
+    the Rivers of France. The distances of all the Academy pictures of
+    Venice, especially the Shylock, are most instructive.
+
+  [29] It is to be remembered, however, that these truths present
+    themselves in all probability under very different phases to
+    individuals of different powers of vision. Many artists who appear
+    to generalize rudely or rashly are perhaps faithfully endeavoring to
+    render the appearance which nature bears to sight of limited range.
+    Others may be led by their singular keenness of sight into
+    inexpedient detail. Works which are painted for effect at a certain
+    distance must be always seen at disadvantage by those whose sight is
+    of different range from the painter's. Another circumstance to which
+    I ought above to have alluded is the scale of the picture; for there
+    are different degrees of generalization, and different necessities
+    of symbolism, belonging to every scale: the stipple of the miniature
+    painter would be offensive on features of the life size, and the
+    leaves with Tintoret may articulate on a canvas of sixty feet by
+    twenty-five, must be generalized by Turner on one of four by three.
+    Another circumstance of some importance is the assumed distance of
+    the foreground; many landscape painters seem to think their nearest
+    foreground is always equally near, whereas its distance from the
+    spectator varies not a little, being always at least its own
+    calculable breadth from side to side as estimated by figures or any
+    other object of known size at the nearest part of it. With Claude
+    almost always; with Turner often, as in the Daphne and Leucippus,
+    this breadth is forty or fifty yards; and as the nearest foreground
+    object _must_ then be at least that distance removed, and _may_ be
+    much more, it is evident that no completion of close detail is in
+    such cases allowable, (see here another proof of Claude's erroneous
+    practice;) with Titian and Tintoret, on the contrary, the foreground
+    is rarely more than five or six yards broad, and its objects
+    therefore being only five or six yards distant are entirely
+    detailed.
+
+    None of these circumstances, however, in any wise affect the great
+    principle, the confusion of detail taking place sooner or later in
+    all cases. I ought to have noted, however, that many of the pictures
+    of Turner in which the confused drawing has been least understood,
+    have been luminous _twilights_; and that the uncertainty of twilight
+    is therefore added to that of general distance. In the evenings of
+    the south it not unfrequently happens that objects touched with the
+    reflected light of the western sky, continue even for the space of
+    half an hour after sunset, glowing, ruddy, and intense in color, and
+    almost as bright as if they were still beneath actual sunshine, even
+    till the moon begins to cast a shadow: but in spite of this
+    brilliancy of color all the details become ghostly and ill-defined.
+    This is a favorite moment of Turner's, and he invariably
+    characterizes it, not by gloom, but by uncertainty of detail. I have
+    never seen the effect of clear twilight thoroughly rendered by art;
+    that effect in which all details are lost, while intense clearness
+    and light are still felt in the atmosphere, in which nothing is
+    distinctly seen, and yet it is not darkness, far less mist, that is
+    the cause of concealment. Turner's efforts at rendering this effect
+    (as the Wilderness of Engedi, Assos, Chateau de Blois,
+    Caerlaverock, and others innumerable,) have always some slight
+    appearance of mistiness, owing to the indistinctness of details; but
+    it remains to be shown that any closer approximation to the effect
+    is possible.
+
+
+
+
+                                SECTION III.
+
+                              OF TRUTH OF SKIES.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                              OF THE OPEN SKY.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and teaching of
+       man.
+
+Sec. 2. The carelessness with which its lessons are received.
+
+Sec. 3. The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest.
+
+Sec. 4. Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional.
+
+It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky.
+It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of
+pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him
+and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the
+part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other
+works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere
+pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but
+every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be
+answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great ugly black rain
+cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so
+all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a film of morning and
+evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any
+day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene,
+picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such
+exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is
+quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual
+pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources
+of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest
+scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended
+that man should live always in the midst of them, he injures them by his
+presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them; but the sky
+is for all; bright as it is, it is not "too bright, nor good, for human
+nature's daily food;" it is fitted in all its functions for the
+perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and
+purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes
+capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together;
+almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost
+divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as
+distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is
+mortal is essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a
+subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations; we
+look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes, upon
+all which bears witness to the intention of the Supreme, that we are to
+receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we
+share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless
+and monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a
+moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of
+utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource,
+which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says it has been wet, and
+another it has been windy, and another it has been warm. Who, among the
+whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of
+the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon
+yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south, and
+smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust
+of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight
+left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like
+withered leaves? All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy
+be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or
+what is extraordinary; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce
+manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail,
+nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the
+sublime are developed. God is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire,
+but in the still small voice. They are but the blunt and the low
+faculties of our nature, which can only be addressed through lampblack
+and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive
+majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual,--that which must be
+sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood,--things which
+the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally, which are
+never wanting, and never repeated, which are to be found always yet each
+found but once; it is through these that the lesson of devotion is
+chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given. These are what the
+artist of highest aim must study; it is these, by the combination of
+which his ideal is to be created; these, of which so little notice is
+ordinarily taken by common observers, that I fully believe, little as
+people in general are concerned with art, more of their ideas of sky are
+derived from pictures than from reality, and that if we could examine
+the conception formed in the minds of most educated persons when we talk
+of clouds, it would frequently be found composed of fragments of blue
+and white reminiscences of the old masters.
+
+I shall enter upon the examination of what is true in sky at greater
+length, because it is the only part of a picture of which all, if they
+will, may be competent judges. What I may have to assert respecting the
+rocks of Salvator, or the boughs of Claude, I can scarcely prove, except
+to those whom I can immure for a month or two in the fastnesses of the
+Apennines, or guide in their summer walks again and again through the
+ravines of Sorrento. But what I say of the sky can be brought to an
+immediate test by all, and I write the more decisively, in the hope that
+it may be so.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Nature and essential qualities of the open blue.
+
+Sec. 6. Its connection with clouds.
+
+Sec. 7. Its exceeding depth.
+
+Sec. 8. These qualities are especially given by modern masters.
+
+Sec. 9. And by Claude.
+
+Sec. 10. Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his general
+        treatment of open sky.
+
+Sec. 11. Errors of Cuyp in graduation of color.
+
+Let us begin then with the simple open blue of the sky. This is of
+course the color of the pure atmospheric air, not the aqueous vapor, but
+the pure azote and oxygen, and it is the total color of the whole mass
+of that air between us and the void of space. It is modified by the
+varying quantity of aqueous vapor suspended in it, whose color, in its
+most imperfect, and therefore most visible, state of solution, is pure
+white, (as in steam,) which receives, like any other white, the warm
+hues of the rays of the sun, and, according to its quantity and
+imperfect solution, makes the sky paler, and at the same time more or
+less gray, by mixing warm tones with its blue. This gray aqueous vapor,
+when very decided, becomes mist, and when local, cloud. Hence the sky is
+to be considered as a transparent blue liquid, in which, at various
+elevations, clouds are suspended, those clouds being themselves only
+particular visible spaces of a substance with which the whole mass of
+this liquid is more or less impregnated. Now, we all know this perfectly
+well, and yet we so far forget it in practice, that we little notice the
+constant connection kept up by nature between her blue and her clouds,
+and we are not offended by the constant habit of the old masters, of
+considering the blue sky as totally distinct in its nature, and far
+separated from the vapors which float in it. With them, cloud is cloud,
+and blue is blue, and no kind of connection between them is ever hinted
+at. The sky is thought of as a clear, high material dome, the clouds as
+separate bodies, suspended beneath it, and in consequence, however
+delicate and exquisitely removed in tone their skies may be, you always
+look _at_ them, not _through_ them. Now, if there be one characteristic
+of the sky more valuable or necessary to be rendered than another, it is
+that which Wordsworth has given in the second book of the Excursion:--
+
+                     "The chasm of sky above my head
+           Is Heaven's profoundest azure. No domain
+           For fickle, short-lived clouds, to occupy,
+           Or to pass through;--but rather an _abyss_
+           In which the everlasting stars abide,
+           And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt
+           The curious eye to look for them by day."
+
+And, in his American Notes, I remember Dickens notices the same truth,
+describing himself as lying drowsily on the barge deck, looking not at,
+but _through_ the sky. And if you look intensely at the pure blue of a
+serene sky, you will see that there is a variety and fulness in its very
+repose. It is not flat dead color, but a deep, quivering, transparent
+body of penetrable air, in which you trace or imagine short, falling
+spots of deceiving light, and dim shades, faint, veiled vestiges of dark
+vapor; and it is this trembling transparency which our great modern
+master has especially aimed at and given. His blue is never laid on in
+smooth coats, but in breaking, mingling, melting hues, a quarter of an
+inch of which, cut off from all the rest of the picture, is still
+_spacious_, still infinite and immeasurable in depth. It is a painting
+of the air, something into which you can see, through the parts which
+are near you into those which are far off; something which has no
+surface, and through which we can plunge far and farther, and without
+stay or end, into the profundity of space;--whereas, with all the old
+landscape painters, except Claude, you may indeed go a long way before
+you come to the sky, but you will strike hard against it at last. A
+perfectly genuine and untouched sky of Claude is indeed most perfect,
+and beyond praise, in all qualities of air; though even with him, I
+often feel rather that there is a great deal of pleasant air between me
+and the firmament, than that the firmament itself is only air. I do not
+mean, however, to say a word against such skies as that of the Enchanted
+Castle, or that marked 30 in the National Gallery, or one or two which I
+remember at Rome; but how little and by how few these fine passages of
+Claude are appreciated, is sufficiently proved by the sufferance of such
+villainous and unpalliated copies as we meet with all over Europe, like
+the Marriage of Isaac, in our own Gallery, to remain under his name. In
+fact, I do not remember above ten pictures of Claude's, in which the
+skies, whether repainted or altogether copies, or perhaps from Claude's
+hand, but carelessly laid in, like that marked 241, Dulwich Gallery,
+were not fully as feelingless and false as those of other masters;
+while, with the Poussins, there are no favorable exceptions. Their skies
+are systematically wrong; take, for instance, the sky of the Sacrifice
+of Isaac. It is here high noon, as is shown by the shadow of the
+figures; and what sort of color is the sky at the top of the picture? Is
+it pale and gray with heat, full of sunshine, and unfathomable in depth?
+On the contrary, it is of a pitch of darkness which, except on the Mont
+Blanc or Chimborazo, is as purely impossible as color can be. He might
+as well have painted it coal black; and it is laid on with a dead coat
+of flat paint, having no one quality or resemblance of sky about it. It
+cannot have altered, because the land horizon is as delicate and tender
+in tone as possible, and is evidently unchanged; and to complete the
+absurdity of the whole thing, this color holds its own, without
+graduation or alteration, to within three or four degrees of the
+horizon, where it suddenly becomes bold and unmixed yellow. Now the
+horizon at noon may be yellow when the whole sky is covered with dark
+clouds, and only _one_ open streak of light left in the distance from
+which the whole light proceeds; but with a clear, open sky, and opposite
+the sun, at noon, such a yellow horizon as this is physically
+impossible. Even supposing that the upper part of the sky were pale and
+warm, and that the transition from the one hue to the other were
+effected imperceptibly and gradually, as is invariably the case in
+reality, instead of taking place within a space of two or three
+degrees;--even then, this gold yellow would be altogether absurd; but as
+it is, we have in this sky (and it is a fine picture--one of the best of
+Gaspar's that I know,) a notable example of the truth of the old
+masters--two impossible colors impossibly united! Find such a color in
+Turner's noonday zenith as the blue at the top, or such a color at a
+noonday horizon as the yellow at the bottom, or such a connection of any
+colors whatsoever as that in the centre, and then you may talk about his
+being false to nature if you will. Nor is this a solitary instance; it
+is Gaspar Poussin's favorite and characteristic effect. I remember
+twenty such, most of them worse than this, in the downright surface and
+opacity of blue. Again, look at the large Cuyp in the Dulwich Gallery,
+which Mr. Hazlitt considers the "finest in the world," and of which he
+very complimentarily says, "The tender green of the valleys, the
+gleaming lake, the purple light of the hills, have an effect like the
+_down_ on an unripe nectarine!" I ought to have apologized before now,
+for not having studied sufficiently in Covent Garden to be provided with
+terms of correct and classical criticism. One of my friends begged me to
+observe, the other day, that Claude was "pulpy;" another added the yet
+more gratifying information that he was "juicy;" and it is now happily
+discovered that Cuyp is "downy." Now I dare say that the sky of this
+first-rate Cuyp is very like an unripe nectarine: all that I have to say
+about it is, that it is exceedingly unlike a sky. The blue remains
+unchanged and ungraduated over three-fourths of it, down to the horizon;
+while the sun, in the left-hand corner, is surrounded with a halo, first
+of yellow, and then of crude pink, both being separated from each other,
+and the last from the blue, as sharply as the belts of a rainbow, and
+both together not ascending ten degrees in the sky. Now it is difficult
+to conceive how any man calling himself a painter could impose such a
+thing on the public, and still more how the public can receive it, as a
+representation of that sunset purple which invariably extends its
+influence to the zenith, so that there is no pure blue anywhere, but a
+purple increasing in purity gradually down to its point of greatest
+intensity, (about forty-five degrees from the horizon,) and then melting
+imperceptibly into the gold, the three colors extending their influence
+over the whole sky; so that throughout the whole sweep of the heaven,
+there is no one spot where the color is not in an equal state of
+transition--passing from gold into orange, from that into rose, from
+that into purple, from that into blue, with absolute equality of change,
+so that in no place can it be said, "here it changes," and in no place,
+"here it is unchanging." This is invariably the case. There is no such
+thing--there never was, and never will be such a thing, while God's
+heaven remains as it is made--as a serene, sunset sky, with its purple
+and rose in _belts_ about the sun.
+
+
+Sec. 12. The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and Dutch
+        schools. Their qualities are unattainable in modern times.
+
+Such bold, broad examples of ignorance as these would soon set aside all
+the claims of the professed landscape painters to truth, with whatever
+delicacy of color or manipulation they may be disguised. But there are
+some skies, of the Dutch school, in which clearness and coolness have
+been aimed at, instead of depth; and some introduced merely as
+backgrounds to the historical subjects of the older Italians, which
+there is no matching in modern times; one would think angels had painted
+them, for all is now clay and oil in comparison. It seems as if we had
+totally lost the art, for surely otherwise, however little our painters
+might aim at it or feel it, they would touch the chord sometimes by
+accident; but they never do, and the mechanical incapacity is still more
+strongly evidenced by the muddy struggles of the unhappy Germans, who
+have the feeling, partially strained, artificial, and diseased, indeed,
+but still genuine enough to bring out the tone, if they had the
+mechanical means and technical knowledge. But, however they were
+obtained, the clear tones of this kind of the older Italians are
+glorious and enviable in the highest degree; and we shall show, when we
+come to speak of the beautiful, that they are one of the most just
+grounds of the fame of the old masters.
+
+
+Sec. 13. Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause.
+
+But there is a series of phenomena connected with the open blue of the
+sky, which we must take especial notice of, as it is of constant
+occurrence in the works of Turner and Claude, the effects, namely, of
+visible sunbeams. It will be necessary for us thoroughly to understand
+the circumstances under which such effects take place.
+
+Aqueous vapor or mist, suspended in the atmosphere, becomes visible
+exactly as dust does in the air of a room. In the shadows you not only
+cannot see the dust itself, because unillumined, but you can see other
+objects through the dust without obscurity, the air being thus actually
+rendered more transparent by a deprivation of light. Where a sunbeam
+enters, every particle of dust becomes visible, and a palpable
+interruption to the sight, so that a transverse sunbeam is a real
+obstacle to the vision, you cannot see things clearly through it.
+
+In the same way, wherever vapor is illuminated by transverse rays, there
+it becomes visible as a whiteness more or less affecting the purity of
+the blue, and destroying it exactly in proportion to the degree of
+illumination. But where vapor is in shade, it has very little effect on
+the sky, perhaps making it a little deeper and grayer than it otherwise
+would be, but not itself, unless very dense, distinguishable or felt as
+mist.
+
+
+Sec. 14. They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky is
+        free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds.
+
+The appearance of mist or whiteness in the blue of the sky, is thus a
+circumstance which more or less accompanies sunshine, and which,
+supposing the quantity of vapor constant, is greatest in the brightest
+sunlight. When there are no clouds in the sky, the whiteness, as it
+affects the whole sky equally, is not particularly noticeable. But when
+there are clouds between us and the sun, the sun being low, those clouds
+cast shadows along and through the mass of suspended vapor. Within the
+space of these shadows, the vapor, as above stated, becomes transparent
+and invisible, and the sky appears of a pure blue. But where the
+sunbeams strike, the vapor becomes visible in the form of the beams,
+occasioning those radiating shafts of light which are one of the most
+valuable and constant accompaniments of a low sun. The denser the mist,
+the more distinct and sharp-edged will these rays be; when the air is
+very clear, they are mere vague, flushing, gradated passages of light;
+when it is very thick, they are keen-edged and decisive in a high
+degree.
+
+We see then, first, that a quantity of mist dispersed through the whole
+space of the sky, is necessary to this phenomenon; and secondly, that
+what we usually think of as beams of greater brightness than the rest of
+the sky, are in reality only a part of that sky in its natural state of
+illumination, cut off and rendered brilliant by the shadows from the
+clouds,--that these shadows are in reality the source of the appearance
+of beams,--that, therefore, no part of the sky can present such an
+appearance, except when there are broken clouds between it and the sun;
+and lastly, that the shadows cast from such clouds are not necessarily
+gray or dark, but very nearly of the natural pure blue of a sky
+destitute of vapor.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by the
+        old masters.
+
+Sec. 16. The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be
+        represented.
+
+Sec. 17. The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more delicate
+        phenomena of rays.
+
+Sec. 18. The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the works
+        of the old masters.
+
+Now, as it has been proved that the appearance of beams can only take
+place in a part of the sky which has clouds between it and the sun, it
+is evident that no appearance of beams can ever begin from the orb
+itself, except when there is a cloud or solid body of some kind between
+us and it; but that such appearances will almost invariably begin on the
+dark side of some of the clouds around it, the orb itself remaining the
+centre of a broad blaze of united light. Wordsworth has given us in two
+lines, the only circumstances under which rays can ever appear to have
+origin in the orb itself:--
+
+                                     "But rays of light,
+             Now _suddenly_ diverging from the orb,
+             _Retired behind the mountain tops, or veiled
+             By the dense air_, shot upwards."
+
+                                           EXCURSION, Book IX.
+
+And Turner has given us the effect magnificently in the Dartmouth of the
+River Scenery. It is frequent among the old masters, and constant in
+Claude; though the latter, from drawing his beams too fine, represents
+the effect upon the dazzled eye rather than the light which actually
+exists, and approximates very closely to the ideal which we see in the
+sign of the Rising Sun; nay, I am nearly sure that I remember cases in
+which he has given us the diverging beam, without any cloud or hill
+interfering with the orb. It may, perhaps, be somewhat difficult to say
+how far it is allowable to represent that kind of ray which is seen by
+the dazzled eye. It is very certain that we never look towards a bright
+sun without seeing glancing rays issue from it; but it is equally
+certain that those rays are no more real existences than the red and
+blue circles which we see after having been so dazzled, and that if we
+are to represent the rays we ought also to cover our sky with pink and
+blue circles. I should on the whole consider it utterly false in
+principle to represent the visionary beam, and that we ought only to
+show that which has actual existence. Such we find to be the constant
+practice of Turner. Even where, owing to interposed clouds, he has beams
+appearing to issue from the orb itself, they are broad bursts of light,
+not spiky rays; and his more usual practice is to keep all near the sun
+in one simple blaze of intense light, and from the first clouds to throw
+beams to the zenith, though he often does not permit any appearance of
+rays until close to the zenith itself. Open at the 80th page of the
+Illustrated edition of Rogers's poems. You have there a sky blazing with
+sunbeams; but they all begin a long way from the sun, and they are
+accounted for by a mass of dense clouds surrounding the orb itself. Turn
+to the 7th page. Behind the old oak, where the sun is supposed to be,
+you have only a blaze of undistinguished light; but up on the left, over
+the edge of the cloud, on its dark side, the sunbeam. Turn to page
+192,--blazing rays again, but all beginning where the clouds do, not one
+can you trace to the sun; and observe how carefully the long shadow on
+the mountain is accounted for by the dim dark promontory projecting out
+near the sun. I need not multiply examples; you will find various
+modifications and uses of these effects throughout his works. But you
+will not find a single trace of them in the old masters. They give you
+the rays issuing from behind black clouds, and because they are a coarse
+and common effect which could not possibly escape their observation, and
+because they are easily imitated. They give you the spiky shafts
+issuing from the orb itself, because these are partially symbolical of
+light, and assist a tardy imagination, as two or three rays scratched
+round the sun with a pen would, though they would be rays of darkness
+instead of light.[30] But of the most beautiful phenomenon of all, the
+appearance of the delicate ray far in the sky, threading its way among
+the thin, transparent clouds, while all around the sun is unshadowed
+fire, there is no record nor example whatsoever in their works. It was
+too delicate and spiritual for them; probably their blunt and
+feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature, and their untaught
+imaginations were not likely to originate it in the study.
+
+
+Sec. 19. Truth of the skies of modern drawings.
+
+Little is to be said of the skies of our other landscape artists. In
+paintings, they are commonly toneless, crude, and wanting in depth and
+transparency; but in drawings, some very perfect and delicate examples
+have been produced by various members of the old water color Society,
+and one or two others; but with respect to the qualities of which we are
+at present speaking, it is not right to compare drawings with paintings,
+as the wash or spunging, or other artifices peculiar to water color, are
+capable of producing an appearance of quality which it needs much higher
+art to produce in oils.
+
+
+Sec. 20. Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in quality,
+        inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish.
+
+Taken generally, the open skies of the moderns are inferior in quality
+to picked and untouched skies of the greatest of the ancients, but far
+superior to the average class of pictures which we have every day
+fathered upon their reputation. Nine or ten skies of Claude might be
+named which are not to be contended with, in their way, and as many of
+Cuyp. Teniers has given some very wonderful passages, and the clearness
+of the early Italian and Dutch schools is beyond all imitation. But the
+common blue daubing which we hear every day in our best galleries
+attributed to Claude and Cuyp, and the genuine skies of Salvator, and of
+both the Poussins, are not to be compared for an instant with the best
+works of modern times, even in quality and transparency; while in all
+matters requiring delicate observation or accurate science,--in all
+which was not attainable by technicalities of art, and which depended
+upon the artist's knowledge and understanding of nature, all the works
+of the ancients are alike the productions of mere children, sometimes
+manifesting great sensibility, but proving at the same time, feebly
+developed intelligence and ill-regulated observation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [30] I have left this passage as it stood originally, because it is
+    right as far as it goes; yet it speaks with too little respect of
+    symbolism, which is often of the highest use in religious art, and
+    in some measure is allowable in all art. In the works of almost all
+    the greatest masters there are portions which are explanatory rather
+    than representative, and typical rather than imitative; nor could
+    these be parted with but at infinite loss. Note, with respect to the
+    present question, the daring black sunbeams of Titian, in his
+    woodcut of St. Francis receiving the stigmata, and compare here Part
+    III. Sect. II. Chap. IV. Sec. 18; Chap. V. Sec. 13. And though I believe
+    that I am right in considering all such symbolism as out of place in
+    pure landscape, and in attributing that of Claude to ignorance or
+    inability, and not to feeling, yet I praise Turner not so much for
+    his absolute refusal to represent the spiky ray about the sun, as
+    for his perceiving and rendering that which Claude never perceived,
+    the multitudinous presence of radiating light in the upper sky and
+    on all its countless ranks of subtile cloud.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+          OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS:--FIRST, OF THE REGION OF THE CIRRUS.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds consists.
+
+Our next subject of investigation must be the specific character of
+clouds, a species of truth which is especially neglected by artists;
+first, because as it is within the limits of possibility that a cloud
+may assume almost any form, it is difficult to point out and not always
+easy to feel, where in error consists; and secondly, because it is
+totally impossible to study the forms of clouds from nature with care
+and accuracy, as a change in the subject takes place between every touch
+of the following pencil, and parts of an outline sketched at different
+instants cannot harmonize, nature never having intended them to come
+together. Still if artists were more in the habit of sketching clouds
+rapidly, and as accurately as possible in the outline, from nature,
+instead of daubing down what they call "effects" with the brush, they
+would soon find there is more beauty about their forms than can be
+arrived at by any random felicity of invention, however brilliant, and
+more essential character than can be violated without incurring the
+charge of falsehood,--falsehood as direct and definite, though not as
+traceable as error in the less varied features of organic form.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Variation of their character at different elevations. The three
+       regions to which they may conveniently be considered as
+       belonging.
+
+The first and most important character of clouds, is dependent on the
+different altitudes at which they are formed. The atmosphere may be
+conveniently considered as divided into three spaces, each inhabited by
+clouds of specific character altogether different, though, in reality
+there is no distinct limit fixed between them by nature, clouds being
+formed at _every_ altitude, and partaking according to their altitude,
+more or less of the characters of the upper or lower regions. The
+scenery of the sky is thus formed of an infinitely graduated series of
+systematic forms of cloud, each of which has its own region in which
+alone it is formed, and each of which has specific characters which can
+only be properly determined by comparing them as they are found clearly
+distinguished by intervals of considerable space. I shall therefore
+consider the sky as divided into three regions--the upper region, or
+region of the cirrus; the central region, or region of the stratus; the
+lower region, or the region of the rain-cloud.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Extent of the upper region.
+
+Sec. 4. The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds.
+
+The clouds which I wish to consider as included in the upper region,
+never touch even the highest mountains of Europe, and may therefore be
+looked upon as never formed below an of at least 15,000 feet; they are
+the motionless multitudinous lines of delicate vapor with which the blue
+of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several days of
+fine weather. I must be pardoned for giving a detailed description of
+their specific characters as they are of constant occurrence in the
+works of modern artists, and I shall have occasion to speak frequently
+of them in future parts of the work. Their chief characters are--first,
+Symmetry: They are nearly always arranged in some definite and evident
+order, commonly in long ranks reaching sometimes from the zenith to the
+horizon, each rank composed of an infinite number of transverse bars of
+about the same length, each bar thickest in the middle, and terminating
+in a traceless vaporous point at each side; the ranks are in the
+direction of the wind, and the bars of course at right angles to it;
+these latter are commonly slightly bent in the middle. Frequently two
+systems of this kind, indicative of two currents of wind, at different
+altitudes intersect one another, forming a network. Another frequent
+arrangement is in groups of excessively fine, silky, parallel fibres,
+commonly radiating, or having a tendency to radiate, from one of their
+extremities, and terminating in a plumy sweep at the other:--these are
+vulgarly known as "mares' tails." The plumy and expanded extremity of
+these is often bent upwards, sometimes back and up again, giving an
+appearance of great flexibility and unity at the same time, as if the
+clouds were tough, and would hold together however bent. The narrow
+extremity is invariably turned to the wind, and the fibres are parallel
+with its direction. The upper clouds always fall into some modification
+of one or other of these arrangements. They thus differ from all other
+clouds, in having a plan and system; whereas other clouds, though there
+are certain laws which they cannot break, have yet perfect freedom from
+anything like a relative and general system of government. The upper
+clouds are to the lower, what soldiers on parade are to a mixed
+multitude; no men walk on their heads or their hands, and so there are
+certain laws which no clouds violate; but there is nothing except in the
+upper clouds resembling symmetrical discipline.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Their exceeding delicacy.
+
+Secondly, Sharpness of Edge: The edges of the bars of the upper clouds
+which are turned to the wind, are often the sharpest which the sky
+shows; no outline whatever of any other kind of cloud, however marked
+and energetic, ever approaches the delicate decision of these edges. The
+outline of a black thunder-cloud is striking, from the great energy of
+the color or shade of the general mass; but as a line, it is soft and
+indistinct, compared with the edge of the cirrus, in a clear sky with a
+brisk breeze. On the other hand, the edge of the bar turned away from
+the wind is always soft, often imperceptible, melting into the blue
+interstice between it and its next neighbor. Commonly the sharper one
+edge is, the softer is the other, and the clouds look flat, and as if
+they slipped over each other like the scales of a fish. When both edges
+are soft, as is always the case when the sky is clear and windless, the
+cloud looks solid, round, and fleecy.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Their number.
+
+Thirdly, Multitude: The delicacy of these vapors is sometimes carried
+into such an infinity of division, that no other sensation of number
+that the earth or heaven can give is so impressive. Number is always
+most felt when it is symmetrical, (vide Burke on "Sublime," Part ii.
+sect. 8,) and, therefore, no sea-waves nor fresh leaves make their
+number so evident or so impressive as these vapors. Nor is nature
+content with an infinity of bars or lines alone--each bar is in its turn
+severed into a number of small undulatory masses, more or less connected
+according to the violence of the wind. When this division is merely
+effected by undulation, the cloud exactly resembles sea-sand ribbed by
+the tide; but when the division amounts to real separation we have the
+mottled or mackerel skies. Commonly, the greater the division of its
+bars, the broader and more shapeless is the rank or field, so that in
+the mottled sky it is lost altogether, and we have large irregular
+fields of equal size, masses like flocks of sheep; such clouds are three
+or four thousand feet below the legitimate cirrus. I have seen them cast
+a shadow on the Mont Blanc at sunset, so that they must descend nearly
+to within fifteen thousand feet of the earth.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Causes of their peculiarly delicate coloring.
+
+Fourthly, Purity of Color: The nearest of these clouds--those over the
+observer's head, being at least three miles above him, and nearly all
+entering the ordinary sphere of vision, farther from him still,--their
+dark sides are much grayer and cooler than those of other clouds, owing
+to their distance. They are composed of the purest aqueous vapor, free
+from all foulness of earthy gases, and of this in the lightest and most
+ethereal state in which it can be, to be visible. Farther, they receive
+the light of the sun in a state of far greater intensity than lower
+objects, the beams being transmitted to them through atmospheric air far
+less dense, and wholly unaffected by mist, smoke, or any other impurity.
+Hence their colors are more pure and vivid, and their white less sullied
+than those of any other clouds.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Their variety of form.
+
+Lastly, Variety: Variety is never so conspicuous, as when it is united
+with symmetry. The perpetual change of form in other clouds, is
+monotonous in its very dissimilarity, nor is difference striking where
+no connection is implied; but if through a range of barred clouds,
+crossing half the heaven, all governed by the same forces and falling
+into one general form, there be yet a marked and evident dissimilarity
+between each member of the great mass--one more finely drawn, the next
+more delicately moulded, the next more gracefully bent--each broken into
+differently modelled and variously numbered groups, the variety is
+doubly striking, because contrasted with the perfect symmetry of which
+it forms a part. Hence, the importance of the truth, that nature never
+lets one of the members of even her most disciplined groups of cloud be
+like another; but though each is adapted for the same function, and in
+its great features resembles all the others, not one, out of the
+millions with which the sky is checkered, is without a separate beauty
+and character, appearing to have had distinct thought occupied in
+its conception, and distinct forces in its production; and in addition
+to this perpetual invention, visible in each member of each system, we
+find systems of separate cloud intersecting one another, the sweeping
+lines mingled and interwoven with the rigid bars, these in their turn
+melting into banks of sand-like ripple and flakes of drifted and
+irregular foam; under all, perhaps the massy outline of some lower cloud
+moves heavily across the motionless buoyancy of the upper lines, and
+indicates at once their elevation and their repose.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Total absence of even the slightest effort at their representation,
+       in ancient landscape.
+
+Such are the great attributes of the upper cloud region; whether they
+are beautiful, valuable, or impressive, it is not our present business
+to decide, nor to endeavor to discover the reason of the somewhat
+remarkable fact, that the whole field of ancient landscape art affords,
+as far as we remember, but one instance of any effort whatever to
+represent the character of this cloud region. That one instance is the
+landscape of Rubens in our own gallery, in which the mottled or fleecy
+sky is given with perfect truth and exquisite beauty. To this should
+perhaps be added, some of the backgrounds of the historical painters,
+where horizontal lines were required, and a few level bars of white or
+warm color cross the serenity of the blue. These, as far as they go, are
+often very perfect, and the elevation and repose of their effect might,
+we should have thought, have pointed out to the landscape painters that
+there was something (I do not say much, but certainly something) to be
+made out of the high clouds. Not one of them, however, took the hint. To
+whom, among them all, can we look for the slightest realization of the
+fine and faithful descriptive passage of the "Excursion," already
+alluded to:--
+
+                           "But rays of light,
+          Now suddenly diverging from the orb,
+          Retired behind the mountain tops, or veiled
+          By the dense air, shot upwards to the crown
+          Of the blue firmament--aloft--and wide:
+          And multitudes of little floating clouds,
+          Ere we, who saw, of change were conscious, pierced
+          Through their ethereal texture, had become
+          Vivid as fire,--Clouds separately poised,
+          Innumerable multitude of forms
+          Scattered through half the circle of the sky;
+          And giving back, and shedding each on each,
+          With prodigal communion, the bright hues
+          Which from the unapparent fount of glory
+          They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive.
+          That which the heavens displayed the liquid deep
+          Repeated, but with unity sublime."
+
+
+Sec. 10. The intense and constant study of them by Turner.
+
+There is but one master whose works we can think of while we read this;
+one alone has taken notice of the neglected upper sky; it is his
+peculiar and favorite field; he has watched its every modification, and
+given its every phase and feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has
+followed its passions and its changes, and has brought down and laid
+open to the world another apocalypse of heaven.
+
+There is scarcely a painting of Turner's, in which serenity of sky and
+intensity of light are aimed at together, in which these clouds are not
+used, though there are not two cases in which they are used altogether
+alike. Sometimes they are crowded together in masses of mingling light,
+as in the Shylock; every part and atom sympathizing in that continuous
+expression of slow movement which Shelley has so beautifully touched:--
+
+                    "Underneath the young gray dawn
+        A multitude of dense, white fleecy clouds,
+        Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,
+        _Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind_."
+
+At other times they are blended with the sky itself, felt only here and
+there by a ray of light calling them into existence out of its misty
+shade, as in the Mercury and Argus; sometimes, where great repose is to
+be given, they appear in a few detached, equal, rounded flakes, which
+seem to hang motionless, each like the shadow of the other, in the deep
+blue of the zenith, as in the Acro-Corinth; sometimes they are scattered
+in fiery flying fragments, each burning with separate energy, as in the
+Temeraire; sometimes woven together with fine threads of intermediate
+darkness, melting into the blue as in the Napoleon. But in all cases the
+exquisite manipulation of the master gives to each atom of the multitude
+its own character and expression. Though they be countless as leaves,
+each has its portion of light, its shadow, its reflex, its peculiar and
+separating form.
+
+
+Sec. 11. His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea.
+
+Take for instance the illustrated edition of Rogers's Poems,[31] and
+open it at the 80th page, and observe how every attribute which I have
+pointed out in the upper sky, is there rendered with the faithfulness of
+a mirror; the long lines of parallel bars, the delicate curvature from
+the wind, which the inclination of the sail shows you to be from the
+west; the excessive sharpness of every edge which is turned to the wind,
+the faintness of every opposite one, the breaking up of each bar into
+rounded masses, and finally, the inconceivable variety with which
+individual form has been given to every member of the multitude, and not
+only individual form, but roundness and substance even where there is
+scarcely a hairbreadth of cloud to express it in. Observe, above
+everything, the varying indication of space and depth in the whole, so
+that you may look through and through from one cloud to another, feeling
+not merely how they retire to the horizon, but how they melt back into
+the recesses of the sky; every interval being filled with absolute air,
+and all its spaces so melting and fluctuating, and fraught with change
+as with repose, that as you look, you will fancy that the rays shoot
+higher and higher into the vault of light, and that the pale streak of
+horizontal vapor is melting away from the cloud that it crosses. Now
+watch for the next barred sunrise, and take this vignette to the window,
+and test it by nature's own clouds, among which you will find forms and
+passages, I do not say merely _like_, but apparently the actual
+originals of parts of this very drawing. And with whom will you do this,
+except with Turner? Will you do it with Claude, and set that blank
+square yard of blue, with its round, white, flat fixtures of similar
+cloud, beside the purple infinity of nature, with her countless
+multitude of shadowy lines, and flaky waves, and folded veils of
+variable mist? Will you do it with Poussin, and set those massy steps of
+unyielding solidity, with the chariot-and-four driving up them, by the
+side of the delicate forms which terminate in threads too fine for the
+eye to follow them, and of texture so thin woven that the earliest stars
+shine through them? Will you do it with Salvator, and set that volume of
+violent and restless manufactory smoke beside those calm and quiet bars,
+which pause in the heaven as if they would never leave it more?
+
+
+Sec. 12. His use of the cirrus in expressing mist.
+
+Now we have just seen how Turner uses the sharp-edged cirri when he aims
+at giving great transparency of air. But it was shown in the preceding
+chapter that sunbeams, or the appearance of them, are always sharper in
+their edge in proportion as the air is more misty, as they are most
+defined in a room where there is most dust flying about in it.
+Consequently, in the vignette we have been just noticing, where
+transparency is to be given, though there is a blaze of light, its beams
+are never edged; a tendency to rays is visible, but you cannot in any
+part find a single marked edge of a rising sunbeam, the sky is merely
+more flushed in one place than another. Now let us see what Turner does
+when he wants mist. Turn to the Alps at Daybreak, page 193, in the same
+book. Here we have the cirri used again, but now they have no sharp
+edges, they are all fleecy and mingling with each other, though every
+one of them has the most exquisite indication of individual form, and
+they melt back, not till they are lost in exceeding light, as in the
+other plate, but into a mysterious, fluctuating, shadowy sky, of which,
+though the light penetrates through it all, you perceive every part to
+be charged with vapor. Notice particularly the half-indicated forms even
+where it is most serene, behind the snowy mountains. And now, how are
+the sunbeams drawn? no longer indecisive, flushing, palpitating, every
+one is sharp and clear, and terminated by definite shadow; note
+especially the marked lines on the upper cloud; finally, observe the
+difference in the mode of indicating the figures, which are here misty
+and indistinguishable, telling only as shadows, though they are near and
+large, while those in the former vignette came clear upon the eye,
+though they were so far off as to appear mere points.
+
+
+Sec. 13. His consistency in every minor feature.
+
+Now is this perpetual consistency in all points, this concentration of
+every fact which can possibly bear upon what we are to be told, this
+watchfulness of the entire meaning and system of nature, which fills
+every part and space of the picture with coincidences of witness, which
+come out upon us, as they would from the reality, more fully and deeply
+in proportion to the knowledge we possess and the attention we give,
+admirable or not? I could go on writing page after page on every sky of
+Turner's, and pointing out fresh truths in every one. In the Havre, for
+instance, of the Rivers of France we have a new fact pointed out to us
+with respect to these cirri, namely, their being so faint and
+transparent as not to be distinguishable from the blue of the sky, (a
+frequent case,) except in the course of a sunbeam, which, however, does
+not illumine their edges, they being not solid enough to reflect light,
+but penetrates their whole substance, and renders them flat, luminous
+forms in its path, instantly and totally lost at its edge. And thus a
+separate essay would be required by every picture, to make fully
+understood the new phenomena which it treated and illustrated. But after
+once showing what are the prevailing characteristics of these clouds, we
+can only leave it to the reader to trace them wherever they occur. There
+are some fine and characteristic passages of this kind of cloud given by
+Stanfield, though he dares not use them in multitude, and is wanting in
+those refined qualities of form which it is totally impossible to
+explain in words, but which, perhaps, by simple outlines, on a large
+scale, selected from the cloud forms of various artists, I may in
+following portions of the work illustrate with the pencil.
+
+
+Sec. 14. The color of the upper clouds.
+
+Of the colors of these clouds I have spoken before, (Sec. I. Chap. II.;)
+but though I then alluded to their purity and vividness, I scarcely took
+proper notice of their variety; there is indeed in nature variety in all
+things, and it would be absurd to insist on it in each case, yet the
+colors of these clouds are so marvellous in their changefulness, that
+they require particular notice. If you watch for the next sunset, when
+there are a considerable number of these cirri in the sky, you will see,
+especially at the zenith, that the sky does not remain of the same color
+for two inches together; one cloud has a dark side of cold blue, and a
+fringe of milky white; another, above it, has a dark side of purple and
+an edge of red; another, nearer the sun, has an under-side of orange
+and an edge of gold; these you will find mingled with, and passing into
+the blue of the sky, which in places you will not be able to distinguish
+from the cool gray of the darker clouds, and which will be itself full
+of gradation, now pure and deep, now faint and feeble; and all this is
+done, not in large pieces, nor on a large scale, but over and over again
+in every square yard, so that there is no single part nor portion of the
+whole sky which has not in itself variety of color enough for a separate
+picture, and yet no single part which is like another, or which has not
+some peculiar source of beauty, and some peculiar arrangement of color
+of its own. Now, instead of this, you get in the old masters--Cuyp, or
+Claude, or whoever they may be--a field of blue, delicately,
+beautifully, and uniformly shaded down to the yellow sun, with a certain
+number of similar clouds, each with a dark side of the same gray, and an
+edge of the same yellow. I do not say that nature never does anything
+like this, but I say that her _principle_ is to do a great deal more,
+and that what she does more than this,--what I have above described, and
+what you may see in nine sunsets out of ten,--has been observed,
+attempted, and rendered by Turner only, and by him with a fidelity and
+force which presents us with more essential truth, and more clear
+expression and illustration of natural laws, in every wreath of vapor,
+than composed the whole stock of heavenly information, which lasted Cuyp
+and Claude their lives.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Recapitulation.
+
+We close then our present consideration of the upper clouds, to return
+to them when we know what is beautiful; we have at present only to
+remember that of these clouds, and the truths connected with them, none
+before Turner had taken any notice whatsoever; that had they therefore
+been even feebly and imperfectly represented by him, they would yet have
+given him a claim to be considered more extended and universal in his
+statement of truths than any of his predecessors; how much more when we
+find that deep fidelity in his studied and perfect skies which opens new
+sources of delight to every advancement of our knowledge, and to every
+added moment of our contemplation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [31] I use this work frequently for illustration, because it is the
+    only one I know in which the engraver has worked with delicacy
+    enough to give the real forms and touches of Turner. I can reason
+    from these plates, (in questions of form only,) nearly as well as I
+    could from the drawings.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+          OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS:--SECONDLY, OF THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGION.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Extent and typical character of the central cloud region.
+
+We have next to investigate the character of the Central Cloud Region,
+which I consider as including all clouds which are the usual
+characteristic of ordinary serene weather, and which touch and envelop
+the mountains of Switzerland, but never affect those of our own island;
+they may therefore be considered as occupying a space of air ten
+thousand feet in height, extending from five to fifteen thousand feet
+above the sea.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought for
+       their representation, are therefore favorite subjects with the
+       old masters.
+
+These clouds, according to their elevation, appear with great variety of
+form, often partaking of the streaked or mottled character of the higher
+region, and as often, when the precursors of storm, manifesting forms
+closely connected with the lowest rain clouds; but the species
+especially characteristic of the central region is a white, ragged,
+irregular, and scattered vapor, which has little form and less color,
+and of which a good example may be seen in the largest landscape of
+Cuyp, in the Dulwich Gallery. When this vapor collects into masses, it
+is partially rounded, clumsy, and ponderous, as if it would tumble out
+of the sky, shaded with a dull gray, and totally devoid of any
+appearance of energy or motion. Even in nature, these clouds are
+comparatively uninteresting, scarcely worth raising our heads to look
+at; and on canvas, valuable only as a means of introducing light, and
+breaking the monotony of blue; yet they are, perhaps, beyond all others
+the favorite clouds of the Dutch masters. Whether they had any motive
+for the adoption of such materials, beyond the extreme facility with
+which acres of canvas might thus be covered without any troublesome
+exertion of thought; or any temptation to such selections beyond the
+impossibility of error where nature shows no form, and the
+impossibility of deficiency where she shows no beauty, it is not here
+the place to determine. Such skies are happily beyond the reach of
+criticism, for he who tells you nothing cannot tell you a falsehood. A
+little flake-white, glazed with a light brush over the carefully toned
+blue, permitted to fall into whatever forms chance might determine, with
+the single precaution that their edges should be tolerably irregular,
+supplied, in hundreds of instances, a sky quite good enough for all
+ordinary purposes--quite good enough for cattle to graze, or boors to
+play at nine-pins under--and equally devoid of all that could gratify,
+inform, or offend.
+
+
+Sec. 3. The clouds of Salvator and Poussin.
+
+But although this kind of cloud is, as I have said, typical of the
+central region, it is not one which nature is fond of. She scarcely ever
+lets an hour pass without some manifestation of finer forms, sometimes
+approaching the upper cirri, sometimes the lower cumulus. And then in
+the lower outlines, we have the nearest approximation which nature ever
+presents to the clouds of Claude, Salvator, and Poussin, to the
+characters of which I must request especial attention, as it is here
+only that we shall have a fair opportunity of comparing their skies with
+those of the modern school. I shall, as before, glance rapidly at the
+great laws of specific form, and so put it in the power of the reader to
+judge for himself of the truth of representation.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Their essential characters.
+
+Sec. 5. Their angular forms and general decision of outline.
+
+Clouds, it is to be remembered, are not so much local vapor, as vapor
+rendered locally visible by a fall of temperature. Thus a cloud, whose
+parts are in constant motion, will hover on a snowy mountain, pursuing
+constantly the same track upon its flanks, and yet remaining of the same
+size, the same form, and in the same place, for half a day together. No
+matter how violent or how capricious the wind may be, the instant it
+approaches the spot where the chilly influence of the snow extends, the
+moisture it carries becomes visible, and then and there the cloud forms
+on the instant, apparently maintaining its form against the wind, though
+the careful and keen eye can see all its parts in the most rapid motion
+across the mountain. The outlines of such a cloud are of course not
+determined by the irregular impulses of the wind, but by the fixed lines
+of radiant heat which regulate the temperature of the atmosphere of the
+mountain. It is terminated, therefore, not by changing curves, but by
+steady right lines of more or less decision, often exactly correspondent
+with the outline of the mountain on which it is formed, and falling
+therefore into grotesque peaks and precipices. I have seen the marked
+and angular outline of the Grandes Jorasses, at Chamounix, mimicked in
+its every jag by a line of clouds above it. Another resultant phenomenon
+is the formation of cloud in the calm air to leeward of a steep summit;
+cloud whose edges are in rapid motion, where they are affected by the
+current of the wind above, and stream from the peak like the smoke of a
+volcano, yet always vanish at a certain distance from it as steam
+issuing from a chimney. When wet weather of some duration is
+approaching, a small white spot of cloud will sometimes appear low on
+the hill flanks; it will not move, but will increase gradually for some
+little time, then diminish, still without moving; disappear altogether,
+reappear ten minutes afterwards, exactly in the same spot; increase to a
+greater extent than before, again disappear, again return, and at last
+permanently; other similar spots of cloud forming simultaneously, with
+various fluctuations, each in its own spot, and at the same level on the
+hill-side, until all expand, join together, and form an unbroken veil of
+threatening gray, which darkens gradually into storm. What in such cases
+takes place palpably and remarkably, is more or less a law of formation
+in all clouds whatsoever; they being bounded rather by lines expressive
+of changes of temperature in the atmosphere, than by the impulses of the
+currents of wind in which those changes take place. Even when in rapid
+and visible motion across the sky, the variations which take place in
+their outlines are not so much alterations of position and arrangement
+of parts, as they are the alternate formation and disappearance of
+parts. There is, therefore, usually a parallelism and consistency in
+their great outlines, which give system to the smaller curves of which
+they are composed; and if these great lines be taken, rejecting the
+minutiae of variation, the resultant form will almost always be angular,
+and full of character and decision. In the flock-like fields of equal
+masses, each individual mass has the effect, not of an ellipse or
+circle, but of a rhomboid; the sky is crossed and checkered, not
+honeycombed; in the lower cumuli, even though the most rounded of all
+clouds, the groups are not like balloons or bubbles, but like towers or
+mountains. And the result of this arrangement in masses more or less
+angular, varied with, and chiefly constructed of, curves of the utmost
+freedom and beauty, is that appearance of exhaustless and fantastic
+energy which gives every cloud a marked character of its own, suggesting
+resemblances to the specific outlines of organic objects. I do not say
+that such accidental resemblances are a character to be imitated; but
+merely that they bear witness to the originality and vigor of separate
+conception in cloud forms, which give to the scenery of the sky a force
+and variety no less delightful than that of the changes of mountain
+outline in a hill district of great elevation; and that there is added
+to this a spirit-like feeling, a capricious, mocking imagery of passion
+and life, totally different from any effects of inanimate form that the
+earth can show.
+
+
+Sec. 6. The composition of their minor curves.
+
+The minor contours, out of which the larger outlines are composed, are
+indeed beautifully curvilinear; but they are never monotonous in their
+curves. First comes a concave line, then a convex one, then an angular
+jag, breaking off into spray, then a downright straight line, then a
+curve again, then a deep gap, and a place where all is lost and melted
+away, and so on; displaying in every inch of the form renewed and
+ceaseless invention, setting off grace with rigidity, and relieving
+flexibility with force, in a manner scarcely less admirable, and far
+more changeful than even in the muscular forms of the human frame. Nay,
+such is the exquisite composition of all this, that you may take any
+single fragment of any cloud in the sky, and you will find it put
+together as if there had been a year's thought over the plan of it,
+arranged with the most studied inequality--with the most delicate
+symmetry--with the most elaborate contrast, a picture in itself. You may
+try every other piece of cloud in the heaven, and you will find them
+every one as perfect, and yet not one in the least like another.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Their characters, as given by S. Rosa.
+
+Now it may perhaps, for anything we know, or have yet proved, be highly
+expedient and proper, in art, that this variety, individuality, and
+angular character should be changed into a mass of convex curves, each
+precisely like its neighbor in all respects, and unbroken from beginning
+to end;--it may be highly original, masterly, bold, whatever you choose
+to call it; but it is _false_. I do not take upon me to assert that the
+clouds which in ancient Germany were more especially and peculiarly
+devoted to the business of catching princesses off desert islands, and
+carrying them to enchanted castles, might not have possessed something
+of the pillowy organization which we may suppose best adapted for
+functions of such delicacy and dispatch. But I do mean to say that the
+clouds which God sends upon his earth as the ministers of dew, and rain,
+and shade, and with which he adorns his heaven, setting them in its
+vault for the thrones of his spirits, have not in one instant or atom of
+their existence, one feature in common with such conceptions and
+creations. And there are, beyond dispute, more direct and unmitigated
+falsehoods told, and more laws of nature set at open defiance in _one_
+of the "rolling" skies of Salvator, such as that marked 159 in the
+Dulwich Gallery, than were ever attributed, even by the ignorant and
+unfeeling, to all the wildest flights of Turner put together.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian School
+       generally.
+
+And it is not as if the error were only occasional. It is systematic and
+constant in all the Italian masters of the seventeenth century, and in
+most of the Dutch. They looked at clouds as at everything else which did
+not particularly help them in their great end of deception, with utter
+carelessness and bluntness of feeling,--saw that there were a great many
+rounded passages in them,--found it much easier to sweep circles than to
+design beauties, and sat down in their studies, contented with perpetual
+repetitions of the same spherical conceptions, having about the same
+relation to the clouds of nature, that a child's carving of a turnip has
+to the head of the Apollo. Look at the round things about the sun in the
+bricky Claude, the smallest of the three Seaports in the National
+Gallery. They are a great deal more like half-crowns than clouds. Take
+the ropy, tough-looking wreath in the Sacrifice of Isaac, and find one
+part of it, if you can, which is not the repetition of every other part
+of it, all together being as round and vapid as the brush could draw
+them; or take the two cauliflower-like protuberances in No. 220 of the
+Dulwich Gallery, and admire the studied similarity between them; you
+cannot tell which is which; or take the so-called Nicholas Poussin, No.
+212, Dulwich Gallery, in which, from the brown trees to the right-hand
+side of the picture, there is not one line which is not physically
+impossible.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Vast size of congregated masses of cloud.
+
+Sec. 10. Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges.
+
+But it is not the outline only which is thus systematically false. The
+drawing of the solid form is worse still, for it is to be remembered
+that although clouds of course arrange themselves more or less into
+broad masses, with a light side and dark side, both their light and
+shade are invariably composed of a series of divided masses, each of
+which has in its outline as much variety and character as the great
+outline of the cloud; presenting, therefore, a thousand times repeated,
+all that I have described as characteristic of the general form. Nor are
+these multitudinous divisions a truth of slight importance in the
+character of sky, for they are dependent on, and illustrative of, a
+quality which is usually in a great degree overlooked,--the enormous
+retiring spaces of solid clouds. Between the illumined edge of a heaped
+cloud, and that part of its body which turns into shadow, there will
+generally be a clear distance of several miles, more or less of course,
+according to the general size of the cloud, but in such large masses as
+in Poussin and others of the old masters, occupy the fourth or fifth of
+the visible sky; the clear illumined breadth of vapor, from the edge to
+the shadow, involves at least a distance of five or six miles. We are
+little apt, in watching the changes of a mountainous range of cloud, to
+reflect that the masses of vapor which compose it, are huger and higher
+than any mountain range of the earth; and the distances between mass and
+mass are not yards of air traversed in an instant by the flying form,
+but valleys of changing atmosphere leagues over; that the slow motion of
+ascending curves, which we can scarcely trace, is a boiling energy of
+exulting vapor rushing into the heaven a thousand feet in a minute; and
+that the toppling angle whose sharp edge almost escapes notice in the
+multitudinous forms around it, is a nodding precipice of storms, 3000
+feet from base to summit. It is not until we have actually compared the
+forms of the sky with the hill ranges of the earth, and seen the soaring
+Alp overtopped and buried in one surge of the sky, that we begin to
+conceive or appreciate the colossal scale of the phenomena of the
+latter. But of this there can be no doubt in the mind of any one
+accustomed to trace the forms of clouds among hill ranges--as it is
+there a demonstrable and evident fact, that the space of vapor visibly
+extended over an ordinarily cloudy sky, is not less, from the point
+nearest to the observer to the horizon, than twenty leagues; that the
+size of every mass of separate form, if it be at all largely divided, is
+to be expressed in terms of _miles_; and that every boiling heap of
+illuminated mist in the nearer sky, is an enormous mountain, fifteen or
+twenty thousand feet in height, six or seven miles over an illuminated
+surface, furrowed by a thousand colossal ravines, torn by local tempests
+into peaks and promontories, and changing its features with the majestic
+velocity of the volcano.
+
+
+Sec. 11. And consequent divisions and varieties of feature.
+
+To those who have once convinced themselves of these proportions of the
+heaven, it will be immediately evident, that though we might, without
+much violation of truth, omit the minor divisions of a cloud four yards
+over, it is the veriest audacity of falsehood to omit those of masses
+where for yards we have to read miles; first, because it is physically
+impossible that such a space should be without many and vast divisions;
+secondly, because divisions at such distances must be sharply and
+forcibly marked by aerial perspective, so that not only they must be
+there, but they must be visible and evident to the eye; and thirdly,
+because these multitudinous divisions are absolutely necessary, in order
+to express this space and distance, which cannot but be fully and
+imperfectly felt, even with every aid and evidence that art can give of
+it.
+
+
+Sec. 12. Not lightly to be omitted.
+
+Now if an artist taking for his subject a chain of vast mountains,
+several leagues long, were to unite all their varieties of ravine, crag,
+chasm, and precipice, into one solid, unbroken mass, with one light side
+and one dark side, looking like a white ball or parallelopiped two yards
+broad, the words "breadth," "boldness," or, "generalization," would
+scarcely be received as a sufficient apology for a proceeding so
+glaringly false, and so painfully degrading. But when, instead of the
+really large and simple forms of mountains, united, as they commonly
+are, by some great principle of common organization, and so closely
+resembling each other as often to correspond in line, and join in
+effect; when instead of this, we have to do with spaces of cloud twice
+as vast, broken up into a multiplicity of forms necessary to, and
+characteristic of, their very nature--those forms subject to a thousand
+local changes, having no association with each other, and rendered
+visible in a thousand places by their own transparency or cavities,
+where the mountain forms would be lost in shade,--that this far greater
+space, and this far more complicated arrangement, should be all summed
+up into one round mass, with one swell of white, and one flat side of
+unbroken gray, is considered an evidence of the sublimest powers in the
+artist of generalization and breadth. Now it may be broad, it may be
+grand, it may be beautiful, artistical, and in every way desirable. I
+don't say it is not--I merely say it is a concentration of every kind of
+falsehood: it is depriving heaven of its space, clouds of their
+buoyancy, winds of their motion, and distance of its blue.
+
+
+Sec. 13. Imperfect conceptions of this size and extent in ancient
+        landscape.
+
+This is done, more or less, by all the old masters, without an
+exception.[32] Their idea of clouds was altogether similar; more or less
+perfectly carried out, according to their power of hand and accuracy of
+eye, but universally the same in conception. It was the idea of a
+comparatively small, round, puffed-up white body, irregularly associated
+with other round and puffed-up white bodies, each with a white light
+side, and a gray dark side, and a soft reflected light, floating a great
+way below a blue dome. Such is the idea of a cloud formed by most
+people; it is the first, general, uncultivated notion of what we see
+every day. People think of the clouds as about as large as they
+look--forty yards over, perhaps; they see generally that they are solid
+bodies subject to the same laws as other solid bodies, roundish,
+whitish, and apparently suspended a great way under a high blue
+concavity. So that these ideas be tolerably given with smooth paint,
+they are content, and call it nature. How different it is from anything
+that nature ever did, or ever will do, I have endeavored to show; but I
+cannot, and do not, expect the contrast to be fully felt, unless the
+reader will actually go out on days when, either before or after rain,
+the clouds arrange themselves into vigorous masses, and after arriving
+at something like a conception of their distance and size, from the mode
+in which they retire over the horizon, will for himself trace and watch
+their varieties of form and outline, as mass rises over mass in their
+illuminated bodies. Let him climb from step to step over their craggy
+and broken slopes, let him plunge into the long vistas of immeasurable
+perspective, that guide back to the blue sky; and when he finds his
+imagination lost in their immensity, and his senses confused with their
+multitude, let him go to Claude, to Salvator, or to Poussin, and ask
+them for a like space, or like infinity.
+
+
+Sec. 14. Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of
+        ancient landscape.
+
+But perhaps the most grievous fault of all, in the clouds of these
+painters, is the utter want of transparency. Not in her most ponderous
+and lightless masses will nature ever leave us without some evidence of
+transmitted sunshine; and she perpetually gives us passages in which the
+vapor becomes visible only by the sunshine which it arrests and holds
+within itself, not caught on its surface, but entangled in its
+mass--floating fleeces, precious with the gold of heaven; and this
+translucency is especially indicated on the dark sides even of her
+heaviest wreaths, which possess opalescent and delicate hues of partial
+illumination, far more dependent upon the beams which pass through them
+than on those which are reflected upon them. Nothing, on the contrary,
+can be more painfully and ponderously opaque than the clouds of the old
+masters universally. However far removed in aerial distance, and however
+brilliant in light, they never appear filmy or evanescent, and their
+light is always on them, not in them. And this effect is much increased
+by the positive and persevering determination on the part of their
+outlines not to be broken in upon, nor interfered with in the slightest
+degree, by any presumptuous blue, or impertinent winds. There is no
+inequality, no variation, no losing or disguising of line, no melting
+into nothingness, nor shattering into spray; edge succeeds edge with
+imperturbable equanimity, and nothing short of the most decided
+interference on the part of tree-tops, or the edge of the picture,
+prevents us from being able to follow them all the way round, like the
+coast of an island.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Farther proof of their deficiency in space.
+
+Sec. 16. Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon.
+
+And be it remembered that all these faults and deficiencies are to be
+found in their drawing merely of the separate masses of the solid
+cumulus, the easiest drawn of all clouds. But nature scarcely ever
+confines herself to such masses; they form but the thousandth part of
+her variety of effect. She builds up a pyramid of their boiling volumes,
+bars this across like a mountain with the gray cirrus, envelops it in
+black, ragged, drifting vapor, covers the open part of the sky with
+mottled horizontal fields, breaks through these with sudden and long
+sunbeams, tears up their edges with local winds, scatters over the gaps
+of blue the infinity of multitude of the high cirri, and melts even the
+unoccupied azure into palpitating shades. And all this is done over and
+over again in every quarter of a mile. Where Poussin or Claude have
+three similar masses, nature has fifty pictures, made up each of
+millions of minor thoughts--fifty aisles penetrating through angelic
+chapels to the Shechinah of the blue--fifty hollow ways among bewildered
+hills--each with their own nodding rocks, and cloven precipices, and
+radiant summits, and robing vapors, but all unlike each other, except in
+beauty, all bearing witness to the unwearied, exhaustless operation of
+the Infinite Mind. Now, in cases like these especially, as we observed
+before of general nature, though it is altogether hopeless to follow out
+in the space of any one picture this incalculable and inconceivable
+glory, yet the painter can at least see that the space he has at his
+command, narrow and confined as it is, is made complete use of, and that
+no part of it shall be without entertainment and food for thought. If he
+could subdivide it by millionths of inches, he could not reach the
+multitudinous majesty of nature; but it is at least incumbent upon him
+to make the most of what he has, and not, by exaggerating the
+proportions, banishing the variety and repeating the forms of his
+clouds, to set at defiance the eternal principles of the
+heavens--fitfulness and infinity. And now let us, keeping in memory what
+we have seen of Poussin and Salvator, take up one of Turner's skies,
+and see whether _he_ is as narrow in his conception, or as niggardly in
+his space. It does not matter which we take, his sublime Babylon[33] is
+a fair example for our present purpose. Ten miles away, down the
+Euphrates, where it gleams last along the plain, he gives us a drift of
+dark elongated vapor, melting beneath into a dim haze which embraces the
+hills on the horizon. It is exhausted with its own motion, and broken up
+by the wind in its own body into numberless groups of billowy and
+tossing fragments, which, beaten by the weight of storm down to the
+earth, are just lifting themselves again on wearied wings, and perishing
+in the effort. Above these, and far beyond them, the eye goes back to a
+broad sea of white, illuminated mist, or rather cloud melted into rain,
+and absorbed again before that rain has fallen, but penetrated
+throughout, whether it be vapor or whether it be dew, with soft
+sunshine, turning it as white as snow. Gradually as it rises, the rainy
+fusion ceases, you cannot tell where the film of blue on the left
+begins--but it is deepening, deepening still,--and the cloud, with its
+edge first invisible, then all but imaginary, then just felt when the
+eye is _not_ fixed on it, and lost when it is, at last rises, keen from
+excessive distance, but soft and mantling in its body, as a swan's bosom
+fretted by faint wind, heaving fitfully against the delicate deep blue,
+with white waves, whose forms are traced by the pale lines of opalescent
+shadow, shade only because the light is within it, and not upon it, and
+which break with their own swiftness into a driven line of level spray,
+winnowed into threads by the wind, and flung before the following vapor
+like those swift shafts of arrowy water which a great cataract shoots
+into the air beside it, trying to find the earth. Beyond these, again,
+rises a colossal mountain of gray cumulus, through whose shadowed sides
+the sunbeams penetrate in dim, sloping, rain-like shafts; and over which
+they fall in a broad burst of streaming light, sinking to the earth, and
+showing through their own visible radiance the three successive ranges
+of hills which connect its desolate plain with space. Above, the edgy
+summit of the cumulus, broken into fragments, recedes into the sky,
+which is peopled in its serenity with quiet multitudes of the white,
+soft, silent cirrus; and under these again, drift near the zenith,
+disturbed and impatient shadows of a darker spirit, seeking rest and
+finding none.
+
+
+Sec. 17. And in his Pools of Solomon.
+
+Now this is nature! It is the exhaustless living energy with which the
+universe is filled; and what will you set beside it of the works of
+other men? Show me a single picture, in the whole compass of ancient
+art, in which I can pass from cloud to cloud, from region to region,
+from first to second and third heaven, as I can here, and you may talk
+of Turner's want of truth. Turn to the Pools of Solomon, and walk
+through the passages of mist as they melt on the one hand into those
+stormy fragments of fiery cloud, or, on the other, into the cold
+solitary shadows that compass the sweeping hill, and when you find an
+inch without air and transparency, and a hairbreadth without
+changefulness and thought; and when you can count the torn waves of
+tossing radiance that gush from the sun, as you can count the fixed,
+white, insipidities of Claude; or when you can measure the modulation
+and the depth of that hollow mist, as you can the flourishes of the
+brush upon the canvas of Salvator, talk of Turner's want of truth!
+
+But let us take up simpler and less elaborate works, for there is too
+much in these to admit of being analyzed.
+
+
+Sec. 18. Truths of outline and character in his Como.
+
+In the vignette of the Lake of Como, in Rogers's Italy, the space is so
+small that the details have been partially lost by the engraver; but
+enough remain to illustrate the great principles of cloud from which we
+have endeavored to explain. Observe first the general angular outline of
+the volumes on the left of the sun. If you mark the points where the
+direction of their outline changes, and connect those points by right
+lines, the cloud will touch, but will not cut, those lines throughout.
+Yet its contour is as graceful as it is full of character--toppling,
+ready to change--fragile as enormous--evanescent as colossal. Observe
+how, where it crosses the line of the sun, it becomes luminous,
+illustrating what has been observed of the visibility of mist in
+sunlight. Observe, above all, the multiplicity of its solid form, the
+depth of its shadows in perpetual transition: it is not round and
+swelled, half light and half dark, but full of breaking irregular
+shadow and transparency--variable as the wind, and melting
+imperceptibly above into the haziness of the sunlighted atmosphere,
+contrasted in all its vast forms with the delicacy and the multitude of
+the brightly touched cirri. Nothing can surpass the truth of this; the
+cloud is as gigantic in its simplicity as the Alp which it opposes; but
+how various, how transparent, how infinite in its organization!
+
+
+Sec. 19. Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus.
+
+I would draw especial attention, both here and in all other works of
+Turner, to the beautiful use of the low horizontal bars or fields of
+cloud, (cirrostratus,) which associate themselves so frequently--more
+especially before storms--with the true cumulus, floating on its flanks,
+or capping it, as if it were a mountain, and seldom mingling with its
+substance, unless in the very formation of rain. They supply us with one
+of those beautiful instances of natural composition, by which the artist
+is superseded and excelled--for, by the occurrence of these horizontal
+flakes, the rolling form of the cumulus is both opposed in its principal
+lines, and gifted with an apparent solidity and vastness, which no other
+expedient could have exhibited, and which far exceed in awfulness the
+impression of the noblest mountains of the earth. I have seen in the
+evening light of Italy, the Alps themselves out-towered by ranges of
+these mighty clouds, alternately white in the starlight, and inhabited
+by fire.
+
+
+Sec. 20. The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of Geneva.
+
+Turn back to the first vignette in the Italy. The angular outlines and
+variety of modulation in the clouds above the sail, and the delicate
+atmosphere of morning into which they are dissolved about the breathing
+hills, require no comment; but one part of this vignette demands
+especial notice; it is the repetition of the outline of the snowy
+mountain by the light cloud above it. The cause of this I have already
+explained (vide page 228,) and its occurrence here is especially
+valuable as bearing witness to the thorough and scientific knowledge
+thrown by Turner into his slightest works. The thing cannot be seen once
+in six months; it would not have been noticed, much less introduced by
+an ordinary artist, and to the public it is a dead letter, or an
+offence. Ninety-nine persons in a hundred would not have observed this
+pale wreath of parallel cloud above the hill, and the hundredth in all
+probability says it is unnatural. It requires the most intimate and
+accurate knowledge of the Alps before such a piece of refined truth can
+be understood.
+
+
+Sec. 21. Further principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.
+
+At the 216th page we have another and a new case, in which clouds in
+perfect repose, unaffected by wind, or any influence but that of their
+own elastic force, boil, rise, and melt in the heaven with more approach
+to globular form than under any other circumstances is possible. I name
+this vignette, not only because it is most remarkable for the buoyancy
+and elasticity of inward energy, indicated through the most ponderous
+forms, and affords us a beautiful instance of the junction of the
+cirrostratus with the cumulus, of which we have just been speaking (Sec.
+19,) but because it is a characteristic example of Turner's use of one
+of the facts of nature not hitherto noticed, that the edge of a
+partially transparent body is often darker than its central surface,
+because at the edge the light penetrates and passes through, which from
+the centre is reflected to the eye. The sharp, cutting edge of a wave,
+if not broken into foam, frequently appears for an instant almost black;
+and the outlines of these massy clouds, where their projecting forms
+rise in relief against the light of their bodies, are almost always
+marked clearly and firmly by very dark edges. Hence we have frequently,
+if not constantly, multitudinous forms indicated only by outline, giving
+character and solidity to the great masses of light, without taking away
+from their breadth. And Turner avails himself of these boldly and
+constantly,--outlining forms with the brush of which no other indication
+is given. All the grace and solidity of the white cloud on the
+right-hand side of the vignette before us, depends upon such outlines.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Reasons for insisting on the _infinity_ of Turner's works.
+        Infinity is almost an unerring test of _all_ truth.
+
+As I before observed of mere execution, that one of the best tests of
+its excellence was the expression of _infinity_; so it may be noticed
+with respect to the painting of details generally, that more difference
+lies between one artist and another, in the attainment of this quality,
+than in any other of the efforts of art; and that if we wish, without
+reference to beauty of composition, or any other interfering
+circumstances, to form a judgment of the truth of painting, perhaps the
+very first thing we should look for, whether in one thing or
+another--foliage, or clouds, or waves--should be the expression of
+_infinity_ always and everywhere, in all parts and divisions of parts.
+For we may be quite sure that what is not infinite, cannot be true; it
+does not, indeed, follow that what is infinite, always is true, but it
+cannot be altogether false, for this simple reason; that it is
+impossible for mortal mind to compose an infinity of any kind for
+itself, or to form an idea of perpetual variation, and to avoid all
+repetition, merely by its own combining resources. The moment that we
+trust to ourselves, we repeat ourselves, and therefore the moment we see
+in a work of any kind whatsoever, the expression of infinity, we may be
+certain that the workman has gone to nature for it; while, on the other
+hand, the moment we see repetition, or want of infinity, we may be
+certain that the workman has _not_ gone to nature for it.
+
+
+Sec. 23. Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator.
+
+Sec. 24. And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The
+        conclusions which may be arrived at from it.
+
+Sec. 25. The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will not
+        give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices.
+
+For instance, in the picture of Salvator before noticed, No. 220 in the
+Dulwich Gallery, as we see at once that the two masses of cloud
+absolutely repeat each other in every one of their forms, and that each
+is composed of about twelve white sweeps of the brush, all forming the
+same curve, and all of the same length; and as we can count these, and
+measure their common diameter, and by stating the same to anybody else,
+convey to him a full and perfect idea and knowledge of that sky in all
+its parts and proportions,--as we can do this, we may be absolutely
+certain, without reference to the real sky, or to any other part of
+nature, without even knowing what the white things were intended for, we
+may be certain that they cannot possibly resemble _anything_; that
+whatever they were meant for, they can be nothing but a violent
+contradiction of all nature's principles and forms. When, on the other
+hand, we take up such a sky as that of Turner's Rouen, seen from St.
+Catherine's Hill, in the Rivers of France, and find, in the first place,
+that he has given us a distance over the hills in the horizon, into
+which, when we are tired of penetrating, we must turn and come back
+again, there being not the remotest chance of getting to the end of it;
+and when we see that from this measureless distance up to the zenith,
+the whole sky is one ocean of alternate waves of cloud and light, so
+blended together that the eye cannot rest on any one without being
+guided to the next, and so to a hundred more, till it is lost over and
+over again in every wreath--that if it divides the sky into quarters of
+inches, and tries to count or comprehend the component parts of any
+single one of those divisions, it is still as utterly defied and
+defeated by the part as by the whole--that there is not one line out of
+the millions there which repeats another, not one which is unconnected
+with another, not one which does not in itself convey histories of
+distance and space, and suggest new and changeful form; then we may be
+all but certain, though these forms are too mysterious and too delicate
+for us to analyze--though all is so crowded and so connected that it is
+impossible to test any single part by particular laws--yet without any
+such tests, we may be sure that this infinity can only be based on
+truth--that it _must_ be nature, because man could not have originated
+it, and that every form must be faithful, because none is like another.
+And therefore it is that I insist so constantly on this great quality of
+landscape painting, as it appears in Turner; because it is not merely a
+constant and most important truth in itself, but it almost amounts to a
+demonstration of every other truth. And it will be found a far rarer
+attainment in the works of other men than is commonly supposed, and the
+sign, wherever it is really found, of the very highest art. For we are
+apt to forget that the greatest _number_ is no nearer infinity than the
+least, if it be definite number; and the vastest bulk is no nearer
+infinity than the most minute, if it be definite bulk; so that a man may
+multiply his objects forever and ever, and be no nearer infinity than he
+had reached with one, if he do not vary them and confuse them; and a man
+may reach infinity in every touch and line, and part, and unit, if in
+these he be truthfully various and obscure. And we shall find, the more
+we examine the works of the old masters, that always, and in all parts,
+they are totally wanting in every feeling of infinity, and therefore in
+_all_ truth: and even in the works of the moderns, though the aim is far
+more just, we shall frequently perceive an erroneous choice of means,
+and a substitution of mere number or bulk for real infinity.
+
+
+Sec. 26. Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner.
+
+And therefore, in concluding our notice of the central cloud region, I
+should wish to dwell particularly on those skies of Turner's, in which
+we have the whole space of the heaven covered with the delicate dim
+flakes of gathering vapor, which are the intermediate link between the
+central region and that of the rain-cloud, and which assemble and grow
+out of the air; shutting up the heaven with a gray interwoven veil,
+before the approach of storm, faint, but universal, letting the light of
+the upper sky pass pallidly through their body, but never rending a
+passage for the ray. We have the first approach and gathering of this
+kind of sky most gloriously given in the vignette at page 115 of
+Rogers's Italy, which is one of the most perfect pieces of feeling (if I
+may transgress my usual rules for an instant) extant in art, owing to
+the extreme grandeur and stern simplicity of the strange and ominous
+forms of level cloud behind the building. In that at page 223, there are
+passages of the same kind, of exceeding perfection. The sky through
+which the dawn is breaking in the Voyage of Columbus, and that with the
+Moonlight under the Rialto, in Rogers's Poems, the skies of the
+Bethlehem, and the Pyramids in Finden's Bible series, and among the
+Academy pictures, that of the Hero and Leander, and Flight into Egypt,
+are characteristic and noble examples, as far as any individual works
+can be characteristic of the universality of this mighty mind. I ought
+not to forget the magnificent solemnity and fulness of the wreaths of
+gathering darkness in the Folkestone.
+
+
+Sec. 27. The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield.
+
+Sec. 28. The average standing of the English school.
+
+We must not pass from the consideration of the central cloud region
+without noticing the general high quality of the cloud-drawing of
+Stanfield. He is limited in his range, and is apt in extensive
+compositions to repeat himself, neither is he ever very refined; but his
+cloud-form is firmly and fearlessly chiselled, with perfect knowledge,
+though usually with some want of feeling. As far as it goes, it is very
+grand and very tasteful, beautifully developed in the space of its solid
+parts and full of action. Next to Turner, he is incomparably the noblest
+master of cloud-form of all our artists; in fact, he is the only one
+among them who really can _draw_ a cloud. For it is a very different
+thing to rub out an irregular white space neatly with the handkerchief,
+or to leave a bright little bit of paper in the middle of a wash, and
+to give the real anatomy of cloud-form with perfect articulation of
+chiaroscuro. We have multitudes of painters who can throw a light bit of
+straggling vapor across their sky, or leave in it delicate and tender
+passages of breaking light; but this is a very different thing from
+taking up each of those bits or passages, and giving it structure, and
+parts, and solidity. The eye is satisfied with exceedingly little, as an
+indication of cloud, and a few clever sweeps of the brush on wet paper
+may give all that it requires; but this is not _drawing_ clouds, nor
+will it ever appeal fully and deeply to the mind, except when it occurs
+only as a part of a higher system. And there is not one of our modern
+artists, except Stanfield, who can do much more than this. As soon as
+they attempt to lay detail upon their clouds, they appear to get
+bewildered, forget that they are dealing with forms regulated by
+precisely the same simple laws of light and shade as more substantial
+matter, overcharge their color, confuse their shadows and dark sides,
+and end in mere ragged confusion. I believe the evil arises from their
+never attempting to render clouds except with the brush; other objects,
+at some period of study, they take up with the chalk or lead, and so
+learn something of their form; but they appear to consider clouds as
+altogether dependent on cobalt and camel's hair, and so never understand
+anything of their real anatomy. But whatever the cause, I cannot point
+to any central clouds of the moderns, except those of Turner and
+Stanfield, as really showing much knowledge of, or feeling for, nature,
+though _all_ are superior to the conventional and narrow conceptions of
+the ancients. We are all right as far as we go, our work may be
+incomplete, but it is not false; and it is far better, far less
+injurious to the mind, that we should be little attracted to the sky,
+and taught to be satisfied with a light suggestion of truthful form,
+than that we should be drawn to it by violently pronounced outline and
+intense color, to find in its finished falsehood everything to displease
+or to mislead--to hurt our feelings, if we have foundation for them, and
+corrupt them, if we have none.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [32] Here I include even the great ones--even Titian and
+    Veronese,--excepting only Tintoret and the religious schools.
+
+  [33] Engraved in Findel's Bible Illustrations.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+        OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: THIRDLY, OF THE REGION OF THE RAIN-CLOUD.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The apparent difference in character between the lower and central
+       clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity.
+
+The clouds which I wish to consider as characteristic of the lower, or
+rainy region, differ not so much in their real nature from those of the
+central and uppermost regions, as in appearance, owing to their greater
+nearness. For the central clouds, and perhaps even the high cirri,
+deposit moisture, if not distinctly rain, as is sufficiently proved by
+the existence of snow on the highest peaks of the Himaleh; and when, on
+any such mountains, we are brought into close contact with the central
+clouds,[34] we find them little differing from the ordinary rain-cloud
+of the plains, except by being slightly less dense and dark. But the
+apparent differences, dependent on proximity, are most marked and
+important.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Their marked difference in color.
+
+In the first place, the clouds of the central region have, as has been
+before observed, pure and aerial grays for their dark sides, owing to
+their necessary distance from the observer; and as this distance permits
+a multitude of local phenomena capable of influencing color, such as
+accidental sunbeams, refractions, transparencies, or local mists and
+showers, to be collected into a space comparatively small, the colors of
+these clouds are always changeful and palpitating; and whatever degree
+of gray or of gloom may be mixed with them is invariably pure and
+aerial. But the nearness of the rain-cloud rendering it impossible for a
+number of phenomena to be at once visible, makes its hue of gray
+monotonous, and (by losing the blue of distance) warm and brown compared
+to that of the upper clouds. This is especially remarkable on any part
+of it which may happen to be illumined, which is of a brown, bricky,
+ochreous tone, never bright, always coming in dark outline on the lights
+of the central clouds. But it is seldom that this takes place, and when
+it does, never over large spaces, little being usually seen of the
+rain-cloud but its under and dark side. This, when the cloud above is
+dense, becomes of an inky and cold gray, and sulphureous and lurid if
+there be thunder in the air.
+
+
+Sec. 3. And in definiteness of form.
+
+Sec. 4. They are subject to precisely the same great laws.
+
+With these striking differences in color, it presents no fewer nor less
+important in form, chiefly from losing almost all definiteness of
+character and outline. It is sometimes nothing more than a thin mist,
+whose outline cannot be traced, rendering the landscape locally
+indistinct or dark; if its outline be visible, it is ragged and torn;
+rather a spray of cloud, taken off its edge and sifted by the wind, than
+an edge of the cloud itself. In fact, it rather partakes of the nature,
+and assumes the appearance, of real water in the state of spray, than of
+elastic vapor. This appearance is enhanced by the usual presence of
+formed rain, carried along with it in a columnar form, ordinarily, of
+course, reaching the ground like a veil, but very often suspended with
+the cloud, and hanging from it like a jagged fringe, or over it in
+light, rain being always lighter than the cloud it falls from. These
+columns, or fringes, of rain are often waved and bent by the wind, or
+twisted, sometimes even swept upwards from the cloud. The velocity of
+these vapors, though not necessarily in reality greater than that of the
+central clouds, appears greater, owing to their proximity, and, of
+course, also to the usual presence of a more violent wind. They are also
+apparently much more in the power of the wind, having less elastic force
+in themselves; but they are precisely subject to the same great laws of
+form which regulate the upper clouds. They are not solid bodies borne
+about with the wind, but they carry the wind with them, and cause it.
+Every one knows, who has ever been out in a storm, that the time when it
+rains heaviest is precisely the time when he cannot hold up his
+umbrella; that the wind is carried with the cloud, and lulls when it has
+passed. Every one who has ever seen rain in a hill country, knows that
+a rain-cloud, like any other, may have all its parts in rapid motion,
+and yet, as a whole, remain in one spot. I remember once, when in
+crossing the Tete Noire, I had turned up the valley towards Trient, I
+noticed a rain-cloud forming on the Glacier de Trient. With a west wind,
+it proceeded towards the Col de Balme, being followed by a prolonged
+wreath of vapor, always forming exactly at the same spot over the
+glacier. This long, serpent-like line of cloud went on at a great rate
+till it reached the valley leading down from the Col de Balme, under the
+slate rocks of the Croix de Fer. There it turned sharp round, and came
+down this valley, at right angles to its former progress, and finally
+directly contrary to it, till it came down within five hundred feet of
+the village, where it disappeared; the line behind always advancing, and
+always disappearing, at the same spot. This continued for half an hour,
+the long line describing the curve of a horseshoe; always coming into
+existence, and always vanishing at exactly the same places; traversing
+the space between with enormous swiftness. This cloud, ten miles off,
+would have looked like a perfectly motionless wreath, in the form of a
+horseshoe, hanging over the hills.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud.
+
+Sec. 6. The old masters have not left a single instance of the painting of
+       the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it. Gaspar Poussin's
+       storms.
+
+To the region of the rain-cloud belong also all those phenomena of
+drifted smoke, heat-haze, local mists in the morning or evening; in
+valleys, or over water, mirage, white steaming vapor rising in
+evaporation from moist and open surfaces, and everything which visibly
+affects the condition of the atmosphere without actually assuming the
+form of cloud. These phenomena are as perpetual in all countries as they
+are beautiful, and afford by far the most effective and valuable means
+which the painter possesses, for modification of the forms of fixed
+objects. The upper clouds are distinct and comparatively opaque, they do
+not modify, but conceal; but through the rain-cloud, and its accessory
+phenomena, all that is beautiful may be made manifest, and all that is
+hurtful concealed; what is paltry may be made to look vast, and what is
+ponderous, aerial; mystery may be obtained without obscurity, and
+decoration without disguise. And, accordingly, nature herself uses it
+constantly, as one of her chief means of most perfect effect; not in one
+country, nor another, but everywhere--everywhere; at least, where there
+is anything worth calling landscape. I cannot answer for the desert of
+the Sahara, but I know that there can be no greater mistake, than
+supposing that delicate and variable effects of mist and rain-cloud are
+peculiar to northern climates. I have never seen in any place or country
+effects of mist more perfect than in the Campagna of Rome, and among the
+hills of Sorrento. It is therefore matter of no little marvel to me, and
+I conceive that it can scarcely be otherwise to any reflecting person,
+that throughout the whole range of ancient landscape art, there occurs
+no instance of the painting of a real rain-cloud, still less of any of
+the more delicate phenomena characteristic of the region. "Storms"
+indeed, as the innocent public persist in calling such abuses of nature
+and abortions of art as the two windy Gaspars in our National Gallery,
+are common enough; massive concretions of ink and indigo, wrung and
+twisted very hard, apparently in a vain effort to get some moisture out
+of them; bearing up courageously and successfully against a wind, whose
+effects on the trees in the foreground can be accounted for only on the
+supposition that they are all of the India-rubber species. Enough of
+this in all conscience, we have, and to spare; but for the legitimate
+rain-cloud, with its ragged and spray-like edge, its veilly
+transparency, and its columnar burden of blessing, neither it, nor
+anything like it, or approaching it, occurs in any painting of the old
+masters that I have ever seen; and I have seen enough to warrant my
+affirming that if it occur anywhere, it must be through accident rather
+than intention. Nor is there stronger evidence of any perception, on the
+part of these much respected artists, that there were such things in the
+world as mists or vapors. If a cloud under their direction ever touches
+a mountain, it does it effectually and as if it meant to do it. There is
+no mystifying the matter; here is a cloud, and there is a hill; if it is
+to come on at all, it comes on to some purpose, and there is no hope of
+its ever going off again. We have, therefore, little to say of the
+efforts of the old masters, in any scenes which might naturally have
+been connected with the clouds of the lowest region, except that the
+faults of form specified in considering the central clouds, are, by way
+of being energetic or sublime, more glaringly and audaciously committed
+in their "storms;" and that what is a wrong form among clouds possessing
+form, is there given with increased generosity of fiction to clouds
+which have no form at all.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The great power of the moderns in this respect.
+
+Sec. 8. Works of Copley Fielding.
+
+Sec. 9. His peculiar truth.
+
+Sec. 10. His weakness and its probable cause.
+
+Supposing that we had nothing to show in modern art, of the region of
+the rain-cloud, but the dash of Cox, the blot of de Wint, or even the
+ordinary stormy skies of the body of our inferior water-color painters,
+we might yet laugh all efforts of the old masters to utter scorn. But
+one among our water-color artists, deserves especial notice--before we
+ascend the steps of the solitary throne--as having done in his peculiar
+walk, what for faithful and pure truth, truth indeed of a limited range
+and unstudied application, but yet most faithful and most pure, will
+remain unsurpassed if not unrivalled,--Copley Fielding. We are well
+aware how much of what he has done depends in a great degree upon
+particular tricks of execution, or on a labor somewhat too mechanical to
+be meritorious; that it is rather the _texture_ than the _plan_ of his
+sky which is to be admired, and that the greater part of what is
+pleasurable in it will fall rather under the head of dexterous imitation
+than of definite thought. But whatever detractions from his merit we may
+be compelled to make on these grounds, in considering art as the
+embodying of beauty, or the channel of mind, it is impossible, when we
+are speaking of truth only, to pass by his down scenes and moorland
+showers, of some years ago, in which he produced some of the most
+perfect and faultless passages of mist and rain-cloud which art has ever
+seen. Wet, transparent, formless, full of motion, felt rather by their
+shadows on the hills than by their presence in the sky, becoming dark
+only through increased depth of space, most translucent where most
+sombre, and light only through increased buoyancy of motion, letting the
+blue through their interstices, and the sunlight through their chasms,
+with the irregular playfulness and traceless gradation of nature
+herself, his skies will remain, as long as their colors stand, among the
+most simple, unadulterated, and complete transcripts of a particular
+nature which art can point to. Had he painted five instead of five
+hundred such, and gone on to other sources of beauty, he might, there
+can be little doubt, have been one of our greatest artists. But it often
+grieves us to see how his power is limited to a particular moment, to
+that easiest moment for imitation, when knowledge of form may be
+superseded by management of the brush, and the judgment of the colorist
+by the manufacture of a color; the moment when all form is melted down
+and drifted away in the descending veil of rain, and when the variable
+and fitful colors of the heaven are lost in the monotonous gray of its
+storm tones.[35] We can only account for this by supposing that there is
+something radically wrong in his method of study; for a man of his
+evident depth of feeling and pure love of truth ought not to be, cannot
+be, except from some strange error in his mode of out-of-door practice,
+thus limited in his range, and liable to decline of power. We have
+little doubt that almost all such failures arise from the artist's
+neglecting the use of the chalk, and supposing that either the power of
+drawing forms, or the sense of their beauty, can be maintained
+unweakened or unblunted, without constant and laborious studies in
+simple light and shade, of form only. The brush is at once the artist's
+greatest aid and enemy; it enables him to make his power available, but
+at the same time, it undermines his power, and unless it be constantly
+rejected for the pencil, never can be rightly used. But whatever the
+obstacle be, we do not doubt that it is one which, once seen, may be
+overcome or removed; and we are in the constant hope of seeing this
+finely-minded artist shake off his lethargy, break the shackles of
+habit, seek in extended and right study the sources of real power, and
+become, what we have full faith in his capability of being, one of the
+leading artists of his time.
+
+
+Sec. 11. Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from
+        engravings.
+
+In passing to the works of our greatest modern master, it must be
+premised that the qualities which constitute a most essential part of
+the truth of the rain-cloud, are in no degree to be rendered by
+engraving. Its indefiniteness of torn and transparent form is far beyond
+the power of even our best engravers: I do not say beyond their
+_possible_ power, if they would make themselves artists as well as
+workmen, but far beyond the power they actually possess; while the depth
+and delicacy of the grays which Turner employs or produces, as well as
+the refinement of his execution, are, in the nature of things, utterly
+beyond all imitation by the opaque and lifeless darkness of the steel.
+What we say of his works, therefore, must be understood as referring
+only to the original drawings; though we may name one or two instances
+in which the engraver has, to a certain degree, succeeded in distantly
+following the intention of the master.
+
+
+Sec. 12. His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges.
+
+Sec. 13. Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of smoke
+        and steam.
+
+Jumieges, in the Rivers of France, ought perhaps, after what we have
+said of Fielding, to be our first object of attention, because it is a
+rendering by Turner of Fielding's particular moment, and the only one
+existing, for Turner never repeats himself. One picture is allotted to
+one truth; the statement is perfectly and gloriously made, and he passes
+on to speak of a fresh portion of God's revelation.[36] The haze of
+sunlit rain of this most magnificent picture, the gradual retirement of
+the dark wood into its depth, and the sparkling and evanescent light
+which sends its variable flashes on the abbey, figures, foliage, and
+foam, require no comment--they speak home at once. But there is added to
+this noble composition an incident which may serve us at once for a
+farther illustration of the nature and forms of cloud, and for a final
+proof how deeply and philosophically Turner has studied them.
+
+We have on the right of the picture, the steam and the smoke of a
+passing steamboat. Now steam is nothing but an artificial cloud in the
+process of dissipation; it is as much a cloud as those of the sky
+itself, that is, a quantity of moisture rendered visible in the air by
+imperfect solution. Accordingly, observe how exquisitely irregular and
+broken are its forms, how sharp and spray-like; but with all the facts
+observed which were pointed out in Chap. II. of this Section, the convex
+side to the wind, the sharp edge on that side, the other soft and lost.
+Smoke, on the contrary, is an actual substance existing independently in
+the air, a solid opaque body, subject to no absorption nor dissipation
+but that of tenuity. Observe its volumes; there is no breaking up nor
+disappearing here; the wind carries its elastic globes before it, but
+does not dissolve nor break them.[37] Equally convex and void of angles
+on all sides, they are the exact representatives of the clouds of the
+old masters, and serve at once to show the ignorance and falsehood of
+these latter, and the accuracy of study which has guided Turner to the
+truth.
+
+
+Sec. 14. Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony.
+
+From this picture we should pass to the Llanthony,[38] which is the
+rendering of the moment immediately following that given in the
+Jumieges. The shower is here half exhausted, half passed by, the last
+drops are rattling faintly through the glimmering hazel boughs, the
+white torrent, swelled by the sudden storm, flings up its hasty jets of
+springing spray to meet the returning light; and these, as if the heaven
+regretted what it had given, and were taking it back, pass, as they
+leap, into vapor, and fall not again, but vanish in the shafts of the
+sunlight[39]--hurrying, fitful, wind-woven sunlight--which glides
+through the thick leaves, and paces along the pale rocks like rain;
+half conquering, half quenched by the very mists which it summons itself
+from the lighted pastures as it passes, and gathers out of the drooping
+herbage and from the streaming crags; sending them with messages of
+peace to the far summits of the yet unveiled mountains whose silence is
+still broken by the sound of the rushing rain.
+
+
+Sec. 15. And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch Coriskin.
+
+With this noble work we should compare one of which we can better judge
+by the engraving--the Loch Coriskin, in the illustrations to Scott,
+because it introduces us to another and a most remarkable instance of
+the artist's vast and varied knowledge. When rain falls on a mountain
+composed chiefly of barren rocks, their surfaces, being violently heated
+by the sun, whose most intense warmth always precedes rain, occasion
+sudden and violent evaporation, actually converting the first shower
+into steam. Consequently, upon all such hills, on the commencement of
+rain, white volumes of vapor are instantaneously and universally formed,
+which rise, are absorbed by the atmosphere, and again descend in rain,
+to rise in fresh volumes until the surfaces of the hills are cooled.
+Where there is grass or vegetation, this effect is diminished; where
+there is foliage it scarcely takes place at all. Now this effect has
+evidently been especially chosen by Turner for Loch Coriskin, not only
+because it enabled him to relieve its jagged forms with veiling vapor,
+but to tell the tale which no pencilling could, the story of its utter
+absolute barrenness of unlichened, dead, desolated rock:--
+
+            "The wildest glen, but this, can show
+             Some touch of nature's genial glow,
+             On high Benmore green mosses grow,
+             And heath-bells bud in deep Glencoe.
+             And copse on Cruchan Ben;
+             But here, above, around, below,
+             On mountain, or in glen,
+             Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower,
+             Nor aught of vegetative power,
+             The wearied eye may ken;
+             But all its rocks at random thrown,
+             Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone."
+
+                                       LORD OF THE ISLES, Canto III
+
+Here, again, we see the absolute necessity of scientific and entire
+acquaintance with nature, before this great artist can be understood.
+That which, to the ignorant, is little more than an unnatural and
+meaningless confusion of steam-like vapor, is to the experienced such a
+full and perfect expression of the character of the spot, as no means of
+art could have otherwise given.
+
+
+Sec. 16. The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End.
+
+Sec. 17. The individual character of its parts.
+
+In the Long Ships Lighthouse, Land's End, we have clouds without
+rain--at twilight--enveloping the cliffs of the coast, but concealing
+nothing, every outline being visible through their gloom; and not only
+the outline--for it is easy to do this--but the _surface_. The bank of
+rocky coast approaches the spectator inch by inch, felt clearer and
+clearer as it withdraws from the garment of cloud--not by edges more and
+more defined, but by a surface more and more unveiled. We have thus the
+painting, not of a mere transparent veil, but of a solid body of cloud,
+every inch of whose increasing distance is marked and felt. But the
+great wonder of the picture is the intensity of gloom which is attained
+in pure warm gray, without either blackness or blueness. It is a gloom,
+dependent rather on the enormous space and depth indicated, than on
+actual pitch of color, distant by real drawing, without a grain of blue,
+dark by real substance, without a stroke of blackness; and with all
+this, it is not formless, but full of indications of character, wild,
+irregular, shattered, and indefinite--full of the energy of storm, fiery
+in haste, and yet flinging back out of its motion the fitful swirls of
+bounding drift, of tortured vapor tossed up like men's hands, as in
+defiance of the tempest, the jets of resulting whirlwind, hurled back
+from the rocks into the face of the coming darkness; which, beyond all
+other characters, mark the raised passion of the elements. It is this
+untraceable, unconnected, yet perpetual form--this fulness of character
+absorbed in the universal energy--which distinguish nature and Turner
+from all their imitators. To roll a volume of smoke before the wind, to
+indicate motion or violence by monotonous similarity of line and
+direction, is for the multitude; but to mark the independent passion,
+the tumultuous separate existence of every wreath of writhing vapor, yet
+swept away and overpowered by one omnipotence of storm, and thus to bid
+us
+
+               "Be as a Presence or a motion--one
+                Among the many there----while the mists
+                Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes
+                And phantoms from the crags and solid earth,
+                As fast as a musician scatters sounds
+                Out of an instrument,"--
+
+this belongs only to nature and to him.
+
+
+Sec. 18. Deep studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry.
+
+Sec. 19. Compared with forms given by Salvator.
+
+The drawing of Coventry may be particularized as a farther example of
+this fine suggestion of irregularity and fitfulness, through very
+constant parallelism of direction, both in rain and clouds. The great
+mass of cloud, which traverses the whole picture, is characterized
+throughout by severe right lines, nearly parallel with each other, into
+which every one of its wreaths has a tendency to range itself; but no
+one of these right lines is actually and entirely parallel to any other,
+though all have a certain tendency, more or less defined in each, which
+impresses the mind with the most distinct _idea_ of parallelism. Neither
+are any of the lines actually straight and unbroken; on the contrary,
+they are all made up of the most exquisite and varied curves, and it is
+the imagined line which joins the apices of these--a tangent to them
+all, which is in reality straight.[40] They are suggested, not
+represented, right lines; but the whole volume of cloud is visibly and
+totally bounded by them; and, in consequence, its whole body is felt to
+be dragged out and elongated by the force of the tempest which it
+carries with it, and every one of its wreaths to be (as was before
+explained) not so much something borne _before_ or _by_ the wind, as the
+visible form and presence of the wind itself. We could not possibly
+point out a more magnificent piece of drawing as a contrast to such
+works of Salvator as that before alluded to (159 Dulwich Gallery). Both
+are rolling masses of connected cloud; but in Turner's, there is not one
+curve that repeats another, nor one curve in itself monotonous, nor
+without character, and yet every part and portion of the cloud is
+rigidly subjected to the same forward, fierce, inevitable influence of
+storm. In Salvator's, every curve repeats its neighbor, every curve is
+monotonous in itself, and yet the whole cloud is curling about hither
+and thither, evidently without the slightest notion where it is going
+to, and unregulated by any general influence whatsoever. I could not
+bring together two finer or more instructive examples, the one of
+everything that is perfect, the other of everything that is childish or
+abominable, in the representation of the same facts.
+
+
+Sec. 20. Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and circumstances
+        in the Coventry.
+
+But there is yet more to be noticed in this noble sky of Turner's. Not
+only are the lines of the rolling cloud thus irregular in their
+parallelism, but those of the falling rain are equally varied in their
+direction, indicating the gusty changefulness of the wind, and yet kept
+so straight and stern in their individual descent, that we are not
+suffered to forget its strength. This impression is still farther
+enhanced by the drawing of the smoke, which blows every way at once, yet
+turning perpetually in each of its swirls back in the direction of the
+wind, but so suddenly and violently, as almost to assume the angular
+lines of lightning. Farther, to complete the impression, be it observed
+that all the cattle, both upon the near and distant hill-side, have left
+off grazing, and are standing stock still and stiff, with their heads
+down and their backs to the wind; and finally, that we may be told not
+only what the storm is, but what it has been, the gutter at the side of
+the road is gushing in a complete torrent, and particular attention is
+directed to it by the full burst of light in the sky being brought just
+above it, so that all its waves are bright with the reflection.
+
+
+Sec. 21. Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose.
+
+But I have not quite done with this noble picture yet. Impetuous clouds,
+twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and
+oppressed cattle, all speak the same story of tumult, fitfulness, power,
+and velocity. Only one thing is wanted, a passage of repose to contrast
+with it all, and it is given. High and far above the dark volumes of the
+swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left, through their opening, the
+quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the highest cirrus, resting in the
+repose of the deep sky. Of all else that we have noticed in this
+drawing, some faint idea can be formed from the engraving: but not the
+slightest of the delicate and soft forms of these pausing vapors, and
+still less of the exquisite depth and palpitating tenderness of the blue
+with which they are islanded. Engravers, indeed, invariably lose the
+effect of all passages of cold color, under the mistaken idea that it is
+to be kept _pale_ in order to indicate distance; whereas it ought
+commonly to be darker than the rest of the sky.
+
+
+Sec. 22. The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky only
+        seen after rain, and how seen.
+
+Sec. 23. Absence of this effect in the works of the old masters.
+
+To appreciate the full truth of this passage, we must understand another
+effect peculiar to the rain-cloud, that its openings exhibit the purest
+blue which the sky ever shows. For, as we saw in the first chapter of
+this section, that aqueous vapor always turns the sky more or less gray,
+it follows that we never can see the azure so intense as when the
+greater part of this vapor has just fallen in rain. Then, and then only,
+pure blue sky becomes visible in the first openings, distinguished
+especially by the manner in which the clouds melt into it; their edges
+passing off in faint white threads and fringes, through which the blue
+shines more and more intensely, till the last trace of vapor is lost in
+its perfect color. It is only the upper white clouds, however, which do
+this, or the last fragments of rain-clouds, becoming white as they
+disappear, so that the blue is never _corrupted_ by the cloud, but only
+paled and broken with pure white, the purest white which the sky ever
+shows. Thus we have a melting and palpitating color, never the same for
+two inches together, deepening and broadening here and there into
+intensity of perfect azure, then drifted and dying away through every
+tone of pure pale sky, into the snow white of the filmy cloud. Over this
+roll the determined edges of the rain-clouds, throwing it all far back,
+as a retired scene, into the upper sky. Of this effect the old masters,
+as far as I remember, have taken no cognizance whatsoever; all with them
+is, as we partially noticed before, either white cloud or pure blue:
+they have no notion of any double-dealing or middle measures. They bore
+a hole in the sky, and let you up into a pool of deep, stagnant blue,
+marked off by the clear round edges of imperturbable, impenetrable cloud
+on all sides--beautiful in positive color, but totally destitute of that
+exquisite gradation and change, that fleeting, panting, hesitating
+effort, with which the first glance of the natural sky is shed through
+the turbulence of the earth-storm.
+
+
+Sec. 24. Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it by
+        Turner.
+
+They have some excuse, however, for not attempting this, in the nature
+of their material, as one accidental dash of the brush with water-color
+on a piece of wet or damp paper, will come nearer the truth and
+transparency of this rain-blue than the labor of a day in oils; and the
+purity and felicity of some of the careless, melting water-color skies
+of Cox and Tayler may well make us fastidious in all effects of this
+kind. It is, however, only in the drawings of Turner that we have this
+perfect transparency and variation of blue, given in association with
+the perfection of considered form. In Tayler and Cox the forms are
+always partially accidental and unconsidered, often essentially bad, and
+always incomplete; in Turner the dash of the brush is as completely
+under the rule of thought and feeling as its slowest line; all that it
+does is perfect, and could not be altered, even in a hairbreadth,
+without injury; in addition to this, peculiar management and execution
+are used in obtaining quality in the color itself, totally different
+from the manipulation of any other artist; and none, who have ever spent
+so much as one hour of their lives over his drawing, can forget those
+dim passages of dreamy blue, barred and severed with a thousand delicate
+and soft and snowy forms, which, gleaming in their patience of hope
+between the troubled rushing of the racked earth-cloud, melt farther and
+farther back into the height of heaven, until the eye is bewildered and
+the heart lost in the intensity of their peace. I do not say that this
+is beautiful--I do not say it is ideal, nor refined--I only ask you to
+watch for the first opening of the clouds after the next south rain, and
+tell me if it be not _true_?
+
+
+Sec. 25. Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works.
+
+Sec. 26. Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and Aeneas.
+
+The Gosport affords us an instance more exquisite even than the passage
+above named in the Coventry, of the use of this melting and dewy blue,
+accompanied by two distances of rain-cloud, one towering over the
+horizon, seen blue with excessive distance through crystal atmosphere;
+the other breaking overhead in the warm, sulphurous fragments of spray,
+whose loose and shattering transparency, being the most essential
+characteristic of the near rain-cloud, is precisely that which the old
+masters are sure to contradict. Look, for instance, at the wreaths of
+_cloud_? in the Dido and Aeneas of Gaspar Poussin, with their unpleasant
+edges cut as hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick black paint
+can make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail badly
+reefed; or look at the agreeable transparency and variety of the
+cloud-edge where it cuts the Mountain in N. Poussin's Phocion, and
+compare this with the wreaths which float across the precipice in the
+second vignette in Campbell, or which gather around the Ben Lomond, the
+white rain gleaming beneath their dark transparent shadows; or which
+drift up along the flanks of the wooded hills, called from the river by
+the morning light, in the Oakhampton; or which island the crags of
+Snowdon in the Llanberis, or melt along the Cumberland hills, while
+Turner leads us across the sands of Morecambe Bay. This last drawing
+deserves especial notice; it is of an evening in spring, when the south
+rain has ceased at sunset, and through the lulled and golden air, the
+confused and fantastic mists float up along the hollows of the
+mountains, white and pure, the resurrection in spirit of the new-fallen
+rain, catching shadows from the precipices, and mocking the dark peaks
+with their own mountain-like but melting forms till the solid mountains
+seem in motion like those waves of cloud, emerging and vanishing as the
+weak wind passes by their summits; while the blue, level night advances
+along the sea, and the surging breakers leap up to catch the last light
+from the path of the sunset.
+
+[Illustration: OKEHAMPTON CASTLE.
+                 From a painting by Turner.]
+
+
+Sec. 27. Turner's power of rendering mist.
+
+Sec. 28. His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once understood,
+        they can no more be explained or reasoned on than nature
+        herself.
+
+I need not, however, insist upon Turner's peculiar power of rendering
+_mist_, and all those passages of intermediate mystery, between earth
+and air, when the mountain is melting into the cloud, or the horizon
+into the twilight; because his supremacy in these points is altogether
+undisputed, except by persons to whom it would be impossible to prove
+anything which did not fall under the form of a Rule of Three. Nothing
+is more natural than that the studied form and color of this great
+artist should be little understood, because they require for the full
+perception of their meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as
+not one in a thousand possesses, or can bestow; but yet the truth of
+them for that very reason is capable of demonstration, and there is hope
+of our being able to make it in some degree felt and comprehended even
+by those to whom it is now a dead letter, or an offence. But the
+aerial and misty effects of landscape, being matters of which the eye
+should be simply cognizant, and without effort of thought, as it is of
+light, must, where they are exquisitely rendered, either be felt at
+once, or prove that degree of blindness and bluntness in the feelings of
+the observer which there is little hope of ever conquering. Of course
+for persons who have never seen in their lives a cloud vanishing on a
+mountain-side, and whose conceptions of mist or vapor are limited to
+ambiguous outlines of spectral hackney-coaches and bodiless lamp-posts,
+discern through a brown combination of sulphur, soot, and gaslight,
+there is yet some hope; we cannot, indeed, tell them what the morning
+mist is like in mountain air, but far be it from us to tell them that
+they are incapable of feeling its beauty if they will seek it for
+themselves. But if you have ever in your life had one opportunity with
+your eyes and heart open, of seeing the dew rise from a hill-pasture, or
+the storm gather on a sea-cliff, and if you have yet no feeling for the
+glorious passages of mingled earth and heaven which Turner calls up
+before you into breathing, tangible being, there is indeed no hope for
+your apathy--art will never touch you, nor nature inform.
+
+
+Sec. 29. Various instances.
+
+It would be utterly absurd, among the innumerable passages of this kind
+given throughout his works, to point to one as more characteristic or
+more perfect than another. The Simmer Lake, near Askrig, for expression
+of mist pervaded with sunlight,--the Lake Lucerne, a recent and
+unengraved drawing, for the recession of near mountain form, not into
+dark, but into _luminous_ cloud, the most difficult thing to do in
+art,--the Harlech, for expression of the same phenomena, shown over vast
+spaces in distant ranges of hills, the Ehrenbreitstein, a recent
+drawing, for expression of mist, rising from the surface of water at
+sunset,--and, finally, the glorious Oberwesel and Nemi,[41] for passages
+of all united, may, however, be named, as noble instances, though in
+naming five works I insult five hundred.
+
+
+Sec. 30. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by
+        engravers.
+
+Sec. 31. General system of landscape engraving.
+
+Sec. 32. The storm in the Stonehenge.
+
+One word respecting Turner's more violent storms, for we have hitherto
+been speaking only of the softer rain-clouds, associated with gusty
+tempest, but not of the thunder-cloud and the whirlwind. If there be any
+one point in which engravers disgrace themselves more than in another,
+it is in their rendering of dark and furious storm. It appears to be
+utterly impossible to force it into their heads, that an artist does
+_not_ leave his color with a sharp edge and an angular form by accident,
+or that they may have the pleasure of altering it and improving upon it;
+and equally impossible to persuade them that energy and gloom may in
+_some_ circumstances be arrived at without any extraordinary expenditure
+of ink. I am aware of no engraver of the present day whose ideas of a
+storm-cloud are not comprised under two heads, roundness and blackness;
+and, indeed, their general principles of translation (as may be
+distinctly gathered from their larger works) are the following: 1. Where
+the drawing is gray, make the paper black. 2. Where the drawing is
+white, cover the page with zigzag lines. 3. Where the drawing has
+particularly tender tones, cross-hatch them. 4. Where any outline is
+particularly angular, make it round. 5. Where there are vertical
+reflections in water, express them with very distinct horizontal lines.
+6. Where there is a passage of particular simplicity, treat it in
+sections. 7. Where there is anything intentionally concealed, make it
+out. Yet, in spite of the necessity which all engravers impose upon
+themselves, of rigidly observing this code of general laws, it is
+difficult to conceive how such pieces of work, as the plates of
+Stonehenge and Winchelsea, can ever have been presented to the public,
+as in any way resembling, or possessing even the most fanciful relation
+to the Turner drawings of the same subjects. The original of the
+Stonehenge is perhaps the standard of storm-drawing, both for the
+overwhelming power and gigantic proportions and spaces of its
+cloud-forms, and for the tremendous qualities of lurid and sulphurous
+colors which are gained in them. All its forms are marked with violent
+angles, as if the whole muscular energy--so to speak--of the cloud, were
+writhing in every fold, and their fantastic and fiery volumes have a
+peculiar horror--an awful life--shadowed out in their strange, swift,
+fearful outlines, which oppress the mind more than even the threatening
+of their gigantic gloom. The white lightning, not as it is drawn by less
+observant or less capable painters, in zigzag fortifications, but in its
+own dreadful irregularity of streaming fire, is brought down, not merely
+over the dark clouds, but through the full light of an illumined opening
+to the blue, which yet cannot abate the brilliancy of its white line;
+and the track of the last flash along the ground is fearfully marked by
+the dog howling over the fallen shepherd, and the ewe pressing her head
+upon the body of her dead lamb.
+
+
+Sec. 33. General character of such effects given by Turner. His expression
+        of falling rain.
+
+I have not space, however, to enter into examination of Turner's
+storm-drawing; I can only warn the public against supposing that its
+effect is ever rendered by engravers. The great principles of Turner are
+angular outline, vastness and energy of form, infinity of gradation, and
+depth without blackness. The great principles of the engravers (_vide_
+Paestum, in Rogers's Italy, and the Stonehenge, above alluded to) are
+rounded outline, no edges, want of character, equality of strength, and
+blackness without depth.
+
+
+Sec. 34. Recapitulation of the section.
+
+I have scarcely, I see, on referring to what I have written,
+sufficiently insisted on Turner's rendering of the rainy _fringe_,
+whether in distances, admitting or concealing more or less of the
+extended plain, as in the Waterloo, and Richmond (with the girl and dog
+in the foreground,) or as in the Dunstaffnage, Glencoe, St. Michael's
+Mount, and Slave Ship, not reaching the earth, but suspended in waving
+and twisted lines from the darkness of the zenith. But I have no time
+for farther development of particular points; I must defer discussion of
+them until we take up each picture to be viewed as a whole; for the
+division of the sky which I have been obliged to make, in order to
+render fully understood the peculiarities of character in the separate
+cloud regions, prevents my speaking of any one work with justice to its
+concentration of various truth. Be it always remembered that we pretend
+not, at present, to give any account or idea of the sum of the works of
+any painter, much less of the universality of Turner's; but only to
+explain in what real truth, as far as it is explicable, consists, and to
+illustrate it by those pictures in which it most distinctly occurs, or
+from which it is most visibly absent. And it will only be in the full
+and separate discussion of individual works, when we are acquainted also
+with what is beautiful, that we shall be completely able to prove or
+disprove the presence of the truth of nature.
+
+The conclusion, then, to which we are led by our present examination of
+the truth of clouds, is, that the old masters attempted the
+representation of only one among the thousands of their systems of
+scenery, and were altogether false in the little they attempted; while
+we can find records in modern art of every form or phenomenon of the
+heavens, from the highest film that glorifies the ether to the wildest
+vapor that darkens the dust, and in all these records we find the most
+clear language and close thought, firm words, and true message,
+unstinted fulness and unfailing faith.
+
+
+Sec. 35. Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole, compared
+        with the works of Turner and of the old masters. Morning on the
+        plains.
+
+Sec. 36. Noon with gathering storms.
+
+Sec. 37. Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight.
+
+Sec. 38. And sunrise on the Alps.
+
+And indeed it is difficult for us to conceive how, even without such
+laborious investigation as we have gone through, any person can go to
+nature for a single day or hour, when she is really at work in any of
+her nobler spheres of action, and yet retain respect for the old
+masters; finding, as find he will, that every scene which rises, rests,
+or departs before him, bears with it a thousand glories of which there
+is not one shadow, one image, one trace or line, in any of their works;
+but which will illustrate to him, at every new instant, some passage
+which he had not before understood in the high works of modern art.
+Stand upon the peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, when the
+night mists first rise from off the plains, and watch their white and
+lake-like fields as they float in level bays and winding gulfs about the
+islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn,
+colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight;
+watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels, how the
+foam of their undulating surface parts and passes away; and down under
+their depths, the glittering city and green pasture lie like Atlantis,
+between the white paths of winding rivers; the flakes of light falling
+every moment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed
+surges break and vanish above them, and the confused crests and ridges
+of the dark hills shorten their gray shadows upon the plain. Has Claude
+given this? Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered
+mists rallying in the ravines, and floating up towards you, along the
+winding valleys, till they couch in quiet masses, iridescent with the
+morning light,[42] upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, whose
+leagues of massy undulation will melt back and back into that robe of
+material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear
+again above, in the serene heaven, like a wild, bright, impossible
+dream, foundationless and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in
+the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below.[43] Has
+Claude given this? Wait yet a little longer, and you shall see those
+mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand like fortresses
+along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piled with every
+instant higher and higher into the sky,[44] and casting longer shadows
+athwart the rocks; and out of the pale blue of the horizon you will see
+forming and advancing a troop of narrow, dark, pointed vapors,[45] which
+will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their gray network, and take the
+light off the landscape with an eclipse which will stop the singing of
+the birds and the motion of the leaves together; and then you will see
+horizontal bars of black shadow forming under them, and lurid wreaths
+create themselves, you know not how, along the shoulders of the hills;
+you never see them form, but when you look back to a place which was
+clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it, hanging by the precipices,
+as a hawk pauses over his prey.[46] Has Claude given this? And then you
+will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and you will see those
+watch-towers of vapor swept away from their foundations, and waving
+curtains of opaque rain let down to the valleys, swinging from the
+burdened clouds in black, bending fringes,[47] or pacing in pale columns
+along the lake level, grazing its surface into foam as they go. And
+then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm drift for an instant
+from on the hills, leaving their broad sides smoking, and loaded yet
+with snow-white torn, steam-like rags of capricious vapor, now gone, now
+gathered again;[48] while the smouldering sun, seeming not far away, but
+burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it,
+plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall,
+as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with
+blood.[49] Has Claude given this? And then you shall hear the fainting
+tempest die in the hollow of the night, and you shall see a green halo
+kindling on the summit of the eastern hills,[50] brighter--brighter yet,
+till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the
+barred clouds,[51] step by step, line by line; star after star she
+quenches with her kindling light, setting in their stead an army of
+pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give light upon the
+earth, which move together, hand in hand, company by company, troop by
+troop, so measured in their unity of motion, that the whole heaven seems
+to roll with them, and the earth to reel under them. Ask Claude, or his
+brethren, for that. And then wait yet for one hour until the east again
+becomes purple,[52] and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in
+darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory
+of its burning; watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths
+about the mountains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire; watch the
+columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm by chasm,
+each in itself a new morning; their long avalanches cast down in keen
+streams brighter than the lightning, sending each his tribute of driven
+snow, like altar-smoke, up to the heaven; the rose-light of their silent
+domes flushing that heaven about them and above them, piercing with
+purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new
+glory on every wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven--one
+scarlet canopy,--is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and tossing,
+vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of
+angels; and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when you
+are bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of this, tell me
+who has best delivered this His message unto men!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [34] I am unable to say to what height the real rain-cloud may
+    extend; perhaps there are no mountains which rise altogether above
+    storm. I have never been in a violent storm at a greater height than
+    between 8000 and 9000 feet above the level of the sea. There the
+    rain-cloud is exceedingly light, compared to the ponderous darkness
+    of the lower air.
+
+  [35] I ought here, however, to have noted another effect of the
+    rain-cloud, which, so far as I know, has been rendered only by
+    Copley Fielding. It is seen chiefly in clouds gathering for rain,
+    when the sky is entirely covered with a gray veil rippled or waved
+    with pendent swells of soft texture, but excessively hard and liny
+    in their edges. I am not sure that this is an agreeable or
+    impressive form of the rain-cloud, but it is a frequent one, and it
+    is often most faithfully given by Fielding; only in some cases the
+    edges becoming a little doubled and harsh have given a look of
+    failure or misadventure to some even of the best studied passages;
+    and something of the same hardness of line is occasionally visible
+    in his drawing of clouds by whose nature it is not warranted.
+
+  [36] Compare Sect. I. Chap. IV. Sec. 5.
+
+  [37] It does not do so until the volumes lose their density by
+    inequality of motion, and by the expansion of the warm air which
+    conveys them. They are then, of course, broken into forms resembling
+    those of clouds.
+
+  [38] No conception can be formed of this picture from the engraving.
+    It is perhaps the most marvellous piece of execution and of gray
+    color existing, except perhaps the drawing presently to be noticed,
+    Land's End. Nothing else can be set beside it, even of Turner's own
+    works--much less of any other man's.
+
+    [39] I know no effect more strikingly characteristic of the
+    departure of a storm than the _smoking_ of the mountain torrents.
+    The exhausted air is so thirsty of moisture, that every jet of spray
+    is seized upon by it, and converted into vapor as it springs; and
+    this vapor rises so densely from the surface of the stream as to
+    give it the exact appearance of boiling water. I have seen the whole
+    course of the Arve at Chamonix one line of dense cloud, dissipating
+    as soon as it had risen ten or twelve feet from the surface, but
+    entirely concealing the water from an observer placed above it.
+
+  [40] Note especially the dark uppermost outline of the mass.
+
+  [41] In the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq. of Tottenham.
+
+  [42] I have often seen the white thin, morning cloud, edged with the
+    seven colors of the prism. I am not aware of the cause of this
+    phenomenon, for it takes place not when we stand with our backs to
+    the sun, but in clouds near the sun itself, irregularly and over
+    indefinite spaces, sometimes taking place in the body of the cloud.
+    The colors are distinct and vivid, but have a kind of metallic
+    lustre upon them.
+
+  [43] Lake Lucerne.
+
+  [44] St. Maurice (Rogers's Italy).
+
+  [45] Vignette, the Great St. Bernard.
+
+  [46] Vignette of the Andes.
+
+  [47] St. Michael's Mount--England series.
+
+  [48] Illustration to the Antiquary. Goldeau, a recent drawing of the
+    highest order.
+
+  [49] Vignette to Campbell's Last Man.
+
+  [50] Caerlaverock.
+
+  [51] St. Denis.
+
+  [52] Alps at Daybreak (Rogers's Poems:) Delphi, and various
+    vignettes.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+                  EFFECTS OF LIGHT RENDERED BY MODERN ART.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Reasons for merely at present naming, without examining the
+       particular effects of light rendered by Turner.
+
+Sec. 2. Hopes of the author for assistance in the future investigation of
+       them.
+
+I have before given my reasons (Sect. II. Chap. III.) for not wishing at
+present to enter upon the discussion of particular effects of light. Not
+only are we incapable of rightly viewing them, or reasoning upon them,
+until we are acquainted with the principles of the beautiful; but, as I
+distinctly limited myself, in the present portion of the work, to the
+examination of _general_ truths, it would be out of place to take
+cognizance of the particular phases of light, even if it were possible
+to do so, before we have some more definite knowledge of the material
+objects which they illustrate. I shall therefore, at present, merely set
+down a rough catalogue of the effects of light at different hours of the
+day, which Turner has represented: naming a picture or two, as an
+example of each, which we will hereafter take up one by one, and
+consider the physical science and the feeling together. And I do this,
+in the hope that, in the mean time, some admirer of the old masters will
+be kind enough to select from the works of any one of them, a series of
+examples of the same effects, and to give me a reference to the
+pictures, so that I may be able to compare each with each; for, as my
+limited knowledge of the works of Claude or Poussin does not supply me
+with the requisite variety of effect, I shall be grateful for
+assistance.
+
+The following list, of course, does not name the hundredth part of the
+effects of light given by Turner; it only names those which are
+distinctly and markedly separate from each other, and representative
+each of an entire class. Ten or twelve examples, often many more, might
+be given of each; every one of which would display the effects of the
+same hour and light, modified by different circumstances of weather,
+situation, and character of objects subjected to them, and especially by
+the management of the sky; but it will be generally sufficient for our
+purposes to examine thoroughly one good example of each.
+
+The prefixed letters express the direction of the light. F. front light
+(the sun in the centre, or near the top of the picture;) L. lateral
+light, the sun out of the picture on the right or left of the spectator;
+L. F. the light partly lateral, partly fronting the spectator, as when
+he is looking south, with the sun in the south-west; L. B. light partly
+lateral, partly behind the spectator, as when he is looking north, with
+the sun in the south-west.
+
+                                       MORNING.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                        NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  L.   An hour before sunrise in winter. Violent    | Lowestoffe, Suffolk.
+         storm, with rain, on the sea. Light-houses |
+         seen through it.                           |
+                                                    |
+  F.   An hour before sunrise. Serene sky, with     | Vignette to Voyage
+         light clouds. Dawn in the distance.        |   of Columbus.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Ten minutes before sunrise. Violent          | Fowey Harbor.
+         storm. Torchlight.                         |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sunrise. Sun only half above the horizon.    | Vignette to Human
+         Clear sky, with light cirri.               |   Life.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun just disengaged from horizon. Misty,     | Alps at Daybreak.
+         with light cirri.                          |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun a quarter of an hour risen. Sky covered  | Castle Upnor.
+         with scarlet clouds.                       |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Serene sky. Sun emerging from a bank         | Orford, Suffolk.
+         of cloud on horizon, a quarter of an hour  |
+         risen.                                     |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Same hour. Light mists in flakes on          | Skiddaw.
+          hill-sides. Clear air.                    |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Light flying rain-clouds gathering in        | Oakhampton.
+          valleys. Same hour.                       |
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. A night storm rising off the      | Lake of Geneva.
+         mountains. Dead calm.                      |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Sun half an hour risen. Cloudless sky.       | Beaugency.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Light mists lying in the valleys. | Kirby Lonsdale.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Bright cirri. Sun dimly seen      | Hohenlinden.
+         through battle smoke, with conflagration.  |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Sun an hour risen. Cloudless and clear.      | Buckfastleigh.
+
+
+                              NOON AND AFTERNOON.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                       NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  L.B. Midday. Dead calm, with heat. Cloudless.     | Corinth.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Serene and bright, with           | Lantern at
+         streaky clouds.                            |   St. Cloud.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Serene, with multitudes of        | Shylock, and other
+         the high cirrus.                           |   Venices.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Bright sun, with light wind and clouds.      | Richmond, Middlesex.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Two o'clock. Clouds gathering for rain, with | Warwick. Blenheim.
+         heat.                                      |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Rain beginning, with light clouds and wind.  | Piacenza.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Soft rain, with heat.                        | Caldron Snout Fall.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Great heat. Thunder gathering.               | Malvern.
+                                                    |
+  L.   Thunder breaking down, after intense heat,   | Winchelsea.
+         with furious wind.                         |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Violent rain and wind, but cool.             | Llamberis, Coventry,
+                                                    |    &c.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Furious storm, with thunder.                 | Stonehenge, Paestum,
+                                                    |   &c.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Thunder retiring, with rainbow. Dead calm,   | Nottingham.
+         with heat.                                 |
+                                                    |
+  L.   About three o'clock, summer. Air very        | Bingen.
+         cool and clear. Exhausted thunder-clouds   |
+         low on hills.                              |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Descending sunbeams through soft clouds,     | Carew Castle.
+         after rain.                                |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Afternoon, very clear, after rain. A few     | Saltash.
+         clouds still on horizon. Dead calm.        |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Afternoon of cloudless day, with heat.       | Mercury and Argus.
+                                                    |   Oberwesel. Nemi.
+
+
+                                      EVENING.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                       NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  L.   An hour before sunset. Cloudless.            | Trematon Castle.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Half an hour before sunset. Light clouds.    | Lake Albano.
+         Misty air.                                 |   Florence.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Within a quarter of an hour of sunset.       | Dater Hora Quieti.
+         Mists rising. Light cirri.                 |
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Ten minutes before sunset. Quite cloudless.  | Durham.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Tumultuous spray of illumined     | Solomon's Pools.
+         rain-cloud.                                |   Slave ship.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Five minutes before sunset. Sky covered      | Temeraire. Napoleon.
+         with illumined cirri.                      |   Various vignettes.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. Serene sky. Full moon rising.     | Kenilworth.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun setting. Detached light cirri and clear  | Amboise.
+         air.                                       |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour. Cloudless. New moon.              | Troyes.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Same hour. Heavy storm clouds. Moonrise.     | First vignette.
+                                                    |   Pleasures of
+                                                    |   Memory.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Sun just set. Sky covered with clouds. New   | Caudebec.
+         moon setting.                              |
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Sun five minutes set. Strong twilight,       | Wilderness of Engedi.
+         with storm clouds. Full moonrise.          |   Assos.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. Serene, with light clouds.        | Montjan.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Same hour. Serene. New moon.                 | Pyramid of Caius
+                                                    |   Cestius.
+                                                    |
+  L.B. Sun a quarter of an hour set. Cloudless.     | Chateau de Blois.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Sun half an hour set. Light cirri.           | Clairmont.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Dead calm at sea. New moon and    | Cowes.
+         evening star.                              |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Sun three quarters of an hour set. Moon      | Folkestone.
+         struggling through storm clouds, over      |
+         heavy sea.                                 |
+
+
+                                       NIGHT.
+
+                       EFFECTS.                       NAMES OF PICTURES.
+
+  F.   An hour after sunset. No moon. Torchlight.   | St. Julien. Tours.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Same hour. Moon rising. Fire from furnaces.  | Dudley.
+                                                    |
+  L.F. Same hour, with storm clouds. Moon           | Nantes.
+         rising.                                    |
+                                                    |
+  L.   Same hour, with light of rockets and fire.   | Juliet and her Nurse.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Midnight. Moonless, with light-houses.       | Calais.
+         Same hour, with fire-light.                | Burning of
+                                                    |   Parliament Houses.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto. Full moon. Clear air, with delicate   | Towers of the Heve.
+         clouds. Light-houses.                      |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto, with conflagration, battle smoke, and | Waterloo.
+         storm.                                     |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto. Moonlight through mist. Buildings     | Vignette. St.
+         illuminated in interior.                   |    Herbert's Isle.
+                                                    |
+  F.   Ditto. Full moon with halo. Light            | St. Denis.
+         rain-clouds.                               |
+                                                    |
+  F.   Full moon. Perfectly serene. Sky covered     | Alnwick. Vignette of
+         with white cirri.                          |   Rialto, and Bridge.
+                                                    |   of Sighs
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION IV.
+
+                              OF TRUTH OF EARTH.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                           OF GENERAL STRUCTURE.
+
+
+Sec. 1. First laws of the organization of the earth, and their importance
+       in art.
+
+By truth of earth, we mean the faithful representation of the facts and
+forms of the bare ground, considered as entirely divested of vegetation,
+through whatever disguise, or under whatever modification the clothing
+of the landscape may occasion. Ground is to the landscape painter what
+the naked human body is to the historical. The growth of vegetation, the
+action of water, and even of clouds upon it and around it, are so far
+subject and subordinate to its forms, as the folds of the dress and the
+fall of the hair are to the modulation of the animal anatomy. Nor is
+this anatomy always so concealed, but in all sublime compositions,
+whether of nature or art, it must be seen in its naked purity. The laws
+of the organization of the earth are distinct and fixed as those of the
+animal frame, simpler and broader, but equally authoritative and
+inviolable. Their results may be arrived at without knowledge of the
+interior mechanism; but for that very reason ignorance of them is the
+more disgraceful, and violation of them more unpardonable. They are in
+the landscape the foundation of all other truths--the most necessary,
+therefore, even if they were not in themselves attractive; but they are
+as beautiful as they are essential, and every abandonment of them by the
+artist must end in deformity as it begins in falsehood.
+
+
+Sec. 2. The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study
+       by modern artists.
+
+That such abandonment is constant and total in the works of the old
+masters, has escaped detection, only because of persons generally
+cognizant of art, few have spent time enough in hill countries to
+perceive the certainty of the laws of hill anatomy; and because few,
+even of those who possess such opportunities, ever think of the common
+earth beneath their feet, as anything possessing specific form, or
+governed by steadfast principles. That such abandonment should have
+taken place cannot be surprising, after what we have seen of their
+fidelity to skies. Those artists who, day after day, could so falsely
+represent what was forever before their eyes, when it was to be one of
+the most important and attractive parts of their picture, can scarcely
+be expected to give with truth what they could see only partially and at
+intervals, and what was only to be in their picture a blue line in the
+horizon, or a bright spot under the feet of their figures.
+
+That such should be all the space allotted by the old landscape painters
+to the most magnificent phenomena of nature; that the only traces of
+those Apennines, which in Claude's walks along the brow of the Pincian,
+forever bounded his horizon with their azure wall, should, in his
+pictures, be a cold white outline in the extreme of his tame distance;
+and that Salvator's sojourns among their fastnesses should only have
+taught him to shelter his banditti with such paltry morsels of crag as
+an Alpine stream would toss down before it like a foam-globe; though it
+may indeed excite our surprise, will, perhaps, when we have seen how
+these slight passages are executed, be rather a subject of
+congratulation than of regret. It might, indeed, have shortened our
+labor in the investigation of mountain truth, had not modern artists
+been so vast, comprehensive, and multitudinous in their mountain
+drawings, as to compel us, in order to form the slightest estimate of
+their knowledge, to enter into some examination of every variety of hill
+scenery. We shall first gain some general notion of the broad
+organization of large masses, and then take those masses to pieces,
+until we come down to the crumbling soil of the foreground.
+
+
+Sec. 3. General structure of the earth. The hills are its action, the
+       plains its rest.
+
+Mountains are, to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent
+muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its
+anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with fierce and convulsive
+energy, full of expression, passion, and strength; the plains and the
+lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, when
+its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty,
+yet ruling those lines in their every undulation. This, then, is the
+first grand principle of the truth of the earth. The spirit of the hills
+is action; that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to
+be found every variety of motion and of rest; from the inactive plain,
+sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks,
+which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with the clouds drifting
+like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to
+Heaven, saying, "I live forever!"
+
+
+Sec. 4. Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their
+       support.
+
+But there is this difference between the action of the earth, and that
+of a living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and
+tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh
+altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the bones
+of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its
+anatomy which in the plains lie buried under five and twenty thousand
+feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in
+the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their garment
+of earth away from them on each side. The masses of the lower hills are
+laid over and against their sides, like the masses of lateral masonry
+against the skeleton arch of an unfinished bridge, except that they
+slope up to and lean against the central ridge: and, finally, upon the
+slopes of these lower hills are strewed the level beds of sprinkled
+gravel, sand, and clay, which form the extent of the champaign. Here
+then is another grand principle of the truth of earth, that the
+mountains must come from under all, and be the support of all; and that
+everything else must be laid in their arms, heap above heap, the plains
+being the uppermost. Opposed to this truth is every appearance of the
+hills being laid upon the plains, or built upon them. Nor is this a
+truth only of the earth on a large scale, for every minor rock (in
+position) comes out from the soil about it as an island out of the sea,
+lifting the earth near it like waves beating on its sides.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when
+       deposited by quiet water.
+
+Such being the structure of the framework of the earth, it is next to be
+remembered that all soil whatsoever, wherever it is accumulated in
+greater quantity than is sufficient to nourish the moss of the
+wallflower, has been so, either by the direct transporting agency of
+water, or under the guiding influence and power of water. All plains
+capable of cultivation are deposits from some kind of water--some from
+swift and tremendous currents, leaving their soil in sweeping banks and
+furrowed ridges--others, and this is in mountain districts almost
+invariably the case, by slow deposit from a quiet lake in the mountain
+hollow, which has been gradually filled by the soil carried into it by
+streams, which soil is of course finally left spread at the exact level
+of the surface of the former lake, as level as the quiet water itself.
+Hence we constantly meet with plains in hill districts, which fill the
+hollows of the hills with as perfect and faultless a level as water, and
+out of which the steep rocks rise at the edge with as little previous
+disturbance, or indication of their forms beneath, as they do from the
+margin of a quiet lake. Every delta--and there is one at the head of
+every lake in every hill-district--supplies an instance of this. The
+rocks at Altorf plunge beneath the plain, which the lake has left, at as
+sharp an angle as they do into the lake itself beside the chapel of
+Tell. The plain of the Arve, at Sallenche, is terminated so sharply by
+the hills to the south-east, that I have seen a man sleeping with his
+back supported against the mountain, and his legs stretched on the
+plain; the slope which supported his back rising 5000 feet above him,
+and the couch of his legs stretched for five miles before him. In
+distant effect these champaigns lie like deep, blue, undisturbed water,
+while the mighty hills around them burst out from beneath, raging and
+tossing like a tumultuous sea. The valleys of Meyringen, Interlachen,
+Altorf, Sallenche, St. Jean de Maurienne; the great plain of Lombardy
+itself, as seen from Milan or Padua, under the Alps, the Euganeans, and
+the Apennines; and the Campo Felice under Vesuvius, are a few, out of
+the thousand instances, which must occur at once to the mind of every
+traveller.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Illustrated by Turner's Marengo.
+
+Let the reader now open Rogers's Italy, at the seventeenth page, and
+look at the vignette which heads it of the battle of Marengo. It needs
+no comment. It cannot but carry with it, after what has been said, the
+instant conviction that Turner is as much of a geologist as he is of a
+painter. It is a summary of all we have been saying, and a summary so
+distinct and clear, that without any such explanation it must have
+forced upon the mind the impression of such facts--of the plunging of
+the hills underneath the plain--of the perfect level and repose of this
+latter laid in their arms, and of the tumultuous action of the emergent
+summits.
+
+
+Sec. 7. General divisions of formation resulting from this arrangement.
+       Plan of investigation.
+
+We find, according to this its internal structure, which, I believe,
+with the assistance of Turner, can scarcely now be misunderstood, that
+the earth may be considered as divided into three great classes of
+formation, which geology has already named for us. Primary--the rocks,
+which, though in position lower than all others, rise to form the
+central peaks, or interior nuclei of all mountain ranges. Secondary--the
+rocks which are laid in beds above these, and which form the greater
+proportion of all hill scenery. Tertiary--the light beds of sand,
+gravel, and clay, which are strewed upon the surface of all, forming
+plains and habitable territory for man. We shall find it convenient, in
+examining the truth of art, to adopt, with a little modification, the
+geological arrangement, considering first, the formation and character
+of the highest or central peaks; then the general structure of the lower
+mountains, including in this division those composed of the various
+slates which a geologist would call primary; and, lastly, the minutiae
+and most delicate characters of the beds of these hills, when they are
+so near as to become foreground objects, and the structure of the common
+soil which usually forms the greater space of an artist's foreground.
+Hence our task will arrange itself into three divisions--the
+investigation of the central mountains, of the interior mountains, and
+of the foreground.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                          OF THE CENTRAL MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the world.
+
+It does not always follow, because a mountain is the highest of its
+group, that it is in reality one of the central range. The Jungfrau is
+only surpassed in elevation, in the chain of which it is a member, by
+the Schreckhorn and Finster-Aarhorn; but it is entirely a secondary
+mountain. But the central peaks are usually the highest, and may be
+considered as the chief components of all mountain scenery in the snowy
+regions. Being composed of the same rocks in all countries, their
+external character is the same everywhere. Its chief essential points
+are the following.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical
+       fissures.
+
+Their summits are almost invariably either pyramids or wedges. Domes may
+be formed by superincumbent snow, or appear to be formed by the
+continuous outline of a sharp ridge seen transversely, with its
+precipice to the spectator; but wherever a rock appears, the uppermost
+termination of that rock will be a steep edgy ridge, or a sharp point,
+very rarely presenting even a gentle slope on any of its sides, but
+usually inaccessible unless encumbered with snow.
+
+These pyramids and wedges split vertically, or nearly so, giving smooth
+faces of rock, either perpendicular or very steeply inclined, which
+appear to be laid against the central wedge or peak, like planks upright
+against a wall. The surfaces of these show close parallelism; their
+fissures are vertical, and cut them smoothly, like the edges of shaped
+planks. Often groups of these planks, if I may so call them, rise higher
+than those between them and the central ridge, forming detached ridges
+inclining towards the central one. The planks are cut transversely,
+sometimes by graceful curvilinear fissures; sometimes by straight
+fissures, which are commonly parallel to the slope of one of the sides
+of the peak, while the main direction of the planks or leaves is
+parallel to that of its other side, or points directly to its summit.
+But the _universal_ law of fracture is--first, that it is clean and
+sharp, having a perfectly smooth surface, and a perfectly sharp edge to
+all the fissures; secondly, that every fissure is steeply inclined, and
+that a horizontal line, or one approaching to it, is an impossibility,
+except in some turn of a curve.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose.
+
+Hence, however the light may fall, these peaks are seen marked with
+sharp and defined shadows, indicating the square edges of the planks of
+which they are made up, which shadows sometimes are vertical, pointing
+to the summit; but are oftener parallel to one of the sides of the peak,
+and intersected by a second series, parallel to the other side. Where
+there has been much disintegration, the peak is often surrounded with
+groups of lower ridges or peaks, like the leaves of an artichoke or a
+rose, all evidently part and parcel of the great peak; but falling back
+from it, as if it were a budding flower, expanding its leaves one by
+one.
+
+
+Sec. 4. The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps at
+       Daybreak.
+
+Now, if I were giving a lecture on geology, and were searching for some
+means of giving the most faithful idea possible of the external
+appearance caused by this structure of the primary hills, I should throw
+my geological outlines aside, and take up Turner's vignette of the Alps
+at Daybreak. After what has been said, a single glance at it will be
+enough. Observe the exquisite decision with which the edge of the
+uppermost plank of the great peak is indicated by its clear dark side
+and sharp shadow; then the rise of the second low ridge on its side,
+only to descend again precisely in the same line; the two fissures of
+this peak, one pointing to its summit, the other rigidly parallel to the
+great slope which descends towards the sun; then the sharp white
+_aiguille_ on the right, with the great fissure from its summit, rigidly
+and severely square, as marked below, where another edge of rock is laid
+upon it. But this is not all; the black rock in the foreground is
+equally a member of the mass, its chief slope parallel with that of the
+mountain, and all its fissures and lines inclined in the same direction;
+and, to complete the mass of evidence more forcibly still, we have the
+dark mass on the left articulated with absolute right lines, as parallel
+as if they had been drawn with a ruler, indicating the tops of two of
+these huge plates or planks, pointing, with the universal tendency, to
+the great ridge, and intersected by fissures parallel to it. Throughout
+the extent of mountain, not one horizontal line, nor an approach to it,
+is discernible. This cannot be chance--it cannot be composition--it may
+not be beautiful--perhaps nature is very wrong to be so parallel, and
+very disagreeable in being so straight;--but this _is_ nature, whether
+we admire it or not.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Vignette of the Andes and others.
+
+In the vignette illustration to Jacqueline, we have another series of
+peaks, whose structure is less developed, owing to their distance, but
+equally clear and faithful in all points, as far as it is given. But the
+vignette of Aosta, in Italy, is perhaps more striking than any that
+could be named for its rendering of the perfect parallelism of the lower
+and smaller peaks with the great lines of the mass they compose; and
+that of the Andes, the second in Campbell, for its indication of the
+multitudes of the vertical and plank-like beds arranged almost like the
+leaves of a flower. This last especially, one of the very noblest, most
+faithful, most scientific statements of mountain form which even Turner
+has ever made, can leave little more to be said or doubted.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such
+       mountains.
+
+Now, whenever these vast peaks, rising from 12,000 to 24,000 feet above
+the sea, form part of anything like a landscape, that is to say,
+whenever the spectator beholds them from the region of vegetation, or
+even from any distance at which it is possible to get something like a
+view of their whole mass, they must be at so great a distance from him
+as to become aerial and faint in all their details. Their summits, and
+all those higher masses of whose character we have been speaking, can by
+no possibility be nearer to him than twelve or fifteen miles; to
+approach them nearer he must climb--must leave the region of vegetation,
+and must confine his view to a part, and that a very limited one, of the
+mountain he is ascending. Whenever, therefore, these mountains are seen
+over anything like vegetation, or are seen in mass, they _must_ be in
+the far distance. Most artists would treat an horizon fifteen miles off
+very much as if it were mere air; and though the greater clearness of
+the upper air permits the high summits to be seen with extraordinary
+distinctness, yet they never can by any possibility have dark or deep
+shadows, or intense dark relief against a light. Clear they may be, but
+faint they must be, and their great and prevailing characteristic, as
+distinguished from other mountains, is want of apparent solidity. They
+rise in the morning light rather like sharp shades, cast up into the
+sky, than solid earth. Their lights are pure, roseate, and
+cloud-like--their shadows transparent, pale, and opalescent, and often
+indistinguishable from the air around them, so that the mountain-top is
+seen in the heaven only by its flakes of motionless fire.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art.
+
+Now, let me once more ask, though I am sufficiently tired of asking,
+what record have we of anything like this in the works of the old
+masters? There is no vestige in any existing picture of the slightest
+effort to represent the high hill ranges; and as for such drawing of
+their forms as we have found in Turner, we might as well look for them
+among the Chinese. Very possibly it may be all quite right,--very
+probably these men showed the most cultivated taste, the most unerring
+judgment, in filling their pictures with mole-hills and sand-heaps. Very
+probably the withered and poisonous banks of Avernus, and the sand and
+cinders of the Campagna, are much more sublime things than the Alps; but
+still what limited truth it is, if truth it be, when through the last
+fifty pages we have been pointing out fact after fact, scene after
+scene, in clouds and hills, (and not individual facts nor scenes, but
+great and important classes of them,) and still we have nothing to say
+when we come to the old masters; but, "they are not here." Yet this is
+what we hear so constantly called painting "general" nature.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of
+       Claude.
+
+Sec. 9. Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance.
+
+Although, however, there is no vestige among the old masters of any
+effort to represent the attributes of the higher mountains seen in
+comparative proximity, we are not altogether left without evidence of
+their having thought of them as sources of light in the extreme
+distance, as for example, in that of the reputed Claude in our National
+Gallery, called the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. I have not the
+slightest doubt of its being a most execrable copy; for there is not one
+touch nor line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as
+connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our
+Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I
+may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are
+wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those
+which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall
+continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form,
+which cannot have been much altered by the copyist. In the distance of
+that picture (as well as in that of the Sinon before Priam, which I have
+little doubt is at least partially original, and whose central group of
+trees is a very noble piece of painting) is something white, which I
+believe must be intended for a snowy mountain, because I do not see that
+it can well be intended for anything else. Now no mountain of elevation
+sufficient to be so sheeted with perpetual snow, can by any possibility
+sink so low on the horizon as this something of Claude's, unless it be
+at a distance of from fifty to seventy miles. At such distances, though
+the outline is invariably sharp and edgy to an excess, yet all the
+circumstances of aerial perspective, faintness of shadow, and isolation
+of light, which I have described as characteristic of the Alps fifteen
+miles off, take place, of course, in a threefold degree; the mountains
+rise from the horizon like transparent films, only distinguishable from
+mist by their excessively keen edges, and their brilliant flashes of
+sudden light; they are as unsubstantial as the air itself, and impress
+their enormous size by means of this aerialness, in a far greater degree
+at these vast distances, than even when towering above the spectator's
+head. Now, I ask of the candid observer, if there be the smallest
+vestige of an effort to attain--if there be the most miserable, the most
+contemptible shadow of attainment of such an effect by Claude? Does that
+white thing on the horizon look seventy miles off? Is it faint, or
+fading, or to be looked for by the eye before it can be found out? Does
+it look high? does it look large? does it look impressive? You cannot
+but feel that there is not a vestige of any kind or species of truth in
+that horizon; and that, however artistical it may be, as giving
+brilliancy to the distance, (though, as far as I have any feeling in the
+matter, it only gives coldness,) it is, in the very branch of art on
+which Claude's reputation chiefly rests, aerial perspective, hurling
+defiance to nature in her very teeth.
+
+
+Sec. 10. And violation of specific form.
+
+But there are worse failures yet in this unlucky distance. Aerial
+perspective is not a matter of paramount importance, because nature
+infringes its laws herself and boldly too, though never in a case like
+this before us; but there are some laws which nature never violates--her
+laws of form. No mountain was ever raised to the level of perpetual
+snow, without an infinite multiplicity of form. Its foundation is built
+of a hundred minor mountains, and, from these, great buttresses run in
+converging ridges to the central peak. There is no exception to this
+rule; no mountain 15,000 feet high is ever raised without such
+preparation and variety of outwork. Consequently, in distant effect,
+when chains of such peaks are visible at once, the multiplicity of form
+is absolutely oceanic; and though it is possible in near scenes to find
+vast and simple masses composed of lines which run unbroken for a
+thousand feet, or more, it is physically impossible when these masses
+are thrown seventy miles back, to have simple outlines, for then these
+large features become mere jags, and hillocks, and are heaped and
+huddled together with endless confusion. To get a simple form, seventy
+miles away, mountain lines would be required unbroken for leagues; and
+this, I repeat, is physically impossible. Hence these mountains of
+Claude, having no indication of the steep vertical summits which we have
+shown to be the characteristic of the central ridges, having soft edges
+instead of decisive ones, simple forms (one line to the plain on each
+side) instead of varied and broken ones, and being painted with a crude
+raw white, having no transparency, nor filminess, nor air in it, instead
+of rising in the opalescent mystery which invariably characterizes the
+distant snows, have the forms and the colors of heaps of chalk in a
+lime-kiln, not of Alps. They are destitute of energy, of height, of
+distance, of splendor, and of variety, and are the work of a man,
+whether Claude or not, who had neither feeling for nature, nor knowledge
+of art.
+
+
+Sec. 11. Even in his best works.
+
+I should not, however, insist upon the faults of this picture, believing
+it to be a copy, if I had ever seen, even in his most genuine works, an
+extreme distance of Claude with any of the essential characters of
+nature. But although in his better pictures we have always beautiful
+drawing of the _air_, which in the copy before us is entirely wanting,
+the real features of the extreme mountain distance are equally neglected
+or maligned in all. There is, indeed, air between us and it; but ten
+miles, not seventy miles, of space. Let us observe a little more closely
+the practice of nature in such cases.
+
+
+Sec. 12. Farther illustration of the distant character of mountain chains.
+
+Sec. 13. Their excessive appearance of transparency.
+
+The multiplicity of form which I have shown to be necessary in the
+outline, is not less felt in the body of the mass. For, in all extensive
+hill ranges, there are five or six lateral chains separated by deep
+valleys, which rise between the spectator and the central ridge, showing
+their tops one over another, wave beyond wave, until the eye is carried
+back to the faintest and highest forms of the principal chain. These
+successive ridges, and I speak now not merely of the Alps, but of
+mountains generally, even as low as 3000 feet above the sea, show
+themselves in extreme distance merely as vertical shades, with very
+sharp outlines, detached from one another by greater intensity,
+according to their nearness. It is with the utmost difficulty that the
+eye can discern any solidity or roundness in them; the lights and shades
+of solid form are both equally lost in the blue of the atmosphere, and
+the mountain tells only as a flat, sharp-edged film, of which multitudes
+intersect and overtop one another, separated by the greater faintness of
+the retiring masses. This is the most simple and easily imitated
+arrangement possible, and yet, both in nature and art, it expresses
+distance and size in a way otherwise quite unattainable. For thus, the
+whole mass of one mountain being of one shade only, the smallest
+possible difference in shade will serve completely to detach it from
+another, and thus ten or twelve distances may be made evident, when the
+darkest and nearest is an aerial gray as faint as the sky; and the
+beauty of such arrangements carried out as nature carries them, to their
+highest degree, is, perhaps, the most striking feature connected with
+hill scenery: you will never, by any chance, perceive in extreme
+distance, anything like solid form or projection of the hills. Each is a
+dead, flat, perpendicular film or shade, with a sharp edge darkest at
+the summit, and lost as it descends, and about equally dark whether
+turned towards the light or from it; and of these successive films of
+mountain you will probably have half a dozen, one behind another, all
+showing with perfect clearness their every chasm and peak in the
+outline, and not one of them showing the slightest vestige of solidity,
+but on the contrary, looking so thoroughly transparent, that if it so
+happens, as I have seen frequently, that a conical near hill meets with
+its summit the separation of two distant ones, so that the right-hand
+slope of the nearer hill forms an apparent continuation of the
+right-hand slope of the left-hand farther hill, and _vice versa_, it is
+impossible to get rid of the impression that one or the more distant
+peaks is seen _through_ the other.
+
+
+Sec. 14. Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The Borromean
+        Islands of the latter.
+
+I may point out in illustration of these facts, the engravings of two
+drawings of precisely the same chain of distant hills,--Stanfield's
+Borromean Islands, with the St. Gothard in the distance, and Turner's
+Arona, also with the St. Gothard in the distance. Far be it from me to
+indicate the former of these plates as in any way exemplifying the power
+of Stanfield, or affecting his reputation; it is an unlucky drawing,
+murdered by the engraver, and as far from being characteristic of
+Stanfield as it is from being like nature, but it is just what I want,
+to illustrate the particular error of which I speak; and I prefer
+showing this error where it accidentally exists in the works of a really
+great artist, standing there alone, to point it out where it is confused
+with other faults and falsehoods in the works of inferior hands. The
+former of these plates is an example of everything which a hill distance
+is not, and the latter of everything which it is. In the former, we have
+the mountains covered with patchy lights, which being of equal intensity
+whether near or distant, confuse all the distances together; while the
+eye, perceiving that the light falls so as to give details of solid
+form, yet finding nothing but insipid and formless spaces displayed by
+it, is compelled to suppose that the whole body of the hill is equally
+monotonous and devoid of character; and the effect upon it is not one
+whit more impressive and agreeable than might be received from a group
+of sand-heaps, washed into uniformity by recent rain.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Turner's Arona.
+
+Compare with this the distance of Turner in Arona. It is totally
+impossible here to say which way the light falls on the distant hills,
+except by the slightly increased decision of their edges turned towards
+it, but the greatest attention is paid to get these edges decisive, yet
+full of gradation, and perfectly true in character of form. All the rest
+of the mountain is then indistinguishable haze, and by the bringing of
+these edges more and more decisively over one another, Turner has given
+us between the right-hand side of the picture and the snow, fifteen
+distinct distances, yet every one of these distances in itself
+palpitating, changeful, and suggesting subdivision into countless
+multitude. Something of this is traceable even in the engraving, and all
+the essential characters are perfectly well marked. I think even the
+least experienced eye can scarcely but feel the truth of this distance
+as compared with Stanfield's. In the latter, the eye gets something of
+the form, and therefore wonders it sees no more; the impression on it,
+therefore, is of hills within distinctly visible distance, indiscernible
+through want of light or dim atmosphere; and the effect is, of course,
+smallness of space, with obscurity of light and thickness of air. In
+Turner's the eye gets nothing of the substance, and wonders it sees so
+much of the outline; the impression is, therefore, of mountains too far
+off to be ever distinctly seen, rendered clear by brilliancy of light
+and purity of atmosphere; and the effect, consequently, vastness of
+space, with intensity of light and crystalline transparency of air.
+
+
+Sec. 16. Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by very
+        sharp outline.
+
+These truths are invariably given in every one of Turner's distances,
+that is to say, we have always in them two principal facts forced on our
+notice; transparency, or filminess of mass, and excessive sharpness of
+edge. And I wish particularly to insist upon this sharpness of edge,
+because it is not a casual or changeful habit of nature; it is the
+unfailing characteristic of all very great distances. It is quite a
+mistake to suppose that slurred or melting lines are characteristic of
+distant _large_ objects; they may be so, as before observed, (Sec. II.
+Chap. IV. Sec. 4,) when the focus of the eye is not adapted to them; but,
+when the eye is really directed to the distance, melting lines are
+characteristic only of thick mist and vapor between us and the object,
+not of the removal of the object. If a thing has character upon its
+outline, as a tree for instance, or a mossy stone, the farther it is
+removed from us, the sharper the outline of the whole mass will become,
+though in doing so, the particular details which make up the character
+will become confused in the manner described in the same chapter. A tree
+fifty yards from us, taken as a mass, has a soft outline, because the
+leaves and interstices have some effect on the eye. But put it ten miles
+off against the sky, and its outline will be so sharp that you cannot
+tell it from a rock. There are three trees on the Mont Saleve, about
+five miles from Geneva, which from the city, as they stand on the ridge
+of the hill, are seen defined against the sky. The keenest eye in the
+world could not tell them from stones. So in a mountain five or six
+miles off, bushes, and heather, and roughnesses of knotty ground and
+rock, have still some effect on the eye, and by becoming confused and
+mingled as before described, soften the outline. But let the mountain be
+thirty miles off, and its edge will be as sharp as a knife. Let it, as
+in the case of the Alps, be seventy or eighty miles off, and though it
+has become so faint that the morning mist is not so transparent, its
+outline will be beyond all imitation for excessive sharpness. Thus,
+then, the character of extreme distance is always excessive keenness of
+edge. If you soften your outline, you either put mist between you and
+the object, and in doing so diminish, your distance, for it is
+impossible you should see so far through mist as through clear air; or,
+if you keep an impression of clear air, you bring the object close to
+the observer, diminish its size in proportion, and if the aerial colors,
+excessive blues, etc., be retained, represent an impossibility.
+
+
+Sec. 17. Want of this decision in Claude.
+
+Take Claude's distance (in No. 244, Dulwich Gallery,)[53] on the right
+of the picture. It is as pure blue as ever came from the pallet, laid on
+thick; you cannot see through it, there is not the slightest vestige of
+transparency or filminess about it, and its edge is soft and blunt.
+Hence, if it be meant for near hills, the blue is impossible, and the
+want of details impossible, in the clear atmosphere indicated through
+the whole picture. If it be meant for extreme distance, the blunt edge
+is impossible, and the opacity is impossible. I do not know a single
+distance of the Italian school to which the same observation is not
+entirely applicable, except, perhaps, one or two of Nicholas Poussin's.
+They always involve, under any supposition whatsoever, at least two
+impossibilities.
+
+
+Sec. 18. The perpetual rendering of it by Turner.
+
+I need scarcely mention in particular any more of the works of Turner,
+because there is not one of his mountain distances in which these facts
+are not fully exemplified. Look at the last vignette--the Farewell, in
+Rogers's Italy; observe the excessive sharpness of all the edges, almost
+amounting to lines, in the distance, while there is scarcely one
+decisive edge in the foreground. Look at the hills of the distance in
+the Dunstaffnage, Glencoe, and Loch Achray, (illustrations to Scott,) in
+the latter of which the left-hand side of the Benvenue is actually
+marked with a dark line. In fact, Turner's usual mode of executing these
+passages is perfectly evident in all his drawings; it is not often that
+we meet with a very broad dash of wet color in his finished works, but
+in these distances, as we before saw of his shadows, all the effect has
+been evidently given by a dash of very moist pale color, probably
+turning the paper upside down, so that a very firm edge may be left at
+the top of the mountain as the color dries. And in the Battle of Marengo
+we find the principle carried so far as to give nothing more than actual
+outline for the representation of the extreme distance, while all the
+other hills in the picture are distinctly darkest at the edge. This
+plate, though coarsely executed, is yet one of the noblest illustrations
+of mountain character and magnitude existing.
+
+
+Sec. 19. Effects of snow, how imperfectly studied.
+
+Such, then, are the chief characteristics of the highest peaks and
+extreme distances of all hills, as far as the forms of the rocks
+themselves, and the aerial appearances especially belonging to them, are
+alone concerned. There is, however, yet another point to be
+considered--the modification of their form caused by incumbent snow.
+
+Pictures of winter scenery are nearly as common as moonlights, and are
+usually executed by the same order of artists, that is to say, the most
+incapable; it being remarkably easy to represent the moon as a white
+wafer on a black ground, or to scratch out white branches on a cloudy
+sky. Nevertheless, among Flemish paintings several valuable
+representations of winter are to be found, and some clever pieces of
+effect among the moderns, as Hunt's, for instance, and De Wint's. But
+all such efforts end in effect alone, nor have I ever in any single
+instance seen a snow _wreath_, I do not say thoroughly, but even
+decently, drawn.
+
+In the range of inorganic nature, I doubt if any object can be found
+more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snow-drift, seen under warm
+light.[54] Its curves are of inconceivable perfection and changefulness,
+its surface and transparency alike exquisite, its light and shade of
+inexhaustible variety and inimitable finish, the shadows sharp, pale,
+and of heavenly color, the reflected lights intense and multitudinous,
+and mingled with the sweet occurrences of transmitted light. No mortal
+hand can approach the majesty or loveliness of it, yet it is possible by
+care and skill at least to suggest the preciousness of its forms and
+intimate the nature of its light and shade; but this has never been
+attempted; it could not be done except by artists of a rank exceedingly
+high, and there is something about the feeling of snow in ordinary
+scenery which such men do not like. But when the same qualities are
+exhibited on a magnificent Alpine scale and in a position where they
+interfere with no feeling of life, I see not why they should be
+neglected, as they have hitherto been, unless that the difficulty of
+reconciling the brilliancy of snow with a picturesque light and shade,
+is so great that most good artists disguise or avoid the greater part of
+upper Alpine scenery, and hint at the glacier so slightly, that they do
+not feel the necessity of careful study of its forms. Habits of
+exaggeration increase the evil: I have seen a sketch from nature, by one
+of the most able of our landscape painters, in which a cloud had been
+mistaken for a snowy summit, and the hint thus taken exaggerated, as was
+likely, into an enormous mass of impossible height, and unintelligent
+form, when the mountain itself, for which the cloud had been mistaken,
+though subtending an angle of about eighteen or twenty degrees, instead
+of the fifty attributed to it, was of a form so exquisite that it might
+have been a profitable lesson truly studied to Phidias. Nothing but
+failure can result from such methods of sketching, nor have I ever seen
+a single instance of an earnest study of snowy mountains by any one.
+Hence, wherever they are introduced, their drawing is utterly
+unintelligent, the forms being those of white rocks, or of rocks lightly
+powdered with snow, showing sufficiently that not only the painters have
+never studied the mountain carefully from below, but that they have
+never climbed into the snowy region. Harding's rendering of the high
+Alps (_vide_ the engraving of Chamonix, and of the Wengern Alp, in the
+illustrations to Byron) is best; but even he shows no perception of the
+real anatomy. Stanfield paints only white rocks instead of snow. Turner
+invariably avoids the difficulty, though he has shown himself capable of
+grappling with it in the ice of the Liber Studiorum, (Mer de Glace,)
+which is very cold and slippery and very like ice; but of the crusts and
+wreaths of the higher snow he has taken no cognizance. Even the
+vignettes to Rogers's Poems fail in this respect. It would be vain to
+attempt in this place to give any detailed account of the phenomena of
+the upper snows; but it may be well to note those general principles
+which every artist ought to keep in mind when he has to paint an Alp.
+
+
+Sec. 20. General principles of its forms on the Alps.
+
+Snow is modified by the under forms of the hill in some sort, as dress
+is by the anatomy of the human frame. And as no dress can be well laid
+on without conceiving the body beneath, so no Alp can be drawn unless
+its under form is conceived first, and its snow laid on afterwards.
+
+Every high Alp has as much snow upon it as it can hold or carry. It is
+not, observe, a mere coating of snow of given depth throughout, but it
+is snow loaded on until the rocks can hold no more. The surplus does not
+fall in the winter, because, fastened by continual frost, the quantity
+of snow which an Alp can carry is greater than each single winter can
+bestow; it falls in the first mild days of spring in enormous
+avalanches. Afterwards the melting continues, gradually removing from
+all the steep rocks the small quantity of snow which was all they could
+hold, and leaving them black and bare among the accumulated fields of
+unknown depth, which occupy the capacious valleys and less inclined
+superfices of the mountain.
+
+Hence it follows that the deepest snow does not take nor indicate the
+actual forms of the rocks on which it lies, but it hangs from peak to
+peak in unbroken and sweeping festoons, or covers whole groups of peaks,
+which afford it sufficient hold, with vast and unbroken domes: these
+festoons and domes being guided in their curves, and modified in size,
+by the violence and prevalent direction of the winter winds.
+
+We have, therefore, every variety of indication of the under mountain
+form; first, the mere coating, which is soon to be withdrawn, and which
+shows as a mere sprinkling or powdering after a storm on the higher
+peaks; then the shallow incrustation on the steep sides glazed by the
+running down of its frequent meltings, frozen again in the night; then
+the deep snow more or less cramped or modified by sudden eminences of
+emergent rock, or hanging in fractured festoons and huge blue irregular
+cliffs on the mountain flanks, and over the edges and summits of their
+precipices in nodding drifts, far overhanging, like a cornice, (perilous
+things to approach the edge of from above;) finally, the pure
+accumulation of overwhelming depth, smooth, sweeping, and almost
+cleftless, and modified only by its lines of drifting. Countless
+phenomena of exquisite beauty belong to each of these conditions, not to
+speak of the transition of the snow into ice at lower levels; but all on
+which I shall at present insist is that the artist should not think of
+his Alp merely as a white mountain, but conceive it as a group of peaks
+loaded with an accumulation of snow, and that especially he should avail
+himself of the exquisite curvatures, never failing, by which the snow
+unites and opposes the harsh and broken lines of the rock. I shall enter
+into farther detail on this subject hereafter; at present it is useless
+to do so, as I have no examples to refer to, either in ancient or modern
+art. No statement of these facts has hitherto been made, nor any
+evidence given even of their observation, except by the most inferior
+painters.[55]
+
+
+Sec. 21. Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has scarcely yet
+        been caught.
+
+Various works in green and white appear from time to time on the walls
+of the Academy, _like_ the Alps indeed, but so frightfully like, that we
+shudder and sicken at the sight of them, as we do when our best friend
+shows us into his dining-room, to see a portrait of himself, which
+"everybody thinks very like." We should be glad to see fewer of these,
+for Switzerland is quite beyond the power of any but first-rate men, and
+is exceedingly bad practice for a rising artist; but, let us express a
+hope that Alpine scenery will not continue to be neglected as it has
+been, by those who alone are capable of treating it. We love Italy, but
+we have had rather a surfeit of it lately;--too many peaked caps and
+flat-headed pines. We should be very grateful to Harding and Stanfield
+if they would refresh us a little among the snow, and give us, what we
+believe them to be capable of giving us, a faithful expression of Alpine
+ideal. We are well aware of the pain inflicted on an artist's mind by
+the preponderance of black, and white, and green, over more available
+colors; but there is nevertheless in generic Alpine scenery, a fountain
+of feeling yet unopened--a chord of harmony yet untouched by art. It
+will be struck by the first man who can separate what is national, in
+Switzerland, from what is ideal. We do not want chalets and three-legged
+stools, cow-bells and buttermilk. We want the pure and holy hills,
+treated as a link between heaven and earth.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [53] One of the most genuine Claudes I know.
+
+  [54] Compare Part III. Sect. I. Chap. 9, Sec. 5.
+
+  [55] I hear of some study of Alpine scenery among the professors at
+    Geneva; but all foreign landscape that I have ever met with has been
+    so utterly ignorant that I hope for nothing except from our own
+    painters.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                          OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central by being
+       divided into beds.
+
+We have next to investigate the character of those intermediate masses
+which constitute the greater part of all hill scenery, forming the
+outworks of the high ranges, and being almost the sole constituents of
+such lower groups as those of Cumberland, Scotland, or South Italy.
+
+All mountains whatsoever, not composed of the granite or gneiss rocks
+described in the preceding chapter, nor volcanic, (these latter being
+comparatively rare,) are composed of _beds_, not of homogeneous, heaped
+materials, but of accumulated layers, whether of rock or soil. It may be
+slate, sandstone, limestone, gravel, or clay; but whatever the
+substance, it is laid in layers, not in a mass. These layers are
+scarcely ever horizontal, and may slope to any degree, often occurring
+vertical, the boldness of the hill outline commonly depending in a great
+degree on their inclination. In consequence of this division into beds,
+every mountain will have two great sets of lines more or less prevailing
+in its contours--one indicative of the surfaces of the beds, where they
+come out from under each other--and the other indicative of the
+extremities or edges of the beds, where their continuity has been
+interrupted. And these two great sets of lines will commonly be at right
+angles with each other, or nearly so. If the surface of the bed approach
+a horizontal line, its termination will approach the vertical, and this
+is the most usual and ordinary way in which a precipice is produced.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Farther division of these beds by joints.
+
+Farther, in almost all rocks there is a third division of substance,
+which gives to their beds a tendency to split transversely in some
+directions rather than others, giving rise to what geologists call
+"joints," and throwing the whole rock into blocks more or less
+rhomboidal; so that the beds are not terminated by torn or ragged edges,
+but by faces comparatively smooth and even, usually inclined to each
+other at some definite angle. The whole arrangement may be tolerably
+represented by the bricks of a wall, whose tiers may be considered as
+strata, and whose sides and extremities will represent the joints by
+which those strata are divided, varying, however, their direction in
+different rocks, and in the same rock under differing circumstances.
+
+
+Sec. 3. And by lines of lamination.
+
+Finally, in the slates, grauwackes, and some calcareous beds, in the
+greater number, indeed, of _mountain_ rocks, we find another most
+conspicuous feature of general structure--the lines of lamination, which
+divide the whole rock into an infinite number of delicate plates or
+layers, sometimes parallel to the direction or "strike" of the strata,
+oftener obliquely crossing it, and sometimes, apparently, altogether
+independent of it, maintaining a consistent and unvarying slope through
+a series of beds contorted and undulating in every conceivable
+direction. These lines of lamination extend their influence to the
+smallest fragment, causing it (as, for example, common roofing slate) to
+break smooth in one direction, and with a ragged edge in another, and
+marking the faces of the beds and joints with distinct and numberless
+lines, commonly far more conspicuous in a near view than the larger and
+more important divisions.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are
+       manifested.
+
+Now, it cannot be too carefully held in mind, in examining the
+principles of mountain structure, that nearly all the laws of nature
+with respect to external form are rather universal tendencies, evidenced
+by a plurality of instances, than imperative necessities complied with
+by all. For instance, it may be said to be a universal law with respect
+to the boughs of all trees that they incline their extremities more to
+the ground in proportion as they are lower on the trunk, and that the
+higher their point of insertion is, the more they share in the upward
+tendency of the trunk itself. But yet there is not a single group of
+boughs in any one tree which does not show exceptions to the rule, and
+present boughs lower in insertion, and yet steeper in inclination, than
+their neighbors. Nor is this defect or deformity, but the result of the
+constant habit of nature to carry variety into her very principles, and
+make the symmetry and beauty of her laws the more felt by the grace and
+accidentalism with which they are carried out. No one familiar with
+foliage could doubt for an instant of the necessity of giving evidence
+of this downward tendency in the boughs; but it would be nearly as great
+an offence against truth to make the law hold good with every individual
+branch, as not to exhibit its influence on the majority. Now, though the
+laws of mountain form are more rigid and constant than those of
+vegetation, they are subject to the same species of exception in
+carrying out. Though every mountain has these great tendencies in its
+lines, not one in a thousand of those lines is absolutely consistent
+with and obedient to this universal tendency. There are lines in every
+direction, and of almost every kind, but the sum and aggregate of those
+lines will invariably indicate the _universal_ force and influence to
+which they are all subjected; and of these lines there will, I repeat,
+be two principal sets or classes, pretty nearly at right angles with
+each other. When both are inclined, they give rise to peaks or ridges;
+when one is nearly horizontal and the other vertical, to table-lands and
+precipices.
+
+This then is the broad organization of all hills, modified afterwards by
+time and weather, concealed by superincumbent soil and vegetation, and
+ramified into minor and more delicate details in a way presently to be
+considered, but nevertheless universal in its great first influence, and
+giving to all mountains a particular cast and inclination; like the
+exertion of voluntary power in a definite direction, an internal spirit,
+manifesting itself in every crag, and breathing in every slope, flinging
+and forcing the mighty mass towards the heaven with an expression and an
+energy like that of life.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin.
+
+Now, as in the case of the structure of the central peaks described
+above, so also here, if I had to give a clear idea of this organization
+of the lower hills, where it is seen in its greatest perfection, with a
+mere view to geological truth, I should not refer to any geological
+drawings, but I should take the Loch Coriskin of Turner. It has luckily
+been admirably engraved, and for all purposes of reasoning or form, is
+nearly as effective in the print as in the drawing. Looking at any group
+of the multitudinous lines which make up this mass of mountain, they
+appear to be running anywhere and everywhere; there are none parallel to
+each other, none resembling each other for a moment; yet the whole mass
+is felt at once to be composed with the most rigid parallelism, the
+surfaces of the beds towards the left, their edges or escarpments
+towards the right. In the centre, near the top of the ridge, the edge of
+a bed is beautifully defined, casting its shadow on the surface of the
+one beneath it; this shadow marking by three jags the chasms caused in
+the inferior one by three of its parallel joints. Every peak in the
+distance is evidently subject to the same great influence, and the
+evidence is completed by the flatness and evenness of the steep surfaces
+of the beds which rise out of the lake on the extreme right, parallel
+with those in the centre.
+
+
+Sec. 6. Glencoe and other works.
+
+Sec. 7. Especially the Mount Lebanon.
+
+Turn to Glencoe, in the same series (the Illustrations to Scott). We
+have in the mass of mountain on the left, the most beautiful indication
+of vertical beds of a finely laminated rock, terminated by even joints
+towards the precipice; while the whole sweep of the landscape, as far as
+the most distant peaks, is evidently governed by one great and simple
+tendency upwards to the left, those most distant peaks themselves lying
+over one another in the same direction. In the Daphne hunting with
+Leucippus, the mountains on the left descend in two precipices to the
+plain, each of which is formed by a vast escarpment of the beds whose
+upper surfaces are shown between the two cliffs, sinking with an even
+slope from the summit of the lowest to the base of the highest, under
+which they evidently descend, being exposed in this manner for a length
+of five or six miles. The same structure is shown, though with more
+complicated development, on the left of the Loch Katrine. But perhaps
+the finest instance, or at least the most marked of all, will be found
+in the exquisite Mount Lebanon, with the convent of St. Antonio,
+engraved in Finden's Bible. There is not one shade nor touch on the rock
+which is not indicative of the lines of stratification; and every
+fracture is marked with a straightforward simplicity which makes you
+feel that the artist has nothing in his heart but a keen love of the
+pure unmodified truth; there is no effort to disguise the repetition of
+forms, no apparent aim at artificial arrangement or scientific grouping;
+the rocks are laid one above another with unhesitating decision; every
+shade is understood in a moment, felt as a dark side, or a shadow, or a
+fissure, and you may step from one block or bed to another until you
+reach the mountain summit. And yet, though there seems no effort to
+disguise the repetition of forms, see how it _is_ disguised, just as
+nature would have done it, by the perpetual play and changefulness of
+the very lines which appear so parallel; now bending a little up, or
+down, or losing themselves, or running into each other, the old story
+over and over again,--infinity. For here is still the great distinction
+between Turner's work and that of a common artist. Hundreds could have
+given the parallelism of blocks, but none but himself could have done so
+without the actual repetition of a single line or feature.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Compared with the work of Salvator;
+
+Now compare with this the second mountain from the left in the picture
+of Salvator, No. 220 in the Dulwich Gallery. The whole is first laid in
+with a very delicate and masterly gray, right in tone, agreeable in
+color, quite unobjectionable for a beginning. But how is this made into
+rock? On the light side Salvator gives us a multitude of touches, all
+exactly like one another, and therefore, it is to be hoped, quite
+patterns of perfection in rock-drawing, since they are too good to be
+even varied. Every touch is a dash of the brush, as nearly as possible
+in the shape of a comma, round and bright at the top, convex on its
+right side, concave on its left, and melting off at the bottom into the
+gray. These are laid in confusion one above another, some paler, some
+brighter, some scarcely discernible, but all alike in shape. Now, I am
+not aware myself of any particular object, either in earth or heaven,
+which these said touches do at all resemble or portray. I do not,
+however, assert that they may not resemble something--feathers, perhaps;
+but I do say, and say with perfect confidence, that they may be Chinese
+for rocks, or Sanscrit for rocks, or symbolical of rocks in some
+mysterious and undeveloped character; but that they are no more _like_
+rocks than the brush that made them. The dark sides appear to embrace
+and overhang the lights; they cast no shadows, are broken by no
+fissures, and furnish, as food for contemplation, nothing but a series
+of concave curves.
+
+
+Sec. 9. And of Poussin.
+
+Yet if we go on to No. 269, we shall find something a great deal worse.
+I can believe Gaspar Poussin capable of committing as much sin against
+nature as most people; but I certainly do not suspect him of having had
+any hand in this thing, at least after he was ten years old.
+Nevertheless, it shows what he is supposed capable of by his admirers,
+and will serve for a broad illustration of all those absurdities which
+he himself in a less degree, and with feeling and thought to atone for
+them, perpetually commits. Take the white bit of rock on the opposite
+side of the river, just above the right arm of the Niobe, and tell me of
+what the square green daubs of the brush at its base can be conjectured
+to be typical. Rocks with pale-brown light sides, and rich green dark
+sides, are a phenomenon perhaps occurring in some of the improved
+passages of nature among our Cumberland lakes; where I remember once
+having seen a bed of roses, of peculiar magnificence, tastefully and
+artistically assisted in effect by the rocks above it being painted pink
+to match; but I do not think that they are a kind of thing which the
+clumsiness and false taste of nature can be supposed frequently to
+produce; even granting that these same sweeps of the brush could, by any
+exercise of the imagination, be conceived representative of a dark, or
+any other side, which is far more than I am inclined to grant; seeing
+that there is no east shadow, no appearance of reflected light, of
+substance, or of character on the edge; nothing, in short, but pure,
+staring green paint, scratched heavily on a white ground. Nor is there a
+touch in the picture more expressive. All are the mere dragging of the
+brush here and there and everywhere, without meaning or intention;
+winding, twisting, zigzagging, doing anything in fact which may serve to
+break up the light and destroy its breadth, without bestowing in return
+one hint or shadow of anything like form. This picture is, indeed, an
+extraordinary case, but the Salvator above mentioned is a characteristic
+and exceedingly favorable example of the usual mode of mountain drawing
+among the old landscape painters.[56] Their admirers may be challenged
+to bring forward a single instance of their expressing, or even
+appearing to have noted, the great laws of structure above explained.
+Their hills are, without exception, irregular earthy heaps, without
+energy or direction of any kind, marked with shapeless shadows and
+meaningless lines; sometimes, indeed, where great sublimity has been
+aimed at, approximating to the pure and exalted ideal of rocks, which,
+in the most artistical specimens of China cups and plates, we see
+suspended from aerial pagodas, or balanced upon peacocks' tails, but
+never warranting even the wildest theorist in the conjecture that their
+perpetrators had ever seen a mountain in their lives. Let us, however,
+look farther into the modifications of character by which nature
+conceals the regularity of her first plan; for although all mountains
+are organized as we have seen, their organization is always modified,
+and often nearly concealed, by changes wrought upon them by external
+influence.
+
+
+Sec. 10. Effects of external influence on mountain form.
+
+We ought, when speaking of their stratification, to have noticed another
+great law, which must, however, be understood with greater latitude of
+application than any of the others, as very far from imperative or
+constant in particular cases, though universal in its influence on the
+aggregate of all. It is that the lines by which rocks are terminated,
+are always steeper and more inclined to the vertical as we approach the
+summit of the mountain. Thousands of cases are to be found in every
+group, of rocks and lines horizontal at the top of the mountain and
+vertical at the bottom; but they are still the exceptions, and the
+average out of a given number of lines in any rock formation whatsoever,
+will be found increasing in perpendicularity as they rise. Consequently
+the great skeleton lines of rock outline are always concave; that is to
+say, all distant ranges of rocky mountain approximate more or less to a
+series of concave curves, meeting in peaks, like a range of posts with
+chains hanging between. I do not say that convex forms will not
+perpetually occur, but that the tendency of the majority will always be
+to assume the form of sweeping, curved valleys, with angular peaks; not
+of rounded convex summits, with angular valleys. This structure is
+admirably exemplified in the second vignette in Rogers's Italy, and in
+Piacenza.
+
+
+Sec. 11. The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion.
+
+But although this is the primary form of all hills, and that which will
+always cut against the sky in every distant range, there are two great
+influences whose tendency is directly the reverse, and which modify, to
+a great degree, both the evidences of stratification and this external
+form. These are aqueous erosion and disintegration. The latter only is
+to be taken into consideration when we have to do with minor features of
+crag; but the former is a force in constant action--of the very utmost
+importance--a force to which one-half of the great outlines of all
+mountains is entirely owing, and which has much influence upon every one
+of their details.
+
+Now the tendency of aqueous action over a large elevated surface is
+_always_ to make that surface symmetrically and evenly convex and
+dome-like, sloping gradually more and more as it descends, until it
+reaches an inclination of about 40 deg., at which slope it will descend
+perfectly straight to the valley; for at that slope the soil washed from
+above will accumulate upon the hill-side, as it cannot lie in steeper
+beds. This influence, then, is exercised more or less on all mountains,
+with greater or less effect in proportion as the rock is harder or
+softer, more or less liable to decomposition, more or less recent in
+date of elevation, and more or less characteristic in its original
+forms; but it universally induces, in the lower parts of mountains, a
+series of the most exquisitely symmetrical convex curves, terminating,
+as they descend to the valley, in uniform and uninterrupted slopes; this
+symmetrical structure being perpetually interrupted by cliffs and
+projecting masses, which give evidence of the interior parallelism of
+the mountain anatomy, but which interrupt the convex forms more
+frequently by rising out of them, than by indentation.
+
+
+Sec. 12. And the effect of the action of torrents.
+
+There remains but one fact more to be noticed. All mountains, in some
+degree, but especially those which are composed of soft or decomposing
+substance, are delicately and symmetrically furrowed by the descent of
+streams. The traces of their action commence at the very summits, fine
+threads, and multitudinous, like the uppermost branches of a delicate
+tree. They unite in groups as they descend, concentrating gradually into
+dark undulating ravines, into which the body of the mountain descends on
+each side, at first in a convex curve, but at the bottom with the same
+uniform slope on each side which it assumes in its final descent to the
+plain, unless the rock be very hard, when the stream will cut itself a
+vertical chasm at the bottom of the curves, and there will be no even
+slope.[57] If, on the other hand, the rock be very soft, the slopes will
+increase rapidly in height and depth from day to day; washed away at the
+bottom and crumbling at the top, until, by their reaching the summit of
+the masses of rock which separate the active torrents, the whole
+mountain is divided into a series of penthouse-like ridges, all guiding
+to its summit, and becoming steeper and narrower as they ascend; these
+in their turn being divided by similar, but smaller ravines--caused in
+the same manner--into the same kind of ridges; and these again by
+another series, the arrangement being carried finer and farther
+according to the softness of the rock. The south side of Saddleback, in
+Cumberland, is a characteristic example; and the Montagne du Tacondy, in
+Chamonix, a noble instance of one of these ridges or buttresses, with
+all its subdivisions, on a colossal scale.
+
+
+Sec. 13. The exceeding simplicity of contour caused by these influences.
+
+Sec. 14. And multiplicity of feature.
+
+Now we wish to draw especial attention to the broad and bold simplicity
+of mass, and the excessive complication of details, which influences
+like these, acting on an enormous scale, must inevitably produce in all
+mountain groups; because each individual part and promontory, being
+compelled to assume the same symmetrical curves as its neighbors, and to
+descend at precisely the same slope to the valley, falls in with their
+prevailing lines, and becomes a part of a great and harmonious whole,
+instead of an unconnected and discordant individual. It is true that
+each of these members has its own touches of specific character, its own
+projecting crags and peculiar hollows; but by far the greater portion of
+its lines will be such as unite with, though they do not repeat, those
+of its neighbors, and carry out the evidence of one great influence and
+spirit to the limits of the scene. This effort is farther aided by the
+original unity and connection of the rocks themselves, which though it
+often may be violently interrupted, is never without evidence of
+existence; for the very interruption itself forces the eye to feel that
+there is something to be interrupted, a sympathy and similarity of
+lines and fractures, which, however full of variety and change of
+direction, never lose the appearance of symmetry of one kind or another.
+But, on the other hand, it is to be remembered that these great
+sympathizing masses are not one mountain, but a thousand mountains; that
+they are originally composed of a multitude of separate eminences, hewn
+and chiselled indeed into associating form, but each retaining still its
+marked points and features of character,--that each of these individual
+members has, by the very process which assimilated it to the rest, been
+divided and subdivided into equally multitudinous groups of minor
+mountains; finally, that the whole complicated system is interrupted
+forever and ever by daring manifestations of the inward mountain
+will--by the precipice which has submitted to no modulation of the
+torrent, and the peak which has bowed itself to no terror of the storm.
+Hence we see that the same imperative laws which require perfect
+simplicity of mass, require infinite and termless complication of
+detail,--that there will not be an inch nor a hairbreadth of the
+gigantic heap which has not its touch of separate character, its own
+peculiar curve, stealing out for an instant and then melting into the
+common line; felt for a moment by the blue mist of the hollow beyond,
+then lost when it crosses the enlightened slope,--that all this
+multiplicity will be grouped into larger divisions, each felt by their
+increasing aerial perspective, and their instants of individual form,
+these into larger, and these into larger still, until all are merged in
+the great impression and prevailing energy of the two or three vast
+dynasties which divide the kingdom of the scene.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Both utterly neglected in ancient art.
+
+There is no vestige nor shadow of approach to such treatment as this in
+the whole compass of ancient art. Whoever the master, his hills,
+wherever he has attempted them, have not the slightest trace of
+association or connection; they are separate, conflicting, confused,
+petty and paltry heaps of earth; there is no marking of distances or
+divisions in their body; they may have holes in them, but no
+valleys,--protuberances and excrescences, but no parts; and in
+consequence are invariably diminutive and contemptible in their whole
+appearance and impression.
+
+
+Sec. 16. The fidelity of treatment in Turner's Daphne and Leucippas.
+
+But look at the mass of mountain on the right in Turner's Daphne hunting
+with Leucippus. It is simple, broad, and united as one surge of a
+swelling sea; it rises in an unbroken line along the valley, and lifts
+its promontories with an equal slope. But it contains in its body ten
+thousand hills. There is not a quarter of an inch of its surface without
+its suggestion of increasing distance and individual form. First, on the
+right, you have a range of tower-like precipices, the clinging wood
+climbing along their ledges and cresting their summits, white waterfalls
+gleaming through its leaves; not, as in Claude's scientific ideals,
+poured in vast torrents over the top, and carefully keeping all the way
+down on the most projecting parts of the sides; but stealing down,
+traced from point to point, through shadow after shadow, by their
+evanescent foam and flashing light,--here a wreath, and there a
+ray,--through the deep chasms and hollow ravines, out of which rise the
+soft rounded slopes of mightier mountain, surge beyond surge, immense
+and numberless, of delicate and gradual curve, accumulating in the sky
+until their garment of forest is exchanged for the shadowy fold of
+slumbrous morning cloud, above which the utmost silver peak shines
+islanded and alone. Put what mountain painting you will beside this, of
+any other artist, and its heights will look like mole-hills in
+comparison, because it will not have the unity nor the multiplicity
+which are in nature, and with Turner, the signs of size.
+
+
+Sec. 17. And in the Avalanche and Inundation.
+
+Again, in the Avalanche and Inundation, we have for the whole subject
+nothing but one vast bank of united mountain, and one stretch of
+uninterrupted valley. Though the bank is broken into promontory beyond
+promontory, peak above peak, each the abode of a new tempest, the
+arbiter of a separate desolation, divided from each other by the rushing
+of the snow, by the motion of the storm, by the thunder of the torrent;
+the mighty unison of their dark and lofty line, the brotherhood of ages,
+is preserved unbroken; and the broad valley at their feet, though
+measured league after league away by a thousand passages of sun and
+darkness, and marked with fate beyond fate of hamlet and of inhabitant,
+lies yet but as a straight and narrow channel, a filling furrow before
+the flood. Whose work will you compare with this? Salvator's gray heaps
+of earth, seven yards high, covered with bunchy brambles, that we may be
+under no mistake about the size, thrown about at random in a little
+plain, beside a zigzagging river, just wide enough to admit of the
+possibility of there being fish in it, and with banks just broad enough
+to allow the respectable angler or hermit to sit upon them conveniently
+in the foreground? Is there more of nature in such paltriness, think
+you, than in the valley and the mountain which bend to each other like
+the trough of the sea; with the flank of the one swept in one surge into
+the height of heaven, until the pine forests lie on its immensity like
+the shadows of narrow clouds, and the hollow of the other laid league by
+league into the blue of the air, until its white villages flash in the
+distance only like the fall of a sunbeam?
+
+
+Sec. 18. The rarity among secondary hills of steep slopes or high
+        precipices.
+
+But let us examine by what management of the details themselves this
+wholeness and vastness of effect are given. We have just seen (Sec. 11)
+that it is impossible for the slope of a mountain, not actually a
+precipice of rock, to exceed 35 deg. or among secondary 40 deg., and that by far
+the greater part of all hill-surface is composed of graceful curves of
+much less degree than this, reaching 40 deg. only as their ultimate and
+utmost inclination. It must be farther observed that the interruptions
+to such curves, by precipices or steps, are always small in proportion
+to the slopes themselves. Precipices rising vertically more than 100
+feet are very rare among the secondary hills of which we are speaking. I
+am not aware of any cliff in England or Wales where a plumb-line can
+swing clear for 200 feet; and even although sometimes, with intervals,
+breaks, and steps, we get perhaps 800 feet of a slope of 60 deg. or 70 deg., yet
+not only are these cases very rare, but even these have little influence
+on the great contours of a mountain 4000 or 5000 feet in elevation,
+being commonly balanced by intervals of ascent not exceeding 6 deg. or 8 deg..
+The result of which is, first, that the peaks and precipices of a
+mountain appear as little more than jags or steps emerging from its
+great curves; and, secondly, that the bases of all hills are enormously
+extensive as compared with their elevation, so that there must be always
+a horizontal distance between the observer and the summit five or six
+times exceeding the perpendicular one.
+
+
+Sec. 19. And consequent expression of horizontal distance in their ascent.
+
+Now it is evident, that whatever the actual angle of elevation of the
+mountain may be, every exhibition of this horizontal distance between us
+and the summit is an addition to its height, and of course to its
+impressiveness; while every endeavor to exhibit its slope as steep and
+sudden, is diminution at once of its distance and elevation. In
+consequence nature is constantly endeavoring to impress upon us this
+horizontal distance, which, even in spite of all her means of
+manifesting it, we are apt to forget or underestimate; and all her
+noblest effects depend on the full measurement and feeling of it. And it
+is to the abundant and marvellous expression of it by Turner, that I
+would direct especial attention, as being that which is in itself
+demonstrative of the highest knowledge and power--knowledge, in the
+constant use of lines of subdued slope in preference to steep or violent
+ascents, and in the perfect subjection of all such features, when they
+necessarily occur, to the larger masses; and power, in the inimitable
+statements of retiring space by mere painting of surface details,
+without the aid of crossing shadows, divided forms, or any other
+artifice.
+
+
+Sec. 20. Full statement of all these facts in various works of Turner,
+        Caudebec, etc.
+
+The Caudebec, in the Rivers of France, is a fine instance of almost
+every fact which we have been pointing out. We have in it, first, the
+clear expression of what takes place constantly among hills,--that the
+river, as it passes through the valley, will fall backwards and forwards
+from side to side, lying first, if I may so speak, with all its weight
+against the hills on the one side, and then against those on the other;
+so that, as here it is exquisitely told, in each of its circular sweeps
+the whole force of its current is brought deep and close to the bases of
+the hills, while the water on the side next the plain is shallow,
+deepening gradually. In consequence of this, the hills are cut away at
+their bases by the current, so that their slopes are interrupted by
+precipices mouldering to the water. Observe first, how nobly Turner has
+given us the perfect unity of the whole mass of hill, making us
+understand that every ravine in it has been cut gradually by streams.
+The first eminence, beyond the city, is not disjointed from, or
+independent of, the one succeeding, but evidently part of the same
+whole, originally united, separated only by the action of the stream
+between. The association of the second and third is still more clearly
+told, for we see that there has been a little longitudinal valley
+running along the brow of their former united mass, which, after the
+ravine had been cut between, formed the two jags which Turner has given
+us at the same point in each of their curves. This great triple group
+has, however, been originally distinct from those beyond it; for we see
+that these latter are only the termination of the enormous even slope,
+which appears again on the extreme right, having been interrupted by the
+rise of the near hills. Observe how the descent of the whole series is
+kept gentle and subdued, never suffered to become steep except where it
+has been cut away by the river, the sudden precipice caused by which is
+exquisitely marked in the last two promontories, where they are defined
+against the bright horizon; and, finally, observe how, in the ascent of
+the nearest eminence beyond the city, without one cast shadow or any
+division of distances, every yard of surface is felt to be retiring by
+the mere painting of its details,--how we are permitted to walk up it,
+and along its top, and are carried, before we are half way up, a league
+or two forward into the picture. The difficulty of doing this, however,
+can scarcely be appreciated except by an artist.
+
+
+Sec. 21. The use of considering geological truths.
+
+I do not mean to assert that this great painter is acquainted with the
+geological laws and facts he has thus illustrated; I am not aware
+whether he be or not; I merely wish to demonstrate, in points admitting
+of demonstration, that intense observation of, and strict adherence to
+truth, which it is impossible to demonstrate in its less tangible and
+more delicate manifestations. However I may _feel_ the truth of every
+touch and line, I cannot _prove_ truth, except in large and general
+features; and I leave it to the arbitration of every man's reason,
+whether it be not likely that the painter who is thus so rigidly
+faithful in great things that every one of his pictures might be the
+illustration of a lecture on the physical sciences, is not likely to be
+faithful also in small.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the work
+        of Claude.
+
+Honfleur, and the scene between Clairmont and Mauves, supply us with
+farther instances of the same grand simplicity of treatment; and the
+latter is especially remarkable for its expression of the furrowing of
+the hills by descending water, in the complete roundness and symmetry
+of their curves, and in the delicate and sharp shadows which are cast in
+the undulating ravines. It is interesting to compare with either of
+these noble works such hills as those of Claude, on the left of the
+picture marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery. There is no detail nor
+surface in one of them; not an inch of ground for us to stand upon; we
+must either sit astride upon the edge, or fall to the bottom. I could
+not point to a more complete instance of mountain calumniation; nor can
+I oppose it more completely, in every circumstance, than with the
+Honfleur of Turner, already mentioned; in which there is not one edge
+nor division admitted, and yet we are permitted to climb up the hill
+from the town, and pass far into the mist along its top, and so descend
+mile after mile along the ridge to seaward, until, without one break in
+the magnificent unity of progress, we are carried down to the utmost
+horizon. And contrast the brown paint of Claude, which you can only
+guess to be meant for rock or soil because it _is_ brown, with Turner's
+profuse, pauseless richness of feature, carried through all the enormous
+space--the unmeasured wealth of exquisite detail, over which the mind
+can dwell, and walk, and wander, and feast forever, without finding
+either one break in its vast simplicity, or one vacuity in its
+exhaustless splendor.
+
+
+Sec. 23. The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher hills.
+
+But these, and hundreds of others which it is sin not to dwell
+upon--wooded hills and undulating moors of North England--rolling surges
+of park and forest of the South--soft and vine-clad ranges of French
+coteaux, casting their oblique shadows on silver leagues of glancing
+rivers,--and olive-whitened promontories of Alp and Apennine, are only
+instances of Turner's management of the lower and softer hills. In the
+bolder examples of his powers, where he is dealing with lifted masses of
+enormous mountain, we shall still find him as cautious in his use of
+violent slopes or vertical lines, and still as studied in his expression
+of retiring surface. We never get to the top of one of his hills without
+being tired with our walk; not by the steepness, observe, but by the
+stretch; for we are carried up towards the heaven by such delicate
+gradation of line, that we scarcely feel that we have left the earth
+before we find ourselves among the clouds. The Skiddaw, in the
+illustrations to Scott, is a noble instance of this majestic moderation.
+The mountain lies in the morning light, like a level vapor; its gentle
+lines of ascent are scarcely felt by the eye; it rises without effort or
+exertion, by the mightiness of its mass; every slope is full of slumber;
+and we know not how it has been exalted, until we find it laid as a
+floor for the walking of the eastern clouds. So again in the Fort
+Augustus, where the whole elevation of the hills depends on the soft
+lines of swelling surface which undulate back through leagues of mist
+carrying us unawares higher and higher above the diminished lake, until,
+when we are all but exhausted with the endless distance, the mountains
+make their last spring, and bear us, in that instant of exertion, half
+way to heaven.
+
+
+Sec. 24. The peculiar difficulty of investigating the more essential truths
+        of hill outline.
+
+I ought perhaps rather to have selected, as instances of mountain form,
+such elaborate works as the Oberwesel or Lake of Uri, but I have before
+expressed my dislike of speaking of such magnificent pictures as these
+by parts. And indeed all proper consideration of the hill drawing of
+Turner must be deferred until we are capable of testing it by the
+principles of beauty; for, after all, the most essential qualities of
+line,--those on which all right delineation of mountain character must
+depend, are those which are only to be explained or illustrated by
+appeals to our feeling of what is beautiful. There is an expression and
+a feeling about all the hill lines of nature, which I think I shall be
+able, hereafter, to explain; but it is not to be reduced to line and
+rule--not to be measured by angles or described by compasses--not to be
+chipped out by the geologist, or equated by the mathematician. It is
+intangible, incalculable--a thing to be felt, not understood--to be
+loved, not comprehended--a music of the eyes, a melody of the heart,
+whose truth is known only by its sweetness.
+
+
+Sec. 25. Works of other modern artists. Clarkson Stanfield.
+
+Sec. 26. Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing.
+
+I can scarcely, without repeating myself to tediousness, enter at
+present into proper consideration of the mountain drawing of other
+modern painters. We have, fortunately, several by whom the noble truths
+which we have seen so fully exemplified by Turner are also deeply felt
+and faithfully rendered; though there is a necessity, for the perfect
+statement of them, of such an unison of freedom of thought with perfect
+mastery over the greatest mechanical difficulties, as we can scarcely
+hope to see attained by more than one man in our age. Very nearly the
+same words which we used in reference to Stanfield's drawings of the
+central clouds, might be applied to his rendering of mountain truth. He
+occupies exactly the same position with respect to other artists in
+earth as in cloud. None can be said really to _draw_ the mountain as he
+will, to have so perfect a mastery over its organic development; but
+there is, nevertheless, in all his works, some want of feeling and
+individuality. He has studied and mastered his subject to the bottom,
+but he trusts too much to that past study, and rather invents his hills
+from his possessed stores of knowledge, than expresses in them the fresh
+ideas received from nature. Hence, in all that he does, we feel a little
+too much that the hills are his own. We cannot swear to their being the
+particular crags and individual promontories which break the cone of
+Ischia, or shadow the waves of Maggiore. We are nearly sure, on the
+contrary, that nothing but the outline is local, and that all the
+filling up has been done in the study. Now, we have already shown (Sect.
+I. Chap. III.) that particular truths are more important than general
+ones, and this is just one of the cases in which that rule especially
+applies. Nothing is so great a sign of truth and beauty in mountain
+drawing as the appearance of individuality--nothing is so great a proof
+of real imagination and invention, as the appearance that nothing has
+been imagined or invented. We ought to feel of every inch of mountain,
+that it _must_ have existence in reality, that if we had lived near the
+place we should have known every crag of it, and that there must be
+people to whom every crevice and shadow of the picture is fraught with
+recollections, and colored with associations. The moment the artist can
+make us feel this--the moment he can make us think that _he_ has done
+nothing, that nature has done all--that moment he becomes ennobled, he
+proves himself great. As long as we remember him, we cannot respect him.
+We honor him most when we most forget him. He becomes great when he
+becomes invisible. And we may, perhaps, be permitted to express our hope
+that Mr. Stanfield will--our conviction that he must--if he would
+advance in his rank as an artist, attend more to local character, and
+give us generally less of the Stanfield limestone. He ought to study
+with greater attention the rocks which afford finer divisions and more
+delicate parts (slates and gneiss;) and he ought to observe more fondly
+and faithfully those beautiful laws and lines of swell and curvature, by
+intervals of which nature sets off and relieves the energy of her peaked
+outlines. He is at present apt to be too rugged, and, in consequence, to
+lose size. Of his best manner of drawing hills, I believe I can scarcely
+give a better example than the rocks of Suli, engraved in Finden's
+illustrations to Byron. It is very grand and perfect in all parts and
+points.
+
+
+Sec. 27. Works of Copley Fielding. His hill feeling.
+
+Copley Fielding is peculiarly graceful and affectionate in his drawing
+of the inferior mountains. But as with his clouds so with his hills; as
+long as he keeps to silvery films of misty outline, or purple shadows
+mingled with the evening light, he is true and beautiful; but the moment
+he withdraws the mass out of its veiling mystery, he is lost. His worst
+drawings, therefore, are those on which he has spent most time; for he
+is sure to show weakness wherever he gives detail. We believe that all
+his errors proceed, as we observed before, from his not working with the
+chalk or pencil; and that if he would paint half the number of pictures
+in the year which he usually produces, and spend his spare time in hard
+dry study of forms, the half he painted would be soon worth double the
+present value of all. For he really has deep and genuine feeling of hill
+character--a far higher perception of space, elevation, incorporeal
+color, and all those qualities which are the poetry of mountains, than
+any other of our water-color painters; and it is an infinite pity that
+he should not give to these delicate feelings the power of realization,
+which might be attained by a little labor. A few thorough studies of his
+favorite mountains, Ben-Venue or Ben-Cruachan, in clear, strong, front
+chiaroscuro, allowing himself neither color nor mist, nor any means of
+getting over the ground but downright drawing, would, we think, open his
+eyes to sources of beauty of which he now takes no cognizance. He ought
+not, however, to repeat the same subjects so frequently, as the casting
+about of the mind for means of varying them blunts the feelings to
+truth. And he should remember that an artist, who is not making
+progress, is nearly certain to be retrograding; and that progress is not
+to be made by working in the study, or by mere labor bestowed on the
+repetition of unchanging conceptions.
+
+
+Sec. 28. Works of J. D. Harding and others.
+
+J. D. Harding would paint mountains very nobly, if he made them of more
+importance in his compositions, but they are usually little more than
+backgrounds for his foliage or buildings; and it is his present system
+to make his backgrounds very slight. His color is very beautiful:
+indeed, both his and Fielding's are far more refined than Stanfield's.
+We wish he would oftener take up some wild subject dependent for
+interest on its mountain forms alone, as we should anticipate the
+highest results from his perfect drawing; and we think that such an
+exercise, occasionally gone completely through, would counteract a
+tendency which we perceive in his present distances, to become a little
+thin and cutting, if not incomplete.
+
+The late G. Robson was a man most thoroughly acquainted with all the
+characteristics of our own island hills; and some of the outlines of
+John Varley showed very grand feeling of energy of form.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [56] I have above exhausted all terms of vituperation, and probably
+    disgusted the reader; and yet I have not spoken with enough
+    severity: I know not any terms of blame that are bitter enough to
+    chastise justly the mountain drawings of Salvator in the pictures of
+    the Pitti Palace.
+
+  [57] Some terrific cuts and chasms of this kind occur on the north
+    side of the Valais, from Sion to Briey. The torrent from the great
+    Aletsch glacier descends through one of them. Elsewhere chasms may
+    be found as narrow, but few so narrow and deep.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+                             OF THE FOREGROUND.
+
+
+We have now only to observe the close characteristics of the rocks and
+soils to which the large masses of which we have been speaking, owe
+their ultimate characters.
+
+
+Sec. 1. What rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape
+       foreground.
+
+We have already seen that there exists a marked distinction between
+those stratified rocks whose beds are amorphous and without subdivision,
+as many limestones and sandstones, and those which are divided by lines
+of lamination, as all slates. The last kind of rock is the more frequent
+in nature, and forms the greater part of all hill scenery; it has,
+however, been successfully grappled with by few, even of the moderns,
+except Turner; while there is no single example of any aim at it or
+thought of it among the ancients, whose foregrounds, as far as it is
+possible to guess at their intention through their concentrated errors,
+are chosen from among the tufa and travertin of the lower Apennines,
+(the ugliest as well as the least characteristic rocks of nature,) and
+whose larger features of rock scenery, if we look at them with a
+predetermination to find in them a resemblance of _something_, may be
+pronounced at least liker the mountain limestone than anything else. I
+shall glance, therefore, at the general characters of these materials
+first, in order that we may be able to appreciate the fidelity of
+rock-drawing on which Salvator's reputation has been built.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Salvator's limestones. The real characters of the rock. Its
+       fractures and obtuseness of angles.
+
+The massive limestones separate generally into irregular blocks, tending
+to the form of cubes or parallelopipeds, and terminated by tolerably
+smooth planes. The weather, acting on the edges of these blocks, rounds
+them off; but the frost, which, while it cannot penetrate nor split the
+body of the stone, acts energetically on the angles, splits off the
+rounded fragments, and supplies sharp, fresh, and complicated edges.
+Hence the angles of such blocks are usually marked by a series of steps
+and fractures, in which the peculiar character of the rock is most
+distinctly seen; the effect being increased in many limestones by the
+interposition of two or three thinner beds between the large strata of
+which the block has been a part; these thin laminae breaking easily, and
+supplying a number of fissures and lines at the edge of the detached
+mass. Thus, as a general principle, if a rock have character anywhere,
+it will be on the angle, and however even and smooth its great planes
+may be, it will usually break into variety where it turns a corner. In
+one of the most exquisite pieces of rock truth ever put on canvas, the
+foreground of the Napoleon in the Academy, 1842, this principle was
+beautifully exemplified in the complicated fractures of the upper angle
+just where it turned from the light, while the planes of the rock were
+varied only by the modulation they owed to the waves. It follows from
+this structure that the edges of all rock being partially truncated,
+first by large fractures, and then by the rounding of the fine edges of
+these by the weather, perpetually present _convex_ transitions from the
+light to the dark side, the planes of the rock almost always swelling a
+little _from_ the angle.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Salvator's acute angles caused by the meeting of concave curves.
+
+Now it will be found throughout the works of Salvator, that his most
+usual practice was to give a _concave_ sweep of the brush for his first
+expression of the dark side, leaving the paint darkest towards the
+light; by which daring and original method of procedure he has succeeded
+in covering his foregrounds with forms which approximate to those of
+drapery, of ribbons, of crushed cocked hats, of locks of hair, of waves,
+leaves, or anything, in short, flexible or tough, but which of course
+are not only unlike, but directly contrary to the forms which nature has
+impressed on rocks.[58]
+
+
+Sec. 4. Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of nature.
+
+Sec. 5. Peculiar confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator.
+
+And the circular and sweeping strokes or stains which are dashed at
+random over their surfaces, only fail of destroying all resemblance
+whatever to rock structure from their frequent want of any meaning at
+all, and from the impossibility of our supposing any of them to be
+representative of shade. Now, if there be any part of landscape in which
+nature develops her principles of light and shade more clearly than
+another, it is rock; for the dark sides of fractured stone receive
+brilliant reflexes from the lighted surfaces, on which the shadows are
+marked with the most exquisite precision, especially because, owing to
+the parallelism of cleavage, the surfaces lie usually in directions
+nearly parallel. Hence every crack and fissure has its shadow and
+reflected light separated with the most delicious distinctness, and the
+organization and solid form of all parts are told with a decision of
+language, which, to be followed with anything like fidelity, requires
+the most transparent color, and the most delicate and scientific
+drawing. So far are the works of the old landscape-painters from
+rendering this, that it is exceedingly rare to find a single passage in
+which the shadow can even be distinguished from the dark side--they
+scarcely seem to know the one to be darker than the other; and the
+strokes of the brush are not used to explain or express a form known or
+conceived, but are dashed and daubed about without any aim beyond the
+covering of the canvas. "A rock," the old masters appear to say to
+themselves, "is a great irregular, formless, characterless lump; but it
+must have shade upon it, and any gray marks will do for that shade."
+
+
+Sec. 6. And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness.
+
+Sec. 7. Instances in particular pictures.
+
+Finally, while few, if any, of the rocks of nature are untraversed by
+delicate and slender fissures, whose black sharp lines are the only
+means by which the peculiar quality in which rocks most differ from the
+other objects of the landscape, brittleness, can be effectually
+suggested, we look in vain among the blots and stains with which the
+rocks of ancient art are loaded, for any vestige or appearance of
+fissure or splintering. Toughness and malleability appear to be the
+qualities whose expression is most aimed at; sometimes sponginess,
+softness, flexibility, tenuity, and occasionally transparency. Take, for
+instance, the foreground of Salvator, in No. 220 of the Dulwich Gallery.
+There is, on the right-hand side of it, an object, which I never walk
+through the room without contemplating for a minute or two with renewed
+solicitude and anxiety of mind, indulging in a series of very wild and
+imaginative conjectures as to its probable or possible meaning. I think
+there is reason to suppose that the artist intended it either for a very
+large stone, or for the trunk of a tree; but any decision as to its
+being either one or the other of these must, I conceive, be the extreme
+of rashness. It melts into the ground on one side, and might reasonably
+be conjectured to form a part of it, having no trace of woody structure
+or color; but on the other side it presents a series of concave curves,
+interrupted by cogs like those of a water-wheel, which the boldest
+theorist would certainly not feel himself warranted in supposing
+symbolical of rock. The forms which this substance, whatever it be,
+assumes, will be found repeated, though in a less degree, in the
+foreground of No. 159, where they are evidently meant for rock.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Compared with the works of Stanfield.
+
+Sec. 9. Their absolute opposition in every particular.
+
+Let us contrast with this system of rock-drawing, the faithful,
+scientific, and dexterous studies of nature which we find in the works
+of Clarkson Stanfield. He is a man especially to be opposed to the old
+masters, because he usually confines himself to the same rock subjects
+as they--the mouldering and furrowed crags of the secondary formation
+which arrange themselves more or less into broad and simple masses; and
+in the rendering of these it is impossible to go beyond him. Nothing can
+surpass his care, his firmness, or his success, in marking the distinct
+and sharp light and shade by which the form is explained, never
+confusing it with local color, however richly his surface-texture may be
+given; while the wonderful play of line with which he will vary, and
+through which he will indicate, the regularity of stratification, is
+almost as instructive as that of nature herself. I cannot point to any
+of his works as better or more characteristic than others; but his
+Ischia, in the present British Institution, may be taken as a fair
+average example. The Botallack Mine, Cornwall, engraved in the Coast
+Scenery, gives us a very finished and generic representation of rock,
+whose primal organization has been violently affected by external
+influences. We have the stratification and cleavage indicated at its
+base, every fissure being sharp, angular, and decisive, disguised
+gradually as it rises by the rounding of the surface and the successive
+furrows caused by the descent of streams. But the exquisite drawing of
+the foreground is especially worthy of notice. No huge concave sweeps of
+the brush, no daubing or splashing here. Every inch of it is brittle and
+splintery, and the fissures are explained to the eye by the most
+perfect, speaking light and shade,--we can stumble over the edges of
+them. The East Cliff, Hastings, is another very fine example, from the
+exquisite irregularity with which its squareness of general structure is
+varied and disguised. Observe how totally contrary every one of its
+lines is to the absurdities of Salvator. Stanfield's are all angular and
+straight, every apparent curve made up of right lines, while Salvator's
+are all sweeping and flourishing like so much penmanship. Stanfield's
+lines pass away into delicate splintery fissures. Salvator's are broad
+daubs throughout. Not one of Stanfield's lines is like another. Every
+one of Salvator's mocks all the rest. All Stanfield's curves, where his
+universal angular character is massed, as on the left-hand side, into
+large sweeping forms, are convex. Salvator's are every one concave.
+
+
+Sec. 10. The rocks of J. D. Harding.
+
+The foregrounds of J. D. Harding and rocks of his middle distances are
+also thoroughly admirable. He is not quite so various and undulating in
+his line as Stanfield, and sometimes, in his middle distances, is
+wanting in solidity, owing to a little confusion of the dark side and
+shadow with each other, or with the local color. But his work, in near
+passages of fresh-broken, sharp-edged rock, is absolute perfection,
+excelling Stanfield in the perfect freedom and facility with which his
+fragments are splintered and scattered; true in every line without the
+least apparent effort. Stanfield's best works are laborious, but
+Harding's rocks fall from under his hand as if they had just crashed
+down the hill-side, flying on the instant into lovely form. In color
+also he incomparably surpasses Stanfield, who is apt to verge upon mud,
+or be cold in his gray. The rich, lichenous, and changeful warmth, and
+delicate weathered grays of Harding's rock, illustrated as they are by
+the most fearless, firm, and unerring drawing, render his wild pieces of
+torrent shore the finest things, next to the work of Turner, in English
+foreground art.
+
+J. B. Pyne has very accurate knowledge of limestone rock, and expresses
+it clearly and forcibly; but it is much to be regretted that this clever
+artist appears to be losing all sense of color and is getting more and
+more mannered in execution, evidently never studying from nature except
+with the previous determination to Pynize everything.[59]
+
+
+Sec. 11. Characters of loose earth and soil.
+
+Sec. 12. Its exceeding grace and fulness of feature.
+
+Before passing to Turner, let us take one more glance at the foregrounds
+of the old masters, with reference, not to their management of rock,
+which is comparatively a rare component part of their foregrounds, but
+to the common soil which they were obliged to paint constantly, and
+whose forms and appearances are the same all over the world. A steep
+bank of loose earth of any kind, that has been at all exposed to the
+weather, contains in it, though it may not be three feet high, features
+capable of giving high gratification to a careful observer. It is almost
+a fac-simile of a mountain slope of soft and decomposing rock; it
+possesses nearly as much variety of character, and is governed by laws
+of organization no less rigid. It is furrowed in the first place by
+undulating lines, by the descent of the rain, little ravines, which are
+cut precisely at the same slope as those of the mountain, and leave
+ridges scarcely less graceful in their contour, and beautifully sharp in
+their chiselling. Where a harder knot of ground or a stone occurs, the
+earth is washed from beneath it, and accumulates above it, and there we
+have a little precipice connected by a sweeping curve at its summit with
+the great slope, and casting a sharp dark shadow; where the soil has
+been soft, it will probably be washed away underneath until it gives
+way, and leaves a jagged, hanging, irregular line of fracture; and all
+these circumstances are explained to the eye in sunshine with the most
+delicious clearness; every touch of shadow being expressive of some
+particular truth of structure, and bearing witness to the symmetry into
+which the whole mass has been reduced. Where this operation has gone on
+long, and vegetation has assisted in softening the outlines, we have our
+ground brought into graceful and irregular curves, of infinite variety,
+but yet always so connected with each other, and guiding to each other,
+that the eye never feels them as _separate_ things, nor feels inclined
+to count them, nor perceives a likeness in one to the other; they are
+not repetitions of each other, but are different parts of one system.
+Each would be imperfect without the one next to it.
+
+
+Sec. 13. The ground of Teniers.
+
+Now it is all but impossible to express distinctly the particulars
+wherein this fine character of curve consists, and to show in definite
+examples, what it is which makes one representation right, and another
+wrong. The ground of Teniers for instance, in No. 139 in the Dulwich
+Gallery, is an example of all that is wrong. It is a representation of
+the forms of shaken and disturbed soil, such as we should see here and
+there after an earthquake, or over the ruins of fallen buildings. It has
+not one contour nor character of the soil of nature, and yet I can
+scarcely tell you why, except that the curves repeat one another, and
+are monotonous in their flow, and are unbroken by the delicate angle
+and momentary pause with which the feeling of nature would have touched
+them, and are disunited; so that the eye leaps from this to that, and
+does not pass from one to the other without being able to stop, drawn on
+by the continuity of line; neither is there any undulation or furrowing
+of watermark, nor in one spot or atom of the whole surface, is there
+distinct explanation of form to the eye by means of a determined shadow.
+All is mere sweeping of the brush over the surface with various ground
+colors, without a single indication of character by means of real shade.
+
+
+Sec. 14. Importance of these minor parts and points.
+
+Sec. 15. The observance of them is the real distinction between the master
+        and the novice.
+
+Let not these points be deemed unimportant; the truths of form in common
+ground are quite as valuable, (let me anticipate myself for a moment,)
+quite as beautiful, as any others which nature presents, and in lowland
+landscape they present us with a species of line which it is quite
+impossible to obtain in any other way,--the alternately flowing and
+broken line of mountain scenery, which, however small its scale, is
+always of inestimable value, contrasted with the repetitions of organic
+form which we are compelled to give in vegetation. A really great artist
+dwells on every inch of exposed soil with care and delight, and renders
+it one of the most essential, speaking and pleasurable parts of his
+composition. And be it remembered, that the man who, in the most
+conspicuous part of his foreground, will violate truth with every stroke
+of the pencil, is not likely to be more careful in other parts of it;
+and that in the little bits which I fix upon for animadversion, I am not
+pointing out solitary faults, but only the most characteristic examples
+of the falsehood which is everywhere, and which renders the whole
+foreground one mass of contradictions and absurdities. Nor do I myself
+see wherein the great difference lies between a master and a novice,
+except in the rendering of the finer truths, of which I am at present
+speaking. To handle the brush freely, and to paint grass and weeds with
+accuracy enough to satisfy the eye, are accomplishments which a year or
+two's practice will give any man; but to trace among the grass and weeds
+those mysteries of invention and combination, by which nature appeals to
+the intellect--to render the delicate fissure, and descending curve, and
+undulating shadow of the mouldering soil, with gentle and fine finger,
+like the touch of the rain itself--to find even in all that appears most
+trifling or contemptible, fresh evidence of the constant working of the
+Divine power "for glory and for beauty," and to teach it and proclaim it
+to the unthinking and the unregardless--this, as it is the peculiar
+province and faculty of the master-mind, so it is the peculiar duty
+which is demanded of it by the Deity.
+
+
+Sec. 16. The ground of Cuyp.
+
+Sec. 17. And of Claude.
+
+Sec. 18. The entire weakness and childishness of the latter.
+
+Sec. 19. Compared with the work of Turner.
+
+It would take me no reasonable nor endurable time, if I were to point
+out one half of the various kinds and classes of falsehood which the
+inventive faculties of the old masters succeeded in originating, in the
+drawing of foregrounds. It is not this man, nor that man, nor one school
+nor another; all agree in entire repudiation of everything resembling
+facts, and in the high degree of absurdity of what they substitute for
+them. Even Cuyp, who evidently saw and studied _near_ nature, as an
+artist should do--not fishing for idealities, but taking what nature
+gave him, and thanking her for it--even he appears to have supposed that
+the drawing of the earth might be trusted to chance or imagination, and,
+in consequence, strews his banks with lumps of dough, instead of stones.
+Perhaps, however, the "beautiful foregrounds" of Claude afford the most
+remarkable instances of childishness and incompetence of all. That of
+his morning landscape, with the large group of trees and high
+single-arched bridge, in the National Gallery, is a pretty fair example
+of the kind of error which he constantly falls into. I will not say
+anything of the agreeable composition of the three banks, rising one
+behind another from the water. I merely affirm that it amounts to a
+demonstration that all three were painted in the artist's study, without
+any reference to nature whatever. In fact, there is quite enough
+intrinsic evidence in each of them to prove this, seeing that what
+appears to be meant for vegetation upon them, amounts to nothing more
+than a green stain on their surfaces, the more evidently false because
+the leaves of the trees twenty yards farther off are all perfectly
+visible and distinct; and that the sharp lines with which each cuts
+against that beyond it, are not only such as crumbling earth could never
+show or assume, but are maintained through their whole progress
+ungraduated, unchanging, and unaffected by any of the circumstances of
+varying shade to which every one of nature's lines is inevitably
+subjected. In fact, the whole arrangement is the impotent struggle of a
+tyro to express, by successive edges, that approach of earth which he
+finds himself incapable of expressing by the drawing of the surface.
+Claude wished to make you understand that the edge of his pond came
+nearer and nearer: he had probably often tried to do this with an
+unbroken bank, or a bank only varied by the delicate and harmonized
+anatomy of nature; and he had found that owing to his total ignorance of
+the laws of perspective, such efforts on his part invariably ended in
+his reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and making it look
+perpendicular. Much comfort and solace of mind, in such unpleasant
+circumstances, may be derived from instantly dividing the obnoxious bank
+into a number of successive promontories, and developing their edges
+with completeness and intensity. Every school-girl's drawing, as soon as
+her mind has arrived at so great a degree of enlightenment as to
+perceive that perpendicular water is objectionable, will supply us with
+edifying instances of this unfailing resource; and this foreground of
+Claude's is only one out of the thousand cases in which he has been
+reduced to it. And if it be asked, how the proceeding differs from that
+of nature, I have only to point to nature herself, as she is drawn in
+the foreground of Turner's Mercury and Argus, a case precisely similar
+to Claude's, of earthy crumbling banks cut away by water. It will be
+found in this picture (and I am now describing nature's work and
+Turner's with the same words) that the whole distance is given by
+retirement of solid surface; and that if ever an edge is expressed, it
+is only felt for an instant, and then lost again; so that the eye cannot
+stop at it and prepare for a long jump to another like it, but is guided
+over it, and round it, into the hollow beyond; and thus the whole
+receding mass of ground, going back for more than a quarter of a mile,
+is made completely _one_--no part of it is separated from the rest for
+an instant--it is all united, and its modulations are _members_, not
+_divisions_ of its mass. But those modulations are countless--heaving
+here, sinking there--now swelling, now mouldering, now blending, now
+breaking--giving, in fact, to the foreground of this universal master,
+precisely the same qualities which we have before seen in his hills, as
+Claude gave to his foreground precisely the same qualities which we had
+before found in _his_ hills,--infinite unity in the one case, finite
+division in the other.
+
+
+Sec. 20. General features of Turner's foreground.
+
+Let us, then, having now obtained some insight into the principles of
+the old masters in foreground drawing, contrast them throughout with
+those of our great modern master. The investigation of the excellence of
+Turner's drawing becomes shorter and easier as we proceed, because the
+great distinctions between his work and that of other painters are the
+same, whatever the object or subject may be; and after once showing the
+general characters of the particular specific forms under consideration,
+we have only to point, in the works of Turner, to the same principles of
+infinity and variety in carrying them out, which we have before insisted
+upon with reference to other subjects.
+
+
+Sec. 21. Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees.
+
+Sec. 22. Their convex surfaces and fractured edges.
+
+Sec. 23. And perfect unity.
+
+Sec. 24. Various parts whose history is told us by the details of the
+        drawing.
+
+The Upper Fall of the Tees, Yorkshire, engraved in the England series,
+may be given as a standard example of rock-drawing to be opposed to the
+work of Salvator. We have, in the great face of rock which divides the
+two streams, horizontal lines which indicate the real direction of the
+strata, and these same lines are given in ascending perspective all
+along the precipice on the right. But we see also on the central
+precipice fissures absolutely vertical, which inform us of one series of
+joints dividing these horizontal strata; and the exceeding smoothness
+and evenness of the precipice itself inform us that it has been caused
+by a great separation of substance in the direction of another more
+important line of joints, running in a direction across the river.
+Accordingly, we see on the left that the whole summit of the precipice
+is divided again and again by this great series of joints into vertical
+beds, which lie against each other with their sides towards us, and are
+traversed downwards by the same vertical lines traceable on the face of
+the central cliff. Now, let me direct especial attention to the way in
+which Turner has marked over this general and grand unity of structure,
+the modifying effects of the weather and the torrent. Observe how the
+whole surface of the hill above the precipice on the left[60] is
+brought into one smooth, unbroken curvature of gentle convexity, until
+it comes to the edge of the precipice, and then, just on the angle,
+(compare Sec. 2,) breaks into the multiplicity of fissure which marks its
+geological structure. Observe how every one of the separate blocks, into
+which it divides, is rounded and convex in its salient edges turned to
+the weather, and how every one of their inward angles is marked clear
+and sharp by the determined shadow and transparent reflex. Observe how
+exquisitely graceful are all the curves of the convex surfaces,
+indicating that every one of them has been modelled by the winding and
+undulating of running water; and how gradually they become steeper as
+they descend, until they are torn down into the face of the precipice.
+Finally, observe the exquisite variety of all the touches which express
+fissure or shade; every one in varying directions and with new forms,
+and yet throughout indicating that perfect parallelism which at once
+explained to us the geology of the rock, and falling into one grand
+mass, treated with the same simplicity of light and shade which a great
+portrait painter adopts in treating the features of the human face;
+which, though each has its own separate chiaroscuro, never disturb the
+wholeness and grandeur of the head, considered as one ball or mass. So
+here, one deep and marked piece of shadow indicates the greatest
+proximity of the rounded mass; and from this every shade becomes fainter
+and fainter, until all are lost in the obscurity and dimness of the
+hanging precipice and the shattering fall. Again, see how the same
+fractures just upon the edge take place with the central cliff above the
+right-hand fall, and how the force of the water is told us by the
+confusion of debris accumulated in its channel. In fact, the great
+quality about Turner's drawings which more especially proves their
+transcendent truth, is the capability they afford us of reasoning on
+past and future phenomena, just as if we had the actual rocks before us;
+for this indicates not that one truth is given, nor another, not that a
+pretty or interesting morsel has been selected here and there, but that
+the whole truth has been given, with all the relations of its parts; so
+that we can pick and choose our points of pleasure or of thought for
+ourselves, and reason upon the whole with the same certainty which we
+should after having climbed and hammered over the rocks bit by bit. With
+this drawing before him, a geologist could give a lecture upon the whole
+system of aqueous erosion, and speculate as safely upon the past and
+future states of this very spot, as if he were standing and getting wet
+with the spray. He would tell you, at once, that the waterfall was in a
+state of rapid recession; that it had once formed a wide cataract just
+at the spot where the figure is sitting on the heap of debris; and that
+when it was there, part of it came down by the channel on the left, its
+bed being still marked by the delicately chiselled lines of fissure. He
+would tell you that the foreground had also once been the top of the
+fall, and that the vertical fissures on the right of it were evidently
+then the channel of a side stream. He would tell you that the fall was
+then much lower than it is now, and that being lower, it had less force,
+and cut itself a narrower bed; and that the spot where it reached the
+higher precipice is marked by the expansion of the wide basin which its
+increased violence has excavated, and by the gradually increasing
+concavity of the rocks below, which we see have been hollowed into a
+complete vault by the elastic bound of the water. But neither he nor I
+could tell you with what exquisite and finished marking of every
+fragment and particle of soil or rock, both in its own structure and the
+evidence it bears of these great influences, the whole of this is
+confirmed and carried out.
+
+
+Sec. 25. Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the
+        Llanthony.
+
+With this inimitable drawing we may compare the rocks in the foreground
+of the Llanthony. These latter are not divided by joints, but into thin
+horizontal and united beds, which the torrent in its times of flood has
+chiselled away, leaving one exposed under another, with the sweeping
+marks of its eddies upon their edges. And here we have an instance of an
+exception to a general rule, occasioned by particular and local action.
+We have seen that the action of water over any surface _universally_,
+whether falling, as in rain, or sweeping, as a torrent, induces
+convexity of form. But when we have rocks _in situ_, as here, exposed at
+their edges to the violent action of an eddy, that eddy will cut a vault
+or circular space for itself, (as we saw on a large scale with the high
+waterfall,) and we have a concave curve interrupting the general
+contours of the rock. And thus Turner (while every edge of his masses is
+rounded, and, the moment we rise above the level of the water, all is
+convex) has interrupted the great contours of his strata with concave
+curves, precisely where the last waves of the torrent have swept against
+the exposed edges of the beds. Nothing could more strikingly prove the
+depth of that knowledge by which every touch of this consummate artist
+is regulated, that universal command of subject which never acts for a
+moment on anything conventional or habitual, but fills every corner and
+space with new evidence of knowledge, and fresh manifestation of
+thought.
+
+
+Sec. 26. Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone.
+
+The Lower Fall of the Tees, with the chain-bridge, might serve us for an
+illustration of all the properties and forms of vertical beds of rock,
+as the upper fall has of horizontal; but we pass rather to observe, in
+detached pieces of foreground, the particular modulation of parts which
+cannot be investigated in the grand combinations of general mass.
+
+The blocks of stone which form the foreground of the Ulleswater are, I
+believe, the finest example in the world of the finished drawing of
+rocks which have been subjected to violent aqueous action. Their
+surfaces seem to palpitate from the fine touch of the waves, and every
+part of them is rising or falling in soft swell or gentle depression,
+though the eye can scarcely trace the fine shadows on which this
+chiselling of the surface depends. And with all this, every block of
+them has individual character, dependent on the expression of the
+angular lines of which its contours were first formed, and which is
+retained and felt through all the modulation and melting of the
+water-worn surface. And what is done here in the most important part of
+the picture, to be especially attractive to the eye, is often done by
+Turner with lavish and overwhelming power, in the accumulated debris of
+a wide foreground, strewed with the ruin of ages, as, for instance, in
+the Junction of the Greta and Tees, where he has choked the torrent bed
+with a mass of shattered rock, thrown down with the profusion and
+carelessness of nature herself; and yet every separate block is a study,
+(and has evidently been drawn from nature,) chiselled and varied in its
+parts, as if it were to be the chief member of a separate subject; yet
+without ever losing, in a single instance, its subordinate position, or
+occasioning, throughout the whole accumulated multitude, the repetition
+of a single line.
+
+
+Sec. 27. And of complicated foreground.
+
+I consider cases like these, of perfect finish and new conception,
+applied and exerted in the drawing of every member of a confused and
+almost countlessly-divided system, about the most wonderful, as well as
+the most characteristic passages of Turner's foregrounds. It is done not
+less marvellously, though less distinctly, in the individual parts of
+all his broken ground, as in examples like these of separate blocks. The
+articulation of such a passage as the nearest bank, in the picture we
+have already spoken of at so great length, the Upper Fall of the Tees,
+might serve us for a day's study, if we were to go into it part by part;
+but it is impossible to do this, except with the pencil; we can only
+repeat the same general observations, about eternal change and unbroken
+unity, and tell you to observe how the eye is kept throughout on solid
+and retiring surfaces, instead of being thrown, as by Claude, on flat
+and equal edges. You cannot find a single edge in Turner's work; you are
+everywhere kept upon round surfaces, and you go back on these you cannot
+tell how--never taking a leap, but progressing imperceptibly along the
+unbroken bank, till you find yourself a quarter of a mile into the
+picture, beside the figure at the bottom of the waterfall.
+
+
+Sec. 28. And of loose soil.
+
+Finally, the bank of earth on the right of the grand drawing of Penmaen
+Mawr, may be taken as the standard of the representation of soft soil
+modelled by descending rain; and may serve to show us how exquisite in
+character are the resultant lines, and how full of every species of
+attractive and even sublime quality, if we only are wise enough not to
+scorn the study of them. The higher the mind, it may be taken as a
+universal rule, the less it will scorn that which appears to be small or
+unimportant; and the rank of a painter may always be determined by
+observing how he uses, and with what respect he views the minutiae of
+nature. Greatness of mind is not shown by admitting small things, but by
+making small things great under its influence. He who can take no
+interest in what is small, will take false interest in what is great;
+he who cannot make a bank sublime, will make a mountain ridiculous.
+
+
+Sec. 29. The unison of all in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy
+        pictures.
+
+Sec. 30. And the great lesson to be received from all.
+
+It is not until we have made ourselves acquainted with these simple
+facts of form, as they are illustrated by the slighter works of Turner,
+that we can become at all competent to enjoy the combination of all, in
+such works as the Mercury and Argus, or Bay of Baiae, in which the mind
+is at first bewildered by the abundant outpouring of the master's
+knowledge. Often as I have paused before these noble works, I never felt
+on returning to them as if I had ever seen them before; for their
+abundance is so deep and various that the mind, according to its own
+temper at the time of seeing, perceives some new series of truths
+rendered in them, just as it would on revisiting a natural scene; and
+detects new relations and associations of these truths which set the
+whole picture in a different light at every return to it. And this
+effect is especially caused by the management of the foreground; for the
+more marked objects of the picture may be taken one by one, and thus
+examined and known; but the foregrounds of Turner are so united in all
+their parts that the eye cannot take them by divisions, but is guided
+from stone to stone, and bank to bank, discovering truths totally
+different in aspect, according to the direction in which it approaches
+them, and approaching them in a different direction, and viewing them as
+a part of a new system, every time that it begins its course at a new
+point. One lesson, however, we are invariably taught by all, however
+approached or viewed,--that the work of the Great Spirit of nature is as
+deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects,--that
+the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every
+lowly bank and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of
+heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth; and that to the
+rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty,
+the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the
+casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering
+of the dust as in the kindling of the day-star.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [58] I have cut out a passage in this place which insisted on the
+    _angular_ character of rocks,--not because it was false, but because
+    it was incomplete, and I cannot explain it nor complete it without
+    example. It is not the absence of curves, but the suggestion of
+    _hardness through_ curves, and of the under tendencies of the inward
+    structure, which form the true characteristics of rock form; and
+    Salvator, whom neither here nor elsewhere I have abused enough, is
+    not wrong because he paints curved rocks, but because his curves are
+    the curves of ribbons and not of rocks; and the difference between
+    rock curvature and other curvature I cannot explain verbally, but I
+    hope to do it hereafter by illustration; and, at present, let the
+    reader study the rock-drawing of the Mont St. Gothard subject, in
+    the Liber Studiorum, and compare it with any examples of Salvator to
+    which he may happen to have access. All the account of rocks here
+    given is altogether inadequate, and I only do not alter it because I
+    first wish to give longer study to the subject.
+
+  [59] A passage which I happened to see in an Essay of Mr. Pyne's, in
+    the Art-Union, about nature's "foisting rubbish" upon the artist,
+    sufficiently explains the cause of this decline. If Mr. Pyne will go
+    to nature, as all great men have done, and as all men who mean to be
+    great must do, that is not merely to be _helped_, but to be _taught_
+    by her; and will once or twice take her gifts, without looking them
+    in the mouth, he will most assuredly find--and I say this in no
+    unkind or depreciatory feeling, for I should say the same of all
+    artists who are in the habit of only sketching nature, and not
+    studying her--that _her_ worst is better than _his_ best. I am quite
+    sure that if Mr. Pyne, or any other painter who has hitherto been
+    very careful in his choice of subject, will go into the next
+    turnpike-road, and taking the first four trees that he comes to in
+    the hedge, give them a day each, drawing them leaf for leaf, as far
+    as may be, and even their smallest boughs with as much care as if
+    they were rivers, or an important map of a newly-surveyed country,
+    he will find, when he has brought them all home, that at least three
+    out of the four are better than the best he ever invented. Compare
+    Part III. Sect. I. Chap. III. Sec. 12, 13, (the reference in the note
+    ought to be to Chap. XV. Sec. 7.)
+
+  [60] In the light between the waterfall and the large dark mass on
+    the extreme right.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION V.
+
+                             OF TRUTH OF WATER.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                   OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY THE ANCIENTS.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water.
+
+Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and
+without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we
+think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we
+have seen in clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have
+contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into
+grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made,
+with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had
+not seen; then as it exists in the form of the torrent--in the iris
+which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep
+crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and
+glancing river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best
+emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic,
+tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this mighty, this
+universal element for glory and for beauty? or how shall we follow its
+eternal changefulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul.
+
+
+Sec. 2. The ease with which a common representation of it may be given. The
+       impossibility of a faithful one.
+
+To suggest the ordinary appearance of calm water--to lay on canvas as
+much evidence of surface and reflection as may make us understand that
+water is meant--is, perhaps, the easiest task of art; and even ordinary
+running or falling water may be sufficiently rendered, by observing
+careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little
+white over it, as we see done with judgment and truth by Ruysdael. But
+to paint the actual play of hue on the reflective surface, or to give
+the forms and fury of water when it begins to show itself--to give the
+flashing and rocket-like velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision
+and grace of the sea waves, so exquisitely modelled, though so mockingly
+transient--so mountainous in its form, yet so cloud-like in its
+motion--with its variety and delicacy of color, when every ripple and
+wreath has some peculiar passage of reflection upon itself alone, and
+the radiating and scintillating sunbeams are mixed with the dim hues of
+transparent depth and dark rock below;--to do this perfectly, is beyond
+the power of man; to do it even partially, has been granted to but one
+or two, even of those few who have dared to attempt it.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Difficulty of properly dividing the subject.
+
+As the general laws which govern the appearances of water have equal
+effect on all its forms, it would be injudicious to treat the subject in
+divisions; for the same forces which govern the waves and foam of the
+torrent, are equally influential on those of the sea; and it will be
+more convenient to glance generally at the system of water-painting of
+each school and artist, than to devote separate chapters to the
+examination of the lake, river, or sea-painting of all. We shall,
+therefore, vary our usual plan, and look first at the water-painting of
+the ancients; then at that of the moderns generally; lastly, at that of
+Turner.
+
+
+Sec. 4. Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among all painters.
+
+It is necessary in the outset to state briefly one or two of the optical
+conditions by which the appearance of the surface of water is affected;
+to describe them all would require a separate essay, even if I possessed
+the requisite knowledge, which I do not. The accidental modifications
+under which general laws come into play are innumerable, and often, in
+their extreme complexity, inexplicable, I suppose, even by men of the
+most extended optical knowledge. What I shall here state are a few only
+of the broadest laws verifiable by the reader's immediate observation,
+but of which nevertheless, I have found artists frequently ignorant;
+owing to their habit of sketching from nature without thinking or
+reasoning, and especially of finishing at home. It is not often, I
+believe, that an artist draws the reflections in water as he sees them;
+over large spaces, and in weather that is not very calm, it is nearly
+impossible to do so; when it is possible, sometimes in haste, and
+sometimes in idleness, and sometimes under the idea of improving nature,
+they are slurred or misrepresented; it is so easy to give something like
+a suggestive resemblance of calm water, that, even when the landscape is
+finished from nature, the water is merely indicated as something that
+may be done at any time, and then, in the home work, come the cold
+leaden grays with some, and the violent blues and greens with others,
+and the horizontal lines with the feeble, and the bright touches and
+sparkles with the dexterous, and everything that is shallow and
+commonplace with all. Now, the fact is, that there is hardly a roadside
+pond or pool which has not as much landscape _in_ it as above it. It is
+not the brown, muddy, dull thing we suppose it to be; it has a heart
+like ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the
+tall trees, and the blades of the shaking-grass, and all manner of hues,
+of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; nay, the ugly gutter, that
+stagnates over the drain bars, in the heart of the foul city, is not
+altogether base; down in that, if you will look deep enough, you may see
+the dark, serious blue of far-off sky, and the passing of pure clouds.
+It is at your own will that you see in that despised stream, either the
+refuse of the street, or the image of the sky--so it is with almost all
+other things that we unkindly despise. Now, this farseeing is just the
+difference between the great and the vulgar painter; the common man
+_knows_ the roadside pool is muddy, and draws its mud; the great painter
+sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will take him a day's
+work to follow, but he follows it, cost what it will. And if painters
+would only go out to the nearest common and take the nearest dirty pond
+among the furze, and draw that thoroughly, not considering that it is
+water that they are drawing, and that water must be done in a certain
+way; but drawing determinedly what they _see_, that is to say, all the
+trees, and their shaking leaves, and all the hazy passages of disturbing
+sunshine; and the bottom seen in the clearer little bits at the edge,
+and the stones of it, and all the sky, and the clouds far down in the
+middle, drawn as completely, and more delicately they must be, than the
+real clouds above, they would come home with such a notion of
+water-painting as might save me and every one else all trouble of
+writing more about the matter; but now they do nothing of the kind, but
+take the ugly, round, yellow surface for granted, or else improve it,
+and, instead of giving that refined, complex, delicate, but saddened and
+gloomy reflection in the polluted water, they clear it up with coarse
+flashes of yellow, and green, and blue, and spoil their own eyes, and
+hurt ours; failing, of course, still more hopelessly in touching the
+pure, inimitable light of waves thrown loose; and so Canaletto is still
+thought to have painted canals, and Vandevelde and Backhuysen to have
+painted sea, and the uninterpreted streams and maligned sea hiss shame
+upon us from all their rocky beds and hollow shores.
+
+
+Sec. 5. Difficulty of treating this part of the subject.
+
+I approach this part of my subject with more despondency than any other,
+and that for several reasons; first, the water painting of all the elder
+landscape painters, excepting a few of the better passages of Claude and
+Ruysdael, is so execrable, so beyond all expression and explanation bad;
+Claude's and Ruysdael's best so cold and valueless, that I do not know
+how to address those who like such painting; I do not know what their
+sensations are respecting sea. I can perceive nothing in Vandevelde or
+Backhuysen of the lowest redeeming merit; no power, no presence of
+intellect--or evidence of perception--of any sort or kind; no
+resemblance--even the feeblest--of anything natural; no invention--even
+the most sluggish--of anything agreeable. Had they given us staring
+green seas with hatchet edges, such as we see Her Majesty's ships
+so-and-so fixed into by the heads or sterns in the first room of the
+Royal Academy, the admiration of them would have been comprehensible;
+there being a natural predilection in the mind of men for green waves
+with curling tops, but not for clay and wool; so that though I can
+understand, in some sort, why people admire everything else in old art,
+why they admire Salvator's rocks, and Claude's foregrounds, and
+Hobbima's trees, and Paul Potter's cattle, and Jan Steen's pans; and
+while I can perceive in all these likings a root which seems right and
+legitimate, and to be appealed to; yet when I find they can even
+_endure_ the _sight_ of a Backhuysen on their room walls (I speak
+seriously) it makes me hopeless at once. I may be wrong, or they may be
+wrong, but at least I can conceive of no principle or opinion common
+between us, which either can address or understand in the other; and yet
+I am wrong in this want of conception, for I know that Turner once
+liked Vandevelde, and I can trace the evil influence of Vandevelde on
+most of his early sea painting, but Turner certainly could not have
+liked Vandevelde without _some_ legitimate cause. Another discouraging
+point is that I cannot catch a wave, nor Daguerreotype it, and so there
+is no coming to pure demonstration; but the forms and hues of water must
+always be in some measure a matter of dispute and feeling, and the more
+so because there is no perfect or even tolerably perfect sea painting to
+refer to: the sea never has been, and I fancy never will be nor can be
+painted; it is only suggested by means of more or less spiritual and
+intelligent conventionalism; and though Turner has done enough to
+suggest the sea mightily and gloriously, after all it is by
+conventionalism still, and there remains so much that is unlike nature,
+that it is always possible for those who do not feel his power to
+justify their dislike, on very sufficient and reasonable grounds; and to
+maintain themselves obstinately unreceptant of the good, by insisting on
+the deficiency which no mortal hand can supply, and which commonly is
+most manifest on the one hand, where most has been achieved on the
+other.
+
+With calm water the case is different. Facts are ascertainable and
+demonstrable there, and by the notice of one or two of the simplest, we
+may obtain some notion of the little success and intelligence of the
+elder painters in this easier field, and so prove their probable failure
+in contending with greater difficulties.
+
+
+Sec. 6. General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, the
+       imperfection of its reflective surface.
+
+First: Water, of course, owing to its transparency, possesses not a
+perfectly reflective surface, like that of speculum metal, but a surface
+whose reflective power is dependent on the angle at which the rays to be
+reflected fall. The smaller this angle, the greater are the number of
+rays reflected. Now, according to the number of rays reflected is the
+force of the image of objects above, and according to the number of rays
+transmitted is the perceptibility of objects below the water. Hence the
+visible transparency and reflective power of water are in inverse ratio.
+In looking down into it from above, we receive transmitted rays which
+exhibit either the bottom, or the objects floating in the water; or else
+if the water be deep and clear, we receive very few rays, and the water
+looks black. In looking along water we receive reflected rays, and
+therefore the image of objects above it. Hence, in shallow water on a
+level shore the bottom is seen at our feet, clearly; it becomes more and
+more obscure as it retires, even though the water do not increase in
+depth, and at a distance of twelve or twenty yards--more or less
+according to our height above the water--becomes entirely invisible,
+lost in the lustre of the reflected surface.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does not
+       affect bright ones.
+
+Second: The brighter the objects reflected, the larger the angle at
+which reflection is visible; it is always to be remembered that,
+strictly speaking, only light objects are reflected, and that the darker
+ones are seen only in proportion to the number of rays of light that
+they can send; so that a dark object comparatively loses its power to
+affect the surface of water, and the water in the space of a dark
+reflection is seen partially with the image of the object, and partially
+transparent. It will be found on observation that under a bank--suppose
+with dark trees above showing spaces of bright sky, the bright sky is
+reflected distinctly, and the bottom of the water is in those spaces not
+seen; but in the dark spaces of reflection we see the bottom of the
+water, and the color of that bottom and of the water itself mingles with
+and modifies that of the color of the trees casting the dark reflection.
+
+This is one of the most beautiful circumstances connected with water
+surface, for by these means a variety of color and a grace and
+evanescence are introduced in the reflection otherwise impossible. Of
+course at great distances even the darkest objects cast distinct images,
+and the hue of the water cannot be seen, but in near water the
+occurrence of its own color modifying the dark reflections, while it
+leaves light ones unaffected, is of infinite value.
+
+Take, by way of example, an extract from my own diary at Venice.
+
+"May 17th, 4 P.M. Looking east the water is calm, and reflects the sky
+and vessels, with this peculiarity; the sky, which is pale blue, is in
+its reflection of the same kind of blue, only a little deeper; but the
+_vessels' hulls, which are black, are reflected in pale sea green_,
+_i.e._, the natural color of the water under sunlight; while the _orange
+masts_ of the vessels, wet with a recent shower, are reflected _without
+change of color_, only not quite so bright as above. One ship has a
+white, another a red stripe," (I ought to have said horizontal along the
+gunwales,) '_of these the water takes no notice_.'
+
+"What is curious, a boat passes across with white and dark figures, the
+water reflects the dark ones in green, and misses out all the white;
+this is chiefly owing to the dark images being opposed to the bright
+reflected sky."
+
+I have left the passage about the white and red stripe, because it will
+be useful to us presently; all that I wish to insist upon here is the
+showing of the local color (pea green) of the water in the spaces which
+were occupied by dark reflections, and the unaltered color of the bright
+ones.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Water takes no shadow.
+
+Third: Clear water takes no shadow, and that for two reasons; A perfect
+surface of speculum metal takes no shadow, (this the reader may
+instantly demonstrate for himself,) and a perfectly transparent body as
+air takes no shadow; hence water, whether transparent or reflective,
+takes no shadow.
+
+But shadows, or the forms of them, appear on water frequently and
+sharply: it is necessary carefully to explain the causes of these, as
+they are one of the most eminent sources of error in water painting.
+
+First: Water in shade is much more reflective than water in sunlight.
+Under sunlight the local color of the water is commonly vigorous and
+active, and forcibly affects, as we have seen, all the dark reflections,
+commonly diminishing their depth. Under shade, the reflective power is
+in a high degree increased,[61] and it will be found most frequently
+that the forms of shadows are expressed on the surface of water, not by
+actual shade, but by more genuine reflection of objects above. This is
+another most important and valuable circumstance, and we owe to it some
+phenomena of the highest beauty.
+
+A very muddy river, as the Arno for instance at Florence, is seen during
+sunshine of its own yellow color, rendering all reflections discolored
+and feeble. At twilight it recovers its reflective power to the fullest
+extent, and the mountains of Carrara are seen reflected in it as clearly
+as if it were a crystalline lake. The Mediterranean, whose determined
+blue yields to hardly any modifying color in daytime, receives at
+evening the image of its rocky shores. On our own seas, seeming shadows
+are seen constantly cast in purple and blue, upon pale green. These are
+no shadows, but the pure reflection of dark or blue sky above, seen in
+the shadowed space, refused by the local color of the sea in the
+sunlighted spaces, and turned more or less purple by the opposition of
+the vivid green.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Modification of dark reflections by shadow.
+
+We have seen, however, above, that the local color of water, while it
+comparatively refuses dark reflections, accepts bright ones without
+deadening them. Hence when a shadow is thrown across a space of water of
+strong local color, receiving, alternately, light and dark reflections,
+it has no power of increasing the reflectiveness of the water in the
+bright spaces, still less of diminishing it; hence, on all the dark
+reflections it is seen more or less distinctly, on all the light ones it
+vanishes altogether.
+
+Let us take an instance of the exquisite complexity of effect induced by
+these various circumstances in co-operation.
+
+Suppose a space of clear water showing the bottom under a group of
+trees, showing sky through their branches, casting shadows on the
+surface of the water, which we will suppose also to possess some color
+of its own. Close to us, we shall see the bottom, with the shadows of
+the trees clearly thrown upon it, and the color of the water seen in its
+genuineness by transmitted light. Farther off, the bottom will be
+gradually lost sight of, but it will be seen in the dark reflections
+much farther than in the light ones. At last it ceases to affect even
+the former, and the pure surface effect takes place. The blue bright sky
+is reflected truly, but the dark trees are reflected imperfectly, and
+the color of the water is seen instead. Where the shadow falls on these
+dark reflections a darkness is seen plainly, which is found to be
+composed of the pure clear reflection of the dark trees; when it crosses
+the reflection of the sky, the shadow of course, being thus fictitious,
+vanishes.
+
+Farther, of course on whatever dust and other foulness may be present in
+water, real shadow falls clear and dark in proportion to the quantity
+of solid substance present. On very muddy rivers, real shadow falls in
+sunlight nearly as sharply as on land; on our own sea, the apparent
+shadow caused by increased reflection, is much increased in depth by the
+chalkiness and impurity of the water.
+
+Farther, when surface is rippled, every ripple, up to a certain variable
+distance on each side of the spectator, and at a certain angle between
+him and the sun, varying with the size and shape of the ripples,
+reflects to him a small image of the sun. Hence those dazzling fields of
+expanding light so often seen upon the sea.
+
+Any object that comes between the sun and these ripples, takes from them
+the power of reflecting the sun, and in consequence, all their light;
+hence any intervening objects cast apparent shadows upon such spaces of
+intense force, and of the exact shape, and in the exact place of real
+shadows, and yet which are no more real shadows than the withdrawal of
+an image of a piece of white paper from a mirror is a shadow on the
+mirror. Farther, in all shallow water, more or less in proportion to its
+shallowness, but in some measure, I suppose, up to depths of forty or
+fifty fathoms, and perhaps more, the local color of the water depends in
+great measure on light reflected from the bottom. This, however, is
+especially manifest in clear rivers like the Rhone, where the absence of
+the light reflected from below forms an apparent shadow, often visibly
+detached some distance from the floating object which casts it.
+
+
+Sec. 10. Examples on the water of the Rhone.
+
+The following extract from my own diary at Geneva, with the subsequent
+one, which is a continuation of that already given in part at Venice,
+will illustrate both this and the other points we have been stating.
+
+                                    "GENEVA, _21st April, Morning._
+
+"The sunlight falls from the cypresses of Rousseau's island straight
+towards the bridge. The shadows of the bridge and of the trees fall on
+the water in leaden purple, opposed to its general hue of aquamarine
+green. This green color is caused by the light being reflected from the
+bottom, though the bottom is not seen; as is evident by its becoming
+paler towards the middle of the river, where the water shoals, on which
+pale part the purple shadow of the small bridge falls most forcibly,
+which shadow, however, is still only apparent, being the absence of this
+reflected light, associated with the increased reflective power of the
+water, which in those spaces reflects blue sky above. A boat swings in
+the shoal water; its reflection is cast in a transparent pea-green,
+which is considerably darker than the pale aquamarine of the surface at
+the spot. Its shadow is detached from it just about half the depth of
+the reflection; which, therefore, forms a bright green light between the
+keel of the boat and its shadow; where the shadow cuts the reflection,
+the reflection is darkest and something like the true color of the boat;
+where the shadow falls out of the reflection, it is of a leaden purple,
+pale. The boat is at an angle of about 20 deg. below. Another boat nearer,
+in deeper water, shows no shadow, whatsoever, and the reflection is
+marked by its transparent green, while the surrounding water takes a
+lightish blue reflection from the sky."
+
+The above notes, after what has been said, require no comment; but one
+more case must be stated belonging to rough water. Every large wave of
+the sea is in ordinary circumstances divided into, or rather covered by,
+innumerable smaller waves, each of which, in all probability, from some
+of its edges or surfaces reflects the sunbeams; and hence result a
+glitter, polish, and vigorous light over the whole flank of the wave,
+which are, of course, instantly withdrawn within the space of a cast
+shadow, whose form, therefore, though it does not affect the great body
+or ground of the water in the least, is sufficiently traceable by the
+withdrawal of the high lights; also every string and wreath of foam
+above or within the wave takes real shadow, and thus adds to the
+impression.
+
+I have not stated one-half of the circumstances which produce or
+influence effects of shadow on water; but lest I should confuse or weary
+the reader, I leave him to pursue the subject for himself; enough having
+been stated to establish this general principle, that whenever shadow is
+seen on clear water, and, in a measure, even on foul water, it is not,
+as on land, a dark shade subduing where it falls the sunny general hue
+to a lower tone; but it is a space of an entirely different color,
+subject itself, by its susceptibility of reflection, to infinite
+varieties of depth and hue, and liable, under certain circumstances, to
+disappear altogether; and that, therefore, whenever we have to paint
+such shadows, it is not only the hue of the water itself that we have to
+consider, but all the circumstances by which in the position attributed
+to them such shaded spaces could be affected.
+
+
+Sec. 11. Effect of ripple on distant water.
+
+Fourth: If water be rippled, the side of every ripple next to us
+reflects a piece of the sky, and the side of every ripple farthest from
+us reflects a piece of the opposite shore, or of whatever objects may be
+beyond the ripple. But as we soon lose sight of the farther sides of the
+ripples on the retiring surface, the whole rippled space will then be
+reflective of the sky only. Thus, where calm distant water receives
+reflections of high shores, every extent of rippled surface appears as a
+bright line interrupting that reflection with the color of the sky.
+
+
+Sec. 12. Elongation of reflections by moving water.
+
+Fifth: When a ripple or swell is seen at such an angle as to afford a
+view of its farther side, it carries the reflection of objects farther
+down than calm water would. Therefore all motion in water elongates
+reflections, and throws them into confused vertical lines. The real
+amount of this elongation is not distinctly visible, except in the case
+of very bright objects, and especially of lights, as of the sun, moon,
+or lamps by a river shore, whose reflections are hardly ever seen as
+circles or points, which of course they are on perfectly calm water, but
+as long streams of tremulous light.
+
+But it is strange that while we are constantly in the habit of seeing
+the reflection of the sun, which ought to be a mere circle, elongated
+into a stream of light extending from the horizon to the shore, the
+elongation of the reflection of a sail or other object to one-half of
+this extent is received, if represented in a picture, with incredulity
+by the greater number of spectators. In one of Turner's Venices the
+image of the white lateen-sails of the principal boat is about twice as
+long as the sails themselves. I have heard the truth of this simple
+effect disputed over and over again by intelligent persons, and yet on
+any water so exposed as the lagoons of Venice, the periods are few and
+short when there is so little motion as that the reflection of sails a
+mile off shall not affect the swell within six feet of the spectator.
+
+There is, however, a strange arbitrariness about this elongation of
+reflection, which prevents it from being truly felt. If we see on an
+extent of lightly swelling water surface the image of a bank of white
+clouds, with masses of higher accumulation at intervals, the water will
+not usually reflect the whole bank in an elongated form, but it will
+commonly take the eminent parts, and reflect them in long straight
+columns of defined breadth, and miss the intermediate lower parts
+altogether; and even in doing this it will be capricious, for it will
+take one eminence, and miss another, with no apparent reason; and often
+when the sky is covered with white clouds, some of those clouds will
+cast long tower-like reflections, and others none, so arbitrarily that
+the spectator is often puzzled to find out which are the accepted and
+which the refused.
+
+In many cases of this kind it will be found rather that the eye is, from
+want of use and care, insensible to the reflection than that the
+reflection is not there; and a little thought and careful observation
+will show us that what we commonly suppose to be a surface of uniform
+color is, indeed, affected more or less by an infinite variety of hues,
+prolonged, like the sun image, from a great distance, and that our
+apprehension of its lustre, purity, and even of its surface, is in no
+small degree dependent on our feeling of these multitudinous hues, which
+the continual motion of that surface prevents us from analyzing or
+understanding for what they are.
+
+
+Sec. 13. Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images.
+
+Sixth: Rippled water, of which we can see the farther side of the waves,
+will reflect a perpendicular line clearly, a bit of its length being
+given on the side of each wave, and easily joined by the eye. But if the
+line slope, its reflection will be excessively confused and disjointed;
+and if horizontal, nearly invisible. It was this circumstance which
+prevented the red and white stripe of the ships at Venice, noticed
+above, from being visible.
+
+
+Sec. 14. To what extent reflection is visible from above.
+
+Seventh: Every reflection is the image in reverse of just so much of the
+objects beside the water, as we could see if we were placed as much
+under the level of the water as we are actually above it. If an object
+be so far back from the bank, that if we were five feet under the water
+level we could not see it over the bank, then, standing five feet above
+the water, we shall not be able to see its image under the reflected
+bank. Hence the reflection of all objects that have any slope back from
+the water is shortened, and at last disappears as we rise above it.
+Lakes seen from a great height appear like plates of metal set in the
+landscape, reflecting the sky but none of their shores.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Deflection of images on agitated water.
+
+Eighth: Any given point of the object above the water is reflected, if
+reflected at all, at some spot in a vertical line beneath it, so long as
+the plane of the water is horizontal. On rippled water a slight
+deflection sometimes takes place, and the image of a vertical tower will
+slope a little away from the wind, owing to the casting of the image on
+the sloping sides of the ripples. On the sloping sides of large waves
+the deflection is in proportion to the slope. For rough practice, after
+the slope of the wave is determined, let the artist turn his paper until
+it becomes horizontal, and then paint the reflections of any object upon
+it as on level water, and he will be right.
+
+
+Sec. 16. Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science.
+      Licenses, how taken by great men.
+
+Such are the most common and general optical laws which are to be taken
+into consideration in the painting of water. Yet, in the application of
+them, as tests of good or bad water painting, we must be cautious in the
+extreme. An artist may know all these laws, and comply with them, and
+yet paint water execrably; and he may be ignorant of every one of them,
+and, in their turn, and in certain places, violate every one of them,
+and yet paint water gloriously. Thousands of exquisite effects take
+place in nature, utterly inexplicable, and which can be believed only
+while they are seen; the combinations and applications of the above laws
+are so varied and complicated that no knowledge or labor could, if
+applied analytically, keep pace with them. Constant and eager
+watchfulness, and portfolios filled with actual statements of
+water-effect, drawn on the spot and on the instant, are worth more to
+the painter than the most extended optical knowledge; without these all
+his knowledge will end in a pedantic falsehood. With these it does not
+matter how gross or how daring here and there may be his violations of
+this or that law; his very transgressions will be admirable.
+
+It may be said, that this is a dangerous principle to advance in these
+days of idleness. I cannot help it; it is true, and must be affirmed.
+Of all contemptible criticism, the most to be contemned is that which
+punishes great works of art when they fight without armor, and refuses
+to feel or acknowledge the great spiritual refracted sun of their truth,
+because it has risen at a false angle, and burst upon them before its
+appointed time. And yet, on the other hand, let it be observed that it
+is not feeling, nor fancy, nor imagination, so called, that I have put
+before science, but watchfulness, experience, affection and trust in
+nature; and farther let it be observed, that there is a difference
+between the license taken by one man and another, which makes one
+license admirable, and the other punishable; and that this difference is
+of a kind sufficiently discernible by every earnest person, though it is
+not so explicable as that we can beforehand say where and when, or even
+to whom, the license is to be forgiven. In the Paradise of Tintoret, in
+the Academy of Venice, the Angel is seen in the distance driving Adam
+and Eve out of the garden. Not, for Tintoret, the leading to the gate
+with consolation or counsel; his strange ardor of conception is seen
+here as everywhere. Full speed they fly, the angel and the human
+creatures; the angel wrapt in an orb of light floats on, stooped forward
+in his fierce flight, and does not touch the ground; the chastised
+creatures rush before him in abandoned terror. All this might have been
+invented by another, though in other hands it would assuredly have been
+offensive; but one circumstance which completes the story could have
+been thought of or dared by none but Tintoret. The Angel casts a SHADOW
+before him towards Adam and Eve.
+
+Now that a globe of light should cast a shadow is a license, as far as
+mere optical matters are concerned, of the most audacious kind. But how
+beautiful is the circumstance in its application here, showing that the
+angel, who is light to all else around him, is darkness to those whom he
+is commissioned to banish forever.
+
+I have before noticed the license of Rubens in making his horizon an
+oblique line. His object is to carry the eye to a given point in the
+distance. The road winds to it, the clouds fly at it, the trees nod to
+it, a flock of sheep scamper towards it, a carter points his whip at it,
+his horses pull for it, the figures push for it, and the horizon slopes
+to it. If the horizon had been horizontal, it would have embarrassed
+everything and everybody.
+
+In Turner's Pas de Calais there is a buoy poised on the ridge of a near
+wave. It casts its reflection vertically down the flank of the wave,
+which slopes steeply. I cannot tell whether this is a license or a
+mistake; I suspect the latter, for the same thing occurs not
+unfrequently in Turner's seas; but I am almost certain that it would
+have been done wilfully in this case, even had the mistake been pointed
+out, for the vertical line is necessary to the picture, and the eye is
+so little accustomed to catch the real bearing of the reflections on the
+slopes of waves that it does not feel the fault.
+
+
+Sec. 17. Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp,
+        Vandevelde.
+
+In one of the smaller rooms of the Uffizii at Florence, off the Tribune,
+there are two so-called Claudes; one a pretty wooded landscape, I think
+a copy, the other a marine with architecture, very sweet and genuine.
+The sun is setting at the side of the picture, it casts a long stream of
+light upon the water. This stream of light is oblique, and comes from
+the horizon, where it is under the sun, to a point near the centre of
+the picture. If this had been done as a license, it would be an instance
+of most absurd and unjustifiable license, as the fault is detected by
+the eye in a moment, and there is no occasion nor excuse for it. But I
+imagine it to be an instance rather of the harm of imperfect science.
+Taking his impression instinctively from nature, Claude usually did what
+is right and put his reflection vertically under the sun; probably,
+however, he had read in some treatise on optics that every point in this
+reflection was in a vertical plane between the sun and spectator; or he
+might have noticed walking on the shore that the reflection came
+straight from the sun to his feet, and intending to indicate the
+position of the spectator, drew in his next picture the reflection
+sloping to the supposed point, the error being excusable enough, and
+plausible enough to have been lately revived and systematized.[62]
+
+In the picture of Cuyp, No. 83 in the Dulwich Gallery, the post at the
+end of the bank casts three or four radiating reflections. This is
+visibly neither license nor half science, but pure ignorance. Again, in
+the picture attributed to Paul Potter, No. 176, Dulwich Gallery, I
+believe most people must feel, the moment they look at it, that there is
+something wrong with the water, that it looks odd, and hard, and like
+ice or lead; and though they may not be able to tell the reason of the
+impression--for when they go near they will find it smooth and lustrous,
+and prettily painted--yet they will not be able to shake off the
+unpleasant sense of its being like a plate of bad mirror set in a model
+landscape among moss, rather than like a pond. The reason is, that while
+this water receives clear reflections from the fence and hedge on the
+left, and is everywhere smooth and evidently capable of giving true
+images, it yet reflects none of the cows.
+
+In the Vandevelde (113) there is not a line of ripple or swell in any
+part of the sea; it is absolutely windless, and the near boat casts its
+image with great fidelity, which being unprolonged downwards informs us
+that the calm is perfect, (Rule V.,) and being unshortened informs us
+that we are on a level with the water, or nearly so. (Rule VII.) Yet
+underneath the vessel on the right, the gray shade which stands for
+reflection breaks off immediately, descending like smoke a little way
+below the hull, then leaving the masts and sails entirely unrecorded.
+This I imagine to be not ignorance, but unjustifiable license.
+Vandevelde evidently desired to give an impression of great extent of
+surface, and thought that if he gave the reflection more faithfully, as
+the tops of the masts would come down to the nearest part of the
+surface, they would destroy the evidence of distance, and appear to set
+the ship above the boat instead of beyond it. I doubt not in such
+awkward hands that such would indeed have been the case, but he is not
+on that account to be excused for painting his surface with gray
+horizontal lines, as is done by nautically-disposed children; for no
+destruction of distance in the ocean is so serious a loss as that of its
+liquidity. It is better to feel a want of extent in the sea, than an
+extent which we might walk upon or play at billiards upon.
+
+
+Sec. 18. And Canaletto.
+
+Among all the pictures of Canaletto, which I have ever seen, and they
+are not a few, I remember but one or two where there is any variation
+from one method of treatment of the water. He almost always covers the
+whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed of a coat of
+well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green, covered with a
+certain number, I cannot state the exact average, but it varies from
+three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards, according to the
+extent of canvas to be covered, of white concave touches, which are very
+properly symbolical of ripple.
+
+And, as the canal retires back from the eye, he very geometrically
+diminishes the size of his ripples, until he arrives at an even field of
+apparently smooth water. By our sixth rule, this rippling water as it
+retires should show more and more of the reflection of the sky above it,
+and less and less of that of objects beyond it, until, at two or three
+hundred yards down the canal, the whole field of water should be one
+even gray or blue, the color of the sky receiving no reflections
+whatever of other objects. What does Canaletto do? Exactly in proportion
+as he retires, he displays _more_ and _more_ of the reflection of
+objects, and less and less of the sky, until, three hundred yards away,
+all the houses are reflected as clear and sharp as in a quiet lake.
+
+This, again, is wilful and inexcusable violation of truth, of which the
+reason, as in the last case, is the painter's consciousness of weakness.
+It is one of the most difficult things in the world to express the light
+reflection of the blue sky on a distant ripple, and to make the eye
+understand the cause of the color, and the motion of the apparently
+smooth water, especially where there are buildings above to be
+reflected, for the eye never understands the want of the reflection. But
+it is the easiest and most agreeable thing in the world to give the
+inverted image: it occupies a vast space of otherwise troublesome
+distance in the simplest way possible, and is understood by the eye at
+once. Hence Canaletto is glad, as any other inferior workman would be,
+not to say obliged, to give the reflections in the distance. But when he
+comes up close to the spectator, he finds the smooth surface just as
+troublesome near, as the ripple would have been far off. It is a very
+nervous thing for an ignorant artist to have a great space of vacant
+smooth water to deal with, close to him, too far down to take
+reflections from buildings, and yet which must be made to look flat and
+retiring and transparent. Canaletto, with his sea-green, did not at all
+feel himself equal to anything of this kind, and had therefore no
+resource but in the white touches above described, which occupy the
+alarming space without any troublesome necessity for knowledge or
+invention, and supply by their gradual diminution some means of
+expressing retirement of surface. It is easily understood, therefore,
+why he should adopt this system, which is just what any awkward workman
+would naturally cling to, trusting to the inaccuracy of observation of
+the public to secure him from detection.
+
+
+Sec. 19. Why unpardonable.
+
+Now in all these cases it is not the mistake or the license itself, it
+is not the infringement of this or that law which condemns the picture,
+but it is the spirit and habit of mind in which the license is taken,
+the cowardice or bluntness of feeling, which infects every part alike,
+and deprives the whole picture of vitality. Canaletto, had he been a
+great painter, might have cast his reflections wherever he chose, and
+rippled the water wherever he chose, and painted his sea sloping if he
+chose, and neither I nor any one else should have dared to say a word
+against him; but he is a little and a bad painter, and so continues
+everywhere multiplying and magnifying mistakes, and adding apathy to
+error, until nothing can any more be pardoned in him. If it be but
+remembered that every one of the surfaces of those multitudinous ripples
+is in nature a mirror which catches, according to its position, either
+the image of the sky or of the silver beaks of the gondolas, or of their
+black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the white marble, or the green
+sea-weed on the low stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would
+have something more of color upon them than that opaque dead green.
+Green they are by their own nature, but it is a transparent and emerald
+hue, mixing itself with the thousand reflected tints without
+overpowering the weakest of them; and thus, in every one of those
+individual waves, the truths of color are contradicted by Canaletto by
+the thousand.
+
+Venice is sad and silent now, to what she was in his time; the canals
+are choked gradually one by one, and the foul water laps more and more
+sluggishly against the rent foundations; but even yet, could I but place
+the reader at the early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the
+market boats, full laden, float into groups of golden color, and let him
+watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and
+under the shadows of the vine leaves, and show him the purple of the
+grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds carried away
+in long streams upon the waves, and among them, the crimson fish
+baskets, plashing and sparkling, and flaming as the morning sun falls on
+their wet tawny sides, and above, the painted sails of the fishing
+boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue, and better than all such
+florid color, the naked, bronzed, burning limbs of the seamen, the last
+of the old Venetian race, who yet keep the right Giorgione color on
+their brows and bosoms, in strange contrast with the sallow sensual
+degradation of the creatures that live in the cafes of the Piazza, he
+would not be merciful to Canaletto any more.
+
+
+Sec. 20. The Dutch painters of sea.
+
+Yet even Canaletto, in relation to the truths he had to paint, is
+spiritual, faithful, powerful, compared to the Dutch painters of sea. It
+is easily understood why his green paint and concave touches should be
+thought expressive of the water on which the real colors are not to be
+discerned but by attention, which is never given; but it is not so
+easily understood, considering how many there are who love the sea, and
+look at it, that Vandevelde and such others should be tolerated. As I
+before said, I feel utterly hopeless in addressing the admirers of these
+men, because I do not know what it is in their works which is supposed
+to be like nature. Foam appears to me to curdle and cream on the wave
+sides and to fly, flashing from their crests, and not to be set astride
+upon them like a peruke; and waves appear to me to fall, and plunge, and
+toss, and nod, and crash over, and not to curl up like shavings; and
+water appears to me, when it is gray, to have the gray of stormy air
+mixed with its own deep, heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not
+the gray of the first coat of cheap paint on a deal door; and many other
+such things appear to me which, as far as I can conjecture by what is
+admired of marine painting, appear to no one else; yet I shall have
+something more to say about these men presently, with respect to the
+effect they have had upon Turner; and something more, I hope, hereafter,
+with the help of illustration.
+
+
+Sec. 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator.
+
+There is a sea-piece of Ruysdael's in the Louvre[63] which, though
+nothing very remarkable in any quality of art, is at least forceful,
+agreeable, and, as far as it goes, natural; the waves have much freedom
+of action, and power of color; the wind blows hard over the shore, and
+the whole picture may be studied with profit as a proof that the
+deficiency of color and everything else in Backhuysen's works, is no
+fault of the Dutch sea. There is sublimity and power in every field of
+nature from the pole to the line; and though the painters of one country
+are often better and greater, universally, than those of another, this
+is less because the subjects of art are wanting anywhere, than because
+one country or one age breeds mighty and thinking men, and another none.
+
+Ruysdael's painting of falling water and brook scenery is also generally
+agreeable--more than agreeable it can hardly be considered. There
+appears no exertion of mind in any of his works; nor are they calculated
+to produce either harm or good by their feeble influence. They are good
+furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.
+
+The seas of Claude are the finest pieces of water-painting in ancient
+art. I do not say that I like them, because they appear to me selections
+of the particular moment when the sea is most insipid and characterless;
+but I think that they are exceedingly true to the forms and time
+selected, or at least that the fine instances of them are so, of which
+there are exceedingly few.
+
+On the right hand of one of the marines of Salvator, in the Pitti
+palace, there is a passage of sea reflecting the sunrise, which is
+thoroughly good, and very like Turner; the rest of the picture, as the
+one opposite to it, utterly virtueless. I have not seen any other
+instance of Salvator's painting water with any care, it is usually as
+conventional as the rest of his work, yet conventionalism is perhaps
+more tolerable in water-painting than elsewhere; and if his trees and
+rocks had been good, the rivers might have been generally accepted
+without objection.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Nicholas Poussin.
+
+The merits of Poussin as a sea or water painter may, I think, be
+sufficiently determined by the Deluge in the Louvre, where the breaking
+up of the fountains of the deep is typified by the capsizing of a wherry
+over a weir.
+
+In the outer porch of St. Mark's at Venice, among the mosaics on the
+roof, there is a representation of the deluge. The ground is dark blue;
+the rain is represented in bright white undulating parallel stripes;
+between these stripes is seen the massy outline of the ark, a bit
+between each stripe, very dark and hardly distinguishable from the sky;
+but it has a square window with a bright golden border, which glitters
+out conspicuously, and leads the eye to the rest--the sea below is
+almost concealed with dead bodies.
+
+On the font of the church of San Frediano at Lucca, there is a
+representation of--possibly--the Israelites and Egyptians in the Red
+Sea. The sea is typified by undulating bands of stone, each band
+composed of three plies (almost the same type is to be seen in the
+glass-painting of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as especially at
+Chartres). These bands would perhaps be hardly felt as very aqueous, but
+for the fish which are interwoven with them in a complicated manner,
+their heads appearing at one side of every band, and their tails at the
+other.
+
+Both of these representatives of deluge, archaic and rude as they are, I
+consider better, more suggestive, more inventive, and more natural,
+than Poussin's. Indeed, this is not saying anything very depreciatory,
+as regards the St. Mark's one, for the glittering of the golden window
+through the rain is wonderfully well conceived, and almost deceptive,
+looking as if it had just caught a gleam of sunlight on its panes, and
+there is something very sublime in the gleam of this light above the
+floating corpses. But the other instance is sufficiently grotesque and
+imperfect, and yet, I speak with perfect seriousness, it is, I think,
+very far preferable to Poussin's.
+
+On the other hand, there is a just medium between the meanness and
+apathy of such a conception as his, and the extravagance, still more
+contemptible, with which the subject has been treated in modern
+days.[64] I am not aware that I can refer to any instructive example of
+this intermediate course, for I fear the reader is by this time wearied
+of hearing of Turner, and the plate of Turner's picture of the deluge is
+so rare that it is of no use to refer to it.
+
+
+Sec. 23. Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion.
+
+It seems exceedingly strange that the great Venetian painters should
+have left us no instance, as far as I know, of any marine effects
+carefully studied. As already noted, whatever passages of sea occur in
+their backgrounds are merely broad extents of blue or green surface,
+fine in color, and coming dark usually against the horizon, well enough
+to be understood as sea, (yet even that not always without the help of a
+ship,) but utterly unregarded in all questions of completion and detail.
+The water even in Titian's landscape is almost always violently though
+grandly conventional, and seldom forms an important feature. Among the
+religious schools very sweet motives occur, but nothing which for a
+moment can be considered as real water-painting. Perugino's sea is
+usually very beautifully felt; his river in the fresco of S^ta.
+Maddalena at Florence is freely indicated, and looks level and clear;
+the reflections of the trees given with a rapid zigzag stroke of the
+brush. On the whole, I suppose that the best imitations of level water
+surface to be found in ancient art are in the clear Flemish landscapes.
+Cuyp's are usually very satisfactory, but even the best of these attain
+nothing more than the agreeable suggestion of calm pond or river. Of any
+tolerable representation of water in agitation, or under any
+circumstances that bring out its power and character, I know no
+instance; and the more capable of noble treatment the subject happens to
+be, the more manifest invariably is the painter's want of feeling in
+every effort, and of knowledge in every line.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [61] I state this merely as a fact: I am unable satisfactorily to
+    account for it on optical principles, and were it otherwise, the
+    investigation would be of little interest to the general reader, and
+    little value to the artist.
+
+  [62] Parsey's "Convergence of Perpendiculars." I have not space here
+    to enter into any lengthy exposure of this mistake, but reasoning is
+    fortunately unnecessary, the appeal to experiment being easy. Every
+    picture is the representation, as before stated, of a vertical plate
+    of glass, with what might be seen through it, drawn on its surface.
+    Let a vertical plate of glass be taken, and wherever it be placed,
+    whether the sun be at its side or at its centre, the reflection will
+    always be found in a vertical line under the sun, parallel with the
+    side of the glass. The pane of any window looking to sea is all the
+    apparatus necessary for this experiment, and yet it is not long
+    since this very principle was disputed with me by a man of much
+    taste and information, who supposed Turner to be wrong in drawing
+    the reflection straight down at the side of his picture, as in his
+    Lancaster Sands, and innumerable other instances.
+
+  [63] In the last edition of this work was the following passage:--"I
+    wish Ruysdael had painted one or two rough seas. I believe if he had
+    he might have saved the unhappy public from much grievous
+    victimizing, both in mind and pocket, for he would have shown that
+    Vandevelde and Backhuysen were not quite sea-deities." The writer
+    has to thank the editor of Murray's Handbook of Painting in Italy
+    for pointing out the oversight. He had passed many days in the
+    Louvre before the above passage was written, but had not been in the
+    habit of pausing long anywhere except in the last two rooms,
+    containing the pictures of the Italian school. The conjecture,
+    however, shows that he had not ill-estimated the power of Ruysdael;
+    nor does he consider it as in anywise unfitting him for the task he
+    has undertaken, that for every hour passed in galleries he has
+    passed days on the seashore.
+
+  [64] I am here, of course, speaking of the treatment of the subject
+    as a landscape only; many mighty examples of its conception occur
+    where the sea, and all other adjuncts, are entirely subservient to
+    the figures, as with Raffaelle and M. Angelo.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+                     OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY THE MODERNS.
+
+
+Sec. 1. General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. The lakes of
+       Fielding.
+
+There are few men among modern landscape painters, who cannot paint
+quiet water at least suggestively, if not faithfully. Those who are
+incapable of doing this, would scarcely be considered artists at all;
+and anything like the ripples of Canaletto, or the black shadows of
+Vandevelde, would be looked upon as most unpromising, even in the work
+of a novice. Among those who most fully appreciate and render the
+qualities of space and surface in calm water, perhaps Copley Fielding
+stands first. His expanses of windless lake are among the most perfect
+passages of his works; for he can give surface as well as depth, and
+make his lake look not only clear, but, which is far more difficult,
+lustrous. He is less dependent than most of our artists upon
+reflections; and can give substance, transparency, and extent, where
+another painter would be reduced to paper; and he is exquisitely refined
+in his expression of distant breadth, by the delicate line of ripple
+interrupting the reflection, and by aerial qualities of color. Nothing,
+indeed, can be purer or more refined than his general feeling of lake
+sentiment, were it not for a want of simplicity--a fondness for pretty,
+rather than impressive color, and a consequent want of some of the
+higher expression of repose.
+
+
+Sec. 2. The calm rivers of De Wint, J. Holland, etc.
+
+Sec. 3. The character of bright and violent falling water.
+
+Sec. 4. As given by Nesfield.
+
+Hundreds of men might be named, whose works are highly instructive in
+the management of calm water. De Wint is singularly powerful and
+certain, exquisitely bright and vigorous in color. The late John Varley
+produced some noble passages. I have seen, some seven years ago, works
+by J. Holland, which were, I think, as near perfection as water-color
+can be carried--for _bona fide_ truth, refined and finished to the
+highest degree. But the power of modern artists is not brought out until
+they have greater difficulties to struggle with. Stand for half an hour
+beside the fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side where the rapids are
+long, and watch how the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure,
+polished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of the cataract,
+covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick--so swift that
+its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts over it
+like a falling star; and how the trees are lighted above it under all
+their leaves, at the instant that it breaks into foam; and how all the
+hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering
+chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white flash,
+a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall like a rocket, bursting in
+the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how,
+through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the
+blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the
+sky through white rain-cloud; while the shuddering iris stoops in
+tremulous stillness over all, fading and flushing alternately through
+the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among
+the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild
+water; their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded
+corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the
+mossy rocks as its roar dies away; the dew gushing from their thick
+branches through drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and sparkling in
+white threads along the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens
+which chase and checker them with purple and silver. I believe, when you
+have stood by this for half an hour, you will have discovered that there
+is something more in nature than has been given by Ruysdael. Probably
+you will not be much disposed to think of any mortal work at the time;
+but when you look back to what you have seen, and are inclined to
+compare it with art, you will remember--or ought to remember--Nesfield.
+He is a man of extraordinary feeling, both for the color and the
+spirituality of a great waterfall; exquisitely delicate in his
+management of the changeful veil of spray or mist; just in his curves
+and contours; and unequalled in color except by Turner. None of our
+water-color painters can approach him in the management of the variable
+hues of clear water over weeded rocks; but his feeling for it often
+leads him a little too far, and, like Copley Fielding, he loses sight of
+simplicity and dignity for the sake of delicacy or prettiness. His
+waterfalls are, however, unequalled in their way; and, if he would
+remember, that in all such scenes there is much gloom as well as much
+splendor, and relieve the lustre of his attractive passages of color
+with more definite and prevalent grays, and give a little more substance
+to parts of his picture unaffected by spray, his work would be nearly
+perfect. His seas are also most instructive; a little confused in
+chiaroscuro, but refined in form and admirable in color.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding.
+
+Sec. 6. His color; and painting of sea.
+
+J. D. Harding is, I think, nearly unequalled in the _drawing_ of running
+water. I do not know what Stanfield would do; I have never seen an
+important piece of torrent drawn by him; but I believe even he could
+scarcely contend with the magnificent _abandon_ of Harding's brush.
+There is perhaps nothing which tells more in the drawing of water than
+decisive and swift execution; for, in a rapid touch the hand naturally
+falls into the very curve of projection which is the absolute truth;
+while in slow finish, all precision of curve and character is certain to
+be lost, except under the hand of an unusually powerful master. But
+Harding has both knowledge and velocity, and the fall of his torrents is
+beyond praise; impatient, chafing, substantial, shattering, crystalline,
+and capricious; full of various form, yet all apparently instantaneous
+and accidental, nothing conventional, nothing dependent upon parallel
+lines or radiating curves; all broken up and dashed to pieces over the
+irregular rock, and yet all in unity of motion. The color also of his
+_falling_ and bright water is very perfect; but in the dark and level
+parts of his torrents he has taken up a bad gray, which has hurt some of
+his best pictures. His gray in shadows under rocks or dark reflections
+is admirable; but it is when the stream is in full light, and unaffected
+by reflections in distance, that he gets wrong. We believe that the
+fault is in a want of expression of darkness in the color, making it
+appear like a positive hue of the water, for which it is much too dead
+and cold.
+
+Harding seldom paints sea, and it is well for Stanfield that he does
+not, or the latter would have to look to his crown. All that we have
+seen from his hand is, as coast sea, quite faultless; we only wish he
+would paint it more frequently; always, however, with a veto upon French
+fishing-boats. In the Exhibition of 1842, he spoiled one of the most
+superb pieces of seashore and sunset which modern art has produced, with
+the pestilent square sail of one of these clumsy craft, which the eye
+could not escape from.
+
+
+Sec. 7. The sea of Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity.
+
+Before passing to our great sea painter, we must again refer to the
+works of Copley Fielding. It is with his sea as with his sky, he can
+only paint one, and that an easy one, but it is, for all that, an
+impressive and a true one. No man has ever given, with the same flashing
+freedom, the race of a running tide under a stiff breeze, nor caught,
+with the same grace and precision, the curvature of the breaking wave,
+arrested or accelerated by the wind. The forward fling of his foam, and
+the impatient run of his surges, whose quick, redoubling dash we can
+almost hear, as they break in their haste upon their own bosoms, are
+nature itself, and his sea gray or green was, nine years ago, very
+right, as color; always a little wanting in transparency, but never cold
+or toneless. Since that time, he seems to have lost the sense of
+greenness in water, and has verged more and more on the purple and
+black, with unhappy results. His sea was always dependent for effect on
+its light or dark relief against the sky, even when it possessed color;
+but it now has lost all local color and transparency together, and is
+little more than a study of chiaroscuro in an exceedingly ill-chosen
+gray. Besides, the perpetual repetition of the same idea is singularly
+weakening to the mind. Fielding, in all his life, can only be considered
+as having produced _one_ sea picture. The others are duplicates. He
+ought to go to some sea of perfect clearness and brilliant color, as
+that on the coast of Cornwall, or of the Gulf of Genoa, and study it
+sternly in broad daylight, with no black clouds nor drifting rain to
+help him out of his difficulties. He would then both learn his strength
+and add to it.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Its high aim at character.
+
+Sec. 9. But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays.
+
+Sec. 10. Variety of the grays of nature.
+
+But there is one point in all his seas deserving especial praise--a
+marked aim at _character_. He desires, especially in his latter works,
+not so much to produce an agreeable picture, a scientific piece of
+arrangement, or delightful melody of color, as to make us feel the
+utter desolation, the cold, withering, frozen hopelessness of the
+continuous storm and merciless sea. And this is peculiarly remarkable in
+his denying himself all color, just in the little bits which an artist
+of inferior mind would paint in sienna and cobalt. If a piece of broken
+wreck is allowed to rise for an instant through the boiling foam, though
+the blue stripe of a sailor's jacket, or a red rag of a flag would do
+all our hearts good, we are not allowed to have it; it would make us too
+comfortable, and prevent us from shivering and shrinking as we look, and
+the artist, with admirable intention, and most meritorious self-denial,
+expresses his piece of wreck with a dark, cold brown. Now we think this
+aim and effort worthy of the highest praise, and we only wish the lesson
+were taken up and acted on by our other artists; but Mr. Fielding should
+remember that nothing of this kind can be done with success unless by
+the most studied management of the general tones of the picture; for the
+eye, deprived of all means of enjoying the gray hues, merely as a
+contrast to bright points, becomes painfully fastidious in the quality
+of the hues themselves, and demands for its satisfaction such melodies
+and richness of gray as may in some degree atone to it for the loss of
+points of stimulus. That gray which would be taken frankly and freely
+for an expression of gloom, if it came behind a yellow sail or a red
+cap, is examined with invidious and merciless intentness when there is
+nothing to relieve it, and, if not able to bear the investigation, if
+neither agreeable nor variable in its hue, renders the picture weak
+instead of impressive, and unpleasant instead of awful. And indeed the
+management of nature might teach him this; for though, when using
+violent contrasts, she frequently makes her gloom somewhat monotonous,
+the moment she gives up her vivid color, and depends upon her
+desolation, that moment she begins to steal the greens into her
+sea-gray, and the browns and yellows into her cloud-gray, and the
+expression of variously tinted light through all. Nor is Mr. Fielding
+without a model in art, for the Land's End, and Lowestoffe, and
+Snowstorm, (in the Academy, 1842,) of Turner, are nothing more than
+passages of the most hopeless, desolate, uncontrasted grays, and yet are
+three of the very finest pieces of color that have come from his hand.
+And we sincerely hope that Mr. Fielding will gradually feel the
+necessity of such studied melodies of quiet color, and will neither fall
+back into the old tricks of contrast, nor continue to paint with purple
+and ink. If he will only make a few careful studies of gray from the
+mixed atmosphere of spray, rain, and mist of a gale that has been three
+days hard at work, not of a rainy squall, but of a persevering and
+powerful storm, and not where the sea is turned into milk and magnesia
+by a chalk coast, but where it breaks pure and green on gray slate or
+white granite, as along the cliffs of Cornwall, we think his pictures
+would present some of the finest examples of high intention and feeling
+to be found in modern art.
+
+
+Sec. 11. Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power.
+
+Sec. 12. But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern art.
+
+The works of Stanfield evidently, and at all times, proceed from the
+hand of a man who has both thorough knowledge of his subject, and
+thorough acquaintance with all the means and principles of art. We never
+criticise them, because we feel, the moment we look carefully at the
+drawing of any single wave, that the knowledge possessed by the master
+is much greater than our own, and therefore believe that if anything
+offends us in any part of the work, it is nearly certain to be our
+fault, and not the painter's. The local color of Stanfield's sea is
+singularly true and powerful, and entirely independent of any tricks of
+chiaroscuro. He will carry a mighty wave up against the sky, and make
+its whole body dark and substantial against the distant light, using all
+the while nothing more than chaste and unexaggerated local color to gain
+the relief. His surface is at once lustrous, transparent, and accurate
+to a hairbreadth in every curve; and he is entirely independent of dark
+skies, deep blues, driving spray, or any other means of concealing want
+of form, or atoning for it. He fears no difficulty, desires no
+assistance, takes his sea in open daylight, under general sunshine, and
+paints the _element_ in its pure color and complete forms. But we wish
+that he were less powerful, and more interesting; or that he were a
+little less Diogenes-like, and did not scorn all that he does not want.
+Now that he has shown us what he can do without such aids, we wish he
+would show us what he can do with them. He is, as we have already said,
+wanting in what we have just been praising in Fielding--impressiveness.
+We should like him to be less clever, and more affecting--less
+wonderful, and more terrible; and as the very first step towards such an
+end, to learn how to conceal. We are, however, trenching upon matters
+with which we have at present nothing to do; our concern is now only
+with truth, and one work of Stanfield alone presents us with as much
+concentrated knowledge of sea and sky, as, diluted, would have lasted
+any one of the old masters his life. And let it be especially observed,
+how extensive and how varied is the truth of our modern masters--how it
+comprises a complete history of that nature of which, from the ancients,
+you only here and there can catch a stammering descriptive syllable--how
+Fielding has given us every character of the quiet lake, Robson[65] of
+the mountain tarn, De Wint of the lowland river, Nesfield of the radiant
+cataract, Harding of the roaring torrent, Fielding of the desolate sea,
+Stanfield of the blue, open, boundless ocean. Arrange all this in your
+mind, observe the perfect truth of it in all its parts, compare it with
+the fragmentary falsities of the ancients, and then, come with me to
+Turner.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [65] I ought before to have alluded to the works of the late G.
+    Robson. They are a little disagreeable in execution, but there is a
+    feeling of the character of _deep_ calm water in them quite
+    unequalled, and different from the works and thoughts of all other
+    men.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                       OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY TURNER.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water.
+
+Sec. 2. Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by which
+       the reflected rays are perceived.
+
+I believe it is a result of the experience of all artists, that it is
+the easiest thing in the world to give a certain degree of depth and
+transparency to water; but that it is next thing to impossible, to give
+a full impression of surface. If no reflection be given--a ripple being
+supposed--the water looks like lead: if reflection be given, it in nine
+cases out of ten looks _morbidly_ clear and deep, so that we always go
+down _into_ it, even when the artist most wishes us to glide _over_ it.
+Now, this difficulty arises from the very same circumstance which
+occasions the frequent failure in effect of the best drawn foregrounds,
+noticed in Section II. Chapter III., the change, namely, of focus
+necessary in the eye in order to receive rays of light coming from
+different distances. Go to the edge of a pond, in a perfectly calm day,
+at some place where there is duckweed floating on the surface,--not
+thick, but a leaf here and there. Now, you may either see in the water
+the reflection of the sky, or you may see the duckweed; but you cannot,
+by any effort, see both together. If you look for the reflection, you
+will be sensible of a sudden change or effort in the eye, by which it
+adapts itself to the reception of the rays which have come all the way
+from the clouds, have struck on the water, and so been sent up again to
+the eye. The focus you adopt is one fit for great distance; and,
+accordingly, you will feel that you are looking down a great way under
+the water, while the leaves of the duckweed, though they lie upon the
+water at the very spot on which you are gazing so intently, are felt
+only as a vague, uncertain interruption, causing a little confusion in
+the image below, but entirely indistinguishable as leaves,--and even
+their color unknown and unperceived. Unless you think of them, you will
+not even feel that anything interrupts your sight, so excessively
+slight is their effect. If, on the other hand, you make up your mind to
+look for the leaves of the duckweed, you will perceive an instantaneous
+change in the effort of the eye, by which it becomes adapted to receive
+near rays--those which have only come from the surface of the pond. You
+will then see the delicate leaves of the duckweed with perfect
+clearness, and in vivid green; but while you do so, you will be able to
+perceive nothing of the reflections in the very water on which they
+float--nothing but a vague flashing and melting of light and dark hues,
+without form or meaning, which, to investigate, or find out what they
+mean or are, you must quit your hold of the duckweed, and plunge down.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by distinctness of
+       reflections.
+
+Sec. 4. How avoided by Turner.
+
+Sec. 5. All reflections on distant water are distinct.
+
+Hence it appears, that whenever we see plain reflections of
+comparatively distant objects, in near water, we cannot possibly see the
+surface, and _vice versa_; so that when in a painting we give the
+reflections with the same clearness with which they are visible in
+nature, we presuppose the effort of the eye to look under the surface,
+and, of course, destroy the surface, and induce an effect of clearness
+which, perhaps, the artist has not particularly wished to attain, but
+which he has found himself forced into, by his reflections, in spite of
+himself. And the reason of this effect of clearness appearing
+preternatural is, that people are not in the habit of looking at water
+with the distant focus adapted to the reflections, unless by particular
+effort. We invariably, under ordinary circumstances, use the surface
+focus; and, in consequence, receive nothing more than a vague and
+confused impression of the reflected colors and lines, however clearly,
+calmly, and vigorously all may be defined underneath, if we choose to
+look for them. We do not look for them, but glide along over the
+surface, catching only playing light and capricious color for evidence
+of reflection, except where we come to images of objects close to the
+surface, which the surface focus is of course adapted to receive; and
+these we see clearly, as of the weeds on the shore, or of sticks rising
+out of the water, etc. Hence, the ordinary effect of water is only to be
+rendered by giving the reflections of the _margin_ clear and distinct
+(so clear they usually are in nature, that it is impossible to tell
+where the water begins;) but the moment we touch the reflection of
+distant objects, as of high trees or clouds, that instant we must become
+vague and uncertain in drawing, and, though vivid in color and light as
+the object itself, quite indistinct in form and feature. If we take such
+a piece of water as that in the foreground of Turner's Chateau of Prince
+Albert, the first impression from it is,--"What a wide _surface_!" We
+glide over it a quarter of a mile into the picture before we know where
+we are, and yet the water is as calm and crystalline as a mirror; but we
+are not allowed to tumble into it, and gasp for breath as we go
+down,--we are kept upon the surface, though that surface is flashing and
+radiant with every hue of cloud, and sun, and sky, and foliage. But the
+secret is in the drawing of these reflections.[66] We cannot tell when
+we look _at_ them and _for_ them, what they mean. They have all
+character, and are evidently reflections of something definite and
+determined; but yet they are all uncertain and inexplicable; playing
+color and palpitating shade, which, though we recognize in an instant
+for images of something, and feel that the water is bright, and lovely,
+and calm, we cannot penetrate nor interpret: we are not allowed to go
+down to them, and we repose, as we should in nature, upon the lustre of
+the level surface. It is in this power of saying everything, and yet
+saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art here, as in all
+other cases, consists. But as it was before shown in Sect. II. Chap.
+III. that the focus of the eye required little alteration after the
+first half mile of distance, it is evident that on the _distant_ surface
+of water, _all_ reflections will be seen plainly; for the same focus
+adapted to a moderate distance of surface will receive with distinctness
+rays coming from the sky, or from any other distance, however great.
+Thus we always see the reflection of Mont Blanc on the Lake of Geneva,
+whether we take pains to look for it or not, because the water upon
+which it is cast is itself a mile off; but if we would see the
+reflection of Mont Blanc in the Lac de Chede, which is close to us, we
+must take some trouble about the matter, leave the green snakes swimming
+upon the surface, and plunge for it. Hence reflections, if viewed
+collectively, are always clear in proportion to the distance of the
+water on which they are cast. And now look at Turner's Ulleswater, or
+any of his distant lake expanses, and you will find every crag and line
+of the hills rendered in them with absolute fidelity, while the near
+surface shows nothing but a vague confusion of exquisite and lustrous
+tint. The reflections even of the clouds will be given far off, while
+those of near boats and figures will be confused and mixed among each
+other, except just at the water-line.
+
+
+Sec. 6. The error of Vandevelde.
+
+And now we see what Vandevelde _ought_ to have done with the shadow of
+his ship spoken of in the first chapter of this section. In such a calm,
+we should in nature, if we had looked for the reflection, have seen it
+clear from the water-line to the flag on the mainmast; but in so doing,
+we should have appeared to ourselves to be looking under the water, and
+should have lost all feeling of surface. When we looked at the surface
+of the sea,--as we naturally should,--we should have seen the image of
+the hull absolutely clear and perfect, because that image is cast on
+distant water; but we should have seen the image of the masts and sails
+gradually more confused as they descended, and the water close to us
+would have borne only upon its surface a maze of flashing color and
+indefinite hue. Had Vandevelde, therefore, given the perfect image of
+his ship, he would have represented a truth dependent on a particular
+effort of the eye, and destroyed his surface. But his business was to
+give, not a distinct reflection, but the colors of the reflection in
+mystery and disorder upon his near water, all perfectly vivid, but none
+intelligible; and had he done so, the eye would not have troubled itself
+to search them out; it would not have cared whence or how the colors
+came, but it would have felt them to be true and right, and rested
+satisfied upon the polished surface of the clear sea. Of the perfect
+truth, the best examples I can give are Turner's Saltash and Castle
+Upnor.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected object and
+       its image.
+
+Be it next observed that the reflection of all near objects is, by our
+fifth rule, not an exact copy of the parts of them which we see above
+the water, but a totally different view and arrangement of them, that
+which we should get if we were looking at them from beneath. Hence we
+see the dark sides of leaves hanging over a stream, in their reflection,
+though we see the light sides above, and all objects and groups of
+objects are thus seen in the reflection under different lights, and in
+different positions with respect to each other from those which they
+assume above; some which we see on the bank being entirely lost in their
+reflection, and others which we cannot see on the bank brought into
+view. Hence nature contrives never to repeat herself, and the surface of
+water is not a mockery, but a new view of what is above it. And this
+difference in what is represented, as well as the obscurity of the
+representation, is one of the chief sources by which the sensation of
+surface is kept up in the reality. The reflection is not so remarkable,
+it does not attract the eye in the same degree when it is entirely
+different from the images above, as when it mocks them and repeats them,
+and we feel that the space and surface have color and character of their
+own, and that the bank is one thing and the water another. It is by not
+making this change manifest, and giving underneath a mere duplicate of
+what is seen above, that artists are apt to destroy the essence and
+substance of water, and to drop us through it.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Illustrated from the works of Turner.
+
+Sec. 9. The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it.
+
+Now one instance will be sufficient to show the exquisite care of Turner
+in this respect. On the left-hand side of his Nottingham, the water (a
+smooth canal) is terminated by a bank fenced up with wood, on which,
+just at the edge of the water, stands a white sign-post. A quarter of a
+mile back, the hill on which Nottingham Castle stands rises steeply
+nearly to the top of the picture. The upper part of this hill is in
+bright golden light, and the lower in very deep gray shadow, against
+which the white board of the sign-post is seen entirely in light relief,
+though, being turned from the light, it is itself in delicate middle
+tint, illumined only on the edge. But the image of all this in the
+canal is very different. First, we have the reflection of the piles of
+the bank, sharp and clear, but under this we have not what we see above
+it, the dark _base_ of the hill, (for this being a quarter of a mile
+back, we could not see over the fence if we were looking from below,)
+but the golden summit of the hill, the shadow of the under part having
+no record nor place in the reflection. But this summit, being very
+distant, cannot be seen clearly by the eye while its focus is adapted to
+the surface of the water, and accordingly its reflection is entirely
+vague and confused; you cannot tell what it is meant for, it is mere
+playing golden light. But the sign-post, being on the bank close to us,
+will be reflected clearly, and accordingly its distinct image is seen in
+the midst of this confusion. But it now is relieved, not against the
+dark base, but against the illumined summit of the hill, and it appears,
+therefore, instead of a white space thrown out from blue shade, a dark
+gray space thrown out from golden light. I do not know that any more
+magnificent example could be given of concentrated knowledge, or of the
+daring statement of most difficult truth. For who but this consummate
+artist would have had courage, even if he had perceived the laws which
+required it, to undertake in a single small space of water, the painting
+of an entirely new picture, with all its tones and arrangements
+altered,--what was made above bright by opposition to blue, being
+underneath made cool and dark by opposition to gold;--or would have
+dared to contradict so boldly the ordinary expectation of the
+uncultivated eye, to find in the reflection a mockery for the reality?
+But the reward is immediate, for not only is the change most grateful to
+the eye, and most exquisite as composition, but the surface of the water
+in consequence of it is felt to be as spacious as it is clear, and the
+eye rests not on the inverted image of the material objects, but on the
+element which receives them. And we have a farther instance in this
+passage of the close study which is required to enjoy the works of
+Turner, for another artist might have altered the reflection or confused
+it, but he would not have reasoned upon it so as to find out _what the
+exact alteration must be_; and if we had tried to account for the
+reflection, we should have found it false or inaccurate. But the master
+mind of Turner, without effort, showers its knowledge into every touch,
+and we have only to trace out even his slightest passages, part by part,
+to find in them the universal working of the deepest thought, that
+consistency of every minor truth which admits of and invites the same
+ceaseless study as the work of nature herself.
+
+
+Sec. 10. The _texture_ of surface in Turner's painting of calm water.
+
+There is, however, yet another peculiarity in Turner's painting of
+smooth water, which, though less deserving of admiration, as being
+merely a mechanical excellence, is not less wonderful than its other
+qualities, nor less unique--a peculiar texture, namely, given to the
+most delicate tints of the surface, when there is little reflection from
+anything except sky or atmosphere, and which, just at the points where
+other painters are reduced to paper, gives to the surface of Turner the
+greatest appearance of substantial liquidity. It is impossible to say
+how it is produced; it looks like some modification of body color; but
+it certainly is not body color used as by other men, for I have seen
+this expedient tried over and over again without success; and it is
+often accompanied by crumbling touches of a dry brush, which never could
+have been put upon body color, and which could not have shown through
+underneath it. As a piece of mechanical excellence, it is one of the
+most remarkable things in the works of the master; and it brings the
+truth of his water-painting up to the last degree of perfection, often
+rendering those passages of it the most attractive and delightful, which
+from their delicacy and paleness of tint, would have been weak and
+papery in the hands of any other man. The best instance of it I can
+give, is, I think, the distance of the Devonport with the Dockyards.
+
+
+Sec. 11. Its united qualities.
+
+After all, however, there is more in Turner's painting of water surface
+than any philosophy of reflection, or any peculiarity of means, can
+account for or accomplish; there is a might and wonder about it which
+will not admit of our whys and hows. Take, for instance, the picture of
+the Sun of Venice going to Sea, of 1843, respecting which, however,
+there are one or two circumstances which may as well be noted besides
+its water-painting. The reader, if he has not been at Venice, ought to
+be made aware that the Venetian fishing-boats, almost without exception,
+carry canvas painted with bright colors, the favorite design for the
+centre being either a cross or a large sun with many rays, the favorite
+colors being red, orange, and black, blue occurring occasionally. The
+radiance of these sails and of the bright and grotesque vanes at the
+mast-heads under sunlight is beyond all painting, but it is strange
+that, of constant occurrence as these boats are on all the lagoons,
+Turner alone should have availed himself of them. Nothing could be more
+faithful than the boat which was the principal object in this picture,
+in the cut of the sail, the filling of it, the exact height of the boom
+above the deck, the quartering of it with color, finally and especially,
+the hanging of the fish-baskets about the bows. All these, however, are
+comparatively minor merits, (though not the blaze of color which the
+artist elicited from the right use of these circumstances,) but the
+peculiar power of the picture was the painting of the sea surface, where
+there were no reflections to assist it. A stream of splendid color fell
+from the boat, but that occupied the centre only; in the distance, the
+city and crowded boats threw down some playing lines, but these still
+left on each side of the boat a large space of water reflecting nothing
+but the morning sky. This was divided by an eddying swell, on whose
+continuous sides the local color of the water was seen, pure aquamarine,
+(a beautiful occurrence of closely-observed truth,) but still there
+remained a large blank space of pale water to be treated, the sky above
+had no distinct details and was pure faint gray, with broken white
+vestiges of cloud: it gave no help therefore. But there the water lay,
+no dead gray flat paint, but downright clear, playing, palpable surface,
+full of indefinite hue, and retiring as regularly and visibly back and
+far away, as if there had been objects all over it to tell the story by
+perspective. Now it is the doing of this which tries the painter, and it
+is his having done this which made me say above that "no man had ever
+painted the surface of calm water but Turner." The San Benedetto,
+looking towards Fusina, contained a similar passage, equally fine; in
+one of the Canale della Guidecca the specific green color of the water
+is seen in front, with the shadows of the boats thrown on it in purple;
+all, as it retires, passing into the pure reflective blue.
+
+
+Sec. 12. Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, etc., by the
+        most trifling incidents, as in the Cowes.
+
+But Turner is not satisfied with this. He is never altogether content
+unless he can, at the same time that he takes advantage of all the
+placidity of repose, tell us something either about the past commotion
+of the water, or of some present stirring of tide or current which its
+stillness does not show, or give us something or other to think about
+and reason upon, as well as to look at. Take a few instances. His Cowes,
+Isle of Wight, is a summer twilight about half an hour, or more, after
+sunset. Intensity of repose is the great aim throughout, and the unity
+of tone of the picture is one of the finest things that Turner has ever
+done. But there is not only quietness, there is the very deepest
+solemnity in the whole of the light, as well as in the stillness of the
+vessels; and Turner wishes to enhance this feeling by representing not
+only repose, but _power_ in repose, the emblem, in the sea, of the quiet
+ships of war. Accordingly, he takes the greatest possible pains to get
+his surface polished, calm, and smooth, but he indicates the reflection
+of a buoy, floating a full quarter of a mile off, by three black strokes
+with wide intervals between them, the last of which touches the water
+within twenty yards of the spectator. Now these three reflections can
+only indicate the farther sides of three rises of an enormous swell, and
+give by their intervals of separation, a space of from twelve to twenty
+yards for the breadth of each wave, including the sweep between them,
+and this swell is farther indicated by the reflection of the new moon
+falling, in a wide zigzag line. The exceeding majesty which this single
+circumstance gives to the whole picture, the sublime sensation of power
+and knowledge of former exertion which we instantly receive from it, if
+we have but acquaintance with nature enough to understand its language,
+render this work not only a piece of the most refined truth, (as which I
+have at present named it,) but to my mind, one of the highest pieces of
+intellectual art existing.
+
+
+Sec. 13. In scenes on the Loire and Seine.
+
+Again, in the scene on the Loire, with the square precipice and fiery
+sunset, in the Rivers of France, repose has been aimed at in the same
+way, and most thoroughly given; but the immense width of the river at
+this spot makes it look like a lake or sea, and it was therefore
+necessary that we should be made thoroughly to understand and feel that
+this is not the calm of still water, but the tranquillity of a majestic
+current. Accordingly, a boat swings at anchor on the right; and the
+stream, dividing at its bow, flows towards us in two long, dark waves,
+especial attention to which is enforced by the one on the left being
+brought across the reflected stream of sunshine, which it separates, and
+which is broken in the nearer water by the general undulation and
+agitation caused by the boat's wake; a wake caused by the waters passing
+it, not by _its_ going through the water.
+
+
+Sec. 14. Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore.
+
+Sec. 15. Various other instances.
+
+Again, in the Confluence of the Seine and Marne, we have the repose of
+the wide river stirred by the paddles of the steamboat, (whose plashing
+we can almost hear, for we are especially compelled to look at them by
+their being made the central note of the composition--the blackest
+object in it, opposed to the strongest light,) and this disturbance is
+not merely caused by the two lines of surge from the boat's wake, for
+any other painter must have given these, but Turner never rests
+satisfied till he has told you _all_ in his power; and he has not only
+given the receding surges, but these have gone on to the shore, have
+struck upon it, and been beaten back from it in another line of weaker
+contrary surges, whose point of intersection with those of the wake
+itself is marked by the sudden subdivision and disorder of the waves of
+the wake on the extreme left, and whose reverted direction is
+exquisitely given where their lines cross the calm water, close to the
+spectator, and marked also by the sudden vertical spring of the spray
+just where they intersect the swell from the boat; and in order that we
+may fully be able to account for these reverted waves, we are allowed,
+just at the extreme right-hand limit of the picture, to see the point
+where the swell from the boat meets the shore. In the Chaise de
+Gargantua we have the still water lulled by the dead calm which usually
+precedes the most violent storms, suddenly broken upon by a tremendous
+burst of wind from the gathered thunder-clouds, scattering the boats,
+and raising the water into rage, except where it is sheltered by the
+hills. In the Jumieges and Vernon we have farther instances of local
+agitation, caused, in the one instance, by a steamer, in the other, by
+the large water-wheels under the bridge, not, observe, a mere splashing
+about the wheel itself, this is too far off to be noticeable, so that we
+should not have even known that the objects beneath the bridge were
+water-wheels, but for the agitation recorded a quarter of a mile down
+the river, where its current crosses the sunlight. And thus there will
+scarcely ever be found a piece of quiet water by Turner, without some
+story in it of one kind or another; sometimes a slight, but beautiful
+incident--oftener, as in the Cowes, something on which the whole
+sentiment and intention of the picture in a great degree depends; but
+invariably presenting some new instance of varied knowledge and
+observation, some fresh appeal to the highest faculties of the mind.
+
+
+Sec. 16. Turner's painting of distant expanses of water. Calm, interrupted
+        by ripple.
+
+Sec. 17. And ripple, crossed by sunshine.
+
+Of extended surfaces of water, as rendered by Turner, the Loch Katrine
+and Derwent-water, of the Illustrations to Scott, and the Loch Lomond,
+vignette in Rogers's Poems, are characteristic instances. The first of
+these gives us the most distant part of the lake entirely under the
+influence of a light breeze, and therefore entirely without reflections
+of the objects on its borders; but the whole near half is untouched by
+the wind, and on that is cast the image of the upper part of Ben-Venue
+and of the islands. The second gives us the surface, with just so much
+motion upon it as to prolong, but not to destroy, the reflections of the
+dark woods,--reflections only interrupted by the ripple of the boat's
+wake. And the third gives us an example of the whole surface so much
+affected by ripple as to bring into exercise all those laws which we
+have seen so grossly violated by Canaletto. We see in the nearest boat
+that though the lines of the gunwale are much blacker and more
+conspicuous than that of the cutwater, yet the gunwale lines, being
+nearly horizontal, have no reflection whatsoever; while the line of the
+cutwater, being vertical, has a distinct reflection of three times its
+own length. But even these tremulous reflections are only visible as far
+as the islands; beyond them, as the lake retires into distance, we find
+it receives only the reflection of the gray light from the clouds, and
+runs in one flat white field up between the hills; and besides all this,
+we have another phenomenon, quite new, given to us,--the brilliant gleam
+of light along the centre of the lake. This is not caused by ripple,
+for it is cast on a surface rippled all over; but it is what we could
+not have without ripple,--the light of a passage of sunshine. I have
+already (Chap. I., Sec. 9) explained the cause of this phenomenon, which
+never can by any possibility take place on calm water, being the
+multitudinous reflection of the sun from the sides of the ripples,
+causing an appearance of local light and shadow; and being dependent,
+like real light and shadow, on the passage of the clouds, though the
+dark parts of the water are the reflections of the clouds, not the
+shadows of them; and the bright parts are the reflections of the sun,
+and not the light of it. This little vignette, then, will entirely
+complete the system of Turner's universal truth in quiet water. We have
+seen every phenomenon given by him,--the clear reflection, the prolonged
+reflection, the reflection broken by ripple, and finally the ripple
+broken by light and shade; and it is especially to be observed how
+careful he is, in this last case, when he uses the apparent light and
+shade, to account for it by showing us in the whiteness of the lake
+beyond, its universal subjection to ripple.
+
+
+Sec. 18. His drawing of distant rivers.
+
+Sec. 19. And of surface associated with mist.
+
+We have not spoken of Turner's magnificent drawing of distant rivers,
+which, however, is dependent only on more complicated application of the
+same laws, with exquisite perspective. The sweeps of river in the
+Dryburgh, (Illustrations to Scott,) and Melrose, are bold and
+characteristic examples, as well as the Rouen from St. Catherine's Hill,
+and the Caudebec, in the Rivers of France. The only thing which in these
+works requires particular attention, is the care with which the height
+of the observer above the river is indicated by the loss of the
+reflections of its banks. This is, perhaps, shown most clearly in the
+Caudebec. If we had been on a level with the river, its whole surface
+would have been darkened by the reflection of the steep and high banks;
+but being far above it, we can see no more of the image than we could of
+the hill itself, if it were actually reversed under the water; and
+therefore we see that Turner gives us only a narrow line of dark water,
+immediately under the precipice, the broad surface reflecting only the
+sky. This is also finely shown on the left-hand side of the Dryburgh.
+
+But all these early works of the artist have been eclipsed by some
+recent drawings of Switzerland. These latter are not to be described by
+any words, but they must be noted here not only as presenting records of
+lake effect on grander scale, and of more imaginative character than any
+other of his works, but as combining effects of the surface of mist with
+the surface of water. Two or three of the Lake of Lucerne, seen from
+above, give the melting of the mountain promontories beneath into the
+clear depth, and above into the clouds; one of Constance shows the vast
+lake at evening, seen not as water, but its surface covered with low
+white mist, lying league beyond league in the twilight like a fallen
+space of moony cloud; one of Goldau shows the Lake of Zug appearing
+through the chasm of a thunder-cloud under sunset, its whole surface one
+blaze of fire, and the promontories of the hills thrown out against it,
+like spectres; another of Zurich gives the playing of the green waves of
+the river among white streams of moonlight: two purple sunsets on the
+Lake of Zug are distinguished for the glow obtained without positive
+color, the rose and purple tints being in great measure brought by
+opposition out of browns: finally, a drawing executed in 1845 of the
+town of Lucerne from the lake is unique for its expression of water
+surface reflecting the clear green hue of sky at twilight.
+
+
+Sec. 20. His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of weight.
+
+Sec. 21. The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by him.
+
+It will be remembered that it was said above, that Turner was the only
+painter who had ever represented the surface of calm or the _force_ of
+agitated water. He obtains this expression of force in falling or
+running water by fearless and full rendering of its forms. He never
+loses himself and his subject in the splash of the fall--his presence of
+mind never fails as he goes down; he does not blind us with the spray,
+or veil the countenance of his fall with its own drapery. A little
+crumbling white, or lightly rubbed paper, will soon give the effect of
+indiscriminate foam; but nature gives more than foam--she shows beneath
+it, and through it, a peculiar character of exquisitely studied form
+bestowed on every wave and line of fall; and it is this variety of
+definite character which Turner always aims at, rejecting, as much as
+possible, everything that conceals or overwhelms it. Thus, in the Upper
+Fall of the Tees, though the whole basin of the fall is blue and dim
+with the rising vapor, yet the whole attention of the spectator is
+directed to that which it was peculiarly difficult to render, the
+concentric zones and delicate curves of the falling water itself; and it
+is impossible to express with what exquisite accuracy these are given.
+They are the characteristic of a powerful stream descending without
+impediment or break, but from a narrow channel, so as to expand as it
+falls. They are the constant form which such a stream assumes as it
+descends; and yet I think it would be difficult to point to another
+instance of their being rendered in art. You will find nothing in the
+waterfalls even of our best painters, but springing lines of parabolic
+descent, and splashing, shapeless foam; and, in consequence, though they
+may make you understand the swiftness of the water, they never let you
+feel the weight of it; the stream in their hands looks _active_, not
+_supine_, as if it leaped, not as if it fell. Now water will leap a
+little way, it will leap down a weir or over a stone, but it _tumbles_
+over a high fall like this; and it is when we have lost the parabolic
+line, and arrived at the catenary,--when we have lost the _spring_ of
+the fall, and arrived at the _plunge_ of it, that we begin really to
+feel its weight and wildness. Where water takes its first leap from the
+top, it is cool, and collected, and uninteresting, and mathematical, but
+it is when it finds that it has got into a scrape, and has farther to go
+than it thought for, that its character comes out; it is then that it
+begins to writhe, and twist, and sweep out zone after zone in wilder
+stretching as it falls, and to send down the rocket-like, lance-pointed,
+whizzing shafts at its sides, sounding for the bottom. And it is this
+prostration, this hopeless abandonment of its ponderous power to the
+air, which is always peculiarly expressed by Turner, and especially in
+the case before us; while our other artists, keeping to the parabolic
+line, where they do not lose themselves in smoke and foam, make their
+cataract look muscular and wiry, and may consider themselves fortunate
+if they can keep it from stopping. I believe the majesty of motion which
+Turner has given by these concentric catenary lines must be felt even by
+those who have never seen a high waterfall, and therefore cannot
+appreciate their exquisite fidelity to nature.
+
+In the Chain Bridge over the Tees, this passiveness and swinging of the
+water to and fro are yet more remarkable; while we have another
+characteristic of a great waterfall given to us, that the wind, in this
+instance coming up the valley against the current, takes the spray up
+off the edges, and carries it back in little torn, reverted rags and
+threads, seen in delicate form against the darkness on the left. But we
+must understand a little more about the nature of running water before
+we can appreciate the drawing either of this, or any other of Turner's
+torrents.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when
+        interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of its bed.
+
+Sec. 23. But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.
+
+Sec. 24. Its exquisite curved lines.
+
+When water, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much interrupted
+by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in a pool as it goes
+along, it does not acquire a continuous velocity of motion. It pauses
+after every leap, and curdles about, and rests a little, and then goes
+on again; and if in this comparatively tranquil and rational state of
+mind it meets with an obstacle, as a rock or stone, it parts on each
+side of it with a little bubbling foam, and goes round; if it comes to a
+step in its bed, it leaps it lightly, and then after a little plashing
+at the bottom, stops again to take breath. But if its bed be on a
+continuous slope, not much interrupted by hollows, so that it cannot
+rest, or if its own mass be so increased by flood that its usual
+resting-places are not sufficient for it, but that it is perpetually
+pushed out of them by the following current, before it has had time to
+tranquillize itself, it of course gains velocity with every yard that it
+runs; the impetus got at one leap is carried to the credit of the next,
+until the whole stream becomes one mass of unchecked, accelerating
+motion. Now when water in this state comes to an obstacle, it does not
+part at it, but clears it, like a racehorse; and when it comes to a
+hollow, it does not fill it up and run out leisurely at the other side,
+but it rushes down into it and comes up again on the other side, as a
+ship into the hollow of the sea. Hence the whole appearance of the bed
+of the stream is changed, and all the lines of the water altered in
+their nature. The quiet stream is a succession of leaps and pools; the
+leaps are light and springy, and parabolic, and make a great deal of
+splashing when they tumble into the pool; then we have a space of quiet
+curdling water, and another similar leap below. But the stream when it
+has gained an impetus takes the shape of its bed, never stops, is
+equally deep and equally swift everywhere, goes down into every hollow,
+not with a leap, but with a swing, not foaming, nor splashing, but in
+the bending line of a strong sea-wave, and comes up again on the other
+side, over rock and ridge, with the ease of a bounding leopard; if it
+meet a rock three or four feet above the level of its bed, it will
+neither part nor foam, nor express any concern about the matter, but
+clear it in a smooth dome of water, without apparent exertion, coming
+down again as smoothly on the other side; the whole surface of the surge
+being drawn into parallel lines by its extreme velocity, but foamless,
+except in places where the form of the bed opposes itself at some direct
+angle to such a line of fall, and causes a breaker; so that the whole
+river has the appearance of a deep and raging sea, with this only
+difference, that the torrent-waves always break backwards, and sea-waves
+forwards. Thus, then, in the water which has gained an impetus, we have
+the most exquisite arrangements of curved lines, perpetually changing
+from convex to concave, and _vice versa_, following every swell and
+hollow of the bed with their modulating grace, and all in unison of
+motion, presenting perhaps the most beautiful series of inorganic forms
+which nature can possibly produce; for the sea runs too much into
+similar and concave curves with sharp edges, but every motion of the
+torrent is united, and all its curves are modifications of beautiful
+line.
+
+
+Sec. 25. Turner's careful choice of the historical truth.
+
+Sec. 26. His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the Llanthony
+        Abbey.
+
+We see, therefore, why Turner seizes on these curved lines of the
+torrent, not only as being among the most beautiful forms of nature, but
+because they are an instant expression of the utmost power and velocity,
+and tell us how the torrent has been flowing before we see it. For the
+leap and splash might be seen in the sudden freakishness of a quiet
+stream, or the fall of a rivulet over a mill-dam; but the undulating
+line is the _exclusive_ attribute of the mountain-torrent,[67] whose
+fall and fury have made the valleys echo for miles; and thus the moment
+we see one of its curves over a stone in the foreground, we know how far
+it has come, and how fiercely. And in the drawing we have been speaking
+of, the lower fall of the Tees, in the foreground of the Killiecrankie
+and Rhymer's Glen, and of the St. Maurice, in Rogers's Italy, we shall
+find the most exquisite instances of the use of such lines; but the most
+perfect of all in the Llanthony Abbey, which may be considered as the
+standard of torrent-drawing. The chief light of the picture here falls
+upon the surface of the stream, swelled by recent rain, and its mighty
+waves come rolling down close to the spectator, green and clear, but
+pale with anger, in gigantic, unbroken, oceanic curves, bending into
+each other without break or foam, though jets of fiery spray are cast
+into the air along the rocky shore, and rise in the sunshine in dusty
+vapor. The whole surface is one united race of mad motion; all the waves
+dragged, as I have described, into lines and furrows by their swiftness,
+and every one of these fine forms is drawn with the most studied
+chiaroscuro of delicate color, grays and greens, as silvery and pure as
+the finest passages of Paul Veronese, and with a refinement of execution
+which the eye strains itself in looking into. The rapidity and gigantic
+force of this torrent, the exquisite refinement of its color, and the
+vividness of foam which is obtained through a general middle tint,
+render it about the most perfect piece of painting of running water in
+existence.
+
+
+Sec. 27. And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus.
+
+Now this picture is, as was noticed in our former reference to it, full
+of expression of every kind of motion: the clouds are in wild haste; the
+sun is gleaming fast and fitfully through the leaves; the rain drifting
+away along the hill-side; and the torrent, the principal object, to
+complete the impression, is made the wildest thing of all and not only
+wild before us, and with us, but bearing with it in its every motion,
+from its long course, the record of its rage. Observe how differently
+Turner uses his torrent when the spirit of the picture is repose. In the
+Mercury and Argus, we have also a stream in the foreground; but, in
+coming down to us, we see it stopping twice in two quiet and glassy
+pools, upon which the drinking cattle cast an unstirred image. From the
+nearest of these, the water leaps in three cascades into another basin
+close to us; it trickles in silver threads through the leaves at its
+edge, and falls tinkling and splashing (though in considerable body)
+into the pool, stirring its quiet surface, at which a bird is stooping
+to drink, with concentric and curdling ripples which divide round the
+stone at its farthest border, and descend in sparkling foam over the lip
+of the basin. Thus we find, in every case, the system of Turner's truth
+entirely unbroken, each phase and phenomenon of nature being recorded
+exactly where it is most valuable and impressive.
+
+
+Sec. 28. Various cases.
+
+We have not, however, space to follow out the variety of his
+torrent-drawing. The above two examples are characteristic of the two
+great divisions or classes of torrents--that whose motion is continuous,
+and whose motion is interrupted: all drawing of running water will
+resolve itself into the representation of one or other of these. The
+descent of the distant stream in the vignette to the Boy of Egremond is
+slight, but very striking; and the Junction of the Greta and Tees, a
+singular instance of the bold drawing of the complicated forms of a
+shallow stream among multitudinous rocks. A still finer example occurs
+in a recent drawing of Dazio Grande, on the St. Gothard, the waves of
+the Toccia, clear and blue, fretting among the granite debris which were
+brought down by the storm that destroyed the whole road. In the Ivy
+bridge the subject is the rest of the torrent in a pool among fallen
+rocks, the forms of the stones are seen through the clear brown water,
+and their reflections mingle with those of the foliage.
+
+
+Sec. 29. Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.
+
+More determined efforts have at all periods been made in sea painting
+than in torrent painting, yet less successful. As above stated, it is
+easy to obtain a resemblance of broken running water by tricks and
+dexterities, but the sea _must_ be legitimately drawn; it cannot be
+given as utterly disorganized and confused, its weight and mass must be
+expressed, and the efforts at expression of it end in failure with all
+but the most powerful men; even with these few a partial success must be
+considered worthy of the highest praise.
+
+As the right rendering of the Alps depends on power of drawing snow, so
+the right painting of the sea must depend, at least in all coast
+scenery, in no small measure on the power of drawing foam. Yet there are
+two conditions of foam of invariable occurrence on breaking waves, of
+which I have never seen the slightest record attempted; first the thick
+creamy curdling overlapping massy form which remains for a moment only
+after the fall of the wave, and is seen in perfection in its running up
+the beach; and secondly, the thin white coating into which this
+subsides, which opens into oval gaps and clefts, marbling the waves over
+their whole surface, and connecting the breakers on a flat shore by long
+dragging streams of white.
+
+It is evident that the difficulty of expressing either of these two
+conditions must be immense. The lapping and curdling form is difficult
+enough to catch even when the lines of its undulation alone are
+considered; but the lips, so to speak, which lie along these lines, are
+full, projecting, and marked by beautiful light and shade; each has its
+high light, a gradation into shadow of indescribable delicacy, a bright
+reflected light and a dark cast shadow; to draw all this requires labor,
+and care, and firmness of work, which, as I imagine, must always,
+however skilfully bestowed, destroy all impression of wildness,
+accidentalism, and evanescence, and so kill the sea. Again, the openings
+in the thin subsided foam in their irregular modifications of circular
+and oval shapes dragged hither and thither, would be hard enough to draw
+even if they could be seen on a flat surface; instead of which, every
+one of the openings is seen in undulation on a tossing surface, broken
+up over small surges and ripples, and so thrown into perspectives of the
+most hopeless intricacy. Now it is not easy to express the lie of a
+pattern with oval openings on the folds of drapery. I do not know that
+any one under the mark of Veronese or Titian could even do this as it
+ought to be done, yet in drapery much stiffness and error may be
+overlooked; not so in sea,--the slightest inaccuracy, the slightest want
+of flow and freedom in the line, is attached by the eye in a moment of
+high treason, and I believe success to be impossible.
+
+Yet there is not a wave or any violently agitated sea on which both
+these forms do not appear, the latter especially, after some time of
+storm, extends over their whole surfaces; the reader sees, therefore,
+why I said that sea could only be painted by means of more or less
+dexterous conventionalisms, since two of its most enduring phenomena
+cannot be represented at all.
+
+
+Sec. 30. Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible.
+
+Again, as respects the form of breakers on an even shore, there is
+difficulty of no less formidable kind. There is in them an
+irreconcilable mixture of fury and formalism. Their hollow surface is
+marked by parallel lines, like those of a smooth mill-weir, and
+graduated by reflected and transmitted lights of the most wonderful
+intricacy, its curve being at the same time necessarily of mathematical
+purity and precision; yet at the top of this curve, when it nods over,
+there is a sudden laxity and giving way, the water swings and jumps
+along the ridge like a shaken chain, and the motion runs from part to
+part as it does through a serpent's body. Then the wind is at work on
+the extreme edge, and instead of letting it fling itself off naturally,
+it supports it, and, drives it back, or scrapes it off, and carries it
+bodily away; so that the spray at the top is in a continual transition
+between forms projected by their own weight, and forms blown and carried
+off with their weight overcome; then at last, when it has come down, who
+shall say what shape that may be called, which shape has none of the
+great crash where it touches the beach.
+
+I think it is that last crash which is the great taskmaster. Nobody can
+do anything with it. I have seen Copley Fielding come very close to the
+jerk and nod of the lifted threatening edge, curl it very successfully,
+and without any look of its having been in papers, down nearly to the
+beach, but the final fall has no thunder in it. Turner has tried hard
+for it once or twice, but it will not do. The moment is given in the
+Sidon of the Bible Illustrations, and more elaborately in a painting of
+Bamborough; in both these cases there is little foam at the bottom, and
+the fallen breaker looks like a wall, yet grand always; and in the
+latter picture very beautifully assisted in expression by the tossing of
+a piece of cable, which some figures are dragging ashore, and which the
+breaker flings into the air as it falls. Perhaps the most successful
+rendering of the forms was in the Hero and Leander, but there the
+drawing was rendered easier by the powerful effect of light which
+disguised the foam.
+
+
+Sec. 31. Their effect, how injured when seen from the shore.
+
+It is not, however, from the shore that Turner usually studies his sea.
+Seen from the land, the curl of the breakers, even in nature, is
+somewhat uniform and monotonous; the size of the waves out at sea is
+uncomprehended, and those nearer the eye seem to succeed and resemble
+each other, to move slowly to the beach, and to break in the same lines
+and forms.
+
+Afloat even twenty yards from the shore, we receive a totally different
+impression. Every wave around us appears vast--every one different from
+all the rest--and the breakers present, now that we see them with their
+backs towards us, the grand, extended, and varied lines of long
+curvature, which are peculiarly expressive both of velocity and power.
+Recklessness, before unfelt, is manifested in the mad, perpetual,
+changeful, undirected motion, not of wave after wave, as it appears from
+the shore, but of the very same water rising and falling. Of waves that
+successively approach and break, each appears to the mind a separate
+individual, whose part being performed, it perishes, and is succeeded by
+another; and there is nothing in this to impress us with the idea of
+restlessness, any more than in any successive and continuous functions
+of life and death. But it is when we perceive that it is no succession
+of wave, but the same water constantly rising, and crashing, and
+recoiling, and rolling in again in new forms and with fresh fury, that
+we perceive the perturbed spirit, and feel the intensity of its
+unwearied rage. The sensation of power is also trebled; for not only is
+the vastness of apparent size much increased, but the whole action is
+different; it is not a passive wave rolling sleepily forward until it
+tumbles heavily, prostrated upon the beach, but a sweeping exertion of
+tremendous and living strength, which does not now appear to _fall_, but
+to _burst_ upon the shore; which never perishes, but recoils and
+recovers.
+
+
+Sec. 32. Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea.
+
+Sec. 33. With peculiar expression of weight.
+
+Aiming at these grand characters of the Sea, Turner almost always places
+the spectator, not on the shore, but twenty or thirty yards from it,
+beyond the first range of the breakers, as in the Land's End, Fowey,
+Dunbar, and Laugharne. The latter has been well engraved, and may be
+taken as a standard of the expression of fitfulness and power. The grand
+division of the whole space of the sea by a few dark continuous furrows
+of tremendous swell, (the breaking of one of which alone has strewed the
+rocks in front with ruin,) furnishes us with an estimate of space and
+strength, which at once reduces the men upon the shore to insects; and
+yet through this terrific simplicity there is indicated a fitfulness and
+fury in the tossing of the individual lines, which give to the whole sea
+a wild, unwearied, reckless incoherency, like that of an enraged
+multitude, whose masses act together in frenzy, while not one individual
+feels as another. Especial attention is to be directed to the flatness
+of all the lines, for the same principle holds in sea which we have seen
+in mountains. All the size and sublimity of nature are given not by the
+height, but by the breadth of her masses: and Turner, by following her
+in her sweeping lines, while he does not lose the elevation of its
+surges, adds in a tenfold degree to their power: farther, observe the
+peculiar expression of _weight_ which there is in Turner's waves,
+precisely of the same kind which we saw in his waterfall. We have not a
+cutting, springing, elastic line--no jumping or leaping in the waves:
+_that_ is the characteristic of Chelsea Reach or Hampstead Ponds in a
+storm. But the surges roll and plunge with such prostration and hurling
+of their mass against the shore, that we feel the rocks are shaking
+under them; and, to add yet more to this impression, observe how little,
+comparatively, they are broken by the wind; above the floating wood, and
+along the shore, we have indication of a line of torn spray; but it is a
+mere fringe along the ridge of the surge--no interference with its
+gigantic body. The wind has no power over its tremendous unity of force
+and weight. Finally, observe how, on the rocks on the left, the violence
+and swiftness of the rising wave are indicated by precisely the same
+lines which we saw were indicative of fury in the torrent. The water on
+these rocks is the body of the wave which has just broken, rushing up
+over them; and in doing so, like the torrent, it does not break, nor
+foam, nor part upon the rock, but accommodates itself to every one of
+its swells and hollows, with undulating lines, whose grace and variety
+might alone serve us for a day's study; and it is only where two streams
+of this rushing water meet in the hollow of the rock, that their force
+is shown by the vertical bound of the spray.
+
+[Illustration: PORT RUYSDAeL.
+                 From a painting by Turner.]
+
+
+Sec. 34. Peculiar action of recoiling waves.
+
+Sec. 35. And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore.
+
+Sec. 36. General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in the
+        Land's End.
+
+In the distance of this grand picture, there are two waves which
+entirely depart from the principle observed by all the rest, and spring
+high into the air. They have a message for us which it is important that
+we should understand. Their leap is not a preparation for breaking,
+neither is it caused by their meeting with a rock. It is caused by their
+encounter with the recoil of the preceding wave. When a large surge, in
+the act of breaking, just as it curls over, is hurled against the face
+either of a wall or of a vertical rock, the sound of the blow is not a
+crash nor a roar; it is a report as loud as, and in every respect
+similar to, that of a great gun, and the wave is dashed back from the
+rock with force scarcely diminished, but reversed in direction,--it now
+recedes from the shore, and at the instant that it encounters the
+following breaker, the result is the vertical bound of both which is
+here rendered by Turner. Such a recoiling wave will proceed out to sea
+through ten or twelve ranges of following breakers, before it is
+overpowered. The effect of the encounter is more completely and palpably
+given in the Quilleboeuf, in the Rivers of France. It is peculiarly
+instructive here, as informing us of the nature of the coast, and the
+force of the waves, far more clearly than any spray about the rocks
+themselves could have done. But the effect of the blow at the shore
+itself is given in the Land's End, and vignette to Lycidas. Under
+favorable circumstances, with an advancing tide under a heavy gale,
+where the breakers feel the shore underneath them a moment before they
+touch the rock, so as to nod over when they strike, the effect is nearly
+incredible except to an eyewitness. I have seen the whole body of the
+wave rise in one white, vertical, broad fountain, eighty feet above the
+sea, half of it beaten so fine as to be borne away by the wind, the rest
+turning in the air when exhausted, and falling back with a weight and
+crash like that of an enormous waterfall. This is given most completely
+in the Lycidas, and the blow of a less violent wave among broken rocks,
+not meeting it with an absolute wall, along the shore of the Land's End.
+This last picture is a study of sea whose whole organization has been
+broken up by constant recoils from a rocky coast. The Laugharne gives
+the surge and weight of the ocean in a gale, on a comparatively level
+shore; but the Land's End, the entire disorder of the surges when every
+one of them, divided and entangled among promontories as it rolls in,
+and beaten back part by part from walls of rock on this side and that
+side, recoils like the defeated division of a great army, throwing all
+behind it into disorder, breaking up the succeeding waves into vertical
+ridges, which in their turn, yet more totally shattered upon the shore,
+retire in more hopeless confusion, until the whole surface of the sea
+becomes one dizzy whirl of rushing, writhing, tortured, undirected rage,
+bounding, and crashing, and coiling in an anarchy of enormous power,
+subdivided into myriads of waves, of which every one is not, be it
+remembered, a separate surge, but part and portion of a vast one,
+actuated by internal power, and giving in every direction the mighty
+undulation of impetuous line which glides over the rocks and writhes in
+the wind, overwhelming the one, and piercing the other with the form,
+fury, and swiftness of a sheet of lambent fire. And throughout the
+rendering of all this, there is not one false curve given, not one which
+is not the perfect expression of visible motion; and the forms of the
+infinite sea are drawn throughout with that utmost mastery of art which,
+through the deepest study of every line, makes every line appear the
+wildest child of chance, while yet each is in itself a subject and a
+picture different from all else around. Of the color of this magnificent
+sea I have before spoken; it is a solemn green gray, (with its foam seen
+dimly through the darkness of twilight,) modulated with the fulness,
+changefulness, and sadness of a deep, wild melody.
+
+
+Sec. 37. Open seas of Turner's earlier times.
+
+The greater number of Turner's paintings of open sea belong to a
+somewhat earlier period than these drawings; nor, generally speaking,
+are they of equal value. It appears to me that the artist had at that
+time either less knowledge of, or less delight in, the characteristics
+of deep water than of coast sea, and that, in consequence, he suffered
+himself to be influenced by some of the qualities of the Dutch
+sea-painters. In particular, he borrowed from them the habit of casting
+a dark shadow on the near waves, so as to bring out a stream of light
+behind; and though he did this in a more legitimate way than they, that
+is to say, expressing the light by touches on the foam, and indicating
+the shadow as cast on foamy surface, still the habit has induced much
+feebleness and conventionality in the pictures of the period. His
+drawing of the waves was also somewhat petty and divided, small forms
+covered with white flat spray, a condition which I doubt not the artist
+has seen on some of the shallow Dutch seas, but which I have never met
+with myself, and of the rendering of which therefore I cannot speak. Yet
+even in these, which I think among the poorest works of the painter, the
+expressions of breeze, motion, and light, are very marvellous; and it is
+instructive to compare them either with the lifeless works of the Dutch
+themselves, or with any modern imitations of them, as for instance with
+the seas of Callcott, where all the light is white and all the shadows
+gray, where no distinction is made between water and foam, or between
+real and reflective shadow, and which are generally without evidence of
+the artists having ever seen the sea.
+
+Some pictures, however, belonging to this period of Turner are free from
+the Dutch infection, and show the real power of the artist. A very
+important one is in the possession of Lord Francis Egerton, somewhat
+heavy in its forms, but remarkable for the grandeur of distance obtained
+at the horizon; a much smaller, but more powerful example is the Port
+Ruysdael in the possession of E. Bicknell, Esq., with which I know of no
+work at all comparable for the expression of the white, wild, cold,
+comfortless waves of northern sea, even though the sea is almost
+subordinate to the awful rolling clouds. Both these pictures are very
+gray. The Pas de Calais has more color, and shows more art than either,
+yet is less impressive. Recently, two marines of the same subdued color
+have appeared (1843) among his more radiant works. One, Ostend, somewhat
+forced and affected, but the other, also called Port Ruysdael, is among
+the most perfect sea pictures he has produced, and especially remarkable
+as being painted without one marked opposition either of color or of
+shade, all quiet and simple even to an extreme, so that the picture was
+exceedingly unattractive at first sight. The shadow of the pier-head on
+the near waves is marked solely by touches indicative of reflected
+light, and so mysteriously that when the picture is seen near, it is
+quite untraceable, and comes into existence as the spectator retires. It
+is thus of peculiar truth and value; and instructive as a contrast to
+the dark shadows of his earlier time.
+
+
+Sec. 38. Effect of sea after prolonged storm.
+
+Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a
+powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and
+nights, and to those who have not, I believe it must be unimaginable,
+not from the mere force or size of surge, but from the complete
+annihilation of the limit between sea and air. The water from its
+prolonged agitation is beaten, not into mere creaming foam, but into
+masses of accumulated yeast,[68] which hang in ropes and wreaths from
+wave to wave, and where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a
+drapery, from its edge; these are taken up by the wind, not in
+dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses,
+which make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a
+foot or two long each; the surges themselves are full of foam in their
+very bodies, underneath, making them white all through, as the water is
+under a great cataract; and their masses, being thus half water and half
+air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away
+in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water. Add to
+this, that when the air has been exhausted of its moisture by long rain,
+the spray of the sea is caught by it as described above, (Section III.
+Chapter VI. Sec. 13,) and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of
+finely divided water, but with boiling mist; imagine also the low
+rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often
+seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave;
+and finally, conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of
+power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lifting themselves in precipices
+and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos;
+and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between
+the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon, nor any landmark or
+natural evidence of position is left; that the heaven is all spray, and
+the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no farther in any direction
+than you could see through a cataract. Suppose the effect of the first
+sunbeam sent from above to show this annihilation to itself, and you
+have the sea picture of the Academy, 1842--the Snowstorm, one of the
+very grandest statements of sea-motion, mist, and light that has ever
+been put on canvas, even by Turner. Of course it was not understood; his
+finest works never are; but there was some apology for the public's not
+comprehending this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing
+the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a
+mast or a rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning which
+few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of
+the noblest lessons of nature.
+
+
+Sec. 39. Turner's noblest work, the deep open sea in the Slave Ship.
+
+But, I think, the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so,
+the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of the Slave Ship,
+the chief Academy picture of the Exhibition of 1840. It is a sunset on
+the Atlantic after prolonged storm; but the storm is partially lulled,
+and the torn and streaming rain-clouds are moving in scarlet lines to
+lose themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of sea
+included in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell,
+not high, nor local, but a low, broad heaving of the whole ocean, like
+the lifting of its bosom by deep-drawn breath after the torture of the
+storm. Between these two ridges, the fire of the sunset falls along the
+trough of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious light, the
+intense and lurid splendor which burns like gold and bathes like blood.
+Along this fiery path and valley, the tossing waves by which the swell
+of the sea is restlessly divided, lift themselves in dark, indefinite,
+fantastic forms, each casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along
+the illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, but three or four
+together in wild groups, fitfully and furiously, as the under strength
+of the swell compels or permits them; leaving between them treacherous
+spaces of level and whirling water, now lighted with green and lamp-like
+fire, now flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now fearfully
+dyed from above with the indistinguishable images of the burning clouds,
+which fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and give to the
+reckless waves the added motion of their own fiery flying. Purple and
+blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of
+the night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of
+death upon the guilty[69] ship as it labors amidst the lightning of the
+sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, girded with
+condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky with horror, and
+mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight,--and cast far along the
+desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, incarnadines the multitudinous
+sea.
+
+
+Sec. 40. Its united excellences and perfection as a whole.
+
+I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single
+work, I should choose this. Its daring conception--ideal in the highest
+sense of the word--is based on the purest truth, and wrought out with the
+concentrated knowledge of a life; its color is absolutely perfect, not
+one false or morbid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every
+square inch of canvas is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate
+as fearless; the ship buoyant, bending, and full of motion; its tones as
+true as they are wonderful;[70] and the whole picture dedicated to the
+most sublime of subjects and impressions--(completing thus the perfect
+system of all truth, which we have shown to be formed by Turner's
+works)--the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep,
+illimitable Sea.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [66] Not altogether. I believe here, as in a former case, I have
+    attributed far too much influence to this change of focus. In
+    Turner's earlier works the principle is not found. In the rivers of
+    the Yorkshire drawings, every reflection is given clearly, even to
+    the farthest depth, and yet the surface is not lost, and it would
+    deprive the painter of much power if he were not sometimes so to
+    represent them, especially when his object is repose; it being, of
+    course, as lawful for him to choose one adaptation of the sight as
+    another. I have, however, left the above paragraphs as first
+    written, because they are true, although I think they make too much
+    of an unimportant matter. The reader may attribute to them such
+    weight as he thinks fit. He is referred to Sec. 11 of this chapter, and
+    to Sec. 4 of the first chapter of this section.
+
+  [67] On a large scale it is so, but the same lines are to be seen
+    for the moment whenever water becomes exceedingly rapid, and yet
+    feels the bottom as it passes, being not thrown up or cast clear of
+    it. In general, the drawing of water fails from being too
+    interrupted, the forms flung hither and thither, and broken up and
+    covered with bright touches, instead of being wrought out in their
+    real unities of curvature. It is difficult enough to draw a curved
+    surface, even when it is rough and has texture; but to indicate the
+    varied and sweeping forms of a crystalline and polished substance,
+    requires far more skill and patience than most artists possess. In
+    some respects, it is impossible. I do not suppose any means of art
+    are capable of rightly expressing the smooth, multitudinous rippling
+    of a rapid rivulet of shallow water, giving its transparency lustre
+    and fully-developed forms; and the greater number of the lines and
+    actions of torrent-waves are equally inexpressible. The effort
+    should, nevertheless, always be made, and whatever is sacrificed in
+    color, freedom, or brightness, the real contours ought always in
+    some measure to be drawn, as a careful draughtsman secures those of
+    flesh, or any other finely-modelled surface. It is better, in many
+    respects, the drawing should miss of being _like_ water, than that
+    it should miss in this one respect the grandeur of water. Many
+    tricks of scratching and dashing will bring out a deceptive
+    resemblance; the determined and laborious rendering of contour alone
+    secures sublimity.
+
+  [68] The "yesty waves" of Shakspeare have made the likeness
+    familiar, and probably most readers take the expression as merely
+    equivalent to "foamy;" but Shakspeare knew better. Sea-foam does
+    not, under ordinary circumstances, last a moment after it is formed,
+    but disappears, as above described, in a mere white film. But the
+    foam of a prolonged tempest is altogether different; it is "whipped"
+    foam,--thick, permanent, and, in a foul or discolored sea, very
+    ugly, especially in the way it hangs about the tops of the waves,
+    and gathers into clotted concretions before the driving wind. The
+    sea looks truly working or fermenting. The following passage from
+    Fenimore Cooper is an interesting confirmation of the rest of the
+    above description, which may be depended upon as entirely free from
+    exaggeration:--"For the first time I now witnessed a tempest at sea.
+    Gales, and pretty hard ones, I had often seen, but the force of the
+    wind on this occasion as much exceeded that in ordinary gales of
+    wind, as the force of these had exceeded that of a whole-sail
+    breeze. The seas seemed crushed; the pressure of the swooping
+    atmosphere, as the currents of the air went howling over the surface
+    of the ocean, fairly preventing them from rising; or where a mound
+    of water did appear, it was scooped up and borne off in spray, as
+    the axe dubs inequalities from the log. When the day returned, a
+    species of lurid, sombre light was diffused over the watery waste,
+    though nothing was visible but the ocean and the ship. Even the
+    sea-birds seemed to have taken refuge in the caverns of the adjacent
+    coast, none reappearing with the dawn. The air was full of spray,
+    and it was with difficulty that the eye could penetrate as far into
+    the humid atmosphere as half a mile,"--_Miles Wattingford_. Half a
+    mile is an over-estimate in coast.
+
+  [69] She is a slaver, throwing her slaves overboard. The near sea is
+    encumbered with corpses.
+
+  [70] There is a piece of tone of the same kind, equal in one part,
+    but not so united with the rest of the picture, in the storm scene
+    illustrative of the Antiquary,--a sunset light on polished sea. I
+    ought to have particularly mentioned the sea in the Lowestoffe, as a
+    piece of the cutting motion of shallow water, under storm,
+    altogether in gray, which should be especially contrasted, as a
+    piece of color, with the grays of Vandevelde. And the sea in the
+    Great Yarmouth should have been noticed for its expression of water
+    in violent agitation, seen in enormous extent from a great
+    elevation. There is almost every form of sea in it,--rolling waves
+    dashing on the pier--successive breakers rolling to the shore--a
+    vast horizon of multitudinous waves--and winding canals of calm
+    water along the sands, bringing fragments of bright sky down into
+    their yellow waste. There is hardly one of the views of the Southern
+    Coast which does not give some new condition or circumstance of sea.
+
+
+
+
+                                 SECTION VI.
+
+                    OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.--CONCLUSION.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+                          OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.
+
+
+Sec. 1. Frequent occurrence of foliage in the works of the old masters.
+
+We have now arrived at the consideration of what was, with the old
+masters, the subject of most serious and perpetual study. If they do not
+give us truth here, they cannot have the faculty of truth in them; for
+foliage is the chief component part of all their pictures, and is
+finished by them with a care and labor which, if bestowed without
+attaining truth, must prove either their total bluntness of perception,
+or total powerlessness of hand. With the Italian school I can scarcely
+recollect a single instance in which foliage does not form the greater
+part of the picture; in fact, they are rather painters of tree-portrait
+than landscape painters; for rocks, and sky, and architecture are
+usually mere accessories and backgrounds to the dark masses of laborious
+foliage, of which the composition principally consists. Yet we shall be
+less detained by the examination of foliage than by our former subjects;
+since where specific form is organized and complete, and the occurrence
+of the object universal, it is easy, without requiring any laborious
+attention in the reader, to demonstrate to him quite as much of the
+truth or falsehood of various representations of it, as may serve to
+determine the character and rank of the painter.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not taper, but
+       only divide.
+
+It will be best to begin as nature does, with the stems and branches,
+and then to put the leaves on. And in speaking of trees generally, be it
+observed, when I say _all_ trees, I mean only those ordinary forest or
+copse trees of Europe, which are the chief subjects of the landscape
+painter. I do not mean to include every kind of foliage which by any
+accident can find its way into a picture, but the ordinary trees of
+Europe,--oak, elm, ash, hazel, willow, birch, beech, poplar, chestnut,
+pine, mulberry, olive, ilex, carubbe, and such others. I do not purpose
+to examine the characteristics of each tree; it will be enough to
+observe the laws common to all. First, then, neither the stems nor the
+boughs of any of the above trees _taper_, except where they fork.
+Wherever a stem sends off a branch, or a branch a lesser bough, or a
+lesser bough a bud, the stem or the branch is, on the instant, less in
+diameter by the exact quantity of the branch or the bough they have sent
+off, and they remain of the same diameter; or if there be any change,
+rather increase than diminish until they send off another branch or
+bough. This law is imperative and without exception; no bough, nor stem,
+nor twig, ever tapering or becoming narrower towards its extremity by a
+hairbreadth, save where it parts with some portion of its substance at a
+fork or bud, so that if all the twigs and sprays at the top and sides of
+the tree, which are, and _have been_, could be united without loss of
+space, they would form a round log of the diameter of the trunk from
+which they spring.
+
+
+Sec. 3. Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds.
+
+But as the trunks of most trees send off twigs and sprays of light under
+foliage, of which every individual fibre takes precisely its own
+thickness of wood from the parent stem, and as many of these drop off,
+leaving nothing but a small excrescence to record their existence, there
+is frequently a slight and delicate appearance of tapering bestowed on
+the trunk itself; while the same operation takes place much more
+extensively in the branches, it being natural to almost all trees to
+send out from their young limbs more wood than they can support, which,
+as the stem increases, gets contracted at the point of insertion, so as
+to check the flow of the sap, and then dies and drops off, leaving all
+along the bough, first on one side, then on another, a series of small
+excrescences, sufficient to account for a degree of tapering, which is
+yet so very slight, that if we select a portion of a branch with no real
+fork or living bough to divide it or diminish it, the tapering is
+scarcely to be detected by the eye; and if we select a portion without
+such evidences of past ramification, there will be found none
+whatsoever.
+
+
+Sec. 4. And care of nature to conceal the parallelism.
+
+But nature takes great care and pains to conceal this uniformity in her
+boughs. They are perpetually parting with little sprays here and there,
+which steal away their substance cautiously, and where the eye does not
+perceive the theft, until, a little way above, it feels the loss; and in
+the upper parts of the tree, the ramifications take place so constantly
+and delicately, that the effect upon the eye is precisely the same as if
+the boughs actually tapered, except here and there, where some
+avaricious one, greedy of substance, runs on for two or three yards
+without parting with anything, and becomes ungraceful in so doing.
+
+
+Sec. 5. The degree of tapering which may be represented as continuous.
+
+Hence we see that although boughs may, and must be represented as
+actually tapering, they must only be so when they are sending off
+foliage and sprays, and when they are at such a distance that the
+particular forks and divisions cannot be evident to the eye; and
+farther, even in such circumstances the tapering never can be sudden or
+rapid. No bough ever, with appearance of smooth tapering, loses more
+than one tenth of its diameter in a length of ten diameters. Any greater
+diminution than this must be accounted for by visible ramification, and
+must take place by steps, at each fork.
+
+
+Sec. 6. The trees of Gaspar Poussin;
+
+And therefore we see at once that the stem of Gaspar Poussin's tall
+tree, on the right of the La Riccia, in the National Gallery, is a
+painting of a carrot or a parsnip, not of the trunk of a tree. For,
+being so near that every individual leaf is visible, we should not have
+seen, in nature, one branch or stem actually tapering. We should have
+received an _impression_ of graceful diminution; but we should have been
+able, on examination, to trace it joint by joint, fork by fork, into the
+thousand minor supports of the leaves. Gaspar Poussin's stem, on the
+contrary, only sends off four or five minor branches altogether, and
+both it and they taper violently, and without showing why or
+wherefore--without parting with a single twig--without showing one
+vestige of roughness or excrescence--and leaving, therefore, their
+unfortunate leaves to hold on as best they may. The latter, however, are
+clever leaves, and support themselves as swarming bees do, hanging on
+by each other.
+
+
+Sec. 7. And of the Italian school generally, defy this law.
+
+But even this piece of work is a jest to the perpetration of the bough
+at the left-hand upper corner of the picture opposite to it,--the View
+near Albano. This latter is a representation of an ornamental group of
+elephants' tusks, with feathers tied to the ends of them. Not the
+wildest imagination could ever conjure up in it the remotest resemblance
+to the bough of a tree. It might be the claws of a witch--the talons of
+an eagle--the horns of a fiend; but it is a full assemblage of every
+conceivable falsehood which can be told respecting foliage--a piece of
+work so barbarous in every way, that one glance at it ought to prove the
+complete charlatanism and trickery of the whole system of the old
+landscape painters. For I will depart for once from my usual plan, of
+abstaining from all assertion of a thing's being beautiful or otherwise;
+I will say here, at once, that such drawing as this is as ugly as it is
+childish, and as painful as it is false; and that the man who could
+tolerate, much more, who could deliberately set down such a thing on his
+canvas, had neither eye nor feeling for one single attribute or
+excellence of God's works. He might have drawn the other stem in
+excusable ignorance, or under some false impression of being able to
+improve upon nature; but _this_ is conclusive and unpardonable. Again,
+take the stem of the chief tree in Claude's Narcissus. It is a very
+faithful portrait of a large boa-constrictor, with a handsome tail; the
+kind of trunk which young ladies at fashionable boarding-schools
+represent with nosegays at the top of them, by way of forest scenery.
+
+
+Sec. 8. The truth, as it is given by J. D. Harding.
+
+Let us refresh ourselves for a moment, by looking at the truth. We need
+not go to Turner, we will go to the man who, next to him, is
+unquestionably the greatest master of foliage in Europe--J. D. Harding.
+Take the trunk of the largest stone-pine, Plate 25, in the Park and the
+Forest. For the first nine or ten feet from the ground it does not lose
+one hairbreadth of its diameter. But the shoot, broken off just under
+the crossing part of the distant tree, is followed by an instant
+diminution of the trunk, perfectly appreciable both by the eye and the
+compasses. Again, the stem maintains undiminished thickness, up to the
+two shoots on the left, from the loss of which it suffers again
+perceptibly. On the right, immediately above, is the stump of a very
+large bough, whose loss reduces the trunk suddenly to about two-thirds
+of what it was at the root. Diminished again, less considerably, by the
+minor branch close to this stump, it now retains its diameter up to the
+three branches, broken off just under the head, where it once more loses
+in diameter, and finally branches into the multitude of head-boughs, of
+which not one will be found tapering in any part, but losing themselves
+gradually by division among their offshoots and spray. This is nature,
+and beauty too.
+
+
+Sec. 9. Boughs, in consequence of this law, _must_ diminish where they
+       divide. Those of the old masters often do not.
+
+But the old masters are not satisfied with drawing carrots for boughs.
+Nature can be violated in more ways than one, and the industry with
+which they seek out and adopt every conceivable mode of contradicting
+her is matter of no small interest. It is evident, from what we have
+above stated of the structure of all trees, that as no boughs diminish
+where they do not fork, so they cannot fork without diminishing. It is
+impossible that the smallest shoot can be sent out of a bough without a
+diminution of the diameter above it; and wherever a branch goes off it
+must not only be less in diameter than the bough from which it springs,
+but the bough beyond the fork must be less by precisely the quantity of
+the branch it has sent off.[71] Now observe the bough underneath the
+first bend of the great stem in Claude's Narcissus; it sends off four
+branches like the ribs of a leaf. The two lowest of these are both quite
+as thick as the parent stem, and the stem itself is much thicker after
+it has sent off the first one than it was before. The top boughs of the
+central tree, in the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, ramify in the same
+scientific way.
+
+
+Sec. 10. Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old masters
+        do not.
+
+Sec. 11. Bough-drawing of Salvator.
+
+But there are further conclusions to be drawn from this great principle
+in trees. As they only diminish where they divide, their increase of
+number is in precise proportion to their diminution of size, so that
+whenever we come to the extremities of boughs, we must have a multitude
+of sprays sufficient to make up, if they were united, the bulk of that
+from which they spring. Where a bough divides into two equal
+ramifications, the diameter of each of the two is about two-thirds that
+of the single one, and the sum of their diameters, therefore, one-fourth
+greater than the diameter of the single one. Hence, if no boughs died or
+were lost, the quantity of wood in the sprays would appear one-fourth
+greater than would be necessary to make up the thickness of the trunk.
+But the lost boughs remove the excess, and therefore, speaking broadly,
+the diameters of the outer boughs put together would generally just make
+up the diameter of the trunk. Precision in representing this is neither
+desirable nor possible. All that is required is just so much observance
+of the general principle as may make the eye feel satisfied that there
+is something like the same quantity of wood in the sprays which there is
+in the stem. But to do this, there must be, what there always is in
+nature, an exceeding complexity of the outer sprays. This complexity
+gradually increases towards their extremities, of course exactly in
+proportion to the slenderness of the twigs. The slenderer they become,
+the more there are of them, until at last, at the extremities of the
+tree, they form a mass of intricacy, which in winter, when it can be
+seen, is scarcely distinguishable from fine herbage, and is beyond all
+power of definite representation; it can only be expressed by a mass of
+involved strokes. Also, as they shoot out in every direction, some are
+nearer, some more distant; some distinct, some faint; and their
+intersections and relations of distance are marked with the most
+exquisite gradations of aerial perspective. Now it will be found
+universally in the works of Claude, Gaspar, and Salvator, that the
+boughs do _not_ get in the least complex or multiplied towards the
+extremities--that each large limb forks only into two or three smaller
+ones, each of which vanishes into the air without any cause or reason
+for such unaccountable conduct--unless that the mass of leaves
+transfixed upon it or tied to it, entirely dependent on its single
+strength, have been too much, as well they may be, for its powers of
+solitary endurance. This total ignorance of tree structure is shown
+throughout their works. The Sinon before Priam is an instance of it in a
+really fine work of Claude's, but the most gross examples are in the
+works of Salvator. It appears that this latter artist was hardly in the
+habit of studying from nature at all after his boyish ramble among the
+Calabrian hills; and I do not recollect any instance of a piece of his
+bough-drawing which is not palpably and demonstrably a made-up phantasm
+of the studio, the proof derivable from this illegitimate tapering being
+one of the most convincing. The painter is always visibly embarrassed to
+reduce the thick boughs to spray, and _feeling_ (for Salvator naturally
+had acute feeling for truth) that the bough was wrong when it tapered
+suddenly, he accomplishes its diminution by an impossible protraction;
+throwing out shoot after shoot until his branches straggle all across
+the picture, and at last disappear unwillingly where there is no room
+for them to stretch any farther. The consequence is, that whatever
+leaves are put upon such boughs have evidently no adequate support,
+their power of leverage is enough to uproot the tree; or if the boughs
+are left bare, they have the look of the long tentacula of some
+complicated marine monster, or of the waving endless threads of bunchy
+sea-weed, instead of the firm, upholding, braced, and bending grace of
+natural boughs. I grant that this is in a measure done by Salvator from
+a love of ghastliness, and that in certain scenes it is in a sort
+allowable; but it is in a far greater degree done from pure ignorance of
+tree structure, as is sufficiently proved by the landscape of the Pitti
+palace, Peace burning the arms of War; where the spirit of the scene is
+intended to be quite other than ghastly, and yet the tree branches show
+the usual errors in an extraordinary degree; every one of their
+arrangements is impossible, and the trunk of the tree could not for a
+moment support the foliage it is loaded with. So also in the pictures of
+the Guadagni palace. And even where the skeleton look of branches is
+justifiable or desirable, there is no occasion for any violation of
+natural laws. I have seen more spectral character in the real limbs of a
+blasted oak, than ever in Salvator's best monstrosities; more horror is
+to be obtained by right combination of inventive line, than by drawing
+tree branches as if they were wing-bones of a pterodactyle. All
+departure from natural forms to give fearfulness is mere Germanism; it
+is the work of fancy, not of imagination,[72] and instantly degrades
+whatever it affects to third-rate level. There is nothing more marked in
+truly great men, than their power of being dreadful without being false
+or licentious. In Tintoret's Murder of Abel, the head of the sacrificed
+firstling lies in the corner of the foreground, obscurely sketched in,
+and with the light gleaming upon its glazed eyes. There is nothing
+exaggerated about the head, but there is more horror got out of it, and
+more of death suggested by its treatment, than if he had turned all the
+trees of his picture into skeletons, and raised a host of demons to
+drive the club.
+
+
+Sec. 12. All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches and
+        concentrated in a work of G. Poussin's.
+
+Sec. 13. Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them by
+        wind.
+
+It is curious that in Salvator's sketches or etchings there is less that
+is wrong than in his paintings,--there seems a fresher remembrance of
+nature about them. Not so with Claude. It is only by looking over his
+sketches, in the British Museum, that a complete and just idea is to be
+formed of his capacities of error; for the feeling and arrangement of
+many of them are those of an advanced age, so that we can scarcely set
+them down for what they resemble--the work of a boy ten years old; and
+the drawing being seen without any aids of tone or color to set it off,
+shows in its naked falsehood. The windy landscape of Poussin, opposite
+the Dido and Aeneas, in the National Gallery, presents us, in the
+foreground tree, with a piece of atrocity which I think, to any person
+who candidly considers it, may save me all farther trouble of
+demonstrating the errors of ancient art. I do not in the least suspect
+the picture: the tones of it, and much of the handling, are masterly;
+yet that foreground tree comprises every conceivable violation of truth
+which the human hand can commit, or head invent, in drawing a
+tree--except only, that it is not drawn root uppermost. It has no bark,
+no roughness nor character of stem; its boughs do not grow out of each
+other, but are stuck into each other; they ramify without diminishing,
+diminish without ramifying, are terminated by no complicated sprays,
+have their leaves tied to their ends, like the heads of Dutch brooms;
+and finally, and chiefly, they are evidently not made of wood, but of
+some soft elastic substance, which the wind can stretch out as it
+pleases, for there is not a vestige of an angle in any one of them. Now,
+the fiercest wind that ever blew upon the earth, could not take the
+angles out of the bough of a tree an inch thick. The whole bough bends
+together, retaining its elbows, and angles, and natural form, but
+affected throughout with curvature in each of its parts and joints. That
+part of it which was before perpendicular being bent aside, and that
+which was before sloping, being bent into still greater inclination, the
+angle at which the two parts meet remains the same; or if the strain be
+put in the opposite direction, the bough will break long before it loses
+its angle. You will find it difficult to bend the angles out of the
+youngest sapling, if they be marked; and absolutely impossible, with a
+strong bough. You may break it, but you will not destroy its angles. And
+if you watch a tree in the wildest storm, you will find that though all
+its boughs are bending, none lose their character but the utmost shoots
+and sapling spray. Hence Gaspar Poussin, by his bad drawing, does not
+make his storm strong, but his tree weak; he does not make his gust
+violent, but his boughs of India-rubber.
+
+
+Sec. 14. Bough-drawing of Titian.
+
+These laws respecting vegetation are so far more imperative than those
+which were stated respecting water, that the greatest artist cannot
+violate them without danger, because they are laws resulting from
+organic structure, which it is always painful to see interrupted; on the
+other hand, they have this in common with all laws, that they may be
+observed with mathematical precision, yet with no grateful result; the
+disciplined eye and the life in the woods are worth more than all
+botanical knowledge. For there is that about the growing of the tree
+trunk, and that grace in its upper ramification which cannot be taught,
+and which cannot even be seen but by eager watchfulness. There is not an
+Exhibition passes, but there appear in it hundreds of elaborate
+paintings of trees, many of them executed from nature. For three hundred
+years back, trees have been drawn with affection by all the civilized
+nations of Europe, and yet I repeat boldly, what I before asserted,
+that no men but Titian and Turner ever drew the stem of a tree.
+
+Generally, I think, the perception of the muscular qualities of the tree
+trunk incomplete, except in men who have studied the human figure, and
+in loose expression of those characters, the painter who can draw the
+living muscle seldom fails; but the thoroughly peculiar lines belonging
+to woody fibre, can only be learned by patient forest study; and hence
+in all the trees of the merely historical painters, there is fault of
+some kind or another, commonly exaggeration of the muscular swellings,
+or insipidity and want of spring in curvature, or fantasticism and
+unnaturalness of arrangement, and especially a want of the peculiar
+characters of bark which express the growth and age of the tree; for
+bark is no mere excrescence, lifeless and external--it is a skin of
+especial significance in its indications of the organic form beneath; in
+places under the arms of the tree it wrinkles up and forms fine lines
+_round_ the trunk, inestimable in their indication of the direction of
+its surface; in others, it bursts or peels longitudinally, and the
+rending and bursting of it are influenced in direction and degree by the
+under-growth and swelling of the woody fibre, and are not a mere
+roughness and granulated pattern of the hide. Where there are so many
+points to be observed, some are almost always exaggerated, and others
+missed, according to the predilections of the painter. Rembrandt and
+Albert Durer have given some splendid examples of woody texture, but
+both miss the grace of the great lines. Titian took a larger view and
+reached a higher truth, yet (as before noticed) from the habit of
+drawing the figure, he admits too much flaccidity and bend, and
+sometimes makes his tree trunks look flexible like sea-weed. There is a
+peculiar stiffness and spring about the curves of the wood, which
+separates them completely from animal curves, and which especially
+defies recollection or invention; it is so subtile that it escapes but
+too often, even in the most patient study from nature; it lies within
+the thickness of a pencil line. Farther, the modes of ramification of
+the upper branches are so varied, inventive, and graceful, that the
+least alteration of them, even in the measure of a hairbreadth, spoils
+them; and though it is sometimes possible to get rid of a troublesome
+bough, accidentally awkward, or in some minor respects to assist the
+arrangement, yet so far as the real branches are copied, the hand libels
+their lovely curvatures even in its best attempts to follow them.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Bough-drawing of Turner.
+
+These two characters, the woody stiffness hinted through muscular line,
+and the inventive grace of the upper boughs, have never been rendered
+except by Turner; he does not merely draw them better than others, but
+he is the only man who has ever drawn them at all. Of the woody
+character, the tree subjects of the Liber Studiorum afford marked
+examples; the Cephalus and Procris, scenes near the Grand Chartreuse and
+Blair Athol, Juvenile Tricks, and Hedging and Ditching, may be
+particularized; in the England series, the Bolton Abbey is perhaps a
+more characteristic and thoroughly Turneresque example than any.
+
+Of the arrangement of the upper boughs, the Aesacus and Hesperie is
+perhaps the most consummate example, the absolute truth and simplicity
+and freedom from anything like fantasticism or animal form being as
+marked on the one hand, as the exquisite imaginativeness of the lines on
+the other: among the Yorkshire subjects the Aske Hall, Kirby Lonsdale
+Churchyard, and Brignall Church are most characteristic: among the
+England subjects the Warwick, Dartmouth Cove, Durham, and Chain Bridge
+over the Tees, where the piece of thicket on the right has been well
+rendered by the engraver, and is peculiarly expressive of the aerial
+relations and play of light among complex boughs. The vignette at the
+opening of Rogers's Pleasures of Memory, that of Chiefswood Cottage in
+the Illustrations to Scott's Works, and the Chateau de la belle
+Gabrielle, engraved for the Keepsake, are among the most graceful
+examples accessible to every one; the Crossing the Brook will occur at
+once to those acquainted with the artist's gallery. The drawing of the
+stems in all these instances, and indeed in all the various and frequent
+minor occurrences of such subject throughout the painter's works is
+entirely unique, there is nothing of the same kind in art.
+
+
+Sec. 16. Leafage. Its variety and symmetry.
+
+Sec. 17. Perfect regularity of Poussin.
+
+Let us, however, pass to the leafage of the elder landscape painters,
+and see if it atones for the deficiencies of the stems. One of the most
+remarkable characters of natural leafage is the constancy with which,
+while the leaves are arranged on the spray with exquisite regularity,
+that regularity is modified in their actual effect. For as in every
+group of leaves some are seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some
+foreshortened, some crossing each other, every one differently turned
+and placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though in
+themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and differing forms
+in the group; and the shadows of some, passing over the others, still
+farther disguise and confuse the mass, until the eye can distinguish
+nothing but a graceful and flexible disorder of innumerable forms, with
+here and there a perfect leaf on the extremity, or a symmetrical
+association of one or two, just enough to mark the specific character
+and to give unity and grace, but never enough to repeat in one group
+what was done in another--never enough to prevent the eye from feeling
+that, however regular and mathematical may be the structure of parts,
+what is composed out of them is as various and infinite as any other
+part of nature. Nor does this take place in general effect only. Break
+off an elm bough, three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table
+before you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in
+the whole bough, (provided you do not twist it about as you work,) you
+find one form of a leaf exactly like another; perhaps you will not even
+have _one_ complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or
+curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something
+or other the matter with it; and though the whole bough will look
+graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why
+it does so, since there is not one line of it like another. Now go to
+Gaspar Poussin, and take one of his sprays where they come against the
+sky; you may count it all round, one, two, three, four, one bunch; five,
+six, seven, eight, two bunches; nine, ten, eleven, twelve, three
+bunches; with four leaves each,--and such leaves! every one precisely
+the same as its neighbor, blunt and round at the end, (where every
+forest leaf is sharp, except that of the fig-tree,) tied together by the
+roots, and so fastened on to the demoniacal claws above described, one
+bunch to each claw.
+
+
+Sec. 18. Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage.
+
+But if nature is so various when you have a bough on the table before
+you, what must she be when she retires from you, and gives you her whole
+mass and multitude? The leaves then at the extremities become as fine
+as dust, a mere confusion of points and lines between you and the sky, a
+confusion which you might as well hope to draw sea-sand particle by
+particle, as to imitate leaf for leaf. This, as it comes down into the
+body of the tree, gets closer, but never opaque; it is always
+transparent, with crumbling lights in it letting you through to the sky;
+then, out of this, come, heavier and heavier, the masses of illumined
+foliage, all dazzling and inextricable, save here and there a single
+leaf on the extremities; then, under these, you get deep passages of
+broken, irregular gloom, passing into transparent, green-lighted, misty
+hollows; the twisted stems glancing through them in their pale and
+entangled infinity, and the shafted sunbeams, rained from above, running
+along the lustrous leaves for an instant; then lost, then caught again
+on some emerald bank or knotted root, to be sent up again with a faint
+reflex on the white under-sides of dim groups of drooping foliage, the
+shadows of the upper boughs running in gray network down the glossy
+stems, and resting in quiet checkers upon the glittering earth; but all
+penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and
+incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and the mystery of
+the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to us, some
+solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the
+type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and imagine, but can
+never see.
+
+
+Sec. 19. How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin.
+
+Now, with thus much of nature in your mind, go to Gaspar Poussin's View
+near Albano, in the National Gallery. It is the very subject to unite
+all these effects,--a sloping bank shaded with intertwined forest;--and
+what has Gaspar given us? A mass of smooth, opaque, varnished brown,
+without one interstice, one change of hue, or any vestige of leafy
+structure in its interior, or in those parts of it, I should say, which
+are intended to represent interior; but out of it, over it rather, at
+regular intervals, we have circular groups of greenish touches, always
+the same in size, shape, and distance from each other, containing so
+exactly the same number of touches each, that you cannot tell one from
+another. There are eight or nine and thirty of them, laid over each
+other like fish-scales; the shade being most carefully made darker and
+darker as it recedes from each until it comes to the edge of the next,
+against which it cuts in the same sharp circular line, and then begins
+to decline again, until the canvas is covered, with about as much
+intelligence or feeling of art as a house-painter has in marbling a
+wainscot, or a weaver in repeating an ornamental pattern. What is there
+in this, which the most determined prejudice in favor of the old masters
+can for a moment suppose to resemble trees? It is exactly what the most
+ignorant beginner, trying to make a complete drawing, would lay
+down,--exactly the conception of trees which we have in the works of our
+worst drawing-masters, where the shade is laid on with the black-lead
+and stump, and every human power exerted to make it look like a
+kitchen-grate well polished.
+
+
+Sec. 20. How followed by Creswick.
+
+Oppose to this the drawing even of our somewhat inferior tree-painters.
+I will not insult Harding by mentioning his work after it, but take
+Creswick, for instance, and match one of his sparkling bits of green
+leafage with this tree-pattern of Poussin's. I do not say there is not a
+dignity and impressiveness about the old landscape, owing to its
+simplicity; and I am very far from calling Creswick's good
+tree-painting; it is false in color and deficient in mass and freedom,
+and has many other defects, but it is the work of a man who has sought
+earnestly for truth; and who, with one thought or memory of nature in
+his heart, could look at the two landscapes, and receive Poussin's with
+ordinary patience? Take Creswick in black and white, where he is
+unembarrassed by his fondness for pea-green, the illustrations, for
+instance, to the Nut-brown Maid, in the Book of English Ballads. Look at
+the intricacy and fulness of the dark oak foliage where it bends over
+the brook, see how you can go through it, and into it, and come out
+behind it to the quiet bit of sky. Observe the gray, aerial transparency
+of the stunted copse on the left, and the entangling of the boughs where
+the light near foliage detaches itself. Above all, note the forms of the
+masses of light. Not things like scales or shells, sharp at the edge and
+flat in the middle, but irregular and rounded, stealing in and out
+accidentally from the shadow, and presenting, as the masses of all trees
+do, in general outline, a resemblance to the specific forms of the
+leaves of which they are composed. Turn over the page, and look into
+the weaving of the foliage and sprays against the dark night-sky, how
+near they are, yet how untraceable; see how the moonlight creeps up
+underneath them, trembling and shivering on the silver boughs above;
+note also, the descending bit of ivy on the left, of which only two
+leaves are made out, and the rest is confusion, or tells only in the
+moonlight like faint flakes of snow.
+
+
+Sec. 21. Perfect unity in nature's foliage.
+
+But nature observes another principle in her foliage more important even
+than its intricacy. She always secures an exceeding harmony and repose.
+She is _so_ intricate that her minuteness of parts becomes to the eye,
+at a little distance, one united veil or cloud of leaves, to destroy the
+evenness of which is perhaps a greater fault than to destroy its
+transparency. Look at Creswick's oak again, in its dark parts. Intricate
+as it is, all is blended into a cloud-like harmony of shade, which
+becomes fainter and fainter, as it retires, with the most delicate
+flatness and unity of tone. And it is by this kind of vaporescence, so
+to speak, by this flat, misty, unison of parts, that nature, and her
+faithful followers, are enabled to keep the eye in perfect repose in the
+midst of profusion, and to display beauty of form, wherever they choose,
+to the greatest possible advantage, by throwing it across some quiet,
+visionary passage of dimness and rest.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Total want of it in Both and Hobbima.
+
+It is here that Hobbima and Both fail. They can paint oak leafage
+faithfully, but do not know where to stop, and by doing too much, lose
+the truth of all,--lose the very truth of detail at which they aim, for
+all their minute work only gives two leaves to nature's twenty. They are
+evidently incapable of even thinking of a tree, much more of drawing it,
+except leaf by leaf; they have no notion nor sense of simplicity, mass,
+or obscurity, and when they come to distance, where it is totally
+impossible that leaves should be separately seen, yet, being incapable
+of conceiving or rendering the grand and quiet forms of truth, they are
+reduced to paint their bushes with dots and touches expressive of leaves
+three feet broad each. Nevertheless there is a genuine aim in their
+works, and their failure is rather to be attributed to ignorance of art,
+than to such want of sense for nature as we find in Claude or Poussin;
+and when they come close home, we sometimes receive from them fine
+passages of mechanical truth.
+
+
+Sec. 23. How rendered by Turner.
+
+But let us oppose to their works the group of trees on the left in
+Turner's Marly.[73] We have there perfect and ceaseless intricacy to
+oppose to Poussin,--perfect and unbroken repose to oppose to Hobbima;
+and in the unity of these the perfection of truth. This group may be
+taken as a fair standard of Turner's tree-painting. We have in it the
+admirably drawn stems, instead of the claws or the serpents; full,
+transparent, boundless intricacy, instead of the shell pattern; and
+misty depth of intermingled light and leafage, instead of perpetual
+repetition of one mechanical touch.
+
+
+Sec. 24. The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good.
+
+I have already spoken (Section II. Chapter IV. Sec. 15,) of the way in
+which mystery and intricacy are carried even into the nearest leaves of
+the foreground, and noticed the want of such intricacy even in the best
+works of the old masters. Claude's are particularly deficient, for by
+representing every particular leaf of them, or trying to do so, he makes
+nature finite, and even his nearest bits of leafage are utterly false,
+for they have neither shadows modifying their form, (compare Section II.
+Chapter III. Sec. 7,) nor sparkling lights, nor confused intersections of
+their own forms and lines; and the perpetual repetition of the same
+shape of leaves and the same arrangement, relieved from a black ground,
+is more like an ornamental pattern for dress than the painting of a
+foreground. Nevertheless, the foliage of Claude, in his middle
+distances, is the finest and truest part of his pictures, and, on the
+whole, affords the best example of good drawing to be found in ancient
+art. It is always false in color, and has not boughs enough amongst it,
+and the stems commonly look a great deal nearer than any part of it, but
+it is still graceful, flexible, abundant, intricate; and, in all but
+color and connection with stems, very nearly right. Of the perfect
+painting of thick, leafy foreground, Turner's Mercury and Argus, and
+Oakhampton, are the standards.[74]
+
+
+Sec. 25. Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves.
+
+Sec. 26. Altogether unobserved by the old masters. Always given by Turner.
+
+The last and most important truth to be observed respecting trees, is
+that their boughs always, in finely grown individuals, bear among
+themselves such a ratio of length as to describe with their extremities
+a symmetrical curve, constant for each species; and within this curve
+all the irregularities, segments, and divisions of the tree are
+included, each bough reaching the limit with its extremity, but not
+passing it. When a tree is perfectly grown, each bough starts from the
+trunk with just so much wood as, allowing for constant ramification,
+will enable it to reach the terminal line; or if by mistake, it start
+with too little, it will proceed without ramifying till within a
+distance where it may safely divide; if on the contrary it start with
+too much, it will ramify quickly and constantly; or, to express the real
+operation more accurately, each bough, growing on so as to keep even
+with its neighbors, takes so much wood from the trunk as is sufficient
+to enable it to do so, more or less in proportion as it ramifies fast
+or slowly. In badly grown trees, the boughs are apt to fall short of
+the curve, or at least, there are so many jags and openings that its
+symmetry is interrupted; and in young trees, the impatience of the upper
+shoots frequently breaks the line; but in perfect and mature trees,
+every bough does its duty completely, and the line of curve is quite
+filled up, and the mass within it unbroken, so that the tree assumes the
+shape of a dome, as in the oak, or, in tall trees, of a pear, with the
+stalk downmost. The old masters paid no attention whatsoever to this
+great principle. They swing their boughs about, anywhere and everywhere;
+each stops or goes on just as it likes, nor will it be possible, in any
+of their works, to find a single example in which any symmetrical curve
+is indicated by the extremities.[75]
+
+But I need scarcely tell any one in the slightest degree acquainted with
+the works of Turner, how rigidly and constantly he adheres to this
+principle of nature; taking in his highest compositions the perfect
+ideal form, every spray being graceful and varied in itself, but
+inevitably terminating at the assigned limit, and filling up the curve
+without break or gap; in his lower works, taking less perfect form, but
+invariably hinting the constant tendency in all, and thus, in spite of
+his abundant complexity, he arranges his trees under simpler and grander
+forms than any other artist, even among the moderns.
+
+
+Sec. 27. Foliage painting on the Continent.
+
+It was above asserted that J. D. Harding is, after Turner, the greatest
+master of foliage in Europe; I ought, however, to state that my
+knowledge of the modern landscape of Germany is very limited, and that,
+even with respect to France and Italy, I judge rather from the general
+tendency of study and character of mind visible in the annual
+Exhibition of the Louvre, and in some galleries of modern paintings at
+Milan, Venice, and Florence, than from any detailed acquaintance with
+the works of their celebrated painters. Yet I think I can hardly be
+mistaken. I have seen nothing to induce me to take a closer survey; no
+life knowledge or emotion in any quarter; nothing but the meanest and
+most ignorant copyism of vulgar details, coupled with a style of
+conception resembling that of the various lithographic ideals on the
+first leaves of the music of pastoral ballads. An exception ought,
+however, to be made in favor of French etching; some studies in black
+and white may be seen in the narrow passages of the Louvre of very high
+merit, showing great skill and delicacy of execution, and most
+determined industry; (in fact, I think when the French artist fails, it
+is never through fear of labor;) nay, more than this, some of them
+exhibit acute perception of landscape character and great power of
+reaching simple impressions of gloom, wildness, sound, and motion. Some
+of their illustrated works also exhibit these powers in a high degree;
+there is a spirit, fire, and sense of reality about some of the
+wood-cuts to the large edition of Paul and Virginia, and a determined
+rendering of separate feeling in each, such as we look for in vain in
+our own ornamental works.[76] But the French appear to have no teaching
+such as might carry them beyond this; their entire ignorance of color
+renders the assumption of the brush instantly fatal, and the false,
+forced, and impious sentiment of the nation renders anything like grand
+composition altogether impossible.
+
+
+Sec. 28. Foliage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies.
+
+It is therefore only among good artists of our own school that I think
+any fair comparison can be instituted, and I wish to assert Harding's
+knowledge of foliage more distinctly, because he neither does justice to
+himself, nor is, I think, rightly estimated by his fellow-artists. I
+shall not make any invidious remarks respecting individuals, but I think
+it necessary to state generally, that the style of foliage painting
+chiefly characteristic of the pictures on the line of the Royal Academy
+is of the most degraded kind;[77] and that, except Turner and Mulready,
+we have, as far as I know, no Royal Academician capable of painting even
+the smallest portion of foliage in a dignified or correct manner; all is
+lost in green shadows with glittering yellow lights, white trunks with
+black patches on them, and leaves of no species in particular. Much
+laborious and clever foliage drawing is to be found in the rooms of the
+New Water-Color Society; but we have no one in any wise comparable to
+Harding for thorough knowledge of the subject, for power of expression
+in a sketch from nature, or for natural and unaffected conception in the
+study.
+
+Maintaining for him this high position, it is necessary that I should
+also state those deficiencies which appear to me to conceal his real
+power, and in no small degree to prevent his progress.
+
+
+Sec. 29. His brilliancy of execution too manifest.
+
+His over-fondness for brilliant execution I have already noticed. He is
+fonder of seeing something tolerably like a tree produced with few
+touches, than something very like a tree produced with many. Now, it is
+quite allowable that occasionally, and in portions of his picture, a
+great artist should indulge himself in this luxury of sketching, yet it
+is a perilous luxury; it blunts the feeling and weakens the hand. I have
+said enough in various places respecting the virtues of negligence and
+of finish, (compare above the chapter on Ideas of Power in Part I. Sect.
+II., and Part III. Sect. I. Ch. X. Sec. 4,) and I need only say here,
+therefore, that Harding's foliage is never sufficiently finished, and
+has at its best the look of a rapid sketch from nature touched upon at
+home. In 1843, (I think,) there was a pretty drawing in the rooms of the
+Water-Color Society,--the clear green water of a torrent resting among
+stones, with copse-like wood on each side, a bridge in the distance, a
+white flower (water-lily?) catching the eye in front; the tops of the
+trees on the left of this picture were mere broad blots of color dashed
+upon the sky and connected by stems. I allow the power necessary to
+attain any look of foliage by such means, but it is power abused: by no
+such means can any of the higher virtue and impressiveness of foliage be
+rendered. In the use of body color for near leaves, his execution is
+also too hasty; often the touches are mere square or round dots, which
+can be understood only for foliage by their arrangement. This fault was
+especially marked in the trees of his picture painted for the Academy
+two years ago; they were very nearly shapeless, and could not stand even
+in courtesy for walnut leaves, for which judging by the make of the
+tree, they must have been intended.
+
+
+Sec. 30. His bough-drawing and choice of form.
+
+His drawing of boughs is, in all points of demonstrable law, right, and
+very frequently easy and graceful also; yet it has two eminent faults,
+the first, that the flow of the bough is sacrificed to its texture, the
+pencil checking itself and hesitating at dots, and stripes, and knots,
+instead of following the grand and unbroken tendency of growth: the
+second, that however good the arrangement may be as far as regards
+merely flexibility, intricacy, and freedom, there are none of those
+composed groups of line which are unfailing in nature. Harding's work is
+not grand enough to be natural. The drawings in the park and the forest,
+are, I believe, almost facsimiles of sketches made from nature; yet it
+is evident at once that in all of them nothing but the general lie and
+disposition of the boughs has been taken from the tree, and that no
+single branch or spray has been faithfully copied or patiently studied.
+
+This want of close study necessarily causes several deficiencies of
+feeling respecting general form. Harding's choice is always of tree
+forms comparatively imperfect, leaning this way and that, and unequal in
+the lateral arrangements of foliage. Such forms are often graceful,
+always picturesque, but rarely grand; and when systematically adopted,
+untrue. It requires more patient study to attain just feeling of the
+dignity and character of a purely formed tree with all its symmetries
+perfect.
+
+
+Sec. 31. Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with what
+        advantage.
+
+One more cause of incorrectness I may note, though it is not peculiar to
+the artist's tree-drawing, but attaches to his general system of
+sketching. In Harding's valuable work on the use of the Lead Pencil,
+there is one principle advanced which I believe to be false and
+dangerous, that the local color of objects is not thereby to be
+rendered. I think the instance given is that of some baskets, whose
+darkness is occasioned solely by the touches indicating the
+wicker-work. Now, I believe, that an essential difference between the
+sketch of a great and of a comparatively inferior master is, that the
+former is conceived entirely in shade and color, and its masses are
+blocked out with reference to both, while the inferior draughtsman
+checks at textures and petty characters of object. If Rembrandt had had
+to sketch such baskets, he would have troubled himself very little about
+the wicker-work; but he would have looked to see where they came dark or
+light on the sand, and where there were any sparkling points of light on
+the wet osiers. These darks and lights he would have scratched in with
+the fastest lines he could, leaving no white paper but at the wet points
+of lustre; if he had had time, the wicker-work would have come
+afterwards.[78] And I think, that the first thing to be taught to any
+pupil, is neither how to manage the pencil, nor how to attain character
+of outline, but rather to see where things are light and where they are
+dark, and to draw them as he sees them, never caring whether his lines
+be dexterous or slovenly. The result of such study is the immediate
+substitution of downright drawing for symbolism, and afterwards a
+judicious moderation in the use of extreme lights and darks; for where
+local colors are really drawn, so much of what seems violently dark is
+found to come light against something else, and so much of what seems
+high light to come dark against the sky, that the draughtsman trembles
+at finding himself plunged either into blackness or whiteness, and
+seeks, as he should, for means of obtaining force without either.
+
+It is in consequence of his evident habit of sketching more with a view
+to detail and character than to the great masses, that Harding's
+chiaroscuro is frequently crude, scattered, and petty. Black shadows
+occur under his distant trees, white high lights on his foreground
+rocks, the foliage and trunks are divided by violent oppositions into
+separate masses, and the branches lose in spots of moss and furrowings
+of bark their soft roundings of delicate form, and their grand relations
+to each other and the sky.
+
+
+Sec. 32. Opposition between great manner and great knowledge.
+
+It is owing to my respect for the artist, and my belief in his power and
+conscientious desire to do what is best, that I have thus extended these
+somewhat unkind remarks. On the other hand, it is to be remembered, that
+his knowledge of nature is most extended, and his dexterity of drawing
+most instructive, especially considering his range of subject; for
+whether in water, rock, or foliage, he is equally skilful in attaining
+whatever he desires, (though he does not always desire all that he
+ought;) and artists should keep in mind, that neither grandeur of manner
+nor truth of system can atone for the want of this knowledge and this
+skill. Constable's manner is good and great, but being unable to draw
+even a log of wood, much more a trunk of a tree or a stone, he left his
+works destitute of substance, mere studies of effect without any
+expression of specific knowledge; and thus even what is great in them
+has been productive, I believe, of very great injury in its
+encouragement of the most superficial qualities of the English school.
+
+
+Sec. 33. Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattermole.
+
+The foliage of David Cox has been already noticed (preface to second
+edition.) It is altogether exquisite in color, and in its impressions of
+coolness, shade, and mass; of its drawing I cannot say anything, but
+that I should be sorry to see it better. Copley Fielding's is remarkable
+for its intricacy and elegance; it is, however, not free from
+affectation, and, as has been before remarked, is always evidently
+composed in the study. The execution is too rough and woolly; it is
+wanting in simplicity, sharpness, and freshness,--above all in specific
+character: not, however, in his middle distances, where the rounded
+masses of forest and detached blasted trunks of fir are usually very
+admirable. Cattermole has very grand conceptions of general form, but
+wild and without substance, and therefore incapable of long maintaining
+their attractiveness, especially lately, the execution having become in
+the last degree coarse and affected. This is bitterly to be regretted,
+for few of our artists would paint foliage better, if he would paint it
+from nature, and with reverence.
+
+
+Sec. 34. Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of light,
+        and offensive if otherwise.
+
+Hunt, I think, fails, and fails only, in foliage; fails, as the
+Daguerreotype does, from over-fidelity; for foliage will _not_ be
+imitated, it must be reasoned out and suggested; yet Hunt is the only
+man we have who can paint the real leaf green under sunlight, and, in
+this respect, his trees are delicious,--summer itself. Creswick has
+sweet feeling, and tries for the real green too, but, from want of
+science in his shadows, ends in green paint instead of green light; in
+mere local color, instead of color raised by sunshine. One example is
+enough to show where the fault lies. In his picture of the Weald of
+Kent, in the British Institution this year, there was a cottage in the
+middle distance with white walls, and a red roof. The dark sides of the
+white walls and of the roof were of the same color, a dark purple--wrong
+for both. Repeated inaccuracies of this kind necessarily deprive even
+the most brilliant color of all appearance of sunshine, and they are
+much to be deprecated in Creswick, as he is one of the very few artists
+who _do_ draw from nature and try for nature. Some of his thickets and
+torrent-beds are most painfully studied, and yet he cannot draw a bough
+nor a stone. I suspect he is too much in the habit of studying only
+large views on the spot, and not of drawing small portions thoroughly. I
+trust it will be seen that these, as all other remarks that I have made
+throughout this volume on particular works, are not in depreciation of,
+or unthankfulness for, what the artist has done, but in the desire that
+he should do himself more justice and more honor. I have much pleasure
+in Creswick's works, and I am glad always to see them admired by others.
+
+
+Sec. 35. Conclusion. Works of J. Linnell and S. Palmer.
+
+I shall conclude this sketch of the foliage art of England, by mention
+of two artists, whom I believe to be representative of a considerable
+class, admirable in their reverence and patience of study, yet
+unappreciated by the public, because what they do is unrecommended by
+dexterities of handling. The forest studies of J. Linnell are peculiarly
+elaborate, and, in many points, most skilful; they fail perhaps of
+interest, owing to over-fulness of detail and a want of generalization
+in the effect; but even a little more of the Harding sharpness of touch
+would set off their sterling qualities, and make them felt. A less known
+artist, S. Palmer, lately admitted a member of the Old Water-Color
+Society, is deserving of the very highest place among faithful followers
+of nature. His studies of foreign foliage especially are beyond all
+praise for care and fulness. I have never seen a stone pine or a cypress
+drawn except by him; and his feeling is as pure and grand as his
+fidelity is exemplary. He has not, however, yet, I think, discovered
+what is necessary and unnecessary in a great picture; and his works,
+sent to the Society's rooms, have been most unfavorable examples of his
+power, and have been generally, as yet, in places where all that is best
+in them is out of sight. I look to him, nevertheless, unless he lose
+himself in over-reverence for certain conventionalisms of the elder
+schools, as one of the probable renovators and correctors of whatever is
+failing or erroneous in the practice of English art.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [71] It sometimes happens that a morbid direction of growth will
+    cause an exception here and there to this rule, the bough swelling
+    beyond its legitimate size; knots and excrescences, of course,
+    sometimes interfere with the effect of diminution. I believe that in
+    the laurel, when it grows large and old, singular instances may be
+    found of thick upper boughs and over quantity of wood at the
+    extremities. All these accidents or exceptions are felt as such by
+    the eye. They may occasionally be used by the painter in savage or
+    grotesque scenery, or as points of contrast, but are no excuse for
+    his ever losing sight of the general law.
+
+  [72] Compare Part III. Sect. II. Chap. IV. Sec. 6, 7.
+
+  [73] This group I have before noticed as singularly (but, I doubt
+    not, accidentally, and in consequence of the love of the two great
+    painters for the same grand forms) resembling that introduced by
+    Tintoret in the background of his Cain and Abel.
+
+  [74] The above paragraphs I have left as originally written, because
+    they are quite true as far as they reach; but like many other
+    portions of this essay, they take in a very small portion of the
+    truth. I shall not add to them at present, because I can explain my
+    meaning better in our consideration of the laws of beauty; but the
+    reader must bear in mind that what is above stated refers,
+    throughout, to large masses of foliage seen under broad
+    sunshine,--and it has especial reference to Turner's enormous scale
+    of scene, and intense desire of light. In twilight, when tree-forms
+    are seen against sky, other laws come into operation, as well as in
+    subject of narrow limits and near foreground. It is, I think, to be
+    regretted that Turner does not in his Academy pictures sometimes
+    take more confined and gloomy subjects, like that grand one, near
+    the Chartreuse, of the Liber Studiorum, wherein his magnificent
+    power of elaborating close foliage might be developed; but, for the
+    present, let the reader, with respect to what has been here said of
+    close foliage, note the drawing of the leaves in that plate, in the
+    Aesacus and Hesperie, and the Cephalus, and the elaboration of the
+    foregrounds in the Yorkshire drawings; let him compare what is said
+    of Turner's foliage painting above in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. Sec.
+    40, Sec. 41, and of Titian's previously, as well as Part III. Sect. I.
+    Chap. VIII., and Sect. II. Chap. IV. Sec. 21. I shall hereafter
+    endeavor to arrange the subject in a more systematic manner; but
+    what additional observations I may have to make will none of them be
+    in any wise more favorable to Gaspar, Salvator, or Hobbima, than the
+    above paragraphs.
+
+  [75] Perhaps in some instances, this may be the case with the trees
+    of Nicholas Poussin; but even with him the boughs only touch the
+    line of limit with their central _points_ of extremity, and are not
+    _sectors_ of the great curve--forming a part of it with expanded
+    extremities, as in nature. Draw a few straight lines, from the
+    centre to the circumference of a circle. The forms included between
+    them are the forms of the individual boughs of a fine tree, with all
+    their ramifications (only the external curve is not a circle, but
+    more frequently two parabolas--which, I believe, it is in the
+    oak--or an ellipse.) But each bough of the old masters is
+    club-shaped, and broadest, not at the outside of the tree, but a
+    little way towards its centre.
+
+  [76] On the other hand, nothing can be more exquisitely ridiculous
+    than the French illustrations of a second or third-rate order, as
+    those to the Harmonies of Lamartine.
+
+  [77] Of Stanfield's foliage I remember too little to enable me to
+    form any definite judgment; it is a pity that he so much neglects
+    this noble element of landscape.
+
+  [78] It is true that many of Rembrandt's etchings are merely in
+    line, but it may be observed that the subject is universally
+    _conceived_ in light and shade, and that the lines are either merely
+    guides in the arrangement, or an exquisite indication of the
+    key-notes of shade, on which the after-system of it is to be
+    based--portions of fragmentary finish, showing the completeness of
+    the conception.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+               GENERAL REMARKS RESPECTING THE TRUTH OF TURNER.
+
+
+Sec. 1. No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural truth.
+
+We have now arrived at some general conception of the extent of Turner's
+knowledge, and the truth of his practice, by the deliberate examination
+of the characteristics of the four great elements of landscape--sky,
+earth, water, and vegetation. I have not thought it necessary to devote
+a chapter to architecture, because enough has been said on this subject
+in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII.; and its general truths, which are those
+with which the landscape painter, as such, is chiefly concerned, require
+only a simple and straightforward application of those rules of which
+every other material object of a landscape has required a most difficult
+and complicated application. Turner's knowledge of perspective probably
+adds to his power in the arrangement of every order of subject; but
+ignorance on this head is rather disgraceful than knowledge meritorious.
+It is disgraceful, for instance, that any man should commit such
+palpable and atrocious errors in ordinary perspective as are seen in the
+quay in Claude's sea-piece, No. 14, National Gallery, or in the curved
+portico of No. 30; but still these are not points to be taken into
+consideration as having anything to do with artistical rank, just as,
+though we should say it was disgraceful if a great poet could not spell,
+we should not consider such a defect as in any way taking from his
+poetical rank. Neither is there anything particularly belonging to
+architecture, as such, which it is any credit to an artist to observe or
+represent; it is only a simple and clear field for the manifestation of
+his knowledge of general laws. Any surveyor or engineer could have drawn
+the steps and balustrade in the Hero and Leander, as well as Turner has;
+but there is no man living but himself who could have thrown the
+accidental shadows upon them. I may, however, refer for general
+illustration of Turner's power as an architectural draughtsman, to the
+front of Rouen Cathedral, engraved in the Rivers of France, and to the
+Ely in the England. I know nothing in art which can be set beside the
+former of these for overwhelming grandeur and simplicity of effect, and
+inexhaustible intricacy of parts. I have then only a few remarks farther
+to offer respecting the general character of all those truths which we
+have been hitherto endeavoring to explain and illustrate.
+
+
+Sec. 2. Extreme difficulty of illustrating or explaining the highest truth.
+
+Sec. 3. The _positive_ rank of Turner is in no degree shown in the
+       foregoing pages, but only his relative rank.
+
+Sec. 4. The exceeding refinement of his truth.
+
+Sec. 5. There is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without
+       knowledge.
+
+Sec. 6. And nothing which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy.
+
+The difference in the accuracy of the lines of the Torso of the Vatican,
+(the Maestro of M. Angelo,) from those in one of M. Angelo's finest
+works, could perhaps scarcely be appreciated by any eye or feeling
+undisciplined by the most perfect and practical anatomical knowledge. It
+rests on points of such traceless and refined delicacy, that though we
+feel them in the result, we cannot follow them in the details. Yet they
+are such and so great as to place the Torso alone in art, solitary and
+supreme; while the finest of M. Angelo's works, considered with respect
+to truth alone, are said to be only on a level with antiques of the
+second class, under the Apollo and Venus, that is, two classes or grades
+below the Torso. But suppose the best sculptor in the world, possessing
+the most entire appreciation of the excellence of the Torso, were to sit
+down, pen in hand, to try and tell us wherein the peculiar truth of each
+line consisted? Could any words that he could use make us feel the
+hairbreadth of depth and distance on which all depends? or end in
+anything more than bare assertions of the inferiority of this line to
+that, which, if we did not perceive for ourselves, no explanation could
+ever illustrate to us? He might as well endeavor to explain to us by
+words some taste or other subject of sense, of which we had no
+experience. And so it is with all truths of the highest order; they are
+separated from those of average precision by points of extreme delicacy,
+which none but the cultivated eye can in the least feel, and to express
+which, all words are absolutely meaningless and useless. Consequently,
+in all that I have been saying of the truth of artists, I have been able
+to point out only coarse, broad, and explicable matters; I have been
+perfectly unable to express (and indeed I have made no endeavor to
+express) the finely drawn and distinguished truth in which all the real
+excellence of art consists. All those truths which I have been able to
+explain and demonstrate in Turner, are such as any artist of ordinary
+powers of observation ought to be capable of rendering. It is
+disgraceful to omit them; but it is no very great credit to observe
+them. I have indeed proved that they have been neglected, and
+disgracefully so, by those men who are commonly considered the Fathers
+of Art; but in showing that they have been observed by Turner, I have
+only proved him to be _above_ other men in knowledge of truth, I have
+not given any conception of his own positive rank as a Painter of
+Nature. But it stands to reason, that the men, who in broad, simple, and
+demonstrable matters are perpetually violating truth, will not be
+particularly accurate or careful in carrying out delicate and refined,
+and undemonstrable matters; and it stands equally to reason, that the
+man who, as far as argument or demonstration can go, is found invariably
+truthful, will, in all probability, be truthful to the last line, and
+shadow of a line. And such is, indeed, the case with every touch of this
+consummate artist; the essential excellence--all that constitutes the
+real and exceeding value of his works--is beyond and above expression;
+it is a truth inherent in every line, and breathing in every hue, too
+delicate and exquisite to admit of any kind of proof, nor to be
+ascertained except by the highest of tests--the keen feeling attained by
+extended knowledge and long study. Two lines are laid on canvas; one is
+right and another wrong. There is no difference between them appreciable
+by the compasses--none appreciable by the ordinary eye--none which can
+be pointed out, if it is not seen. One person feels it,--another does
+not; but the feeling or sight of the one can by no words be communicated
+to the other: it would be unjust if it could, for that feeling and sight
+have been the reward of years of labor. And there is, indeed, nothing in
+Turner--not one dot nor line--whose meaning can be understood without
+knowledge; because he never aims at sensual impressions, but at the deep
+final truth, which only meditation can discover, and only experience
+recognize. There is nothing done or omitted by him, which does not imply
+such a comparison of ends, such rejection of the least worthy, (as far
+as they are incompatible with the rest,) such careful selection and
+arrangement of all that can be united, as can only be enjoyed by minds
+capable of going through the same process, and discovering the reasons
+for the choice. And, as there is nothing in his works which can be
+enjoyed without knowledge, so there is nothing in them which knowledge
+will not enable us to enjoy. There is no test of our acquaintance with
+nature so absolute and unfailing as the degree of admiration we feel for
+Turner's painting. Precisely as we are shallow in our knowledge, vulgar
+in our feeling, and contracted in our views of principles, will the
+works of this artist be stumbling-blocks or foolishness to
+us:--precisely in the degree in which we are familiar with nature,
+constant in our observation of her, and enlarged in our understanding of
+her, will they expand before our eyes into glory and beauty. In every
+new insight which we obtain into the works of God, in every new idea
+which we receive from His creation, we shall find ourselves possessed of
+an interpretation and a guide to something in Turner's works which we
+had not before understood. We may range over Europe, from shore to
+shore; and from every rock that we tread upon, every sky that passes
+over our heads, every local form of vegetation or of soil, we shall
+receive fresh illustration of his principles--fresh confirmation of his
+facts. We shall feel, wherever we go, that he has been there before
+us--whatever we see, that he has seen and seized before us: and we shall
+at last cease the investigation, with a well-grounded trust, that
+whatever we have been unable to account for, and what we still dislike
+in his works, has reason for it, and foundation like the rest; and that
+even where he has failed or erred, there is a beauty in the failure
+which none are able to equal, and a dignity in the error which none are
+worthy to reprove.
+
+
+Sec. 7. His former rank and progress.
+
+Sec. 8. Standing of his present works. Their mystery is the consequence of
+       their fullness.
+
+There has been marked and constant progress in his mind; he has not,
+like some few artists, been without childhood; his course of study has
+been as evidently as it has been swiftly progressive, and in different
+stages of the struggle, sometimes one order of truth, sometimes another,
+has been aimed at or omitted. But from the beginning to the present
+height of his career, he has never sacrificed a greater truth to a
+less. As he advanced, the previous knowledge or attainment was absorbed
+in what succeeded, or abandoned only if incompatible, and never
+abandoned without a gain; and his present works present the sum and
+perfection of his accumulated knowledge, delivered with the impatience
+and passion of one who feels too much, and knows too much, and has too
+little time to say it in, to pause for expression, or ponder over his
+syllables. There is in them the obscurity, but the truth, of prophecy;
+the instinctive and burning language, which would express less if it
+uttered more, which is indistinct only by its fulness, and dark with its
+abundant meaning. He feels now, with long-trained vividness and keenness
+of sense, too bitterly the impotence of the hand, and the vainness of
+the color to catch one shadow or one image of the glory which God has
+revealed to him. He has dwelt and communed with nature all the days of
+his life; he knows her now too well, he cannot palter over the material
+littleness of her outward form; he must give her soul, or he has done
+nothing, and he cannot do this with the flax, and the earth, and the
+oil. "I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make
+_them_ tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and
+let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the
+night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read
+this, and interpret this, and let us feel together. And if you have not
+that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not the sun in
+your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words may awaken,
+though they be indistinct and swift, leave me; for I will give you no
+patient mockery, no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am
+and whom I serve. Let other servants imitate the voice and the gesture
+of their master, while they forget his message. Hear that message from
+me; but remember, that the teaching of Divine truth must still be a
+mystery."
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER III.
+
+                CONCLUSION.--MODERN ART AND MODERN CRITICISM.
+
+
+We have only, in conclusion, to offer a few general remarks respecting
+modern art and modern criticism.
+
+
+Sec. 1. The entire prominence hitherto given to the works of one artist
+       caused only by our not being able to take cognizance of character.
+
+Sec. 2. The feelings of different artists are incapable of full comparison.
+
+Sec. 3. But the fidelity and truth of each are capable of real comparison.
+
+Sec. 4. Especially because they are equally manifested in the treatment of
+       all subjects.
+
+Sec. 5. No man draws one thing well, if he can draw nothing else.
+
+We wish, in the first place, to remove the appearance of invidiousness
+and partiality which the constant prominence given in the present
+portion of the work to the productions of one artist, can scarcely fail
+of bearing in the minds of most readers. When we pass to the examination
+of what is beautiful and expressive in art, we shall frequently find
+distinctive qualities in the minds even of inferior artists, which have
+led them to the pursuit and embodying of particular trains of thought,
+altogether different from those which direct the compositions of other
+men, and incapable of comparison with them. Now, when this is the case,
+we should consider it in the highest degree both invidious and
+illogical, to say of such different modes of exertion of the intellect,
+that one is in all points greater or nobler than another. We shall
+probably find something in the working of all minds which has an end and
+a power peculiar to itself, and which is deserving of free and full
+admiration, without any reference whatsoever to what has, in other
+fields, been accomplished by other modes of thought, and directions of
+aim. We shall, indeed, find a wider range and grasp in one man than in
+another; but yet it will be our own fault if we do not discover
+something in the most limited range of mind which is different from, and
+in its way better than, anything presented to us by the more grasping
+intellect. We all know that the nightingale sings more nobly than the
+lark; but who, therefore, would wish the lark not to sing, or would deny
+that it had a character of its own, which bore a part among the melodies
+of creation no less essential than that of the more richly-gifted bird?
+And thus we shall find and feel that whatever difference may exist
+between the intellectual powers of one artist and another, yet wherever
+there is any true genius, there will be some peculiar lesson which even
+the humblest will teach us more sweetly and perfectly than those far
+above them in prouder attributes of mind; and we should be as mistaken
+as we should be unjust and invidious, if we refused to receive this
+their peculiar message with gratitude and veneration, merely because it
+was a sentence and not a volume. But the case is different when we
+examine their relative fidelity to given facts. That fidelity depends on
+no peculiar modes of thought or habits of character; it is the result of
+keen sensibility, combined with high powers of memory and association.
+These qualities, as such, are the same in all men; character or feeling
+may direct their choice to this or that object, but the fidelity with
+which they treat either the one or the other, is dependent on those
+simple powers of sense and intellect which are like and comparable in
+all, and of which we can always say that they are greater in this man,
+or less in that without reference to the character of the individual.
+Those feelings which direct Cox to the painting of wild, weedy banks,
+and cool, melting skies, and those which directed Barret to the painting
+of glowing foliage and melancholy twilight, are both just and beautiful
+in their way, and are both worthy of high praise and gratitude, without
+necessity, nay, without _proper_ possibility of comparing one with the
+other. But the degree of fidelity with which the leaves of the one and
+the light of the other are rendered, depends upon faculties of sight,
+sense, and memory common to both, and perfectly comparable; and we may
+say fearlessly, and without injustice, that one or the other, as the
+case may be, is more faithful in that which they have chosen to
+represent. It is also to be remembered that these faculties of sense and
+memory are not partial in their effect; they will not induce fidelity in
+the rendering of one class of object, and fail of doing so in another.
+They act equally, and with equal results, whatever may be the matter
+subjected to them; the same delicate sense which perceives the utmost
+grace of the fibres of a tree, will be equally unerring in tracing the
+character of cloud; and the quick memory which seizes and retains the
+circumstances of a flying effect of shadow or color, will be equally
+effectual in fixing the impression of the instantaneous form of a moving
+figure or a breaking wave. There are indeed one or two broad
+distinctions in the nature of the senses,--a sensibility to color, for
+instance, being very different from a sensibility to form; so that a man
+may possess one without the other, and an artist may succeed in mere
+imitation of what is before him, of air, sunlight, etc., without
+possessing sensibility at all. But wherever we have, in the drawing of
+any one object, sufficient evidence of real intellectual power, of the
+sense which perceives the essential qualities of a thing, and the
+judgment which arranges them so as to illustrate each other, we may be
+quite certain that the same sense and judgment will operate equally on
+whatever is subjected to them, and that the artist will be equally great
+and masterly in his drawing of all that he attempts. Hence we may be
+quite sure that wherever an artist appears to be truthful in one branch
+of art, and not in another, the apparent truth is either owing to some
+trickery of imitation, or is not so great as we suppose it to be. In
+nine cases out of ten, people who are celebrated for drawing only one
+thing, and _can_ only draw one thing, draw that one thing worse than
+anybody else. An artist may indeed confine himself to a limited range of
+subject, but if he be really true in his rendering of this, his power of
+doing more will be perpetually showing itself in accessories and minor
+points. There are few men, for instance, more limited in subject than
+Hunt, and yet I do not think there is another man in the old Water-Color
+Society, with so keen an eye for truth, or with power so universal. And
+this is the reason for the exceeding prominence which in the foregoing
+investigation one or two artists have always assumed over the rest, for
+the habits of accurate observation and delicate powers of hand which
+they possess, have equal effect, and maintain the same superiority in
+their works, to whatever class of subject they may be directed. And thus
+we have been compelled, however unwillingly, to pass hastily by the
+works of many gifted men, because, however pure their feeling, or
+original their conceptions, they were wanting in those faculties of the
+hand and mind which insure perfect fidelity to nature: it will be only
+hereafter, when we are at liberty to take full cognizance of the
+thought, however feebly it may be clothed in language, that we shall be
+able to do real justice to the disciples either of modern or of ancient
+art.
+
+
+Sec. 6. General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation.
+
+But as far as we have gone at present, and with respect only to the
+_material_ truth, which is all that we have been able to investigate,
+the conclusion to which we must be led is as clear as it is inevitable;
+that modern artists, as a body, are far more just and full in their
+views of material things than any landscape painters whose works are
+extant--but that J. M. W. Turner is the only man who has ever given an
+entire transcript of the whole system of nature, and is, in this point
+of view, the only perfect landscape painter whom the world has ever
+seen.
+
+
+Sec. 7. Truth, a standard of all excellence.
+
+Nor are we disposed to recede from our assertion made in Sec. I. Ch. I.
+Sec. 10, that this material truth is indeed a perfect test of the relative
+rank of painters, though it does not in itself constitute that rank. We
+shall be able to prove that truth and beauty, knowledge and imagination,
+invariably are associated in art; and we shall be able to show that not
+only in truth to nature, but in all other points, Turner is the greatest
+landscape painter who has ever lived. But his superiority is, in matters
+of feeling, one of kind, not of degree. Superiority of degree implies a
+superseding of others, superiority of kind only sustaining a more
+important, but not more necessary part, than others. If _truth_ were all
+that we required from art, all other painters might cast aside their
+brushes in despair, for all that they have done he has done more fully
+and accurately; but when we pass to the higher requirements of art,
+beauty and character, their contributions are all equally necessary and
+desirable, because different, and however inferior in position or rank,
+are still perfect of their kind; their inferiority is only that of the
+lark to the nightingale, or of the violet to the rose.
+
+
+Sec. 8. Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste.
+
+Sec. 9. Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment.
+
+Sec. 10. Duty of the press.
+
+Such then is the rank and standing of our modern artists. We have,
+living with us, and painting for us, the greatest painter of _all_ time;
+a man with whose supremacy of power no intellect of past ages can be put
+in comparison for a moment. Let us next inquire what is the rank of our
+critics. Public taste, I believe, as far as it is the encourager and
+supporter of art has been the same in all ages,--a fitful and
+vacillating current of vague impression, perpetually liable to change,
+subject to epidemic desires, and agitated by infectious passion, the
+slave of fashion, and the fool of fancy, but yet always distinguishing
+with singular clearsightedness, between that which is best and that
+which is worst of the particular class of food which its morbid appetite
+may call for; never failing to distinguish that which is produced by
+intellect, from that which is not, though it may be intellect degraded
+by ministering to its misguided will. Public taste may thus degrade a
+race of men capable of the highest efforts in art into the portrait
+painters of ephemeral fashions, but it will yet not fail of discovering
+who, among these portrait painters, is the man of most mind. It will
+separate the man who would have become Buonaroti from the man who would
+have become Bandinelli, though it will employ both in painting curls,
+and feathers, and bracelets. Hence, generally speaking, there is no
+_comparative_ injustice done, no false elevation of the fool above the
+man of mind, provided only that the man of mind will condescend to
+supply the particular article which the public chooses to want. Of
+course a thousand modifying circumstances interfere with the action of
+the general rule; but, taking one case with another, we shall very
+constantly find the price which the picture commands in the market a
+pretty fair standard of the artist's rank of intellect. The press,
+therefore, and all who pretend to lead the public taste, have not so
+much to direct the multitude whom to go to, as what to ask for. Their
+business is not to tell us which is our best painter, but to tell us
+whether we are making our best painter do his best.
+
+
+Sec. 11. Qualifications necessary for discharging it.
+
+Sec. 12. General incapability of modern critics.
+
+Sec. 13. And inconsistency with themselves.
+
+Now none are capable of doing this, but those whose principles of
+judgment are based both on thorough _practical_ knowledge of art, and on
+broad general views of what is true and right, without reference to what
+has been done at one time or another, or in one school or another.
+Nothing can be more perilous to the cause of art, than the constant
+ringing in our painters' ears of the names of great predecessors, as
+their examples or masters. I had rather hear a great poet, entirely
+original in his feeling and aim, rebuked or maligned for not being like
+Wordsworth or Coleridge, than a great painter criticised for not putting
+us in mind of Claude or Poussin. But such references to former
+excellence are the only refuge and resource of persons endeavoring to be
+critics without being artists. They cannot tell you whether a thing is
+right or not; but they can tell you whether it is like something else or
+not. And the whole tone of modern criticism--as far as it is worthy of
+being called criticism--sufficiently shows it to proceed entirely from
+persons altogether unversed in practice, and ignorant of truth, but
+possessing just enough of feeling to enjoy the solemnity of ancient art,
+who, not distinguishing that which is really exalted and valuable in the
+modern school, nor having any just idea of the real ends or capabilities
+of landscape art, consider nothing right which is not based on the
+conventional principles of the ancients, and nothing true which has more
+of nature in it than of Claude. But it is strange that while the noble
+and unequalled works of modern landscape painters are thus maligned and
+misunderstood, our historical painters--such as we have--are permitted
+to pander more fatally every year to the vicious English taste, which
+can enjoy nothing but what is theatrical, entirely unchastised, nay,
+encouraged and lauded by the very men who endeavor to hamper our great
+landscape painters with rules derived from consecrated blunders. The
+very critic who has just passed one of the noblest works of Turner--that
+is to say, a masterpiece of art, to which Time can show no
+parallel--with a ribald jest, will yet stand gaping in admiration before
+the next piece of dramatic glitter and grimace, suggested by the
+society, and adorned with the appurtenances of the greenroom, which he
+finds hung low upon the wall as a brilliant example of the ideal of
+English art. It is natural enough indeed, that the persons who are
+disgusted by what is pure and noble, should be delighted with what is
+vicious and degraded; but it is singular that those who are constantly
+talking of Claude and Poussin, should never even pretend to a thought of
+Raffaelle. We could excuse them for not comprehending Turner, if they
+only would apply the same cut-and-dried criticisms where they might be
+applied with truth, and productive of benefit; but we endure not the
+paltry compound of ignorance, false taste, and pretension, which assumes
+the dignity of classical feeling, that it may be able to abuse whatever
+is above the level of its understanding, but bursts into genuine rapture
+with all that is meretricious, if sufficiently adapted to the calibre of
+its comprehension.
+
+
+Sec. 14. How the press may really advance the cause of art.
+
+To notice such criticisms, however, is giving them far more importance
+than they deserve. They can lead none astray but those whose opinions
+are absolutely valueless, and we did not begin this chapter with any
+intent of wasting our time on these small critics, but in the hope of
+pointing out to the periodical press what kind of criticism is now most
+required by our school of landscape art, and how it may be in their
+power, if they will, to regulate its impulses, without checking its
+energies, and really to advance both the cause of the artist, and the
+taste of the public.
+
+
+Sec. 15. Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works.
+
+Sec. 16. By which the public defraud themselves.
+
+Sec. 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves.
+
+Sec. 18. Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly.
+
+One of the most morbid symptoms of the general taste of the present day,
+is a too great fondness for unfinished works. Brilliancy and rapidity of
+execution are everywhere sought as the highest good, and so that a
+picture be cleverly handled as far as it is carried, little regard is
+paid to its imperfection as a whole. Hence some artists are permitted,
+and others compelled, to confine themselves to a manner of working
+altogether destructive of their powers, and to tax their energies, not
+to concentrate the greatest quantity of thought on the least possible
+space of canvas, but to produce the greatest quantity of glitter and
+claptrap in the shortest possible time. To the idler and the trickster
+in art, no system can be more advantageous; but to the man who is really
+desirous of doing something worth having lived for--to a man of
+industry, energy, or feeling, we believe it to be the cause of the most
+bitter discouragement. If ever, working upon a favorite subject or a
+beloved idea, he is induced to tax his powers to the utmost, and to
+spend as much time upon his picture as he feels necessary for its
+perfection, he will not be able to get so high a price for the result,
+perhaps, of a twelvemonth's thought, as he might have obtained for
+half-a-dozen sketches with a forenoon's work in each, and he is
+compelled either to fall back upon mechanism, or to starve. Now the
+press should especially endeavor to convince the public, that by this
+purchase of imperfect pictures they not only prevent all progress and
+development of high talent, and set tricksters and mechanics on a level
+with men of mind, but defraud and injure themselves. For there is no
+doubt whatever, that, estimated merely by the quantity of pleasure it is
+capable of conveying, a well-finished picture is worth to its possessor
+half-a-dozen incomplete ones; and that a perfect drawing is, simply as a
+source of delight, better worth a hundred guineas than a drawing half as
+finished is worth thirty. On the other hand, the body of our artists
+should be kept in mind, that by indulging the public with rapid and
+unconsidered work, they are not only depriving themselves of the benefit
+which each picture ought to render to them, as a piece of practice and
+study, but they are destroying the refinement of general taste, and
+rendering it impossible for themselves ever to find a market for more
+careful works, supposing that they were inclined to execute them. Nor
+need any single artist be afraid of setting the example, and producing
+labored works, at advanced prices, among the cheap, quick drawings of
+the day. The public will soon find the value of the complete work, and
+will be more ready to give a large sum for that which is inexhaustible,
+than a quota of it for that which they are wearied of in a month. The
+artist who never lets the price command the picture, will soon find the
+picture command the price. And it ought to be a rule with every painter
+never to let a picture leave his easel while it is yet capable of
+improvement, or of having more thought put into it. The general effect
+is often perfect and pleasing, and not to be improved upon, when the
+details and facts are altogether imperfect and unsatisfactory. It may be
+difficult--perhaps the most difficult task of art--to complete these
+details, and not to hurt the general effect; but until the artist can do
+this, his art is imperfect and his picture unfinished. That only is a
+complete picture which has both the general wholeness and effect of
+nature, and the inexhaustible perfection of nature's details. And it is
+only in the effort to unite these that a painter really improves. By
+aiming only at details, he becomes a mechanic; by aiming only at
+generals, he becomes a trickster: his fall in both cases is sure. Two
+questions the artist has, therefore, always to ask himself,--first, "Is
+my whole right?" Secondly, "Can my details be added to? Is there a
+single space in the picture where I can crowd in another thought? Is
+there a curve in it which I can modulate--a line which I can graduate--a
+vacancy I can fill? Is there a single spot which the eye, by any peering
+or prying, can fathom or exhaust? If so, my picture is imperfect; and
+if, in modulating the line or filling the vacancy, I hurt the general
+effect, my art is imperfect."
+
+
+Sec. 19. _Sketches_ not sufficiently encouraged.
+
+But, on the other hand, though incomplete pictures ought neither to be
+produced nor purchased, careful and real _sketches_ ought to be valued
+much more highly than they are. Studies in chalk, of landscape, should
+form a part of every Exhibition, and a room should be allotted to
+drawings and designs of figures in the Academy. We should be heartily
+glad to see the room which is now devoted to bad drawings of incorporeal
+and imaginary architecture--of things which never were, and which, thank
+Heaven! never will be--occupied instead, by careful studies for
+historical pictures; not blots of chiaroscuro, but delicate outlines
+with the pen or crayon.
+
+
+Sec. 20. Brilliancy of execution or efforts at invention not to be
+        tolerated in young artists.
+
+Sec. 21. The duty and after privileges of all students.
+
+From young artists, in landscape, nothing ought to be tolerated but
+simple _bona fide imitation_ of nature. They have no business to ape the
+execution of masters,--to utter weak and disjointed repetitions of other
+men's words, and mimic the gestures of the preacher, without
+understanding his meaning or sharing in his emotions. We do not want
+their crude ideas of composition, their unformed conceptions of the
+Beautiful, their unsystematized experiments upon the Sublime. We scorn
+their velocity; for it is without direction: we reject their decision;
+for it is without grounds: we contemn their composition; for it is
+without materials: we reprobate their choice; for it is without
+comparison. Their duty is neither to choose, nor compose, nor imagine,
+nor experimentalize; but to be humble and earnest in following the steps
+of nature, and tracing the finger of God. Nothing is so bad a symptom,
+in the work of young artists, as too much dexterity of handling; for it
+is a sign that they are satisfied with their work, and have tried to do
+nothing more than they were able to do. Their work should be full of
+failures; for these are the signs of efforts. They should keep to quiet
+colors--grays and browns; and, making the early works of Turner their
+example, as his latest are to be their object of emulation, should go to
+nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and
+trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her
+meaning, and remember her instruction, rejecting nothing, selecting
+nothing, and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and
+good, and rejoicing always in the truth. Then, when their memories are
+stored, and their imaginations fed, and their hands firm, let them take
+up the scarlet and the gold, give the reins to their fancy, and show us
+what their heads are made of. We will follow them wherever they choose
+to lead; we will check at nothing; they are then our masters, and are
+fit to be so. They have placed themselves above our criticism, and we
+will listen to their words in all faith and humility; but not unless
+they themselves have before bowed, in the same submission, to a higher
+Authority and Master.
+
+
+Sec. 22. Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of aim.
+
+Among our greater artists, the chief want, at the present day, is that of
+_solemnity_ and definite purpose. We have too much picture-manufacturing,
+too much making up of lay figures with a certain quantity of foliage, and
+a certain quantity of sky, and a certain quantity of water,--a little bit
+of all that is pretty, a little sun, and a little shade,--a touch of
+pink, and a touch of blue,--a little sentiment, and a little sublimity,
+and a little humor, and a little antiquarianism,--all very neatly
+associated in a very charming picture, but not working together for a
+definite end. Or if the aim be higher, as was the case with Barrett and
+Varley, we are generally put off with stale repetitions of eternal
+composition; a great tree, and some goats, and a bridge and a lake, and
+the Temple at Tivoli, etc. Now we should like to see our artists working
+out, with all exertion of their concentrated powers, such marked pieces
+of landscape character as might bear upon them the impression of solemn,
+earnest, and pervading thought, definitely directed, and aided by every
+accessory of detail, color, and idealized form, which the disciplined
+feeling, accumulated knowledge, and unspared labor of the painter could
+supply. I have alluded, in the second preface, to the deficiency of our
+modern artists in these great points of earnestness and completeness; and
+I revert to it, in conclusion, as their paramount failing, and one fatal
+in many ways to the interests of art. Our landscapes are all descriptive,
+not reflective, agreeable and conversational, but not impressive nor
+didactic. They have no other foundation than
+
+                     "That vivacious versatility,
+           Which many people take for want of heart.
+           They err; 'tis merely what is called "mobility;"
+           A thing of temperament, and _not of art,
+           Though seeming so from its supposed facility_.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+           This makes your actors, _artists_, and romancers;
+           Little that's great--but much of what is clever."
+
+Only it is to be observed that--in painters--this vivacity is _not_
+always versatile. It is to be wished that it were, but it is no such
+easy matter to be versatile in painting. Shallowness of thought insures
+not its variety, nor rapidity of production its originality. Whatever
+may be the case in literature, facility is in art inconsistent with
+invention. The artist who covers most canvas always shows, even in the
+sum of his works, the least expenditure of thought.[79] I have never
+seen more than four works of John Lewis on the walls of the Water-Color
+Exhibition; I have counted forty from other hands; but have found in the
+end that the forty were a multiplication of one, and the four a
+concentration of forty. And therefore I would earnestly plead with all
+our artists, that they should make it a law _never_ to repeat
+themselves; for he who never repeats himself will not produce an
+inordinate number of pictures, and he who limits himself in number gives
+himself at least the opportunity of completion. Besides, all repetition
+is degradation of the art; it reduces it from headwork to handwork; and
+indicates something like a persuasion on the part of the artist that
+nature is exhaustible or art perfectible; perhaps, even, by him
+exhausted and perfected. All copyists are contemptible, but the copyist
+of himself the most so, for he has the worst original.
+
+
+Sec. 23. What should be their general aim.
+
+Let then every picture be painted with earnest intention of impressing
+on the spectator some elevated emotion, and exhibiting to him some one
+particular, but exalted, beauty. Let a real subject be carefully
+selected, in itself suggestive of, and replete with, this feeling and
+beauty; let an effect of light and color be taken which may harmonize
+with both; and a sky, not invented, but recollected, (in fact, all
+so-called invention is in landscape nothing more than appropriate
+recollection--good in proportion as it is distinct.) Then let the
+details of the foreground be separately studied, especially those plants
+which appear peculiar to the place: if any one, however unimportant,
+occurs there, which occurs not elsewhere, it should occupy a prominent
+position; for the other details, the highest examples of the ideal
+forms[80] or characters which he requires are to be selected by the
+artist from his former studies, or fresh studies made expressly for the
+purpose, leaving as little as possible--nothing, in fact, beyond their
+connection and arrangement--to mere imagination. Finally, when his
+picture is thus perfectly realized in all its parts, let him dash as
+much of it out as he likes; throw, if he will, mist around
+it--darkness--or dazzling and confused light--whatever, in fact,
+impetuous feeling or vigorous imagination may dictate or desire; the
+forms, once so laboriously realized, will come out whenever they _do_
+occur with a startling and impressive truth, which the uncertainty in
+which they are veiled will enhance rather than diminish; and the
+imagination, strengthened by discipline and fed with truth, will achieve
+the utmost of creation that is possible to finite mind.
+
+The artist who thus works will soon find that he cannot repeat himself
+if he would; that new fields of exertion, new subjects of contemplation
+open to him in nature day by day, and that, while others lament the
+weakness of their invention, _he_ has nothing to lament but the
+shortness of life.
+
+
+Sec. 24. Duty of the press with respect to the works of Turner.
+
+And now but one word more, respecting the great artist whose works have
+formed the chief subject of this treatise. All the _greatest_ qualities
+of those works--all that is mental in them, has not yet been so much as
+touched upon. None but their lightest and least essential excellences
+have been proved, and, therefore, the enthusiasm with which I speak of
+them must necessarily appear overcharged and absurd. It, might, perhaps,
+have been more prudent to have withheld the full expression of it till I
+had shown the full grounds for it; but once written, such expression
+must remain till I have justified it. And, indeed, I think there is
+enough, even in the foregoing pages, to show that these works are, as
+far as concerns the ordinary critics of the press, above all
+animadversion, and above all praise; and that, by the public, they are
+not to be received as in any way subjects or matters of opinion, but of
+Faith. We are not to approach them to be pleased, but to be taught; not
+to form a judgment, but to receive a lesson. Our periodical writers,
+therefore, may save themselves the trouble either of blaming or
+praising: their duty is not to pronounce opinions upon the work of a man
+who has walked with nature threescore years; but to impress upon the
+public the respect with which they are to be received, and to make
+request to him, on the part of the people of England, that he would now
+touch no unimportant work--that he would not spend time on slight or
+small pictures, but give to the nation a series of grand, consistent,
+systematic, and completed poems. We desire that he should follow out his
+own thoughts and intents of heart, without reference to any human
+authority. But we request, in all humility, that those thoughts may be
+seriously and loftily given; and that the whole power of his unequalled
+intellect may be exerted in the production of such works as may remain
+forever for the teaching of the nations. In all that he says, we
+believe; in all that he does we trust.[81] It is therefore that we pray
+him to utter nothing lightly--to do nothing regardlessly. He stands upon
+an eminence, from which he looks back over the universe of God, and
+forward over the generations of men. Let every work of his hand be a
+history of the one, and a lesson to the other. Let each exertion of his
+mighty mind be both hymn and prophecy,--adoration, to the
+Deity,--revelation to mankind.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [79] Of course this assertion does not refer to the differences in
+    mode of execution, which enable one painter to work faster or slower
+    than another, but only to the exertion of mind, commonly manifested
+    by the artist, according as he is sparing or prodigal of production.
+
+  [80] "Talk of improving nature when it _is_ nature--Nonsense."--_E.
+    V. Rippingille_. I have not yet spoken of the difference--even in
+    what we commonly call Nature--between imperfect and ideal form: the
+    study of this difficult question must, of course, be deferred until
+    we have examined the nature of our impressions of beauty; but it may
+    not be out of place here to hint at the want of care in many of our
+    artists to distinguish between the real work of nature and the
+    diseased results of man's interference with her. Many of the works
+    of our greatest artists have for their subjects nothing but hacked
+    and hewn remnants of farm-yard vegetation, branded root and branch,
+    from their birth, by the prong and the pruning-hook; and the
+    feelings once accustomed to take pleasure in such abortions, can
+    scarcely become perceptive of forms truly ideal. I have just said
+    (423) that young painters should go to nature trustingly,--rejecting
+    nothing, and selecting nothing: so they should; but they must be
+    careful that it _is_ nature to whom they go--nature in her
+    liberty--not as servant-of-all-work in the hands of the
+    agriculturist, nor stiffened into court-dress by the landscape
+    gardener. It must be the pure, wild volition and energy of the
+    creation which they follow--not subdued to the furrow, and
+    cicatrized to the pollard--not persuaded into proprieties, nor
+    pampered into diseases. Let them work by the torrent-side, and in
+    the forest shadows; not by purling brooks and under "tonsile
+    shades." It is impossible to enter here into discussion of what man
+    can or cannot do, by assisting natural operations: it is an
+    intricate question: nor can I, without anticipating what I shall
+    have hereafter to advance, show how or why it happens that the
+    racehorse is _not_ the artist's ideal of a horse, nor a prize tulip
+    his ideal of a flower; but so it is. As far as the painter is
+    concerned, man never touches nature but to spoil;--he operates on
+    her as a barber would on the Apollo; and if he sometimes increases
+    some particular power or excellence,--strength or agility in the
+    animal--tallness, or fruitfulness, or solidity in the tree,--he
+    invariably loses that _balance_ of good qualities which is the chief
+    sign of perfect specific form; above all, he destroys the appearance
+    of free _volition_ and _felicity_, which, as I shall show hereafter,
+    is one of the essential characters of organic beauty. Until,
+    however, I can enter into the discussion of the nature of beauty,
+    the only advice I can safely give the young painter, is to keep
+    clear of clover-fields and parks, and to hold to the unpenetrated
+    forest and the unfurrowed hill. There he will find that every
+    influence is noble, even when destructive--that decay itself is
+    beautiful,--and that, in the elaborate and lovely composition of all
+    things, if at first sight it seems less studied than the works of
+    men, the appearance of Art is only prevented by the presence of
+    Power.
+
+                      "Nature never did betray
+             The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege,
+             Through all the years of this our life, to lead
+             From joy to joy; for she can so inform
+             The mind that is within us, so impress
+             With quietness and beauty, and so feed
+             With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
+             Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men
+             Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
+             Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
+             Is full of blessings."
+
+                                              WORDSWORTH.
+
+  [81] It has been hinted, in some of the reviews of the Second Volume
+    of this work, that the writer's respect for Turner has diminished
+    since the above passage was written. He would, indeed, have been
+    deserving of little attention if, with the boldness manifested on
+    the preceding pages, he had advanced opinions based on so shallow
+    foundation as that the course of three years could effect
+    modification of them. He was justified by the sudden accession of
+    power which the great artist exhibited at the period when this
+    volume was first published, as well as by the low standard of the
+    criticism to which he was subjected, in claiming, with respect to
+    his then works, a submission of judgment, greater indeed than may
+    generally be accorded to even the highest human intellect, yet not
+    greater than such a master might legitimately claim from such
+    critics; and the cause of the peculiar form of advocacy into which
+    the preceding chapters necessarily fell, has been already stated
+    more than once. In the following sections it became necessary, as
+    they treated a subject of intricate relations, and peculiar
+    difficulty, to obtain a more general view of the scope and operation
+    of art, and to avoid all conclusions in any wise referable to the
+    study of particular painters. The reader will therefore find, not
+    that lower rank is attributed to Turner, but that he is now compared
+    with the greatest men, and occupies his true position among the most
+    noble of all time.
+
+
+
+
+                                 POSTSCRIPT.
+
+The above passage was written in the year 1843; too late. It is true
+that soon after the publication of this work, the abuse of the press,
+which had been directed against Turner with unceasing virulence during
+the production of his noblest works, sank into timid animadversion, or
+changed into unintelligent praise; but not before illness, and, in some
+degree, mortification, had enfeebled the hand and chilled the heart of
+the painter.
+
+This year (1851) he has no picture on the walls of the Academy; and the
+_Times_ of May 3d says, "We miss those works of INSPIRATION!"
+
+We miss! Who misses?--The populace of England rolls by to weary itself
+in the great bazaar of Kensington, little thinking that a day will come
+when those veiled vestals and prancing amazons, and goodly merchandise
+of precious stones and gold, will all be forgotten as though they had
+not been, but that the light which has faded from the walls of the
+Academy is one which a million of Koh-i-Noors could not rekindle, and
+that the year 1851 will in the far future be remembered less for what it
+has displayed than for what it has withdrawn.
+
+   DENMARK HILL, _June_, 1851.
+
+
+
+
+                      END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+              CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
+
+Page xiii: 'attack of the following colums' corrected to 'columns'.
+
+Page lxiii: (Table of Contents) Sec. 8. Monotony and falsehood... 239
+  corrected to 230.
+
+Page 34: 'attained with greater porportional' corrected to
+  'proportional'.
+
+Page 74: 'exquisite truths of specfic' corrected to 'specific'.
+
+Page 84: 'things as in the right exhbition' corrected to 'exhibition'.
+
+Page 89: 'man's working from nature comtinually' changed to
+  'continually'.
+
+Page 146: 'But I allow this inferiority only with respect to the
+  paintings,' superfluous comma omitted.
+
+Page 277: 'But the vignette of Aosta, in the Italy', 'the' omitted.
+
+Page 281: 'lateral chains separated rll' corrected to 'all'.
+
+Footnote 41: Comma after Esq changed to period.
+
+Footnote 74: 'is above stated refers, thoughout' changed to
+  'throughout'.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Modern Painters Volume I (of V), by John Ruskin
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