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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MODERN PAINTERS. 
 
 VOLUME I.
 
 MODERN PAINTERS. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 PAR'I'S I. AND II. 
 
 @f OKiicnil llrinfiplfs, ant) of (JTriitb. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.. 
 
 HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHUUCH, 
 AND HONORARY FKLLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 . " Accuse me not 
 Of arrofjance, .... 
 If, having; walked with Nature, 
 And offered, far a^ frailty would allow, 
 My heart a daily sacrifice to Truth, 
 I now affirm of Nature and of Truth, 
 Whom I have served, that their Divinity 
 Revolts, offended at the ways of men. 
 Philosophers, who, thoufjh the human soul 
 Be of a thousand faculties composed. 
 And twice ten thousand interests, do yet prize 
 This soul, and the transcendent universe. 
 No more than as a mirror that reflects 
 To proud Self-love her own intelligence." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 COMPLF.TB EDITION, 
 
 GEORGE ALLEN, 
 
 SUNN^SIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. 
 lS8S. 
 
 \Tke Author rescrz'cs the right of TianslfrtionJl
 
 PRINTED EY 
 
 ilAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LIMITED, 
 
 LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
 
 Art 
 Library 
 
 v.l 
 
 LANDSCAPE ARTISTS UF ENGLAND 
 
 I^^is Maxli 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 BY THEIR SINCERE ADMIRER, 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 I. The work now laid before the public originated in indignation at the 
 shallow and false criticisms 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 manner 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 
 as 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 con- 
 sidered, 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 honourable, 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 daj', and when the press universally exerts
 
 viii PREFACE TO THE TIRST EDITION'. 
 
 such power as it possesses to direct the feeling of the nation more com- 
 pletely to all that is theatrical, affected, and false in art ; while it vents 
 its ribaldry 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. 
 
 2. 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 incom- 
 pleteness. 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 favourite 
 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 beaut}', 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 7\irner, will admire Stanfield and Callcott 
 more than he does now, when he has learned to place Turner far 
 above thcni bntli. 
 
 3. In three instances only have 1 spoken indirect 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.
 
 I'KIlFACK to Till'. I'TKbT liUITION. IX 
 
 Of the old niasttrs I liave spoken with far greater freedom ; but let it 
 be reineinbered 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 excellences, I have spoken in 
 constant depreciation, that I have no feeling of other excellences 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. 
 
 4. Whatever I have asserted throughout the work, I have endeavoured 
 to ground altogether on demonstrations which must stand or fall by 
 their own strengtli, 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. 
 
 5. 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 com- 
 pletely fulfil my intention will partly depend upon the spirit in which
 
 X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 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 labour in the execu- 
 tion of a task which may tend, however feebly, to the advancement of 
 the cause of real art in England, and to the honour 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. 
 
 I. 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 1 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, unsup- 
 ported, the broadsides of half tlie 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 an.xiet}' 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
 
 Xll PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 lost thtir position, and exposed tliemselves in defenceless disorder to the 
 attack of the following columns. 
 
 2. If, liowever, 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 prin- 
 ciples 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 tiie 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 
 |)roniptcd bj- 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 endeavour to point nut 
 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. 
 
 3. Yet, to prevent such misconception in future, I may perhaps be 
 excused for occupying thi- reader's time with a fuller statement of the
 
 PRKFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XIH 
 
 feelings with which the worl< 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 honour 
 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 
 honour 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 hy 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 mani- 
 fested in a less safe direction, would have classed the critic with Nero 
 and Caligula, with Zoilus and Perrault. Be it remem.bered, 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. 
 
 4. There is, I fear, so much malice in the hearts of most men, that the}- 
 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 honour 
 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. 1 hey are glad to obtain credit for 
 generosity and humility by exalting those who are beyond the reach of
 
 XIV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 praise, and thus to escape tlie more painful necessity of doing homage 
 to a Hving 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 atten- 
 tion from its superiority to the things that are. The same under- 
 current 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. 
 
 5. 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 imper- 
 fections, their virtues afterwards it as much admireth. And for this 
 cause, many times that which deserveth admiration would hardly be 
 able to find favour, 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 
 daj's ; and the foolish, because they are incapable of forming an opinion 
 of their own. Obloquy so universal is not likely to be risked, and the 
 few who make an effort to stem the torrent, as it is made commonly in 
 favour 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 inven- 
 tion, 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 antiquit}', be swept away 
 by the rage of fashion, or lost in the glare of novelty ; and the know-
 
 PREFACK TO Tllf: SECOND EDITION. XV 
 
 Irdijc wliirli it liml tal<eii centuries to accumulate, the principles which 
 niis'ity minds liad arrived at only in dying, might be overthrown l)y the 
 frenzy of a faction, and abandoned in the insolence of an hour. 
 
 6. Neither, in its general application, is the persuasion of the supe- 
 riority of former works less just than useful. The greater number of 
 them arc, and must be, immeasurably nobler than any of the results 
 of present effort, because that which is the best of the productions of 
 four thousand years must necessarily he, in its accumulation, beyond nil 
 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, witli the assistance of experience and example, it would, in 
 its particular and chosen path, do greater things than had been before 
 done. 
 
 7. 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 
 have 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. 
 
 8. 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 iriaster 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
 
 Xvi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 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. 
 
 9. 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 genera- 
 tion, has in ail 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-honoured 
 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 ; there are thousands which iiave been 
 for centuries, and will be for centuries more, consecrated by public admi- 
 ration, 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 Raffaclic ; and so
 
 PRKFACi; TO THE SECOND EDITION. XVll 
 
 Claude possesses some species of sterling excellence, but it fcllnvvs not 
 that lie may not be excelled by Turner. 
 
 10. The second point on which I would insist is, that if a mind tvcre 
 to arise of such power as to be capable of equalling or excelling some of 
 the greater 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, wliether 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 7niist 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 favour, so much farther proof of its power, that it is totally 
 different from all that have been before seen.' 
 
 11. The third point on which I would insist is, that, if such a mind were 
 to arise, it would at once divide the world of criticism into two factions : 
 the one, necessarily the larger and louder, 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 un- 
 biassed habits of thought, who would recognise 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, 
 
 ' This principle is dangerous, but not the less true, and necessaiy 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, says Spenser, "Truth is one, and right is ever one;" but wrongs arc 
 various and multitudinous. 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 Xviii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 and would increase in fervour of admiration as tlie master strode fartlier 
 and deeper, and more daringly into dominions before unsearched or 
 unknown ; yet diminishing in multitude as they increased in enthu- 
 siasm. 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. 
 
 12. 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 demon- 
 strating 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 hke 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 3. 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 natu- 
 rally and necessarily endeavours 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
 
 PRI FACi: TO THi; SIXOND EDITION. XIX 
 
 of art, he is sure tliat he can gaui credit for it by expressing the opini<jn 
 of liis readers. He mocivS 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 ' 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 pre- 
 judice, 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 those pieces of criticism in a respectable periodical. 
 We are not so 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^ occurring in one of the 
 most important chapters in his Bible ; not the commonest traditions 
 of the schools, for he does not know why Poussin was called " learned ; "^ 
 not the most simple canons of art, for he prefers Lee to Gainsborough ;'' 
 
 ' It is. with regret that, in a work of this nature, I take notice of criticisms which, after 
 all, arc 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. 
 
 - Chrysoprase. Vide No. for October, 1842, p. 502. 
 
 ^ Every schoolboy knows that this epithet was given to Poussin in allusion to the profound 
 classical knowledge of the painter. The reviewer, however, (Sept. 1S41) informs us that the 
 expression refers to his skill in "composition." 
 
 * 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 for ever, 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 admi- 
 ration which he deserves, that there will be many unsophisticated and honest minds
 
 XX PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 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 onlj' 
 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 Eton or Harrow, based on the 
 experience of a week's bird's-nesting and its consequences ? In all 
 kindness to Maga, I warn her, that, though the nature of this work 
 
 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 colour 
 (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift) is capable of taking rank beside that 
 of Rubens ; he is the purest colourist. 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 to Gains- 
 borough. Now, Mr. Lee never aims at colour ; 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 colouring, as the modulation 
 of the Calabrian pipe with 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. Gains- 
 borough 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 comjirchending 
 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, arc ignorant of the commonest and most acknowledged principia of the art, blind 
 to the most palpable and comprehensible of its beauties, incapable of distinguisliing, if 
 left to themselves, a master's work from the vilest school-copy, ami fomiding their applause 
 of those great works which they praise, either in pure hypocrisy, or in admiration of their 
 defects.
 
 PRKFACF TO TIIK SF.COND KDITION. 
 
 precludes me 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 schoolboy and the 
 capacities of a buffoon. 
 
 14. 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 labour 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 " nee 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. 
 
 15. 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
 
 XXIl PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 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 de.xterity 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 admi- 
 ration, 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. 
 
 1 6. 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, feci with him, judge, behold with 
 him ; but we think of him as little as of ourselves. Do we think of 
 iEschylus, while we wait on the silence of Cassandra ; ^ 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 
 
 ' There is a fine touch in llie Frosjs of Aristophanes, alliuling, pnibalily. In lliis part of 
 the Agamemnon : — 
 
 'Eyw 5* l\aipov ry ffiWTr^/, Kai fu rour' trifiinv 
 ou^ ijTTOv rj vvv oi \a\odvT(^. 
 
 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 /Kschylus and that of our groat painter. They share at least one thing 
 in common— unpopularity. 
 
 '0 Sijiioi; di'efiva K{iiiTn' Troiflv. 
 
 SA. u Tuii' Trat'oiif}yfov ; A I. I'j) ^i', ()?'(>«i'(ni' y' nnov. 
 
 SA. /icr' Alff^t'Xov 5 ovK yjtrav trt^nn ti'fifiaxtn ; 
 
 A I 6\iyov TV x^ii]iTr6v earn'.
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXIU 
 
 the degree in which they themselves appear not in their work. The 
 harp of tiie 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 iiis inventions, poor, paltry, weak, self-sighted man, 
 which the connoisseur for ever 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 witli indignation, but to watch tiie dexterity of the pencil, and 
 gloat over the glittering of the hue. 
 
 17. 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 spicula 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 honour of 
 Claude and Salvator, it has never once tended to the honour 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 docs sound like wild, like absurd 
 enthusiasm, to expect any definite moral agency in the painters of land- 
 scape ; 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 amuse- 
 ment of curiosity, or the engagement of idleness ? Must it not be owing
 
 XXIV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION' 
 
 to gross neglect or misapplication of the means at his command, that 
 while words and tones (means of representing nature surely less power- 
 ful than lines and colours) 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 for ever brooding over his incommunicable thoughts ? 
 
 1 8. 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 honour 
 to be a disciple, and exhibiting his ingenuity by the attainment of com- 
 binations 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, are 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 power- 
 less 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. 
 
 19. 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 chai-acter of fniiu in the 
 material objects with which they are associated. Something of this kind 
 is hinti-d in Reynolds' fourteenth Discourse; but nothing can be more
 
 PRKFACK TO THK SECOND i:i)ITION. XXV 
 
 false than such reasoning. If ihfre bi' any truth or beauty in tlic 
 original conception of the spiritual being so introduced, there must be a 
 true and real connection between that abstract idea' 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 liis 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. 
 
 20. Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal character of land- 
 scape ? 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 pre- 
 sently 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 ten- 
 dency 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 
 
 ' I do not know any passage in ancient literature in which this connection is more 
 exquisitely illustrated than in the lines, burlesque thoujjh they be, descriptive of the approach 
 of the chorus in the Clouds of Aristophanes ; a writer, by the by, 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 
 '* ^la T(7n' KoiXiov kul ruiv dii(Tk(j)V aural TrXdyiai," could have been written by none hut 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 tlew.
 
 xxvi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 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. 
 
 21. 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. 
 
 22. In his observation on the foreground of the San Pietro 
 Martirc, Sir Joshua advances, as matter of praise, that the plants are 
 di.scriminated "just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more." 
 Had tliis foreground l)ecn occupied by a group of animals, we should 
 liavc been surprised to be told that the lion, tlir serpent, and the
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXVll 
 
 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. 
 
 2'^. 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 Vasari, — the seeing wliat 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 Raftaelle's 
 two cartoons, " The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," and " The Charge 
 to Peter," are covered with plants of the common sea colewort (Cranibe 
 maritima), of which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would 
 
 ' A mistake, of which the reader will find the correction in the following letter, for which 
 I sincerely thank the writer, and which I think it right to publish, as it is no less confirmatoi-y 
 of the principal assertions in the text, which it is my great object to establish, than con- 
 demnatory of my carelessness in mistaking the plant in question : — 
 
 "Mr. Newton, of the Department of Antiquities, mentioneil to me your name, and I then 
 told him of a slight (but important to the naturalist) unintentional inaccuracy into which 
 you had fallen at p. xxvii of the 'Preface to the Second Edition,' (I quote ed. 3. London, 
 1S46). in which, speaking of the ' Bacchus and Ariadne,' a picture which, like you, I have 
 absolutely, mentally and ocularly, ^ nvallmved ' many a time, you speak of 't/ie mild rose, every 
 stamen,' etc. ; now, as you afterwards refer botanically to the Crambe maritima, allow me 
 to say that the plant you call a wild rose is an admirable study from a common Italian and 
 Greek plant, tigured in Sibthorj/s ' Flora Grceca, and calletl Capparis spiiwsa. By calling 
 some day, when you are in the Museum direction, I can show you this; or should you be near 
 the Linuivan Society's house, Soho Square (in the corner), and should ask for Mr, Kippist, 
 the librarian, he will show you Sibthorp's figure. — Adam White, Zoological Department, 
 British Museum, Mairh 13, 1849."
 
 XXVUl PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 have exhausted the patience of any other artist ; but have appeared worthy 
 of prolonged and thoughtful labour 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, pro- 
 duces 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 ren- 
 dering 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 ! 
 
 24. There is a singular sense in which the child may peculiarl}' be 
 said to be father of the man. In many arts and attainments, tlie 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 paintt r's handling. We see the perfect child, the absolute beginner, 
 using of necessity a broken, imperfect, inadequate line, which, as he 
 advances, becomes graduallj' firm, severe, and decided. Yet before he 
 becomes a perfect artist, this severity and decision will again be ex- 
 changed for a light and careless stroke, which in many ))oints\\ill 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 i)|)inion. Our first and 
 last cdincide, though on diflc rent grounds ; it is the miildlc stage which
 
 PKlil'ACE TO THi; SIXOM) KDITION. XXIX 
 
 is farthest from the truth. Cliildhood often holds a truth with its feeble 
 fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, which it is tiie 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 jucli<- 
 ment, 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. Catharine.' 
 
 25. Of those who take interest in art, nay, even of artists themselves, 
 there are a 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 dis- 
 cover, 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 minutise of detail rather than grandeur of impression, that it 
 is almost impossible for him to cunceive 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 minutitE, 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. 
 
 26. 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 
 
 ' 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 to the eye.
 
 XXX PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 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,' while he utterly rejects the meaner beauties which are 
 accidentally peculiar to the object, and yet not specifically characteristic 
 of it. 1 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 anj' other accident, no dewdrops, nor flies, nor trickeries of 
 any kind ; nothing be3'ond 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 greyish and uncertain 
 tone of colour ; 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 colour of individual bloss()ms ; he seizes the type of all, and 
 gives it with the utmost purity and simplicity of which colour is capable. 
 27. 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 developes and illustrates it, 
 whicli 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 
 
 ' I sliall sliow, in a future ])orliun of the work, Uiat there are jirinciples of universal beauty 
 common to all the creatures of God ; and that it is by the greater or less share of these tliat 
 one form becomes nobler or meaner than another.
 
 PRKFACK TO THK SECOND liUITION. XXXI 
 
 kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied witfi 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 loth : — " He (the author) would have geologic 
 " landscape painters, dendrologic, meteorologic, and doubtless entomo- 
 " logic, 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, elements of grandeur and beauty." 
 
 28. To all such criticism as this (and I notice it only because it ex- 
 presses 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 Athe- 
 naeum 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 / 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
 
 XXXU PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 natural distinctions. The elements of brutes can only mix in corrup- 
 tion, tlie 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. 
 
 29. 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 ba.sed 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 Atlienseum critic 
 calls the right statement of generic difference " Dcnncr-Wke 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 endeavour to paint the separate crystals of quartz and 
 felspar in the granite, and the separate flakes of mica in tiie 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. 
 
 30. Again, it does not follow that, because such accurate knowledge is 
 necessary to. tlie paintei-, it should constitute the painter; nor that such 
 knowledge is valuable in itself, and without reference to high ends. 
 Every kind of knowU dge may be sought from ignoble motives, and for
 
 PRFFACF TO TIIF SECOND EDITION. XXXiil 
 
 ignoble ends ; and in those who so possess it, it is ignoble knowledge ; 
 while the very same ]<nowledge is in another mind an attainment of the 
 highest dignity, and conveying the greatest blessing. This is the differ- 
 ence between tiie 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 otiier observes every character 
 of the plant's colour 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 vigour, the serenity or tremulous- 
 ness of its hues ; observes its local habits, its love or fear of peculiar 
 places, its nourishment or destruction by particular influences ; he asso- 
 ciates 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 colour, 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. 
 
 31. The particularization of flowers by Shakspeare and Shelley 
 affords us the most frequent examples of the exalted use of these in- 
 ferior details. It is true that the painter has not the same power of 
 expressing the thoughts with which the 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 with the informed. It is no excuse for illegible writing, that 
 there are persons who could not have read it had it been plain. 
 
 32. I repeat then, generalization, as the word is commonly under- 
 stood, 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 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 XXXIV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 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 his fellow, 
 but in differing from, assumes a relation to, his fellow ; they arc 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 indi- 
 vidual kinds. That generalization is wrong, false, and contemptible, 
 wliich 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 undistinguishable 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. 
 
 1 have just said that every class of rock, earth, and cloud, must be 
 known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic accuracy.' 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 zv/io/c 
 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 modifj'ing 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 
 
 ' Is not this, it may be asked, demanding more from him than life can accomplisli? Not 
 one whit. Notliing 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 sketclics, or finishing their unintelligent 
 cmbryoes of the study, would render them masters of every science that modern investiga- 
 tions have organized, and familiar M'ith every form that nature manifests. Martin, if the 
 lime which he must have spent on the abortive bubbles of his "Canute" had been passed 
 in walking on the sea-shore, might have learned enough to enable liim to produce, with a 
 few strokes, a picture which would ha\e smote, like the sound of the sea, uiion men's hearts 
 for ever. 
 
 1
 
 PKKI-ACK TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXXV 
 
 are wrought on the Iniman forin 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, have 
 nothing in common among them, nothing which is not distinctive and 
 incommunicable. Their very atmospheres are different, their clouds 
 are different, their humours 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 
 rock's deposition oi" 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. 
 
 34. 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 uncombincd 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 splendour 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 pos- 
 sibility, that the single-minded painter, who is working out, on broad and 
 simple principles, a piece of unbroken harmonious landscape character,
 
 XXXVl PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 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 ; ' 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 stud}' of 
 roadside weeds. 
 
 35. 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 encum- 
 brance 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 mani- 
 fested 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 
 endeavours to unite simplicity with magnificence, to guide from solitude 
 to festivity, and to contrast melanchol}' 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 colours in white. 
 
 36. Let us test by these simple rules one of the " ideal " landscape 
 compositions of Claude, that known to the Italians as 11 Mulino. 
 
 The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery, 
 with n dance of peasants by a brook side ; quite enough subject tn form, 
 
 ' "A green field is a sight wliich makes us pardon 
 The absence of that more sublime construction 
 Wliich mixes up vines, olives, precipices, 
 Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and icca." - Doit Jikiii.
 
 PRKKACIC TO TIIF. Sia:uNl) I'.DITION. XXXVU 
 
 ill the hands of a niasttr, an impressive aiul complete picture. On liic 
 other side of the brook, however, we liave 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 ; tlie 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 imme- 
 diate 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 watermill 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 analyse the separate subjects 
 a little in this ideal work of Claude's. 
 
 37. 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. Tlie earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never 
 so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty
 
 XXXVIU TREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 wreck of the bones of men/ 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 a 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 aque- 
 ducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and count- 
 less troops of funeral mourners, passing from a nation's grave. 
 
 38. Let us, with Claude, make a few " ideal " alterations in this land- 
 scape. 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, supjily iiot 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 
 watermill, and inexjilicable by the introduction of the Roman soldiers. 
 
 ' The vugelciblc- soil of llic Campagna is cliiclly foniied by decomposed lavas, aiul under it 
 lies a bed of white pumice, e.\actly rescndjliiii; lemiianls of bones.
 
 l'Ri;i''.\CE TO THE SliCUNU ICUITION. XXXIX 
 
 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, thai landscapes like this should have 
 any effect on the hiunan heart, except to harden or to degrade it ; to lead 
 it from the love of what is simple, earnest, ruid 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. 
 
 39. My jjurpose 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 justifi- 
 able on this ground only ; that, although frequently with little power 
 and with 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,^ and endeavoured in humility to render to the world that puritj' of 
 
 ' The feelings of Constable with respect to liis art niiijht l)e 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, deprives himself of mucli 
 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 sufiers human works to interfere between it and its 
 JN'Iaster. The recommendation of the colour 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 at once so ludicrous and so lamentable, that we believe 
 the student of the gallery can receive no sterner warning than it conveys. Art so followed 
 is the most servile indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous 
 extremes to be shunned : forgetfulneL=s of the Scripture, and scorn of the divine; slavery on 
 the one hand, and free-thinking on the other. The me.in 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 bo in danger of losing sight of Art. He will com- 
 monly lind in all that is truly great of man's works sonietliing of their original, for which lie
 
 xl PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 impression which can alone render the result of art an instrument of 
 good, or its labour deserving of gratitude. 
 
 40. 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 mechanical copyism of unimportant 
 subject, which are too frequently visible in our modern school.' 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 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 copse- 
 wood 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. 
 
 will regard them uilh gratitude and sometimes fullow 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. 
 
 ' 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 for 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 
 complete conception, was left by the public to be its own reward. In the Water-Colour 
 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 
 through the 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 stnick 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 anil obli\ion. There is commonly, however, fault on botli sides, 
 in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank tricks of the brush, until chaste 
 finish, requiring ten times the knowledge and labour, ajipears insipid to the diseased taste 
 which he has himself formed in his pations, as the roaring and ranting of a common actor 
 will oftentimes rentier apparently vapid the finished touches of perfect nature ; and in the 
 public, for taking less real pains to become acquainted with, and ili.scriniiuate, the various 
 powers of a great artist, than ihey would to estimate the excellence of a cook, or develop the 
 dexterity of a dancer.
 
 puKFACi'; ri) Till': sixond edition. 
 
 xli 
 
 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 riglit scnsr of tiie word, nut by audacious liberty 
 of that faculty of degrading God's works which man calls his "imagi- 
 nation," but by perfect assertion of entire knowledge of every part and 
 character and functiun of the object, and in which tiie details are com- 
 pleted to the last line cmnpatiltlc with the ilignity and simplicity of the 
 whole, wrought out with that noblest industry which concentrates pro- 
 fusion into point, and transforms accumulation into structure. Neitlier 
 must this labour be bestowed on every subject which appears to afford 
 a capability of good, but on chosen subjects in which nature lias 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 cncum.bered sky. Finally, tliese 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 siiould 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. 
 
 41. 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 
 endeavour 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 analyse 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.
 
 xlii PREFACK TO THE SECOND EDUTIOX. 
 
 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 endeavour 
 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 responsibilitj' 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 want 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. 
 
 42. 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 tiie 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 rigiit of striking such blows as I 
 may deem necessary to the establishment of my principles, at Caspar 
 Poussin or Vandevelde. 
 
 43. Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the present 
 day, for advocacy of Miciiael 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 lathers 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 
 
 I
 
 PKi:r.\tK TO Tino second kdition. xliii 
 
 Raffaclle in the cars of their pupils, while their own works arc 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 gew- 
 gaws 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 favour 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. 
 
 44. 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 untler 
 the same circumstances by the foiled sophist : — Tl^ 8' eajw 6 
 dpOptoTTO'; (09 aTralBevTOi; to;, o<; ovtoi <f>av\a ovofiara ouofMci^eii' To\/j,n 
 iv aefJ.VM TTfjay/xaTi ; Toiovro'i xt?, w 'iTTirla, ovSep dWo (f)poi'Ti^(ap I) to 
 
 45. 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 favour of modern art is, in great 
 degree, dependent on my withholding the animadversions which would 
 have given it balance, and keeping silence where J cannot praise. But 
 I would rather be a year or two k)nger in effecting my purposes, than 
 reach them by trampling on men's hearts and hearths ; and I have 
 permitted myself to express unfavourable opinions only where the
 
 xliv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 popularity and favour of the artist are so great as to render the opinion 
 of an individual a matter of indifference to him. 
 
 46. 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 tntth. To every observation on their power, sublimity, or 
 beaut}', 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 /s 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, 
 1S43, p. 485.) I leave therefore the reader to choose whether, with 
 Blackwood and his fellows, he will proceed to consider how tilings are 
 convertible by the mind into what they are not ; or whether, with me, 
 he will untlergo the harder, but perhaps on the whole more useful, 
 labour of ascertaining what they ar<;.
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 OF CIENERAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART. 
 
 Chapter I. — Introdi-ictory. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § I. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long periods 
 
 of time I 
 
 i^ 2. And therefore obstinate when once formed 3 
 
 § 3. The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances 4 
 
 § 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. 
 
 § I. Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and technical 
 
 knowledge 7 
 
 § 2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language 7 
 
 § 3. " Painter," a term corresponding to " versifier " S 
 
 § 4. Example in a painting of E. Landsecr's S 
 
 § 5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought S 
 
 § 6. Distinction between decorative and expressive language 9 
 
 § 7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools 9 
 
 § 8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself 10 
 
 § 9. The definition 11
 
 xlvi CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter III. — Of Ideas of Power. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § I. What classes of ideas arc conveyablc by art 12 
 
 § 2. Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity 12 
 
 § 3. But arc received from whatever has been the subject of power. The 
 
 meaning of the word " excellence " 13 
 
 § 4. What is necessary to the distinguishing of excellence 14 
 
 § 5. The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right 15 
 
 Cii.\pter W. — Of Ideas of Imitation. 
 
 § I. False use of the term " imitation '" b)' manj' writers on art 16 
 
 § 2. Real meaning of the term 17 
 
 § 3. What is requisite to the sense of imitation 17 
 
 § 4. The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible that can 
 
 be derived from art iS 
 
 § 5. Imitation is only of contemptible subjects iS 
 
 § 6. Imitation is contemptible because it is easy 19 
 
 § 7- Recapitulation 19 
 
 Ch.SiPter V. — Of Ideas of Tnitli. 
 
 § I. Meaning of the word "truth " as applied to art 20 
 
 § 2. First difierencc between truth and imitation 20 
 
 § 3. Second diflei'ence 20 
 
 § 4. Third ditference 21 
 
 § 5. No accurate truths necessary to imitation 21 
 
 § 6. Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation 23 
 
 Chapter VI. — Of Ideas of Beaut}'. 
 
 § I. Definition of the term "beautiful" 25 
 
 ij 2. Definition of the terra "taste" 26 
 
 § 3. Distinction between taste and judgment 26 
 
 § 4. How far beauty may become intellectual 26 
 
 § 5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty 26 
 
 {} 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty " 27 
 
 Chapter VII. — Of Ideas of Relation. 
 
 § I. General meaning of the term 28 
 
 § 2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it 28 
 
 § 3. The exceeding nobility of these ideas 29 
 
 § 4. Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary 30
 
 coNiTNTS. xlvii 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 OF POWER. 
 
 Chaptfr I. — General Principles respecting Ideas of Power. 
 
 I'Ar.n 
 
 § I. No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation 31 
 
 § 2. Nor for separate study of ideas of power 31 
 
 § 3. Except under one particular form 32 
 
 § 4. There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly incon- 
 sistent 32 
 
 § 5. First reason of the inconsistency 32 
 
 § 6. Second reason of the inconsistency 33 
 
 § 7. The sensation of power ought not to be souE^ht in imperfect art 33 
 
 § 8. Instances in pictures of modern artists 34 
 
 § 9. Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution 34 
 
 Chapter II. — Of Ideas of Power, as they are dependent 
 upon Execution. 
 
 § I. Meaning of the term "execution " 35 
 
 § 2. The first quality of execution is truth 35 
 
 § 3. The second, simplicity 36 
 
 § 4. The third, mystery 36 
 
 § 5. The fourth, inadequacy ; and the fifth, decision 36 
 
 5 6. The sixth, velocity 36 
 
 § 7. Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution 36 
 
 § 8. Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are incon. 
 
 sistent with each other 37 
 
 § 9. And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the lowest... 38 
 
 § 10. Thcrcfoi'e perilous 39 
 
 § II. Recapitulation 39 
 
 Chapter III. — Of tlie Sublime. 
 
 if I. Sublimity is the effeot upon the mind of anything above it 40 
 
 § 2. Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and wh\' 40 
 
 § 3. Danger is sublime, but not the fear of it 41 
 
 § 4. The highest beauty is sublime 41 
 
 § 5. And generally whatever elevates the mind 41 
 
 !} 6. The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient 41
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II 
 
 OF TRUTH. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH. 
 
 Chapter I. — Of Ideas of Trutli in their connection witli those 
 of Beauty and Relation. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § I. The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation of 
 
 facts and thoughts 43 
 
 § 2. They induce a different choice of material subjects 44 
 
 § 3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition ... 44 
 
 § 4. The second necessitating variety 44 
 
 § 5. Yet the first is delightful to all 45 
 
 § 6. The second only to a few _ 45 
 
 § 7. The first necessary to the second 45 
 
 § 8. The e.xceeding importance of cruth 46 
 
 § 9. Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth 47 
 
 § 10. How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art 47 
 
 Chapter II. — That the Truth of Nature is not to be dis- 
 cerned by the uneducated Senses. 
 
 § I. The common self-deception of men with respect tn their power of 
 
 discerning truth 49 
 
 § 2. Men usually sec little of what is before their eyes 50 
 
 § 3. Hut more or less in proportion to tluir natural sensibility to what is 
 
 beautiful 51 
 
 § 4. Connected with n perfect state of moral feeling 51 
 
 § 5. And of the intellectual powers 52 
 
 § 6. How sight depends upon previous knowledge' 55 
 
 § 7. The difficulty increased by the variety of trullis in u.'Aliire 54 
 
 8. We recognise objects by their least important attributes. Compare 
 
 Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4 54
 
 CONTENTS. Xlix 
 
 Chapter III. — Of the Relative Importance of Truths : — 
 First, that Particular Truths aro more important 
 than General Ones. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 1. Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths 57 
 
 § 2. Misapphcation of the aphorism : "General truths are more important 
 
 than particular ones " 57 
 
 § 3. Falseness of this maxim, taken without explanation 5.S 
 
 § 4. Generality important in the subject, particularity in the predicate 5S 
 
 § 5. The importance of truths of species is not owing to their generality ... 59 
 
 § 6. All truths valuable as they are characteristic 60 
 
 § 7. Otherwise truths of species arc valuable, because beautiful 60 
 
 § 8. And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in 
 
 connection with others 61 
 
 § 9. Recapitulation 62 
 
 Chapter IV. — Of the Relative Importance ot Truths : — 
 Secondly, that Rare Truths are more important 
 than Frequent Ones. 
 
 § 1. No accidental violation of nature's principles should be represented... 63 
 ^ 2. But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly 
 
 exemplified fi4 
 
 § 3. Which are comparatively rare 64 
 
 4} 4. All repetition is blamable 64 
 
 ^ ■;. The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher 65 
 
 Chapter V. — Of the Relative Importance of Truths : — 
 Thirdly, that Truths of Colour are the least 
 important of all Truths. 
 
 § I. Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies 66 
 
 § 2. The first are fully characteristic ; the second imperfectly so 66 
 
 § 3. Colour is a secondary quality, therefore less important than form 67 
 
 8 4. Colour no distinction between objects of the same species 67 
 
 § 5. And difierent in association from what it is alone 68 
 
 8 6. It IS not certain whether any two people see the same colours in 
 
 things 68 
 
 8 7. Form, considered as an element of landscape, includes light and 
 
 shade 68 
 
 8 8. Importance of light and shade in- expressing the character of bodies, 
 
 and unimportance of colour 69 
 
 § g. Recapitulation 70 
 
 VOL. I. d
 
 s 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter VI. — Recapitulation. 
 
 PACE 
 
 § I. The importance of historical truths 7' 
 
 § 2. Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths. Tone, 
 
 light, and colour, are secondary 7' 
 
 § 3. And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest ot all 72 
 
 Chapter VII. — General Application of the foregoing Prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 § I. The ditTerent selection of facts consequent on the several aims .at 
 
 imitation or at truth 73 
 
 § 2. The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation 73 
 
 § 3. What truths they gave 74 
 
 § 4. The principles of selection adopted by modern artists 75 
 
 § 5. General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted with 
 
 the fieedom and vastness of nature 75 
 
 § 6. Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret 76 
 
 f^ 7. Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools 7^ 
 
 8. The value of inferior works of art, how to be estimated 79 
 
 § g. Religious landscape of Italy. The adniirableness of its completion ... 80 
 
 § 10. Finish, and the want of it, how right— and how wrong Si 
 
 § II. The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain 
 
 drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione ... 83 
 
 § 12. Landscape of Titian and Tintoret 85 
 
 § 13. Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna 86 
 
 § 14. Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins 87 
 
 § 15. German and Flemish landscape 88 
 
 § 16. The Lower Dutch Schools 90 
 
 § 17. English school, Wilson and Gainsborough 90 
 
 § 18. Constable, Callcott 92 
 
 § 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape 93 
 
 § 20. G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term " style " 94 
 
 § 21. Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant colour 96 
 
 § 22. Beauty of mountain foreground 97 
 
 § 23. Dc Wiut 99 
 
 § 24. Inllucnce of Engraving. J.D.Harding lOO 
 
 § 25. .Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient loi 
 
 § 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable 102 
 
 § 27. Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail 104 
 
 § 28. Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio 106 
 
 § 29. And of the Venetians generally 107 
 
 § 30. Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto 108 
 
 § 31. Expression of the effects of age on architecture, by S. Prout no 
 
 § 32. His excellent composition and colour II2 
 
 § 33. Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattcrmole 113 
 
 § 34. The evil, from an archaeological point of view, of misapplied inven- 
 tion in architectural subject I15
 
 CON IICNTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 35- Works of David Roberts : their fidelity and grace Ii6 
 
 § 36. Clarkson Stanfield 118 
 
 § 37' J- M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great painters 120 
 
 § 38. Influence of this feeling on the choice of landscape subject 123 
 
 § 39. Its peculiar manifestation in Turner 123 
 
 if 40. The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum 125 
 
 § 41. Tui'uer's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter deficient 127 
 § 42. His rendering of Italian character still less successful. Hislarge com- 
 positions, how failing 12S 
 
 § 43. His views of Italy destroyed by biilliancy and redundant quantity ... 130 
 
 § 44. Changes introduced by him in the rccci\-ed system of art 131 
 
 § 45. Difficulties of his later manner. Kcsultant deficiencies 132 
 
 § 46. Reflection on bis very recent works 134 
 
 § 47. Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects 137 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 OF GENEl^AL TRUTHS. 
 
 Chapter I. — Of Truth of Tone. 
 
 § I . IMeanings of the word " tone : '' — First, the right relation of objects in 
 
 shadow to the principal light 13S 
 
 i} 2. Secondly, the quality of colour by which it is felt to owe part of its 
 
 brightness to the hue of light upon it 138 
 
 § 3. Difference between tone in its first sense and atrial perspective 139 
 
 § 4. The pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle tints to 
 
 light 139 
 
 § 5. And consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to darkness... 139 
 
 § 6. c;cneral falsehood of such a system I4I 
 
 § 7. The principle of Turner in this respect 141 
 
 § 8. Comparison of N. Poussin's " Phocion " 142 
 
 § 9. With Turner's " Mercury and Argus" 142 
 
 § 10. And with the " Datur Hora Quieti " 143 
 
 § II. The second sense of the word " tone".. 143 
 
 § 12. Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings and 
 
 drawings of Turner 144 
 
 § 13. Not owing to want of power over the material 144 
 
 § 14. The two distinct qualities of light to be considered 145 
 
 § 15. Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality in light 145
 
 lii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § i6. Turner will not use such means 146 
 
 § 17. But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice 146 
 
 § iS. The second quality of light 147 
 
 § 19. The perfection of Cuyp in this respect interfered with by numerous 
 
 solecisms 147 
 
 § 20. Turner is not so perfect in parts — far more so in the whole 149 
 
 § 21. The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones 150 
 
 § 22. Recapitulation 151 
 
 Chapter II. — Of Truth of Colour. 
 
 § I. Observations on the colour of G. Poussin's La Riccia 152 
 
 § 2. As compared with the actual scene 152 
 
 § 3. Turner himself is inferior in brilliancy to nature 154 
 
 § 4. Impossible colours of Salvator, Titian 154 
 
 § 5. Poussin, and Claude 155 
 
 § 6. Turner's translation of colours 157 
 
 § 7. Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even approach that 
 
 of reality 15S 
 
 § 8. Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect to their 
 
 representation 159 
 
 § 9. Colour of the Napoleon 160 
 
 § 10. Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of colour 
 
 and light l6l 
 
 § 1 1. This discrepancy less in Turner than in other colourists 161 
 
 ij 12. Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens 162 
 
 § 13. Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid colour 162 
 
 § 14. The basis of grey, under all his vivid hues 164 
 
 § 15. The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones 164 
 
 § 16. Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature 165 
 
 § 17. His dislike of purple, and fondness for the opposition of yellow and 
 
 black. The principles of nature in this respect 166 
 
 § iS. His early works are false in colour 167 
 
 § 19. His drawings invariably perfect 168 
 
 § 20. The subjection of his system of colour to that of chiaroscuro 168 
 
 Chapter III.— Of Truth of Chiaroscuro. 
 
 § 1. We are not at present to examine particular effects of light 171 
 
 § 2. And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means of 
 
 expressing vividness of light 172 
 
 § 3. Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian School 172 
 
 § 4. And partial absence in the Dutch 173 
 
 § 5. The perfection of Turner's works in this respect 173 
 
 § 6. The elfert of liis shadows upon the ligiit 175 
 
 § 7. The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the ancient 
 
 and modern schools 175
 
 CONTENTS. liii 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 § 8. bccoml great principlu uf cliiarosuuro. liotli lii(;li linlit and deep 
 
 shadow arc used in equal quantity, and only in points 177 
 
 § 9. Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art 177 
 
 § 10. And consequent misguiding of the student 178 
 
 § II. The great value of a simple chiaroscuro 178 
 
 § 12. The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle tint 179 
 
 § 13. The truth of Turner 180 
 
 Chapter IV. — Of Truth of Space : — First, as dependent on 
 the Focus of the Eye. 
 
 § I. Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than by 
 
 their hue i}j2 
 
 § 2. It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances distinctly at one 
 
 moment lij' 
 
 § 3. Especially such as are both comparatively near 183 
 
 § 4. In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must be 
 
 partially sacrificed 1S4 
 
 § 5' Which not being done by the old masters, they could not express 
 
 space 1 84 
 
 § 6. But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying out this principle 184 
 
 § 7. Especially of Turner 186 
 
 § 8. Justification of the want of drawing in Turners figures iS6 
 
 Chapter V. — Of Truth of Space: — Secondly, as its Appear- 
 ance is dependent on the Power of the Eye. 
 
 § I. The peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of objects 
 
 from the eye 188 
 
 § 2. Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details 188 
 
 § 3. Instances in various objects l8g 
 
 § 4. Two great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct, and never 
 
 vacant I go 
 
 § 5. Complete violation of both these principles by the old masters. They 
 
 are either distinct or vacant igo 
 
 § 6. Instances from Nicolas Poussin igi 
 
 § 7. From Claude 191 
 
 § 8. And G. Poussin 192 
 
 § 9. The imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness and finish 193 
 
 § 10. Breadth is not vacancy ig4 
 
 § II. The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances 195 
 
 § 12. Farther illustrations in architectural drawing 195 
 
 § 13. In near objects as well as distances 196 
 
 § 14. Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto 197 
 
 § 15. Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds 197 
 
 § 16. Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by \-acancy ... 19S
 
 liv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 17. Swift execution best secures perfection of details igg 
 
 18. Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical subjects... 199 
 
 19. Recapitulation of the section 200 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF SKIES. 
 
 Chapter I. — Of the Open Sky. 
 
 § I. The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and teaching of man 20I 
 
 § 2. The carelessness with which its lessons are received 202 
 
 § 3. The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest 202 
 
 § 4. Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional 203 
 
 § 5. Nature and essential qualities of the open blue 203 
 
 § 6. Its connection with clouds 204 
 
 § 7. Its exceeding depth 204 
 
 § 8. These qualities are especially given by Turner 204 
 
 (j 9. And by Claude 205 
 
 § 10. Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his general 
 
 treatment of open sky 205 
 
 § II. Errors of Cuyp in graduaticm of colour 206 
 
 § 12. The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and Dutch schools. 
 
 Their qualities are unattainable in modern times 207 
 
 § 13. Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause 208 
 
 § 14. They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky is 
 
 free from vapour, nor when it is without clouds 2oS 
 
 § 15. Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by 
 
 the old masters 209 
 
 § 16. The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be represented... 209 
 § 17. The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more delicate 
 
 phenomena of rays 210 
 
 § iS. The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the works of 
 
 the old masters 210 
 
 § 19. Truth of the skies of modern drawings 211 
 
 § 20. Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in qititlity, 
 
 inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish 21 1 
 
 Chapter II. — Of Truth of Clouds : — First, of the Region of 
 the Cirrus. 
 
 § I. Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the tmth of clouds consists 2I3 
 
 § 2. Variation of their character at diftcrcut elevations. The three 
 regions to which they may conveniently be considered as be- 
 longing 2lj
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Iv 
 
 PACE 
 
 § 3. Extent of the upper region 214 
 
 § 4. The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds 214 
 
 § 5. Their exceeding delicacy 215 
 
 § 6. Their number 215 
 
 § 7. Causes of their peculiarly delicate colouring 216 
 
 § 8. Their variety of form 216 
 
 § 9. Total absence of even the slightest effort at their representation in 
 
 ancient landscape 217 
 
 § 10. The intense and constant study of them by Turner 21S 
 
 § II. His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea 2i'J 
 
 § 12. His use of the cirrus in expressing mist 220 
 
 § 13. His consistency in every minor feature 220 
 
 § 14. The colour of the upper clouds 221 
 
 § 15. Recapitulation 222 
 
 Chapter III. — Of Truth of Clouds: — Secondly, of the Cen- 
 tral Cloud Region. 
 
 5j I. Extent and typical character of tile central cloud region 223 
 
 § 2. Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention or thought for their 
 representation, are, therefore, favourite subjects with the old 
 
 masters 223 
 
 § 3. The clouds of Salvator and Poussin 224 
 
 § 4. Their essential characters 224 
 
 § 5. Their angular forms and general decision of outline 225 
 
 § 6. The composition of their minor curves 226 
 
 § 7. Their characters, as given by S. Rosa 226 
 
 § 8. Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian School generally 227 
 
 § 9. Vast size of congregated masses of cloud 22S 
 
 § 10. Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges 228 
 
 § II. And consequent divisions and varieties of feature 229 
 
 § 12. Not lightly to be omitted 229 
 
 § 13. Imperfect conception of this size and extent in ancient landscape 230 
 
 § 14. Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of ancient 
 
 landscape 231 
 
 § 15. Farther proof of their deficiency in space 231 
 
 § 16. Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon 232 
 
 § 17. And in his Pools of Solomon 233 
 
 § 18. Truths of outline and character in his Como 234 
 
 § 19. Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus 235 
 
 § 20. The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of Geneva... 235 
 
 § 21. Farther principles of cloud form exemplified in his Anialfi 235 
 
 § 22. Reasons for insisting on the infinity of Turner's works. Infinity is 
 
 almost an unerring test oi all truth 236 
 
 § 23. Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator 237 
 
 § 24. And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The conclu- 
 sions which may be arrived at from it 237 
 
 § 25. The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will not give 
 
 the impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices 238
 
 Ivi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 26. Farther instances of infinity in the grey skies ol Turner 238 
 
 § 27. The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield 239 
 
 § 28. The average standing of the English school 239 
 
 Chapter IV. — Of Truth of Clouds : — -Thirdly, of the Region 
 of the Rain-Cloud. 
 
 ^ I. The apparent difference in character between the lower and central 
 
 clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity 241 
 
 § 2. Their marked differences in colour 241 
 
 § 3. And indefiniteness of form 242 
 
 § 4. They are subject to precisely the same great laws 242 
 
 § 5. Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud 243 
 
 § 6. The old masters have not left a single instance of the painting of the 
 
 rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it. Caspar Poussin's storms ... 244 
 
 § 7. The great power of the moderns in this respect 245 
 
 § 8. Works of Copley Fielding 245 
 
 § g. His peculiar truth 245 
 
 if 10. His weakness, and its probable cause 246 
 
 § II. Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from en- 
 gravings 246 
 
 vj 12. His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges 247 
 
 § 13. Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony 247 
 
 ^ 14. And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch Coriskin 248 
 
 § 15. The drawing of transparent vapour in the Land's End 249 
 
 § 16. Swift rain-cloud in the Coventry 250 
 
 § 17. Compared with forms given by Salvator 250 
 
 § 18. Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and circumstances in 
 
 the Coventry 251 
 
 § 19. Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose 251 
 
 § 20. The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky only 
 
 seen after rain, and how seen 252 
 
 § 21. Success of our water-colour artists in its rendering. Use of it by 
 
 Turner 253 
 
 ^5 22. Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works 253 
 
 § 23. Contrasted with Caspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and ^Eneas 253 
 
 <) 24. Turner's power of rendering mist 254 
 
 § 25. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by 
 
 engravers 255 
 
 § 26. General system of landscape engraving 255 
 
 § 27. The storm in the Stonehenge 256 
 
 § 28. General character of such elfects as given by Turner. His expression 
 
 of falling rain 256 
 
 § 29. Recapitulation of the section 257 
 
 § 30. Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole, compared 
 
 with the works of Turner and of the old masters 257 
 
 § 31. Morning on the plains 258 
 
 § 32. Noon with gathering storms 25S 
 
 § ^i. Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight 259 
 
 ^ 34. And sunrise on the Alps 260
 
 CONTENTS. Ivii 
 
 CiiAPTKU V. — Effects of Light rciulcixxl by Turiicr. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § I. Reasons tor merely, at present, naming, without examining, the 
 
 particular effects of light rendered hy Turner 261 
 
 § 2. Hopes of the author lor assistance in the future investigation ol 
 
 them 261 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 OV TRUTH OK KARTII. 
 
 Cn.\PTiiR I. — Of General Structtire. 
 
 § 1. First laws of tlie organization of the earth, and their importance in 
 
 art 265 
 
 § 2. The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study 
 
 by modern artists 266 
 
 § 3. General structure of the earth. The hills arc its action, the plains 
 
 its rest 267 
 
 § 4. Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their support 267 
 
 § 5. Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when depo- 
 sited by quiet water 26S 
 
 § 6. Illustrated by Turner's Marengo 269 
 
 § 7. General divisions of formation resultmg from this arrangement. 
 
 Plan of investigation 269 
 
 Chapter II. — Of the Central Mountains. 
 
 § I. Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the world 270 
 
 § 2. Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical 
 
 fissures 270 
 
 § 3. Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose 271 
 
 § 4. The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps at Day- 
 break 271 
 
 § 5. Vignette of the Andes and others 272 
 
 § 6. Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such moun- 
 tains 272 
 
 § 7. Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art 273 
 
 § 8. Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of Claude ... 273 
 
 § 9. Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance 274 
 
 § 10. And violation of specific form 275 
 
 § II. Even in his best works 276 
 
 § 12. Farther illustration of the distant character of mountain chains 276 
 
 § 13. Their e.xcessive appearance of transparency 277 
 
 § 14. Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The Borromean 
 
 Islands of the latter 277 
 
 § 15. Turner's Arona 278
 
 Ill CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 1 6. Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by very sharp 
 
 outline 278 
 
 § 17. Want of this decision in Claude 279 
 
 § iS. The perpetual rendering of it by Turner 2S0 
 
 vf 19. Ert'ects of snow, how imperfectly studied 2S0 
 
 § 20. General principles of its forms on the Alps 2S2 
 
 § 21. Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has scarcely yet 
 
 been caught 283 
 
 Chapter III. — Of the Inferior Mountains. 
 
 § I. The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central, by being 
 
 divided into beds 285 
 
 § 2. Farther division of these beds by joints 2S6 
 
 {5 3. And by lines of lamination 2S6 
 
 § 4. Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are mani- 
 fested 286 
 
 § 5. The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin 287 
 
 § 6. Glencoe and other works 2SS 
 
 § 7. Especially the Mount Lebanon 288 
 
 § 8. Compared with the work of Salvator 2S9 
 
 ^ 9. And of Poussin 290 
 
 § 10. Efiects of external influence on mountain form 291 
 
 § II. The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion 291 
 
 § 12. And the effect of the action of torrents 292 
 
 § 13. The exceeding simplicity of contour caused by these influences 293 
 
 § 14. And multiplicity of feature 293 
 
 § 15. Both utterly neglected in ancient art 294 
 
 § 16. The fidelity of treatment in Turner's Daphne and Leucippus 294 
 
 § 17. And in the Avalanche and Inundation 295 
 
 § 18. The rarity among secondary hills of steep slopes or high precipices... 296 
 
 § 19. And consequent expression of horizontal distance in their ascent 296 
 
 § 20. Full statement of all these facts in various works of Turner. — 
 
 Caudebec, etc 297 
 
 § 21. The use of considering geological truths 298 
 
 § 22. Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the work of 
 
 Claude 298 
 
 § 23. The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher hills 299 
 
 !; 24. The peculiar difhculty of investigating the more essential truths of 
 
 hill outline 300 
 
 § 25. Works of other modern artists. — Clarkson Stanfield 300 
 
 § 26. Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing 301 
 
 § 27. Works of Copley Fielding. His high feeling 302 
 
 § 28. Works of J. 1). Harding and others 302 
 
 Cii.\PTER IV. — Of the Foreground. 
 
 § I. What rocks were the chief components of ancient land.scapc fore- 
 ground • 3<'4 
 
 § 2. Salvator's limestones. The real characters of the rock. Its fractures 
 
 and obtuscncss of angles 304
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 lix 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 § 3. Salvator's acute angles caused by the meeting of concave curves 305 
 
 § 4. Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of nature 306 
 
 § 5. Peculiar confusion of both in the rocits of Salvator ;.. 306 
 
 § 6. And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness 306 
 
 § 7. Instances in particular pictures 3°7 
 
 § 8. Compared with the works of Stanfield 307 
 
 § g. Their absolute opposition in every particular... ^oH 
 
 § 10. The rocks of J. D. Harding 308 
 
 § II. Characters of loose earth and soil 309 
 
 § 12. Its exceeding grace and fulness of feature 310 
 
 § 13. The ground of Tcniers 310 
 
 § 14. Importance of these minor parts and points 311 
 
 § 15. The observance of them is the real distinction between the master and 
 
 the novice 311 
 
 § 16. Ground of Cuyp 311 
 
 § 17. And of Claude 312 
 
 § 18. The entire weakness and childishness of the latter 312 
 
 § 19. Compared with the work of Turner 313 
 
 § 20. General features of Turner's foreground 313^ 
 
 § 21. Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees 314 
 
 § 22. Their convex surfaces and fractured edges 314 
 
 § 23. And perfect unity 315 
 
 § 24. Various parts whose history is told us by the details of the drawing... 315 
 
 § 25. Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the Llanthony... 316 
 
 § 26. Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone 316 
 
 § 27. And of complicated foreground 317 
 
 § 28. And of loose soil 318 
 
 § 29. The unison of all in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy pictures ... 318 
 
 § 30. And the great lesson to be received from all 318 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 Chapter I. — Of Water, as painted by the Ancients. 
 
 § I. Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water 320 
 
 § 2. The case with which a common representation of it may be given. 
 
 The impossibility of a faithful one 320 
 
 § 3. Difficulty of properly dividing the subject 321 
 
 § 4. Inaccuracy of study of water-etTect among all painters 321 
 
 § 5. Difficulty of treating this part of the subject 323 
 
 § 6. General laws which regulate the phenomena of water, First, the im- 
 perfection of Us reflective surface 324
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 7' T'l"^ inherent hue of water modifies dark rellections, and does not 
 
 alTect bright ones 325 
 
 § 8. Water takes no shadow 326 
 
 § 9. Modification of dark reflections by shadow 327 
 
 § 10. Examples on the water of the Rhone 329 
 
 § II. Effect of ripple on distant water 330 
 
 § iz. Elongation of rellections by moving water 330 
 
 § 13. Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images 332 
 
 § 14. To wfiat extent reflection is visible from above 332 
 
 § 15. Deflection of images on agitated water 332 
 
 § 16. Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science. Licenses, how taken 
 
 by great men 333 
 
 § 17- Various licenses or errors in water-painting of Claude, Cuyp, 
 
 Vandevelde 334 
 
 § iS. And Canaletto 336 
 
 S 
 
 19. Why unpardonable ; 338 
 
 § 20. The Dutch painters of sea 339 
 
 § 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator 339 
 
 § 22, Nicolo Poussin 340 
 
 § 23. Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion 342 
 
 CiiArxicit II. — Of Water, as paitited by the Moderns. 
 
 § I. General power of the Moderns in painting quiet water. The lakes of 
 
 Fielding 343 
 
 § 2. The character of bright and violent falling water 343 
 
 § 3. As given by Nesfield 344 
 
 § 4. The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding 345 
 
 § 5. His colour ; and painting of sea 345 
 
 § 6. The sea of Coplej- Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity 346 
 
 § 7. Its high aim at character 346 
 
 § 8. But deficiency in the requisite quality of greys 346 
 
 § 9. Variety of the greys of nature 347 
 
 § 10. Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power 34S 
 
 § II. But want of feeling 348 
 
 § 12. General sum of truth presented by modern art 348 
 
 Ch.M'ter III. — Of Water, as painted by Turner. 
 
 § I. The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water 350 
 
 § 2. Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus liy which the 
 
 reflected rays are perceived 350 
 
 § 3. Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by distinctness of 
 
 reflections 35 1 
 
 § 4. How avoided by Turner 352 
 
 § 5. All reflections on distant water arc distinct 352 
 
 § 6. The error of Vandevelde 353 
 
 § 7. Uiircrcnce in arrangement of parts between the reflected object and 
 
 i ts i mage 354
 
 CONTrNTS. Ixi 
 
 PACE 
 
 § 8. Illustrated from the works of Turner 354 
 
 § 9. The boldness. and judgment shown in the observance of it 355 
 
 § 10. The /f.»V«;r of surface in Turner's painting of calm water 356 
 
 § II. Its united qualities 356 
 
 § 12. Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, etc., by the most 
 
 trilling incidents, as in the Cowes 35S 
 
 § 13. Ill scenes on the Loire and Seine 358 
 
 § 14. Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore 359 
 
 § 15. Various other instances 359 
 
 § 16. Turners painting of distant expanses of water. - Calm interrupted by 
 
 ripple 3(>o 
 
 § 17. And rippled, crossed by sunshine 360 
 
 § 18. His drawing of distant rivers 361 
 
 § 19. And of surface associated with mist 361 
 
 § 20. His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of weight 362 
 
 § 21. The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by him 363 
 § 22. Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when inter- 
 rupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of its bed 364 
 
 § 23. But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed 364 
 
 § 24. Its exquisite curved lines 3^5 
 
 § 25. Turner's careful choice of the historical truth 365 
 
 § 26. His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the Llanthony 
 
 Abbey 366 
 
 § 27. And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus 366 
 
 § 28. Various cases 3^7 
 
 § 29. Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam 367 
 
 § 30. Character of shore-breakers also inexpressible 369 
 
 § 31. Their effect how injured when seen from the shore 369 
 
 § 32. Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea 370 
 
 § 33' With peculiar expression of weight 371 
 
 § 34. Peculiar action of recoiling waves 371 
 
 § 35. And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore 372 
 
 § 36. General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in the 
 
 Land's End 372 
 
 § 37. Open seas of Turner's earlier time 373 
 
 § 38. Efi'ect of sea after prolonged storm 375 
 
 § 39. Turner's noblest work, the painting of the deep open sea in the Slave 
 
 Ship 376 
 
 § 40. Its united excellences and perfection as a whole 377
 
 Ixii CONT£NTS. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. CONCLUSION. 
 
 Chapter I. — Of Truth of Vegetation. 
 
 PACK 
 
 ^ I. Frequent occurrence of foliage in the works of the old masters 379 
 
 ij 2. Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not taper, but 
 
 only divide 380 
 
 § 3. Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds 380 
 
 § 4. And care of nature to conceal the parallelism 381 
 
 § 5. The degree of tapering which may be represented as continuous 381 
 
 § 6. The trees of Caspar Poussin 381 
 
 § 7. And of the Italian school generally defy this law 3S2 
 
 § 8. The truth, as it is given by J. D. Harding 3S2 
 
 if 9. Boughs, in consequence of this law, tuns/ diminish where they divide. 
 
 Those of the old masters often do not 383 
 
 § 10. Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old masters 
 
 do not 383 
 
 § II. Bough-drawing of Salvator 384 
 
 § 12. All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches, and concen- 
 trated in a work of C. Poussin's 386 
 
 § 13. Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them by 
 
 wind 386 
 
 § 14. Bough-drawing of Titian 387 
 
 § 15. Bough-drawing of Turner 388 
 
 § 16. Leafage. Its variety and symmetry 389 
 
 § 17. Perfect regularity of Poussin 390 
 
 § 18. Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage 390 
 
 § 19. How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin 391 
 
 § 20. How followed by Creswick 392 
 
 § 21. Perfect unity in nature's foliage 392 
 
 § 22. Total want of it in Both and Hobbima 393 
 
 ■§ 23. How rendered by Turner 393 
 
 § 24. The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good 394 
 
 § 25. Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves 395 
 
 § 26. Altogether unobserved liy the old masters. Alwa3'S given by 
 
 Turner 395 
 
 § 27. Foliage painting on the Continent 396 
 
 § 28. Foliage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies 397 
 
 § 29. His brilliancy of execution too manifest 397 
 
 §30. His bough-drawing, and choice of form 398 
 
 § 31. Local colour, how far expressible in lilaek and white, and with what 
 
 advantage 399 
 
 § 32. Opposition between great manner and great knowledge 400 
 
 § 33. Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattennolo 401 
 
 !; 34. Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of light, 
 
 and offensive if otherwise 401
 
 CONTKNT.S. Ixiii 
 
 Chaptkr II. — General Remarks respecting the Truth of 
 Turner. 
 
 PACE 
 
 § I. No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural truth 403 
 
 § 2. Extreme difficulty of illustrating or explaining tlie liighest triitli 404 
 
 § 3. The positive rank of Turner is in no degree shown in tlie foregoing 
 
 pages, but only his relative rank 404 
 
 § 4. The exceeding refinement of his truth 405 
 
 i^ 5. His former rank and progress 406 
 
 § 6. Standing of his last works. Their mystery is the consequence of their 
 
 fulness 406 
 
 ChaptivK III. — Conclusion. — Modern Art and Modern 
 Criticism. 
 
 § I. The entire prominence hitherto given to the works of one artist caused 
 
 only by our not being able to take cognizance o( character 408 
 
 § 2 The feelings of dilTerent artists are incapable of full comparison 409 
 
 § 3. But the fidelity and truth of each are capable of real comparison 409 
 
 § 4. Especially because they are ecjually [nanifested in the treatment of all 
 
 subjects 409 
 
 § 5. No man draws one thing well, if he can draw nothing else 410 
 
 § 6. General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation 411 
 
 § 7- Truth, a standard of all excellence 411 
 
 § 8. Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste 411 
 
 § 9. Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment 412 
 
 § 10. Dutj' of the press 412 
 
 § II. Qualifications necessary for discharging it 412 
 
 § 12. General incapability of modern critics 413 
 
 § 13. And inconsistency with themselves 413 
 
 § 14. How the press may really advance the cause of art 414 
 
 § 15. Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works 414 
 
 § 16. By \vhich the public defraud themselves 415 
 
 § 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves 415 
 
 § 18. Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly 415 
 
 § 19. Sketc/u's not sufficiently encouraged 416 
 
 i^ 20. Hrilliancy of execution or efibrts at iiu'cntion not to be tolerated in 
 
 young artists 416 
 
 § 21. The duty and after privdcges of all students 417 
 
 § 22. Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of aim 417 
 
 g 23. What should be their general aim 419 
 
 § 24. Duty of the press with respect to the works of Turner 421 
 
 Postscript 422 
 
 Additional notes 424
 
 1
 
 MODERN PAINTERS. 
 
 PART I. 
 OV GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEVABLE BV ART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothiiiir has been ^ '.• .t'ubiic 
 
 ^ ^ ' ^ opinion no cri- 
 
 for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing jence" exc'e'T ' 
 in a high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is not because periods"cff time, 
 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 transitor}' ; so that, while the fancies and feelings which 
 deny deserved honour, and award what is undue, have neither root 
 nor strength suflicient 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, commu- 
 nicate 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 con- 
 sistent 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 
 
 VOL. 1. I
 
 2 INTRODUCTORY. part i. 
 
 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 would take more space to 
 do than I can spare, it is sufficiently evident that there is no pro- 
 cess of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individually, can 
 become right merely by their multitude.' 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 thej' 
 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. - 
 
 ' The opinion of .i m.njority is right only when it is more probalile, with each imli- 
 vidual, that he .should be right th.an that he should be wrong, as in the case of a jury. 
 Where it is more probalile, with respect to each individual, that he should be wrong 
 thin right, the opinion of the minority is the true one. Thus it is in art. 
 
 '■' There are, however, a thousand modifying circumstances which render this process 
 sometimes imnecessary, — sometimes rapitl and certain, — sometimes impossible. It is 
 unnecessary in rhetoric and the drama, because the multitude is the only jjroper 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
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 But when this process has taken place, and the work has become i '■ And therc- 
 
 Core obstinate 
 
 sanctified bv time in the minds of men, it is impossible that any "'"-"n n"'^'-" 
 new work of equal merit can be impartially compared with it, 
 except by minds not only educated and generally capable of 
 
 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 (Juixote for example. The lowest mind would find in it perpetual and brutal 
 aiTiusement in the misfortunes of the knight, and perpetual pleasure in sympathy with 
 the scpiire. A mind of aver.ige feeling would jierceive 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 as.sociates of all that is even most weak and erring in 
 the character of its hero, and pass over the rude adventure an 1 scurrile jest in haste — 
 perhaps in pain, to penetrate beneath the rusty corselet, and catch from the wandering 
 glance, llie evidence and expression of fortitude, self-devotion, and universal love. So 
 again, with the works of .Scott and Kyron : 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 thev 
 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, tliough there may be little to catch the 
 multitude at once, there is much which they can enjoy when their attention is autho- 
 ritatively directed to it. So re.sts 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 .is much of what is in the strict sense of the 
 word, dramatic, in his works as in any one's else. 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 con- 
 scientiously 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 demon- 
 strate 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 where there is in the work nothing to attract and some- 
 thing 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 labour 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 Kaffaelle, M. .\ngelo, 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, Angeli'co, 
 I'erugino, 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.
 
 4 INTRODUCTORY. part i. 
 
 appreciating merit, but strong enough to shake off the weight of 
 prejudice and association, which invariably incHne them to the 
 older favourite. 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 
 53. Theau- capable of demonstrating any deftnite points of superiority in 
 
 thor s reasons ^ a ^ i r .y 
 
 in'^ a^ficuiaf " modern art, and who is in a position in which his doing so will not 
 instances. ^^ ungraccful, to encounter without hesitation whatever opprobrium 
 
 ma}' 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 discern- 
 ment but in the support of that kind of consecrated merit which 
 ma}' be applauded without an inconvenient necessity for reasons. 
 It is my purpose, tlie'eforc, 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 favourable or otherwise, subsisting 
 between it and our own. I am fully aware that this is not to be
 
 SEC. 1. cilAl'. 1. IN IROIXKrroKY. 
 
 done liglntly or rashly; that it is the part of rvciy one proposing to 
 undertake such a task, strictly to examine, vvitli prolonged doubt 
 and severe trial, every opinion in any way contrary to the sacred 
 verdict of lime, and to advance nothing which does not, at least in 
 his own conviction, rest on surer ground than luere feeling or taste. 
 I have accordingly advanced nothing in the following pages but 5 <• '?""'"•>■ 
 
 ^ -^ ° c) r & on points ca- 
 
 with accompanying demonstration, which may indeed be true or nfn,,|ir!,t'ion. 
 false — complete or conditional, but which can only he 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 honoured 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 Caspar ; 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, 1 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 elder masters, I refer only to Claude, 
 Caspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, 
 Hobbima, Teniers (in his landscapes), P. Potter, Canaletto, and 
 the various Van somethings and Back somethings, more especially 
 and malignantly those who have libelled the sea.
 
 modern works 
 excusable. 
 
 O INTRODUCTORY. part i. 
 
 It will of course be necessary for me, in the connnencement 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. 
 i 5- The And if, in the application of these principles, in spite of my 
 
 partiality to endcavour to render it impartial, the feeling and fondness which I 
 
 nionern works ^ ' ^ 
 
 have for some works of modern art escape me sometimes where 
 they should not, let it be pardoned as little more than a fair 
 counterbalance to that peculiar veneration with which the work of 
 the old 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 honour 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 for ever 
 closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love and the keen 
 sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or 
 atone in tlie 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 honour to the ashes which 
 the}' 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.
 
 iKc. 1. L11A1-. ]l. Ui;HiMTl(.>N OK GKKATNKSS IN ART. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DEFINITION OK GREATNESS IN ART. 
 
 In the 15th Lecture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, incidental notice is ^. i-pistinc- 
 
 ■^ ^ J t liQji between 
 
 taken of the distinction between those excellences in the painter 'n^eriectiiai'* 
 
 which belong to him as such, and those which belong to him in fechnica"'' 
 
 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. 
 
 Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its technicalities, 5 =. Painting, 
 
 as such, is 
 
 difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expres- nothing more 
 
 ■^ ID f iijgj, language. 
 
 sive 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 learnt how to express himself grammatically and melo- 
 diously 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
 
 8 DEFINITION OK GREATNESS IN ART. pakt i. 
 
 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. 
 
 i term TOrre'-'^' Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we should call a man 
 
 "'versifier." '^ great painter only as he e.xcelled in precision and force in the 
 
 language of lines, and a great versifier, as he e.xcelled in precision 
 
 and 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 conveyed. 
 
 i 4. Example Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I 
 
 in a painting of 
 
 E. Landseers. ^gg the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen : — 
 the " Old Shepherd's Chief-mourner." Here the exquisite execu- 
 tion of the glossy and crisp hair of the dog, the bright sharp touch- 
 ing of the green bough beside it, the clear painting oi 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, 
 th^ 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. 
 
 « ;. Difficulty It is not, howevcr, always easy, either in painting or literature, 
 
 of fixing an ' r J Ji f b 1 
 
 exact limit be- to determine where the influence of language stops, and where that
 
 SEC. I. t-iiAr. 11. DEFINITION OK r.RKATNKSS IN ART. 9 
 
 of thought begins. Many thoiiglits arc so dependent upon the ^'^^7^oii"-hi"'^'' 
 language in which tiiey 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 propor- 
 tion to its indeiiendency 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 arc 
 more gratified by the simplest lines or words which can suggest 
 the idea in its own naked beauty, than by the robe and the gem 
 which conceal while they decorate ; we are better pleased to feet by 
 their absence how little they could bestow, than by their presence 
 how much they can destroy. 
 
 There is therefore a distinction to be made between what is ^Jj-^elnde-''"" 
 ornamental in language and what is expressive. That part of it expressive 
 
 11- 1 • r I I 1 i. language. 
 
 which is necessary to the embodying and conveying oi 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 stigma- 
 tized 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 honour of authors those who were never more 
 than ornamental writing-masters. 
 
 Most pictures of the Dutch school, for instance, excepting fn't'iig"^""^^ 
 always those of Rubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt, are ostenta- u^'Jilili'sihoois. 
 tious exhibitions of the artist's power of speech, the clear and 
 vigorous elocution of useless and senseless words ; while the
 
 lO DEFINITION OF GREATNESS IN ART. part 1. 
 
 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, or in any degree whatsoever. The picture which has 
 tiie nobler and more numerous ideas, however awkwardly ex- 
 pressed, is a greater and a better picture than that which has the 
 less noble and less numerous ideas, however beautifull}' 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 DoJci polished into inanity. A finished work of a great 
 artist is only better than its sketch, if the sources of pleasure 
 belonging to colour 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 colour, all finish, all execu- 
 tion, all ornament, are too dearly bought. Nothing but thought 
 can pay for tiiought, 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. 
 M-Yetthere Yet although in all our speculations on art, language is thus 
 
 are certain ° '^ > c^ a 
 
 Ionian ''uaee^'"^ 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 colouring, is as nothing to that which it 
 receives from a crystal prism, except as it depends on our per- 
 ception of a certain meaning and intended arrangement of colour, 
 whicji lias been the subject of intellect. Nay, the term idea,
 
 sec. [. CIIAI'. It. 
 
 DEKINI TKJN OF (;RKA TN LSS IN ART. I I 
 
 according to Locke's defiiiilioii of it, will (^.xtend even to the sensual 
 impressions themselves as far as they are " things whicli 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 colour and form, and those works of art wholly, 
 which, like the Arabesques of Raftaelle in the Loggias, are not 
 imitative at all. Now, I want a definition of art wide enough to 
 include all its varieties of aim. 1 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. 
 
 $ 9 The dcft- 
 iiitioM.
 
 12 
 
 OF IDEAS OF POWER. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF IDEAS OF POWER. 
 
 « I. What Xhe definition of art which I have just sfiven requires ine to 
 
 classes of ideas -^ ^ * 
 
 are conveyabie determine what kinds of ideas can be received from works of art, 
 
 by art. ' 
 
 and which of these are the greatest, before proceeding to any 
 practical application of the test. 
 
 I think that all the sources of pleasure, or of 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 pro- 
 duced resembles something else. 
 
 III. Ideas of Truth. — The perception of faithfulness in a state- 
 
 ment 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 resenibles. 
 V. Ideas of Relation. — The perception of intellectual relations 
 in tiie thing produced, or in what it suggests or resembles. 
 I shall briefly distinguish the nature and effects of each of these 
 classes of ideas. 
 
 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 tlie 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 ; bufthc differences 
 
 ^ 2. Ideas of 
 power vary 
 much in r'^Ia- 
 live dignity.
 
 SEC. 1. CHAP. III. l)F IDEAS OF POWER. 1 3 
 
 in degree of dignity among themselves are infinite, being corre- 
 spondent 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 labour, 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 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 
 labour 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 wliich render work unnecessary. If to the evidence 
 of labour 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. 
 
 So far the nature and effects of ideas of power cannot but be i 3- But an- 
 
 received from 
 
 admitted by all. But the circumstance which I wish especially to whatever ha^ 
 
 ^ -' been the sub- 
 
 insist upon, with respect to them, is one which may not, perhaps, ^fje meaning 
 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 
 
 ' Vide Appendix 17 to Stones of Venice, vol. i. 
 
 of the word 
 'excellence.
 
 H 
 
 OF IDEAS OF POWER. 
 
 ^ 4, What is 
 necessary to 
 tlie distin- 
 guishing of 
 excellence. 
 
 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 pettj' objects ; 
 but it is physical!}' 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 witliiHit record, even in the "estimation of a hair ; " and there- 
 fore, whatever has been the subject of a great power bears about 
 with it the image of that which created it, and is what is com- 
 monly 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.' 
 
 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 strehgth to be overcome. 
 
 ' Of course the word " excellent " is primarily a mere synonyme 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 e.\cellent music or poetry, 
 because it is difiicult to compose or write such, but never of excellent flowers, because 
 all flowers being the result of the same ])o\ver, must be equally excellent. We distin- 
 guish them only as beautiful or useful, and therefore, as there is no other one word to 
 signify that quality of a thing jiroduced liy which it pleases us merely as the result of 
 power, and a.s 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 il, when I use it in future, 
 to be so understood.
 
 SKC. [. CMAI-. III. 
 
 UF IDKAS Of l'OWi:U. IS 
 
 Thoutjli, therefore, it is possible, by the cultivation of sensibility 
 
 and judgment, to become capable of distinguishing what is beau- 
 
 til'ul, it is totally impossible, withoLit pi'acticc and knowledge, to 
 
 .distinguish or feel what is excellent. TIk' 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 
 
 rescndilance of one of its tones, that its excellence is manifest. 
 
 Wherever, then, difliculty has been overcome, there is excel- « 5. The plea- 
 sure attendant 
 lence ; and therefore, in order to prove a work excellent, we have on conquering 
 
 ' ' ' ' difficulties IS 
 
 only to prove the difficulty of its production ; whether it be useful ''''■''"■ 
 or beautiful is another question ; its excellence depends on its 
 difficulty alone. Nor 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 con- 
 quering 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, 
 lie 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.
 
 l6 OF IDEAS OF IMITATION. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF IDEAS OF IMITATION. 
 
 of 'the term" ^"^ FusELi, in his Lccturcs, and many other persons of eqiial]y just 
 m!my wrTers ^ 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. i6) 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 iiiiilalioii." 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 colours, or a thoughtful chiaroscuro, or in the pure beauty of 
 certain forms which art forces on our notice, though we should not 
 have observed tluui in the reality ; and I coiicei\-e that none of 
 these sources of pleasure are in any way expressed or intimated by 
 the term " imitation."
 
 snc. T. riiAr. IV. (II II)l:,\S OF IMITATION. I7 
 
 Hut there is one source ol' pleasure in wori<s of art totally 
 different from all these, which I conceive to be properly and accu- 
 rately 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 tiie 
 minds of men. 
 
 I wish to point out this distinct sourci- 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 ^ "■ Keaimean- 
 
 •' ° ' ing of the term. 
 
 being so great as nrarly 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 i.s to say, when- 
 ever the work is seen to resemble something which we know it is 
 not, we receive what I call an idea of imitation. IVIiy such ideas 
 are pleasing, it would he out of our present purpose to inquire ; we 
 only know that there is no man who docs 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.^ Now two things are requisite 5 3- What is 
 
 requisite to the 
 
 to our complete and most pleasurable perception of this: first, sense of imita- 
 
 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 waxwork, 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 
 
 ' Arist. Khot. i. ii. 23.
 
 OF IDEAS OF IMITATION. 
 
 ^ 4. The plea- 
 sure resulting 
 from imitation 
 the mobt con- 
 temptible that 
 can De derived 
 from art. 
 
 $ 5. Imitation 
 is only of con- 
 teinptiblc sub- 
 jects. 
 
 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, 
 bond fide and actual, whether in marble or in flesh — not an imita- 
 tion 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 onlj' to the sensation of trickery and decep- 
 tion 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 imita- 
 tion 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 asso- 
 ciated with this, but that part of the pleasure which depends on 
 the imitation is the same in both. 
 
 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 enjoy- 
 ment 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 is 
 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 attain- 
 ment of the one, it is impossible we can be moved by them as a 
 sign of the other. 
 
 Ideas of imitation are contemptible in the second place, because 
 not only do they preclude the spectator froiii enjoying inherent 
 beauty in the subject, but they can only be received from mean 
 and paltry subjects, because it is impossible to imitate anything
 
 5i:r. I. ciiAP. IV, OF IDEAS OF IMITATION. 19 
 
 really great. We can " paint a cat f>r 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. 
 
 Thirdly, these ideas are contemptible, because no ideas of power 5 6. imit.itinn 
 
 •J' ^ ' 'is contemptible 
 
 are associated with them. To the ignorant, imitation, indeed, seems easy"^"""* 
 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 an 
 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 watchmaker, 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 it 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. 
 
 Whenever then in future, I speak of ideas of imitation, I wish f l- Recapitu- 
 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 — 
 Hat, for instance, when we thought it was round.
 
 20 
 
 OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. 
 
 ^ I. Meaning 
 of the word 
 "truth " as 
 applied to att. 
 
 ^ 2. First dif- 
 ference be- 
 tween truth 
 and imitation. 
 
 ^ 3. Second 
 diiference. 
 
 The word Truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement, 
 either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature. 
 
 We receive an idea of truth, then, when we perceive the faith- 
 fulness of such a statement. 
 
 The difference between ideas of truth and of imitation lies 
 chiefly in the following points : 
 
 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. 
 
 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 e.xcite 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 resemliling anything, but by being taken as 
 a .symbfi! and substitute for it, and thus inducing the etVect of it,
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. 
 
 OF IDliAS OK TKUni. 21 
 
 then this channel of coninuuiication 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 tiic perceptive faculties only : truth U> 
 the conceptive. 
 
 Thirdly, and in consequence of what is above stated, an idea of 5 ■<■ i'''"' <i'i- 
 truth exists in the statement of oi/c attribute of anytiiing, 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 bylines 
 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 witli 
 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. 
 
 Hence it might at first sight appear, that an idea of imitation, * s- No accu- 
 
 ° o rr ) ) ,.35^, truths 
 
 inasmuch as several ideas of truth are united in it, is nobler "^ecessaiy to 
 
 ' imitution. 
 
 than a simple idea of truth. And if it were necessary that the 
 ideas of truth should be perfect, or should be subjects of contem- 
 plation as such, it would be so. But, observe, we require to pro- 
 duce the eifect 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, cog- 
 nizant, with accuracy, of any truths but those of space and projec- 
 tion. 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
 
 22 OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. part i. 
 
 thus not acquired the power of taking cognizance of the apparent 
 form even of a simple parallelopiped : how much less of the com- 
 plicated 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 imitation. It is the same with regard to colour. If we 
 were to paint a tree sk3'-blue, or a dog rose-pink, the discernment 
 qf the public would be keen enough to discover the falsehood ; but, 
 so that there be just so much approach to truth of colour 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 colour 
 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 colour 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 endea- 
 vouring 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 
 neighbouring church. I had not, but felt little inclined to leave 
 ni}' 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 coloured 
 anything like them. I thought this iiighly probable, and still sat 
 quiet. The voice continued at my ear. " Parbleu, Monsieur, 
 Michel Ange n'a rien produit dc plus beau ! " " De plus beau ? "
 
 SEC. 1. CHAi". V. OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. 23 
 
 repeated I, wishing to know what particular excellences of Michael 
 Angelo were to be intimated by this expression. " Monsieur, on 
 ne peut plus — c'est un tableau admirable — inconcevable ; Mon- 
 sit.-ur," said the I'renciiniaii, 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 colour 
 and projection. These constituted his notion of the perfection of 
 painting ; because they unite all that is necessary for deception. 
 Me was not therefore cognizant of many ideas of truth, though 
 perfectly cognizant of ideas of imitation. 
 
 We shall see, in the course of onr investigation of ideas of truth, i 6. ideas of 
 
 truth are iil- 
 
 that ideas of imitation not only do not imply their presence, but <fMis!steiit witii 
 
 •^ 1^1 ideas ol imita- 
 
 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 mes- 
 sage which the mind takes from them and dwells upon, regardless 
 of the language in which it is delivered. But the mind, in re- 
 ceiving 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
 
 24 OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. part i. 
 
 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.
 
 SEC. I. ciiAP. VI. OF IDEAS OI- liK.AUl'Y. 25 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF IDEAS OF I!E.\UTV. 
 
 Any material olijcct which can give us pleasure in the simple con- 
 templation 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 colours, 
 and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why 
 we like sugar and dislike wormwood. The utmost subtlety of in- 
 vestigation 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 illus- 
 trative 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 prin- 
 ciples of our nature, education and accident operate to an unlimited 
 e.xtent ; 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. 
 
 ^ I. Definition 
 of the lenn 
 " beautiful."
 
 26 
 
 OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY. 
 
 « 2. Definition This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect 
 
 of the term 
 
 "taste." 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 And it is thus that the term " taste '' is to be distinguished from 
 
 between taste 
 
 and judgment. i\-^^i ^f "judgment," with which it is constantly confounded. Judg- 
 ment 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 pre- 
 ferring of one material object to another without any obvious 
 reason, except that it is proper to human nature in its perfection 
 so to do. 
 
 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 feel- 
 ings are so interwoven 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 connnonly and 
 rightly called " intellectual beauty." But there is yet no imme- 
 diate exertion of the intellect ; that is to say, if a person receiving 
 even the noblest ideas of simple beauty be asked wliy 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 J. The high Ideas of beauty arc among the noblest which can be presented to 
 
 $ 4. How far 
 t)eauty may 
 become intel- 
 lectual.
 
 SEC. 1. (MAP. VI. OF IDEAS OF UEAUTY. 2/ 
 
 the human muid, invariably exalting and purifvinsr it accordinK to rank and iiim:- 
 
 their degree ; and it would appear that we are intended by the ''"'""'y- 
 
 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, i)ut 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 colours felt. 
 
 But although everything in nature is more or less beautiful, oilh^tt™"''' 
 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.
 
 28 OF IDEAS OF RFLATION. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF IDEAS OF RELATION. 
 
 « I. General I usE this term rather as one of convenience than as adequately 
 
 meaning of the ^ '^ 
 
 '■"'^- expressive of the vast class of ideas which I wish to be compre- 
 
 hended 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. 
 *re to^be^ranf-''^ Under this head must be arranged everything productive of ex- 
 
 unden't!^'' pression, 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 sub- 
 ject and to the congruity and relation of its parts ; not as they 
 enhance each other's beauty by known and constant laws of com- 
 position, 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 colour 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 ihcin. The primipal object
 
 sec. I. c-HAP. VII. OF IDEAS OF RKLATION. 29 
 
 in the foreground of Turner's "Building of Cartilage" is a group 
 of cliildren 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 iircfcrence to the tunuilt of busy stonemasons 
 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 hav'e conveyed the idea and spoken to 
 the intellecl as uuich as the elaborate realizations of colour. Siu-li 
 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, com- 
 monly introduces peo])le 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 concep- 
 tion of his picture, and acquires an intellectual superiority which 
 no powers of the draugiitsman or the artist (supposing that such 
 existed in his antagonist) could ever wrest from him. 
 
 Such are the function and force of ideas of relation. Tliey are ? 3. The ex- 
 ceeding nobility 
 what I have asserted in the second chapter of this section to be of these ideas. 
 
 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 vi'ith 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 colour 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 contem- 
 plation, 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
 
 sar^- 
 
 30 OF IDEAS OF RELATION. part i. 
 
 the Greek god, except as it is the incarnation and expression of 
 divine mind, is degraded beside the passion and the prophec}' of 
 the vaults of the Sistine. 
 * t Why no Ideas of relation are of course, with respect to art generally, the 
 
 subdivision ol > l -j ^ > 
 
 chiss'is'neces"- 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 farther 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 con- 
 cerned ; and whatever subdivision we may adopt, as it will there- 
 fore 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.
 
 3F.C. ir. CHAP. I. 
 
 OK IDKAS OI" POWFR. 3 I 
 
 SECTION IT. 
 
 OF POWER 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF POWER. 
 
 We have seen in the last section what classes of ideas may be « i. No neces- 
 sity for detailed 
 
 conveyed by art, and we have been able so far to appreciate their study of ideas 
 
 -J ^ ' i^ IT ^,( imitation. 
 
 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 com- 
 pelled 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.'' 
 
 ideas of power, in the same way, cannot be completel)' viewed « 2. Nor for 
 
 separate study 
 
 as a separate class; not because they are mean or unimportant, of ideas of 
 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 
 
 power.
 
 32 GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING part i. 
 
 in the chalk sketch of a great painter is 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 fear- 
 less 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 But it will be necessary at present to notice a particular form of 
 
 under one par- 
 ticular form, tiie 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. 
 
 f 4. There are There are thus two modes in which we receive the conception 
 
 two modes ol r 
 
 ofprnve^ clm-^ of powcf ; One, the more just, when by a perfect knowledge of the 
 ^s"ent!"'^°" difficulty to be overcome, and the means employed, we form a right 
 estimate of the faculties exerted ; the other, when without possess- 
 ing 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 The first rcason of this inconsistency is, that in order to receive 
 
 of the incon- 
 sistency. 3 sensation of power, wc 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, or the Day, of the Capella de'
 
 SEC. II. iu.w. I. IDEAS OF POWKU. 33 
 
 Medici, than even from the divine inebriety of the Bacchus in the 
 gallery, — greater from tlu" life dashed out along the friezes of the 
 Parthenon, than from the polished limbs of the Apollo, — greater 
 from the ink sk( tch of the head of Raffaelle's St. Catherine, than 
 from the perfection of its realization. 
 
 Another reason of the inconsistency is, that the sensation of * <'■ Second 
 
 *^ reason of the 
 
 power is in proportion to the apparent inadequacy of the means to >"tonsiBtency. 
 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 exist- 
 ence 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 em- 
 ployed and the effect produced is constantly decreasing, and 
 therefore the least sensation of power is received from the 
 most perfect work. 
 
 It is thus evident that there are sensations of power about im- ^.7- The sens.i- 
 
 '■ tion ol power 
 
 perfect art, so that it be right art as far as it goes, which must belou"htin 
 always be wanting in its perfection ; and that there are sources of ""P'=''f'^'^' =""'• 
 pleasure in the hasty sketch and the 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 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 GENERAL PRINCIPLES. part i. 
 
 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 labour bestowed on it, not a touch has been lost. 
 ^ 8. Instance Por instance, there are few drawings of the present day that in- 
 
 in pictures of ' or./ 
 
 modern artists, ygj^g greater scnsations 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 labour 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-colour drawing can be carried no 
 farther ; nothing has been left unfinished or untold. And on ex- 
 amination of tlie means employed, it is found and felt that not one 
 touch out of the thousands employed has been thrown away ; — that 
 not one dot or dash could be spared without loss of effect ; — and 
 tliat 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 pleasure following on the 
 estimate of it pure, and enduring. 
 
 i g. Connection But there is still farther ground for caution in pursuing the 
 
 between ideas 
 
 ofpowerand sensatioii of power, connected with the particular characters and 
 
 modes ot ' '■ 
 
 execution. niodcs of cxecution. 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 execu- 
 tion of different artists, must be deferred, as will be immediately 
 seen, until we are more fully acquainted with the principles of 
 truth.
 
 Srt^ II. CHAP. II. 
 
 OF inF.VS OF POWFU. . 35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF IDFAS OF POWER, AS THEY ARE DEPENDENT UPON 
 EXECUTION. 
 
 By the term Execution, I understand the right mechanical use of i '■ Meaning 
 
 of the term 
 
 the means of art to produce a given end. . "execution." 
 
 All qualities of execution, properly so called, are influenced by, 5 z. The first 
 
 n ' r r ^ j ' quahty oi exe- 
 
 and in a great degree dependent on, a far higher power than that cution is truth. 
 of mere execution, — knowledge of truth. For exactly in propor- 
 tion 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 manipu- 
 lation, 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 hair's-breadtli 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 that of a perfect artist. The lowest draughts- 
 man, if he have spent the same time in handling the brush, may 
 be equal to the highest in the other qualities of execution (in swift- 
 ness, 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. 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 I'affaire."
 
 36 
 
 OF IDEAS OF POWF.R, 
 
 $ ^. The second, 
 simplicity. 
 
 « 4. The third, 
 mystery. 
 
 $ 5. The fourth, 
 inadequacy : 
 and the fifth, 
 decision. 
 
 4 6. The sixth, 
 velocity. 
 
 § 7. Strange- 
 ness an illet^iti- 
 mate source of 
 pleasure in 
 execution. 
 
 The second quality of execution is simplicity. The more un- 
 pretending, quiet, and retiring the means, the more impressive 
 their eflect. 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. 
 
 The third is mystery. Nature is always mysterious and secret 
 in her use of means ; and art is always likest her when it is most 
 inexplicable. That execution which is least comprehensible, and 
 which therefore defies imitation (other qualities being supposed 
 alike), is the best. 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 luad in the left hand lowest corner of the 
 Adoration of the Magi, in the Museum at .\ntwerp, with tiiat in
 
 snr. ir. . jia]'. n. AS DEPKNDIC NT ON KXECUTION. 37 
 
 Berglieni's landscape, No. 132, in the Dulwich Gallery. Rubens 
 first scratches horizontally over his canvas a thin greyish brown, 
 transparent and even, vi:ry nuich the colcnir cil' light wainscot ; the 
 horizontal strokes of the liristles 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 riglit 
 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 back- 
 ground 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 have in it vanishes, 
 when on retiring from the picture, we find the head shining like a 
 distant lantern, instead of seeming substantial or near. Yet strange- 
 ness 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. 
 
 The legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are therefore M. Yet even 
 
 the legitimate 
 
 truth, simplicity, mystery, inadequacy, decision, and velocity. But ^°"asure°in 
 of these, be it observed, some are so far inconsistent with others,
 
 38 
 
 OF IDEAS OF POWER, 
 
 execution are 
 inconsistent 
 with each other. 
 
 4 9. And fond- 
 ness for ideas 
 of power leads 
 to the adoption 
 of the lowest. 
 
 that they cannot be united hi high degrees. Mystery with in- 
 adequacy, 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 fond- 
 ness for those sensations of power which are associated with the 
 last three 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 Sal- 
 vator 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,^ 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 tiie majority of spectators, so difficult of 
 
 ' I have here noticed only noble vices, the sacrilices of one excellence to another 
 legitimate, but inferior one. There are, on the othei 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 everylhinij is sacrificed to illegitimate and con- 
 teinptible sources of pleasure, and these are vice throughout, and have no ledeeming 
 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 forgctfulness of any 
 end whatsoever to be attained thereby, which is especially characteristic of modern 
 engraving. Compare Part It. Sect. II. Chap. II. J 20 (note).
 
 SEC. II. CHAP. II. AS UKI'KN'DKiNT ON KXF.CUTION. 39 
 
 attainment to the artist, that it is no wonder that effects so arduous i lo. Therefore 
 
 perilous. 
 
 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 has become 
 the worst, because the most attractive of vices, — decision without a 
 foundation, and swiftness without an end. 
 
 Such are the principal modes in which the ideas of power may * "■ Recapi- 
 
 '^ ■' tulation. 
 
 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.
 
 40 OF THE SUBLIME. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE SUBLIME. 
 
 i I. Sublimity It mav perhaps be wondered that, in the division we have made 
 
 is the effect J f r 
 
 upon the mind gf q^,- subject, wc havc taken no notice of the subUme in art, and 
 
 ol anything -* ' ' 
 
 above It. that, in our explanation of that division, we have not once used 
 
 the word. 
 
 The fact is, that subHinity 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 pro- 
 duced by the contemplation of greatness of any kind ; but chief!}', 
 of course, by the greatness of the noblest things. Sublimity is, 
 therefore, only another word for the effect of greatness upon the 
 feelings ; — greatness, whether of matter, space, power, virtue, 
 or beauty : 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 J ^m fuUy prepared to allow of much ingenuit}- 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 deli- 
 berate measurement of the dnoiii, which is really great or sublime 
 in feeling. It is not while we shrink, but while we defy, that we 
 
 n.iture of the 
 sublime incor 
 rect, and why
 
 sKt:. II. ( iiAi'. u 
 
 OF TlIK SUIILIMK. 41 
 
 receive or convey the liigliest 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 * )■ n.mKcris 
 
 ■^ Biililimc, but 
 
 the feelings of self-preservation being necessary to the sublime, their "['l,""^ '^^^'" 
 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 and 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 ^^ •»■ tiic 
 
 ° "^ ■' highest beauty 
 
 sublime; because, in many kinds of purely material beaut)' there '^ sublime. 
 
 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, f s- And gene- 
 rally whatever 
 
 in tracing the source of the sublime to greatness, to hamper myself elevates the 
 
 '^ o ' r J mind 
 
 with any fine-spun theory. 1 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 signifi- 
 cation of the word derived from sublimis , and will serve us much 
 more easily, and be a far clearer and more evident ground of argu- 
 ment than any mei'e metaphysical or more limited definition ; while 
 the proof of its justness will be naturally developed by its applica- 
 tion to the different branches of art. 
 
 As, therefore, the sublime is not distinct from what is beautiful, 5 6. The former 
 
 division of the 
 
 nor from other sources of pleasure in art, but is only a particular subject is 
 
 ^ ' -f r therefore suf- 
 
 mode and manifestation of them, my subject will divide itself into '"^'<="'- 
 the investigations of ideas of truth, beauty, and relation; and to 
 each of these classes of ideas I destine a separate part of the work.
 
 42 OF THE SUBLIME. part i. 
 
 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 
 colour 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.
 
 I'AUT II. sr.c. 1. c UAi'. 1. OF IDKAS OI" TRllril. 
 
 43. 
 
 PART II. 
 OF TRUTH 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OK , TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF IDEAS OF TRUTH IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH THOSE OF 
 BEAUTY AND RELATION. 
 
 It cannot but be evident from the above division of the ideas con- ^ ■■ The two 
 
 great ends of 
 
 veyable by art, that the landscape painter must always have two '^a"ntTi?^|,e 
 great and distinct ends : the first, to induce in the spectator's mind [kf,, o^iactr'"' 
 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
 
 44 
 
 ./ 
 
 OF IDKAS OF TRUTH. 
 
 ^ 2. rhey 
 induce a dif- 
 (erent choice 
 of material 
 subjects. 
 
 4 3. Tha first 
 mode of selec- 
 tion apt to 
 produce same- 
 ness and repe- 
 tition. 
 
 $ 4. The second 
 
 neccssitatint; 
 
 variety. 
 
 the spectator, but talks to him ; makes him a sharer in his own 
 strong feehngs 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 emotions of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence. 
 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 selec- 
 tion 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. 
 
 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 degene- 
 rate 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 in- 
 stance, as the pleasure of the eye in the opposition of a cold and 
 warm colour, or of a massy form with a delicate one. It also 
 tends to induce constant repetition of the same ideas, and refer- 
 ence 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. 
 
 ■ But art, in its second and highest aim, is not an appeal to con- 
 stant animal feelings, but an expression and awakening of indi- 
 vidual 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
 
 SEC-. I. CHAP. 1. OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. 45 
 
 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. 
 
 Hence, although there can be no douiit whicli ot' these branches i s- Yet the 
 
 ' ° -first IS del ij;lit- 
 
 of art is the higher, it is equally evident that the first will be the '^"' '■" ■'"■ 
 
 more generally felt and appreciated. For the simple treatment 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 : antl 
 
 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 5 6. The second 
 
 ■' -'_ ° ' ° only to a few. 
 
 sensations of peculiar minds, sensations occurring to tliciii 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 sympatiiy 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 misunder- 
 stood 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 ari.sen out of our lower and changeless desires, that whose 
 purpose is unseen is frequently in its means and parts displeasing. 
 
 But this want of extended influence in high art, be it especially « 7. The first 
 
 necessary to 
 
 observed, proceeds from no want of truth in the art itself, but from the second. 
 a want of sympathy in the spectator with those feelings in tiie 
 artist which prompt him to the utterance of one truth rather tlian 
 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
 
 46 Of IDEAS OK TRLTH. part 11. 
 
 be the first end of art, the representation of facts, without reacliing 
 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 be 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 under- 
 stand 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 arising out of the contemplation 
 of truth. We do not want his mind to be like a badly blown glass, 
 that distorts what we see through it, but like a glass of sweet and 
 strange colour, 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 
 M. The ex- us.' Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most 
 
 ceedinK import- 
 ance oltiuth. 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 
 
 ' Compare Stones of Venice, vol. i. chap. xxx. § 5.
 
 SF.C. I. CHAP. I. 
 
 OF IDKAS OF TRUTH. 47 
 
 of intellect, can make amends for the want of truth, and that for 
 two reasons : first, because falsehood is in itself revolting and de- 
 grading ; 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. 
 
 We shall, in consequence, find that no artist can be graceful, ^ ?• Coldness 
 
 ' ^ ' o » or want of 
 
 imaginative, or original, unless he be truthful ; and that the pursuit of?rut'h"° ^'^" 
 
 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 vigour and brilliancy are not signs of audacity, 
 
 but of knowledge. 
 
 Hence it follows that it is in the power of all, with care and i,', "i, may be 
 time, to form something like a just judgment of the relative merits j^urt^fue^rion 
 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 con- 
 stant the relation, between the sum of knowledge and the extent of 
 thought, between accuracy of perception and vividness of idea. 
 
 I shall endeavour, 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 faith- 
 fulness in representing nature. I shall pay no regard whatsoever
 
 48 OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 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 endeavour, totally regardless 
 of fervour 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.
 
 SEC. 1. tiiAP. 11. TRUTH NOT KASII.Y DI.SCiikNKU. 49 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THAT THE TRUTH OF NATURE IS NOT TO BE DISCERNED BY THE 
 UNEDUCATED SENSES. 
 
 It may be here inquired by the reader, with much appearance of i i. The 
 
 common sclf- 
 
 reason, why I think it necessary to devote a separate portion of the decepuon of 
 
 ' -^ -^ r r men with 
 
 work to the showing of what is truthful in art. " Cannot we/' say power o'fd'is-'^"^ 
 the public, "see what nature is with our own eyes, and find out "^=™'"i? '"" >• 
 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 cultiva- 
 tion has been bestowed, and until the instrument thereby perfected 
 has been employed in a consistent series of careful observations, it is 
 as absurd as it is audacious to pretend to form any judgment what- 
 soever 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 
 cither 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 
 tiiere 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 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 TRUTH NOT EASILY DISCKRNED. part li. 
 
 of God ; to him who does not search it out, darkness, as it is to 
 him who does, infinity. 
 5 2. Men The first great mistake that people make in the matter, is the 
 
 usually see 
 
 littieofwhat supposition that they must sec a thins; if it be before their eyes. 
 
 IS before their ^^ -' o j 
 
 ^^'''^' 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 per- 
 ception. 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 con- 
 sists actual perception. How often may a man observe in himself, 
 that whilst his mind is intently employed in the contemplation of 
 some objects, 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 idea of sound ? A sufficient impulse there may be 
 on the organ, but if 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 e.xercise 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 percep- 
 tion, 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 im- 
 pressions 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
 
 5KL. 1. ciiAi'. M. IRUTll NOT FASIl.Y DISCKUNKI). 5t 
 
 word unseen. And numbers of men being preoccupied 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 blucness, 
 redness, darkness, light, etc., and except at particular and rare 
 moments, no more whatsoever. 
 
 The degree of ignorance of c.xlornal nature in which men may 5 3. Bm more 
 
 or less in pro- 
 
 thus remain depends, therefore, partly on the number and character portion to their 
 
 natural scnsi- 
 
 of the subjects with which their minds may be otherwise occupied, S's b'J'au"ifuj'"' 
 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 distin- 
 guishing and receiving pleasure from certain forms and colours, 
 as there is in persons who are technically said to have no ear for 
 distinguishing notes ; but there is naturally every degree of blunt- 
 ness 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 
 labour 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 colour and 5 4. Connected 
 
 ... 1-1 .1 -t- 1 • I with a perfect 
 
 form IS mtmiatelv connected tliat higher sensibility which we state oi moral 
 
 ■' o J feeling. 
 
 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
 
 52 TRUTH NOT EASILY DISCERNED. part ii. 
 
 our moral nature, yet these instruments (perception arid 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 inde- 
 fatigable 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 incapaci- 
 tated from either discovering or feeling it. 
 « 5. And of Next to sensibility, which is necessary for the perception of facts, 
 
 the intellectual -" J r r j 
 
 powers. 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 impres- 
 sions, and trace them to their sources, he may remain totally 
 ignorant of the tacts 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 /flue than the skies of the north, 
 and think that they see them so; whereas the sky of Italy is far 
 more dull and grey in colour than the skies of the north, and is 
 distinguished only by its intense repose of light. And this is con- 
 firmed by Benvenuto Cellini, who, 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 sucii impression n-suUing from it. Thus, though day 
 after day they may have been impressed b^- the tone and warmth
 
 SIX, I. riiAP. II. 
 
 TRUTH NOT EASILY DISCERNKD. 53 
 
 of an Italian sky, yet not having traced the feeling to its source, 
 and supposing tlicniselves impressed by its bliicitess, 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 \''- HowsiRiit 
 
 ^ ^ depend?* upon 
 
 this influence of the imagination over the senses, is peculiarly i'I,n\J°"(Lc 
 observable in the ]ierpetual disposition of mankind to suppose that 
 they Sfc what they know, and 7'icr vrrsd 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 previousl}- 
 known and sought for ; and numberless observable differences be- 
 tween 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 sup- 
 posing that we see what experience only has shown us, or can 
 show us, to have existence, constantly missing the sight of what we
 
 54 
 
 TRUTH NOT EASILY DISCERNED. 
 
 i 7. The diffi- 
 culty increased 
 by the variety 
 of truths in 
 nature. 
 
 i 8. We re- 
 cofjnize objects 
 bj' their least 
 important 
 attributes. 
 Part I. Sec. I. 
 Chap. IV. 
 
 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. 
 
 Be it also observed, that all these difBculties would lie in the 
 waj', 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 waj' 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 a 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. 
 
 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
 
 ShX. I. C1IM-. II. TRUTH NOT EASILY DISCERNED. 55 
 
 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 tt-ue 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 knows 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 admi- 
 ration 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 tfian ? 
 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 which it conceals. The third 
 has caught the trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty.
 
 56 TRUTH NOT EASILY DISCERNED. part ii. 
 
 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 mani- 
 festations ; 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.
 
 SEC. 1. cliAl'. HI. RKI.Al ivr: IMPORTANCE OF TRtnirs, 57 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE RELATIVK IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH.S : FIRST, THAT 
 
 PARTICULAR TRUTHS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GENERAL 
 ONES. 
 
 I HAVE in the last chapter affirmed that we usually recoa;nize objects ^ ■• Necessity 
 
 -^ of determining 
 
 bv the least essential characteristics. This very naturally e.xcites !hc relative 
 
 •' J J importance of 
 
 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 con- 
 stantly happens that the powers of art are unable to render a// 
 truths, that artist must be considered the most truthful who has 
 preserved the most important at the expense of the most trifling. 
 
 Now, if we are to begin our investieation in Aristotle's wav, 5 ^- Misappu- 
 
 ' ^ '^ '^ -" cation of the 
 
 and look at the (^aivofieva of the subject, we shall immediately aphorism: 
 stumble over a maxim which is in everybody's mouth, and which, important than' 
 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 conversa- 
 tion, 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 
 
 particnlar 
 ones."
 
 58 
 
 RELATIVE IMPORTANXE OF TRUTHS : 
 
 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 
 ^ 3. Falseness painting general truths, that is painting particular truths." Now 
 
 of this maxim, 
 
 taken without there must be something wrong in that application of a principle 
 
 explanation. 00 rr r r 
 
 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 some- 
 where 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 1" 
 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 imme- 
 LportamTn"'^ diately thank my neighbour for his information. The fact is, and 
 parttcu/ariy in the above instances may serve at once to prove it if it be not self- 
 evident, that generality gives importance to the subject, and limita- 
 tion 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) 
 
 the predicate.
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. III. PARTICULAR AND GENKRAI. TRUTHS. 59 
 
 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 contra- 
 dicted 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. 
 
 It is self-evident that when we are painting or describing any- i s- Theim- 
 
 ' " & J' portanceof 
 
 thing, those truths must be the most important which are most truthsofspecies 
 
 '^' ^ IS not owing 
 
 characteristic of what is to be told or represented. Now that g°,ieramy. 
 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 neces- 
 sarily 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 and 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 care- 
 lessly 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
 
 6o 
 
 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS : 
 
 « 6. All truths 
 valuable as 
 they are 
 characteristic. 
 
 § 7. Otherwise 
 truthsofspecies 
 are valuable, 
 because beauti- 
 ful. 
 
 particular idea is unimportant, not because it is not predicable of 
 the wliole species, but because it /s predicable of things out of that 
 species. It is not its individualitj', 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 ; secondarih', as 
 they separate the individuals of that species from one another. 
 Thus " silken " and " 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 par- 
 ticulars 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 dis- 
 tinctive organization which separates him as man from other 
 animals, and secondly, that group of qualities which distinguishes 
 the individual from all other men, which makes him Paul or Judas, 
 Newton or Shakspeare. 
 
 Such are the real sources of importance to 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 and mind, almost all individual differences arising 
 from imperfections; hence a truth of species is the more valuable
 
 SEC. I. CHA['. lil. 
 
 I'AKllCUI.AK AND GliNKKAl. IKUTHS. Gl 
 
 to art, because it must always be a beauty, while a truth of 
 individuals is commonly, in some sort of way, a defect. 
 
 Again, a truth which may be of creat interest when an object M. And many 
 
 " ' ^ o J truths, valu- 
 
 is viewed by itself, may be objectionable when it is viewed in ra'c/mlTbc 
 relation to other objects. Thus if we were painting a piece of hiTonncction 
 
 , , , , . . Ill ... with others. 
 
 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 colour 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 any- 
 thing 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 offj ; 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.
 
 62 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS. part n. 
 
 i g. Recapitu- Filially, then, it is to be remembered that all truths, as far as 
 
 lation. 
 
 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.
 
 SKL. ]. tii.\r. IV. KliLAllVli IMl'ORTANCli OK TRUTHS. 6^ 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS : SECONDLY, THAT RARE 
 
 TRUTHS ARE MORE LMPORTANT THAN FREQUENT ONES. 
 
 It will be necessary next for us to determine how far frequencv or * '■ '^n?<:d- 
 
 -' ^ -J dental violation 
 
 rarity can affect the importance of truths, and whether the artist is prrndpl^ 
 to be considered the most truthful who paints what is common or represented. 
 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 prin- 
 ciples, 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 witli 
 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 1. Sec. I. Chap. VI. j ; they are valuable in nature, and 
 used as she uses them, are equally valuable (as instantaneous dis- 
 cords) in art; but the artist who should seek after these exclusively, 
 and paint nothing else, though he might be able to point to some- 
 thing 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.
 
 64 RELATIVE IMrORTANCE OF TRUTHS: i-akt H. 
 
 « 2. But the But the case is widely different, when instead of a principle 
 
 cases in which 
 
 thoseprincipies violated, We havc one extraordinarily carried out or manifested under 
 
 have been ' -^ 
 
 exempiffi^d. uiiusual 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 
 
 53. Which are passages of beauty are the most evanescent. She is constantly 
 
 comparatively ^ ^ -f ^ 
 
 '"'""'=• 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 per- 
 petually 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 thouglit in two pictures is wasted 
 
 « 4. .\ii repe- life. What should we think of a poet who should keep ah his life 
 
 tition is 
 
 biamabie. 1 epcating 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 in 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 pecu- 
 liar 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 enougii 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
 
 SK<:. r. ( iiAr. iv. 
 
 KAULC TKUril;5 MOKl: IMI'DIMANT. 65 
 
 gathered out of God's revelation, as a painter expect in one compo- 
 sition to express and illustrate every lesson which can be received 
 from God's creation. Both are commentators on infinity, and the * f\|, ' ''^,jf,';''^ 
 duty of both is to take for each discourse one essential truth, JhaJ'^f'a""""* 
 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, ami 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.
 
 66 
 
 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS : 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS : THIRDLY, THAT TRUTHS 
 
 OF COLOUR ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT OF ALL TRUTHS. 
 
 § 1. Difference 
 between pri- 
 mary and 
 secondary 
 qualities in 
 bodies. 
 
 i 
 
 The fiist 
 
 are fully 
 characteristic ; 
 tlie second 
 imperfectly so. 
 
 In the last two chapters, we have pointed out general tests of the 
 importance of all truths, which will be sufficient at once to distin- 
 guish certain classes of properties in bodies as more necessary to 
 be told than others, because more characteristic, either of the par- 
 ticular 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 no." These he calls primary quali- 
 ties. 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 poiucrs." 
 
 Hence he proceeds to prove that those which he calls primary 
 qualities are indeed part of the essence of the body, and charac- 
 teristic 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 im- 
 pression, as in the object acting, to give tlie impression. (Compare 
 Locke, book ii. chap. 2i, sect. 2.) For supposing two people.
 
 SEC. I C1IA1-. V. TRLIIHS OF COl.lJLIK. 6/ 
 
 as is fretiiienlly 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 ; bLit 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 it can do. 
 
 Now, by Locke's definition above given, onlv bulk, figure, 5 3- Coiouris 
 
 ' ■' _ D J ^ I o r ^ secondary 
 
 situation, and motion or rest of solid parts, are primary qualities. ?o"g'','g^^'g'i'j^l'^" 
 Hence all truths of colour sink at once into the second rank. He, {bnn!"'*^" 
 therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of colour 
 has neglected a greater truth for a less one. 
 
 And that colour is indeed a most unimportant characteristic of 
 objects, will be farther evident on the slightest consideration. The 
 colour 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 florist should ever frighten the flower blue, still it will be 
 a dahlia ; but not so if the same arbitrary changes could be 
 effected in its form. 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 tricolour, it 
 would be a white oak, or a pink oak, or a republican oak, but 
 an oak still. Again, colour is hardly ever even a possible dis- $ 4- Coioumo 
 
 ° ' -^ ' distinction be- 
 
 tinction between two objects of the same species. Two trees, of J.^f^"^'!,''^,^'"'' 
 the same kind, at the same season, and of the same age, are of spe^'e^- 
 absolutely the same colour ; but they are not of the same form, 
 nor anything like it. There can be no difference in the colour of 
 two pieces of rock broken from the same place ; but it is impos- 
 sible they should be of the same form. So that form is not
 
 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS : 
 
 $ S. And 
 different in 
 association 
 from what it 
 is alone. 
 
 ^ 6. It is not 
 certain whether 
 any two people 
 see the same 
 colours in 
 things. 
 
 ^ 7. Foini, 
 considered as 
 an clement ot" 
 landscape, 
 includes li^'ht 
 and shailc. 
 
 only the chief characteristic of species, but the only characteristic 
 of individuals of a species. 
 
 Again, a colour, in association with other colours, is different 
 from the same colour seen by itself. It has a distinct and peculiar 
 power upon the retina dependent on its association. Consequently, 
 the colour of any object is not more dependent upon the nature of 
 the object itself, and the eye beholding it, than on the colour 
 of the objects near it ; in this respect also, therefore, it is no 
 characteristic. 
 
 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 colour 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 con- 
 stant, 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 colour 
 is not in the thing, but in the thing and them together. But if 
 they see forms differently, one tnust 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 be 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 colour which I should call blue, yet the 
 colour he puts on the canvas, being in the same way blue to him, 
 will still be brown or dog-colour to me ; and so we may argue on 
 points of colour just as if all men saw alike, as indeed in all 
 probability they do ; but 1 merely mention this uncertainty to 
 show farther the vagueness and unimportance of colour as a 
 characteristic of bodies. 
 
 Before going farther, however, 1 must explain the sense in 
 wliich I have used the word "form," because painters have a most 
 inaccurate and careless habit of confining this term to the outline of 
 l)odies, whereas it necessarily implies light and shade. It is true 
 that the outline and the chiaroscuro must be separate subjects of
 
 unimportance 
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. V. TRUTHS OK Cnl.Oi;R. 69 
 
 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 land- 
 scape, I mean that perfect and harmonious unity of outline with 
 light and shade, by which all the parts and projections and propor- 
 tions of a body are fully explained to the eye ; being nevertheless 
 perfectly independent of sight or power in other objects, the pre- 
 sence 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 5 s. import- 
 ance of lifcht 
 
 unimportance of colour lies in the accurate observation of the way andsh.-idein 
 
 ^ -^ exprcssinj; the 
 
 in which any material object impresses itself on the mind. If we ^^^^"{^f",!^ 
 look at nature carefully, we shall find that her colours are in a ""coion'r'" 
 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 greys and yellows from the 
 ground ; every hair's breadth 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 colour ; this local colour, changeful and uncertain in itself, is 
 again disguised and modified by the hue of the light, or quenched 
 in the grey of the shadow ; and the confusion and blending of tint 
 are altogether so great, that were we left to find out what objects 
 were by their colours only, we could 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 observa- 
 tion, they may soon ascertain it for themselves; they will find that 
 while they can scarcely ever determine the exacl 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 colour, that the difference in hue between the illumined 
 parts of a white and of a black object is not so great as the 
 difference (in sunshine) between the illumined and dark side of 
 either separately.
 
 lation, 
 
 70 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHS. part 11. 
 
 9. Recapitu- We shall see hereafter, in considering ideas of beauty, that 
 
 colour, even as a source of pleasure, is feeble compared with 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 colour, sacrifices what is definite to what is 
 uncertain, and what is essential to what is accidental.
 
 SEC. I. riiAr. VI. RFr.«.PI-nit.ATION. J I 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 It oueht farther to be observed respecting truths in general, that 5i-Theim- 
 
 ° r o o » nortance of 
 
 those are always most valuable which are most historical ; that is, [^■^'h,^'^^' 
 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. 
 
 Hence in general the truths of specific form are the first and ^ ''■,^°''?'|ff 
 most important of all ; and next to them, those truths of chiaroscuro ^'hade^the first 
 which are necessary to make us understand every quality and part Tone'iTght? 
 
 ,. r i • 1 ^1 and colour, are 
 
 of forms, and the relative distances of objects among each other, secondan.-. 
 and in consequence their relative bulks. Altogether lower than
 
 chiaroscuro 
 the lowest of 
 all. 
 
 72 RECAPITULATIOX. i-art ii. 
 
 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 colour. 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 Finally, far below all these come those particular accuracies or 
 
 deceptive -^ ' ^ 
 
 tricks of chiaroscuro which cause objects to look projecting from 
 the canvas, not worth}' 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 Part I. Sect. I. 
 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 onl}' the subject of touch ; it can 
 neither instruct nor exalt ; nor can it please, except as jugglery ; it 
 addresses no sense of beauty nor of power; and wherever it cha- 
 racterizes 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.
 
 SEC. r. riiAP. VII. GKNERAI. ArPLICA'ITON. yi^ 
 
 inn 
 
 several aims at 
 imitation or at 
 tiuth. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Wic have seen, in the preceding chapters, some proof of what was \ '• Thedir- 
 
 ^ o r 7 r R-rent select 
 
 before asserted, that the truths necessary for deceptive imitation are °' '•'»;'« '^""se- 
 
 ' -/ I quent on tne 
 
 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 colour, 
 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 endeavour 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. 
 
 To which of these classes the great body of the old landscape * =• The old 
 
 ^ masters, as a 
 
 painters belonged, may be partly gathered from the kind of praise !j°f,^'jtatTon"'*' 
 which is bestowed upon them by those who admire them most, 
 which either refers to technical matters, dexterity of touch, clever 
 oppositions of colour, 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
 
 gave. 
 
 74 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part u. 
 
 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 unac- 
 quainted 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 
 truth^th ' ■ 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 atmo- 
 sphere ; 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 colour and aerial tone, totally neglectful 
 of all facts and forms which nature uses such colour 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 colours 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
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. VII. THK FOREGOING PIIINCIPLES. 75 
 
 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 in- 
 dustry 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 every- 
 thing except ground and water, with decision and success, but he 
 had no sense of beauty. Caspar 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. 
 
 Modern landscape painters have looked at nature with totally M- The prin- 
 
 * ^ ciples ot selec- 
 
 different eyes, seeking not for what is easier to imitate, but for |,'°'Jno'^ern'' 
 what is most important to tell. Rejecting at once all idea of bond ''■""s's- 
 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 unimpor- 
 tant and feeble truths of the old masters are choked with a mass of 
 perpetual defiance of the most authoritative laws of nature. 
 
 I do not expect this assertion to be believed at present : it must 5 5. General 
 
 feeling of 
 
 rest for demonstration on the examination we are about to enter Claude, Sai- 
 
 vator, and 
 
 upon ; yet, even without reference to any intricate or deep-seated ^^„P°^"^=^'d°^,.i„ 
 
 truths, it appears strange to me, that any one familiar with nature, ^'^,d ^smTss 
 
 and fond of her, should not grow weary and sick at heart among the °f "^"""e- 
 melancholy and monotonous transcripts of her which alone can be
 
 yf) GENERAL APPLICATION OF ' part n. 
 
 received from the old school of art. A man accustomed to the 
 broad wild sea-shore, 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 bar- 
 riered water, that has not strength enough in one of its waves to 
 upset the flowerpots 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 con- 
 temptible fragment of splintery crag, which an Alpine snow-wreath 
 would smother in its first swell, with a stunted bush or two grow- 
 ing 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 calotj'pe, 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 or straight efforts that 
 men speak and make when they once feel. 
 § 6. inade- Nor is it ouly by the professed landscape painters that the great 
 
 quacv of the 
 
 landscape of verities of the material world are betraved. Grand as are the 
 
 Iitian and 
 
 Tintoret. motives ' of landscape in the works of the earlier and mightier men, 
 
 there is yet in them nothing approaching to a general view or 
 complete rendering of natural phenomena ; not that thej' are to be 
 
 ' I suppose this word is now geiieially received, witli respect to both ]iainting and 
 music, as meaning the leading idea of a composition, whether wrought out or not.
 
 SF.C. I. CHAP. vir. 
 
 THE KOKliGOING I'k INCI I'l.ES. TJ 
 
 blamed for this ; for they took out of nature tliat which was lit for 
 their purpose, and their mission was to do no more ; but we must 
 be cautious to distinguisii that iniat;inative 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 chesnut 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 frag- 
 ments of rock, cloud, or pine, hardly noticed among the accumu- 
 lated 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 evi- 
 dence 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 convention- 
 ally ; 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.
 
 78 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OF 
 
 schools. 
 
 f 7- Causes I (jo iiot instance these as faults in the picture : there are no 
 
 Its want ot '^ 
 
 subsequent" works of Very powerful colour which are free from conventionality 
 concentrated or diffused, daring or disguised ; but as the conven- 
 tionality 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 colour. 
 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 rela- 
 tively 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 land- 
 scape 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 coloured 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 com- 
 parison of them witli the cheerfulness, fulness, and comparative un- 
 quietness of other hours and scenes ; that they are not intended for 
 the continual food, but the occasional soothing of the human heart ; 
 tiiat 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 arc some lessons of equal 
 or greater authority which these masters neither taught nor received. 
 And until tiic school of modern landscape arose, Art had never
 
 SEC. I. rilAl'. Vll. THI£ FOKEGOl N(. PKINCl I'lJiS. 79 
 
 noted the links of this mighty cliain ; it mattered not tiiat a iVag- 
 ment lay here and there, no heavenly lightning could descend by 
 it ; the landscape of the Venetians was without effect on any con- 
 temporary or 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.' 
 
 That then which I would have the reader inquire respecting 
 every work of art of imdetcrmined 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 any- 
 thing 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 oi 
 art, it must have done, for no man ever 3'et 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 honour- 
 ably, 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 for ever— 
 
 " Fool not," says George Herbert, 
 
 " For all may have, 
 If ihey 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 
 
 ' Not the large Paradise, but the Fall of Adam, a small picture chiefly in brown 
 and grey, 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 colour or energy of thought. 
 
 ^ 3. rile value 
 of inferior 
 works of art, 
 llow to bo 
 estimated.
 
 So 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OK 
 
 ^ 9. Religious 
 landscape of 
 Italy. The 
 admirableness 
 of its com- 
 pletion. 
 
 an envious or powerless imitation of other men's labours, 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 savour, 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. 
 
 Keeping these principles in view, let us endeavour to obtain 
 something like a general view of 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 
 labours 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. Tiie 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 at 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 ; iv}' 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
 
 SEC. I. cilAl'. vn. THK KOUEGOING rUINCiri.ES. SI 
 
 and innocently painted from the rea] thing, and tlicrcforc most 
 divine. Fra AngeHco's use of the Oxalis AcetoseUa is as faitliful in 
 representation as touching in feeling.' The ferns that grow on the 
 walls of Fiesole may be seen in tlu-ii- simple verity on the architec- 
 ture 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. 
 
 It is a misfortune for all honest critics, that hardly any quality 5 '<>■ Finish, 
 
 ■ -^ ^ -^ and the want 
 
 of art is independently to be praised, and without reference to °i' u;^°"'j 
 the motive from which it resulted, and the place in which it ''"^^ wrong. 
 appears ; so that no principle can be simply enforced but it shall 
 seem to countenance a vice : while qualification and explanation 
 both weaken the force of what is said, and are not alwaj's 
 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 impetuo- 
 sity, specific minuteness and large abstraction, may be the signs of 
 
 ' The triple leaf of this plant, and white flower, st.iined 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, w.as perhaps thinking of its 
 peculiar power of quenching thirst. " I rather imagine that his thoughts, if he had any 
 thought beyond the mystic form of the leaf, were with its Italian name ' Alleluia,' as if 
 the very flowers around the cross were giving glory to God." (jVo/c by the Printer.^ I 
 was not aware of this Italian name : in the valleys of Dauphine it is called " Pain du 
 Bon Dieu," and indeed it w^hitens the grass and rocks of the hill-crests like manna. 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ii. 
 
 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. page Tj!) 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 be- 
 ginning 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 in 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 itar-sliafcd sfiaiimv, thrown 
 Oh 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 •
 
 SEC. I. ciiAi'. VIE. THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 83 
 
 and yet, on tlic other hand, let them beware of finishing, for the 
 sake of finisli, 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 nuicli 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. 
 
 Returning to the pictures of the religious schools, we find that ^V- The open 
 
 ° ^ Of skies 01 the re- 
 
 their open skies are also of the highest value. Their preciousness hfw "liuabie'*' 
 is such that no subsequent schools can by comparison be said to drawilT^^of 
 have painted sky at all, but only clouds, or mist, or blue canopies. La^'ndsSipe of 
 
 -ni 1 r ij Ti ... the Belhnisand 
 
 Ihe golden sky oi Marco basaiti in the Academy of Venice alto- Giorgione. 
 gether 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 espe- 
 cially remarkable for quantity and meaning of incident ; but they 
 can only be studied or accepted in the particular feeling that
 
 84 GENERAL ArPLICATION OF pakt li. 
 
 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 moun- 
 tain 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 colour 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, as far as it goes, finer than anything of Titian's. It is remark- 
 able 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 further back, there is a wreath of 
 rain cloud of warmer colour floating above the mountains, lighted 
 on its under edge, whose faithfulness to nature, both in hue, and 
 in its irregular and shattering form, is altogether exemplary. The
 
 src. I. cn.\f. vir. 
 
 Till': 1-ORK(;01N(^ PRINCIPI.KS. 8$ 
 
 wandering of tlic light among Ihc iiiils is equally studiLd, and the 
 whole is crowned by the grand realization of the leaves of the fig- 
 tree, alluded to at page 209 of the second volume, 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 colour, 
 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 colour and its motives than its details. 
 
 Of Titian and Tintoret I have spoken already. The latter is « i=- Land- 
 scape ot Titian 
 
 every way the greater master, never indulging in the exaggerated and Tintoret. . 
 colour 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 his impatience 
 usually prevents him from carrying out his thoughts as clearly, or 
 realizing 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 colour of these 
 objects, but he is even more truth-telling and certain in his ren- 
 dering of all the great characters of specific form ; and as the painter
 
 86 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OF 
 
 i i^. Schools 
 of Florence, 
 Milan, and 
 Bologna. 
 
 of Space lie 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 colour 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 subjects, of which I shall give 
 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 colour, which 
 were for ever 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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. 
 
 The Florentine and Umbrian 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, efliect 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 
 
 ' Vide Stones of Venice, Vol. I., chap. i. § XIV. and Appendix II.
 
 sF.r. I. CMA1-. vii. Till-: FORK(;oi\r, i'Ri\riPi.rs, Sy 
 
 trickling away, its course marked iiy hranclics of rccds, the latter 
 forma] 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 Uflizii 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.' 
 
 Though, however, at this period the general grasp of the schools yJ|'J.\,t'o'r"^nd 
 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 enjoj'ment of it. He set the sun 
 
 ' This is no rash method of judgment, sweeping and hasty as it may appear. 
 From the weaknesses of an artist, or faihu'es, however numerous, we have no right to 
 conjecture his total inabiUty ; 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 commis- 
 sions ; some things which a man cannot do or say without sealing for ever his cha- 
 racter and capacity. The angel holding the cross vrith his finger in his eye, the 
 roaring red-faced children aljout 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 instance of colour or execution so coarse and feelingless. 
 
 the Puiissins.
 
 88 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part it. 
 
 in heaven, and was, I suppose, the first who attempted anything 
 Hke the reahzation of actual sunshine in misty air. He gives the 
 first example of the study of nature for her own sake, and allow- 
 ing for the unfortunate circumstances of his education, and for his 
 evident inferiority of intellect, more could hardly have been ex- 
 pected 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 mis- 
 sion, 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 any thing ; his choice of landscape features is 
 dictated b}' no delight in the sublime, but by mere animal restless- 
 ness 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 savage- 
 ness 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 Caspar have 
 serious feeling and often valuable and solemn colour ; 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. Gcrm.in The development of landscape north of the Alps presents us 
 
 and Flemish 
 
 landscipe. witii the Same general phases, under modifications dependent partly 
 
 on less intensity of feeling, partly on (liniinisiied availableness of
 
 SKr. I. f IIAI'. VM. 
 
 rnRi-r;niNf; principi.ks. 8g 
 
 landscape material. That of the religious painters is treated with 
 the same affectionate completion ; but exuberance of fancy some- 
 times diminishes the influence of the imagination, and tlu; 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 
 Dlirer ; 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 insuffi- 
 cient 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 un- 
 worthy 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 ex- 
 hibited 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 con- 
 descending to minute and multitudinous detail ; always, as far as 
 it goes, pure, forcible, and refreshing, consummate in composition, 
 and marvellous in colour. 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. Were it not 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 re- 
 membered that Titian hardly ever paints sunshine, but a certain
 
 90 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OF 
 
 « i6. The 
 lower Dutch 
 schools. 
 
 ^ 17. Enelish 
 school, Wilson 
 
 opnlescent twilight which has as much of human emotion as of 
 imitative trutli in it,' and tiiat art of tliis 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 man}' of the shadows fall at right 
 angles to the light ; in a picture in the Dulwich Gallery a rainbow 
 is seen by the spectator at the side of the sun ; and in one in the 
 Louvre, the sunbeams come from one part of the sky, and the sun 
 appears in another. 
 
 These bold and frank licenses are not to be considered as de- 
 tracting 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. 
 
 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 one 
 gallery and burn it to the ground. 
 
 Passing to the English school, we find a connecting link between 
 
 " The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
 Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
 That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality."
 
 SEC. I. rllAP. VH. T\['^. I-ORFGOING TUINCIPI-ES. 9I 
 
 them nnfl the Italians formed by Richard Wilson. Had tliis arti.st nnd Gains- 
 
 liorouj^li. 
 
 Studied under favonrnhlo circumstances, thei-c is evidence of his 
 having possessed power enough to produce an original picture ; hut 
 corrupted by study of the Poussins, and gathering his materials 
 chiefly in their field, the district about Rome — a district especially 
 unfavourable, 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 over- 
 powered ; and, though he paints in a manly way and occasionally 
 reaches exquisite tones of colour, 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 colourist since Rubens, and the 
 last, I think, of legitimate colourists ; 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 
 gaiety. 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 colour 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 colour 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 attrac- 
 tively luminous or aerial than the distance of the Gainsborough, 
 nothing more bold or inventive than the forms of its crags and
 
 9- GENERAL APPLICATION OF part m. 
 
 the diffusion of tiie broad distant liglit 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 in the end more forcible, 
 because unexaggerated ; its gloom is moderate and aerial, its light 
 deep in tone, its colour 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 par- 
 ticular periods, than from individual teaching, and, especially 
 among moderns, what has been good in each master has been 
 commonly original. 
 i i8. Cons- I have already alluded to the simplicity and earnestness of the 
 
 table, Calcott. "^ 
 
 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 corre- 
 sponding 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. 1 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 loveli- 
 ness of calm weather ; it is great-coat weather, and nothing more. 
 There is strange want of depth in the mind which has no pleasure
 
 SEC. I. CM.U-. vii. THE rORKGOINc; riUNCIPLKS. 9.1 
 
 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 colour, and 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 sympa- 
 thize, nor does there appear any sign of aspiration, effort, or enjoy- 
 ment 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 tole- 
 rably, 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 representatives of the English school. 
 
 Throughout the range of elder art, it will be remembered we § 19. Peculiar 
 
 tendency of 
 
 have found no instance of the faithful painting of mountain scenery, recent land- 
 
 scape 
 
 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 more dexterous practice 
 of water-colour ; but it admits of doubt whether the choice of sub- 
 ject has been directed by the vehicle, or whether, as I rather think, 
 the tendency of national feeling has not 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 aftection their forms were regarded by the inventors, I am utterly
 
 94 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ii. 
 
 unable to guess ; but of this I think we may be assured, that the 
 natural instinct and childlike 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. Robsoii, I have been myself indebted for much teaching and more delight 
 
 D. Cox. False 
 
 use of the term to those of the late G. Robson. Weaknesses there are in them 
 
 " style. 
 
 manifold, much bad drawing, much forced colour, much over-finish, 
 little of what artists call composition ; but there is thorough affec- 
 tion 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 1 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 espe- 
 cially 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 uiily 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
 
 SEC, I. CHAP. VI.. THE FOKi;<;OING PUINCIPLES. 95 
 
 because the artist has invented them, or desires to show his dex- 
 terity in them, are utterly base ; for every good painter finds so 
 much difficulty in reachint; 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 pre- 
 scribed 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 accus- 
 tomed 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, cool- 
 ness, 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
 
 96 GENERAL APPLICATION OF tart ii. 
 
 herself. Yet he is capable of more than tliis, and if he suffers him- 
 self 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 
 (p. xl. § 40 w); another, I think still finer, a red Sunset on distant 
 hills, almost unequalled for truth and power of colour, was painted by 
 him several j'ears ago, and remains, I believe, in his own possession. 
 « 31. Copley The deserved popularity of Copley Fielding has rendered it less 
 
 Fielding. 
 
 Phenomena of necessary for me to allude frequently to his works in the following 
 
 distant colour. '' ^ -^ ° 
 
 pages than it would otherwise have been ; more especially as my 
 own sympathies and enjoyments are so entirely directed in the 
 channel whicli 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 natui'e, 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 colour. 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 colour. The reader 
 will find in the following chapters that I am no advocate for sub- 
 dued colouring ; but crude colour is not bright colour, and there 
 was never a noble or brilliant work of colour yet produced, whose 
 real power did not depend on the subduing of its tints rather than 
 the elevation of them.
 
 SEC. I. C11AI-. vii. THE FOREGOINC, PKINCIPI.KS. 97 
 
 It is perhaps one of the most dil'licult lessons to learn in art, 
 that th(' warm colours of distance, even the most glowing, are sub- 
 dued by the air so as in nowise to resemble the same colour seen 
 on a foreground object ; so that the rose of sunset on clouds or 
 mountains has a grey in it which distinguishes it from the rose 
 colour of the leaf of a flower ; and the mingling of this grey of 
 distance without in the slightest degree taking away the expression 
 of the intense and perfect purity of the colour in and by itself, is 
 perhaps the last attainment of the great landscape colourist. 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 colour, which are altogether wanting in many of 
 the blues of Fielding's distances ; and so of every bright distant 
 colour; while in foreground, where colours may be, and ought 
 to be, pure, they yet become expressive of light only 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 colourists. Of this fitting of light to 
 shadow Fielding is altogether regardless, so that his foregrounds 
 are constantly assuming the aspect of overcharged local colour 
 instead of sunshine, and his figures and cattle look transparent. 
 
 Again, the finishing of Fielding's foregrounds, as regards their 5 22- Beauty 
 
 ° ' _ ° _ "^ '^ I t> of mounUiin 
 
 drawing, is minute without accuracy, multitudinous without i"''<^^!;iu"nd. 
 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 re-worked, dotted, rubbed, and finished with great 
 labour. 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 wellbeing 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. 
 VOL. 1. 7
 
 gS GENERAL APPLICATION OF tart ii. 
 
 Neither of these virtues is to be found in Fielding's. Its features, 
 though grouped with feeling, are yet scattered and unessential. 
 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 frag- 
 ment of its living rock, nor a tuft of its heathery herbage, that has 
 not adorable manifestations of God's working thereupon. The 
 harmonies of colour among the native lichens are better than 
 Titian's ; the interwoven bells of campanula and heatlier are better 
 than all the arabesques of the Vatican ; they need no improvement, 
 arrangement, nor alteration, nothing but love : and every combina- 
 tion 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.' I should 
 
 ' It appears not to be sufficiently understood by those artists who complain acri- 
 moniously of their position on the .Academy walls, that the Academicians have in
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. VII. THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 99 
 
 have made the preceding remarks with more hesitation and difli- 
 dence, but that, from a comparison of works of this kind with the 
 slighter ornaments of the water-colour 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. 
 
 There is much that is instructive and deserving of high praise ^ '3- Dc Wint. 
 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 r fear that these works testify more accuracy of eye and 
 experience of colour 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 colour ; 
 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. 
 
 their own rooms a right to the line and the Iiest places near it ; in their taking this 
 jiosition 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, dis- 
 interestedly, 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 ta.ste ; 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-coloured 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.
 
 lOO GENERAL ArPLICATION OF part m. 
 
 § =4. innuence Tlie influence of the masters of whom we have hitherto spoken 
 
 of engraving. * 
 
 J. D. Harding^. jg confined to those who have access to their actual works, since the 
 particular qualities in which they excel are in no wise to be ren- 
 dered by the engraver. Those of whom we have next to speak are 
 known to the public in a great measure by 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 colour 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, or obtained more substan- 
 tial colour and texture ; but 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 will be 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 im- 
 pressive ; 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 favour of the 
 very grand Sunrise on the Swiss Alps, exhibited in 1844, wherein 
 the artist's real power was in some measure displaj'ed, though I am 
 convinced he is still capable of doing far greater things. So also in 
 his foliage he is apt to sacrifice the dignity of his trees to their wild- 
 ness, and lose the forest in the copse ; neither is he at all accurate
 
 sr.c. 1. niAi'. VII. Till'; FOKKGOING PRINCII'LICS. lOI 
 
 enough in his expression of species or realization of near portions. 
 These are deficiencies, be it observed, of sentiment, not of percep- 
 tion, as there are few who equal him in rapidity of seizure of 
 material truth. 
 
 Very extensive influence in modern art must be attributed to ^^s- Samuel 
 
 •^ rrout. harly 
 
 the works of Samuel Prout; and as there are some circumstances .^"^^[("fture 
 belonging to his treatment of architectural subjects which it does '>°^^''^'"^'^"'- 
 not come within the sphere of the follnwing chapters to examine, I 
 shall endeavour 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 any- 
 thing beyond conventional representation of architecture ; often 
 rich, quaint, and lull of interest, as Memmi's abstract of the Duomo 
 at Florence at S'". 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, Ghir- 
 landajo, Francia, and the other patient and powerful workmen of 
 the fifteenth century, isexclusively 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 colour are (most justly) surrendered for quiet and 
 uniform hues of grey, and chiaroscuro of extreme simplicity. What- 
 ever 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'". 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 acces- 
 sory parts ; so that while in some points it is impossible for any 
 painter to equal these accessaries, unless he were in all respects as
 
 I02 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ll. 
 
 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 a 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. 
 
 5 =6. Effects It is evident, first, that if the design of the building be originally 
 
 nf age upon ^^ o o -< 
 
 fa'r'desi?ai)U?.^'' ^'^'^' '^'^^ °"^y ^'irtue 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 for ever, 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 counter- 
 balance to that wretched love of novelty which originates in selfish- 
 ness, 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 tye 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 colours 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 nut 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 shattered surface of the oolite limestone, 
 previous to its restoration. If, however, the character of the build- 
 ing consists in minute detail or multitudinous lines, the evil or go.^d
 
 stc. 1. CHAP. VII. THE FOREGOING PRINCU'LEii. IO3 
 
 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 con- 
 tours of its sculptures ; and any lines of extreme purity, or colours 
 of original harmony and perfection, are liable to nijury, and arc 
 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 IVom 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 section of this part, page 197. I do not at this moment 
 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 restora- 
 tion in its time of age. 
 
 Thus I conceive that all buildings dependent on colour, whether 
 of mosaic or painting, have their effect improved by the richness 
 of the subsequent tones of age ; for there are few arrangements of 
 colour so perfect but hat they are capable of improvement by 
 some softening and blending of this kind : with mosaic, the im- 
 provement may be considered as proceeding almost so long as 
 the design can be distinctly seen ; with painting, so long as the 
 colours 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,
 
 I04 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part il. 
 
 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 colour, he has lost the end of his own art. 
 5 27. Effects So far of ageing ; next of effects of light and colour. It is, I 
 
 of li^ht, how o o ' o ' 
 
 und?rs'ta"nding^ bellcve, hardly enough observed among architects, that the same 
 of detail. 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 dark 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 deco- 
 ration is seen It) brst advantage, and certain times in which its
 
 3F.C. I. CHAr. vn. Tin: !■ I iRlCGOING PIUNCII'LES. IO5 
 
 peculiar force and cliaracter 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 : liuL 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 shorthand 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 shorthand ; that is, each has a perfect system of parts prin- 
 cipal 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 visibl}' 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 every- 
 thing either under one kind of effect or in one manner, or of 
 using unintelligible and meaningless abstracts of beautiful designs, 
 are those which most commonly take the place of it and are the 
 most extensively esteemed.' 
 
 ' 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.
 
 io6 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OF 
 
 ^ 28. Architec- 
 tural painting 
 of Gentile 
 Bellini and 
 Vittor Car- 
 paccio ; 
 
 Let us now proceed with our view of those artists who have 
 devoted themselves more pecuharly to architectural subject. 
 
 Foremost among them stand Gentile Bellini and Vittor Car- 
 paccio, 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 colour on 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 per- 
 spective 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 per- 
 spective and chiaroscuro vvitii the splendour 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 colour given by the later Venetians, we ought now to be able
 
 SEC. I. tiiAi'. vii. THE I'UKEGOING PltlNCU'LES. lO/ 
 
 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 Madoiin;i, 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 distance. 
 
 The great group of Venetian painters who brought landscape art, i 29- And of 
 
 . , . , f > the Venetiai.b 
 
 for that time, to its culminating point, have left, as wc have already generally, 
 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 either variety of form or of 
 colour, the latter especially condescending to very trivial details, — 
 as in the magnificent carpet painting of the picture of the doge 
 Mocenigo ; so that it might have been expected that in the rich 
 colours of St. Mark's, and the magnificent and fantastic masses of 
 the Byzantine palaces, they would have found whereupon 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 colour, the sea 
 a dead grey green, and the ship-sails mere dashes of the brush, 
 that the most obscure of Turner's Venices would look substantial 
 beside it ; while Tintoret, in the very picture in which he has 
 dwelt so elaborately on the carpet, has substituted a piece of 
 ordinary Renaissance composition for St. Mark's; and in the back- 
 ground 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 e.xist 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
 
 io8 
 
 GENERAL ArPLICATION OF 
 
 5 30. Fresco 
 painting of 
 the Venetian 
 exteriors. 
 Canaletto. 
 
 suggestive, and would be utterly false except as a frame or back- 
 ground for figures. The same may be said with respect to 
 Raffaelle and the Roman school. 
 
 If, however, these men laid architecture little imder contribution 
 to their own art, they made their own art a glorious gift to archi- 
 tecture ; and the walls of Venice which, before, I believe, had re- 
 ceived colour 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 favour of their new pastor.^ 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 
 
 ' The inscription is to the following effect, — n. pleasant thing to see upon the 
 walls, were it but more innocently placed : — 
 
 CAMPO DI S. MAURIZIO. 
 
 DIO 
 
 CONSERVI A NOI 
 
 LUNGAMENTE 
 
 LO ZELANTIS. E REVERENDIS. 
 
 D. LUIGI PICCINI 
 
 NOSTRO 
 
 NOVEL LO PIEVANO. 
 
 GLI ESULTANTI 
 PARROCCrilANl.
 
 ST.c. 1. CHAP. vn. Till-: FOREGOING PKINCIPLES. I O9 
 
 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,' 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. 
 
 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 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 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.
 
 I 10 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ii. 
 
 the grace of nature as from her faintness and transparency: and 
 for his truth of colour, let the single fact of his having omitted 
 all record ivhatsoever 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 tlie magnificent coloured marbles 
 of many whose greens and purples are still undimmed upon the 
 Casa Dario, Casa Trevisan, 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 pro- 
 fess. He professes nothing but coloured 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 is given on a scale of an inch to Canaletto's 
 three feet. What excuse is there to be oifered 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 greys. 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. 
 5 31. Expres- Neither, however, by the Flemings nor by any other of the elder 
 
 sionoftne ' 
 
 efi'ectsofage cphools was the effect of age or of human life upon architecture 
 
 on architecture =>»-"'-"-'-^^» w ei.^ •■ o r 
 
 bys. Prout. ^^^^ 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
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. VII. TIIK FOREGOING I'RIN'CIPLES. Ill 
 
 canic into tlie street only to stand there for ever. A peculiar 
 stufiiousness 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 expres- 
 sion, 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 remember Mackenzie, and 
 Haghe, 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 approached, 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
 
 112 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ll. 
 
 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 
 and vital being of the cities, such as nothing else has ever ap- 
 proached. 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 incon- 
 sistency between what I say here and what I have said respecting 
 finish. This piece of dead wall is as much finished in relation to 
 xX.'s, function, as the masonries of Ghirlandajo or Leonardo in relation 
 to theirs ; and the refreshing quality is the same in both, and mani- 
 fest 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 Raftaelle. 
 5 32. His ex- It is not, however, only by his peculiar stone touch, nor by his 
 
 cellent com- ' > J J r > J 
 
 position and perception of human character, that he is distinguished. He is the 
 
 colour. r r ' o 
 
 most dexterous of all our artists in a certain kind of composition. 
 No one can place figures as he can, 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 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 iijnning 
 it against our legs. One other merit he has, far less generally 
 acknowledged than it should be; he is among our most sunn}' and 
 substantial colourists. Much conventional colour occurs in his 
 inferior pictures (for he is very unequal), and some in all ; but por- 
 tions are always of qualitj'so luminous and pure, that I have found 
 these works tin- onl^' ones cajiable of bearing juxtaposition with
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. vrr. THE !■ (IRIIGOING PKINCIPLKS. I I 3 
 
 Turner and Hunt, vviio invariably destroy everything else tiiat conies 
 within range of them. His most beautiful tones occur in those 
 drawings in which there is prevalent and powerful warm grey ; 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 inter- 
 pretation of architecture that contains more refined art in its 
 details is far less satisfactory, still it is impossible, while walking 
 on his favourite angle of the Piazza at Venice, either to think 
 of any other artist than Prout or not to think of /»';;/. 
 
 Many other dexterous and agreeable architectural artists we have, 5 33- Modem 
 
 .'irchitectural 
 
 of various degrees of merit, but of all of whom, it may be generally paintinsr 
 
 o 1 J a J ^eneraUy. 
 
 said, that they draw hats, faces, cloaks, and caps much better than *^- Cattermoie. 
 Prout, hwt 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 work- 
 man capable of producing the clever drawings he has, from time 
 to time, sent to the New Society of Painters in Water Colours, 
 should publish lithographs so conventional, forced, and lifeless. 
 
 ' Compare Stone5^ of \'enice, vol. i. chap, xxiii. ^ v. 
 \o\.. 1. 8
 
 114 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ll. 
 
 It is not without hesitation, tliat 1 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 pecu- 
 liar 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 colour, alike 
 opaque, and all the shades on flesh, dress, or stone, laid in with the 
 same arbitrary brown, for ever 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 has of late been painfully visible in his architec- 
 ture. Some drawings made several years ago for an Annual, illus- 
 trative 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 archi- 
 tecture, 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 encitavouring to attain, by inoidinate bulk
 
 SF.c. 1. ciTAP. VH. THE FOREGOING PKINCIPI.KS. II5 
 
 of decorated parts, that dignity vvliicli is only to be reached by 
 purity of proportion and majesty of line. 
 
 It has pained me deeply, to see an artist of so great original evtrrroman 
 power indulging in childish fantasticism and exaggeration, and sub- poiiuor°S, 
 
 r 1 . 1 1 1 T t r 1 ■ ■ • . . of misapplied 
 
 stituting for the serious and subdued work ol legitimate imagination invention, in 
 
 architectural 
 
 monster machicolations, and colossal cusps and crockets. While subject, 
 there is so much beautiful architecture daily in process of destruc- 
 tion 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 
 iall 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 honourable 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
 
 Il6 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ii. 
 
 difference between the drawing of the architect and artist^ 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 Among the members of the Academy, we have at present only 
 
 and eraS"'" ^^^ profcsscdly 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 1 think 
 it exceedingly probable that in both instances it is exclusively 
 based on their defects ; and in the case of Mr. Roberts in par- 
 ticular, there has of late appeared more ground for it than is 
 altogether desirable, in a smoothness and over-finish of texture 
 which bear dangerous fellowship with the work of our Gallic 
 neighbours. 
 
 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 lie has never done himself 
 justice, and suffers his pictures to fall below the rank tlicy should 
 assume, bj' 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 drawings of the Holy Land, 
 which we owe to Mr. Roberts, we cannot but be amazed to find 
 
 ' Indeed there should be no such difference at all. Every avchilcct oiiylil to be an 
 artist ; every very great artist is necessarily an architect.
 
 SEC. I. cllAl'. VII. THE FOREGOING rKINCII'I.ES. II7 
 
 how frequently it has happened that there was something very 
 white immediately in the foreground, and something very black 
 exactly beiiind it The same thing happens perpetually witii Mr. 
 Roberts's pictures ; a white culunin 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 colour 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 colour, obtained by means of the 
 same greys throughout, and of the same yellow (a singularly false 
 and cold though convenient colour) 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 multi- 
 tudinous 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 facts 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 impres- 
 siveness as the sketches themselves, and have never borne the living 
 aspect of the Egyptian light ; it has always been impossible to say
 
 IlS GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ll. 
 
 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 colour ; 
 and thus we have been encumbered with caftans, pipes, scimitars, 
 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 colouring 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 
 colour, were at any rate warm and agreeable; but of late his 
 colour 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 Roshn Chapel, exhibited in 
 1844, showed his 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 
 ever French historical picture. The general feebleness of the effect 
 is increased by the insertion of the figures as violent pieces of 
 local colour 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 efibrt to paint, not a fine picture, 
 but an impressive and known verity. 
 I) 36. ciarksoii The two artists whose works it remains for^us to review, are 
 
 Stanfield. 
 
 men who have presented us with examples of the treatment of 
 every kind of subject, and among the rest with portions of archi- 
 tecture which the best of our exclusively architectural draughtsmen 
 could not excel. 
 
 The frequent references made to the works of Clarkson Stanfield
 
 SEC. r. (HAP. \'M. 
 
 THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. II9 
 
 throughout the subsequent pages render it less necessary for me to 
 speak of hhn here at any length. He is the leader of the English 
 Realists, and perhaps among the more remarkable of his charac- 
 teristics is the look of common sense and rationality which his 
 compositions will always bear, when opposed to any kind of 
 aflectation. 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 joy fulness of rest, nor the majesty of storm. 
 Their colour 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 bow- 
 sprit, 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-coloured sunsets on green waves sixty feet high, witli 
 caulitlower breakers, and ninepin rocks ; from drowning on planks, 
 and starving on rafts, and lying naked on beaches, it is really
 
 L20 GENERAL APrLICATION OF i-art ii. 
 
 refreshing to turn to a surge of Stanfield's true salt, serviceable, 
 unsentimental sea. It would be well, however, if he would some- 
 times take a higher flight. The Castle of Ischia gave him a grand 
 subject, and a little more invention in tiie sky, a little less mud- 
 diness in the rocks, and a little more savageness in the sea, would 
 have made it an impressive picture ; itjust 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 
 weatherbeaten. 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 newly 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 colour 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-bye, 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 freshly 
 got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed beggars excite com- 
 passion in une.xceptionable rags. In realit}', almost all the colours 
 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 colour. 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. 
 i 37. J. M. w. The name I have last to mention is that of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Turner. Force 
 
 of national I (jo not intend to spcak of this artist at present in general terms, 
 
 feclnifi 111 all ^ l ej r 
 
 great pamicrs. bccause my constant practice throughout this work is to sa}', 
 when I speak of an artist at all, the very truth of what I believe
 
 six:. 1. CHAP. vu. THE I'OREGOING I'R INCII'l.ES. 12 1 
 
 and feel respecting iiim ; 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 tiie subsequent chapters will be exclusively devoted to the 
 examination of the new fields over wliich 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 suc- 
 cessfully 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, colour, and accessaries are, with all great 
 painters whatsoever, those of their native land ; and that frankly 
 and entirely, without the slightest attempt at modification ; and 1 
 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 tempo- 
 rary peculiarities. Nicolo Pisano got nothing but good, the modern 
 French nothing but evil, from the study of the antique ; but Nicolo 
 Pisano had a God and a character. All artists who have attempted 
 to assume, or in their weakness have been affected by, the national 
 
 ' Vide Stones of Venice, vol. i. Appendix il.
 
 122 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part li. 
 
 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 classicalism of Wilson with 
 the rich English purity of Gainsborough ; compare the recent ex- 
 hibition of middle-age cartoons for the Houses of Parliament with 
 the works of Hogarth ; compare the sickly modern German imita- 
 tions of the great Italians with Albert Dtirer 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 sub- 
 jects be varied, assuredly end in failure. Lewis, who seemed so 
 eminently penetrative in Spain, sent nothing from Italy but com- 
 plexions and costumes, and 1 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 these very times, railroads and all ; if a British 
 painter, I say this in earnest seriousness, cannot make historical
 
 ^ 38. Itinuciice 
 of this I'eelinj; 
 on the choice 
 
 SEC. I. cliAi'. VII. THK FORKGOING PRINCITLES. ^ 1 23 
 
 characters out of the Britisli 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. 
 
 The rule, of course, holds in landscape ; yet so far less authori- 
 tatively, that tiie material nature of all countries and times is in o" Landscape 
 many points actually, and in all, in principle, the same ; so that 
 feelings educated in Cumberland may find their food in Switzer- 
 land, and impressions first received amongst the rocks of Cornwall 
 be recalled upon the precipices of Genoa. Add to this actual same- 
 ness, 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 the 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 tiie critic ; it at once sets 
 aside the whole school of common composition, and exonerates us 
 from the labour 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. 
 
 I do not know in what district of England Turner first or ^ 39.11s pecu- 
 
 ° liar manltesta- 
 
 longest studied, but the scenery whose influence I can trace most tmn m Turner, 
 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,
 
 124 . r.ENKRAL APPLICATION OF I'Art li. 
 
 unwearted, serious finishing of truth. There is in them little 
 seeking after elTect, but a strong love of place ; little exhibition 
 of the artist's own powers or peculiarities, but intense appreciation 
 of the smallest local minutiEe. 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 York- 
 shire 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 colour. His early 
 drawings are singularly instructive in this definiteness and simplicity 
 of aim. No complicated or brilliant colour 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 colour 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
 
 SEC. 1. CHAP. VII. Tin: I-0RE(,01NG TRLNCIPLKS. 125 
 
 have never in any wise been equalled, and as might serve him 
 for a secure foimdation in all after experiments. Of the quantity 
 and precision of his details, the drawings made for Hakewill's 
 Italy are singular examples, as well as some of the drawings of 
 Swiss scenery in the possession of F. H. Fawkes, Esq., of F'arnley. 
 
 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 colour 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, Kil- 
 garren, Alnwick, and Llanthony, being among his finest works; 
 others, as the Windsor from Eton, the Eton College, and the 
 Bedford, showing coarseness, and conventionality. 
 
 I do not know at what time the painter first went abroad, but § 40. Thedo- 
 
 . . ^ . -, mestic subjects 
 
 some of the Swiss drawings above named were made m 1804 or of the Liber 
 1806; and 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 acquaint- 
 ance 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, 
 
 iStudiorinn.
 
 126 GENERAL APPLICATION OF part ll. 
 
 Dumblain, Dunstanborough, Chepstow, St. Katherine's, Green- 
 wich 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, Lauftenbourg, and Thun : and, 
 farther, 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 vintagers of the 
 Grenoble subject. 
 
 In his foliage the same predilections are remarkable. Reminis- 
 cences of English willows by the brooks, and English forest glades, 
 mingle even with the heroic foliage of the .iEsacus 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 mounches 
 chestnuts with no relish; never has learned to like olives; and, 
 in the foreground of the Grenoble Alps, is, like many other great 
 men, overthrown by the vine. 
 
 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 ; 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 acquired from the scenery of
 
 SEC. I. CHAP. VII. THK FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 12/ 
 
 the continent, the keen appreciatirm up to a certain point of all 
 that is locally characteristic, and the ready seizure for future use 
 of all valuable material. 
 
 Of all foreign countries he has most entirely entered into the LlntinKoT'^*' 
 spirit of France ; partly because here he found more fellowship of swUs land- 
 scene with his own England; partly because an amount of thought latter' deficient, 
 wiiicii 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 1 cannot tell, nor is it generally allowed 
 or felt ; but of the fact 1 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 coun- 
 tries 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 tra- 
 vellers 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 instruc- 
 tion ; the district immediately about Sens being perhaps the most 
 valuable, from the grandeur of its lines of poplars, and the un- 
 imaginable 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 him- 
 self the sufficient, painter of French landscape. One of the most 
 beautiful examples is the drawing of trees engraved for the Keep- 
 sake, 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 local character. This was beforehand 
 to be expected from the utter physical impossibility of rendering
 
 128 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OF 
 
 ^ 42. His 
 rendering of 
 Italian charac- 
 ter still less 
 snccessful. 
 His large com- 
 positions, how 
 I'aiting 
 
 certain effects of Swiss scenery, and the monotony and unmanage- 
 ableness of others. Of the drawings above alluded to in the 
 possession of F. H. Fawkes, Esq., I shall give account hereafter ; 
 they are not altogether successful, but the manner of their de- 
 ficiency cannot be described in my present space. 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 Bergfall, is most masterly and in- 
 teresting, but more daring than agreeable. The " Snow-storm, 
 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 subjects I shall 
 speak presently. 
 
 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 
 .iEsacus 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 thoroughlj- 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 nine- 
 teenth century about his legs. When local character of this 
 classical kind is attempted, the painter is visibly cramped ; awk- 
 ward resemblances to Claude testify the want of his usual forceful 
 originality : in the Tenth Plague of Egypt, he makes us think
 
 SEC. I. CUAV. vii. TlIK FORl'XiOING TRINCIPLKS. 129 
 
 of Bclzoni ratluT than of Moses; the I'iftli is a total faihirc ; 
 the pyramids look like brick-kilns, anil the fire running along 
 the ground like 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 colour, southern in its foliage, 
 Italy in its details, and England in its sensations, without the 
 grandeur of the one or the cheerfulness of the other. 
 
 The two Carthages are mere rationalizations of Claude ; one of 
 them excessively bad in colour, 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 archi- 
 tecture, the architecture to the water, the water is neither sea, nor 
 river, nor lake, nor brook, nor canal, and savours 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 colour 
 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 colour once, but is now a mere wreck. So also the 
 Rape of Proserpine, though it is singular that in his Academy 
 pictures even his simplicity fails of reaching ideality : in his picture 
 of Proserpine the nature is not the grand nature of all time, it is 
 indubitably modern,' and we are perfectly electrified at anybody's 
 
 ' This passage seems at variance with what has Ijeen .said of the necessity of paint- 
 ing present times and objects. It is not so. A great painter makes out of tliat whicli 
 
 vol,. I. Q
 
 I30 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATION OF 
 
 i 43. His 
 views of lta\y 
 destroyed by 
 brilliancy and 
 redundant 
 quantity. 
 
 being carried away in the corner except by people with spilcy 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 hilla, and to a multiplicity of 
 minor causes which we cannot at present enter into. 
 
 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 colour as to 
 look unfinished. The Palestrina is full 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, ^d 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 
 
 he finds before him something which is imlepcndent of a// time. He cin only ilo 
 this out of the materials ready to his h.and, but that which he builds has the dignity 
 of dateless age. A little painter is annihilated by an anachronism, and is convention- 
 ally antique, and involuntarily modern.
 
 SEC. I. riiAp. VIT. THE FOR rcOINr, PRINCIPLES. I3I 
 
 downs and Iliglilantl 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 colour, massive simplicity of general form ; and to 
 Venice we owe many of the motives in which his highest powers of 
 colour have been displayed, after that change in his system of which 
 we must now take note. 
 
 Among the earlier /rt/V/Z/V/^s of Turner, the culminating period, i *'*' f^^^^^^. 
 marked by the Yorkshire series in his drawings, is distinguished him in the 
 
 -' ^ ' o received system 
 
 by great solemnity and simplicity of subject, prevalent gloom in °'^'"''' 
 chiaroscuro, 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. TheCalder 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, a bird is 
 about to seize it, while its companion, crimson-winged, flits idly 
 on the surface of one of the pools of the stream, within half an inch 
 of the surface of the water, thus telling us its extreme stillness. 
 Two paintings of Bonneville, in Savoy, one in the possession of 
 Abel Allnutt, Esq., the other, and I think the finer, in a collection 
 at Birmingham, show more variety of colour 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 composi- 
 tions of the same period are all poor in colour, and most of them 
 much damaged ; but the smaller works have been far finer originally, 
 and their colour 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 are not in them. Grand as they are in their 
 
 ' The worst picture I ever saw of this period, " The Trosachs," has been for some 
 time exhibited at Mr. Grundy's in Regent Street; and it has been much praised by 
 the public press, on the ground, I suppose, that it exhibit.s so little uf Turner's power 
 or manner as to be hardly recognizable for one of his works.
 
 132 GENERAL APPLICATION OF PART 11. 
 
 sobriety, they still leave much to be desired ; there is great heavi- 
 ness 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 colour of nature had never 
 been attempted by any school ; and that though conventional repre- 
 sentations 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 colour 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 colour he substituted a pure straightfor- 
 ward 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 mos/ 
 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 skj^ 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 opposition 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.
 
 sM . 1. I H.M-. VII. ■nil' i'"ni<i;(;i)iN(, rRiNcii'i.Ks. 1.33 
 
 Innovations so daring and so various could not be introduced ^j^^^oPiiS^Yater 
 witliout corresponding peril : tlie difficulties that lay in his way were Kesimant 
 more than any human intellect could altogether surmount. In his 
 time there has been no one system of colour 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 colour can hardly be expected of those who 
 cannot recover the old. To obtain perfectly satisfactory results in 
 colour under the new conditions introduced by Turner would at 
 least have required the exertion of all his energies in that sole 
 direction. But colour 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 colour. It is physically im- 
 possible, 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 through- 
 out. 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 perfectlylwilling to allow, that the lemon 
 yellow is not properly representative of the yellow of the sky, that 
 the loading of the colour is in many places disagreeable, that
 
 1 J4 GENERAL APPLICATION OF I'Art il. 
 
 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 laboured drawing of Bamborough ; sometimes, 
 unaccountably, his eye for colour seeming to fail him for a time, as 
 in a large painting of Rome from the Forum, and in the Cicero's 
 Villa, and Building of Carthage ; 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. 
 5 46. Reflection On such instanccs I shall not insist, for the finding fault with 
 
 recent works. Turner is not, I think, either decorous in m3'self or likely to be 
 beneficial to the reader.' The greater number of failures took 
 
 ' One point, however, it is inctimbent 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//V/«>v of Turner's
 
 siic. I. ciiAi'. VMi. rilK KORICGOINC; PRINCIPLES. 135 
 
 place in the period of transition, when the artist was feeling for 
 the new qualities, and endeavouring to reconcile them with more 
 careful elaboration of form than was properly consistent witli 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. In the year 1842, he made some 
 drawings from recent sketches in Switzerland, peculiarly fine in 
 colour ; and among the Academy pictures of that period, examples 
 of the same power were not wanting, more especially in the smaller 
 Venetian subjects. The Sun of Venice ; the San Benedetto, look- 
 ing 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 
 
 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 colours begin to get hard a year or two after 
 the picture is painted, a painful deadness and opacity come 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 colours 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 e.xtent 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 colour, 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 farther progress after the first year or two, and that even in its altered state the 
 picture is always valuable and records its intention ; but how are we enough to regret 
 that so great a painter should not leave a single work by which in succeeding ages he 
 might be entirely 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 labour and time, 
 in safe materials, even at the risk of some deteiioration 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 
 camrot, 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 colourists especially, are the sun, the picture cleaner, 
 and the mounter.
 
 136 GENERAL Ari'LICATION OF i-aut n. 
 
 saw it, the most perfectly beautiful piece of colour of all that 1 
 have seen produced by human hands, by any means, or at any 
 period. Of the exhibition of 1S4S, I have only seen a small 
 Venice (still, 1 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, at 
 page 182, vol. ii., are perhaps hardly enough on which to found 
 an exception in his favour). He is the only painter who ever drew 
 the stem of a tree, Titian liaving 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 colour. These assertions 1 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. 
 
 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,
 
 SIX. 1. CHAP. VII. iin-; FOKi:(,niN<i pkim ii'iis. 137 
 
 5 .(7. UiriiiMllly 
 
 the following examination of the relative Iruthlulness of elder and ;,r'J;.,,Vonsi'r;i' 
 
 r L L ^ t"ii ji 1- tioji in such 
 
 of recent art ; always requesting the reader to remember, as some .subjects. 
 excuse for the inadequate executinn, 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 
 colour, space, and light. I shall then investigate the truths of 
 specific form and colour, in the four great component parts of 
 landscape — sky, earth, water, and vegetation.
 
 138 
 
 OF TRUTH OF TONE. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 OF GENERAL TRUTHS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF TONE. 
 
 $ I. Meanings 
 of the word 
 " tone : " — 
 First, the right 
 relation of 
 objects in 
 shadow to the 
 principal light. 
 
 ^' 2. Secondly, 
 the quality of 
 colour by 
 which it is felt 
 to owe part of 
 its brightness 
 to the hue of 
 light upon it. 
 
 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. 
 
 I understand two things by the word Tone ; first, the exact 
 i-elief and relation of objects against and to each other in substance 
 and darkness, as they arc 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 colours of the shadows to the colours 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 ]iarts 
 themselves, with respect to the degree in which they are influenced 
 by the colour 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 colour 
 laid on, which makes the eye feel both what is the actual colour of 
 the object represented, and that it is raised to its apparent pitch by 
 illumination. A very bright brown, for instance, out of sunshine,
 
 SEC. ]i. CHAP. I. or TRUTH OK Id.NK. 139 
 
 may be precisely of the same sliade of colour as a vcr^'dead or cold 
 brown in sunshine, but it will be totallj' different in quality ; and 
 that quality by which the illuminated dead colour would be felt in 
 nature different from the ujiilluminated bright one, is what artists 
 arc 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. 
 
 The first of these meanings of the word Tone is liable to be 1 3. Difference 
 
 ^ between tone 
 
 confounded with what is conunonly called " aerial perspective." ^""/p^llfj 
 
 But aerial perspective is the expression of space by any means ^^e!" '"■'''^p'^'^' 
 
 whatsoever, sharpness of edge, vividness of colour, 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. 
 
 Now the finely-toned pictures of the old masters arc, in this M- Tiie pic- 
 
 •^ ^ ' tares of the old 
 
 respect, some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves ptf/fecUn reia- 
 below her key ; the dark objects in the middle distance having tints°oTi'ght.'' 
 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 the image in a camera-obscura on a 
 dark day, with the exact resemblance it bore to one of the finest pic- 
 tures 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. 
 
 Now if this could be done consistently, and all the notes of * s- And 
 
 -' ' consequently 
 
 nature given in this way an octave or two down, it would be right 'eiation^or '" 
 and necessary so to do : but be it observed, not only does nature "ailfness""' '° 
 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
 
 140 OF TRUTH OF TONE. vaktu. 
 
 vvhatevtr is reflected to the eye ; ours are black surfaces from which, 
 paint as black as \vc 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 s/ic can well aftbrd to 
 throw her material objects dark against the brilliant aerial tone of 
 her sky, and yet give in those objects themselves a thousand inter- 
 mediate distances and tones before she comes to black, or to any- 
 thing like it — all the illumined surfaces of her objects being as 
 distinctl3' 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 accu- 
 racy 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
 
 SKC. n. CHAP. 1. Ol' TIUII'll OF TONK. I4t 
 
 their picture by tlie thousand. I>ut this they did not care for ; it 
 saved them trouble ; they reached their grand end, imitative effect ; 
 they thru.st iionic just at the places where the com nmu and careless 
 eye looks for imitation, and they attained the broadest and most 
 faithful appearance of truth of tone which art can exhibit. 
 
 But they are prodigals, and foolish prodigals in art ; they lavisli j ^- 9"'^':''^} 
 their whole means to get one truth, and leave themselves powerless »<"-* a system, 
 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 b}' 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. 
 
 Turner starts from the beginning with a totallydifterent principle. 5 ?■ Theprin- 
 
 ^ -^ ' * ciple of Turner 
 
 He boldly takes pure white (and justly, for it is the sign of the >" this respect. 
 most intense sunbeams) for his highest light, and lampblack for his 
 deepest shade ; and between these he makes every degree of shade 
 indicative of a separate degree of distance,' giving each step of 
 approach, not the exact difterence 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 the more 
 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 
 
 ' Of course I am not speaking here of treatment of chiaroscuro, but of that quantity 
 of depth of shade by which, arlcris paribus, a near object will exceed a distant one. 
 For the truth of the systems of Turner and tlie old masters, as regards chiaroscuro, 
 vide Chapter III. of this Section, § S.
 
 142 OF TRUTH OF TONE. part ii. 
 
 inconsistent with real truth ; for the very means by which the old 
 masters attained the apparent accuracy of tone which is so satisfy- 
 ing 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. 
 i 8. Com- Take, for instance, one of the finest landscapes that ancient art 
 
 parison of 
 
 N-Poussin's Ying produced — the work of a really great and intellectual mind, the 
 quiet Nicolas Poussin in our own National Gallerj', 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 noon, 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. Nowaskyourself,andanswer 
 candidly, if those black masses of foliage, in which scarcely any 
 form is seen but the outline, be a true representation of trees under 
 noon-day sunlight, sloping from the left, bringing out, as it neces- 
 sarily viould 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 sacri- 
 ficed. 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 colour, or any other means, 
 between them and the foreground. 
 « 9. With Compare with these, Turner's treatment of his materials in the 
 
 "Mercuryand Mcrcury and Argus. He has here his light actually coming from 
 
 Arjius," _ _ _ " 
 
 the distance, the sun being nearly in the centre of tiie picture, and
 
 SEC. II. cu\r. 1. OF TRUTH OF TONIC. 143 
 
 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. 
 
 Compare again the last vignette in Rogers's Poems, the " Datur 5 lo. And with 
 Hora Quieti," where everything, even the darkest parts of the HoraQuieti." 
 trees, is kept pale and full of gradation ; 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 desirable- * n. The 
 
 second sense of 
 
 ness of the system of the old masters; it may be sublime, and the word 
 
 ■^ ' J I .1 lone. 
 
 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. 
 
 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
 
 144 
 
 OF TRUTH OF TONE. 
 
 ^ 12. Remark- 
 able diffeience 
 in this respect 
 between the 
 paintings and 
 drawings of 
 Turner. 
 
 ^13. Not 
 owing to want 
 of power over 
 the material. 
 
 shadow and light, and of tlie hues of all objects under them ; and 
 more especially that precious quality of each colour laid on, which 
 makes it appear a quiet colour illuminated, not a bright colour 
 in shade. But 1 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. V. of the next section, pieces of 
 tone absolutely faultless and perfect, from the coolest greys of 
 wintry dawn to the intense fire of summer noon. And the differ- 
 ence 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 colour 
 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-ciilourj might seem to favour 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 \nila), 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 painfidly 
 because all the con] rmd transparent qualities of Claude would
 
 SF.C. 11. CHAP. I. 
 
 OF TRUTH nv TONIC. I45 
 
 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. 
 
 Light, with reference to the tone it induces on objects, is either i 14. The two 
 
 . . distinct quali- 
 
 to be considered as neutral and white, brmguig out local colours tiesof light to 
 
 be considered. 
 
 with fidelit}' ; or coloured, and consequently modifying these local 
 
 tints with its own. But the power of pure white light to exhibit 
 
 local colour 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 colours 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 o/fcrs no colour, 
 
 brings every colour up to the highest possible pitch and key of 
 
 pure harmonious intensity, is the chief attribute of finely toned 
 
 pictures by the great colotirists, as opposed to pictures of equall}' 
 
 high tone, by masters who, careless of colour, are content, like 
 
 Cuyp, to lose local tints in the golden blaze of absorbing light. 
 
 Falsehood, in this neutral tone, if it may be so called, is a matter * "s- False- 
 hoods by \\ hich 
 
 far more of feeling than of proof, for any colour is possible under Titian attains 
 
 *^ 1 ' ./ r the appear'ance 
 
 such lights; it is meagreness and feebleness only which are to be HgfJ" '^'"' 
 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 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 
 
 OF TRUTH OF TONE. 
 
 ^ 16. Turner 
 will not use 
 such means. 
 
 $ 17. But gains 
 in essential 
 truth by the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 with their richness and solemnity of colour. In the Bacchus and 
 Ariadne of Titian, it is difficult to imagine anything more magni- 
 ficently 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 colour ; 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 colour ; and all the tone of the picture, all 
 its intensity and splendour, will vanish on the instant. So again, 
 in the exquisite and inimitable little bit of colour, 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 grey. But the whole 
 value and tone of the picture would be destroyed if this blue were 
 altered. 
 
 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 
 colour, 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 es.sential 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
 
 SEC. It. CHAP. I. OF TRUTH OF TONR. I47 
 
 necessary to give the facts of form and distance, which, as we have 
 above shown, are more important than any truths of tone,' 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 colour; for as we observed above (§ 14), 
 it is only the white light, the perfect unmodified group of rays, 
 which will bring out local colour perfectly ; and if the picture, 
 therefore, is to be complete in its system of colour, 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 5 18. The 
 
 1 1 r 1- r 1. 1 / » . t . , . .- second quality 
 
 second and more frequent quality of light (which is assumed if ofiigin. 
 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 colours neces- 
 sary, and certain colours 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 colour. 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 colour being 
 absolutely annihilated. And so under all coloured 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 colour, 
 which, when in a picture it is so exactly proportioned that we 
 feel at once both what the local colours are in themselves, and 
 what are the colour and strength of the light upon them, gives us 
 truth of tone. 
 
 For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be « 19. The per- 
 
 ' More itafoxiant. ohs&cye, 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.
 
 148 OF TRUTH OF TONE. part 11. 
 
 fection of Cuyp choseii oiit of the ijood pictures of Cuvp, which have never been 
 
 in this respect or J r' 
 
 JT'^Tumerous"' equalled in art. But I much doubt if there be a single briglit Cuyp 
 solecisms. j^^ ^■^q world, vvhich, 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 unaflFected 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 colour of a bright 
 vermilion in dead cold daylight. It is possible that the original 
 colour may have gone down in all cases, or that these parts may 
 have been villainously 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 colours ; 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 colours 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 chiefi)' to the 
 utter want of aerial greys indicated through them.
 
 sue. n. cii.M'. [. OI'' TRUTH OF TOiNli. 149 
 
 Now, there is no instance in the works of Turner of anything 5 20. Turner is 
 
 •^ ^ not so pstTcct 
 
 SO faithful and imitative of sunshine as the best parts of Cuvii; ;" p^r'STf".'; 
 
 I J I ' nioic 50 111 tnt 
 
 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 colour, 
 Turner is in the habit of allowing excessively cold fragments in his 
 warmest pictures ; but these are never, observe, warm colours 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 
 colour, though, with all deference be it spoken, I think them some- 
 times 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 interfere, by their coolness, with the perfectly managed 
 warmth of all the rest of the picture. But both these lights are 
 reflexes, and it isnearly 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 /one of the picture better had they been 
 slightly warmer, we cannot but like the colour 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 colour 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 sun- 
 shine 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 sea-ports in the National Gallery is 
 valuable and right in tone, when we are close to it ; but ten 
 yards off, it is all brickdust, offensively and evidently false in 
 its whole hue.
 
 150 OF TRUTH OF TONE. I'ARi u. 
 
 « 21. The The comparison of Turner with Cuyp and Claade may sound 
 
 power in 
 
 Turner of Strange in most ears ; but this is chiefly because we are not in the 
 
 unitin? a nuni- o ' 
 
 ber of tones. habit of analysing 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 colour, 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 
 powerof 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 exqui- 
 site 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 grey 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 Teme- 
 raire. 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 sun- 
 ligin, l)ecause 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 ihe twilight are gathering througli every sunbeam, and
 
 SEC. II. CHAP. 1. OF TRUTH OF TONE. 15' 
 
 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. 
 
 And if, in effects of this kind, time be taken to dwell upim the t^JaJi^^'^'f'" 
 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 com- ' 
 parison ; 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 witli difficulties of effect of which art can afford 
 no parallel example. Nay, in the next chapter, respecting colour, 
 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 ; ' 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. 
 
 * 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 of 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 had the truest aim ; but not having 
 any eye for colour, it was impossible for him to succeed in tone.
 
 152 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. 
 
 « I. Obsei-va- There is, in the first room of the National Gallery, a landscape 
 
 tions on the 
 
 colour of attributed to Caspar Poussin, called sometimes Aricia, sometimes 
 
 G. Poussin s ^ ' ' 
 
 La Riccia. j^g ^p j^^ 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 
 
 grey 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 colour 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 grey ; 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. 
 
 i 2. As com- Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage- 
 
 pared with the , ,. , . 
 
 actual scene. road, the first turn after you leave Albano, not a little impeded by
 
 si;c. 11. liiAi'. [1. OF TRUTH OK COI.OUU. I 53 
 
 the worthy successors of the ancient prototypes of Veiento.' 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, halfsether 
 and hnlf dew. The noon-day sun came slanting down the rocky 
 slopes of La Riccia, and their 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 
 colour, 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 grey 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 multitu- 
 dinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no dark- 
 ness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals 
 between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing 
 
 ' " Cfccus adulator .... 
 Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes, 
 Blaiidaque devexx jactaiet basia rheda;."
 
 154 
 
 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. 
 
 ^ 3. Turner 
 himself is 
 inferior in 
 brilliancy to 
 nature. 
 
 § 4. Impossible 
 colours, of Sal- 
 vator, Titian ; 
 
 to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measure- 
 less line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea. 
 
 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 of 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 colour 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 colour ; 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 grey shadow compared with 
 the force of nature's colour. 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 extin- 
 guished. So far from outfacing nature, he does not, as far as mere 
 vividness of colour goes, one half reach her. But does he use this 
 brilliancy of colour 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. 
 
 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 biush over it to be visible, 
 which, though not particular!}' 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 colour. Sal- 
 vator has painted it throughout without one instant of variation ; 
 but this, I suppose, is simplicity and generalization , — let it pass : 
 but what is the colour? Pure sky blue, without one grain of grey 
 or any modifying hue whatsoever; the same brush which had
 
 stc.ll.LiiAi.il. OK TRUTH OF COLOUK. 155 
 
 just given the bluest parts of tlie sky has been more loacletl at the 
 same part of the pallet, and the whole mountain thrown in with 
 luimitigated 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. Conse- 
 quently this pai't of Salvator's painting, being of hills perfectly 
 clear and near, with all their details visible, is, as far as colour 
 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 iind an instance of anything near enough t<j 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 colour 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 exaggera- 
 tion, 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 colour as 
 false, while they receive such cases of preposterous and audacious 
 fiction with the most generous and simple credulity. 
 
 Again, in the upper sky of the picture of Caspar Poussin, i> 5. Pou.s5in, 
 
 • J 1 1 1 r r- '^"^ Claude. 
 
 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 grey), 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
 
 I 56 OF TRUTH OK COLOUR. PART 11. 
 
 distance is very frequent, and very beautiful ; but rich olive-green 
 clouds, as far as I am acquainted with nature, are a piece of colour 
 in which she is not apt to indulge. You will be puzzled to show 
 me such a thing in the recent works of Turner.' 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 Caspar's Sacrifice of Isaac, for instance) : can it be 
 seriously supposed that those murky browns and melanchol}' 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 eflfects 
 with full lateral light. Be so kind as to match the colour of a leaf 
 in the sun (the darkest you like) as nearly as you can, and bring 
 your matched colour 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 colour 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 favourite 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 colours, not to talk 
 sentiment. Neither let it be said that I am going too much into 
 details, and that general truth may be obtained by local falsehood. 
 Truth is only to be measured by close comparison of actual facts ; 
 
 ' There is perhaps nothing more characteristic of a great colourist than his power of 
 using greens in strange places without their being felt as such, or at least than a constant 
 preference of green grey to purple grey. 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 grey. It is only because the lower clouds are 
 pure white and blue, and because the trees are of the s.ime colour as the clouds, tliatthe 
 cloud coloiu- becomes false. There is a fine instance of a sky, green in itself, but turned 
 grey by the opposition of warm coloiu', in Turner's Devonport with the Dockyards.
 
 SEC. II. CTTAP. II. OF TRUTH OF COr.OIIR. I 57 
 
 we may talk for ever 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 i.s false and what is not ; and 
 if it produce on our senses the effect of truth, that only demon- 
 strates their imperfection and inaccuracy, and need of cultivation. 
 Turner's colour is glaring to one person's sensations, and beautiful 
 to another's. This proves nothing. Poussin's colour is right to 
 one, soot to another. This proves nothing. There is no means of 
 arriving at any conclusion but by 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 grey. 
 
 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 colour, 
 that it should tell as a broad space of graduated illumination, — 
 not, as do those of the old masters, as a patchwork of black shades. 
 Their works are nature in mourning weeds, — ouB ev ifKla KaOapq. 
 redpa/xfievoi,, aXX' inro avfiixiyal aKin. 
 
 It is true that there are, here and there, in the Academy pictures, ^ «■ Turner's 
 
 ■^ ^ ' translation ol 
 
 passages in which Turner has translated the unattainable intensity '^"'o"""s- 
 of one tone of colour, 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 colour. 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 nearer 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
 
 158 
 
 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 § 7. Notice of 
 effects in which 
 no brilliancy 
 of art can even 
 approach that 
 of reality. 
 
 painter, drags the laborious bramble leaves over his childish 
 foreground. 
 
 But it is singular enough that the chief attacks on Turner for 
 overcharged brilliancy are made, not when there could by any 
 possibility he any chance of his outstepping nature, but when he 
 has taken subjects which no colours 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 favourite 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 colours, 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 colouring fit, and does something extraor- 
 dinary, 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 colour are in these sunsets among 
 the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment before the sun 
 sinks, when his light turns pure rose-colour, and when this light 
 falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloud-forms of incon- 
 ceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapour, 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 mul- 
 titude, 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 colour and fire ; every black bar turns into massy 
 gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied shadowless crimson, and 
 purple, and scarlet, and colours 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 lightk'ss ; there, modulated by tlie filmy formless body of the
 
 SEC. n. <MAr. M. OF TRUTH OF COLOUK. 159 
 
 trans[iarent vapour, till it is lost inipL'rce[)til)ly in its crimson and 
 gold. Now there is no connexion, 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 colour- 
 less and cold if the eye came upon them after one of nature's 
 sunsets among the high clouds. But there are a thousand reasons i s. Reasons 
 
 " ° ' for the usual 
 
 why this should not be believed. The concurrence of circumstances incredulity or 
 
 •' the observer 
 
 necessary to produce the sunsets of which I speak does not take place uieiVreprefen- 
 above five or six times in a summer, and then only for a space of "'"°"' 
 from five to ten minutes, just as the sun reaches the horizon. Con- 
 sidering how seldom people think of looking for a 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 favourable, during these few flying instants of the 
 year, are almost as nothing. What can the citizen, who can see 
 only the red light on the canvas of the waggon at the end of the 
 street, and the crimson colour of the bricks of his neighbour's chim- 
 ne}', 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 splendour which 
 are tossed from Alp to Alp over the azure of a thousand miles of 
 champaign ? Even granting the constant vigour of observation, 
 and supposing the possession of such impossible knowledge, it needs 
 but a moment's refiection 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 sun- 
 sets which delighted us last year ? We may know that they were 
 magnificent, or glowing, but no distinct image of colour 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
 
 l60 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. part n. 
 
 that the energy of an impression fades from the memor3-, and be- 
 comes 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 thun- 
 derstorm of last week was the most terrible one we ever saw in our 
 lives, because we compare it, not with the thunderstorm 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 
 colour, 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 colour of nature, but to which we are not guided, as 
 we should be in nature, by corresponding gradations of light every- 
 where around us, but which is isolated and cut oft" 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 ? 
 i g. Coioui of Suppose where the " Napoleon " hung in the Academy, there could 
 
 the "Napo- '^ '^ ^ •' 
 
 ''=°"'" 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 atmospb.ere, there could suddenly have been poured 
 the full glory of a tropical sunset, reverberated from the sea ; how 
 would 3'ou have shrunk, blinded, from its scarlet and intolerable 
 lightnings! What picture in the room would not have been black- 
 ness 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 sun- 
 light, 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 har- 
 mony as perfect as their colour 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 
 pictin-c, you would ha\c found the sense of air and space blended
 
 sv.r. II, rilAP. II. OF TRUTH OK rol.OlIK. \6l 
 
 with every line, and breathing in every cloud, and every colour 
 instinct and radiant with visible, glowing, absorbing light. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, in general, that wherever in V'°- Necessary 
 
 discrepancy 
 
 brilliant effects of this kind, we approach to anything like a true i"^^'»<^^™, "'i; 
 
 ' ir r JO attaiiiable 
 
 statement of nature's colour, there must yet be a distinct difference ™j"i,r'a,^(i°'^ 
 in the impression we convey, because we cannot approach her /ig/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 colours, 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 iiiiitaliou, which are the great source of 
 enjoyment to the ordinary' observer ; because we can only give one 
 series of truths, those of colour, and are unable to give the accom- 
 panying truths of light ; so that the more true we are in colour, 
 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. 
 
 Nevertheless the aim and struggle of the artist must always be <> n. Thisdis- 
 
 crepancv less 
 
 to do away with this discrepancy as far as the powers of art admit, !" i '"ner than 
 not by lowering his colour, but by increasing his light. And it is ™'o'""'st=. 
 indeed by this that the works of Turner are peculiarly distinguished 
 from those of all other colourists, by the dazzling intensity, namely, 
 of the light which he sheds through every hue, and which, far 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 I 62 
 
 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. 
 
 more than their brilliant colour, is the real source of their over- 
 powering 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 manage- 
 able luminary, and never dazzled anybody, under any circum- 
 stances 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 
 ^ 12. Its great perfect comfort and entire facility of vision. It is curious after 
 
 extent in a 
 
 at^rlbut^d t hearing people malign some of Turner's noble passages of light, to 
 Rubens. p^^g j.^ gg^ie really ungrammatical and false picture of the old 
 
 masters, in which we have colour given without light. Take, for 
 instance, the landscape attributed to Rubens, No. 175, in the 
 Duhvich 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 3'ellow 
 and crimson in the middle of the sky of that picture, being the 
 occurrence of a fragment of a sunset colour in pure dayliglit, 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 ]iurc fiction, should consistently be 
 disgusted by Turner's fidelity and truth. 
 $ 13. Turner Hithcrto, however, we have been speaking of vividness of pure 
 
 scarcely uvei- 
 
 cclnur, and showing that it is used by Turner only where nature
 
 SEC. II. CHAI-. II. OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. 1 63 
 
 uses it, and in less degree. But we iiave hitincrto, therefore, been uses pure or 
 
 vivid colour. 
 
 speai^ing of a most limited and uncharacteristic portion of his 
 worlds; for Turner, like all great colourists, 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 sub- 
 dued and gentle means. There is no man living more cautious and 
 sparing in the use of pure colour than Turner. To say that lie 
 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 nn'ght 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 colour 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 colour beside which Turners is as Vesta 
 to Cotytto — the chastity of fire to the foulness of earth. Every 
 picture of this great colourist has, in one or two parts of it (key- 
 notes of the whole), points where the system of each individual 
 colour 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 
 colour ; that is to say, there is no warmth which has not grey 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 colour, are, as with all perfect 
 colourists they must be, his greys. 
 
 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
 
 164 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. part 11. 
 
 sky is broken with grey and pearly white, the gold colour 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 grey 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 Throughout the works of Turner, the same truthful principle of 
 
 of grey, under . . 
 
 all his vivid delicate and subdued colour is carried out with a care and labour 
 
 hues. 
 
 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 grey 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 colour ; that is, either of a blue which has 
 nothing to connect it with the warmth, or of a warm colour, which 
 has nothing to connect it with the greys of the whole ; and the 
 result is, that there is a general system and under-current of grey 
 pervading the whole of his colour, out of which his highest lights, 
 and those local touches of pure colour, which are, as I said before, 
 the key-notes of the picture, Hash with the peculiar brilliancy and 
 intensity in which he stands alone. 
 i 15. The IntiuKitcly associated with this toning down and connection of 
 
 variety and 
 
 fulness even or thccolours actually used, is his inimitable power of varviiis and 
 
 his most J ' r . » 
 
 simple tones, 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
 
 Si;f. II. CHAl'. II 
 
 OK TKUTII Ol' COLOUR. 1 65 
 
 or another. Ob.serve, I am not at prestnt speaking of this as 
 artistical or ciesiiable in itself, not as a characteristic of the great 
 colourist, 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 grey 
 half-lights upon the rocks, tliere are faint touches of stealthy warmth 
 and cautious light along their edges ; every bush, every stone, 
 every tuft of moss has its voice in tl.e 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 grey. 
 Many among the moderns would probably be equally monotonous 
 with absurd and false colours. Turner only would give the uncer- 
 tainty ; 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 ^ ,6, Following 
 insist on this the more particularly, because it is one of the eternal unapproachable 
 
 variety of 
 
 principles of nature, that she will not have one line or colour, nor nature. 
 one portion or 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 colour visible over its 
 whole surface ; it has a white high light somewhere ; and in 
 proportion as it curves to or from that focus, the colour is brighter 
 or greyer. Pick up a common flint from the roadside, and count, 
 if you can, its changes and hues of colour. Every bit of bare 
 ground under your feet has in it a thousand such; the grey 
 pebbles, the warm ochre, the green of incipient vegetation, the 
 greys and blacks of its refle.Kes 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
 
 i66 
 
 OK TRUTH OF COLOUR. 
 
 ^ 17. His dis- 
 like of purple, 
 and loudness 
 for the opposi- 
 tion of yellow 
 and black. 
 The principles 
 of nature in 
 this respect. 
 
 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 for ever in a state and necessity of change. 
 Hence, wherever in a painting we have unvaried colour 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 colour 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 grey 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. 
 
 What I am next about to say with respect to Turner's colour, 
 I should wish to be received with caution, as it admits of dispute. 
 I think that the first approach to viciousness of colour in any 
 master is commonly indicated chiefly b}' 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 iVequently using yellow with scarcely any red ; and I believe 
 it will be in consequence found that her favourite opposition, that 
 which generally characterizes and gives tone to her colour, 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, concentiatcd in one part of the 
 picture, and modified in various greys 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 colourists, nothing is so destructive of all fine
 
 SEC. II. c:a.u-. II. OK.TKUril OF COLOUR. 167 
 
 colour as the slightest tendency to purple in general lone ; and 1 
 am equally certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious 
 colourists of the present da^', by the foundation of all his tones 
 being black, yellow, and the intermediate greys, 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 colours alone, of which the magnifi- 
 cent Quillebanif, which I consider one of the most perfect pieces of 
 simple colour existing, is a most striking example ; and I think 
 that where, as in some of the late Venices, there has been some- 
 thing like a marked appearance of purple tones, even though 
 exquisitely corrected by vivid orange and warm green in the fore- 
 ground, the general colour has not been so perfect or truthful : my 
 own feelings would always guide me rather to the warm greys 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 colour. 
 
 The above remarks have been made entirely with reference to § is. His early 
 
 . works are false 
 
 the recent Academy pictures, which have been chiefly attacked for in colour, 
 their colour. 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." lie 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 colour ; 
 it is an agreeable, cool, grey rendering of space and form, but it is 
 not colour; 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 is, as far as I am 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 colourist.
 
 1 68 
 
 OF TRUTH OF COLOUR 
 
 f ig. His draw- 
 ings invariably 
 perfect. 
 
 ^ 20. Tlie sub- 
 jection of his 
 system of 
 colour to that 
 of chiaroscuro. 
 
 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, accord- 
 ing to their aim, equally faultless as to colour. 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 colour is based. 
 
 One point only remains to be noted respecting his system of 
 colour 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 colour, as a truth, compared with light 
 and shade. That inferiority is maintained and asserted by all 
 really great works of colour ; but most by Turner's, as their colour 
 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 colour are often vapid and cold, because 
 tiie little colour employed has not been rightly based on light and 
 shade, an engraving from Turner is always beautiful and forcible 
 in proportion as the colour of the original has been intense, and 
 never in a single instance has failed to express the picture as a 
 perfect composition.' Powerful and captivating and faithful as his 
 
 ' This i.s saying too much ; for it not unfrcquently happens that tin; hglit and sliadc 
 of the original is lost in the engraving, the elTcct of which is afterwards partially 
 recovered, with the aid of the artist himself, by introductions of new features. Some- 
 times, when a drawing de[)ends chielly on colour, the engraver gets unavoidably 
 embarrassed, and must be assisted liy some change or exaggeration of the eflfect : but 
 the more frequent case is, that the engraver's difliculties result merely from his 
 inattention to, or wilful deviations from, his original; and that the artist is obligcil 
 to assist him by such e.xpedients as the error itself suggests. Not unfrequently in
 
 stx. I]. III.M-. n. OF TRUTH UF C(.)FOL'K. 1 69 
 
 colour is, it is tiic least important of all his excellences, because it 
 is the least important feature of nature. Were it necessary, rather 
 than lose one line of his forms, or one ra}' of his sunshine, he 
 would, I apprehend, be content to paint in black and white to the 
 
 reviewing a plate, as very constantly in reviewing a pieturc after some time has 
 elapsed since its completion, even tlie painter is liable to make unnecessary or hurtful 
 changes. In the plate of the Old Temeraire, lately jiuhlished in Finden's Gallery, 
 I do not know whether it was Turner or the engraver vvlio broke up the water into 
 sparkling ripple, but it was a grievous mistake, and has destroyed the whole dignity 
 and value of the conce|>tion. The Hash 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 colour can be 
 expressed by particular characters of line, and in the endeavour to distinguish by 
 different lines different colours 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 .Vrt Union engraving as nearly coal black, is, 
 in tire original, of a pale warm grey, hardly darker than the sky. All attempt to record 
 colour 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 spec- 
 tator : 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 know- 
 ledge 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, particularly 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.
 
 I/O OF TRUTH OF COLOUR. tart ll. 
 
 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, the hue is a beautiful auxiliary in working 
 out the great impression to be conveyed, but is not the chief 
 source 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.
 
 stt. 11. cilAl-. 111. I.)K TKUlll (Jl'' I 1I1,\KU.SCUI<(.). 171 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OK TRUTH 1)F LTllAUUStLIl;U. 
 
 It is lint my intention to enter, in the present portion of the work, 5 ■■ Wc arc not 
 upon any examination of Turner's particular effects of light. Wc JfcuiTr'eiiccts'of 
 must know something about what is beautiful before we speak of ''*'''''• 
 these. 
 
 At present I wish only to insist upon two great [irinciples 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. "S'ou will Ihid 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 back- 
 wards, you will come to a point where you cannot see the interven- 
 ing 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 an\thing like bright light. They are, in fact, com- 
 monly far more conspicuous tlian the thing whicli 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
 
 1/2 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO. 
 
 ^ 2. And there- 
 fore the dis- 
 tinctness of 
 shadows is the 
 chief means of 
 expressing 
 vividness 
 of light. 
 
 ^ 3. Total 
 absence of such 
 distinctness in 
 the work*! of 
 the Italian 
 school. 
 
 that object is also broken up with positive and reflected Hghts, 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 difteience between the 
 softness of the outhne 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. 
 
 Hence shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most 
 conspicuous things 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 lirst 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 grey and cold 
 compared with their colour, 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 colour of the objects on which it 
 falls. Now the old masters of the Italian school, in almost all 
 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 darkness of mere (fayh'g/il; 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,
 
 si:r. II, tTlAlv III. <1|- Iknill (i|.- CIMAKliSCUUn. 1/3 
 
 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 5 4. And par- 
 
 ' Hal absence in 
 
 Cuyp and Berghem, though thoy know thdiiuighly well what they i''^' Dutch. 
 are about in their foregrounds, forget the principle in their dis- 
 tances ; and though in Claude's seaports, where he has plain archi- 
 tecture to deal with, he gives us something like real shadows along 
 the stones, the- moment we come to ground and fohagc 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 arc quite vague and lost in the 
 building. In nature, every bit of the shadow, both on the ground 
 and building, would have been defined and conspicuous ; while the 
 trunks themselves would have been faint, confused, and indis- 
 tinguishable, 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 oft' and lost, while you see the 
 stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunligiit it w^ould 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 unarti- 
 culated barbarisms of rock, that their whole sum and substance of 
 chiaroscuro are merely the gradation and variation which nature 
 gives in the ho(^y of her shadows, and that all which they do to 
 express sunshine, she does to var}' 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. 
 
 Now, if there be one principle or secret more than another, on 5 5. The 
 
 ,.,^T, , \ r • ■ 1-1T ri'i ■■,- perfection of 
 
 which lurner depends for attaining brilliancy ot light, it is his TumL-rs works 
 
 in this respect. 
 
 clear and exquisite drawing of the s/m(/oh's. Whatever is obscure,
 
 174 or TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO. part li. 
 
 misty, or undefined, in his objects or his atmosphere, he tal<es 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 black- 
 ness, but by excessive evenness, unit}', and sharpness of edge. He 
 will keep them clear and distinct, and make them felt as shadows, 
 thougli 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 grey, 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 titlepage of Rogers's Poems, and note tiie 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 
 sliadow of the running figure is on the pavement, than the chequers 
 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 Beech-tree's 
 Petition. Take the beautiful concentration of all tiiat is most 
 characteristic of Ital}' 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 Words- 
 worth, the keenest-eyed of all modern poets for what is deep and 
 essential in nature, illustrates Turner here, as we shall lind 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 stretchea tow'rds me like a long straight path. 
 Traced faintly in the greensward." 
 
 Excursion, hook vi. 
 
 So again in the Rhymers' Glen ( llhistrations to .Scott ), note the
 
 II. CHAP. III. 
 
 OF TRUTH or CHIAROSCURO, 1/5 
 
 intertwining of the shadows across the path, and the ciiequering 
 of the truni<s 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 ground 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 colour. 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 ^ fi- The effect 
 
 of his sh.ldows 
 
 delicate enough, to express or trace the constant, all-pervading "pun the light. 
 
 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 ej^es. 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 serene, — it is the 
 
 living light, which breathes in its deepest, most entranced rest, 
 
 which sleeps, but never dies. 
 
 I need scarcely insist farther on the marked distinction between « 7. The dis- 
 tinction holds 
 the works of the old masters and those of the great modern land- sood between 
 
 "" almost all the 
 
 scape painters in this respect. It is one which the reader can ^orksoithe
 
 176 
 
 OF TRKTU OF CHIAROSCURO. 
 
 niodirn schools pcrfectly wcll 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 pro- 
 ductions, 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, Caspar 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.' I believe you ma}' 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 Sal- 
 vator 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 onlj- (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, wiiich 
 prevents the parts which ought to be cspeciall}' decisive from 
 being felt as such, and which makes his pictures, especially 
 the large ones, look a little thin. But some of his later pas- 
 sages of rock foreground have been ver}' remarkable for the 
 exquisite forms and firm expressiveness of their slnadows. And 
 
 ' Cdiiiiiaic Sec. II. ("lin|i. II. S 6.
 
 SIX. II. < MM'. III. OK I'Ruiii 111' riii.NKnscuRo. 177 
 
 the chiaroscuro of Stanficld i.s equally deserving of the most 
 attentive study. 
 
 The second iioint to which I wisii at liresenl to direct attention * 8. Second 
 
 ^ ' jjreat principle 
 
 has reference to the arrangement of liglit and shade. It is the con- Both'hlgh H™hi 
 stant habit of nature to use both her highest lights and deepest shadowaie 
 shadows in exceedingly small quantity ; always in points, never in qiianti't'jsT^Ki 
 
 only in points. 
 
 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 greys 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 white-washed 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. 
 
 Now it is a curious thing that none of our writers on art seem § 9. Neglect or 
 
 contradiction of 
 
 to have noticed the great principle of nature in this respect. Thev '''■'^ principle 
 
 '^ .^ by writers on 
 
 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 efTects 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 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 l/S OF TKUTll OF CHIAROSCURO. iart ii. 
 
 legs are to be persuaded, and passion and motion arranged, for the 
 promotion and encouragement of the cant of criticism, such a prin- 
 ciple may be productive of the most advantageous results. But if 
 it means, being acquainted with the deep, perpetual, systematic, 
 unintruslve 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 chiaro- 
 « lo. And scuro. And my firm belief is, that though colour is inveighed 
 
 consequent 
 
 misguiding of asfainst by all artists, as the great Circe of art, the great trans- 
 
 the student. & .? lb ) t, 
 
 former 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. 
 I) II. The gie.it But however this may be, it is beyond dispute that every per- 
 
 valueof.T 
 
 simple chiiiro- mission given to the student to amuse himself with painting one 
 figure all black, and the ne.xt all white, and throwing them out 
 with a background of nothing, every permission given to him to 
 
 scuro.
 
 SIX. 11. I ll.\l'. Ill 
 
 OF TKurii oi' c iii,\i<()S(;uRO. 179 
 
 spoil his pocket-book witii sixths of sunshine and sevenths of sliade, 
 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 ri-al 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 colour 
 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 thunderclouds 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 both the deepest shade and highest light in small 
 quantities : points of the one answering to points of the other, 
 and both vividly conspicuous, and separated from the rest of the 
 landscape. 
 
 And it is most singular that this separation, which is the great * '2- The sharp 
 
 ^ ^ ' ^ separation ol 
 
 source of brilliancy in nature, should not only be unobserved, but "rom'^heV'^'''^ 
 absolutely forbidden, by our great writers on art, who are always '"' '^ ""'" 
 talking about connecting the light with the shade by miperccptible 
 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 every- 
 thing is seen, and where in consequence the eye goes to rest. But
 
 i8o 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO. 
 
 yet the high lights do not exhibit anytliiiig 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 approacli their intensity very closely. 
 « i^. The truth I need scarcely do more than tell you to glance at any one of 
 
 of Turner. 
 
 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 ; women 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 d'Amboise. — The boat in the centre, with its
 
 SKC. II. < MAP. III. (IF IKIMil liK ( lll.\kl)SC:i'Un. lol 
 
 reflections, needs no comment. Note the glancing light.s under 
 the bridge. Tliis i.s a vei-y glorious and perfect instance. 
 
 8. St. Julien, Tours. — Especially remarkable for its preservation 
 of deep points of gloom, because the whole pictLuc is one of 
 extended shade. 
 
 I need scarcely go on. The above instances are taken as they 
 happen to come, without sek-ction. 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, Con- 
 fluence of Seine and Marne, Troyes ; the first and last vignette, 
 and those at pages ^6, 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.
 
 I 82 
 
 OF TRUTH OF SPACF 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF SPACE : FIRST AS DEPENDENT ON THE FOCUS 
 
 OF THE EYE.' 
 
 § I. Space is 
 more clearly 
 indicated by 
 the drawinif 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 b_y which the old masters obtained their deceptive eflfect ; and 
 I showed that, though inferior to them in the precise quality or 
 tone of aerial colour, 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 dmiving 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 tiie diaiving 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 ; 
 arid if this be rightly rendered in a painting, we shall have genuine 
 
 ' I li.ive left this cliapler in its original place, because I am more than ever convinced 
 of tile truth of the position advanced in the 8th paragraph ; nor can I at present assign 
 •nny 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, for the present, to the reader's consideration.
 
 stc. II. cii.w. IV. AS DKPKNDKNT ON FOCUS OF FVK. 1 83 
 
 truth of space, in spite of many errors in aerial tone ; wiiilc, if this 
 be neglected, all space will be destroyed, whatever dexterity of tint 
 may be employed to conceal the defective drawing. 
 
 First, then, it is to be noticed, that the eye, like any other lens, i =■ it is 
 
 , ■ r z I ■ impossible to 
 
 must have its iocus altered, in order to convey a distinct imaere of '"='= "tjects 
 
 -^ CI at unequal 
 
 objects at different distances; so that it is totally impossible to see Si™atone" 
 
 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. 
 
 But, be it observed (and I have only to request that whatever 5 a- Especially 
 
 such as are 
 
 I say may be tested by immediate experiment), the difference of toth compara- 
 
 ■> ■' ■' ■ r ,/i lively near. 
 
 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 conse- 
 quence of this is, practical!}', 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 colours ; 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.
 
 i84 
 
 OK TRUTH or SPACE : 
 
 5 4. In paiiit- 
 inSi therefore, 
 either the fore- 
 ground or dis- 
 tance must be 
 partially sacri- 
 ficed. 
 
 5 5. Which 
 not beine done 
 by the old 
 masters, they 
 could not 
 express space. 
 
 5 6. But 
 modern artists 
 have succeeded 
 in fully carry- 
 inET out this 
 principle. 
 
 And therefore, if in a painting our foreground is anything, our 
 distance must be nothing, and vice vtrsd ; 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 ; ' 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. 
 
 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 suc- 
 ceeded 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 prox- 
 imity to the spectator, without giving anything like completeness 
 
 ' This incapacity of the eye must not be confounded with its incapability to compre- 
 hend 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, becattse 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 e.xcellent 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 di.stinctly and with the 
 same focus of the eye ; and hence an immediate contradiction of nature results, unless 
 one or other be given «ith an aitilicial or 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 conseipient, not on variation of focus, 
 but on the different angle at which near olijects are seen liy each of the l«o eyes, when 
 both are directed towards the distance.
 
 ^sK^. II. CHAP. IV. A.S DKl'KNDENT ON FOCU.S OK KYK. r85 
 
 to the forms of the near objects. Thi.s, ob.serve, is not clone by 
 shirred or soft lines ("always the sign of vice in art), but by a 
 decisive iniperfcction, a fn-ni, but ])artia] assertion of form, which 
 the eye feels indeed to be close home to it, and yet cannot rest 
 upon, nor 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 tinis principle, originated by 'furner, 
 and 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.' 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" of the principle we are insisting 
 upon, that where, as in some of his later works, he has bestowed 
 more labour 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 
 
 ' There is no inconsistency, observe, belween 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. V'^II. § lo : — "To paint mist rightly, 
 space rightly, and light rightly, it may be often necessary to paint no/Zn'ti^'- e/sc rightly." 
 
 -' 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 believs, not from then' 
 finish, Ijut their falseness.
 
 1 86 OF TRUTH OF SPACE: i-art ii. 
 
 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 onl)' 
 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 
 § 7. Especially foregrounds as he gives us, we are most happy so to do. But it is 
 
 ofluraer. 
 
 in Turner only that we see a bold and decisive choice of the distance 
 and middle distance, as his great objects of attention ; and b}' 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 
 vigour and wholeness of the eft'ect 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. justifica- And now we see the reason for the singular, and to the ignorant 
 
 Uon of the 
 
 want of draw- J,-, ^j-f [^g offensive, exccution of Turner's figures. I do not mean 
 
 ing m Turner s 
 
 figures. ^^ asseit that there is any reason whatsoever for l)nd drawing 
 
 ("though in landscape it matters exceedingly little) ; but that there 
 are 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 total!}' impossible that if the ej-e 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 lutccssnry to the faithful representation of space 
 this indecision really is, might be pro\ed with the utmost ease by 
 any one who had veiuratioii enough for the artist to sacrifice one
 
 SEC. II. CIIAI'. IV. 
 
 AS Dia'KNDKNT ON FOCUS OK I'YK. 1 87 
 
 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 colour 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.
 
 1 88 OF TRUTH OF Sl'ACF t 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF SPACE : SECONDLY, AS ITS APPEARANCE IS DEPENDENT 
 
 ON THE POWER OF THE EYE. 
 
 « I. Thepecu- In the last chapter, we have seen how indistinctness of individual 
 
 liar indistinct- 
 ness dependent distances becomes necessary in order to express the adaptation of 
 
 on the retire- ^ r r 
 
 iVom th'e'eyr'^ 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 tlie end of the room, and retire from it a greater or less distance 
 accordingly as you have drawn the figures larger or smaller. You 
 will come to a point where, though you can see both tiie spots with 
 perfect plainness, you cannot tell which is the square and which 
 the circle. 
 
 § I. Causes Now this takcs place of course with every object in a landscape, 
 
 contusion, but ^ ' 
 
 notannihiia- j,-, proportion to its distance and size. The definite forms of the 
 
 tion of details. ^ ^ 
 
 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 iiy a variety of forms in it, as tlie shadows in
 
 SEC. 11. CHAP. V. .\s iii:pKNni;NT ON powiR (II. i.vK. 189 
 
 tlic tops of tlic windovv.s, tliu lines of tlie architraves, the seams of 
 the masonry, etc. ; these lesser details, as the object falls into 
 distance, become confused and undecided, each of tiu-ni losing its 
 definite form, 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 iiouse 
 becomes merely a flat pale space, in which, however, there is still 
 observable a kind of richness and chequering, caused by the details 
 in it, which, though totally merged and lost in the mass, have still 
 an influence on the texture of tliat 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. 
 
 Now what I particularly wish to insist upon, is the state of i 3- instances 
 
 ^ -^ in various 
 
 vision in which all the details of an object arc seen, and yet seen objects, 
 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, archi- 
 trave 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 3'ou 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
 
 IQO OF TRUTH OF .SPACE : tart ii. 
 
 effect in inducing the recognition, but which yon cannot see so as 
 to know what they are. 
 « 4- Two Changes like these, and states of vision corresponding to them, 
 
 great resultant at r o / 
 
 truths: that f^j-g pja^e with each and all of the objects of nature, and two great 
 
 nature is never t^ j 7 o 
 
 nlfver'^^arant. principles of truth are deducible from their observation. First, 
 place an object as close to the eye as 3-ou 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 
 colours 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 
 Hat 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 excjuisite finish and fulness which God has 
 appointed to be the perpetual source of fresh pleasure to the cul- 
 tivated and observant e^e ; 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, 
 for ever presented, and for ever 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 whicii represents 
 nothing. 
 
 {5. Complete Now, I vvould uot wish for any more illustrative or marked 
 
 violation of 
 
 both these examples of the total contradiction of these two great i)iinciples, 
 
 principles by 
 
 priitcip. 
 the old 
 
 than llic landscape works iA llic okl masters, taken as a body;
 
 SIX-. II. ciiAi'. V. AS 1)i:i'i:nimc\t on towkr of v.ye. lyi 
 
 the Dutch masters fiirnisliiiig the cases of seeing everything, and V'^y ^};^ . 
 
 ° o J OT either dl^>Ll^ct 
 
 the Italians of seeing nothing. The rule with both is indeed the """^c!""- 
 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 3'ou shall never see a dead space." 
 
 Take, for instance, the street in the centre of the really great ^ 6. instances 
 
 Iron) Nicholas 
 
 landscape of Poussin (great in feeling at least) marked 260 in the I'oussin. 
 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 
 grey, the dark wall dead grey, and the windows dead black. How 
 difterenily 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, or blinds, or tiles, not to be compre- 
 hended or 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. 
 
 Again, take the distant city on the right bank of the river in i i- From 
 
 Claude. 
 
 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 pro- 
 portion ; 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 a one in the first page of a spelling 
 book when I was four years old ; but, somehow cr other, the dignity
 
 ig2 ON TRUTH or SPACK : PART II. 
 
 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 inter- 
 sections 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 grey. There is nothing 
 to be seen, or felt, or guessed at in it ; it is grey paint or grey 
 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 under- 
 stood 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 colour a transparent, palpitating, various infinity. 
 « 8. And Or take one of Poussin's extreme distances, such as that in the 
 
 G. Poussin. 
 
 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 grej' and gold 
 are not the landscape itself, but the treatment of it ; not its sub- 
 stance, 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 plaj-, and without carefulness, as matters of the very 
 smallest possible importance. All her work and her attention would 
 be given to bring out from underneatli this, and through thi.s, the
 
 SKC. IT. CHAP. V. AS ni'PKNDICNT ON POWi;R (il l-^Vi:. I93 
 
 forms nnd the material character which this can only he valuable 
 to illustrate, not to conceal. ICvcry one of those broad spaces she 
 would linj^cr over in protracted delight, teaching you fresh lessons 
 in every hair's breadth of it, and pouring her fulness of invention 
 into it, until the mind lost herself 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. 
 
 Now it is, indeed, impossible for the painter to follow all this : i g- The 
 
 imperative 
 
 he cannot come up to the same degree and order of infinity, but he necessity, in 
 
 » o *^ ' landscape 
 
 can give us a lesser kind of infinity. He has not one thousandth Fui'neLs^an°d 
 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 general- 
 izing 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 un- 
 exerted. Still less will we pardon him for mistaking the sport of 
 nature for her labour, and for following her onlj' 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 labour, 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 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 OF TRUTH OF SPACE : part ri. 
 
 lesson, with the adjunct instead of the essence, with the illustration 
 instead of the fact. 
 f lo. Breadth I am somewhat anticipatinsr mv subject here, because I can 
 
 IS not vacancy. i o ,. .p » 
 
 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 prin- 
 ciple 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 tlie 
 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.' 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 content- 
 ment and perfect satisfaction, both to himself and to iiis 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 miglit go through 
 every part and portion of the works of the old masters, showing 
 'tiiroughout, either tliat you ha\e every leaf and blade of grass 
 staring defiance in the mystery of nature, or that you have dead 
 spaces of absolute vacuity, equally determined in their denial of 
 
 ' Of course much depends upon the kind of det.iil so lost. An .irtist may generalize 
 the trunk of a tree, where he only loses lines of hark, and do us a kindness ; hut 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.
 
 SEC. li. CHAP. V. AS DEPENDENT ON POWER OF EYE. I95 
 
 her fulness. And even if we ever find (as here and there, in their 
 better pictures, we do) changeful passages of agreeable playing 
 colour, or niellow 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 anv thing ; 
 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. 
 
 And now, take up one of Turner's distances, it matters not which § n. The 
 
 r 1 I ■ J 1 • • • 1 • fulness and 
 
 or of what kind, dravvmg or pamtinc;, small or great, done thu'ty mystery of 
 
 o ' . Turner's dis- 
 
 years ago or for last year's Academy, as you like ; say that of the '^nces. 
 Mercury and Argus ; and look if ever}' 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 full}' 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. 
 
 Perhaps the truth of this system of drawing is better to be f 12. Farther 
 
 .... , f, , . , . illustrations in 
 
 understood by observmg the distant character of rich architecture, architectural 
 
 ^ drawing. 
 
 than of any other object. Go to the top of Highgate Hill on a
 
 196 OF TRUTH OF SPACE: PART ll. 
 
 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. Trj- 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 it 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 the 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 bj' 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, tlirough his carefully toned 
 atmosphere, the effect of a colossal parish church, without one 
 line of carving on its economic sides. Turner, and Turner onl}', 
 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.' 
 i 13. In near Nor is this modc of representation true only with respect to dis- 
 
 objects as well _, 1 • t 1 1 1 • 1 
 
 asdisiances. - tanccs. Kvery object, however near the eye, has somethmg 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 San 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 
 
 ' Vide, for illiislration, Fontainel)leaii, in the Illustrations to Scott ; Vignette at 
 opening of Human Life, in Rogers's I'oenis ; Venice, in the Italy ; Chateau tie Hlois : 
 ihe Rouen, anil I'ont Neuf, Paris, in the Rivers of France. The distances of .-vU the 
 Academy pictures of Venice, especially the .Shylock, are most instructive.
 
 sr.c, II. ciiAi'. V. AS i)i:rKNDi;Ni UN 1'owi;r of hvi:. 197 
 
 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 the}' 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 § m- Va.-.incy 
 
 " -^ ^ and lalschood 
 
 painting of this church, in the Palazzo Manfrini, taken from the "fCanaietio. 
 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 indi- 
 cation 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 un- 
 certainty 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 fore- 
 ground 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. 
 
 But if there be this mystery and inexhaustible finish merely in 5 15. stui 
 
 ... p , . . greater fulness 
 
 the more delicate mstances of architectural decoration, how much and finish in 
 
 landscape fort- 
 
 more in the ceaseless and incomparable decoration of nature. The grounds, 
 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 labour of years could 
 never imitate, and which, if such labour could follow it out 
 even to the last fibres of the leaflets, would yet be falsely repre- 
 sented, 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.' 
 
 ' It is to be remembered, however, tliat these truths present themselves in all proba- 
 bility under very different phases to individuals of different powers of vision. Many
 
 igS or TRUTH of space : tart n. 
 
 « i6. Space Hence, throughout the picture, the expression of space and size 
 
 and size are ' o r r r i 
 
 by di^stmctnei's^ is dependent upon obscurity, united with, or rather resultant from, 
 and by vacancy, g^ceeding fulncss. We destroy both space and size, either by the 
 vacancy which affords us no measure of space, or by the distinct- 
 ness 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 
 
 artists who appear to generalize rudely or rashly are perhaps faithfully endeavouring 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 generali- 
 zation, 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 which 
 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 uiiist 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 tiuilights ; and that the uncertainty of twilight is 
 therefore added to that of general distance. In the evenings of the south it not unfre- 
 quently 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 colour, 
 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 colour, all the details become 
 ghostly and ill-defined. This is a favourite 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 conceal- 
 ment. Turner's efforts at rendering this effect (as the Wilderness of Kngcdi, Assos, 
 Chateau de Blois, Caer-laverock, 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 appro.ximation to the effect is jiossible.
 
 SEC. II. CUM'. V. AS DKl'KNUKNT ON I'OWliK Ul' EWE. I99 
 
 a distance by perspective, which it contradicts by distinctness of 
 detail. 
 
 A single dusty roll of 'I'Lirner's brush is more truly expressive i n. Swift 
 
 .. ^^. .. ^ -. execution best 
 
 of the mlinity of foliage, than the niggline; of Hobbima could secures perfec- 
 
 ■' ° ' 00 o jjQ„ of details. 
 
 have rendered his canvas, if he had worked on it till doomsday. 
 What Sir J. Reynolds says of the misplaced labour 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 to all. But it should be f i8. Finish 
 
 ■ is far more 
 
 observed (though we shall be better able to insist upon this point in necessary in 
 
 ^ landscape than 
 
 future) that much of harm and error has arisen from the supposition inhistoricai 
 
 ^ ^^ subjects. 
 
 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 what- 
 ever there is of beauty or character in cither, depends altogether on 
 our understanding the details, and feeling the difiference 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 finely, or think 
 too much about details in landscape, so that they be rightly 
 arranged and rightly massed ; but that it is equally impossible to
 
 tiilation of the 
 section. 
 
 200 OK TKUTH OF SPACE. i-.xkt ii. 
 
 render anything like tiie fulness or the space of nature, except by 
 that mystery or obscurity of execution which she herself uses, and 
 in which Turner only has followed her. 
 * !9-.Recapi- \Yg have now rapidly glanced at such eeneral truths of nature 
 
 on of the r .' a fe 
 
 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.
 
 SEC. III. CHAT. I. 
 
 OF TRU'ill i)V SKIKS. 20 1 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 OF T K U T n O F SKIES 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF THE OPEN SKY. 
 
 It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the § i. The pecu- 
 liar adaptation 
 
 sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more of the sky to 
 
 the pleasing 
 
 for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident ^nd teaching i>f 
 
 purpose of talking to him and teacJiing 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 da3'S, 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 fihn 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,
 
 :o2 
 
 OF TRUTH OF SKIES. 
 
 5 2. The care- 
 lessness with 
 which its 
 lessons are 
 received. 
 
 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 liright or good 
 For human nature's daily food ; *' 
 
 it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and 
 exalting of the heart, for soothing it and purifying it from its 
 dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, some- 
 times 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 
 disthict, 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 sensa- 
 tions : 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 watchful- 
 ness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of utter idleness 
 and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, whicli 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 tlie forms and 
 tlie 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 
 « 3. The most extraordinary ; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifesta- 
 
 cssential of ... 
 
 these lessons tions of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the 
 
 are thejjentlest. 
 
 drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime 
 are developed. God is not in the earthquake, nor in tlie fire, but 
 in the still, small voice. They are but the blunt aini llie low
 
 SEC. 111. cuAi'. 1. <)!•■ TIIK OPEN SKY. 203 
 
 faculties of our nature, which can only be addressed through lamp- 
 black and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of 
 unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual ; 
 that which uuist 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 5 4. Many oi 
 
 ^ -^ ^ ^ our ideas of 
 
 aim must study ; it is these, by the combination of which his ideal eonventimlai!'^ 
 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. 
 
 1 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. 
 
 Let us begin then witli the simple o]jen blue of the sky. This 5 5. Nature 
 
 f. , ... ' and es-SentiaJ 
 
 is 01 course the colour ot the pure atmospheric air, not the aqueous qualities of the 
 
 open blue. 
 
 vapour, but the pure azote and oxygen, and it is the total colour of 
 the whole mass of that air between us and the void of space. It is 
 modified by the varying quantity of aqueous vapour suspended in 
 it, whose colour, 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 grey, by mixing warm 
 tones with its blue. This grey aqueous vapour, when very decided,
 
 204 OF TRUTH OF SKIES. part ii. 
 
 becomes mist, and when local, cloud. Hence the sky is to be 
 considered as a transparent blue liquid, in which, at various eleva- 
 tions, clouds are suspended, those clouds being themselves only 
 particular visible spaces of a substance with which the whole mass 
 nectionwith "' ''^'^ Hquid is morc or less impregnated. Now, we all know this 
 clouds. 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 vapours 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 
 « 7. Its exceed- them. Now if there be one characteristic of the sky more valuable 
 
 ing depth. 
 
 or necessary to be rendered than another, it is that which Words- 
 worth 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 colour, but a 
 deep, quivering, transparent bod\- of penetrable air, in which j-ou 
 trace or imagine short falling spots of deceiving light, and dim 
 shades, faint veiled vestiges of dark vapour ; and it is this trem- 
 bling transparency which our great modern master has especiallj- 
 J. 8. These aimed at and given. His blue is never laid on in smooth coats, 
 
 qualities are 
 
 especially given 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
 
 SIT. Ill, rllAP. I. OF Till' npi-X SKY. 2O5 
 
 air, something into which you can see, througli tjie parts which are 
 
 near you, into those which are far off; something wliich has no 
 
 surface, and through which we can plunge far and farther, and 
 
 without stay or end, into the profundity of space ; — -whereas, witli 
 
 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 skv of Claude 5. ,9- A"<i i>.v 
 
 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 favourable exceptions. Their skies are systematically wrong ; « m. Total 
 
 !/•• 11 r 1 c^ ' n r T ». absence of 
 
 take, for instance, the sky 01 the bacnhce of Isaac. It is here high them in 
 
 Poussin. 
 
 noon, as is shown by the shadow of the figures ; and what sort of Phy^''^^' triors 
 
 in his general 
 
 colour is the sky at the top of the picture ? Is it pale and grey with o'^.fn^k"' ""^ 
 heat, full of sunshine, and unfathomable in depth ? On the con- 
 trary, it is of a pitch of darkness which, except on Mont Blanc or 
 Chimborazo, is as purely impossible as colour 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 colour 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
 
 206 OF TRUTH OF SKIES. i-au ii. 
 
 the whole ?Vy 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 Caspar's that I 
 know) a notable example of the truth of the old masters, two im- 
 possible colours impossibly united ! Find such a colour in Turner's 
 noon-day zenith as the blue at the top, or such a colour at a noon- 
 day horizon as the yellow at the bottom, or such a connection of 
 any colours 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 Caspar Poussin's favourite and characteristic 
 effect. I remember twenty such, most of them worse than this, in 
 4 II. Errors the downriglit surface and opacity of blue. Again, look at the 
 
 ofCuyp in 
 
 graduation of large Cuvp in the Dulwich Callery, which Mr. Hazlitt considers 
 
 colour. o J r J ' 
 
 the "finest in the world," and of which he very complimentarily 
 says, " The tender green of the valley's, the gleaming lake, the 
 purple light of the hills, have an effect like the donni on an unripe 
 nectarine " ! I ought to have apologised before now, for not having 
 studied sufficiently in Covent Carden 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 happil}' 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 (liffunilt to conceive
 
 SEC. m. ciiAl". I. OF THE OPF.N SKY. 207 
 
 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 colours ex- 
 tending their influence over the whofe sky ; so that throughout the 
 whole sweep of the heaven, there is no one spot where the colour is 
 not in an equal state of transition, jiassing 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. 
 
 Such bold broad examples of ignorance as these would soon set 5 12. The ex- 
 ceeding value 
 aside all the claims of the professed landscape painters to truth, of the skies 
 
 ■^ ^ ' of the early 
 
 with whatever delicacy of colour or manipulation they may be dis- ou'iiiJ," spools 
 
 guised. But there are some skies, of the Dutch school, in which f^'^unattain-'^^ 
 
 clearness and coolness have been aimed at, instead of depth ; and times""" ^™ 
 
 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.
 
 20S 
 
 OF TRUTH OF SKIFS. 
 
 menaof v-Sbie ^"'^ *^'^^''*^' '^ ^ sepics of pliciioniena connected with the open 
 
 The'irnafure ^Uie of thc sky, whicH wc 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 vapour 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 trans- 
 verse sunbeam is a real obstacle to the vision, j'ou cannot see 
 things clearly through it. 
 
 In the same way, wherever vapour is illuminated by transverse 
 rays, there it becomes visible as a whiteness more or less affecting 
 the purit}' of the blue, and destroying it exactly in proportion to 
 the degree of illumination. But where vapour is in shade, it 
 has very little effect on the sky, perhaps making it a little deeper 
 and greyer than it otherwise would be, but not itself, unless very 
 dense, distinguishable or felt as mist. 
 i 14. They The appearance of mist or whiteness in the blue of the sky is 
 
 are only iflu- 
 
 niinatea mist, thus a circumstance which more or less accompanies sunshine, and 
 
 and cannot ^ ' 
 
 theskyTi'fAe which, Supposing the quantit}- of vapour constant, is greatest in the 
 iiOT^whe'jrrt'^' brightest sunlight. When there are no clouds in the sky, the 
 clouds."" 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 ami through the 
 mass of suspended vapour. Within the space of these shadows, 
 the vapour, as above stated, becomes transparent and invisible, and 
 the sky appears of a pure blue. But where the sunbeams strike, the 
 vapour 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. Thc 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
 
 SEC. Til. c-iiAp. r. OF Till-; OPFN SKY. 209 
 
 light ; when it is very thick, they arc keen-edged and decisive in 
 a high. degree. 
 
 We see then, first, tliat 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 bright- 
 ness 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, these shadows being in reality 
 the source of the appearance of beams, so 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 grey or dark, but very 
 nearly of the natural pure blue of a sky destitute of vapour. 
 
 Now, as it has been proved that the appearance of beams can i 's- Erroneous 
 
 tendency in the 
 
 only take place in a part of the sky which has clouds between it representation 
 
 •/ ^ I -y oi such pheno- 
 
 and the sun, it is evident that no appearance of beams can ever SJd^ma'Se'r'l'^ 
 
 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 originate in 
 
 the orb itself : 
 
 " But rays of light, 
 Now sttthktily diverging from tlie orb 
 Retired behitui the mountain tops, or 7'eiled 
 By the dense air, shot upwards.'' 
 
 Excursion, liook 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 ^ ^g -^^ 
 to represent that kind of ray which is seen by the dazzled eye. It in^he dafzied^ 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO 
 
 OF TRUTH OF SKIES. 
 
 eye should not 
 be represented. 
 
 $ 17. The prac- 
 tice of Turner. 
 His keen per- 
 ception ot" the 
 more delicate 
 phenomena of 
 rays. 
 
 i 18. The total 
 absence of any 
 evidence of 
 such perception 
 in the works 
 of the old 
 masters. 
 
 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 prac- 
 tice 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 Soth page of the Illustrated edition of 
 Rogers's Poems. You have there a sky blazing with sunbeams ; 
 but the}' 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 
 multipl}' 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, 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 spikj' shafts 
 issuing from the orb itself, because these arc 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.' But of the most beautiful 
 
 ' I have left this p.issagc as it stood originally, because it is right as far as it goes ; 
 yet it speaks with too little respect of symbolism, whicli is often of the highest use in
 
 SEC. III. CHAP. I. OK THE OPEN SKY. 211 
 
 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. 
 
 Little is to be said of the skies of our other landscape artists. § 19- Truth 
 
 of the skies 
 
 In paintings, they are commonly toneless, crude, and wanting in ofmodern 
 depth and transparency ; but in drawings, some very perfect and 
 delicate examples have been produced by various members of the 
 old Water Colour 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 sponging, or 
 other artifices peculiar to water colour, are capable of producing 
 an appearance of quality which it needs much higher art to produce 
 in oils. 
 
 Taken generally, the open skies of the moderns are inferior in i 20. Recapi- 
 
 . tulation. The 
 
 quality to picked and untouched skies of the greatest of the ancients, test skies of 
 
 ° ' the ancients 
 
 but far superior to the average class of pictures which we have fnf^S"abiT'but 
 every day fathered upon their reputation. Nine or ten skies of t"rTo"ulTrut1i°'^ 
 Claude might be named which are not to be contended with in 
 
 childish. 
 
 '&' 
 
 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 daub- 
 ing 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 
 
 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. Sec. 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 rays 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 subtle cloud.
 
 2 12 OF TRUTH OF SKIES. tart ii. 
 
 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.
 
 SEC. 111. ciiAi-. Tl. OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS. 213 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: — FIRST OF THE REGION OF THE 
 CIRRUS. 
 
 Our next subject of investigation must be the specific character of i >• Difficulty 
 
 J ^ ^ of ascertainiiin 
 
 clouds, a species of truth which is especially neglected by artists ; trlj^^^opciouds 
 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, wherein 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 in- 
 tended 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. 
 
 The first and most important character of clouds is dependent § 2. Variation 
 
 of their charac- 
 
 on the different altitudes at which they are formed. The atmo- 'er at different 
 
 elevations. 
 
 sphere may be conveniently considered as divided into three spaces, '^I'^ns'jo'^^vhfch 
 each inhabited by clouds of specific character altogether different, vemenrivbT" 
 though, in reality, there is no distinct limit fi.xed between them beUmKing. 
 by nature, clouds being formed at every altitude, and partaking
 
 214 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: part ii. 
 
 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 seriesof 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 tiiree 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 clouds which I wish to consider as included in the upper 
 
 the upper ^ ^ 
 
 region. regioH, ncvcr touch even the highest mountains of Europe, and 
 
 may therefore be looked upon as never formed below an elevation 
 of at least 15,000 feet; they are the motionless multitudinous 
 lines of delicate vapour 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 : 
 
 ^ <• The First, Symmetry. They are nearly always arranged in some 
 
 symmetrical f j j ^ j j o 
 
 oritsdouds! definite and evident order, commonly in long ranks reaching some- 
 times 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 
 t!ie 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 
 each other, 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 tlieir 
 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 
 liack and up again, giving an appearance of great flexibility 
 and unity at the same time ; as if the clouds were tougii,
 
 SEC. ij]. t MAP. II. OF rill'; Rix,ioN OF nil': likkuh. 215 
 
 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. 
 
 Secondly, Sharpness of Edge. The edges of the bars of the IxceJdlng 
 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 colour 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 neighbour. 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. 
 
 Thirdly, Multitude. The delicacy of these vapours is sometimes « 6- Their 
 
 ■^ ' ./ r number. 
 
 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 
 vapours. 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 affected by undulation,
 
 2l6 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: tart ii. 
 
 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 Mont Blanc at sunset, so that they must descend 
 nearly to within fifteen thousand feet of the earth. 
 « 7- Causes of Fourthly, Purity of Colour. The nearest of these clouds, 
 
 their peculiarly 
 
 delicate colour- thosc over the observer's head, being at least three miles above 
 
 mg. ' ^ 
 
 him, and the greater number of those which enter the ordinary 
 sphere of vision, farther from him still, their dark sides are much 
 greyer and cooler tlian those of other clouds, owing to their 
 distance. They are composed of the purest aqueous vapour, 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 colours are more pure 
 and vivid, and their white less sullied than those of any other 
 clouds. 
 « 8. Theirva- Lastly, Variety. Variety is never so conspicuous, as when it 
 
 riety oi lorm. j t j j r 7 
 
 is united with symmetry. The perpetual change of form in other 
 clouds is monotonous in its very dissimilarity, nor is difference 
 striking where no connexion 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 fliass, — 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 tiiough each is adapted for the same function, and in
 
 SEC. in. ( iiAp. jr. OF I'lM-: Kl:GION OF TIIK CIRKUS. 217 
 
 its great features resembles all tiie uther.s, iK.it one, out of tlie 
 millions with which tiie sky is chequered, is without a separate 
 beauty and character, appearing to have had distinct thougiit 
 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 each 
 otiier, 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. 
 
 Such are the great attributes of the upper cloud region ; « 9. Total 
 
 absence of even 
 
 whether they are beautiful, valuable, or impressive, it is not our '!« slightest 
 
 /' ' If) Pfl-Qj.1 j( their 
 
 present business to decide, nor to endeavour to discover the reason representation 
 
 ^ ' in ancient 
 
 of the somewhat remarkable fact, that the whole field of ancient '*°<^='=='p<=- 
 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 colour cross the 
 serenity of the blue. These, as far as they go, are often very per- 
 fect, and the elevation and repose of their effect might, we should 
 have thought, have pointed out to the landscape painters that there 
 was 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,
 
 2 I 8 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : i-art li. 
 
 Inuunierable 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." 
 
 i lo. The There is but one master whose works we can think of while we 
 
 intense and 
 
 of'th«n'b*'"''^ '^^"^ '■'^'^' "^"^ alone has taken notice of the neglected upper sky ; 
 
 Turner. jj. jg j^j^ peculiar and favourite 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 grey dawn 
 A multitude of dense, white, fleecy clouds 
 Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains, 
 Shcplurdcd 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 frag- 
 ments, each burning with separate energy, as in the Temeraire ; 
 sometimes woven together with fine threads of intermediate dark- 
 ness, melting into the blue, as in the Napoleon. But in all cases 
 the exquisite manipulation of the master gives to each atom of the
 
 bEC. IM. < I1.M-. II. OF Tin-; RKGION OK TUl'J CIRRUS. 219 
 
 nuiltitude 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. 
 
 Take, for instance, the illustrated edition of Rogers's Poems,' , ^^ Hisvic- 
 and open it at the 8oth page, and observe how every attribute which Cn'the s"""''" 
 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 lias been given to 
 every member of the multitude, and not only individual form, but 
 roundness and substance even where there is scarcely a hair's 
 breadth of cloud to express them 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 3'ou look, you will fancy that the 
 rays shoot higher and higher into the vault of light, and that the 
 pale streak of horizontal vapour 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 multitudes 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 
 
 ' 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.
 
 220 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS I 
 
 $ 13. His use 
 of the cirrus in 
 expressing 
 mist. 
 
 i 13. His con- 
 sistency in 
 every minor 
 feature. 
 
 chariot and four driving up them, by the side of the deHcate 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 ? 
 
 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 vapour. 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 clouds ; finally, observe the difference in the 
 mode of indicating the figures, which are here misty and undis- 
 tinguishable, 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. 
 
 Now is this perpetual consistency in all points, this concen- 
 tration of every fact which can possibly bear upon what we are to 
 be told, this watchfulness of the entire meaning and system of
 
 si;( . 111. c iT,\r. II. Ill' liii': ri:gion of iiiI'; cirrus. 221 
 
 nature, vvliicli fills every part and space of the picture with coin- 
 cidences of witness, which come out upon us, as tliey 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 point- 
 ing 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 pre\ailing 
 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 
 tho.se 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. 
 
 Of the colours of these clouds I have spoken before (§ 7 of this i 14. Hie 
 
 1 \ I 1 1 T 1 11 1 1 1 • coiouiofthe 
 
 chapter); but though 1 then alluded to their purity and vivid- upper clouds. 
 
 ness, 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 colours 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 colour 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.
 
 222 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS. part ii. 
 
 the blue of the sky, which in places you will not be able to 
 distinguish from the cool grey 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 colour 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 colour 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 grey, 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 present us with more essential truth, and more clear 
 expression and illustration of natural laws, in every wreath of 
 vapour, than composed the whole stock of heavenly information 
 which lasted Cuyp and Claude their lives. 
 « 15. Recapi- We close then our present consideration of the upper clouds, 
 
 tulation. , T • 1 -r 1 
 
 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 im- 
 perfectly represented by him, they would yet have given him a 
 claim to be considered more extended and universal in his state- 
 ment 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 ad\ancement of our 
 knowledge, and to every added moment of our contemplation !
 
 SEC. 111. CHAP. III. OF THK CENTRAL CLOUD REGION. 223 
 
 Extent 
 
 pical 
 
 ter ot 
 
 iitral 
 
 cloud region. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : — SECONDLY, OF THE CENTRAL CLOUD 
 
 REGION. 
 
 We have ne.xt to investigate the character of the Central Cloud 1,,^ ty 
 Region, which I consider as including all clouds which are the ihe"c''entr.Ti 
 usual characteristic of ordinary serene weather, and which touch 
 and envelope 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. 
 
 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 vapour, which 
 has little form and less colour, and of which a good example may 
 be seen in the largest landscape of Cuyp in the Dulvvich Gallery. 
 When this vapour collects into masses, it is partially rounded, 
 clumsy, and ponderous, as if it would tumble out of the sky, 
 shaded with a dull grey, and totally devoid of any appearance of 
 enerev or motion. Even in nature, these clouds are com- j =.- Jtscharac- 
 
 oJ ' tenstic clouds, 
 
 paratively uninteresting, scarcely worth raising our heads to look attlnTJOTnor 
 at ; and, on canvas, valuable only as a means of introducing light, theh-^represent- 
 and breaking the monotony of blue ; yet they are, perhaps, beyond therefore 
 
 favourite sub- 
 all Others the favourite clouds of the Dutch masters. Whether jects with the 
 
 old masters. 
 
 they had any motive for the adoption of such materials beyond the 
 extreme facility with which acres of canvas might thus be covered
 
 224 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 $ 3. The clouds 
 of Saivator and 
 Poussin. 
 
 ^ 4. Their 
 essential cha- 
 racters. 
 
 withdiit any tmublesome 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 
 ho 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, touched 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. 
 
 But although this kind of cloud is, as I have said, tj'pical 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, 
 Saivator, 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. 
 
 Clouds, it is to be remembered, are not so much local vapour, 
 as vapour 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, tlic moisture it 
 carries becomes visible, and then and there the cloud forms on the 
 instant, apparently maintaining its shape 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 iloud are of
 
 SEC. in. cuAf. rn. OK Till-: CKNTKAI. CLOUD RliUION. 225 
 
 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 outUne of the moun- 
 tain 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 Chamonix, 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 
 grey, 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, § 5. Their 
 
 11 1. 1- 1 • • I ■ 1- 1-1 angular forms 
 
 usually a parallelism and consistency m then- great outlines, which and general 
 
 -^ '^ . decision of 
 
 give system to the smaller curves of which they are composed ; """'"e- 
 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, 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : i-akt u. 
 
 each individual mass has the effect, not of an eUipse or circle, but 
 of a rhomboid ; the sky is crossed and chequered, not honey- 
 combed ; 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 beaut>', 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 vigour 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. 
 
 5 6. The com- The minor contours, out of which the larger outlines are com- 
 
 position of 
 their minor poscd, arc indeed beautifully curvilinear; but they are never 
 
 curves. ^ ' -^ ' j 
 
 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 
 ofi" grace with rigidity, and relieving flexibility witli 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 skj', and you will find it put together 
 as if there had been a jear's thought over the plan of it, arranged 
 with the most studied inequality, with the most delicate symme- 
 try, 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 ]ierfect, and yet not one in the least 
 like another, 
 f 7- Their Now it may, perhaps, for anything we know, or have yet
 
 SEC. m. iiiAP. III. OF TIIK C1;NTR.\L CLOUD RIXUON. 227 
 
 proved, be highly expedient and proper, in art, that this variety, g^™bj,''|'.'"* 
 
 individuality, and angular character should be changed into a mass *"'"'' 
 
 of convex curves, each precisely like its neighbour 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 despatch : 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. 
 
 And it is not as if the error were only occasional. It is sys- \^-^ ^^^oai 
 tematic and constant in all the Italian masters of the seventeenth the^itanan'^^ " 
 century, and in most of the Dutch. They looked at clouds, as at generally, 
 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 Sea-ports 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
 
 228 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 ^"9. Vast size 
 of congregated 
 masses of cloud, 
 
 $ ID. Demon- 
 strable by com- 
 parison \vith 
 mountain 
 ranges. 
 
 vapid as the brush could draw them ; or take the two cauliflower- 
 like protuberances in No. 220 of the Dulwich Galler}', and admire 
 the studied similarity between them ; 3'ou cannot tell which is 
 which; or take the so-called Nicolas 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. 
 But it is not the outline only which is thus systematicall}' false. 
 The drawing of the solid form is worse still, for it is to be remem- 
 bered 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 vapour, 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 vapour which compose it arc 
 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 vapour, 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 3,000 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
 
 SEC. irr. CHAP. iii. OF THIv CENTRAL CLOUD RKCION. 229 
 
 soaring Alp overtopped and buried in one .surge of the sky, that 
 we begin to conceive or appreciate the colossal scale of the phe- 
 nonic-na of the latter. lint 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 vapour visibly extended over an ordinarily clouded 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 Diiles ; 
 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 in illuminated surface, furrowed by a 
 thousand colossal ravines, torn b}' local tempests into peaks and 
 promontories, and changing its features with the majestic velocity 
 of the volcano. 
 
 To those who have once convinced themselves of these propor- ^ "• And 
 
 ^ ^ consequent 
 
 tions of the heaven, it will be immediately evident, that though we divisions and 
 
 ' -^ J & varieties of 
 
 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 feebly and imperfectly 
 felt, even with every aid and evidence that art can give of it. 
 
 Now if an artist, takinsr for his subject a chain of vast mountains 5 12. Not 
 
 ' ° _ - , , lightly to be 
 
 several leagues long, were to unite all their varieties of ravine, omitted. 
 crag, chasm, and precipice, into one solid unbroken mass, with one 
 light side and one dark side, looking like a white ball or parallele- 
 piped two yards broad, the words " breadth," " boldness," " gene- 
 ralization," 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
 
 230 OF TRUTH OF clouds: part ii. 
 
 organization, and so closely resembling each other as often to corre- 
 spond 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 com- 
 plicated arrangement, should be all summed up into one round 
 mass, with one swell of white, and one flat side of unbroken grey, 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 This is done, more or less, by all the old masters, without an 
 
 conception of 
 
 this size and exception.' Their idea of clouds was altogether similar; more or 
 
 extent in an- ^ o J 
 
 cient landscape, j^gg 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, irre- 
 gularly associated with other round and puffed-up white bodies, each 
 with a white light side, and a grey dark side, and a soft reflected 
 light, floating a great way below a blue dome. Su^h 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 wa}- under a high blue concavity. So that these ideas be 
 tolerably given with smooth paint, tliey are content, and call it 
 nature. How different it is from anything that nature ever did, or 
 ever will do, I have endeavoured to show ; but I cannot, and do 
 not, expect the contrast to be fully felt, unless the reader will 
 actually go out on days wiien, either before or after rain, tin- clouds 
 
 ' Here I incUulc even the threat ones, even Titi.in and Veronese,
 
 SEC. in. (.11AI-. 111. OF THE CENTRAL CI.OUD RKGION. 23 I 
 
 arrange themselves into vigorous masses, and, after arriving at 
 something like a conception of their distance and size, from the mode 
 in wiiich they retire over the horizon, will, for himself, tract 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 Sal- 
 vator, or to Poussin, and ask them for a like space, or like infinity. 
 
 But perhaps the most grievous fault of all, in the clouds of these i m- Total 
 
 "Want of trans- 
 painters, is the utter want of transparency. Not in her most pon- parencyand 
 
 * evanescence in 
 
 derous and lightless masses will nature ever leave us without some ''l!:'^'°."i'^^ 5'^ 
 
 evidence of transmitted sunshine ; and she perpetually gives us ^'^*'"^' 
 
 passages in which the vapour 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 transkicency 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, no 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. 
 
 And be it remembered that all these faults and deficiencies are 5 15. Fanher 
 
 proof of their 
 
 to be found in their drawing merely of the separate masses of the
 
 232 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : i'ART 11. 
 
 deficiency ill solid cuiTiukis, the casiest drawn of all clouds. But nature scarcely 
 
 space. ' -^ 
 
 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 grey 
 cirrus, envelopes it in black, ragged, drifting vapour, covers the 
 open part of the sk}' 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 palpi- 
 tating shades. And all this is done over and over again in every 
 quarter of a mile. Where Poussin or Claude has 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 its own nodding rocks, and cloven precipices, and 
 radiant summits, and robing vapours, 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 incal- 
 culable 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. 
 ^16. Instance And now let us, keeping in memory what we have seen of Poussin 
 
 oi perfect trntli ' r o j 
 
 Turn^ers'* ""^ and Salvator, take up one of Turner's skies, and see whether he is 
 
 Babylon. ^^^ ^arrow in his conception, or as niggardly in his space. It does 
 
 not matter which we take ; his sublime Babylon ' 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 
 
 ' Engraved in Finden's Bible Illu'ilralions.
 
 snc. ll[. I HAi-. in. OF I 1 1 1: (INIKAI. (LOUn HI';(;iON. 233 
 
 elongated vapoui', inciting Ijencath into a dim haze wliicii embraces 
 the iiills on the horizon. It is exhausted with its own motion, and 
 broken up by the wind in its own mass 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 
 vapour 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 imaginai'y, 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 b}' 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 vapour 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 grey 
 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. 
 
 Now this is nature ! It is the exhaustless living energy with 5 i?-' And in 
 
 ° °-' his Pools of 
 
 which the universe is filled ; and what will you set beside it of the Solomon. 
 works of other men ? Show me a single picture, in the whole
 
 234 
 
 OK TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 i iS. Truths 
 of outline and 
 character in 
 his Coino. 
 
 compass of ancient art, in whiicli 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 hair's breadth 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 analysed. 
 
 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 form, which we have endeavoured 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 sun-lighted 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. III. CHAP. III. OF THE CENTRAL CLOUD RI'X.ION. 235 
 
 1 would draw especial attention, both litre and in all other works ^. "9- ^''?°"^- 
 
 tion of the cir- 
 
 of Turner, to the beautiful use of the low horizontal bars or fields u°i!'c;,'!,n'|uJ'.'"' 
 of cloud (cirrostratus), which associate themselves so frequently, 
 more e.specially 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. 
 
 Turn back to the first vignette in the Italy. The angular 520. The deep 
 
 JO based know- 
 
 outlines and variety of modulation in the clouds above the sail, and '5f'8'=.°' ''^'= 
 
 ./ ' ^ Alps in 1 ur- 
 
 the delicate atmosphere of morning into which they are dissolved Genera!'"' ""^ 
 
 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 225), 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. 
 
 At the 2 1 6th page we have another and a new case, in which ^ ='■ Farther 
 
 principles of 
 
 clouds in perfect repose, unaffected by wind, or any influence but '''°"'* ',°|;'", . 
 
 ^ ^ -^ ' J ^"«- exemplified in 
 
 that of their own elastic force, boil, rise, and melt in the heaven ''''' Amaifi. 
 with more approach to globular form than under any other circum- 
 stances is possible. I name this vignette, not only because it is 
 most remarkable for the buoyancy and elasticity of inward energy
 
 236 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : part 11 
 
 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 no-t 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. 
 5 22. Reasons As I before observed of mere execution, that one of the best 
 
 for insisting on 
 
 Turne'^'s works '^^ts of its excellence was the expression of infinity ; so it may be 
 aimolt^an noticed with respect to the painting of details generally, that more 
 
 "//TrVi't'h. '^'^ ° 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 inter- 
 fering 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 everj'where, 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 is always 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 our- 
 selves, and therefore the moment we see in a work of any kind
 
 sia:. in. tiiM'. ii[. OF TlIK CKNTKAL Cl.OUn RI.(;iON. 237 
 
 whatsoever the expression of infinity, \vc may he certain that the 
 woricinan lias gone to nature for it ; wiiile, 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. 
 
 For instance, in the picture of Salvator before noticed, No. 220 * =i- inst.mces 
 
 ' olthelot.il 
 
 in tiie Dulwich Gallery, as we see at once that the two masses of "-I'lt of it in 
 
 •^ the works 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 otlier part of nature, without even 
 knowing what the white things' were intended for, 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 5 24- Aad of 
 
 the universal 
 
 such a sky as that of Turner's Rouen seen from St. Catherine's presence of it 
 
 '^ in those of 
 
 Hill, in the Rivers of France, and find, in the first place, that he xheconcinsions 
 
 has given us a distance over the hills in the horizon, into which im'ved"a? fVom 
 
 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 e3'e cannot rest on any 
 
 one without being guided to the ne.xt, 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
 
 ?8 
 
 or TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 ^ 25. The 
 multiplication 
 of objects, or 
 increase of 
 their size, will 
 not give the 
 impression of 
 infinity, but is 
 the resource of 
 novices. 
 
 $ 26. Farther 
 instances of 
 infinity in the 
 erey skies of 
 Turner. 
 
 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 utiisl 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 i.s 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 for ever 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. 
 
 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 vapour, 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 grey 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 p. 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
 
 SKI. 111. LllAl'. 111. OF THE CKNTRAL fl.OUI) RK(,ION. 230 
 
 the extreme grandeur and stern simplicity of tiie strange and 
 ominous forms of level cloud behind the building. In that at 
 page 223 there are passages of the same kind, of exceeding per- 
 fection. 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 pic- 
 tures those of the Hero and Leander and the 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 fuhiess of the 
 wreaths of gathering darkness in the Folkestone. 
 
 We must not pass from the consideration of the central cloud i 27. The 
 
 . , excellence of 
 
 region, without noticing the general high quality of the cloud- "lecioud- 
 
 01./ drawing of 
 
 drawing of Stanfield. He is limited in his range, and is apt in staniicid. 
 
 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 § 28. The 
 
 irregular white space neatly with the handkerchief, or to leave a ing-'oTthe ^" 
 
 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 vapour 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 with the 
 
 brush on wet paper may give all that it requires ; but this is not 
 
 d?-awiiig 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 
 
 English school.
 
 240 OF TRUTH OF clouds: part II. 
 
 detail upon their clouds, they appear to get bewildered, foigct that 
 they are dealing with forms regulated by precisely the same simple 
 laws of light and shade as more substantial matter, overcharge 
 their colour, 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 colour, 
 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. 
 
 ' I had foigotten, or little observed, when I wrote this, the elaborate cumuli in 
 many of Linnell's best pictures ; and I think that among our rising artists there may 
 now (1851) be traced signs of rajjidly increasing care in studies of skies. There was a 
 very beautiful group of cirri in a picture by a Mr. Dawson, in the British Institution 
 of this year, a study on the River Trent at sunset.
 
 sF.r. in. CHAP. IV. 
 
 OF Till'; RKf.lON OF Till': RAIN'-( I.OUn. 24 I 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : THIRDLY, OF THE REGION OF THF 
 RAIN-CLOUD. 
 
 The clouds which I wish to consider as characteristic of the lower, rent difference 
 or rainy region, diifer not so much in their real nature from those bltwcen'^th'e 
 of the central and uppermost regions, as in appearance, owing to central clouds 
 
 . is dependent 
 
 their greater nearness, for the central clouds, and perhaps even chiefly on 
 
 proximity. 
 
 the high cirri, deposit moisture, if not distinctly rain, as is suffi- 
 cientl}' proved by the existence of snow on the highest peaks of the 
 Himalaya ; and when, on any such mountains, we are brought into 
 close contact with the central clouds,' we find them little differing 
 from the ordinary rain-cloud of the plains, except by being slightly 
 less dense and dark. But the apparent diflerenees, dependent on 
 proximity, are most marked and important. 
 
 In the first place, the clouds of the central region have, as has * -■,^L"'ir^ 
 
 r > a ) marked dif- 
 
 been before observed, pure and aerial greys for their dark sides, colou"^'" 
 owing to their necessary distance from the observer ; and as this 
 distance permits a multitude of local phenomena capable of in- 
 fluencing colour, such as accidental sunbeams, refractions, trans- 
 parencies, or local mists and showers, to be collected into a space 
 apparently small, the colours of these clouds are always changeful 
 and palpitating ; and whatever degree of grey or of gloom may be 
 
 ' I am unable to say to what height the real rain-cloud may e.xtend ; perhaps there 
 are no mountains which rise altogether above storm. I have never been in a violent 
 storm at a greater height than between 8,000 and 9,000 feet above the level of the sea. 
 There the rain-cloud is exceedingly light, compared with the ponderous darkness of the 
 lower air. 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 § 3. And in- 
 definiteness of 
 form. 
 
 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 grey monotonous, and (by 
 losing the blue of distance) warm and brown compared with that 
 of the upper clouds. This is especially remarkable on any part of 
 it which may happen to be illumined, such part being 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 grey, 
 and sulphurous and lurid if there be thunder in the air. 
 
 With these striking differences in colour, it presents no fewer 
 nor less important in form, chiefly from losing almost all definite- 
 ness 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, ratlier 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 \apour. 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 verj' 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 clouds. The velocity of these vapours, 
 though not necessarily in reality greater tiian 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
 
 si-c. iir. CHAP. IV. OF THE REGION OF THE RAIN-CLOUD. 243 
 
 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 vapour, 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 dis- 
 appearing, at the same spot. This continued for half an hour, the 
 long line describing the curve of a horse-shoe ; 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 horse-shoe, hanging over the hills. 
 
 To the region of the rain-cloud belong also all the phenomena 5 s- Vaiue, to 
 
 the painter, of 
 
 of drifted smoke, heat-haze, local mists in the morning or evening, the rain-cioud. 
 in valleys or over water, mirage, white steaming vapour 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 modi- 
 fication 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 obscurit}', and decora- 
 tion without disguise. And, accordingly, nature herself uses it
 
 244 "f TRUTH OF CLOUDS : part il. 
 
 constantly, as one of her chief means of most perfect effect ; not 
 in one country, nor another, but wherever there is anything worth 
 calling landscape. I cannot answer for the desert of the Sahara, 
 but I know that there cannot be a 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 mists more perfect than in the Campagna of 
 5 6. The old Rome, and among the hills of Sorrento. It is therefore matter of 
 
 masters have 
 
 rn°s'tMcJ'o?"ffe'' ^'^ little marvel to me, and I conceive that it can scarcely be 
 rai'n-cioud.'and Otherwise to any reflecting person, that tliroughout the whole 
 ari?. "^Caspar range of ancient landscape art there occurs no instance of the 
 
 Poussin's . . 1 • 1 , .,1 , r r I 1 .• 
 
 storms. pamtmg oi a real ram-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 Caspars 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 the}' 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 spra3'-like edge, its veily 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 tliere were such things in the world as 
 mists or vapours. 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
 
 SEC. 111. CHA]'. IV. UF Till-: REGION OF Till'; K.MN-tl.OlJD. 245 
 
 clouds arc, 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 ha\'e im form at all. 
 
 Supposing that we had nothing to show in modern art, of the i ?■ The prcat 
 
 power oi' the 
 
 region of the rain-cloud, but the dash of Cox, the blot of De Wint, raodernsi,, 
 
 ' ' ' this respect. 
 
 or even the ordinary stormy skies of the body of our inferior water- 
 colour painters, we might yet laugh all efforts of the old masters 
 to utter scorn. But one, among our water-colour 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 ^ g. woiks 
 what he has done depends in a great degree upon particular tricks Fieidmgf 
 of execution, or on a labour somewhat too mechanical to be meri- 
 torious ; 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, « 9. His pecu- 
 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 colours 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 giieves us to
 
 246 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 « 10. His weak- gec how his power is limited to a particular moment, to that 
 
 ness, and its '^ * 
 
 probable cause, edgiest moment for imitation, when knowledge of form may be 
 superseded by management of the brush, and the judgment of the 
 colourist by the manufacture of a colour ; the moment when all 
 form is melted down and drifted away in the descending veil of 
 rain, and when the variable and fitful colours of the heaven are lost 
 in the monotonous grey of its storm tones/ 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 con- 
 stant hope of seeing this finely minded artist shake oif 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. 
 
 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 
 
 $ II. Impos- 
 sibility of rea- 
 soning on the 
 rain-clouds of 
 Turner from 
 engravings. 
 
 ' I ought liere, 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 chielly in clouds 
 gathering for rain, when the sky is entirely covered with a grey 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 liave given a look of failure or misadventure 
 to some even of the liest-studied passages; and something of tlie same hardness of line 
 is occasionally visible in his drawing of clouds by whose nature it is not warranted.
 
 SEC. 111. c:ii.\i-. IV. OF Tllli REGION OF THE KAIN-CLOUD. 247 
 
 beyond the power of even our best engravers : I do not say beyond 
 
 their />o.ss/M' 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 greys 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. 
 
 Jumieges, in the Rivers of France, ought, perhaps, after what 5 12. His ren- 
 dering of Field- 
 we have said of Fielding, to be our first object of attention, because ing's particular 
 
 ^ ' moment in the 
 
 it is a rendering by Turner of Fielding's particular moment, and J^'^ges. 
 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.' The haze of sunlit rain of this most magni- 
 ficent 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. 
 
 From this picture we should pass to the Llanthony," which is i 13- Moment 
 
 of retiring rain 
 
 the rendering of the moment immediately following that given in intheLian- 
 the Jumitjges. 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 vapour, and fall not again, but 
 vanish in the shafts of the sunlight ; ^ hurrying, fitful, wind-woven 
 
 ' Compare Sec. I. Chap. IV. § 5. 
 
 - No conception can be formed of this picture from the engraving. It is perhaps 
 the most marvellous piece of execution and of grey colour existing, e.xcept 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. 
 
 ' I know no eflect more strikingly characteristic of the departure of a storm than tlie 
 smokiif' of the mountain torrents. The exhausted air is so thirsty of moisture, that
 
 248 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: part 11. 
 
 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 sununons 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. 
 i 14. And of With this noble work we should compare one of which we can 
 
 commencing, _ --,... 
 
 chosen with better judge by the engraving, the Loch Coriskin, in the illus- 
 
 peculiar mean- J a j o 01 / 
 
 !j?» f°,''.L°'^'> trations to Scott, because it introduces us to another and a most 
 
 Loriskin. ' 
 
 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. Con- 
 sequently, upon all such hills, on the commencement of rain, white 
 volumes of vapour 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 vapour, but to tell the tale which no 
 pencilling could, the story of its utter absolute barrenness of 
 unlichened, dead, desolated rock : 
 
 '■ The wiklesl 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. 
 
 every jet of spray is seized upon by it, and converted into vapour as it springs; and 
 this vapour 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 Chanioni.\ 
 one line of dense cloud, dissip.ating .as soon as it had risen ten or twelve feet from the 
 surface, but entirely concealing the water from an observer placed above it.
 
 SF.C. lu. LiiAi'. iv. OF THE REGION OE IIIE KAIN-CLOUD. 249 
 
 Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrill), nur flower, 
 
 Nor aiiijlit of vegetative power. 
 
 The wearied eye may ken ; 
 
 But all is rocks at random thrown, 
 
 Black waves, bare crags, and Ixmks of stone." 
 
 Lord of the hies, canLo 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 imnatural and 
 meaningless confusion of steam-like vapour, 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. 
 
 In the Long Ships Lighthouse, Land's End, we have clouds « ,,. The 
 without rain, at twilight, enveloping the cliffs of the coast, but trTn5p!ire°nt 
 
 ,. , . ,. , . . .1 , , 1 . . , vapour in the 
 
 concealing nothing, every outline being visible through their gloom ; Land's End. 
 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 
 grey, without either blackness or blueness. It is a gloom de- 
 pendent rather on the enormous space and depth indicated, than 
 on actual pitch of colour ; 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 vapour 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 universal 
 energy, which distinguish nature and Turner from all their 
 imitators. To roll a volume of smoke before the wind, to indicate
 
 250 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 ^ 16. Swift 
 rain-cloud in 
 the Coventry. 
 
 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 vapour, 
 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 vapours, 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. 
 
 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 characterised 
 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.' 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 
 i^™* siven iiy ^ niore 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 monoto- 
 nous, or without character, and yet every part and portion of the 
 
 $ 17. Com- 
 pared with 
 
 Note especially the daiU uppermust outline of the mass.
 
 SEC. III. LI1AI-. IV. Ol'' Tin; RKGION OF Till'; RAIN-CLOUI). 25 I 
 
 cloud is rigidly subjected to the same forward, fierce, inevitable 
 influence of storm. In Salvator's every curve repeats its neigh- 
 hour, e\-L-ry 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 influ- 
 ence 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 repre- 
 sentation of the same facts. 
 
 But there is yet more to be noticed in this noble sky of Turner's. 5 18. Kntire 
 
 expression of 
 
 Not only are the lines of the rolling cloud thus irregular in their tempest by 
 
 wiiiuite touches 
 
 parallelism, but those of the falling rain are equally varied in their st'"^J:'.l^"™,'ij 
 direction, indicating the gusty changefulness of the wind, and yet Coventry, 
 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. 
 
 But I have not quite done with this noble picture vet. Im- f '9- Especially 
 
 ^ r J ■ 03' contrast 
 
 petuous clouds, twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, ofextreml^^^" 
 
 gushing water, and oppressed cattle, all speak the same story of '■'=p°='=- 
 
 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 of the delicate and soft forms of
 
 2 C2 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 ^ 20. The truth 
 of this parti- 
 cular passage. 
 Perfectly pure 
 blue sky only 
 seen after rain, 
 and how seen. 
 
 these pausing vapours not the shghtest, 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 colour, 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. 
 
 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 in this section, that aqueous vapour always turns the 
 sky more or less grey, it follows that we never can see the azure 
 so intense as when the greater part of this vapour 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 oft" in faint white 
 threads and fringes, through which the blue shines more and more 
 intensely, till the last trace of vapour is lost in its perfect colour. 
 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 colour, never the same 
 for two inches together, deepening and broadening here and there 
 into intensity of perfect azure, then drifting 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 colour, but totally destitute of that 
 exquisite gradation and change, that fieeting, panting, hesitating 
 effort, with which the first glance of the natural sky is shed through 
 the turbulence of the earth-storm.
 
 SEC. rci. (iiAr. TV. OF IIII-: RIX.KIN OF Till': l«AIN-CI.OUD. 253 
 
 Tlicy have some excuse, liowever, for not atlemptiiitr tliis, in the K-'' ^""<='*^ 
 
 •^ ' ' I o ' of our water- 
 
 natiire of their material, as one accidental dash of the brush with H°s'°cndc-ring.'" 
 water-colour, on a piece of wet or damp pajier, will come nearer Turn°e'r'."^^ 
 the truth and transparency of this rain-blue than the labour of a 
 day in oils ; and the purity and felicity of some of the careless, 
 melting, water-colour skies of Cox and Tayler may well make us 
 fastidious in all efilects 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 con- 
 sidered form. In Tayler and Cox the forms are always partially 
 accidental and unconsidered, often essentially bad, and always in- 
 complete : 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 hair's breadth without 
 injury ; in addition to this, peculiar management and execution are 
 used in obtaining quality in the colour 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 rushings 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 in- 
 tensity of their peace. I do not say that this is beautiful, I do 
 not say it is ideal or 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. 
 
 The Gosport affords us an instance more exquisite even than the i 22. Expres- 
 sion of near 
 
 passage above named in the Coventry, of the use of this meltins rain-ciond in 
 
 r ° ■" » the Gosport, 
 
 and dewy blue, accompanied by two distances of rain-cloud ; one -T'd other 
 
 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 oi' c/oud (?) in the , 
 
 ' ^ / ^ 23. Con- 
 
 Dido and jEneas of Caspar Poussin, with their unpleasant edges calpa'J Pou'l-
 
 254 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS : 
 
 ^'"th ■'dIJi"'^'""'' cut as hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick black paint 
 and^neas. ^.j^,^ make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail badly 
 reefed. Or look at the agreeable transparencj' 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. 
 
 I need not, however, insist upon Turner's peculiar power of 
 rendering mist, and all those passages of confusion 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 colour 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 oftence. But the aerial and 
 misty effects of landscape, being matters of which the eye should 
 
 ^ 24. Turner's 
 power of ren- 
 dering mist.
 
 SEC. III. n.AP. IV. OF THE REGION OF THE RAIN-CLOUD. 255 
 
 be simply cognizant, and witiiout clfort of thought, as it is of light, 
 must, where they are exquisitely rendered, either be felt at once, 
 or prove that degree of blindness ami blnntness 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 
 vapour are limited to ambiguous outlines of spectral hackney- 
 coaches and bodiless lamp-posts, discerned through a brown combi- 
 nation of sulphur, snot, and gas-light, 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 tlie storm 
 gather on a sea-cliff, and if you yet have 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. 
 
 One word respecting Turner's more violent storms : for we * ^s- Turner's 
 
 more violent 
 
 have hitherto been speaking only of the softer rain-clouds, asso- effects of tem- 
 
 r c^ ^ f pest are never 
 
 ciated with gusty tempests, but not of the thunder-cloud and the engraiers^^ 
 
 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 colour with a sharp 
 
 edge and an angular form by accident, or in order that they may 
 
 have the pleasure of altering it and improving upon it ; and equally 
 
 impossible to persuade them tinat 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 i 26. General 
 
 system of 
 
 of a Storm-cloud are not comprised under two heads, roundness and landscape 
 
 ' ' engraving. 
 
 blackness ; and, indeed, their general principles of translation (as 
 may be distinctly gathered from their larger works) are the follow- 
 ing : — I. Where the drawing is grey, make the paper black. 
 
 2. Where the drawing is white, cover the paper with zigzag lines. 
 
 3. Where the drawing has particularly tender tones, cross-hatch 
 them. 4. Where any outline is particularly angular, make it
 
 2s6 
 
 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: 
 
 $ 27. The 
 storm in the 
 Stonehenge. 
 
 $ 28. General 
 character of 
 such effects 
 as ^ven by 
 Tnrncr. His 
 expression of 
 
 express 
 falling 1 
 
 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 con- 
 ceive how such pieces of work as the plates of Stonehenge and 
 Winchelsea could 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 sulphur- 
 ous colours 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 irregu- 
 larity 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. 
 
 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 Psestum, 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. 
 
 I have scarcely, I see, on referring to what I have written, suffi- 
 ciently insisted on Turner's rcndciing of the rainy /n'iii;r ; whither
 
 SIC. IM. TTiAf. IV. OF TIIK RFCIdN OF TIIF R AIN'-CLOUn. 257 
 
 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 ^ =9- Kccipi- 
 
 ^ tiiIiiUc.il 1,1 the 
 
 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 exami- 
 nation of the truth of clouds is, that the old masters attempted the 
 representation of only one among the thousands of their systems 
 of scenerj', and were altogether false in the little they attempted ; 
 while we can find records in modern art of every form or pheno- 
 menon of the heavens from the highest film that glorifies the aether 
 to the wildest vapour 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 inifailing faith. 
 
 And indeed it is difficult for us to conceive how, even without ^ 3°- Sketch or 
 
 ' a few of the 
 
 such laborious investigation as we have gone through, any person takln°a's'""""^ 
 can go to nature for a single day or hour, when she is really at pared 'witivthc 
 work in any of her nobler spheres of action, and yet retain respect nerandofthj 
 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 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 25? OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: PARTII. 
 
 every new instant, some passage which he had not before under- 
 ^ '".l"*",™'"^ stood in the hisfh works of modern art. Stand upon the peak of 
 
 on the plains. ° r r 
 
 some isolated mountain at daybreak, when the night mists first rise 
 from oft" 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 spiies, as the wreathed surges break and vanish above 
 them, and the confused crests and ridges of the dark hills shorten 
 ^ 32. Noon their grey shadows upon the plain. Has Claude given this ? Wait 
 
 with feathering; 
 
 storms. 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, ^ 
 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, founda- 
 tionless and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in the unsub- 
 stantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below.''' 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,^ 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 
 vapours,* which will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their grey 
 
 ' I have often seen the white, thin, morning cloud, edged with the seven colours of 
 the prism. I am not aware of the cause of this phenomenon, for it lakes 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 
 colours are distinct and vivid, l)ut have a kind of metallic lustre upon them. 
 
 ■ Lake Lucerne. ■' St. Maurice (Rogers's Italy), 
 
 ' Vignette, the Great St. Bernard.
 
 SEC. MI. CHAP. IV. OF Till-: REGION OF Till': R.AIN-CLOUD. 259 
 
 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.' Has Claude given this ? And then 
 you will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and you will 
 see those watch-towers of vapour swept away from their founda- 
 tions, and waving curtains of opaque rain let down to the valleys, 
 swinging from the burdened clouds in black bending fringes, * 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 ^ 33- Sunset in 
 
 ■^ ^ ' ' -^ tempest. Se- 
 
 the storm drift for an instant from off the hills, leaving their ■■«« midnight. 
 broad sides smoking, and loaded yet with snow-white, torn, steam- 
 like rags of capricious vapour, now gone, now gathered again ; ^ 
 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.* 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," brighter 
 — brighter yet, till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted 
 up among the barred clouds," 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,' 
 
 ' Vignette of the Andes. " St. Michael's Mount (England Series). 
 
 ' Ilhi^tration to the Antiquary. Goldau, a recent drawing of the highest order. 
 ' Vignette to Campbell's Last Man. ^ Caerlaverock. " St. Denis. 
 
 ' Alps at Daybreak (Rogers's Poems) : Delphi, and various vignettes.
 
 260 OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS. tartii. 
 
 5 34. And sun- and the heaving; mountains, rolling against it in darkness, like 
 
 rise on the ^ > o o ) 
 
 ■'^'P^- 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 lightnmg, 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 !
 
 SEC. 111. CHAP. V. EFFECTS OF LIGHT KENDEREU BV TURNER. 26l 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EFFECTS OF LIGHT RENDERED BY TURNER. 
 
 I HAVE before given my reasons (Sect. II. Chap. III.) for not f^^ Vn^ref^'at 
 wishing at present to enter upon the discussion of particular effects Pn^f wUhouT" 
 of light. Not only are we incapable of rightly viewing them, or panTc'uUr^' 
 
 , ., . , . , , . . , _ effects of light 
 
 reasoning upon them, until we are acquainted with the principles of rendered by 
 
 ^ Turner. 
 
 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 « 2. Hopes of 
 
 . . , . _ the author for 
 
 hope that in the mean time some admirer 01 the old masters will assistance in 
 
 the future 
 
 be kind enough to select from the works of any one of them, a investigation 
 
 ° -^ ' ol them. 
 
 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 and 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 repre- 
 sentative each of an entire class. Ten or twelve examples, often
 
 262 
 
 EFFECTS OF LIGHT RENDERED BY TURNER. 
 
 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 cjiaracter of objects sub- 
 jected 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 spec- 
 tator, 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. 
 
 L An hour before sunrise in winter. Violent 
 
 storm, with rain, on the sea. Lighthouses 
 seen through it. 
 
 F An hour before sunrise. Serene sky, with light 
 
 clouds. Dawn in the distance. 
 
 L Ten minutes before sunrise. Violent storm. 
 
 Torchlight. 
 
 F Sunrise. Sun only half above the horizon. 
 
 Clear sky with light cirri. 
 
 F Sun just disengaged from horizon. Misty, 
 
 with light cirri. 
 
 F Sun a quarter of an hour risen. Sky covered 
 
 with scarlet clouds. 
 L.F. ..Serene sky. Sun emerging from a bank of 
 cloud on horizon, a quarter of an hour risen. 
 L.F. . . Same hour. Light mists in flakes on hill sides. 
 
 Clear air. 
 L. F. . . Same hour. Light flying rain-clouds gathering 
 
 in valleys. 
 L.B. ..Same hour. A night storm rising off the 
 mountains. Dead calm. 
 
 L Sun half an hour risen. Cloudless sky. 
 
 L Same hour. Light mists lying in the valleys. 
 
 F Same liour. Bright cirri. Sun dimly seen 
 
 through battle smoke, with confl.-rgralion. 
 L Sun an hour risen, cloudless and clear. 
 
 NAMES OF PICTURES. 
 Lowestoft, Suffolk. 
 
 Vignette to Voyage of Co- 
 lumbus. 
 Fowey Harbour. 
 
 Vignette to Human Life. 
 
 Alps at Daybreak. 
 
 Castle Upnor. 
 
 Orford, Suffolk. 
 
 Slviddaw. 
 
 Oakhampton, 
 
 Lake of Geneva. 
 
 Beaugency. 
 Kirkby Lonsdale. 
 Hohenlindcn. 
 
 lUicklastleigh.
 
 SEC. in. CHAT. V. 
 
 EFFECTS OF LHiHT KI-INDKRKD BY TURNKR. 
 
 263 
 
 NOON AND AFTERNOON. 
 
 EFFECTS. 
 L.B. . .Mill-day. Dead calm, vvilli heat. CIou<llcss. 
 L .Same hour. Serene and Inighl, with streaky 
 
 clouds. 
 L Same hour. .Serene wilh multitudes uf the 
 
 high cirrus. 
 
 L Bright sun, wilh light wind and clouds. 
 
 F Two o'clock. Clouds gathering for rain, with 
 
 heat. 
 
 F Rain beginning, with light clouds and wind. 
 
 L Soft rain, w'ith heat. 
 
 L.F. . .(Ireat heat. Thunder gathering. 
 
 L Thunder breaking down, after intense heat, 
 
 with furious winds. 
 
 L Violent rain and wind, Ijut cool. 
 
 L.F. . . Furious storm, with thunder. 
 
 L.B. . .Thunder retiring, with rainbow. Dead calm, 
 
 with heat. 
 L About three o'clock, summer. Air very cool 
 
 and clear. Exhausted thunder-clouds low 
 
 on hills. 
 F Descending sunbeams through soft clouds, after 
 
 rain. 
 L Afternoon, very clear, after rain. A few clouds 
 
 still on horizon. Dead calm. 
 F Afternoon of cloudless day, with heat. 
 
 NAMES OF PICTURES. 
 
 Corinth. 
 
 Lantern at .St. Cloud. 
 
 Shylock, and other Venices. 
 
 Richmond, Middlesex. 
 Warwick. Blenheim. 
 
 Piacenza. 
 
 Caldron Snout Fall. 
 
 Malvern. 
 
 Winchelsea. 
 
 Llanberis, Coventry, etc. 
 Stonehenge, Pcestum, etc. 
 Nottingham. 
 
 Bingen. 
 
 Carew Castle. 
 
 Saltash. 
 
 Jlercury and' Argus. Ober- 
 wesel. Nemi. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 L An hour before sunset. Cloudless. 
 
 F Half an hour before sunset. Light clouds. 
 
 Misty air. 
 F Within a quarter of an hour of sunset. Mists 
 
 rising. Light cirri. 
 L.F. . .Ten minutes before sunset. Quite cloudless. 
 F Same hour. Tumultuous spray of illumined 
 
 rain-cloud. 
 F Five minutes before sunset. Sky covered with 
 
 illunrined cirri. 
 L.B. . . Same hour. .Serene sky. Full moon rising. 
 
 F .Sun setting. Detached light cirri and clear air. 
 
 L Same hour. Cloudless. New moon. 
 
 F.L. . .Same hour. Heavy storm clouds. Moon-rise. 
 
 Trematon Castle. 
 
 Lake Albano. Florence. 
 
 Datur Hora Quieti. 
 
 Durham. 
 
 Solomon's Pools. Slave-ship. 
 
 Temeraire. Napoleon. Va- 
 rious vignettes. 
 
 Kenilworth. 
 
 Amboise. 
 
 Troyes. 
 
 First vignette, Pleasures of 
 Memory.
 
 264 
 
 EFFECTS OF LlGHl RENDERED BY TURNER. 
 
 EFFECTS. 
 L.B. . .Sun just set. Sky covered with clouds. New 
 moon setting. 
 Sun five minutes set. Strong twilight, with 
 
 storm-clouds. Full moon-rise. 
 Same hour. Serene, with light clouds. 
 Same hour. Serene. New moon. 
 Sun a quarter of an hour set. Cloudless. 
 Sun half an hour set. Light cirri. 
 
 New moon and 
 
 L.li. 
 
 L.B. 
 L.B. 
 L.1!. 
 L.F. 
 F Same hour. Dead calm at sea. 
 
 evening star. 
 F Sun three quarters of an hour set. Moon 
 
 struggling through storm clouds, over heavy 
 
 sea. 
 
 NAMES OF PICTURES. 
 Caudebec. 
 
 Wilderness of Engedi. Assos. 
 
 Montjan. 
 
 Pyramid of Caius Cestius. 
 
 Chateau de Blois. 
 
 Clairmout. 
 
 Cowes. 
 
 Folkestone. 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 F An hour after sunset. No moon. Torchlight. 
 
 r Same hour. Moon rising. Fire from furnaces. 
 
 L F. . . Same hour, with storm clouds. Moon rising. 
 
 L Same hour, with light of rockets and fire. 
 
 F Midnight. Moonless, with light-houses. 
 
 F Same hour, with fire-light. 
 
 F Same hour. Full moon. Clear air, w ith delicate 
 
 clouds. Light-houses. 
 
 F Same hour, with conflagration, battle smoke, 
 
 and storm. 
 
 F Same hour. Moonlight through mist. Build- 
 ings illuminated in interior. 
 
 F Same hour. Full moon, with halo. Light 
 
 rain-clouds. 
 
 F Full moon. Perfectly serene. Sky covered 
 
 with white cirri. 
 
 St. Julien. Tours. 
 
 Dudley. 
 
 Mantes. 
 
 Juliet and her Nurse. 
 
 Calais. 
 
 Burning of Parliament 
 
 Houses. 
 Towers of the Heve. 
 
 Waterloo. 
 
 Vignette ; St. Herbert's Isle. 
 
 St. Denis. 
 
 Alnwick. Vignette of Rialto 
 and Bridge of Sighs.
 
 SEC. IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 OK TKUlil OF ICAKTII. 265 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF GENERAL STRUCTURE. 
 
 By truth of earth, we mean the faithful representation of the facts i ■• First laws 
 
 ot the or^ani- 
 
 and forms of the bare eround, considered as entirely divested of zat'onofthe 
 
 ^ -^ earth, and their 
 
 vegetation, through whatever disguise, or under whatever modi- ™p°''^^"'^^ '" 
 fication 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 sub- 
 ordinate 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 autho- 
 ritative 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
 
 266 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part ii. 
 
 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 That such abandonment is constant and total in the works of 
 
 attention ordi- 
 
 tlfem^ '^Theii" ''^'^ ^'"^ Hiasters has escaped detection, only because, of persons 
 bymodlra'^'*' 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 pos- 
 sessing 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 for ever 
 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 for ever bounded his liorizon 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 e.xcite our sur- 
 prise, 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 labour in the investigation 
 of mountain truth, had not modern artists been so vast, com- 
 prehensive, and multitudinous in their mountain drawings, as to 
 compel us, in order to form the slightest estimate of their know- 
 ledge, 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. IV. CHAP. I. OF GliNKKAl. S TRUCTURK. 267 
 
 Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent * 3. General 
 
 ^ ' structure oi the 
 
 muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons h^iVi'arJiis 
 of its anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with force and p^ai^'ils^rest. 
 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 undula- 
 tion. 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 tlic firma- 
 ment, 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 for ever !" 
 
 But there is this difference between the action of the earth, and i 4- Mountains 
 
 come out from 
 
 that of a living creature : that while the exerted limb marks its underneath the 
 
 " plains, and are 
 
 bones and tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the ^^""^ support. 
 
 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
 
 268 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part ll. 
 
 island out of the sea, lifting the earth near it like waves beating 
 on its sides, 
 ^s Structure Such being the structure of the framework of the earth, it is 
 
 of the plains '^ ' 
 
 TheTperfect "^^^ '° ^^ remembered that all soil whatsoever, whether it is accu- 
 tfep'clsi'te'd'by mulatcd in greater quantity than is sufficient to nourish the moss 
 qme wa er. ^^ ^^^ wallflowcr, 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 dc 
 Maurienne ; the great plain of Lombardy itself, as seen from Milan 
 or Padua, under the Alps, the Euganeans, and the Apennines; and 
 the Canipo Eelice under Vesuvius, are a few, out of the thousand 
 instances which must occur at once to the mind of every 
 traveller.
 
 SF.C. IV. (MAP. I. 
 
 OF rnsNKRAL STRUC'IUUK. 269 
 
 investigation. 
 
 Let the reader now open Rogers's Italy, at the seventeentli page, byTunitr's'"' 
 and look at the vignette whicii heads it of the Battle of Marengo. =>'engo. 
 It needs no comment. It cannot but carry witli 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. 
 
 We find, according to this its internal structure, which, I f ■ 9<="'=''?' 
 
 ' <^ divisions 01 
 
 believe, with the assistance of Turner, can scarcely now be mis- su™,^L"f"om 
 
 understood, that the earth may be considered as divided into three ment"."i'l?n of 
 
 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 ; next, 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 minutice 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 inferior mountains, 
 
 and of the foreground.
 
 270 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE CENTRAL MOUNTAINS. 
 
 $ I. Similar 
 character of 
 the central 
 peaks in all 
 parts of the 
 world. 
 
 ^ 2. Their 
 arrangements 
 in pyramids or 
 wedges, divided 
 bj- vertical 
 fissures; 
 
 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 : 
 
 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 trans- 
 versely, 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
 
 SKC. IV. cilAi'. 11. OF THE CENTRAI, MOUNT.\lNS. 271 
 
 one. The planks are cut transversely, sometimes by graceful 
 curvilinear fissures, sometimes by straight fissures, which are 
 commonly parallel to tlie 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 per- 
 fectly 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. 
 
 Hence, however the light may fall, these peaks are seen marked '> 3- Causing 
 
 * groups of rock 
 
 with sharp and defined shadows, indicating the square edges of the a"f(.™ok"^ ^" 
 
 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 ; and this last condition is 
 
 in most cases the indication of the true geological structure ; most 
 
 of the central peaks being fanshaped in the arrangement of their 
 
 beds. But this singular organization is usually concealed by the 
 
 pyramidal cross-cleavages. It was discovered first, I believe, by 
 
 De Saussure, and has of late been carefully examined and verified, 
 
 though not accounted for, by the Swiss geologists. 
 
 Now, if I were lecturing on geology, and were searching for $ 4- The faith- 
 
 P . . , . . , p , . , ful statement 
 
 some means of givmg the most taithiul idea possible of the external of these facts 
 
 by Turner in 
 
 appearance caused by this structure of the primary hills, I should Qa -break" 
 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
 
 2/2 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 § 5- Vignette 
 of the Andes, 
 and others. 
 
 ^ 6. Necessary 
 distance, and 
 consequent 
 aerial effect 
 on alt such 
 mountains. 
 
 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 moun- 
 tain, 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 rule, 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 e.xtent 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. 
 
 In the vignette illustration to Jacqueline, we have another series 
 of peaks, whose structure is less developed, owing to their dis- 
 tance, but equally clear and faithful in all points, as far as it is 
 given. But the vignette of Aosta, in the 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 fhat 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. 
 
 Now, whenever these vast peaks, rising from I2,000 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
 
 sec;. IV. I MAI'. 11. OF Tin-: Cl'.NlK.M. MOUNTAINS. 273 
 
 rui.st 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 a 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 e.xtra- 
 ordinary 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 undistinguishable from the air around them, 
 so that the mountain-top is seen in the heaven only by its flakes of 
 motionless lire. 
 
 Now, let me once more ask, though I am sufficiently tired of §7. Total want 
 
 of an^ render- 
 asking, what record have we of anything like this in the works '"5 of their 
 
 °' JO phenomena m 
 
 of the old masters ? There is no vestige, in any existing picture, of anc'^n' art. 
 
 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, and most unerring judgment, in filling their 
 
 pictureswith mole-hills and sand-heaps. Very probably thewithered 
 
 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 or scenes, but great 
 
 and important classes of them), and still we have nothing to sa}' 
 
 when we come to the old masters ; but " they are not here." Yet 
 
 this is what we hear so constantly called painting "general" 
 
 nature. 
 
 Although, however, there is no vestige among the old masters « 8. character 
 
 . ., ^ , , . , . oftherepresent- 
 
 of any eftort to represent the attributes of the higher mountains ationsof Alps, 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part ll. 
 
 ofQauje""'"^ sceii ill 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 or 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 1 do not see that it can well be intended for anything else, 
 totai^^antof Now no mountain of elevation suflicient to be so sheeted with 
 aerfai'disfaMe, 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 distmguishable .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 oil".'' Is it faint, or fading, or to be looked for
 
 SEC. IV. cHAi'. II. OK TllK Cli.N'TK.M. MOUNT.MNS. 2/5 
 
 by the eye before it can be found out ? Does it looic 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 hori- 
 zon ; 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 cliiefly rests, aerial perspective, hurling defiance 
 to nature in her very teeth. 
 
 But there are worse failures yet in this unlucky distance. Aerial 5 ■<>• And 
 
 •^ -^ violation of 
 
 perspective is not a matter of paramount importance, because nature ^P'^^i^'^ (°''m, 
 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, tlie 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 
 in 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 filmi- 
 ness, nor air in it, instead of rising in the opalescent mystery which 
 invariably characterizes the distant snows, have the forms and the 
 colours of heaps of chalk in a hme-kiln, not of Alps. They are 
 destitute of energy, of height, of distance, of splendour, and of
 
 276 
 
 OF TRUTH OF KARTH. 
 
 ^ II. Even in 
 his best works. 
 
 ^ 12. Farther 
 illustration of 
 the distant 
 character of 
 mountain 
 chains. 
 
 variety, and are the work of a man, whether Claude or not, who 
 had neither feeling for nature, nor knowledge of art. 
 
 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 rendering 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. 
 
 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 each other, 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 grey 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
 
 sr.c. IV. CHAP. 11. OF TIN'. CKNTRAI. MOUNTAINS. 277 
 
 feature connected with hill scenery. You will never, bv any chance, * '3- ''><^''' 
 
 -' 1 J J T excessive ap- 
 
 perceive in extreme distance anything like solid form or projection u^fngparcncy 
 
 of the hills. Each is a dead, flat, perpendiciilar 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 of the more distant peaks is seen 
 
 through the other. 
 
 I may point out, in illustration of these facts, the engravings of « u- iijus- 
 
 trated from 
 
 two drawings of precisely the same chain of distant hills; Stan- the works of 
 
 1 umer and 
 
 field's Borromean Islands, with the St. Gothard in the distance; and gtanfieid. The 
 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- 
 ing 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 liill 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 hills is equally 
 monotonous and devoid of character ; and the effect upon it is not 
 
 Borromean 
 Islands of the 
 latter.
 
 27S 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 ^ 15. Turner's 
 Arona. 
 
 one whit more impressive and agreeable than might be received 
 from a group of sand-heaps, washed into uniformity by recent rain. 
 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 undistinguishable 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 so 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. 
 
 These truths are invariably given in every one of Turner's dis- 
 tances, that is to say, we have always in them two principal facts 
 sharptutiine'!^ 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 directly to the 
 distance, melting lines are characteristic only of thick mist and 
 
 $ 16. Extreme 
 distance of 
 large objects 
 always chai"ac
 
 SEC. IV. cHAi'. II. OF XIIE CENTRAL MOUNTAINS. 2/9 
 
 vapour between us and the object, not of the removal of the object. 
 If a thing has character upon its outHne, 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 whicii 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. So in a mountain five or si.x 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 oft", and though it has become so faint that the morning 
 mist is not so transparent, its outline will be beyond all imita- 
 tion 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, 3'ou bring the object close 
 to the observer, diminish its size in proportion, and if the 
 aerial colours, excessive blues, etc., be retained, represent an 
 impossibility. 
 
 Take Claude's distance, in No. 244 Dulwich Gallery,^ on 517. wantof 
 
 . ,'/-!• T • /- '^'^ decision in 
 
 the right of the picture. It is as pure blue as ever came from the Claude. 
 palette, 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 atmo- 
 sphere 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 
 
 ' One of the most genuine Claudes I know.
 
 2<So 
 
 OF TRMTH OF EARTH. 
 
 § 18. The per- 
 petual render- 
 ing of it by 
 Turner. 
 
 ^ ig. Effects 
 of snow, how 
 imperfectly 
 studied. 
 
 to which the same observation is not entirely applicable, except, 
 perhaps, one or two of Nicolas Poussin's. They always involve, 
 under any supposition whatsoever, at least two impossibilities. 
 
 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 Ben Venue 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 colour 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 colour, the 
 paper probably being turned upside down, so that a very firm edge 
 may be left at the top of the mountain as the colour 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 dis- 
 tinctly darkest at the edge. This plate, though coarsely executed, 
 is yet one of the noblest illustrations of mountain character and 
 magnitude existing. 
 
 .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, j'et another point to 
 be considered, the modification nf their form caused bj- 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
 
 SEC. IV. CFIAP, 11. OF THK CKNTRAL MOUNTAINS. 28l 
 
 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^ jvirath, 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." 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 colour, the reflected lights intense and 
 multitudinous, and mingled with the sweet occurrences of trans- 
 mitted light. No mortal hand can approach the majesty or loveli- 
 ness 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 mag- 
 nificent 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 un- 
 intelligible 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 
 
 ' The best snow scenes (with this only exception, tliat the wreaths are not drawn) 
 wliich I have ever seen are tliose of an ahirosl unknown painter, Mr. Wallis (S. Cottage 
 Grove, West Lane, Walworth). I am obliged to give his address, for his works have 
 been again and again rejected from our exhilntions. In general, these rejections are 
 very just ; but I have known several exceptions, and this is one of the most painful. 
 
 - Compare Part III. Sec. I. Chap. 9 § 5-
 
 282 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. partii. 
 
 SO exquisite ttiat it might have been a lesson 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 unintelligible, 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 Cha- 
 monix, and of the Wengern Alp, in the illustrations to Byron) is 
 best ; but even he shows no perception of the real anatomy. 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 slipper}^ ; 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 phe- 
 nomena 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 Snow is modified bv the under forms of the hill in some sort as 
 
 principles of " 
 
 the "aIps^.™ 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 snoio upon it as it can carrv. It 
 is not, observe, a mere coating of snow of given deptli 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 day 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 superficies of the mountain. 
 Hence it follows that the deepest snow does not take, nor
 
 snc.iv.CHAP.il. OF THK CICNTRAL MOUNTAINS. 283 
 
 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 
 miiuntain form: first the mere coating which is soon to be with- 
 drawn, and which shows as a mere sprinkling or powdering, after a 
 storm on the higher peaks ; tiien the shallow incrustation on the 
 steep sides, glazed by the running down of its frequent meltings, 
 frozen again in the night ; then the deeper 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.' 
 
 Various works in green and white appear from time to time on ^ ^^ Avera-^e 
 
 the walls of the Academy, like the Alps indeed, but so frightfully g^"tzedan£ 
 
 like, that we shudder and sicken at the sight of them, as we do '^ "* ^'""' 
 
 ' 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.
 
 284 OF TRUTH OF FARTH. part 11. 
 
 has scarcely when OUT bcst friend shows us into his dining-room, to see a portrait 
 
 yet been ^ ' ^ 
 
 caught. Qf |-)iniself, which " everybody thinks very Hke," 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 beHeve 
 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 colours; 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 butter- 
 milk. We want the pure and holj' hills, treated as a link between 
 heaven and earth.
 
 SEC. IV. CHAi'. 111. OK TlIK lN'I'ia<IOK MOUNTAINS. 285 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAINS. . 
 
 We have ne.xt to investigate the character of those intermediate t i- The in- 
 
 ^ lenor moun- 
 
 masses which constitute the greater part of all hill scenery, l"i"n"urs'hed'froin 
 forming the outworks of the high ranges, and being almost the Ldne divtd'cd^ 
 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 homo- 
 geneous, 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 
 to 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.
 
 286 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 PAKT II. 
 
 $ 2. Farther di- 
 vision of these 
 beds by joints, 
 
 i 3. And by 
 lines of lami- 
 nation. 
 
 ^ 4. Variety 
 and seeming 
 uncertainty 
 under which 
 these laws are 
 manifested. 
 
 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. 
 
 Finally, in the slates, grauwackes, and some calcareous beds, in 
 the greater number, indeed, of iiioniitain rocks, we find another 
 most conspicuous feature of general structure, the lines of lamina- 
 tion, 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 lamina- 
 tion 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. 
 
 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 upuaid ttndiiicyof tin- trunk itself Rut yet 
 there is not a single group of boughs in aii}' one tree which does
 
 SEC. IV. t.ll.M'. III. 
 
 OF Tin: inki:kior mountains. 287 
 
 not show cxci'ptinns to the rule, and present buughs lower in 
 insertion, and yet steeper in inclination, than their neighbours. 
 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 after- 
 wards 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. 
 
 Now, as in the case of the structure of the central peaks 5 s- The per- 
 
 lect e.\pression 
 
 described above, so also here, if I had to give a clear idea of this of "'<=■", '" , 
 
 ' ' o Turner s Loch 
 
 organization of the lower hills, where it is seen in its greatest per- Conskm, 
 fection, with a mere view to geological truth, I should not refer to
 
 288 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 $ 6. Glencoe, 
 and other 
 works : 
 
 Especially 
 
 the Mount 
 Lebanon. 
 
 any geological drawings, but I should take the Lake Coriskin of 
 Turner. It has been admirably engraved, and for all purposes of 
 reasoning on 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 any- 
 where 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. 
 
 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
 
 SEC. IV. rir.M'. HI. (IF nil': ini.'i:riok mountains. 289 
 
 simplicity whicii 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 moun- 
 tain 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. 
 
 Now compare with this the second mountain from the left in the i s. Compared 
 
 with the work 
 
 picture of Salvator, No. 220 in the Dulwich Gallery. The whole ofSaivator. 
 is first laid in with a very delicate and masterly grey, right in tone, 
 agreeable in colour, 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 grey. These are laid in con- 
 fusion 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 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part 11. 
 
 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. 
 i 9. And of Yet if we go on to No. 269 we shall find something a great deal 
 
 Poussin. a -^ ^ _ 
 
 worse. I can believe Caspar 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 tj'pical. 
 There is no cast 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 any- 
 thing in fact which may serve to break up the light and destroy its 
 breadth, without bestowing in return one hint or shadow of any- 
 thing like form. This picture is, indeed, an extraordinary case, 
 but the Salvator above mentioned is a characteristic and exceed- 
 ingly favourable example of the usual mode of mountain drawing 
 among the old landscape painters.' Their admirers may be chal- 
 lenged 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 shape- 
 less shadows and meaningless lines; sometimes, indeed, where great 
 sublimity has been aimed it, approximating to the pure and exalted 
 ideal of rocks, which, in the most artistical specimens of China 
 
 ' I have above exhauslctl 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 drawing of Salvatur in the 
 pictures of the Pitti Palace.
 
 SEC. IV. tiiAi'. 111. OF THK 1N^"I^R10U MOUNTAINS. 29 1 
 
 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 tlie modifications 
 of character by wiiich natui-e conceals the regularity of her first 
 plan ; for althougli 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. 
 
 We ought, when speaking of their stratification, to have noticed ^ '"■ eC'^^c's 
 
 ^ ' ^ ° ' of external 
 
 another great law, which must, however, be understood with mountain form. 
 
 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. 1 do not say that convex forms 
 
 will not perpetually occur, but that the tendency of the groups 
 
 will always be to fall into sweeping curved valleys, with angular 
 
 peaks ; not rounded convex summits, with angular valleys. This 
 
 structure is admirably exemplified in the second vignette in 
 
 Rogers's Italy and in " Piacenza." 
 
 But, although this is the primary form of all hills, and that « n. The 
 
 {jentle con- 
 
 which will always cut against the skv in every distant range, there vexity caused 
 
 -^ ° ^ ./ '^ ' by aqueous 
 
 are two great influences whose tendency is directly the reverse, and erosion. 
 which modify, to a great degree, both the evidences of stratification 
 and this external form. These are aqueous erosion and disintegra- 
 tion. The latter onlj' 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
 
 292 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part 11. 
 
 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 cliff's and projecting masses, which give evidence of 
 the interior parallelism of the mountain anatomy, but which inter- 
 rupt the convex forms more frequently by rising out of them, than 
 by indentation. 
 $ 12. And the There remains but one fact more to be noticed. All mountains, 
 
 effect of the _ ' 
 
 action of j,^ some degree, but especially those which are composed of soft or 
 
 decomposing substance, are delicately and S3'mmetrically furrowed 
 by the descent of streams. The traces of their action commence 
 at the very summits, fine as 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.' If, on the other hand, the rock be very soft the 
 
 ' .Some terrific cuts and ch.Tsnis of tliis kind occur on tlic nortli side of the V'alais, 
 between Sion and Hrieg. The torrent from tlie great Alctscli glacier descends tliroiigti 
 one of lliem. Klsewliere chasms may be found as narrow, but few so narrow and deep.
 
 SEC. IV. CUM'. III. 
 
 OF THK INFKRIOR MOUNTAINS. 293 
 
 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 pent- 
 house-like ridges, all guiding to its sunmiit, and becoming steeper 
 and narrower as they ascend ; these in their turn being divided 
 l)y 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 soft- 
 ness of the rock. The south side of Saddleback, in Cumberland, 
 is a characteristic example ; and the Montague de Taconay, in 
 Chamonix, a noble instance of one of these ridges or buttresses, 
 with all its subdivisions, on a colossal scale. 
 
 Now we wish to draw especial attention to the broad and bold 5 13- The ex- 
 ceeding simpli- 
 simplicity of mass, and the excessive complication of details, which city of contour 
 
 ^ -' ' * ' caused by these 
 
 influences like these, acting on an enormous scale, must inevitably '"""'nces. 
 
 produce in all mountain groups : because each individual part and 
 
 promontory, being compelled to assume the same symmetrical 
 
 curves as its neighbours, 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 
 
 neighbours, and carry out the evidence of one great influence and 
 
 spirit to the limits of the scene. This effort is farther aided bj' 
 
 the original unity and connection of the rocks themselves, which, 
 
 though it often may be violently interrupted, is never without 
 
 evidence of its 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 remem- § 14. And 
 
 , . multiplicity of 
 
 bered that these great sympathizmg masses are not one mountain, feature. 
 but a thousand mountains ; that they are originally composed of a 
 multitude of separate eminences, hewn and chiselled indeed into
 
 294 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 5 15. Both ut- 
 terly neglected 
 in ancient art. 
 
 « 16. The 
 fidelity of 
 treatment in 
 Turner's 
 Daphne and 
 Leucippiis. 
 
 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 moun- 
 tains ; finally, that the whole complicated system is interrupted 
 for ever 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 hair's-breadth 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 its increasing aerial perspective, and its 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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
 
 SEC. IV. c MAP. III. OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAINS. 295 
 
 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 and the multiplicity which are in nature, and 
 with Turner, the signs of size. 
 
 Again, in the Avalanche and Inundation, we have for the whole i 17. And in 
 
 the Avalanche 
 
 subject nothing but one vast bank of united mountain, and one and inundation. 
 
 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 tilling furrow before the 
 
 flood. Whose work will you compare with this ? Salvator's grey 
 
 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
 
 296 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part ii. 
 
 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 ? 
 i 18. Therarity But let US examine by what management of the details them- 
 
 among se- 
 
 condary hills of gelvcs this wholeness and vastness of effect are given. We have 
 
 steep slopes or ^ 
 
 high precipices, j^gj. gggj^ (§ ii) that it is impossible for the slope of a mountain, 
 not actually a precipice of rock, to exceed 35° or 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 lOO 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 tiiese have little influence 
 on the great contours of a mountain 4,000 or 5,000 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. 
 
 5 19. And con- Now it is evident, tliat, whatever the actual angle of elevation of 
 
 sequent expres- ' ^ 
 
 faJdisti'n^'eln" ^^6 mountain may be, every exhibition of this horizontal distance 
 
 leir ascent. between us and the summit is an addition to its height, and of 
 
 course to its impressiveness ; while every endeavour to exhibit its 
 
 slope as steep and sudden is diminution at once of its distance and 
 
 elevation. In consequence, nature is constantly endeavouring to
 
 SEC. IV. CHAP. III. OF Till-; INFKRIOR MOUNTAINS. 297 
 
 inipres.s upon us this horizontal di.stancc, which, even in spite of all 
 her means of manifesting it, we are apt to forget or under-estimate ; 
 and all Iier 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 prefer- 
 ence 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. 
 
 The Caudebec, in the Rivers of France, is a fine instance of i =<>• f"" 
 
 statement of all 
 
 almost every fact which we have been pointing out. We have in 'I'ese facts in 
 
 -^ r o various works 
 
 it, first, the clear expression of what takes place constantly among caudebecTtc. 
 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 moulder- 
 ing 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, nor 
 independent of, the one succeeding, but evidently part of the same 
 whole, originally united, separated only by the action of the stieam 
 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 tl-ie 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
 
 298 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 $ 21. The use 
 of considering 
 geological 
 truths. 
 
 § 22. Expres- 
 sion of retiring 
 surface by Tur- 
 ner contrasted 
 with the work 
 of Claude. 
 
 those beyond it ; for we see that these latter are only the termina- 
 tion 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 halfway up, a league or two forward into the picture. The 
 difficulty of doing this, however, can scarcely be appreciated except 
 by an artist. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 com- 
 pare with either of these noble works such hills as those of Claude, 
 on the left of the picture marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallerj'. 
 There is no detail nor surface in one of tliem ; not an inch of ground
 
 SEC. IV. CHAP. 111. OF THE INFKRIOR MOUNrAINS. 299 
 
 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 ; noi' can I oppose it more completely, 
 in every circumstance, tlian with the Honfleur of Turner, already 
 mentioned ; in which there is not one edge i>r 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 magnifi- 
 cent 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 for 
 ever, without finding either one break in its vast simplicity, or one 
 vacuity in its exhaustless splendour. 
 
 But these, and hundreds of others, which it is sin not to dwell 5 23' The same 
 
 moderation of 
 
 upon, wooded hills and undulating moors of North England, rolling slope in the 
 
 r ' o o » o contours of his 
 
 surges of park and forest of the South, soft and vine-clad ranges higher hiUs. 
 
 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 iiills. 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 vapour ; 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
 
 300 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part m. 
 
 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 pecu- J oueht perhaps rather to have selected, as instances of mountain 
 
 liar difficult^' of => r r 
 
 the moS eSs^en- fomi, such elaborate works as the Oberwesel or Lake of Uri, but I 
 hTi'i ouThne?^ 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 beau- 
 tiful. There is an expression about all the hill lines of nature, 
 which I think 1 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 ej'es, a melody of the heart, whose truth is known 
 only by its sweetness. 
 f) 25. Works of I can scarcely, without repeating myself to tediousness, enter at 
 
 other modern "^ . . 
 
 cf'^^kso 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, for the per- 
 fect statement of them, there is a necessity of such a union of 
 freedom of thought with perfect mastery over the greatest me- 
 chanical 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, miglit be applied to his rendering of mountain truth. He 
 occupies exactly the same position with respect to other artists in 
 
 Clarkson 
 Stanfield
 
 SEC. IV. CHAP. III. OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAI.NS. 301 
 
 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 develop- 
 ment ; 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 iiatuie. I lence, 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 (Sec. I. Chap. III.) Lee of"par-' 
 
 ,, , ^. 1 . ,1 • . . ,1 1 1 ticular and iii- 
 
 that particular truths are more unportant than general ones, and dividual truth 
 
 .... ,. 1 . , . , , . ,, ,. in hill drawing. 
 
 this IS just one of the cases in v/hich 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 coloured with associa- 
 tions. 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 
 honour 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 gneissj ; 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
 
 302 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part ii. 
 
 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. 
 Co'le^Reid"*^ Copley Fielding is peculiarly graceful and affectionate in his 
 
 fefiing?'^ '"^'^ 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 his 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, incor- 
 poreal colour, and all those qualities which are the poetry of moun- 
 tains, than any other of our water-colour 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 labour. A 
 few thorough studies of his favourite mountains, Ben Venue or Ben 
 Cruachan, in clear, strong, front chiaroscuro, allowing himself neither 
 colour nor mist, nor any means of getting over the ground but down- 
 right 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 labour bestowed on the repetition 
 of unchanging conceptions. 
 ^ 28. Works of J. D. Harding would paint mountains very nobly, if he made 
 
 |. D. lluidJiiK . , ■ . . 1 1 
 
 ind otinis. them of more miportancc m his compositions, but tliey are usually 
 
 little mori' than backgrounds for his foliage or buildings ; and it is
 
 SEC. IV. (;h,\1'. 
 
 OK THK INFKRIOR MOUNTAINS. 303 
 
 his present system to make his baclvgrounds very shght. Some of 
 the best and most substantial renderings of the green and turfy 
 masses of our lower iiills are to be found in the drawings of 
 Blacklock ; and I am sorry not to have before noticed the quiet 
 and simple earnestness, and the tender feeling, of tlie mountain 
 drawings of William Turner of Oxford.' 
 
 ' It is not without indignation that I see the drawings of this patient and un- 
 assuming master deliberately insulted every year by the Old Water-Colour Society, and 
 placed in consistent degradation at the top of the room, while the commonest affec- 
 tations and trickeries of vulgar draughtsmanship are constantly hung on the line. 
 Except the works of Hunt, Prout, Cox, Fielding, and Finch, there are generally none 
 in the room which deserve so honourable a place as those of William Turner.
 
 304 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF THE FOREGROUND. 
 
 s I. What ^p have now only to observe the close characteristics of the rocivS 
 
 rocks were the -J 
 
 nentsofancient 'ind soils to which the large masses of which we have been speaking 
 
 foreground. owc their ultimate characters. 
 
 We have already seen that there exists a marked distinction 
 between those stratified rocks whose beds are amorphous and with- 
 out 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 oi soiucthiiig, may be pronounced at least liker 
 the mountain limestone than anything else. I shall glance, there- 
 fore, 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 The niassive limestones separate generally into irregular blocks, 
 
 limestones. The 
 
 real characters tending to the fomi of cubes or parallelopipeds, and terminated by 
 
 obtusencssof tolerably smooth planes. The weather, acting on the edges of 
 
 angles. thcse blocks, rounds them off; but the frost, which, while it cannot 
 
 penetrate nor split tiic body of tlic stone, acts energetically on the
 
 SEC. IV. cilAr. IV. or TlIK FOKKGROUNO. 305 
 
 angles, splits off the rounded fragments, and supplies siiarp, 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 laminse 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 would be on the angle ; and liowever 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 /ro;;/ 
 the angle. 
 
 Now it will be found throughout the works of Salvator, that 5 3- SaWator-s 
 
 '^ acute angles 
 
 his most usual practice was to give a concave sweep of the brush ""etini'of '"^ 
 for his first expression of the dark side, leaving the paint darkest 
 towards the light ; by which daring and original method of pro- 
 cedure he has succeeded in covering his foregrounds with forms 
 which approximate to those of drapery, of ribands, 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. ^ And the circular and sweeping strokes or stains which 
 are dashed at random over their surfaces, only fail of destroying 
 
 ' 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 structure, which is the 
 
 VOL. I. 20 
 
 meetii 
 concave curves.
 
 ^o6 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 ^ 4. Peculiar 
 distinctness of 
 light and shade 
 in the rocks of 
 nature. 
 
 ^ 5. Peculiar 
 confusion of 
 both in the 
 rocks of Sal- 
 vator. 
 
 « 6. And total 
 want of any 
 expression of 
 hardness or 
 brittleness. 
 
 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 developes 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 colour, 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 grey marks will do for that shade." 
 
 Finally, while few, if any, of the rocks of nature are untraversed 
 by delicate and slender fissures, whose black sh^p 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 
 
 true characteristic 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 ribands and not of rocl<s. The difference between rock 
 curvature and other curvature I cannot explain verbally, but I hope to do it hereafter 
 liy ilhistration ; 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. The account of rocks here given 
 is altogether inade<iuale, ami I only do not add to it because I first wish to give longer 
 study to the subject.
 
 SEC. IV. CHAP. IV. OF THK FORKCJHOIIND. 3O7 
 
 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 i ?■ instances 
 
 •^ J ' > f 'in particular 
 
 No. 220 of the Dulwich Gallery. There is, on the right-hand pi^uies. 
 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 colour ; 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. 
 
 Let us contrast with this system of rock-drawing the faithful, ■vfth'"th?work3 
 scientific, and dexterous studies of nature which we find in the "f^'anfieid. 
 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 impos- 
 sible 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 colour, 
 however richly his surface texture may be given ; while the won- 
 derful 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 among small and 
 easily accessible engravings, the Botallack Mine, Cornwall, engraved
 
 3o8 
 
 OF TRUTH OF F,ARTH. 
 
 i g. Their ab- 
 solute opposi- 
 tion in every 
 particular. 
 
 ^ lo. The rocks 
 of 1. D. Hard- 
 ing. 
 
 in the Coast Scenery, gives us a very finished and generic repre- 
 sentation of rock, whose primal organisation 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 
 Salvators 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. 
 
 The foregrounds of J. D. Harding, and the 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 
 colour : 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 colour, also, he incomparablj' surpasses 
 Stanfield, who is apt to verge upon mud, or be cold in his grey.
 
 snc. IV. CHAP. IV. OF THK FORKfJROUND. 3O9 
 
 The rich, Hchciioiis, and changeful warmth, and delicate weathered 
 grey.s 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 colour, and 
 is getting more and more mannered in execution, evidently never 
 studying from nature except with the previous determination to 
 Pynize everything.' 
 
 Before passing to Turner, let us take one more glance at the f "■ f-'jiarac- 
 
 *■ *j ' o tcrs of loose 
 
 foregrounds of the old masters, with reference, not to their manage- """"' '"""' ''"''• 
 ment 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 ob.server. 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 organiza- 
 tion no less rigid. It is furrowed in the first place by undulating 
 lines, caused 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 
 
 ' A passage wliich I happened to see in an essay of Mr. Pyne's, in the Art-Union, 
 aliout nature's " foisting rubbish " upon the artist, sufticiently 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 ; 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 ne.xt 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 
 im])ortant map of a newly surveyed country, he will find, when he has brought them 
 all home, that any one of them is better than tlie best he ever invented. Compare 
 12, 13-
 
 3IO OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part ii. 
 
 i 1=. Its ex- in their chiselling. Where a harder knot of ground or a stone 
 
 ceedine grace ° 
 
 and fulness occufs, 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 ex- 
 plained 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 differe^lt 
 parts of one system. Each would be imperfect without the one 
 next to it. 
 « 13- The Now it is all but impossible to express distinctly the particulars 
 
 Teniers. 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 or 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
 
 SEC. IV. CHAP. IV. OF THE FORI'OROUiND. 
 
 311 
 
 various ground colours, without a single indication of character by 
 means of real shade. 
 
 Let not these points be deemed unimportant : the trutlis of form u- iniimrt- 
 
 ance of tnese 
 
 in common orround are quite as valuable flet me anticipate mvself '"inor p.nrts 
 
 ^ ir J .ind points. 
 
 for a moment), quite as beautiful, as any others which nature 
 
 presents ; and in lowland landscape they furnish 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 5 is- The ob- 
 servance of 
 master and a novice, except in the rendering of the finer truths of them is the 
 
 * ^ real distinction 
 
 which I am at present speaking. To handle the brush freely, and ma"terand1he 
 
 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 unregarding ; 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. 
 
 It would take me no reasonable or endurable time, if I were to ^ t6. Ground of 
 
 Cuyp. 
 
 point out one half of the various kinds and classes of falsehood
 
 312 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 ^ 17. And of 
 Claude. 
 
 $ iS. The en- 
 tire weakness 
 and childish- 
 ness or the 
 latter, 
 
 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 a certain kind of 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 imagi- 
 nation, and, in consequence, strews his banks with lumps of dough, 
 instead of stones. Perhaps, however, the foregrounds of Claude 
 afford the most remarkable instances of childishness and incom- 
 petence of all. That of his morning landscape, with the large group 
 of trees and high single-arched bridge, in the National Gallery, is a 
 fair example of the kind of error into which he constantly falls. I 
 will not say anything of the agreeable composition of the three 
 banks, rising one behind another from the water, except only 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 harmo- 
 nized anatomy of nature ; and he had found that owing to his total 
 ignorance of the laws of perspective such efforts on his part invari-
 
 SEC. IV. CHAP. IV. or TIIIC FORI-f.ROUXD. 3I3 
 
 ably 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 promon- 
 tories, 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 5 19- comp.ired 
 
 with the work 
 
 it be asked, how the proceeding differs from that of nature, I have ofTurner. 
 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 retire- 
 ment 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 
 uienibcrs, not divisions of its mass. But these modulations are 
 countless ; heaving here, sinking there ; now swelling, now moulder- 
 ing ; 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. 
 
 Let us, then, having now obtained some insight into the prin- \ =°- General 
 
 ' ' ° or features of 
 
 ciples of the old masters in foreground drawing, contrast them Jro'und!^ '^°"'" 
 throughout with those of our great modern master. The investi- 
 gation 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
 
 jH of truth of earth. part II. 
 
 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. 
 i 21. Geoiogi- The Upper Fall of the Tees, Yorkshire, engraved in the England 
 
 cal structure ^^ ' > o o 
 
 thi^Falfoflhe scrics, 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 the 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 sub- 
 stance in the direction of another more important line of joints, 
 running 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 toward us, and are traversed downw^ards 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 
 
 § 22. Their modifying effects of the weather and the torrent. Observe how the 
 
 convex surfdc&s 
 
 and fractured whole sufface of the hill above the precipice on the left ' 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 clearly and sharply 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, 
 
 ' In lliu liglit liL'lweeii the waterfall and llie large dark mass on the extreme left. 
 
 edges :
 
 SEC, IV. criAP. IV. OF TIIK FORFGROIIND. 3I5 
 
 until they are torn down into the face of the precipice. Finally. ^ ^3- ■*"'' 
 
 ' ' ■' ' perlect unity. 
 
 observe the exquisite variety of all the touches which express 
 fissure or shade ; every one in varying direction and with new 
 form, and yet of which one deep aisd marked piece of shadow indi- 
 cates the greatest proximity ; 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, or 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 « ^^, Various 
 upon the whole system of aqueous erosion, and speculate as fistory is°toid 
 safely upon the past and future states of this very spot, as if he details of the 
 
 drawing. 
 
 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 place 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
 
 3l6 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. part ii. 
 
 hollowed into a complete vault by the elastic bound of the water. 
 But neither he nor I could tell you with what e.xquisite 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 With this inimitable drawing we may compare the rocks in the 
 
 instance of an 
 
 exception to foreground of the Llanthony. These latter are not divided by joints, 
 
 general rules in ° -' ^ j > 
 
 the Llanthony. ^j^(. jj^jq j.]^j^ horizontal and united beds, which the torrent in its 
 times of flood has chiselled away, leaving one e.xposed 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. 
 5 26. Turner's The Lower Fall of the Tees, with the chain-bridge, might serve 
 
 tached blocks US for an illustratioH of all the properties and forms of vertical beds 
 
 of weathered r \ itt t^hi r \ ' 11 1 
 
 store, of rock, as the Upper tall 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
 
 SEC. IV. CHA1-. IV. OF THK FORECIROUND. 317 
 
 action. Their surfaces seem to palpitate from tlie 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 modula- 
 tion 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, 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 accumu- 
 lated multitude, the repetition of a single line. 
 
 I consider cases like these, of perfect finish and new conception, ^ 27. And of 
 applied and exerted in the drawing of every member of a confused foreground, 
 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 indi- 
 vidual 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 obser- 
 vations 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 imper- 
 ceptibly along the unbroken bank, till you find yourself a quarter
 
 318 
 
 OF TRUTH OF EARTH. 
 
 i 28. And of 
 loose soil. 
 
 $ 29. The 
 unison of all 
 in the ideal 
 foregrounds of 
 the Academy 
 pictures. 
 
 of a mile into the picture, beside the figure at the bottom of the 
 waterfall. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 com- 
 bination 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 dift'erent direction,
 
 . SEC. IV. C.IA1-. IV. OF THIC FORKGROU.ND. 3I9 
 
 and viewing them as part of a new system every time that it 
 
 begins its course at a new point. One lesson, however, we are 5 30. And the 
 
 jjrcat lesson to 
 
 invariably taught by all, however approached or viewed, that the ^l- received 
 
 ^ ^ ' trom all. 
 
 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 tlie 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.
 
 320 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 5 I. Sketch of Of all iiiorganic substances, actinsr in their own proper nature, and 
 
 the functions ° . & r r 
 
 and infinite without Essistancc Or Combination, water is the most wonderful. 
 
 agency ol 
 
 water. jj- ^g 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 foam 
 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 tliat 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. 
 
 i 2. The ease To suggcst the ordinary appearance of calm water, to lay on 
 
 with which a 
 
 common repre- canvas as nmch evidence of surface and reflection as may make
 
 sF.r. V. CHAP. T, OF WATICU, AS PAINTKD HY Tlil'; ANCIIINTS. 32 1 
 
 US understand that water is meant, is, perhaiis, the easiest task ^"i.itiMi'ofit 
 
 ' ' ' ' may be (jiven. 
 
 of art ; and even ordinary ruiniiiig or falling water may be suffi- |[i'|'ii 'ofa"""' 
 ciently rendered, by observing careful cur\'es 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 wave, 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 colour, when every 
 ripple and wreath has some peculiar jiassage 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. 
 
 As the general laws which govern the appearances of water have i i- Difficulty 
 
 of properly 
 
 equal effect on all its forms, it would be injudicious to treat the dividing the 
 
 * ' '' subject. 
 
 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 forward at 
 
 the water-painting of the ancients ; then at that of the moderns 
 
 generally ; lastly, at that of Turner. 
 
 It is necessary in the outset to state briefly one or two of the ^ 4- inaccu- 
 racy of study 
 
 optical conditions by which the appearance of the surface of water of water-effect 
 
 ^ '^ amonjj all 
 
 is affected ; to describe them all would require a separate essa}^ painters. 
 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, inex- 
 plicable, 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, 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part ii. 
 
 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 land- 
 scape is finished from nature, the water is merely indicated as 
 something that maj' be done at any time ; and then, in the home 
 work, come the cold leaden greys 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 every 
 thing that is shallow and commonplace with all. Now, the fact is 
 that there is hardly a road-side pond or pool which has not as much 
 landscape /// 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 sk}'. 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 far-seeing is 
 just the difference between the great and the vulgar painter : the 
 common man kiioius the road-side 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,
 
 SEC. V. ciiAP. 1. OF WATER, AS PAINTFD BY TITF AXCIKNTS. 323 
 
 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 n)iddle, drawn as completely as 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 about the 
 matter. But now they d(3 nothing of the kind, but take the ugly, 
 round, yellow surface for granted, or else "improve" it at home; 
 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 liurt ours ; failing, of course, still more hopelessly in 
 reaching the pure 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 iminterpreted streams 
 and maligned sea "hiss shame upon us from all their rocky beds 
 and hollow shores. 
 
 I approach this part of my subject with more despondency than s^s- Difficulty 
 
 of treating this 
 
 any other, and that for several reasons; first, the watei'-painting pan. or the 
 of all the elder landscape painters, except a few of the better 
 passages of Claude and Ruysdael, is so execrable, so beyond all 
 expression and explanation bad, and 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 
 Royal Academy, the admiration of them would have been com- 
 prehensible ; there being a natural predilection in the mind of man 
 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
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 ^ 6. (icncial 
 laws which 
 regulate the 
 phenomena of 
 water. First, 
 
 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, or 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 dis- 
 couraging 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 con- 
 ventionalism : 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 them- 
 selves 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 intel- 
 ligence of the elder painters in this easier field, and so prove their 
 probable failure in contending with greater difficulties. 
 
 I. Water, of course, owing to its transparency, possesses n(.t a 
 perfectly reflective surface, like that of speculum metal, but a 
 surface whose reflective power is dependent on the angle at which
 
 SEC. V. CHAP. I. OF WAIKR, AS I'AINTKD BY Till-; ANCIENTS. 325 
 
 the rays to he reflected fall. 'Hie smaller this ani;le, the greater '!'<= '™P.'=''i"'--'--- 
 
 •^ ^^ > o t ,,,„ „( itH re- 
 
 are the iiuinher of rays reflected. Now, according to the niimber "'■'■^'■'■'■' surnice. 
 
 of raj's rellectetl is the force of the image of objects above, ami 
 
 according to the number of rays transmitted is the perceptibility of 
 
 objects below, the water. Hence the visible transparency and 
 
 reflected 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. 
 
 II. The brighter the objects reflected, the larger the angle at J ?■ The in- 
 
 '^ -^ » o o herent hue of 
 
 which reflection is visible. It is always to be remembered that, ^J^X'vTnec-''^^ 
 
 strictly speaking, only light objects are reflected, and that the n°"affecf''"'''' 
 
 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 iri 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 colour of that 
 
 bottom and of the water itself mingles with and modifies that 
 
 of the colour 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 colour and a grace 
 and evanescence are introduced in the reflection otherwise im- 
 possible. 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 colour modifying the
 
 T,?6 OF TRUTH OF WATER. i-akt ii. 
 
 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 sk}', 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 colour of the water under sunlight ; 
 while the orange masts of the vessels, wet with a recent shower, 
 are reflected without change of colour, only not quite so bright as 
 above. One ship has a white, another a red stripe," (I ought to 
 have said, running horizontally 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. 
 
 "A boat swinging near the quay casts an apparent shadow on 
 the rippled water. This appearance I find to be owing altogether 
 to the increased reflective power of the water in the shaded space ; 
 for the farther sides of the ripples therein take the deep pure blue 
 of the sky, coming strongly dark on the pale green, and the nearer 
 sides take the pale grey of the cloud, hardly darker than the 
 bright green." 
 
 I have inserted the last two paragraphs because they will be 
 
 useful to us presently ; all that I wish to insist upon here is the 
 
 showing of the local colour (pea-green) of the water in the spaces 
 
 which were occupied by dark reflections, and the unaltered colour 
 
 of the bright ones. 
 M- Water HI. Clear water takes no shadow, and that for two reasons: 
 
 takes no 
 
 shadow. jj perfect surface of speculum metal takes no shadow (this the 
 
 reader may instantly demonstrate for himself), and a perfectly 
 Iransjiarent 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 frecjucntly
 
 SKC. V. ciiAi'. 1. OV WATKH, AS I'A1NTJ;D BV 1111-: ANCIENTS. 32/ 
 
 and sharply : it is necessary carefully to explain the causes of these, as 
 they form one of the most eminent sources of error in water painting. 
 
 First, water in shade is much more reflective than water in sun- 
 liglit. Under sunlight the local colour 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,' 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 colour, rendering all 
 reflections discoloured 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 colour in day-time, receives at evening the image of its 
 rocky shores. On our own seas, seeming shadows are seen con- 
 stantly 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 colour ol the sea in the 
 sunlighted spaces, and turned more or less purple by the opposition 
 of the vivid green. 
 
 We have seen however above, that the local colour of water, 5 9- Modifica- 
 tion of dark 
 while it comnarati\elY refuses dark reflections, accepts bright ones reflections by 
 
 ' ^ ' r o shadow. 
 
 without deadening them. Hence when a shadow is thrown across 
 a space of water of strong local colour, receiving, alternately, light 
 and dark reflections, it has no power of increasing the reflective- 
 ness 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. 
 
 ' 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.
 
 328 OF TRUTH OF WATER. hart ii. 
 
 Let US take an instance of the exquisite complexity of effect 
 induced by tliese various circumstances in co-operation. 
 
 Suppose a space of clear water showing the bottom, under a 
 group of trees showing sky through their branches, and casting 
 shadows on the surface of the water, which we will suppose also to 
 possess some colour of its own. Close to us, we shall see the 
 bottom, with the shadows of the trees clearly thrown upon it, and 
 the colour 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 colour 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, being thus fictitious, of necessity vanishes. 
 
 Farther, on whatever dust and other foulness may be present in 
 water, real shadow of course 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 upon such spaces 
 seeming shadows 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.
 
 sr.c. V. CHAP. I. OF WATER, AS rAIN'TKl) BY THK ANCIENTS. 329 
 
 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 lifty fathoms, and perhaps more, the local colour 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 rellected from 
 below forms an apparent shadow, often visibly detached some 
 distance from the floating object which casts it. 
 
 The following extract from my own diary at Geneva, with the i lo. Ex.-mi- 
 
 ples on the 
 
 last paragraph of that already given at Venice, illustrates both this water of uic 
 and the other points we have been stating. 
 
 "Geneva, 2ist 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 colour 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 spots. 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 colour of the boat ; where the shadow falls out of the reflection, 
 it is of a leaden purple, pale. 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
 
 330 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 ^11. Effect 
 of ripple on 
 distant water. 
 
 ^ 12. Elong.v 
 tion of reflec- 
 tions by mov- 
 ing water. 
 
 rather covered by, innumerable smaller waves, each of which, in 
 all probability, from some of its edges or surfaces reflects the sun- 
 beams ; and hence result a glitter, polish, and vigorous light over 
 the whole flank of the waves, which are, of course, instantly with- 
 drawn 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 ■Uithdrawal 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 
 the sunny general hue to a lower tone, but it is a space of 
 an entirely different colour, 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. 
 
 IV. 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 colour of the sky. 
 
 V. 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 elon- 
 gates reflections, and throws them into confused vertical lines. The
 
 SEC.v. CUM'. 1. OF WATFR, AS PAINTICI) l)Y TMK ANCIENTS. 33I 
 
 real amount of tliis elongation is not distinctly visible, except in 
 the case of very briglit 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 arc on perfectly 
 calm water, but as long streams of ti'emulous 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 in- 
 telligent 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 ten 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 rellect 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 
 towerlike 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 foimd 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 conunonly suppose to be a
 
 332 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 « 13. Effect of 
 rippled water 
 on horizontal 
 and inclined 
 images. 
 
 ^ 14. To what 
 extent reflec- 
 tion is visible 
 from above. 
 
 « 15. Deflec- 
 tion of images 
 on agitated 
 water. 
 
 surface of uniform colour 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 analysing or understanding for what 
 they are. 
 
 VI. 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 circum- 
 stance which prevented the red and white stripe of the ships at 
 Venice, noticed above, from being visible. 
 
 VII. 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. 
 
 VIII. 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 rougii 
 practice, after the slope of the wave is determined, let the artist 
 turn his paper until such slope becomes horizontal, and then paint 
 the reflections of any object upon it as on level water, and he will 
 be right.
 
 SKC. V. CHAP, 1, OF VVATKR, AS PAI\Ti:l) liV Tlir; ANCIENTS. 333 
 
 Such are the most common anil general optical laws which are 5 '6- Necessity 
 
 ol watchl'ul- 
 
 to be taken into consideration in the paintinc; of water. Yet. in "css, as wdi .is 
 
 ^ ^ ^ or science. 
 
 the applicaticm of thcin as tests of good or bad water-painting, we I'aktTby'glTat 
 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 tiiem, 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 labour 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, that is most to be con- 
 temned which punishes great works of art when they fight with- 
 out armour, 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
 
 334 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part ll. 
 
 Adam and Eve out of the garden : not leading thcni to the gate 
 with consolation or counsel ; the painter's strange ardour of con- 
 ception cannot suffer this. Full speed they fly, the angel and 
 the human creatures ; tlie 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 cir- 
 cumstance, 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 
 for ever ! 
 
 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 
 license or 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 recognized, 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. 
 i 17. Various In onc of the smaller rooms of the Uflizii at Florence, ofl' the 
 
 licenses or 11 i /— 1 
 
 errors in water- Tribune, there are two so-called Claudes; onc a pretty wooded
 
 SEC. V. CHAP. 1. OF WATER, AS PAINTICD I!V 1 1 1 K ANCIENTS. 335 
 
 landscape, I think a copy, the otiicr a marine with architecture, E.?'"'j"B°f 
 
 '■^ ' Claude, Cuyp, 
 
 very sweet and genuine. The sun is setting at the side of the ^""'•'•■^''^i''^' 
 
 picture, it casts a long stream of hght upon the water. This 
 
 stream of light is oblique, and comes from the horizon, where it is 
 
 under the sim, 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 tlie 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 this supposed point, the 
 
 error being excusable enough, and plausible enough to have been 
 
 lately revived and systematized.' 
 
 In the picture of Cuyp, No. 83 in the Dulvvich 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 
 
 ' Parsey's " Convergence of Perpendiculars." I have not space liere 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.
 
 .l3<5 OF TRUTH OF WATKR. iart li. 
 
 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 vvater 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 absolutelj' windless, and the near boat 
 casts its image with great fidelit\', which being unprolonged down- 
 wards 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 gre}' 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 faithful!}', 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 grey 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 liquidit}'. 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. 
 t'8- And Among all the pictures of Canaletto, which I have ever seen, and 
 
 Canrletto. at- i > 
 
 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
 
 SFC. V. CHAP. I. or WAIKR, AS PAINTEn HY TIIK ANCIFNTS. 33" 
 
 covcrec], 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 rip])les, 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 grey or blue, the colour 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 colour, 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 agreealjle 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 oft'. 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 know- 
 
 VOL. I. ^^
 
 jj<^ 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATFR. 
 
 ledge 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 in- 
 accuracy of observation of the public to secure him from detection. 
 « J9. Why Now in all these cases it is not the mistake or the license itself, 
 
 unpardonable. 
 
 it is not the infringement of this or that law, which condemns 
 the picture, but it is the 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 colour 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 thc^usand reflected tints 
 without overpowering the weakest of them ; and thus, in every one 
 of those individual waves, the truths of colour 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 tiie foul water laps 
 more and more sluggishly against the rent foundations : but even 
 yet, could 1 but place the reader at early morning on the quay 
 below the Rialto, when the market boats, full laden, float into 
 groups of golden colour, and let him watch the dashing of the 
 water about their glittering steely heads, and under the shadows of 
 the vine leaves ; and sliow him the purple of the grapes and the
 
 SEC. V. niAP. I. OF WAIKR, AS PAINTKD HY TUV. ANCIllNTS. 339 
 
 figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds, carried awav 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 colour, the naked, bronzed, burning limbs of the seamen, the 
 last of the old Venetian race, who yet keep the right Giorgione 
 colour 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. 
 
 Yet even Canaletto, in relation to the truths he had to paint, is §20. The Dutch 
 
 painters oi 
 
 spiritual, faithful, powerful, compared with 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 colours 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 gre}', to have the grey of stormy 
 air mixed with its own deep, heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, 
 and not the grey 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 few 
 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. 
 
 There is a sea-piece of Ruysdael's in the Louvre, which, though ^-'•^'^"^'I'j^'''' 
 nothing very remarkable in anj' 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 colour ; the wind blows hard over 
 
 Salvator.
 
 340 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part u. 
 
 the shore, and the whole picture may be studied with profit, as 
 a proof that the deficiency of colour and ever3'thing else, in 
 Backhuysen's works, is no fault of the Dutch sea. There is 
 sublimity 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 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. The}' 
 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 times 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. Nicoio The merits of Poussin as a sea or water painter may, I think, be 
 
 Poussin. . T 1 1 T-\ 1 -IT 
 
 sufficiently deternimed by the Deluge m the Louvre, where the 
 breaking up of the fountains of the deep is typified bj' the capsizing 
 of a wherry over a weir. 
 
 In the outer porch of St. Mark's, at Venice, among the mosaics 
 (in the roof, there is a representation of the deluge. The ground is 
 dark blue ; the rain is represented in bright white undulating
 
 sKt. V. C11A1-. I. OF WATKI?, AS PAINTED P.Y Tlir: ANCII'.NTS. 34! 
 
 parallel stripes ; between these stripes is seen the massy outline of 
 the ark, a bit between each stripe, very dark and hardly dis- 
 tinguishable 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 strands (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 representations 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 rude, 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 mean- 
 ness and apathy of such a conception as his, and the extravagance, 
 still more contemptible, with which the subject has been treated in 
 modern days.' 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. 
 
 ' 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 Rafl'aelle and M. Angelo.
 
 and Floren- 
 tines. Conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 342 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part 11. 
 
 an"d'Fk)ren''*°^ It sccms 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 (pp. 86, 107), whatever 
 passages of sea occur in their backgrounds are merely broad ex- 
 tents of blue or green surface, fine in colour, 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 
 nothnig 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'^'. Maddalena at Florence is freely in- 
 dicated, 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 ait 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.
 
 SEC. y. CHAP. II. OK WATliK, .\b I'AINIKD HY Till'. MODEU.NS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF WATIiR, AS PAINTED BY THE MODERNS. 
 
 TiiERi-: are Itw men ainoiisf niudciii landscaiie painters who cannot * i- General 
 
 ^ ^ * power of the 
 
 paint quiet water at least suggestively, if not faithfully. Those p!j°;|j'/"ng,|ujet 
 who are incapable of doing this would scarcely be considered artists SS^'of '"^ 
 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 surl'ace 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 difllcult, lustrous. He is less 
 dependent than most of our artists upon reflection ; 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 colour. 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 prettj', rather 
 than impressive colour, and a consequent want of some of the higher 
 expression of repose. 
 
 Hundreds of men might be named, whose works are highly 52. Thecha- 
 
 racter of bright 
 
 instructive in the management of calm water. Stand for half an and violent 
 
 falling water, 
 
 hour beside the Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side where the
 
 344 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends, 
 unbroken, in pure poHshed 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 chequer 
 them with purple and silver. I believe, when you have stood by 
 this for half an hour, you will have discovered that there is some- 
 « 3. As given thing Hiore in nature than has been given by Ruysdael. Probably 
 ^ "^ " ' yQu ^yiu i^Qt 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 has shown extraordinary feeling, both 
 for the colour 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 rich in colour, if he 
 would remember that in all such scenes there is much gloom as 
 well as much splendour, and relieve the lustre of his attractive 
 passages of colour with more definite and prevalent greys, and give
 
 SEC. V. C1IA1-. II. OF w.\ti:r, .\s r.\i.\Ti;n bv iiii, muder.ns. 345 
 
 a little more substance to puns 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 colour. 
 
 J. D. Harding is, I think, nearly unequalled in the draiving ^,^,:.,b,^"\;'',fter- 
 of running water. I do not know what Stanfield would do; I jl'a'i'fir'dinK. 
 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 toucli 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, shatter- 
 ing, 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 colour also of his /rt/Z/wp and bright * 5- HUcoiour; 
 
 ^ -^ <^ <^ and painting 
 
 water is very perfect ; but in the dark and level parts of his °^^'^^- 
 torrents he has employed a cold grey, which has hurt some of 
 ills best pictures. His grey in shadows under rocks or dark 
 refiections 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 want of expression of darkness in 
 the colour, 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 sea-shore 
 and sunset which modern art has produced, with the pestilent
 
 346 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 ^ 6. The sea 
 of Copley 
 Fielding. Its 
 exceeding 
 grace and 
 rapidity ; 
 
 square sail of one of these clumsy craft, from which the eye 
 could not escape. 
 
 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 curva- 
 ture 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 grey or green was, nine years ago, very right as colour, 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 colour ; 
 but it now has lost local colour and transparency together, and is 
 little more than a study of chiaroscuro. 
 
 There is indeed one point in all his seas deserving especial 
 praise, a marked aim at chamckr. He desires, especially in his 
 latter works, not so much to produce an agreeable picture, a scien- 
 tific piece of arrangement, or delightful melody of colour, 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 colour, 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 
 I) 8 Buide- wreck with a dark cold brown. Now we think this aim and effort 
 feq^Si" "'" worthy of the very highest praise, and we only wish the lesson 
 
 h 7- Its high 
 aim at charac- 
 ter ;
 
 SEC. V. CHAP. II. OK WATER, AS I'AINTKD HY llll'; MODKKNS. 347 
 
 were taken up and acted on by our other artists ; but Mr. Fielding 'lU'^iHyofKreys. 
 
 should remember that nothing of this kind can be done with success 
 
 unless by the most studied management of the general tones of the 
 
 pictiux- ; for the eye, deprived of all means of enjoying the grey 
 
 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 grey, as may in some 
 
 degree atone to it for the loss of points of stimulus. That grey 
 
 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 5 g. Variety 
 
 of the greys 
 
 management of nature might teach him this ; for though, when "'"aiure. 
 using violent contrasts, she frequently makes her gloom somewhat 
 monotonous, the moment she gives up her vivid colour, and 
 depends upon her desolation, that moment she begins to steal the 
 greens into her sea-grey, and the browns and yellows into her 
 cloud-grey, and the expression of variously tinted light through all. 
 The Land's End, and Lowestoft, and Snowstorm (in the Academy, 
 1842) of Turner are nothing more than passages of the most 
 hopeless, desolate, uncontrasted greys, and yet are three of the 
 very finest pieces of colour that have come from his hand. And 
 we sincerely hope that Mr. Fielding will gradually perceive the 
 necessity of such studied melodies of quiet colour, and will neither 
 fall back into the old tricks of contrast, nor continue to paint with 
 purple and ink. If he would only make a few careful studies of 
 grey 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 grey 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 kiund in 
 modern art.
 
 34S 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 § lo. Works of 
 Stanfield. 
 His perfect 
 knowledge 
 and power ; 
 
 § II. But want 
 of feeling. 
 
 ^ 12. 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 there- 
 fore 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 
 colour 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 colour to gain the relief. 
 His surface is at once lustrous, transparent, and accurate to a 
 hair's-breadth in every curve ; and he is entirely independent of 
 dark skies, deep blues, driving spray, or any other means of con- 
 cealing 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 clcinod in its pure colour 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 wonder- 
 ful, 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 various is the truth of our 
 modern masters ; how it comprises a complete history of tliat nature, 
 of which, from the ancients, you only here and there .can catch a 
 stanimering descriptive syllable; how Fielding has given us every
 
 SEC. V. CHAP. II. OF \V.\TI'R, .■XS P.MNTFn BY Tlir MODERNS. 349 
 
 character of the quiet lake, Rol).son ' of the mountain tarn, Do Wint 
 of the lowland river, Nesfield of the radiant cataract, Harding of 
 the roaring torrent. Fielding of the desolated 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 witii 
 the fragmentary falsities of the ancients, and then come with me 
 to Turner. 
 
 ' I ought before to have alluded to the works of the l.-ite G. Robson. They are some- 
 what feeble in execution, but there is a feeling of the character o( deep calm water in 
 them quite unequalled, and different from the works and thoughts of all other men.
 
 350 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATKR. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF WATER, AS PAINTED BY TURNER. 
 
 5 I. The diffi- 
 culty of giving 
 surface to 
 smooth water 
 
 $ 2. Is depen- 
 dent on the 
 structure of 
 the eye, and 
 the focus by 
 which the re- 
 flected 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 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 cir- 
 cumstance which occasions the frequent failure in effect of the 
 best-drawn foregrounds, noticed in Section II. Chapter IV., 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, arc felt only as a vague uncertain interruption, causing
 
 :.EC. V. CHAP. III. OK VVATF.R, AS PAINTED BY TURNKR. 3;! 
 
 a little confusion in the image below, but entirely undistinguishable 
 as leaves, and even their colour unknown and unperccived. 
 Unless you think of them, you will not even fee! 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 investi- 
 gate, or find out what they mean or are, you must quit your iiold 
 of tlie duckweed, and plunge down. 
 
 Flence it appears, that whenever we see plain reflections of i 3. Morbid 
 
 . clearness occa- 
 
 comparatively distant obiects, in near water, we cannot possibly see sioned in paim- 
 
 '^ . . f J ing of water by 
 
 the surface, and I'/cc I'crsd ; so that when in a paintinc we give distinctness ot 
 
 ' r ;!^ o reflections. 
 
 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 re- 
 flections, in spite of himself. And the reason of this effect of clear- 
 ness 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 cir- 
 cumstances, use the surface focus ; and, in consequence, receive 
 nothing more than a vague and confused impression of the reflected 
 colours 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 colour 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
 
 352 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 ^ 4. How 
 avoided by 
 Turner. 
 
 ^ 5. All re- 
 flections on 
 dist.iiit water 
 are distinct. 
 
 to be rendered by giving tlie reflections of the iiiargin 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 colour and light as the object itself, quite indistinct in form 
 and feature. If we take such a piece of water as that in the fore- 
 ground 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.' 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 3'et they are all uncertain and inexplicable; 
 playing colour and palpitating shade, which, though we recognize 
 them 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 plainl}', 
 that tlie perfection of art here, as in all other cases, consists. But, 
 as it was before shown in Sec. II. Chap. IV. 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, oil reflections will 
 be seen plainly ; for the same focus adapted to a moderate distance 
 
 ' Not altogether. I lielieve here, as in a former case, I liave allributcd far too much 
 influence to this cltange of focus. In Turner's earUer works llie 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 ]iainter of mucli 
 power if lie 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, howevci-, left tlie above paragraphs as first written, because they are 
 true, although I think they make too much of an uninijiortant matter. The reailer may 
 attribute to them such weight as he thinks fit. lie is referred to t; 11 of this cliapter, 
 and to § 4 of the first chapter of this section.
 
 SEC. V. C11A1-. III. OF WATKR, AS PAINT]''.!) BY TURNl:R. 353 
 
 of surface will receive with tlislinctiiess rays cuiniiig from the sky, 
 or from any other distance, however great. 'Huis 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 Ulles- 
 water, 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 ex- 
 quisite and lustrous tint. The reflections even of the clouds will 
 be given far off, while those of near boats and figures will be con- 
 fused and mixed among each other, except just at the water-line. 
 
 And now we see what Vandevelde ought to have done with the i 6. The error 
 
 of Vandevelde. 
 
 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, 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 colour 
 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 
 colours 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 colours came, but 
 it would have felt them to be true and right, and rested satisfied 
 VOL. I. 23
 
 354 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 $ 7. Difference 
 in arrangement 
 of parts be- 
 tween the re- 
 flected object 
 and its image, 
 
 i 8. Illustrated 
 from the works 
 of Turner. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 colour 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. 
 
 Now one instance will be sufficient to show the exquisite care 
 of Turner in this respect. On the left-hand side of his Notting- 
 ham, 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 bill is in bright golden light, and 
 the lower in very deep grey 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
 
 SEC. V. CI1.M-. 111. OF WATKIt, A.S I'.MNTKD I)Y TUUNI.R. 355 
 
 on the edge. Hut the image of all tliis in the eanal is very 
 
 different. First, we liave 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 ol' the hill (for this being a quarter of a mile 
 
 back, we could not see it 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. Now 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 
 
 foi-, 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 ; relieved, 
 
 however, not now against the dark base, but against tlie illumined 
 
 summit of the hill, and appearing therefore, instead of a white 
 
 space thrown out from blue shade, a dark grey space thrown out 
 
 from golden light. 1 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 59. The bold- 
 ness and judp- 
 
 artist would have had courage, even if he had perceived the laws m<!nt shown in 
 
 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 of 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 tt'/iaf llie 
 
 exact alteration must be ; and if we had tried to account for the 
 
 reflection, we should have found it false or inaccurate. But the 
 
 the observance 
 of it.
 
 356 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 ^ lo. The tex- 
 ture of surface 
 in Turner's 
 painting of 
 calm water. 
 
 ^11. Its united 
 qualities. 
 
 master mind of Turner, without effort, showers its knowleidge into 
 every touch, and we have only to trace out even his slightest 
 passages, part by part, to iind in them the universal worliing 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 
 
 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 skj' 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 modi- 
 fication of body colour; but it certainly is not body colour 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 colour, 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, 1 think, the distance of the Devonport with the 
 Dockyards. 
 
 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
 
 SEC. V, riTAl'. III. OF WAIIR, AS PAIXTI^D BY TIIUNKR. 357 
 
 painted with bright colours ; the favourite design for the centre 
 being either a cross or a largo sun with many rays, the favourite 
 colours 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 ail 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 
 colour ; finally and especially, the hanging of the fish-baskets about 
 the bows. All these, however, are comparatively minor merits 
 (though not the blaze of colour 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 colour 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 colour of the water was 
 seen, pure aqua-roarine (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 grey, with broken white vestiges of cloud ; it gave no help 
 therefore. But there the water lay, no dead grey 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 Giudecca the specific green colour 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.
 
 358 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 ft 12. Relation 
 of various cir- 
 cumstances of 
 past agitation, 
 etc., by the 
 most trifling 
 incidents, as 
 in the Cowes ; 
 
 $ 13. In scenes 
 on the Loire 
 and Seine. 
 
 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 oft" 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. 
 
 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 under- 
 stand and feci that this is not the calm of still water, but the
 
 SEC. V. CHAP. III. OF WATER, AS I'AINTKD BY TURNKR. 359 
 
 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 is separated and broken by the general 
 
 undulation and agitation of the water in the boat's wake ; a wake 
 
 caused by the water's passing it, not by i/s going through the 
 
 water. 
 
 Again, in the Confluence of the Seine and Marne, we have the ^ m. Expres- 
 sion oi con- 
 repose of the wide river stirred by the paddles of the steam-boat, 'Jju^g^b^;"^ 
 
 whose plashing we can almost hear; for we are especially com- ™'ifroin shore 
 
 pelled 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 razing the water into 
 
 rage, except where it is sheltered by the hills. In the Jumieges « 15, various 
 
 and Vernon we have farther instances of local agitation, caused, in 
 
 the one case, 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
 
 360 
 
 DF TRUTH OF WATER. 
 
 ^ 16. Turners 
 painting of dis- 
 tant expanses 
 of water. — 
 Calm, inter- 
 rupted by 
 ripple ; 
 
 ^ 17. And rip- 
 pled, crossed 
 by sunshine. 
 
 have even known that t!ie 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 Covves, 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. 
 
 Of e.xtended surfaces of water, as rendered by Turner, the 
 Loch Katrine and Derwentwater 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 e.vercise 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 grey 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 liavt- already (Chap. I. §9)
 
 SEC. V. rilM'. 111. OF W.M'FR, .%S I'.MNTKn BY TtTRNKR. 36 1 
 
 explained the cause of this phenomenon, which never can by 
 any po.ssibiHty 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 shaduw ; 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 cjuiet 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. 
 
 We have not spoken of Turner's magnificent drawing of distant 5 is. His draw- 
 
 ins o' distant 
 
 rivers,' which, however, is dependent only on more complicated rivers; 
 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. Catharine'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 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 i 19. And of 
 
 1 • r r~ ■ 1 I T-i 1 1 surface asso- 
 
 some recent drawings 01 bwitzerland. these latter are not to be ciatedwith 
 described by any words ; but they must be noted here, not only as 
 presenting records of lake effect on a grander scale, and of more 
 imaginative character, than any other of his works, but as combining 
 
 mist.
 
 362 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part 11. 
 
 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 ; 
 a purple sunset on the Lake of Zug is distinguished for the glow 
 obtained without positive colour, the rose and purple tints being 
 in great Ineasure brought by opposition out of browns ; finall)', 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. 
 in-°offafiin!i-''^^" ^^ ^^'''^ ^^ remembered that it was said above, that Turner was 
 pe'cuii'ar'ex'^ the Only painter who had ever represented the surface of calm or 
 weight"."" the fonr 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 if 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 
 vapour, yet the attention of the spectator is chiefly directed to the 
 concentric zones and delicate curves of the falling water itself; and 
 it is impossible to expiess 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
 
 SEr, V. CHAP. III. 
 
 OK W.\TF,R, AS PAINTED BY TURNER. 363 
 
 The 
 bandonmCTlt 
 
 expand as it falls. They are the constant form which such a 
 stream assumes as it descends ; and yet I thini< 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 y^^^ 
 weir or over a stone, but it tumbles over a high fall like this ; and ^/re:ucTu™ts 
 it is when we have lost the parabolic line, and arrived at the by him. 
 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, that its character comes out : it is then that it begins to 
 writhe, and twist, and sweep out, zone after zone, in wilder stretch- 
 ing 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 the^' 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 swing- 
 ing 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 oft" 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
 
 •^6/). OF TRUTH OK WATKR.' part M. 
 
 water before we can appreciate the drawing either of this, or any 
 other of Turner's torrents. 
 i 22. Difference When watcr, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much 
 
 in the action of i ./ o ./ 
 
 con'tTn'uouIand interrupted by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in 
 ter"Thrint?r- a pool as it goes along, it does not acquire a continuous velocity of 
 mF^'ihefonZs motion. It pauses after every leap, and curdles about, and rests a 
 ""'''• ]jf(.]g g,-,^ [i^g,.| gQgg Q,i again ; and if in this comparatively tranquil 
 
 and rational state of mind it meets with any 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 splashing 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 race-horse ; 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 splash- 
 ing when they tumble into the pool; then we have a space of quiet 
 ^ 23. But the curdling water and another similar leap below. But the stream 
 
 continuous 
 
 stream takes when it has gained an mipetus, /rtX'rs //«> s/;(7/)f of its bed, goes down 
 
 the shape of ° r > / ) a 
 
 ''^ '''=''• 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 often neither part nor foam, nor 
 express any concern about the matter, but clear it in a smooth 
 dome of water, without apparent exertion, the whole surface of the
 
 SEL. V. { llAl'. in. 
 
 OK WAT1;r, as rAINTKD BY TURNER. 365 
 
 surge being drawn into parallel lines by its extreme velocity, s.o 
 that the whole river has the appearance of a deep and raging sea, 
 with this only difference, that the torrent-waves always break back- 
 wards, and sea-waves forwards. Thus, then, in the water which §24-. its ex- 
 
 ' ' ' (|uisite curved 
 
 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. 
 
 We see, therefore, why Turner seizes on these curved lines of * 25- Turners 
 
 ' y J careful choice 
 
 the torrent, not only as being among the most beautiful forms of "'u't'h.'"^'""'^''' 
 
 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 attribute of the 
 
 mountain-torrent,' 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 it has come far and 
 
 fiercely. And in the drawing we have been speaking of, the 
 
 ' On a large scale it is exclusively 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 cur- 
 vature. 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 
 transparency, lustre, and fully developed form ; and the greater number of the lines and 
 actions of torrent-waves are equally inimitable. The effort should, nevertheless, always 
 be made ; and whatever is sacrificed in colour, 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.
 
 ^66 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part ii. 
 
 Lower Fall of the Tees, in the foreground of the Killiecmnkie 
 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 Llanthoiiy Abbey, which may be 
 * °-*-."if '^^" considered as the standard of torrent-drawing. The chief light 
 
 quisite drawing ^ " 
 
 ous'\or?"nt'\n °^ ^^^6 picture here falls upon the surface of the stream, swelled 
 Abbey7' °"^ ^y rccent rain ; and its mighty waves come rolling down close to 
 the spectator, green and clear, but pale with anger, in broad, 
 unbroken, oceanic curves, bending into each other without break, 
 though jets of fiery spray are cast into the air along the rocky 
 shore, and rise in the sunshine in dusty vapour. The whole sur- 
 face 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 those fine forms is drawn with the most studied 
 chiaroscuro of delicate colour, greys 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 colour, 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. 
 5 27. And of Now this picture is, as was noticed in our former reference to it, 
 
 the interrupted . . ., , 
 
 torrent in the full of expression of cvcry kmd of motion : the clouds are in wild 
 
 Mercury and 
 
 Argus. 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 w-ith 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 ]\iercury 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
 
 SEC. V. ci[.\i-. III. OF W.\TI;K, .\.S PALNIKD HY TUK.NICk. 36/ 
 
 drink, with concentric and curdling ripples, which divide round 
 the stone at it.s 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 e.xactly where it is most valuable and 
 impressive. 
 
 We have not, however, space to follow out the variety of his ^ aS- Various 
 torrent-drawing. The above two examples are characteristic of the 
 two great divisions or classes of torrents, that whose motion is 
 continuous, and that whose motion is interrupted ; all drawing of 
 running water will resoK-e itself into the representation of one or 
 other of these. The descent of the distant stream in the vignette 
 to the Boy of Egremont 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. 
 
 More determined efforts have at all periods been made in sea- § j,. sea-paint- 
 pamtmg than m torrent-pamtmg, yet less successful. As above biiity of truly 
 
 representing 
 
 stated, it is easy to obtain a resemblance of broken running water foam, 
 by tricks and dexterities, but the sea imtst 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 occur- 
 rence on breaking waves, of which I have never seen the slightest
 
 368 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part 11. 
 
 record attempted; first, the thick, creamy, curdh'ng, overlapping, 
 massy foam, 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 foam 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 inde- 
 scribable delicacy, a bright reflected light, and a dark cast shadow : 
 to draw all this requires labour and care, and firmness of work, 
 which, as I imagine, must always, however skilfully bestowed, 
 destroy all impressions of wildness, accidentalism, and evanescence, 
 and so kill the sea. Again, the openings in t'-.e 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 fall 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, nor 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 conventionalism, since two of its most 
 enduring phenomena cannot be represented at all.
 
 SEC. V. CHAP. 111. OF WATKK, AS PAINTIT) BY TURNER. 369 
 
 Aj^ain, a.s respects tlic Ibnii ol' Ijicakcrs on an even slion-, tlit-re ^f^siio^'"""'^"^'' 
 is diflicuity of no less formidable Icind. There is in them an irre- iilcxprcsslbi". 
 concilable 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 wonder- 
 ful 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 ciiain, and 
 the motion runs from part to part as it does through a serfjent'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 rises. 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. 
 
 It is not, however, from the shore that Turner usually studies ^J'- J^^". 
 
 ' '^ etiect now in- 
 
 his sea. Seen from the land, the curl of the breakers, even in ieetnrom'the 
 nature, is somewhat uniform and monotonous ; the size of the *" °"^' 
 VOL. I. 24
 
 .v^ 
 
 OF TRUTH OF WATKR. 
 
 waves out at sea is uncomprehended ; and tliose 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. Turners Aiming at these grand characters of the sea, Turner almost 
 
 expression of 
 
 heavy rolling always placcs 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 b}- 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
 
 SEC. V. CHAi. HI. OF WATEK, AS PAINTED BY TURNER. 37I 
 
 yet tliroLitj;h this terrific simplicity there are indicated a fitfulness 
 
 and fury in the tossing of tlie individual lines, which give to the 
 
 whole sea a wild, unwearied, reckless incoherency, like that of an 
 
 enraged multitude, whose masses act together in phrensy, 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 *,.'.^,',-^'''!^ 
 
 oi zvetghi which there is in Turner's waves, precisely of the same fvelght"." °' 
 
 kind which we saw in his water-fall. We have not a cutting, 
 
 springing, elastic line ; no jumping or leaping in the waves : l/ial 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. 
 
 In the distance of this grand picture there are two waves which i 34. Peculiar 
 
 action o( recoil- 
 entirely depart from the principle observed by all the rest, and ing waves; 
 
 spring high into the air. They have a message for us which it is
 
 372 OF TRUTH OP" WATER. part II. 
 
 important that we should undt-rstand. Their leap is not a prepa- 
 ration 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 in- 
 structive 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 
 5 35- And of themselves could have done. But the effect of the blow at the 
 
 the stroke of .a 
 
 shore!''''"""' shore itself is given in the Land's End, and Tantallon Castle. 
 Under favourable 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 e.xcept to an eye-witness. 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 in the vignette to "Lycidas;" 
 and the blow of a less violent wave among broken rocks, not meet- 
 ing it with an absolute wall, along the shore of the Land's End. 
 
 i 36. Gener.ii This last picture is a study of sea whose whole organization has 
 
 character of sea ., - _,, 
 
 (in a rocky becH broken up by constant recoils from a rocky coast. The 
 
 coast given by 
 
 J"'''!" '" ''"= 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
 
 SIT. V. rrrAP. III. nl" WATKK, AS PAINTKD liV TUI^NKK. 373 
 
 of a great army, tlirowing 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 colour 
 of this magnificent sea I have before spoken ; it is a solemn green 
 grey (with its foam seen dimly through the darkness of twilight), 
 modulated with the fulness, changefulness, and sadness of a deep 
 wild melody. 
 
 The greater number of Turner's paintings of open sea belong 5 37. Opcnscas 
 
 1 !• • 1 1 I 1 • 1, of Turner's 
 
 to a somewhat earlier period than these drawings ; nor, generally earlier time, 
 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 conse- 
 quence, 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 convention- 
 ality in the pictures of the period. Mis drawing of the waves was 
 also somewhat petty and divided, small forms covered with white
 
 374 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part m. 
 
 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 grey, where no distinction is made between 
 water and foam, or between real and reflective shadow, and which 
 are generally without evidence of the artist's 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 the Earl of 
 Ellesmere, 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 gre}'. The 
 Pas de Calais has more colour, and shows more art than cither, yet 
 is less impressive. Recently (1843), two marine subjects of the 
 same subdued tx)lour have appeared in the midst of 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 colour or of shade, all quiet and 
 simple even to an extreme, so that the picture was exceedinglj' 
 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 instructive as a contrast to the dark shadows of his 
 earlier time.
 
 sr.c. V. CHAP. 111. OF WATER, AS PAINTLD BY TURNER. 375 
 
 Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the cfFcct on the sea > 38. Effect of 
 
 * " -sc'.-i after pro- 
 
 of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four i""B<=<i storm. 
 
 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 cream- 
 ing foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast,' 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 tliick 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 
 
 ' 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 discoloured 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 reappear- 
 ing 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." — JlJih-s IValltng- 
 ford. Half a mile is an over-estimate on coast sea.
 
 376 OF TRUTH OF WATER. part ll. 
 
 (Section III. Chapter IV. § 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 under- 
 stand that there is indeed no distinction left between the sea and 
 air ; that no object, nor horizon, nor any land-mark 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 Snow- 
 storm, 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. 
 5 39. Turner's But, I think, the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, 
 
 noblest work, • i i - i 
 
 the painting of if SO, the noblcst certamly ever pamted by man, is that of the 
 
 the deep open 
 
 sea in the Slave 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, dj^eing it with an awful but glorious liglu, the
 
 sKO. V. riiAr. III. OF WATI;R, AS PAINTICD BY TURNKR. },JJ 
 
 intense and lurid splendour 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 togetiier 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 
 undistinguishable 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 night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the 
 shadow of death upon the guilt}' ' ship as it labours 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 mi.xcs its flaming flood with the sunlight, 
 and, cast far along the desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, 
 incarnadines the multitudinous sea. 
 
 I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon ^ 4o- its united 
 
 •^ ^ excellences and 
 
 any single work, I should choose this. Its daring conception, Pfho"''™ ^'^ " 
 
 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 colour 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 
 
 the}' are wonderful ;''■ and the whole picture dedicated to the most 
 
 ' She is a slaver, throwing her slaves overboard. The near sea is encumbered wllh 
 corpses. 
 
 - 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 stomi scene illustrative of the Antiquary, — a sunset 
 light on polished sea. I ought to have particularly mentioned the sea in the Louestoft, 
 as a piece of the cutting motion of shallow water under storm, altogether in grey, which 
 should be especially contrasted, as a piece of colour, with the greys of Vandevelde. 
 And the sea in the Great Yarmouth should have been noticed for its expression of
 
 37S OF TRUTH OF WATER. part II. 
 
 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. 
 
 water under a fresh gale, seen in enormous e.xtent 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 tlie .Southern Coast which does not give 
 some new condition or circumstance of sea.
 
 SEC. vr. CHAP. 1. OF TRUTH OF VFGKTATION. 379 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. — CONCLUSION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. 
 
 We have now arrived at the consideration of what was, with the ^ i. Frequent 
 
 occurrence of 
 
 old master.s, the subject of most serious and perpetual study. If foliage in the 
 
 ' _ •' r r J works of the 
 
 they do not give us truth here, they cannot have the faculty of oW masters, 
 truth in them : for foliage is the chief component part of all their 
 pictures, and is finished by them witji a care and labour which, if 
 bestowed without attaining truth, must prove either their total 
 bkmtness of perception, or total powerlessness of Iiand. 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 accessaries and 
 backgrounds to the dark masses of laborious foliage, of which the 
 composition principally consists. Yet we siiall 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 atten- 
 tion 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.
 
 38o 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VKGKTATION. 
 
 § 3. Laws 
 common to all 
 forest trees. 
 Their branches 
 do not taper, 
 but only divide. 
 
 It will be best to begin a.s 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, carob, 
 and such others. I do not purpose to examine tlie 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 of 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 hair's-breadth, 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 at 
 least the diameter of the trunk from which they spring. 
 « ?. Appear- But as the trunks of most trees send oft' twigs and sprays of 
 
 ance of taper- , i . , • ] ■ ■ i i c l 
 
 ing caused by light undcr-foliage, of which cvery individual fibre takes precisely 
 
 frequent buds. tr j 
 
 its own thickness of wood from the parent stem, and as many of 
 these drop oft", leaving nothing but a small excrescence to record 
 their existence, there is frequently a slight and delicate appearance 
 of tapering caused in 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 thcj' can support ; which, as the stem increases, gets con- 
 tracted 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 suflicicnt 
 to account for a degree of tapering, which is yet so very slight that
 
 coiicuai tliL 
 pai'allclistn. 
 
 SIX. VI. CHAP. OK TRUTH OF vi:(a;T.\Tio.\. 381 
 
 if we select a |)nrtioii of a biaiicli witli no real fork or living bough 
 to divide it or diniinisii it, the tapering is scarcely to be detected 
 by tlie eye ; and if we select a portion without such evidences of 
 past ramification, there will be found none whatsoever. 
 
 But nature takes great care and pains to conceal this uniformitv K*- ^"''<='"'' 
 
 -'of iialiire lo 
 
 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 icels 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. 
 
 Hence we see that although boughs may and must be repre- « 5. The degree 
 
 II -1 ot tapering 
 
 sented as actually tapering, they must only be so when they are which may be 
 
 •^ represented as 
 
 sending off foliage and sprays, and when they are at such a ™n''nuous. 
 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. 
 
 And therefore we see at once that the stem of Caspar Poussin's i 6. The trees 
 
 ot Caspar 
 
 tall tree, on the right of the La Riccia, in the National Gallery, Poussin, 
 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. 
 Caspar 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 excres- 
 cence ; and leaving, therefore, their unfortunate leaves to hold on
 
 5 7- And of 
 the Italian 
 
 382 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. part n. 
 
 as best they may. The latter, however, are clever leaves, and 
 
 support themselves as swarming bees do, hanging on by each other. 
 
 But even this piece of work is a jest to the perpetration of the 
 
 raUy°defyThis bough at the left-hand upper corner of the picture opposite to it, 
 the View near Albano. This latter is a representation of an orna- 
 mental 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 unpar- 
 donable. 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, Let US refresh ourselves for a moment, by looking at the truth. 
 
 as it isg^ven by 
 
 J. D. Harding. Y/e 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 hair's-breadth of its diameter. But the 
 shoot broken oft'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
 
 bi;t:. VI. (HAP. I. 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VICCU; TATION. 383 
 
 loss of which it sufFers again perceptibly. On the right, iniiiicdiatcly 
 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 oft' just under the head, where it once more loses in 
 diameter ; and linally branches into the multitude of head-boughs, 
 of which not one will be found tapering in any part, but losing 
 itself gradually by division among its off-shoots and spray. This 
 is nature, and beauty too. 
 
 But the old masters are not satisfied with drawing carrots for « 9- Boughs, in 
 
 consequence of 
 
 boughs. Nature can be violated in more ways than one, and the '^'^.'^.^^ "'"«' 
 
 *-• -^ ' diminish where 
 
 industry with which they seek out and adopt every conceivable Thosf'ofthe 
 
 mode of contradicting her is matter of no small interest. It is oftcndon'ot. 
 
 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 the bough without a diminution 
 
 of the diameter above it ; and wherever a branch goes oft" 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.^ Now observe the bough 
 
 underneath the iirst 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. 
 
 But there are farther conclusions to be drawn from this great i 'o. Boughs 
 
 must multiply 
 
 principle in trees. As they only diminish where they divide, their '^^ "^'^y ''""'■ 
 
 ' It sometimes happens that a morbid tlirection 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.
 
 384 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. part 11. 
 
 msh. Those of increase of number is in iirecise proportion to their diminution of 
 
 the old masters ' ^ t" 
 
 '^° °°'' size ; so tiiat wfienever 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. 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, Caspar, and Salvator, 
 that the boughs do not get in the least comple.x 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 
 an}' 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 
 II. Bough- the most gross examples are in the works of Salvator. It appears 
 
 drawing of 
 
 Saiv.itor. 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 th.c must convincing. The painter is always visibly embarrassed
 
 sue. VI. cii.M'. I. OF TRUTH OF VFdl' TATION. SSS 
 
 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 initil 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,' and instantly degrades whatever it 
 affects to a 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 
 
 ' Compare Part III. .Sec. II. Chap. IV. §.^ 6, 7. 
 VOL. I. 25
 
 386 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. 
 
 $ 12. All these 
 errors espe- 
 cially shown 
 in Claude's 
 sketches, and 
 concentrated 
 i n a work of 
 G. Poussin's. 
 
 $ 13. Impos- 
 sibility of the 
 angles of 
 boughs being 
 taken out of 
 them by wind. 
 
 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. 
 
 It is curious that in Salvator's sketches or etchings there is less 
 that is wrong than in his paintings ; there seems a fresher remem- 
 brance 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 with- 
 out any aids of tone or colour to set it off, shows in its naked 
 falsehood. The landscape of Poussin with the storm, the companion 
 to the Dido and .(Eneas, 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 further 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 rami- 
 fying, are terminated by no complicated sprays, have their leaves 
 tied to their ends, like the heads of Dutch brooms ; and finally, and 
 chiefl}', 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 tlic fiercest wind 
 that ever blew upon the earth eould 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
 
 s,EC. VI. cHAi. I. OF TRUTH OK VIXIKTATION. 387 
 
 before it loses its angle. You will liiid it diflicult to bend the 
 angles out of the youngest sapling, if they be marked ; and abso- 
 lutely 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 Caspar 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. 
 
 These laws respecting vegetation are so far more imperative i h- Bough- 
 
 * ^ ^ * drawing ot 
 
 than those which were stated respecting water, that the greatest Titian, 
 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 right 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, 1 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
 
 388 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. part il. 
 
 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 exagge- 
 rated, and others missed, according to the predilections of the 
 painter. Albert Dilrer has given some splendid examples of woody 
 structure, but misses the grace of the great lines. Titian took a 
 larger view, 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 about the curves of the wood, which separates 
 them completely from animal carves, and which especially defies 
 recollection or invention ; it is so subtle 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 the measure of a hair's-breadth, 
 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. 
 \ IS- Bough- These two characters, the woody stiffness hinted through mus- 
 
 cular line, and the in\entive 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. 
 
 Turner.
 
 SEf. VI. CHAP. 1. OF TRUTH OF VKCFTATION. 389 
 
 Of the arrangement of the upper bough.s, the .iHsacus and 
 Hesperie is perhaps the most consummate example ; the absokite 
 truth and simplicity, and freedom from everything Hke 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, Kirkby Lonsdale Churchyard, and Brignall 
 Church are the 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 Chiefs- 
 wood 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. 
 
 Let us, however, pass to the leafage of the elder landscape- ^ ■«• Leafage, 
 
 ' ° 'in variety and 
 
 painters, and see if it atones for the deficiencies of the stems. One symmetry, 
 of the most remarkable characters of natural leafage is the con- 
 stancy 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 sidewa^'s, 
 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
 
 390 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. 
 
 $ 17. Perfect 
 regularity of 
 Poussin. 
 
 ^ 18. Exceed- 
 ing; intricacy 
 of nature's 
 foliafire. 
 
 feeling that, however regular and mathematical may be the struc- 
 ture 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 
 Caspar 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 neigh- 
 bour, blunt and round at the end (where every forest leaf is 
 sharp, except that of the fig-tree), tied together by the stalks, 
 and so fastened on to the demoniacal daws above described, 
 one bunch to each claw. 
 
 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 extre- 
 mities 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 inex- 
 tricable, 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 tJiem in tJicir pale and entangled infinity, 
 and the shafted sunbeams, rained from above, nuining along the
 
 SEC. VI. CHAP. I. OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. JQI 
 
 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 foUagc, 
 the shadows of the upper boughs running in grey network down 
 the glossy stems, and resting in quiet chequers 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 drcam-jike 
 shadow, falls, close to us, some solitary spray, some wreath of two 
 or tiiree motionless large leaves, the type and embodying of all that 
 in tiie rest we feel and imagine, but ran never see. 
 
 Now, with thus much of nature in your mind, go to Gasoar ^ '9- "°w 
 
 ' ^ I o r contradicted 
 
 Poussin's view near Albano, in the National Gallery. It is the '"v'^etree- 
 
 •^ patterns of 
 
 very subject to unite all these eflects, a sloping bank shaded with ^' ^°'"''""- 
 intertwined forest. And what has Gaspar given us ? A mass of 
 smooth, opaque, varnished brown, witliout 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 eiglit 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 pre- 
 judice in favour 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.
 
 392 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. i>art ii. 
 
 I f°- How Oppose to tliis the drawing even of our somewhat inferior tree 
 
 followed by rf o 
 
 Creswick. paintcrs. 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 land- 
 scape, owing to its simplicity ; and I am very far from calling 
 Creswick's good tree-painting ; it is false in colour 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 grey 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 
 in general outline, as the masses of all trees do, 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. 
 
 unYty^nna^' ^'•''- 'I'Tture obscrves another principle in her foliage more im- 
 
 poitant c\en 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 
 grcatn- fault than to destroy its transparency. Look at Creswick's 
 
 ture s foliage.
 
 SEC. vr. CHAP. I. or TRUTH OF VI-X.KTATION. 393 
 
 oak again, in it.s dark parts. Intricate as it i.s, all i.s l)lcnilc(l 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, arc 
 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. 
 
 It is here that Ilobbima and Both fail. They can paint oak i 22. Total 
 
 want of it in 
 
 leafage faithfully, but do not know where to stop, and bv doing too Both and 
 
 r7 .y o Ilobbima. 
 
 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, 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 lea\'es 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. 
 
 But let us oppose to their works the group of trees on the left 5 23- How 
 
 "^^ Of rendered by 
 
 in Turner's Marly.' We have there perfect and ceaseless intricacy Turnei-. 
 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. 
 
 ' This group I have before floticed 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 Iiy Tintoret in the background of his Cain and Abel.
 
 394 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. 
 
 $ 24. The near 
 leafage of 
 Claude. His 
 middle dis- 
 tances are 
 good. 
 
 I have already spoken (Section II. Chapter V. § 15) of the way 
 in which mj'stery and intricacy are carried even into the nearest 
 leaves of the foreground, and noticed the want of siicli 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 orna- 
 mental pattern for dress than the painting of a foreground. Never- 
 theless, 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 colour, 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 
 colour 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.^ 
 
 ' The above paragraphs I have left as originally written, because they are quite 
 true a-s far as they reach ; but. like many other portions of this essay, they take in 
 a very small segment 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 sunsliine, 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 ^-Esacus and Hesperie, in the Cephalus, 
 antl the elaboration of the foregrounds in the \'orkshire drawings ; let him compare 
 what is said of Tumer'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 endeavour to arrange the subject in a 
 more systematic manner, but what additional observations I may have to m.-ike 
 will none of them be in any wise more favourable to Caspar, Salvator, or Hobbima, 
 than the above paragraphs.
 
 SEC. vt. CHAP. I. OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. 395 
 
 The last and most important truth to be observed respectins; * 's- Univer- 
 
 ^ ' ^ sal tL!rmina- 
 
 trees is, that their boughs always, in finely grown individuals, bear sj^mctrS '" 
 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 neighbours, 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 inter- 
 rupted ; and in young trees, the impatience of the upper shoots fre- 
 quently 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 i ^6. Alto- 
 gether unob- 
 
 to this great principle. They swing their boughs about, anywhere oid^masters"^ 
 and everywhere ; each stops or goes on just as it likes ; nor will byTumlr!^" 
 it be possible, in any of their works, to find a single example in 
 which any symmetrical curve is indicated by the extremities.' 
 
 But I need scarcely tell any one in the slightest degree acquainted 
 with the works of Turner, how rigidly and constantly he adheres 
 
 ' Perhaps, in some instances, this may be the case with the trees of Nicolas 
 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.
 
 396 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. part m. 
 
 to this principle of natun; ; taking in his highest compositions the 
 perfect ideal form, every spray being gracefnl 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. 
 Lmtin°'ifif?he ^^ ^^^ above asserted that J. D. Harding is, after Turner, the 
 Continent. 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 
 favour 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 labour) ; 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 are 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 oiu" own ornamental works.' But the French appear to 
 
 ' On the other hand, nothing can be more exquisitely ridiculous than the French 
 illustrations of a second or third rale order, as those to the Harmonies of 
 Lamartine.
 
 SEC. VI. ci[.M'. I. f)K iRiiTii ni' vi;(;i:i'.\ I'lON. 307 
 
 have no teaching such as might carry them beyond this ; their 
 entire ignorance of colour 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. 
 
 It is therefore only atnong good artists of our own school that ^ =8. Foliage 
 
 of J. D. Hard- 
 
 I think any fair comparison can be instituted, and I wish to assert '"^^- W" '^''^^ 
 
 Harding's knowledge of foliage more distinctly, because he neither 
 
 does justice to himself, nor is, I think, rightly estimated by his 
 
 fellow artists. 1 shall not make any invidious remarks respecting 
 
 individuals, but 1 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 ;^ 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-Colour Society ;•* but we have no one in any wise comparable 
 
 to Harding for power of expression in a sketch from nature, or 
 
 for natural and unaffected conception in the study. 
 
 Maintaining for him this iiigh position, it is necessary that I ^=9. His bril- 
 liancy of exe- 
 should also state those deficiencies which appear to me to conceal c"tiontoo 
 
 ^ ^ manliest. 
 
 his real power, and in no small degree to prevent his progress. 
 
 His over-fondness for briUiant 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 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. 
 
 - The Pre-Raphaelite brethren, as they unfortunately call themselves (I heartily 
 wish they would be content to paint well without calling themselves names), are 
 not, I think, as yet any of them Academicians. Their foliage, like the rest of the 
 accessaries in their paintings, is inimitable in its parts, but as yet imperfectly 
 generalized. 
 
 ' I ought especially to name the quiet and correct studies of Mr. Davidson and 
 Mr. Bennett.
 
 398 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. pakt ii. 
 
 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- 
 Colour 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 
 colour 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 the higher virtue 
 and impressiveness of foliage be rendered. In the use of body 
 colour 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 by courtesy for walnut leaves, for which, judging by the 
 make of the tree, they must have been intended, 
 b ^"'h^V^ win ^^^ 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 tex- 
 ture, 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 the mere 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 fac- 
 similes of sketches made from nature ; yet it is evident at once 
 that in all of tlu-m nothing but the general line and disposition of 
 
 and choice of 
 form
 
 SEC. VI. CHAP. 1. OF TRUTH OF VEGKTATION. 399 
 
 the boughs lias been taken from the tree, and tliat no single l^rancli 
 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 
 than any he has lately gone through, to attain just feeling of the 
 dignity and character of a purely formed tree with all its symmetries 
 perfect. 
 
 One more cause of incorrectness I may note, though it is not Ijou^""^ 
 peculiar to the artist's tree-drawing, but attaches to his general [n'^black'ifnd'''*^ 
 system of sketching. In Harding's valuable work on the use of the wit'h'^what 
 Lead Pencil, there is one principle advanced which I believe to be 
 false and dangerous ; namely, that the local colour of objects is not 
 to be rendered by the pencil. I think the instance given is that of 
 some baskets, whose dark colour is rendered solely by the touches 
 indicating the wickervvork. Now I believe that an essential differ- 
 ence between the sketch of a great and of a comparatively inferior 
 master is, that the former is conceived entirely in shade and colour, 
 and its masses are blocked out with reference to both, while the 
 inferior draughtsman checks at te.xtures and petty characters of 
 object. If Rembrandt had had to sketch such baskets, he would have 
 troubled himself very little about the wickerwork ; 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 wickerwork would have come 
 afterwards.' And I think that the first thing to be taught to any 
 pupil is, neither how to manage the pencil, nor how to attain the 
 
 ' It is true that many of Rembrandt's etchings are merely in line, but it may be 
 observed tliat 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.
 
 400 
 
 OF TRUTH OF VEGF TATION'. 
 
 § 32. Opposi- 
 tion between 
 S:rcat manner 
 and great 
 knowledge. 
 
 character of outline, but rather to see where things are hght and 
 where they are dark, and to draw them as he sees them, never caring 
 whether his Hnes be dexterous or slovenly. The result of such 
 study is the immediate substitution of downright drawing for sym- 
 bolism, and afterwards a judicious moderation in the use of extreme 
 lights and darks ; for where local colours are really drawn, so much 
 of what seems violently dark is found to come light against some- 
 thing else, and so much of what seems high light to come dark 
 against the sky, that the draughtsman trembles at finding liimself 
 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 
 opposition 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. 
 
 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 
 extensive, and his dexterity of drawing most instructive, especially 
 considering his range of subjects ; 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. Con- 
 stable's manner was 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 with- 
 out any expression of specific knowledge ; and thus even what 
 is great in them has been productive, I believe, of much injury, in 
 its encouragement of the most superficial qualities of the English 
 school.
 
 SEC. VI. CHAP. 1. OF TKUTII OF VI':(.FIA'rinN. 4OI 
 
 The foliage of David Cox has been already noticed (preface to lf'^,J"l-^Jij. 
 second edition). It is altogether cxqui.site in colour, and in its {"^"11^ ^'" 
 impressions of coolness, shade, and mass ; of its drawing I cannot 
 say anything, but that I sliould be scjrry to see it better. Copley 
 Fielding's is reiparkable for its intricacy and elegance ; it is, how- 
 ever, not free from affectation, and, as it 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 fresh- 
 ness, 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. 
 
 Hunt, 1 think, fails in foliage, and in foliage only ; fails, as the ^ y'r*^""'- 1. 
 daguerreotype does, from over-fidelity ; for foliage will not be be rendered'" 
 imitated, it must be reasoned out and suggested : yet Hunt is the iigSt"nd'^° 
 
 , , , ■ , 1 1 r 1 offensive if 
 
 only man we have who can pamt the real leaf-green under sun- otherwise. 
 light, 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 colour, instead of colour raised by sun- 
 shine. One example is enough to show where the fault lies. In 
 his picture of the Weald of Kent, exhibited some years ago in the 
 British Institution, 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 colour, a dark purple ; wrong for both. 
 Repeated inaccuracies of this kind necessarily deprive even the 
 most brilliant colour 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 
 VOL. I. 26
 
 402 OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION. part n. 
 
 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 un- 
 thankfulness for, what the artist has done, but in the desire that 
 he should do himself more justice and more honour.
 
 SEC. VT, CHAP. II. OF TRUTH OF TURXFR. 4O3 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS RESPECTING THE TRUTH OF TURNER. 
 
 We have now arrived at some general conception of the extent of ^.'- Noneces- 
 
 " * .sity of entering 
 
 Turner's knowledge, and the truth of his practice, by the deliberate o"'°rch?™ctu'ra" 
 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 arcJiitecture, because enough 
 has been said on this subject in Part II. Sec. I. Chap. VIl. ; and 
 its general truths, which are those with which the landscape painter, 
 as such, is chiefly concerned, require only a simple and straight- 
 forward 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 tjie arrangement of every order of subject; but 
 ignorance on this head is rather disgraceful than knowledge meri- 
 torious. 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 par- 
 ticularly 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
 
 404 GENERAL REMARKS RESPECTING pAnni. 
 
 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 simplicitj' 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 endeavouring to explain 
 and illustrate. 
 i% E««n>e The difference in accuracy between the lines of the Torso of 
 
 difficulty ot -^ 
 
 expiiyniiiTthe the Vatican (the "Master" of M. Angelo), and those in one of 
 '» "^^ ■"" • ]y[_ 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 so 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 hair's-breadth of depth and curve on which all depends ; or 
 end in anytliing more than bare assertions of the inferiority of this 
 line to that, which, if we did not perceive for ourselves, no explana- 
 tion could ever illustrate to us? He might as well endeavour to ex- 
 plain to us by Wf>rds some scent or flavour, 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 
 ^ 3. The />osi- meanintrlrss and useless. Consequently, in all that I have been 
 
 twe rank of *^ ^ J > 
 
 riiriier IS in no gayjng of the trntli of artists, I have been able to j)oint out only
 
 SF.C. VI. CHAT. 
 
 tup: triith of tuknkr. 405 
 
 coarse, broad, and explicalilc matters; I have been perfectly unable •',^'^'|',^.y''""'" 
 to express (and indeed I have made no endeavour to express) the b',;'t",t'nry'i','i»' 
 finely drawn and distinguished truth in whicli all tiie real excellence '■'''•''"^■'■' ''•'"''■ 
 of art consists. All those truths which I have been able to cxijlain 
 and demonstrate in Turner, are such as any artist of ordinary 
 powers of observation ought to be capable of rendering. It is dis- 
 graceful 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 know- 
 ledge 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 perpetu- 
 ally 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 pro- 
 bability, be truthful to the last line, and shadow of a line. And ■^jiJ^^'^rlfing. 
 such is, indeed, the case with every touch of this consummate ;^u"h°""'* 
 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 : — that 
 feeling and sight have been the reward of years of labour. 
 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 stumbhng-blocks or foolishness to us :
 
 406 GENERAL REMARKS RESPECTING i-akt ii. 
 
 precisely in the degree in wliich we are familiar with nature, 
 constant in our observation of her, and enlarged in our understand- 
 ing 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. 
 ^ 5. His former There has been marked and constant progress in his mind ; he 
 
 rank and pro- ^ ^ 
 
 s'''^^^- 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 height of his career, he never sacrificed a greater 
 truth to a less. As he advanced, the previous knowledge or attain- 
 ment was absorbed in what succeeded, or abandoned only if incom- 
 
 i 6. Standing patible, and never abandoned without a eain ; and his last works 
 
 ol his last r » o ■ 
 
 works. Their presented the sum and perfection of his accumulated knowledge, 
 
 mysterj' is the '^ ^ ° * 
 
 their'^Riiness."^ 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 
 was in them the obscurity, but the truth, of prophecy ; the in- 
 stinctive 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 felt now, witli long-trained vividness 
 and keenness of sense, too bitterly tiic impotence ot the hand, and
 
 SEC. v.. I iiAi'. n. THE TRUTH OF TURNKR. 40" 
 
 the vainness of the colour, to catch one shadow or one image of 
 the glory which God had revealed to him. " I cannot gather the 
 sunbeams out of the east, or I would make tlicm 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 }'ou wliich I can simniion to my ai(l,if y<iu have not tjie 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."
 
 408 CONCLUSION. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CONCLUSION. MODERN ART AND MODER.N CRITICISM. 
 
 $ I. The entire 
 prominence 
 hitherto given 
 
 We have only, in conclusion, to offer a few general remarks re- 
 to\'he"«wks° specting modern art and modern criticism. 
 
 of one artist ,tt-i-i/^i r ■ 
 
 caused only by We WISH, in the tirst place, to remove the appearance of in- 
 
 our not being 
 
 able to take vidiousncss and partiality which the constant prominence given in 
 
 cognizance ot i .- r o 
 
 character. j.[^g 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 dif- 
 ferent 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 pecu- 
 liar 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 tiiat the nightingale sings
 
 SF.c. vr. ciiAi'. III. MODKRN ART AND MODI:r\ (UmciSM. 40') 
 
 more nobly than tlic 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 sliall lind and 5 =. The feei- 
 
 injjsof difTercnt 
 
 feel that whatever difference may exist between the intellectual •"'''^'^^''?'",-, 
 
 -^ capable ol mil 
 
 powers of one artist and another, yet wherever there is any true ™'"i'^"^°"- 
 
 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 I j^-)^"^ ^>\^ 
 
 fidelity and 
 
 we examine their relative fidelity to given facts. That fidelity ara'caplbreof 
 
 depends on no peculiar modes of thought or habits of character; son'.'^°"''^"' 
 
 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 fearlessl}', and without injustice, that 
 
 one or the other, as the case may be, is more faithful in that which 
 
 he has chosen to represent. It is also to be remembered that these * ■»• Especially 
 
 ^ because they 
 
 faculties of sense and memory are not partial in their effect ; they ^"^nf^s^i'Jin 
 will not induce fidelity in the rendering of one class of object, ofairsilbjic'ts. 
 and fail of doing so in another. They act equally, and with equal 
 results, whatever may be the matter subjected to them. The same
 
 4IO CONCLUSION. PART II. 
 
 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 colour, 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 colour, 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 whicii 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 
 K=;-Nomaii attempts. Hence we may be quite sure that wherever an artist 
 
 draws one thing r J ^ 
 
 dTi4nithrng 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 accessaries and minor points. There 
 are few men, for instance, more limited in subject tlian Hunt, and 
 yet I do not think there is another man in the Old Water-Colour 
 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 un- 
 willingly, to pass hastily by the works of many gifted men, because, 
 however pure their feeling, or original their Cdiiceptiuns, the y were 
 
 else
 
 SKC. vr. ( iiAE>. Ml. M()DKI*N ART AND MODERN CRITICISM. 4II 
 
 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. 
 
 But as far as we have gone at present, and with respect only to i 6- General 
 
 r ^ conclusions to" 
 
 the material truth, which is all that we have been able to investi- be derived from 
 
 ' our past inves- 
 
 gate, the conclusion to which we must be led is as clear as it is ''s^"-'""- 
 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 or.ly perfect landscape 
 painter whom the world has ever seen. 
 
 Nor are we disposed to recede from our assertion made in Sec. I. 5 ?■ Truth, a 
 
 standard of all 
 
 Chap. I. § lO, that this material truth is indeed a perfect test of the excellence, 
 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 implies 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 neces- 
 sary and desirable, because differenl, 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. 
 
 Such then are the rank and standine of our modern artists. We * ?■. Modem 
 
 ^ criticism. 
 
 have had, living with us, and painting for us, the greatest painter of oi^pufilc^tlSe! 
 all time ; a man with whose supremacy of power no intellect of past
 
 '412 CONCLUSION. part n. 
 
 ages can be put in comparison for a moment. Let us ne.xt 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, per- 
 petually liable to change, subject to epidemic desires, and agitated 
 by infectious passion, the slave of fashion, and the fool of fancy ; 
 
 ciltedwithT '^"' y^' always distinguishing, with singular clearsightedness, 
 
 of j'uirg^em*^ 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 irom the man 
 who would have become Bandinelli, tb.ough 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 circum- 
 stances 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 
 
 fhe°pr?ss^ °^ 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. 
 
 5 II. QiLiiiiica- Now none are capable of doing this, but those whose principles 
 
 tions necessary 
 
 for discharging of judgment are based both on thorough /)^rtc//m/ 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
 
 SEC. VI. CHAP. III. M(")Di;i«N ART AND MODERN CRITICISM. 413 
 
 great predecessors, as their examples of masters. I would 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 criticized for not putting us in mind of Claude or Poussin. 
 But such references to former excellence are the only refuge and 
 resource of persons endeavouring 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 5 12- General 
 
 incapability- of 
 
 whole tone of modern criticism, so far as it is worthy of being modem critics, 
 
 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 * 's- And 
 
 inconsistenC3' 
 
 strange that while the noble and unequalled works of modern land- ^'i^l'e''*'^'"' 
 scape 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 endeavour to hamper our great land- 
 scape 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 green-room, 
 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 Raflfaelle. We could excuse them 
 for not compreliending Turner, if thej' only would apply the same
 
 414 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ciit-and-dried criticisms where they might be applied witli 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 rapture with all that 
 is mean or meretricious, if sufficiently adapted to the calibre of its 
 comprehension. 
 i 14. How the To notice such criticisms, however, is giving them far more 
 
 press may 
 
 the'iaui™?'^'' 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. 
 1 15- Morbid One of the most morbid symptoms of the general taste of the 
 
 fondness at the ^ r o 
 
 urrffnlshed^ '^"'^ present day is, a too great fondness for unfinished works. Brilliancy 
 works J ^^ J 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 clap-trap in the shortest possible 
 time. To the idler and trickster in art, no system can be more 
 advantageous ; but to the man who is really desirous of doing some- 
 thing worth having lived for, to a man of industry, energy, or 
 feeling, we believe it to be the cause of the most bitter discourage- 
 ment. If ever, working upon a favourite 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
 
 SEC. VI. CHAP. III. MODKRN ART AND MODKRN CRITICISM. 4I5 
 
 either to fall back upon mechanism, or to starve. Now the press ^i6. By which 
 
 ^ * the public 
 
 should especially endeavour to convince the public that by this feiy""^ '''*""' 
 
 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, 5 i?- And in 
 
 ' -^ pandennji to 
 
 that, by indulging the public with rapid and unconsidered work, J!^'?|,''them-'"'^ 
 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 ren- 
 dering 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 laboured 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 portion 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 i is. Necessity 
 
 ° -/ r ^ 1 of finishing 
 
 leave his easel while it is yet capable of improvement, or of having "jfrfgctfy^" 
 more thought put into it. The general effect is often perfect and 
 
 ' I would further insist on all that is advanced in these paragraphs, with especial 
 reference to the admirable, though strange, pictures of Mr. Millais and Mr. Ilolman 
 Hunt ; and to the principles exemplified in the efforts of other members of a society 
 which unfortunately, or rather unwisely, has given itself the name of " Pre-Raphaelite; " 
 luifortunalely, because the principles on which its members are working are neither 
 pre- nor post-Raphaelite, but everlasting. They are endeavouring to paint, with the 
 highest possible degree of completion, what they see in nature, without reference to 
 conventional or established rules ; but by no means to imitate the style of any past 
 epoch. Their works are, in finish of drawing, and in splendour of colour, the best in 
 the Royal Academy ; and I have great hope that they may become the foimdation of 
 a more earnest and able school of art than we have seen for centuries.
 
 4l6 CONCLUSION. PAiiTM. 
 
 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 vary, 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." 
 5 19. Sketches But, On the Other hand, thou£;h incomplete pictures oueht neither 
 
 not sufficiently ' ^ 1 * ^ 
 
 encouraged. (.^ j^^ produccd nor purchascd, careful and real sketches ought to be 
 valued much more highly than they are. Studies of landscape, in 
 chalk or sepia, 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 archi- 
 tecture, — of things which never were, and which, thank Heaven 1 
 never will be, — occupied, instead, by careful studies for historical 
 pictures ; not blots of cliiaroscuro, but delicate outlines with the 
 pen or crayon. 
 
 % 20. Brilliancy From young artists nothing ought to be tolerated but simple 
 
 of execution or J a a a f 
 
 efforts at in- lioun fide imitation of nature. They have no business tn ape the 
 
 vention not to .^ -J ' 
 
 youngarUsts." exccutioii 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, tin ir unformed
 
 SEC. VI. ciiAi'. III. MODKUN AIM' AND MODKHN fK ITICISM. 4! 7 
 
 conceptions of the Beautiful, tiu-ir unsystematized experiments 
 upon the Sublime. Wc scorn their velocity : for it i.s without 
 direction : we reject their decision ; for it is without grounds : we 
 contemn their composition ; I'or it is without materials : wc repro- 
 bate 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 i ^'- The 
 
 duty .and after 
 
 full of failures ; for these are the signs of efforts. Thev should keep privileges of 
 
 ' ^ -' r all students. 
 
 to quiet colours, greys and browns ; and, making the early works of 
 Turner their example, ns his latest are to be their object of emu- 
 lation, 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 ; re- 
 jecting 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 arc 
 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. 
 
 Among our greater artists, the chief want, at the present day, |it°j'; jfj^^^g 
 is that of solciunily and definite purpose. We have too much anisutoV 
 
 . ^ . II. r \ n ■! more single- 
 
 picture-manulactunng, too much makmg up of lay figures with a nessofaim. 
 certain quantity of foliage, and a certain quantity of sk}', 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 humour 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 
 VOL. I. 27
 
 4l8 CONCLUSION'. PART II. 
 
 be higher, as was the case with Barret and Varley, we are gene- 
 rally put oft' 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 accessary of detail, colour, and idealized form, which 
 the disciplined feeling, accumulated knowledge, and unspared labour 
 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 better foundation than 
 
 " That vivacious versatility. 
 Which many people take for want of heart. 
 
 They err ; tis merely what i.s called mobility, 
 A thing of temperament, and not of art, 
 
 Thoii!;h seeming so from its supposed facilily. 
 
 This makes your actors, arlisls, 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 variet}', nor rapidity of production its originalit}'. 
 Whatever may be the case in literature, facility is in art no certain 
 sign of inventive power. The artist who covers most canvas does 
 not always show, even in the sum of his works, the largest expen- 
 diture of thought.' I have never seen more than four works of 
 John Lewis on the walls of the Water-Colour Exhibition ; I have 
 counted forty from other hands ; but have found in the end that the 
 
 ' Of course this .assertion does not refer to the differences in mode of execution, 
 which cause 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.
 
 SEC. VI. cii.M\ ui. MODliUX ART AND MODKRN CRITICISM. 419 
 
 forty were a multiplication of one, and the four a concentration of 
 forty. And therefore 1 would earnestly plead with all our artists, 
 that they would make it a law never to repeat themselves ; for he 
 who never repeats himself will not produce an inoidinalc inuiiber 
 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. 
 
 Let then every picture be painted with earnest intention of im- 5 2.5- What 
 
 ■' ^ '^ should he Iheir 
 
 pressing on the spectator some elevated emotion, and exhibiting to xencrai aim. 
 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 colour 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 ap- 
 propriate 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 detail.?, the highest 
 examples of the ideal forms ' 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 
 
 ' " Talk of improving ii.Ttiiru when il /,( Nature — Non,sensc.' — E. V. Rippingille. 
 I have not yet spoken of the difference, even in what we commonly call Nattn'e, 
 between imperfect and ideal form : the study of this difiicult question must, of course, 
 be deferred until we have exaniintd 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 residts 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-hoolc ; and the 
 feelings once accustomed to take ]>leasure in such abortions can scarcely become 
 perceptive of forms truly ideal. I have just said (page 417) 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
 
 420 CONCLUSION. pakt ii. 
 
 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 round 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 im- 
 pressive 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 
 
 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 race-horse 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 con- 
 cerned, man never touches nature but to spoil ; he operates on her as a barber 
 would on the Apollo ; and if he sometiuies increases some particular power or excel- 
 lence, 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 
 jjerfect 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. Tliere 
 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.
 
 SEC. vi.cJiAp. 111. MODEUN ART AND MODERN CRITICISM. 42 1 
 
 himself if he would ; ami 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. 
 
 And now but one word more, respecting the great artist whose theprcss wUi 
 works have formed the chief subject of this treatise. The greatest wOTksof"'"^ 
 qualities of those works have not yet been so much as touched upon. 
 None but their imitative excellences have been proved, and, there- 
 fore, 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 1 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 tlie 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 seriesof 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 for ever, for 
 the teaching of the nations. In all that he says, we believe ; in all 
 that he does, we trust.' It is therefore that we pray him to utter 
 
 ' 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
 
 422 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 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. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 The above passage was written in the year 1S43 ; 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 (185 1) he has no picture on the walls of the 
 Academy; and the Times of May 3rd says, "We miss those 
 
 works of INSPIRATION ! " 
 
 boldness manifested in the preceding pages, he had advanced opinions based on so 
 infirm foundation as that the course of three years could effect modification in 
 them. He was justified by the sudden accession of power which the works of the 
 great artist e.xliibited at the period when this vohune was first published, as well as 
 by the low standard of the criticism to which they were 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 llie 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 difliculty, 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 Tanner, but that he is henceforward 
 compared with the greatest men, and occupies his true position among the most 
 noble of all time.
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 423 
 
 JVc 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 merchnnflize 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 1 85 1 will, in 
 the far future, be remembered less fnrwhat it has displayed than 
 for what it has withdrawn. 
 
 Denmark IIii.l, 
 
 /„„.-; 1S51.
 
 424 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES TO VOL. L 
 
 Part II. Sec. III. Chap. I. § i (p. 201). " There is vot a moment 
 ii'lien nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, 
 glory after glory, and woi'king still upon such exquisite and constant 
 principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain that it is 
 all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure." 
 
 Note I. — At least, I thought so, when I was four-and-twenty. 
 At five-and-fifty, I fancy that it is just possible there may be other 
 creatures in the universe to be pleased, or, — it may be, — displeased, 
 by the weather. (" Frondes Agrestes," § 21, p. 36.) 
 
 Part II. Sec. III. Chap. IV. § 31 (p. 258). " Upon the peak of 
 some isolated mountain at daybreak." 
 
 Note 2. — I forget now what all this is about. It seems to be 
 a recollection of the Rigi, with assumption that the enthusiastic 
 spectator is to stand for a day and night in observation ; to suffer 
 the effects of a severe thunder-storm, and to get neither breakfast 
 nor dinner. I have seen such a storm on the Rigi, however, and 
 more than one such sunrise ; and I much doubt if its present 
 visitors by rail will see more. (" Frondes Agrestes," § 25, p. 47.) 
 
 Part II. Sec. V. Chap. II. § 2 (p. 344). " IVatch lunv the vault 
 of water first bends, unbroken, in pure, polished velocity, over the 
 arching rocks at the broiu of the cataract, . . . and how the trees are 
 lighted above it under all their leaves, at the instant that it breaks 
 into foam." 
 
 Note 3. — Well noticed. Tiie drawing of the Fall of Schaff- 
 hausen, which I made at the time of writing this study, was one of 
 the very few, either by other draughtsmen or myself, which 1 have 
 seen Turner pause at with serious attention. (" Frondes Agrestes," 
 § 29, p. 66.)
 
 ADDITION" AI, NOTES. 425 
 
 Part 11. Sec. V. Chap. 111. § 38 (p. 374). " The effect on the sea 
 of a powei-fitl i^ale' continued without intermission for three or four 
 days and nights. ..." 
 
 Note 4. — The wliole of this was written merely to show the 
 meaning of Turner's picture of the steamer in distress, throwing 
 up signals. It is a good study of wild weather ; but, separate 
 from its aim, utterly feeble in comparison to the few words by 
 which any of the great poets will describe sea, when they have got 
 to do it. I am rather proud of the short sentence in the "Harbours 
 of England," describing a great breaker against rock, — " One 
 moment, a flint cave, — the next, a marble pillar, — the next, a 
 fading cloud." But there is nothing in sea-description, detailed, 
 like Dickens' storm at the death of Ham, in " David Copperfield." 
 (" Frondes Agrestes," § 31, p. y^.) 
 
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