!SSwj!s}SSSiKsJSS*N^ :<^»^iii««i«9$$<««Sii»^^ SSx-.-¥;J:-:>^«!«:?^:^«WSSSs!SS THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BEQUEST OF PROFESSOR JOHN S. P. TATLOCK ■^/e/W' *,«^ ^^j-^^ yf^ ' *^Vr^|'' [^ r Lc- _ y V ^ 11/ K ' tS* ■'^ " ^ C*^ X^Ff h^k^ ~2^W/^^^^^" ■^p^/jg //x^S ai IL^ ■» ■ ]. Botany of 13th Century. (Apple-tree and Cyclamen.) /// ^ ART CULTURE: A HAND-BOOK OF AKT TECHNICALITIES AND CRITICISMS, SELECTED FEOM THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN, AND akhanged and supplemented by EEY. W. H. PLATT, FOR THE USB OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES; TOGETHER WITH A NEW GLOSSARY OP ART TERMS, AND AN ALPHA- BETICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OP ARTISTS. NEW YORK: JOHN WILEY & SON, 15 ASTOR PLACE. 1873. n9SL Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S73, By JOHN WILEY & SON, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CtlAS. E. WlLPOUR, Printer and Bookbinder, 205-213 East i2th St., NKW VORK. PREFACE. This Handbook of Art-Laws is an expansion of system- atized notes of Enskin's voluminous criticisms on art, cited for parallel reading, by the Editor of this book, to his Art- Lecture classes. It is now published Avith the hope that the student may be led by its help, as a grammar of art principles and technicalities, to a more thorough acquaint- ance with Kuskin's original, elocpient, and exhaustive works. Sustained by the vast w^ealth accumulated by commerce and speculative enterprises, art and foreign travel have become prominent and very general enjoyments of our times ; and because uninformed thousands annually rush through Europe, utterly unable to apipreciate the wonder- ful creations of a past civilization everywhere around them, Art-Culture has been made as important, in a senior course of study, and as a preparation for intelligent travel, as a knowledge of historv and modern lano-uao-es. To meet this increasing educational necessity, this volume has been prepared as a text-book of highest authority. CONTENTS OF THE ANALYSIS. INTRODUCTION. PAINTING. PART I.— Subject Art. Page Chapter I. — The Value of Art 1 II.— Schools of Art 4 III. — Art Language, Thought, and Laws 25 IV.— Lines 30 V. — Composition 49 VL— Tone 104 VIL— Light 120 VIII.— Color 146 IX.— Chiaroscuro 194 PART II.— Landscape Art. Chapter I. — Perspective 207 II. — Classes of Landscape 223 III.— The Motive of Landscape 229 rV.— Sketching from Nature 243 V.^ — Perfectuess of Sketching 28G VL— Foregrounds 302 VIL— Backgrounds 322 VIII. — Distance and Outline 336 IX.— Distance and the Focus of the Eye 338 X. — Distance and the Power of the Eye 345 XI. — Distance from Spectator affecting Colour of Picture 361 SCULPTUKE. Sculpture 367 VI CONTENTS. AECHITECTURE. Page Chapter I. — History of Architecture 407 " II. — Value of the Laws of Architecture 410 " III.— Schools of Architecture 412 " IV.— Gothic Architecture 418 «' v.— Composition 428 ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. Page Preface iii Contents of the Analysis v Analysis of the Contents Tii INTEODUCTIOK 1. Rightness of work xix 2. Faults of a picture xix 3. Work represents the worker xx 4. Distinction between art and manufacture xxi 5. Art an infection or an education xxi 6. Moral character the foundation of art xxii 7. Art gifts the result of the morality of generations xxii 8. Lovely art springs from virtue xxiii 9. 10. Turner's love of nature xxiv PAINTING. Part I. — Subject Art. GBAFT^-R 1.— Value of Art. 1. Art — its essential value 1 2. Art related to civilization 1 CB.K2TYR 11.— ScJiools of Art. 1. The Athenian, Florentine, and Venetian 4 2. Errors of art schools 6 3. Confusion of art schools 8 4. Eclectic school fails to correct 11 5. Rank of art schools : a. From a love of the beautiful 17 h. From character of subject 18 6. Corruption of art schools 19 7. The Great Masters of the schools 20 Vlll CONTENTS. Page CHAPTER III. — Art Language, Thought^ and Laws. 1 . Art language is technicality 25 2. Art thought is feeling 2G 3. Difficulty in fixing limit 2G 4. Difference between decorative and expressive language 27 5. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools 28 6. Art laws and art intuitions 29 CHAPTER lY. —Unes. 1. Abstract beauty of lines 30 2. Curved lines unequal in beauty 31 3. Law of curvatures 33 4. Law of curvatures 34 5. Law of curvatures 34 6. Law of curvatures 35 7. Beauty of curvature decided by experience 3G 8. Reason of delightf ulness of curves 36 9. Superiority of curves over right lines 37 10. Nature's mode of producing curves 38 11. Nature's mode of producing curves 39 12. Nature's mode of producing curves 39 13. Nature's mode of jiroducing curves 39 14. Nature varies her curves infinitely 40 15. Illustrations in the ivy leaf 40 16. Contrasts and unity of curves 41 17. Curves in mouldings and traceries 42 18. Ornaments to imitate nature 44 CHAPTER Y. — Composition. 1. Law of Principality 49 2. Law of Repetition 52 3. Law of Contuiuity 55 4. Law of Curvature 59 5. Law of Radiation 65 C. Law of Contrast 77 7. Law of Interchange 83 8. Law of Consistency — breadth 84 9. Law of Harmony 86 10. Law of Help 98 1 1 . Law of Grouping 99 I. Principal Laws 99 CONTENTS. IX Page II. Number of Figures 100 III. Principal and subordinate groups 1 01 IV. Attitude of Figures 101 V. Form of Group 101 1. Angular : a. Diagonal ; b. Pyramidal ; c. Diamond 102 3. Circular 102 3. Horizontal 103 CHAPTER Yl.—Tone. 1. Meanings of the word '' Tone." — First, the right relation of ob- jects in shadow to the principal light 104 2. Secondly, the quality of colour by which it is felt to owe part of its brightness to the hue of light upon it 104 3. Difference between tone and aerial perspective 105 4. Middle tints of old masters perfect. 105 5. Their middle tints and darkness 106 6. General falsehood of such a system 107 7. Turner's principle 108 8. N. Poussin's " Phocion " 109 9. Turner's "Mercury and Argus " 109 10. The " Datur Hora Quieti " 110 11. The second sense of the word " Tone " Ill 12. Difference between Turner's drawings and paintings Ill 13. Not owing to want of power over materials Ill 14. Two distinct qualities of light 112 15. Falsehoods by Titian in light 113 16. Turner refuses such means 114 17. But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice 114 18. The second quality of light 115 19. The solecisms of Cuyp 116 20. Turner perfect in the whole — not so much in parts 117 21. Turner's power in uniting a number of tones 118 22. Eecapitulation 119 CHAPTER Yll.—Ught. 1. Nature's light unapproachable 120 2. White paper appears darker than blue sky 121 3. Reason for this 122 4. The white of the clouds compared with the paper and the blue of the sky •. 123 X CONTENTS. Page 5. Heaven-light and earth-darkness compared 123 6. How this should be studied 124 7. Earth is bright when seen right 125 8. The colours of the earth 126 9. The colour of landscape and white paper compared 127 10. The colour of shadows 127 11. True scales of contrasted light and shade. — Nature, Rembrandt, Turner, and Veronese's light 129 12. These as to contrasts of colour 130 13. These and Da Vinci compared 131 14. The wet ink test — Veronese's principle 132 15. The carmine spot test 133 16. The Venetian rule of colour 134 17. Some truths must be chosen and represented, others must be excluded 135 18. The masters who choose light — the masters who choose colour. 135 19. Advantages of those who choose colour over the others 136 20. First advantage, illustrated by drapery by Da Vinci in the Louvre 137 21. This method peculiar to the Roman and Florentine schools. . . . 138 22. How to study colour and shade 139 23. The third advantage of the colourists 140 24. The sanctity of colour revealed 142 CHAPTER Ylll.— Colour. I. Importance of colour 146 II. Colour-science 151 A. — Colours classified. B. — Colours modified. C. — Colours characterized. D. — Colours harmonized. 1. Harmony of Analogy ^ 151 2. Harmony of Contrasts 435 in. Colour-Art 152 1. Truth of colouring 152 2. Ideality of colouring 152 3. Force of colouring 153 4. Balance of colour 153 5. Gradation of colour 154 a. Gradation in nature 154 b. How can this gradation be efEected ? 155 c. Colours change in gradation 156 CONTEJTTS. XI Page d. Three processes of gradation 157 A. — Mixing while colours are wet 157 B.- — Laying one colour over another 158 C. — Breaking one colour over another 160 6. Tone of colour 163 First, preciousness of white 162 Secondly, conspicuousness of black 163 Black as used by Velasquez 163 Thirdly, accordant and discordant colours 164 Fourthly, colour and form 165 Fifthly, colour and distance 166 rV. Colourists 168 1. Colourists as to shadows 168 2. Colourists as to light 169 V. Turner's truth of colour 171 1. The colour of G. Poussin's " La Riccia " 171 3. As compared with the actual scene 171 3. Turner is himself inferior in brilliancy to nature 173 4. Impossible colours of Salvator, Titian 174 5. Poussin, Claixde 175 6. Turner's translation of colour 177 7. Nature's brilliancy often unapproachable 178 8. Observers often incredulous as to this 179 9. Colour of the Napoleon 181 10. Necessary discrejiancy between the attainable bril- liancy of colour and light . . .- 183 11. Less in Turner than in other colourists 183 13. Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens. . 183 13. Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid colour 184 14. The basis of grey, under all his vivid hues 186 15. The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones 186 16. Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature 187 17. His dislike of purple, and fondness for the opposition of yellow. Nature in this respect 1 88 18. His early works false in colour 189 19. His drawings invariably perfect 190 30. The subjection of his system of colour to that of chiaroscuro 190 CHAPTER 1^.— Chiaroscuro. 1. No particular effects of light to be examined 194 XI 1 CONTKNTS. Page 2. Distinctness of shadows chief means of expressing viridness of light 195 3. Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian school 196 4. And partial absence in that of the Dutch 196 5. Turner's perfection in this respect 197 6. The effect of his shadows upon the light 199 7. The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the ancient and modem schools 199 8. Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and deep shadow are used in equal quantity, and only in points.. 201 9. Writers on ort disagree as to this 203 10. And consequent mLsguidiiig of the student 202 11. The great value of a simple chiaroscuro 203 12. The sharp separation of Nature's lights from her middle tint . . 204 13. The truth of Turner 205 Pakt II.— Landsc.vpe Akt. CHAPTER I.— Perspective. 1. Great painters do not study it as a science 207 2. First principles of perspective 209 3. Placing of the sight-point, ifcc 213 a. The Sight-point 213 h. The Sight-line 214 c. The Station-line 214 d. The Station-i>oint 215 4. The general placing and scale of the picture 219 CHAPTER II.— Classes of Landsca/pe. 1. Heroic, Classical, Pastoral, Contemplative 223 2. Spurious landscapes 224 3. Relation of figures and landscape 225 4. Emotion essential to all pictures 225 5. Two opposite errors 227 CHAPTER III.— 77/c Motive of Landscape. 1. All groat raiu ; because lie knew the stories of the Alps, and of the cities at their feet; because he had read the Homeric legends of the clouds, and beheld the gods of dawn, and the givers of dew to tlie fields ; because he knew the faces INTEODUCTION. XXV of the crags, and the imagery of the passionate monntains, as a man knows the face of his friend ; because he had in him the wonder and sorrow concerning life and death, which are the inheritance of the Gothic soul from the days of its first sea kings ; and also the compassion and the joy that are woven into the innermost fabric of everv m-eat imaginative spirit, born now in countries that have lived by the Christian faith with any courage or truth. And the picture contains also, for us, just this which its maker had in him to give ; and can convey it to us, just so far as we are of the temper in which it must be received. It is didactic if we are worthy to be taught, no otherwise. The pure heart, it will make more pure ; the thoughtf nl, more thoughtful. It has in it no words for the reckless or the base. 11. As I myself look at it, there is no fault nor folly of my life, — and both have been many and great, — that does not rise up against me, and take away my joy, and shorten iny power of possession, of sight, of understand nig. And every past effort of my life, every gleam of rightness or good in it, is with me now, to help me m my grasp of this art, and its vision. So far as I can rejoice in, or interpret either, my power is owing to what of right there is in me. I dare to say it, that, because through all my life I have desired good, and not evil ; because I have been kind to many ; have wished to be kind to all ; have wilfully injur- ed none ; and because I have loved much, and not selfish- ly ; therefore the morning light is yet visible to me on those hills, and you, who read, may trust my thought and word in such work as I have to do for you ; and you will be glad afterwards that you have trusted them. 12. Yet remember, — I repeat it again and yet again, — that I may for once, if possible, make this thing assuredly clear : — the inherited art-gift must be there, as well as the life, in some poor measure, or rescued fragment, right. Queen of Air, Chap. iii. ART CULTURE. PART I. PAINTING PAINTIJN-Q I. — Subject Art. CIIAPTEK I. VALUE OF AKT. 1. That art is valuable or otherwise^ only as it ex- presses the j>ersonality, activity, and living i}erceptio7i of a great human soul. If it have not this, it is worthless. "Worthless, I mean, as ai^t ; it may be precious in some other way, but, as art, it is nugatory. Once let this be well understood among us, and magnificent consequences will soon follow. Let me repeat it in other terms, so that I may not be misunderstood. All art is great, and good, and true, only so far as it is distinctively the work of manhood in its entire and highest sense ; that is to say, not the work of limbs and fingers, but of the soul, aided, according to her necessities, by the inferior powers ; and therefore distinguislied in essence from all products of those inferior powers unhelped by the soul. In this high sense neither Photography nor Topography is art. All art as mere art is a low and common thing, and what we indeed resj^ect is not art at all, but instinct or inSjpiration expressed by the help of art. 3 S. V. 188. 2. Historically, great success in art is apparently con- nected with subsecpient national degradation. You find, in the first place, that the nations which possessed a refined art were always subdued by those who possessed VALUE OF ART. none : you find the Lydian subdued by the Mede ; the Athenian by the Spartan ; the Greek by the Roman ; the Eoman by the Goth ; the Burgundian by the Switzer : but you find beyond this, — that even where no attack by any external power has accelerated the catastrophe of the state, the period in which any given people reach their highest power in art is precisely that in which they appear to sign the warrant of their own ruin ; and, that from the moment in Avhich a perfect statue appears in Florence, a perfect picture in Yenice, or a perfect fresco in Eome, from that hour forward, probity, industry and courage seemed to be exiled from their walls, and they perish in a sculpturesque paralysis, or a many-coloured corruption. But even this is not all. As art seems thus, in its deli- cate form, to be one of the chief promoters of indolence and sensuality, — so I need hardly remind you, it hitherto has appeared only in energetic manifestation when it was in the service of superstition. The four greatest manifes- tations of liuman intellect wliich founded the four princi- pal kingdoms of art, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Italian, were developed by the strong excitement of active superstition in the worship of Osiris, Beliis, ]\[inerva, and the Queen of Heaven. Therefore, to speak briefly, it may appear very dilKcidt to show that art has ever yet existed ill ii consistent and tlioroughly energetic school, unless it was engaged in tlic [)i-opagation of falsehood, or the en- couragement of vice. And tinally, while art has always thus shown itself ac- tive in the service of luxury and idolatry, it has also been strongly directed to the exaltation of cruelty. A nation Avhich lives a pastoi'al and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's stall (»• the ploiigli IkhhUc, l»ur i-aces who live by depredation and slaughter nearly ;il\\ ays bestow ex- quisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear. Queen of Air, Lect. 1. TALUE OF AKT. Does it not seem then, on all these counts, more than questionable whether art-culture promises any good ? Wherever art is practised for its own sake, and the delight of the workman is in what he does and jproduces, in- stead of what he iiitei'jprets or exhibits, — there art has an influence of the most fatal kind on brain and heart, and it issues, if long pursued, in the destruction of both in- tellectual power and moral 'princij[jle j whereas art, de- voted humbly and self-forgetf ully to the clear statement on record of the facts of the universe, is always helpful and beneficent to mankind, full of comfort, strength, and salvation. Queen of Air, Lect. 1. Now, when yon are once well assured of this, you may logically infer that when Art is occupied in the function in which she is serviceable, she will herself be strength- ened by the service ; but when distorted to the deception or degradation of mankind, she will be herself equally misled and degraded. Good art, which interprets, rather than imitates nature, always exalts. In a word, good art always consists of two things : First, the observation of fact ,' secondly, the manifesting of human design and atithority in the way that fact is told. Great and good art must unite the two; it cannot exist for a moment but in their unity ; it consists of the two as essentially as water consists of oxygen and hydrogen, or marble of lime and carbonic acid. Queen of Air, Lect. 1. CHAPTEE II. SCHOOLS OF AET. I. TiiEiiE have only yet appeared in the world three schools of perfect art, — schools, that is to say, that did their work as well as it seems possible to do it. These are the Athenian, Florentine, and Venetian. 1. The Athenian proposed to itself the perfect repre- sentation of the form of the hnman body. It strove to do that as well as it conld ; it did that as well as it can be done; and all its greatness was founded upon and in- volved in that sino-le and honest effort. 2. The Florentine school proposed to itself the jperfect exjpression of human emotion — the showing of the effects of passion in the human face and gesture. I call this the Florentine school, because whether you take Raphael for the culminating jnaster of expressional art in Italy, or Leo- nardo, or Micliael Angelo, you will find that the whole energy of the national effort which produced those masters had its root in Florence; not at Urbino or Milan. I say, then, tliis Florentine or leading Italian school proposed to itself human expression for its aim in natural truth; it strove to do that as well as it could — did it as well as it can be done — and all its ijreatness is rooted in that sino-le and honest effort. 3. Thinlly, Tlie Fene^^Vm scAooZ proposed the represen- tation of the effect of colour and shade on all things, chiefly on the human form. It tried to do tliat as well as it could — did it as well as it can be done — and all its greatness is fonnded on tliat single and honest effort. For illustration: There's the (so-called) "Theseus" of SCHOOLS OF AKT. D the Elgin marbles. That represents the whole end and aim of the Athenian school— the natural form, of the hu- man body. All their con\'entional architecture — their graceful shaping and painting of pottery — whatsoever other art they practised — was dependent for its greatness on this sheet-anchor of central aim : true shape of living man. Then take for your type of the Italian school, Raphael's "Disputa del Sacramento;" that will be an accepted type by everybody, and will involve no possibly questionable points : the Germans will admit it ; the English Academi- cians will admit it ; and the English Purists and Pre-Ka- phaelites will admit it. Well, there you have the truth of human exjpression proposed as an aim. That is the way people look when they feel this or that — when they have this or that other mental character: are thev devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant or inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings ? then — whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly, kingly — ■ that the Florentine school tried to discern and show : that they have discerned and shown ; and all their gi-eatness is first fastened in their aim at this central truth — the open expression of the living soul. Lastly, take Yeronese's "Marriage in Cana," in the Louvre. There you have the most j^erfect representation possible of colour, and light, and shade, as they affect the external aspect of the human form, and its immediate accessories, architecture, furniture, and dress. This exter- nal aspect of noblest nature was the first aim of the Vene- tians, and all their greatness depended on their resolution to achieve, and their patience in achieving it. Here, then, are the three greatest schocds of the former world exemplified for you in three well-known works. The Phidian '■'' Theseus^^ represents the Greek school pur- suing the truth of form; the '^Disputa^^ of Eaphael the 6 SCHOOLS OF AP,T. Florentine school pursning truth of mental expression; the ''^Marriage in Cana'''^ the Venetian school pursuing the truth of colour and light. Two Paths, 25 et passim. The perfect unison of expression, as the painter's main purpose, with the full and natural exertion of his pictorial power in the details of the work is found only in the old Pre-Kaphaelite periods, and in the modern Pre-Raphael- ite school. In the works of Giotto, Angelico, Orcagna, John Belline, and one or two more, these two conditions of high art are entirely fulfilled, so far as the knowledge of those days enabled them to be fulfilled ; and in the modern Pre-Raphaelite school they are fidfilled nearly to the uttermost. Hunt's Light of the World is, I believe, the most perfect instance of expressional purpose with technical power which the world has yet produced- II. Errors of Art ScJiools. In the Post-Raphael ite period of ancient art, (such as the period of Claude, Gaspar Pous- sin, Salvator Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, ITob- bima, Teniers in his landscapes, P. Potter, and Caualetti — Editor) and in the spurious high art of modern times, two broad forms of error divide the schools ; the one con- sisting in the superseding of expression by technical ex- cellence, and tlie other in the superseding of technical excellence by expression. 1. Superseding expression by technical excellence. — Tliis takes place most frankly, and therefore most innocent- ly, in the work of the Yenetians. They very nearly ignore expression altogether, directing their aim exclusively to the rendering of external trutlis of colour and form. Paul Veronese will make the Ma&'>^foGt cb^t. You know that among architects and artists there are, and have been almost always, since art became a subject of much discussion, two parties, one maintaining that nature should be always altered and modified, and that the artist is greater than nature ; they do not maintain, indeed, in words, but they maintain in idea, that the artist is greater than the Di- vine Maker of these things, and can improve them ; while the other party say that he cannot imjDrove nature, and that nature on the whole should improve him. That is the real meaning of the two parties, the essence of them ; the practical result of their several theories being that the Idealists are always jproducing more or less formal coiulitions of art, and the Realists striving to produce in all their art either some image of nature^ or record of nature / these, observe, being quite different things, the image being a resemblance, and the record, some- thing which will give information about nature, but not necessarily imitate it.* * The portion of the lecture here omitted was a recai^itulation of that part of the previous one which opposed conventional art to natural art. 16 CONFUSION OF AET SCHOOLS. ****** You may separate these two groups of artists more dis- tinctly ill your miucl as those who seek for the pleasure of art, in the relations of its colours and lines, without caring to convey any truth with it ; and those who seek for the truth first, and then go down from the truth to the pleasure of colour and line. Marking those two bodies distinctly as separate, and thinking over them, you may come to some rather notable conclusions respecting the mental disposi- tions which are involved in each mode of study. You will find that large masses of the art of the world fall definitely under one or the other of these heads. Observe, pleasure first and truth afterwards, (or not at all,) as with the Ara- bians and Indians ; or, truth first and pleasure afterwards, as with Angelico and all other great European painters. You will find that the art whose end is pleasure only is pre- eminently the gift of cruel and savage nations, cruel in tem- per, savage in habits and conception ; bat that the art which is especially dedicated to natural fact always indicates a peculiar gentleness and tenderness of mind, and that all great and successful work of that kind will assuredly be the production of thoughtful, sensitive, earnest, kind men, large in tlieir views of life, and full of various intellectual jjower. And farther, when you examine the men in ^vllom the gifts of art are variously mingled, or universally mingled, you will discern that the ornamental, or pleasura- ble power, thougli it may be possessed by good men, is not in itself an indication of their goodness, but is rather, un- less balanced by other faculties, indicative of violence of temper, inclining to cruelty and to irreligion. On the other hand, so sure as you fiud any man endowed with a keen and separate faculty of representing natural fact, so surely you will find that man gentle and upriglit, full of nobleness and breadth of thought. I will give you two instances, the first peculiarly English, and another pccu- SLR JOSHUA EEYNOLDS. 17 liarly interesting, because it occurs among a nation not generally very kind or gentle. I am inclined to think that, considering all the disad- vantages of circumstances and education under which his genius was developed, there was perhaps hardly ever born a man with a more intense and innate gift of insight into nature than our own Sir Joshua Reynolds. Considered as a painter of individuality in the liuman form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of portrait painters. Titian paints nobler pictures, and Vandyke had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper ; and when you consider that, with a frightful conventionality of social habitude all around him, he yet conceived the simplest types of all feminine and childish loveliness ; — that in a northern climate, and with gray, and white, and black, as the principal colours around him, he yet became a colourist who can be crushed by none, even of the Yenetians ; — and that with Dutch painting and Dresden china for the prevailing types of art in the saloons of his day, he threw himself at once at the feet of the great in asters of Italy, and arose from their feet to share their throne — I know not that in the whole history of art you can produce another instance of so strong, so unaided, so unerring an instinct for all that was true, pure, and noble. Two Paths, Lect. 11. V. Rank of Art Schools^ from a Love of the Beau- tiful. — Schools of art become higher in exact propor- tion to the degree in which they apprehend and lo\e the beautiful. \st Hank. — Thus Angelico, intensely loving all spiritual beauty, will ba of the highest rank. f Id Ranh. — Paul Veronese and Correggio, intensely lov- ing physical and corporeal beauty, of the second rank. IS KAJ^K OF AJRT SCHOOLS. 3d JLanL—Alhevt Durer, Rubens, and in general the Northern artists, apparently insensible to beauty, and caring only for truth, whether shapely or not, of the third rank. JVb certain Bank. — Teniers, Salvator and Carravaggio, and other such worshippers of the depraved, of no rank, or, as we said before, of a certain order in the abyss, 3M. P.,34; YI. llanh of Art Schools, from Character ofSuhject. — (1.) The liabitual choice of sacred subjects, such as the Na- tivity, Transfiguration, Crucifixion (if the choice be sin- cere), imj^lies tliat the painter has a natural disposition to dwell on the highest thoughts of which humanity is capa- ble ; it constitutes him so far fortli a painter of the highest order, as, for instance, Leonardo, in his painting of the Last Suppci". (2.) lie who delights in representing the acts or medita- tions of great men, as, for instance, Ilaphael painting the School of Athens, is so far forth a painter of the second order. (3.) lie who represents the passi(jns and events of ordi- nary life, is of the third order. (4.) In this ordinary life, he who represents deep thoughts and sori'ows, as, for instance, Hunt, in his Claudia and Isa- bella, and such other woi'ks, is of the highest rank in his ppliere. (5.) lie who i-eprcscnts the slight malignities and pas- fiioiis of tlie drawing njom, as, for instance, Leslie, is of Btill anotlicr rank. (0.) lie wlio reiu'csents the sports of boys, or the sim- plicities of clowns, as Webster or Teniers, is still of another rank. (7.) lie who represents vices and brutalities, of no hon- orable rank. CORRUPTION OF ART SCHOOLS. 19 yil. Corruption of Art ScJwols. — Yet the corrup- tion of the schools of high art, so far as this particular quality is concerned, consists in the sacrifice of truth to beauty. Great art dwells on all that is beautiful ; false art omits or changes all that is ugly. Great art^accepts nature as she is, but directs the eyes and thoughts to what is most perfect in her ; false art saves itself the trouble of direction, by removing or altering whatever it thinks ob- jectionable. The evil results of which are manifold : — Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadow ceases to be enjoyed as light. A white can- vas cannot produce an effect of sunshine ; the painter must darken it in some places before he can make it look himinous in others ; nor can an uninterrupted succession of beauty produce the true effect of beauty ; it must be foiled by inferiority before its own power can be devel- oped. Nature has, for the most part, mingled her inferior and nobler elements as she mingles sunshine with shade, giving due use and influence to both, and the painter who chooses to remove the shadow perishes in the burning desert he has created. The truly high and beautiful art of Angelico is continually refreshed and strengthened by his frank portraiture of the most ordinary features of his brother monks, and of the recorded peculiarities of un- gainly sanctity; but the modern Gernian and Raphael- esque schools lose all honor and nobleness in barber-like admiration of handsome faces, and have, in fact, no real faith except in straight noses and curled hair. Paul Yer- onese opposes the dwarf to the soldier, and the negress to the queen ; Shakespeare places Caliban beside Miranda, and Autolycus beside Perdita ; but the vulainter ; and therefore the greatest painter who ever lived. You may be led wrong by Tiutoret * in many respects, wrong by Eaphael in more ; all that you learn from Titian will be right. Then, with Titian, take Leo- nardo, Rembrandt, and Albert Durer. I name those three mastei-s for this reason : Leonardo has powei-s of subtle drawing which are peculiarly applicable in many ways to the drawinor of fine ornament, and are very useful for all students. licmbrandt and Durer are the only men whose actual work of hand vou can have to look at : tou can have Eembrandt's etchings, or Durers engravings actual- ly hung in your schools ; and it is a main point for the student to see the real thing, and avoid judging of masters at second-hand. As, however, in obeying this principle, you cannot often have opportunities of studying Venetian painting, it is desirable that you should have a useful standard of colour, and I think it possible for you to ob- tain this. I cannot, indeed, without entering upon ground which nn'irht involve the hurtinij the feeliui^ of liviui; ar- tists, state exactly what I l)elieve to be the relative posi- tion of various painters in England at present with respect to power of colour. J>ut I may say this, that in the pecu- liar jrifts of colour which will be useful to vou as students, thei-e are only one or two of the pre-Eaphaelites, and AVil- liam Hunt, of the old "Water Colour Society, who would * See Appendix I. — '• Right and Wrong."- TITE GKEAT MASTERS OF THE SCHOOLS. 23 be safe guides for you ; and as quite a safe guide, there is nobody but William Hunt, because the pre-Raphaelites are all more or less affected by enthusiasm and by yarious morbid conditions of intellect and temper ; but old Wil- liam Hunt — I am sorry to say " old," but I say it in a lovino- Avay, for every year that has added to his life has added also to his skill — William Hunt is as right as the Venetians, as far as he goes, and what is more, nearh' as inimitable as they. And I think if we manage to put in the principal schools of England a little bit of Hunt's work, and make that somewhat of a standard of colour, that we can apply his principles of colouring to sulijects of all kinds. Until you have had a work of his long near you ; nay, unless you have been labouring at it, and try- ing to cop3^ it, you do not know the thoroughly grand qualities that are concentrated in it. Simplicity, and in- tensity, both of the highest character; — simplicity of aim, and intensity of power and success, are involved in that man's unpretending labour. Finally, vou cannot believe that I would omit my own fa- yourite, Turner. 1 fear from the yery number of his works left to the nation, that there is a disposition now rising to look upon his vast bequest with some contempt. I beg of you, if in nothing else, to believe me in this, that you can- not further the art of England in any way more distinctly than by mvinjr attention to every frasrment that has been left by that man. The time will come when his full pow- er and right place will be acknowledged ; that time will not be for many a day yet : nevertheless, be assured — as far as you are inclined to srive the least faith to anythini; I may say to you, be assured — that you can act for the sood of art in Enrjland in no better way than by usinsr whatever influence any of you have in any direction to urge the reverent study and yet more reverent preservation of the works of Turner. I do not say "the exhibition" 24 THE GREAT MASTERS OF THE SCHOOLS. of his works, for we are not altogether ripe for it : they are still too far above us ; iiuitiiig, as I was telling yon, too many qnalities for hs to yet feel fully their range and theii- hiflneiice ; — hnt let us only try to keep them safe from harm, and show thoroughly and conveniently what we show of them at all, and day by day their greatness will dawn upon ns more and more, and be the root of a school of art in England, which I do not doubt may be as bright, as jnst, and as refined as even that of Yenice her- self. The dominion of the sea seems to have been associ- ated, in past time, with dominion in the arts also : Athens had them together ; Yenice had them together ; but Ijy BO much as our authority over the ocean is wider than theirs over the iEgean or Adriatic, let us strive to make our art more widely beneficent than theirs, though it can- not be more exalted ; so working out the fulfilment, in their wakening as well as their warning sense, of those great words of the aged Tintoret : "Sempre si fa il Maee ]\Lvggiore." Two Paths, Lect. 11. CHAPTER III. AET LANGUAGE AND AKT THOUGHT. I. A7't Langttage. — Painting, or an generally, as such, with all its technicalities^ difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing l)ut a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing. He who has learned what is conniionly 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 dcrae just as much towards being that which we ought to resj^ect as a great painter, as a man who has learned how to exj)ress himself grammatically and melodiously has towards being a great poet. The language is, indeed, more difhcult 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 lan- guage, and all those excellences which are peculiar to the painter as such, are merely what rhythm, melody, precision and force are in the words of the orator and poet, neces- sary 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 great- ness either of the painter or the writer is to be finally deter- mined. Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we should call a man a great painter oidy as he excelled in precision and force in the language of lines, and a great versifier, as he excelled in precision or force in the language of words. A great poet woidd then be a term strictly, and in pre- 26 AKT LANGUAGE A^^D AET THOUGHT. cisely tlie same sense applicable to Loth, if warranted by the character of the images or thoughts which each in their respective languages conveyed. II. Art Thoughts. — Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen: — the "Old Shepherd's Chief-mourner." Here the exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp hair of the dog, the bright sharp touchijig of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the cofhn and the folds of the blanket, are lan- guage — language clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of the dog's breast against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerlessness of the head laid close and motionless, upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness, the rigidity of rej^ose which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the coftin-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 uuwatched 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, l)v wliicli it ranks as a work of high art, and stamjis its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the ^fan of Mind. It is not, however, always easy, either in painting or literature, to determine where tlie intluence of language Btops, and where that of thought l)egins. Many thoughts are so dependent ujion the language in which tliey are clothed, that they woidd lose lialf their beauty if otlier- wise expressed. But the highest thoughts are those which AET LANGUAGE AND ART THOUGHT. 27 are least dejoeiideiit ou language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to which it is entitled, are in exact proportion to its independency of language or expres- sion, A composition is indeed usually most pei'fect, when to such intrinsic dignity is added all that exj)ression can do to attract and adorn ; but in every case of supreme excellence this all becomes as nothing. We are more gratified by the simplest lines or words which can sug- gest the idea in its own naked beauty, than by the robe or the gem which conceal while they decorate ; we are better pleased to feel by their absence how little they could bestow, than by their presence how much they can destroy. There is therefore a distinction to be made between what is ornamental in language and what is expressive. That part of it which is necessary to the embodying and conveying the thought is worthy of respect and attention as necessary to excellence, though not the test of it. But that part of it which is decorative has little more to do with the intrinsic excellence of the picture than the frame or the varnishing of it. And this caution in dis- tinguishing hetioeen 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 expres- sive to be beautiful, except by mere rhythm or melody, any sacriiice to which is immediately stigmatized as error. JBut the beauty of mere language in painting is not only very attractive and entertaining to the spectator, but re- quires 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 melo- diously, and the judge has over and over again advanced to the honor of authors those who were never more than ornamental writing masters. 28 AET LANGUAGE AND AET THOUGHT. Most pictures of the Dutch school, for instance, except- ing always those of Eubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt, are ostentatious exhibitions of the artist's power of speech, the clear and vio-orous elocution of useless and senseless words : while the early efforts of Ciraabue and Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the stam- mering lips of infants. It is not by ranking the former as more than mechanics, or the latter as less than artists, that the taste of the multitude, always awake to the lowest pleasures which art can bestow, and blunt to the highest, is to be formed or elevated. It must be the part of the judicious critic carefully to distinguish what is language, and what is thought, and to rank and praise pictures chiefly for the latter, considering the former as a totally inferior excellence, and one which cannot be compared with nor weighed against thought in any way nor in any degree whatsoever. The picture which has the noUeraud more numerous ideas, however awkwardly expressed, is a greater and a better picture than that which has the less noble and less numerous ideas, however beautifully ex- pressed. No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of execution can outweirefei'ence of such lines is a sign of heal til y taste, and true instinct. § 8. I am not sure, however, how far the delightfulness of sucli line, is owing, not merely to their expression of infinity, but also to that of restraint or moderation. Com- pare Stones of Venice, vol. iii. cliap. i. § 0, wliere tlie sub- ject is entered into at some length. Certainly the beauty of such curvature is owing, in a considerable degree, to both expressions; but when the line is shai-ply terminated, perhaps more to that of motlci-ation than of infinity. For the most ])ai-t, gentle or subdued somids, and gentle or subdued colours, are more pleasing than either iu their ut- LINES. 37 most force ; nevertheless, in all the noblest compositions, this utmost power is permitted, but only for a short time, or over a small space. Music must rise to its utmost loud- ness, and fall from it ; colour must be gradated to its ex- treme brightness, and descend from it ; and I believe that absolutely perfect treatment would, in either case, permit the intensest sound and pui'est colour oidy for a point or for a moment. Curvature is regulated by precisely the same laws. For the most part, delicate or slight curvature is more agree- able than violent or rapid curvature ; nevertheless, in the best compositions, violent curvature is permitted, but per- mitted only over small spaces in the curve. § 9. The I'iglit line is to the curve what monotony is to melody, and what unvaried colour is to gradated colour. And as often the sweetest music is so low and continuous as to approach a monotone ; and as often the sweetest gradations so delicate and subdued as to approach to flat- ness, so the finest curves are apt to hover about the right line, nearly coinciding with it for a long space of their curve ; never absolutely losing their own curvilinear character, but apparently every moment on the point of merging into the right line. When this i-^ the case, the line generally returns into vigorous curvature at some part of its course, otherwise it is apt to be weak, or slightly rigid ; nniltitudes of other curves, not ap- proaching the right line so nearly, remain less vigor- ously bent in the rest of tlieir course ; so that the quan- tity * of curvature is the same in both, though differently distributed. * Quantity of curvature is as measurable as quantity of any thing else ; only observe that it depends on the nature of the line, not on its magnitude ; thus, in simple circular curvature, a b, Fig, 7, being the fourth of a large circle, and b c the half of a smaller one, the quantity of the element of circular curvature in the entire line a c is three-fourths of that in any circle, — the same as the quantity in the line ef. 38 LEsES. § 10. The modes in which Nature produces variable cur\es on a large scale are very miinerous, but may gene- rally be resolved into the gra- dual increase or diminution of some given force. Thus, if a chain hano-s between two j)oints A and b, Fig. 6, tiie weight of chain sustained by any given link increases gradu- ally from the central link at c, which has only its own weight to sustain, to the link at b, which sustains, besides its own, the weight of all the links be- tween it and c. This increased weight is continually pulling the curve of the swino-iniT chain more nearly straight as it ascends towards b ; and hence one of the most beauti- fully o-radated natural curves Fig. 0. — called the catenary — of course assumed not by chains only, but by all flexible and elongated substances, suspended between two points. If tlic points of suspension be near each other, we have such as at D ; and if, as in nine cases out of ten will be the case, one point of suspension is lower than the other, a still more varied and beautiful curve is formed, as at e. Such curves constitute nearly the whole beauty of fjcne- ral contour in falling drapery, tendrils and festoons of weeds over rocks, and such other pendent objects.* * The catenary is not properly a curve capable of infinity, if its di- rection (toes not alter with its h^nglh ; but it is capable of infinity, implying snch alteration by the infinite removal of the points of susjien- sion. It entirely corresponds in its effect on the eye and mind to the LINES. 39 § 11. Again. If any object be cast into the air, the force with which it is cast dies gradually away, and its own weight brings it downwards ; at first slowly, then faster and faster every moment, in a curve which, as the line of fall necessarily nears the perpendicular, is continu- ally approximating to a straight line. This curve — called the parabola — is that of all projected or bounding objects. Fig. 7. § 12. Again. If a rod or stick of any kind gradually becomes more slender or more flexible, and is bent by any external force, the force will not only increase in effect as the rod becomes weaker, but the rod itself, once bent, will continually yield more willingly, and be more easily bent farther in the same direction, and will thus show a con- tinual increase of curvature from its thickest or most rigid part to its extremity. This kind of: line is that as- sumed by boughs of trees nnder wind. § 13. Again. Whenever any vital force is impressed on any organic substance, so as to die gradually away as the substance extends, an infinite curve is connnonly produced infinite curves. I do not know the exact nature of the apparent curves of suspension formed by a high and weighty waterfall ; they are de- pendent on the gain in rapidity of descent by the central current, where its greater body is less arrested by the air ; and I apprehend, are cate- nary in character, though not in cause. 40 LINES. by its outline. Thus, in the budding of the leaf, already examined, the gradual dying away of the exhilaration of the younger ribs produces an infinite curve in the outline of the leaf, which sometimes fades imperceptibly into a right line, — sometimes is terminated sharply, by meeting the opposite cnrve at the point of the leaf. § 14. Nature, however, rarely condescends to use one curve only in any of her finer forms. She almost always unites two infinite ones, so as to form a reversed curve for each main line, and then modulates each of them into myriads of minor ones. In a single elm leaf, such as Fig. 4, Plate 8, she uses three such — one for the stalk, and one for each of the sides, — to regnlate their general flow ; di- viding afterwards each of their broad lateral lines into some twenty less curves by the jags of the leaf, and then again into minor waves. Thus, in any complicated group of leaves whatever, the infinite curves are themselves al- most countless. In a single extremity of a magnolia spray, the npjierinost figure in Plate 2, including only sixteen leaves, each leaf having some three to five distinct curves along its edge, the lines for separate study, includ- ing those of the stems, woukl be between sixty and eighty. In a single spring-shoot of laburnum, the lower figure in the same plate, I leave the reader to count them for him- self; all these, observe, being seen at one view only,*and every change of position l)ringing into sight another equal- ly numerous set of curves. For instance, in Plate 3, is a group of four witliijred leaves, in four positions, giving, each, a beautiful and well composed grouj^ of curves, variable gradually into the next group as the branch is turned. § 15. The following Plate (4), rc})resenting a young shoot of independent ivy, just beginnnig to think it would like to get something to cling to, shows the way in which Nature brin<;s subtle curvature into forms tliat at first 2. l,tM I ( tiTA alu rr Mil*. M I ( M I . I ; 1 1 1 ( I ,1 1)11 rLiiiiil .(VI I ( 'iifwitiire. ilerirl Laiu'cl LINES. 41 seem rigid. The stems of the young leaves look nearly straight, and the sides of the projecting points, or bastions, of the leaves themselves nearly so ; hut on examination it will be found that there is not a stem nor a leaf-edo-e but is a portion of one intinite curve, if not of two or three. The main line of the supporting stem is a very lovely one; and the little half-opened leaves, in their thirteenth-century segmental simplicity (compare Fig. 9, Plate 8 in Vol. III.), singularly spirited and beautiful. It may, perhaps, in- terest the general reader to know- that one of the infinite curves derives its name from its sujDposed resemblance to the climbing Of ivy up a tree. § 16. I spoke just now of " well-composed" curves, — 1 mean curves so arranged as to oppose and set each other off, and yet united by a common law ; for as the beauty of every curve depends on the unity of its several compo- nent lines, so the beauty of each group of curves dependtj on their submission to some creneral law. In forms which quickly atti-act the eye, the law which unites the curves is distinctly manifest ; but, in the richer compositions of Nature, cunningly concealed by delicate infractions of it ; — wilfulnesses they seem, and forgetfuln esses, which, if once the law be perceived, only increase our delight in it by showing that it is one of equity not of rigor, and allows, within certain limits, a kind of individual liberty. Thus the system of unison which regulates the nuignolia shoot, in Plate 42, is formally expressed in Fig. 8. Every line has its origin in the point p, and the curves generally diminish in intensity towards the extremities of the leaves, one or two, however, again increasing their sweep near the points. In vulgar ornamentation, entirely rigid laws of line are always observed;* and the common Greek honeysuckle and other such formalisms are attractive to uneducated eyes, owing to their manifest compliance with the first conditions of unity and symmetry, being to really noble 42 LIKES. ornamentation what the sing-&ong of a bad reader of poetry, laying regular emphasis on every required syllable of every foot, is to the varied, irregular, unexpected, inim- itable cadence of the voice of a person of sense and feeling reciting the same lines, — not incognisant of the rhythm, but delicately bending it to the expression of passion, and the natural sequence of the thought. Fig. 8. § 17. Tn mechanically drawn patterns of dress, Alham- bra and common ]\[()orish ornament, Greek mouldings, common flamboyant traceries, common Corinthian and Ionic ca])itals, and such other work, lines of this declared kind (generally to be classed under the head of " doggrel LINES. 43 Fig. 9. ornamentation ") may be seen in rich profusion ; and they are necessarily the only kind of lines which can be felt or enjoyed by per- sons who have been educated without reference to natural forms ; their in- stincts being blunt, and their eyes actually incapable of perceiving- the inflexion of noble curves. But the moment tlie perceptions have been refiaed by reference to natural form, the eye requires perpetual vari- ation and transgression of the formal law. Take the simplest possible con- dition of thirteenth-centurj' scroll- work, Fig. 9. The law or cadence established is of a circliuij tendril, terminating in an ivy-leaf. In vul- gar design, the curves of the circling tendril would have been similar to each other, and miglit ha\e been drawn by a machnie, or by some mathematical formula. But in good design all imitation by machinery is impossible. No curve is like another for an instant ; no branch springs at an expected point. A cadence is observed, as in the re- turning clauses of a beautiful air in music ; but every clause has its own change, its own surprises. The enclos- ing form is here stiff and (nearly) straight-sided, in order to oppose the circular scroll-work ; but on looking close it will be found that each of its sides is a portion of an infinite curve, almost too delicate to be traced ; except the short lowest one, which is made quite straight, to oppose the rest. I give one more example from another leaf of the same manusc]-ipt, Fig. 10, merely to show the variety introduced by the old designers between page and page. And, in general, the reader may take it for a settled law that. 44 LINES. whatever can be done by machinery, or imitated by for- mula, is not worth doing or imitating at all. Fig. 10. § 18. Tlic quantity of admissible transgression of law- varies with the degree in which the ornamentation involves or admits imitation of nature. Thus, if these ivy leaves in Fig. 10 were completely drawn in light and shade, they LINES. 45 wonld not be properly connected with the more or less regular sequences of the scroll ; and in very subordinate ornament, something like complete symmetry may be admitted, as in bead mouldings, chequerings, &c. Also, the ways in which the transgression may be granted vaiy infinitely ; in the finest compositions it is jjerpetual, and yet so balanced and atoned for as always to bring about more beauty than if there had been no transgression. In a truly fine mountain or organic line, if it is looked at in detail, no one would believe in its being a continuous curve, or being subjected to any fixed law. It seems broken, and bending a thousand ways ; jDerfectly free and ■wild, and yielding to every impulse. But, after following with the eye three or four of its impulses, we shall begin to trace some strange order among them ; every added movement will make the ruling intent clearer ; and when the whole life of the line is revealed at last, it will be found to have been, throughout, as obedient to the true law of its course as the stars in their oi'bits. Thus much may suflice for our immediate purpose re- specting beautiful lines in general. 4 m. p., 257. CHAPTER V. COISIPOSITION. Composition means, literally and simply, putting several thinirs toirether, so as to make o)ie tliino: out of them ; the nature and goodness of M-liich they all have a share in pro- ducing. Thus a musician composes an air, by putting notes together in certain relations ; a poet composes a poem, by putting thoughts and words in pleasant order ; and a painter a picture, by putting thoughts, forms, and colours in pleasant order. In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must be the result of composition. A paviour cannot be said to com- pose the heap of stones "which he empties from his cart, nor the sower the handful of seed Mhich he scatters from his hand. It is the essence of composition that everything should be in a determined place, perforin an intended part, and act, in that part, advantageously for eveiTthing that is connected with it. Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the type, in the arts of maidcind, of the Providential government of the world. ^'' It is an exhibition, in the order given to notes, or colours, or forms, of the advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and contentment. In a well-com- posed ail-, no note, however short or low, can be spared, but the "least is as necessary as the greatest : no note, how- ever prolonged, is tedious ; but the others prepare for, and are beneiited by, its duration: lu) note, however high, is * See farther, on this subject. Modem Painters, vol. ir. chap. viii. § G ; Office of Imagination in Composition, Modem Painters, vol. ii. 146. COMPOSITION. 47 tyrannous ; the others prepare for, and are benefited by, its exaltation : no note, however low, is overpowered ; the others prepare for, and sympathize with, its humility : and the result is, that each and every note has a value in the position assigned to it, which, by itself, it never possessed, and of which, by separation from the others, it would in- stantly be deprived. Similarly, in a good poem, each word and thought en- hances the value of those which precede and follow it ; and every syllable has a loveliness which depends not so much on its abstract sound as on its position. Look at the same word in a dictionary, and ^ou will hardly re- cognize it. Much more in a great picture ; every line and colour is so arranged as to advantage the rest. None are inessential, however slight; and none are independent, however for- cible. It is not enough that they truly represent luxtural objects ; but they must fit into certain places, and gather into certain harmonious groups : so that, for instance, the red chimney of a cottage is not merely set in its place as a chimney, but that it may affect, in a certain way pleasur- able to the eye, the pieces of green or blue in other parts of the picture ; and we ought to see that the work is mas- terly, merely by the positions and quantities of these patch- es of green, red, and blue, even at a distance which renders it perfectly impossible to determine what the colours re- present : or to see whether the red is a chimney, or an old Avoman's cloak ; and whether the blue is smoke, sky, or water. It seems to be appointed, in order to remind us, in all we do, of the s'reat laws of Divine o-overnment and human polity, that composition in the arts should strongly affect every oixler of mind, however inilearned or thoughtless. Hence the popula)* delight in rhythm and metre, and in simple musical melodies. But it is also appointed that 48 COMPOSITION. 'power of composition in the line arts should be an exclu- sive attribute of o-]-eat intellect. All men can more or less copy what they see, and, more or less, remember it : powers of reflection and investigation are also common to us all, so that the decision of inferiority in these rests only on questions of degree. A. has a better memory than 13., and C. reflects more profoundly than D. Eut the gift of com- position is not given at all to more than one man in a thousand ; in its highest range, it does not occur above three or four times in a century. It follows, from these general truths, that it is imj^ossi- ble to give rules which will enable you to compose. You miij^ht much more easily receive rules to enable vou to be witty. If it were possil)le to be M'itty by rule, Avit would cease to be either admirable or amusing : if it were possible to compose melody by rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not have been born: if it were possible to compose pictures by rule, Titian and Veronese would be ordinary men. The essence of composition lies precisely in the fact of its being unteachable, in its being the operation of an indi- vidual mind of range and i)ower exalted above others. But though no one can iiwent by rule, there are some simple laws of arrangement which it is well for you to know, because, though they will not enable you to produce a good picture, they will often assist you to set forth what goodness may be in your M'ork in a more telling way than you could have done otherwise ; and by tracing tlicm in the work of good composers, you may better understand the grasp of their inuigination, and the 2)()wer it possesses over their materials. I shall briefly state the chief of these laws. COMPOSITION. 49 LAWS OF AKEANGEMENT. 1. llie Law of Principalitij. — The great object of composition being always to secure unitj ; that is, to make out of many thin2::s one whole ; the first mode in which this can be effected is, bj determining that one feature shall be more important than all the rest, and that the othei'S shall group with it in subordinate positions. This is the simplest law of ordinaiy ornamentation. Thus the group of two leaves, a, Fig, 11., is unsatisfactory, because it has no leading leaf; but that at h /.v prettier, because it has a head or mas- ter leaf ; and g more satisfac- tory still, because the subor- « dination of the other members to this head leaf is made more manifest by their gradual loss of size as they fall back from it. Hence part of the pleasure we have in the Greek honeysuckle ornament, and such others. Thus, also, good pictures have always one light larger or brighter than the other lights, or one figure more promi- nent than the other figures, or one mass of colour dominant over all the other masses : and in sjeneral von will find it much benefit your sketch if you manage that there shall be one ligiit on the cottage \vall, or one blue cloud in the sky, which may attract the eye as leading light, or leading gloom, above all others. But the observance of the rule is often so cunningly concealed by the great composers, that its force is hardly at first traceable; and you will generally find they aj-e vulgar pictures in which the law is strihingly manifest. This may be simply illustrated by musical melody ; for instance, in such phrases as this : :^?El=f^=^=*^=^f=" r-(5< 50 COMJ'OSITIOIf. one note (here the upper g) rules the whole passage, and has the full energy of it concentrated in itself. Such passages, corresponding to completely subordinated com- positions in painting, are apt to be wearisome if often repeated. But in such a phrase as this : it is very difficult to say which is the principal note. The A. in the last bar is slightly dominant, but there is a very equal current of power running through the whole ; and such passages rarely weary. And this principle holds thi-ough vast scales of arrangement; so that in the grandest compositions, such as Paul Veronese's Marriage in Caua, or Raphael's Disputa, it is not easy to fix at once on the principal figure ; and very commonly tlie figure which is really chief does not catch the eye at first, but is gradually felt to be uKire and more conspicuous as wje gaze. Thus in Titian's grand composition of the Coruaro Family, the figure meant to be principal is a youth of fifteen or sixteen, whose portrait it was evidently tiie painter's object to make as interesting as possible. But a grand JMadomia, and a St. Ueoree with a driftiuij; banner, and numv fio-ures more, occupy the centre of the picture, and first catch the eye ; little by liltlo we are led away from them to a gleam of pearly light in tlie lower corner, and find tlial. fVom the head which it shines upon, we can tui-ii our eves no moie. As, in every good picture, nearly all laws of design arc more or less exemplified, it will, on the whole, be an easier way of explaining them to analyse one composition thorouijhlv, than to y;ive instances from various works. I COMI^OSITION. 51 shall therefore take one of Turner's simplest ; which will allow ns, so to speak, easily to decompose it, and illustrate each law by it as we proceed. Fio^ure 1:^. is a rude sketch of the arrangement of the whole subject; the old bridge over the Moselle at Coblentz, Fig. 12. the town of Cwblentz on the right, Ehrenbreitstein on the left. The leading: or master feature is, of course, the tower on the bridge. It is kept from being too principal by an important group on each side of it ; the boats, on the riglit, and Ehrenbreitstein beyond. The boats are large in mass, and more forcible in colour, but the}^ are broken into small divisions, while the tower is simple, and therefore it still leads. Ehrenbreitstein is noble in its mass, but so reduced by aerial perspective of colour that it cannot con- tend with the tower, which therefore holds the eye, and becomes the key of the picture. We shall see presently how the very objects which seem at first to contend Avith it for the mastery are made, occultly, to increase its pre- eminence. 52 co^rr-osiTioN". 2. The Law of Itepetition. — Another important means of expressing niiity is to mark some kind of sympathy among the different (objects, and perhaps the pleasantest, because most surprising, kind of sympathy, is when one (jroiip imitates or r^epeats another • not in the way of halance or symmetry^ but snljordiuately, like a far-away and broken echo of it. Raphael makes one figure repeat another in motion or attitude. Front has in- sisted mncli on this hiw in all his writings on composi- tion ; and I think it is even more authoritatively present in the minds of most great composers than the law of principality. It is quite curious to see the pains that Turner sometimes takes to echo an important passage of colour; in the Pembroke Castle for instance, there are two fishing-boats, one with a red, and another with a white sail. In a line with them, on the beach, are two fish in precisely the same relative positions; one reil and one white. It is observable that he uses the artifice chiefiy in pictures where be wishes to obtain an expression of repose: in my notice of the plate of Scarborough, in the series of the IIarl>oursbf England, I have already had (Xtcasion to dwell on this point; and [ exti'act in the note " one or two sentences which ex})lain the principle. In the comjjosition I have chosen for our illnsti'ation, this reduplication is employed to a singular extent. 1'he tower, or leading feature, is first repeated by the low echo of it to the left; put your finger over this * '"III general, throughout Nature, reflection and repetition ai"e peaceful things, associated with the idea of quiet succession in events ; that one day shoiild be like another day, or one historj- the repetition of another liistory, being more or less results of (quietness, while dissinii- laiity and non-succes.sion are results of interference and disquietude. Thus, though an echo actually increases the (juantity of sound hcanl, its repetition of the note or syllable gives an idea of calmness attainable in no other way ; hence also the feeling of calm given to a landscape by the voice of a cuckoo." COMPOSITION. 53 lower tower, and see how the picture is spoiled. Then the spires of Coblentz are all arranged in couples (how thej are arranged in reality does not matter ; when we are comj)Osing a great picture, we must play the towers about till they come right, as fearlessly as if they were chessmen instead of cathedrals). The dual arrangement of these towers would have been too easilv seen, were it not for a little one which pretends to make a triad of the last group on the right, but is so faint as hardly to be dis- cernible : it just takes off the attention from the artifice, helped in doing so by the mast at the head of the boat, which, however, has instantly its own duplicate put at the stern.* Then there is the large boat near, and its echo beyond it. That echo is divided into two again, and each of those two smaller boats has two figures in it ; while two fio-ures are also sitting: too;ether on the great rudder that lies half in the water, and half aground. Then, finally, the great mass of Ehrenbreitstein, which ajDpears at first to have no answering form, has almost its facsiinile in the bank on wdiich the girl is sitting; this bank is as absolutely essential to the completion of the picture as. any object in the whole series. All this is done to deejyen the effect of rejyose. Symmetry or the balance of parts or Tnasses in nearly equal opposition, is one of the conditions of treatment under the law of Repetition. For the opposition, in a symmetrical object, is of UJi:e things reflecting each other; it is not the balance of contrary natures (like that of day and night) but of like natures or like forms ; one side of a leaf beino; set like the reflection of the other in watei-. * This is obscure in the rude woodcut, the masts being so delicate that they are confused among the lines of reflection. In the original they have orange light iipou them, relieved against purple behind. " Two lines must not mimic one another, one mass must not be equal to another."— 2 M. P., 14G. 54 COMPOSITION. Symmetry in Mature is, however, never formal nor accu- rate. She takes the greatest care to secure some differ- ence between the corresponding things or parts of things ; and an apjiroximation to accurate symmetry is only per- mitted in animals, because their motions secure perpetual difference between the balancing parts. Stand before a mirror; hold your arms in precisely the same posjtion at each side, your head upright, your body straight ; divide your hair exactly in tlie middle, and get it as nearly as you can into exactly the same shape over each ear, and you will see the effect of accurate symmetry ; you will see, no less, how all grace and power in the human form result from the interference of motion and life with symmetry, and from the reconciliation of its balance with its change- fulness. Your position, as seen in the mirror, is the highest type of symmetry as understood by modern architects. In many sacred compositions^ living symmetry, the balance of harmonious opposites, is one of the profoundest sources of their power: almost any works of the early painters, Angelico, Perngino, Giotto, tfec, will furnish you M'ith notable instances of it. The Madonna of Perua-ino in the National Gallery, with the angel Michael on one side and llaphael on the other, is as beautiful an example as you can have. 2 M. r., 72, sec. 4. In landscajpe, the principle of Valance is more or less carried out, \\\ proportion ioilxQ imsh of i\\Q j>0'inter to ex- 2y)'ess disciplined calmness. In bad compositions, as in bad architecture, it is formal, a tree on one side answeiing a tree on the other; but in good compositions, as in grace- ful statues, it is always easy, and sometimes hardly trace- able. In the Coblentz, however, you cannot have much difficulty in seeing how the boats on one side of the tower and the figures on the other are set in nearly ecpuil balance ; the tower, as a central mass uniting both. See 2 M. P., 71. COMPOSITION. 55 3. The Law of Continuity. — Another important and pleasurable way of expressing unity, is by giving sbnie orderly succession to a number of objects more or less similar. And this succession is most interesting when it is connected with some gradual change in the aspect or character of tlie objects. Thus the succes- sion of the pillars of a cathedral aisle is most interesting when they retire in perspective, becoming more and more obscure in distance ; so the succession of mountain prom- ontories one behind another, on the flanks of a valley ; so the succession of clouds, fading farther and farther to- M'ards the horizon ; each promontory and each cloud being of different shape, yet all evidently following in a calm and appointed order. If there be no change at all in the shape or size of the objects, there is no continuity ; there is only repetition — monotony. It is the change in shape which suggests the idea of their being individually free, and able to escape, if they liked, from the law that rules them, and yet submitting to it. I will leave our chosen illustrati\-e composition for a moment to take up another, still more expressive of this law. It is one of Turner's most tender studies, a sketch on Calais Sands at sunset ; so delicate in the expression of wave and cloud, that it is no use for me to try to reach it with any kind of outline in a woodcut; but the rough sketch. Fig. 13, is enough to give an idea of its arrangement. The aim of the painter has been to give the intensest expression of repose, together with the enchanted lulling, monotonous motion of cloud and wave. All the clouds are moving in innumerable ranks after the sun, meethig towards the point in the hori- zon where he has set; and the tidal waves gain in wind- ing currents upon the sand, with that stealthy haste in which they cross each other so quietly, at their edges: just folding one over another as they meet, like a little piece of ruffled silk, and leaping up a little as two chil- 56 coM:posiTio?r. dren kiss and clap their hands, and then going on again, each in its silent hnrry, drawing pointed arches on the sand as their thin edges intersect in parting; but all this would not have been enough expressed without the line of the old pier-timbers, black Avith weeds, strained and bent by the storm-waves, and now seeming to stoop in following one another, like dark ghosts escaping slowly from the cruelty of the pursuing sea. T need not, I hope, point out to the reader the illustra- tion of this law of continuance in the subject chosen for our general illustration. It was simply that gradual sac- cession of the retirinc: arches of the bridge which induced Turner to jiaint the sul)ject at all ; and it was this same principle which led him always to seize on subjects in- cluding long bridges wherever he could find thum ; but cs])ecially, observe, unecpial l)ridges, having the highest arch at one side rather than at the (tentre. There is a reason for this, irresj^ective of general laws of compr)si- tion, and connected with the nature of I'ivers, which I COl^IPOSITION. 57 may as well stop a minute to tell von about, and let you rest irom the study of composition. All rivers, small or large, agree in one character, they like to lean a little on one side : they cannot bear to have their channels deepest in the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun themselves upon, and another to get cool under; one shingly shore to play over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike, and another steep shore, under which they can pause, and purify themselves, and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasion. Rivers in this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of tlieir life for play, and another for work; and can be brilliant, and chattering, and transparent, when they are at ease, and yet take deep counsel on the othei- side when they set themselves to their main purpose. And rivers are just in this divided, also, like wicked and good men: the good rivers have service- able deep places all along their banks, that ships can sail in ; but the wicked rivers go scoopingly irregularly un- der their banks until they get full of strangling eddies, which no boat can row over without being- twisted ag-aiust the rocks ; and pools like wells, which no one can get out of but the water-kelpie that lives at the bottom ;— but, wicked or good, the rivers all agree in having two kinds of sides. Now the natural way in which a village stone- mason therefore throws a Ijridge over a strong stream is, of coui'se, to build a great door to let the cat through, and little doors to let the kittens through ; a great arch for the great current, to give it room in Hood time, and little arches for the little currents along the shallow shore. This, even without any prudential respect for the floods of the great current, he would do in simple economy of work and stone ; for the smaller your arches are, the less material you want on their flanks. Two arches over the same &pa.u of river, supposing the butments are at the same depth, are 3* 58 COMPOSITION. clieaper than one, and that l>y a great deal; so that, where the current is shallow, the village mason makes his arches many and low; as the water gets deej)er, and it becomes troublesome to build his piei's up from the bottom, lie throws his arches wider; at last he comes to the deep stream, and, as he cannot build at the bottom of that, he throws his largest arch over it with a leap, and with another little one or so gains the opposite shore. Of course as arches are wider they must be higher, or they M^ill not stand ; so the roadway must rise as the arches widen. And thus we have the general type of bridge, with its liighest and M^idest arch towards one side, and a train of minor arches running over the flat shore on the other; nsually a steep bank at the river-side next the large arch ; always, of course, a flat shore on the side of the small ones; and the bend of the river assuredly concave towards this flat, cutting round, with a sweep into the steep bank ; or, if there is no steep bank, still assuredly cutting into the shore at the steep end of the bridge. Now this kind of bridge, sympathising, as it does, with the spii'it of the river, and marking the nature of the thing it has to deal with and conquer, is the ideal of a bridge ; and all endeavours to do the thing in a erand engineer's manner, with a level roadway and equal arches, are barbarous ; n(jt only becauseall monotonous forms are ugly in themselves, but because the mind perceives at once that there has l)Gen cost uselessly thrown away for the Bake of formality." * The cost of art in getting a bridge level is ahmya lost, for you mitst get up to the height of the central arch at any rate, and you only can make the whole bridge level by putting the liill farther back, and pre- tending to liave got rid of it when you have not, but have ouly wasted money in building an unnecessary embankment. Of course, the bridge should not be difficultly or dangerously steep, but the necessary slope, whatever it may be, should be in the bridge itself, as far as the bridge cau take it, and not pushed aside into the ajjproach, as in our Waterloo COMPOSITION. 59 Well, to return to our continuity. "\Ye see that the Tur- nerian bridge in Fig. 12 is of the absolutely perfect type, and is still farther interesting by having its main arch crowned by a watch-tower. But as I want you to note especially what perhaps was not the case in the real bridge, but is entirely Turner's doing, 3'ou will iind that though the arches diminish gradually, not one is regularly dimin- ished — they are all of different shapes and. sizes : yon can- not see this clearly in Fig. 12, but in the larger diagram, Fig. 14, over leaf, you will wnth ease. This is indeed also part of the ideal of a bridge, because the lateral currents near the shore are of course irregular in size, and a simple builder would naturally vary his arches accordingly ; and also, if the bottom was rocky, build his piers where the rocks came. But it is not as a part of bridge ideal, but as a necessity of all noble composition, that this irregularity is introduced by Turner. It at once raises the object thus treated from the lower or vulgar unity of rigid law to the greater unity of clouds, and waves, and trees, and human souls, each different, each obedient, and each in harmonious service. 4. The Law of Curvature. — There is, however, another point to be noticed in this bridge of Turner's. Not only does road ; the only rational excuse for doing which is that when the slope must be long it is inconvenient to put on a drag at the top of the bridge, and that any restiveness of the horse is more dangerous on the bridge than on the embankment. To this I answer : first, it is not more dan- gerous in reality, though it looks so, for the bridge is always guarded by an effective parapet, but the embankment is sure to have no parapet, or only a useless rail ; and secondly, that it is better to have the slope on the bridge, and make the roadway wide in i)roportion, so as to be quite safe, because a little waste of space on the river is no loss, but your wide embankment at the side loses good ground ; and so my picturesque bridges are right as well as beautiful, and I hope to see them built again some day, instead of the frightful straight-backed things which we fancy are fine, and accept from the pontifical rigidities of the engi- neering mind. 60 COMPOSITION. it slope away unequallj at its sides, but it slopes in a gradual though very subtle curTC. And if you substitute a straight line for this curve (drawing one with a rule from the base of the tower on each side to the ends (;f the brido-e, in Fig-, 14., and effacing the curve), you will instantly see that the design has suffered grievously. You may ascertain, by experiment, that all beautiful objects whatsoever are thus terminated by delicately curved Ihies, except where the straight line is indispensable to their use or stability : and that when a complete system of straight lines, throughout the form, is necessary to that stability, as in crystals, the beauty, if any exists, is in colour and transparency, not in form. Cut out the shape of any crystal you like, in white wax or wood, and put it beside a white lily, and you will feel the force of the curvature in its purity, irrespective of added colour, or other iiiterferiuo- elements of beautv. Well, as curves are tnore heautiful than straight lines, it is necessary to a good composition that its continuities of object, mass, or colour should be, if possible, in curves, rather than straight lines or angular ones. Perhaps one of the simplest and prettiest examples of a graceful con- tinuity of tliis kind is in the line traced at any moment by the corks of a net as it is being drawn : nearly every person is more or less attracted by the beauty of the dotted line. Xow it is almost always possible, not only to secure sucli a contimiity in tlie arrangement or boundaries of objects which, like these bridge arches or the corks of the net, are actually connected witli each other, but — and this is a still more noble and interesting kind of continuity — among features which appear at lirst entirely separate. Thus the towers of Ehrenbreitstein, on the left, in Fig. 12., appear at first independent of each other; but when I give their profile, on a larger scale. Fig. 15., the reader may easily perceive that there is a subtle cadence and harmouy among them. The reason of this is, that they COMPOSITION. 61 62 COMPOSITION. are all bounded bv one o-rand curve, traced bv the dotted line ; out of tlie seven towers, four precisely' touch this curve, the others only falling back from it here and there to keep the eye from discovering it too easily. Fig. 15. And it is not only a\wa,ys j)ossiMe to obtain continuities of this kind: it is, in drawino; larije forest or mountain forms, essential to truth. The towers of Ehrenbreitstein might- not in reality fall into such a curve, but assuredly the basalt rock on wliich they stand did ; for all mountain forms not cloven into absolute precijjice, nor covered by straight slopes of shales, are more or less governed by these great curves, it being one of the aims of Nature in all lier work to produce tlieni. The i-eader must already know this if he lias been able to sketch at all amonor tlie mountains ; if not, let him merely draw for himself, care- COMPOSITION. 63 fully, the outlines of any lo\y hills accessible to him, where they are tolerably steep, or of the woods wliich grow on them. The steeper shore of the Thames at Maidenhead, or any of the downs at Brighton or Dover, or, even nearer, about Croydon (as Addington Hills), are easily accessible to a Londoner ; and he will soon hud not only how con- stant, but how graceful the curvature is. Graceful cur- vature is distinguished from ungraceful by two characters ; Jirst, its moderation, that is to say, its close approach to straightness in some part of its course ; * and, secondly, hy its variation, that is to say, its never remaining equal in degree at different parts of its course. Winkelman's Ancient Art, p. 48. This variation is itself twofold in all good curves. A. There is, Ji7'8t, a steady change through the whole line, from less to more curvature, or more to less, so that 710 part of the line is a segment of a circle, or can be drawn hy compasses in any way whatever. Thus, in Fig. Fig. 16. 16., a is a bad curve, because it is part of a circle, and is therefore monotonous throughout ; but 5 is a good cur^•e, because it continually changes its direction as it proceeds, * I cannot waste space here by reprinting what I have said in other books : but the reader ought, if possible, to refer to the notices of this part of our subject in Modern Painters, vol. iv. chap. xvii. ; and Stones of Venice, vol. iii. chap. i. § 8. 64: COMPOSITION. Fig. 17. The -first difference between o-ood and bad drawino' of tree bou*>:hs consists in observance of this fact. Thns, when I put leaves on the line ^, as in Fig. 17., yon can immediately feel the springiness of character dependent on the chanceful ness of the curve. You may put leaves on the other line for yourself, but you will find you cannot make a right tree-spray of it. For all tree boughs, large or small, as well as all noble natural lines whatsoever, agree in this character; and it is a point of primal necessity that your eye should always seize and your hand trace it. Here are two more portions of good curves, with leaves put on them at the extremities in- stead of the flanks, Fig. 18. ; and two showing the arrange- ment of masses of foliage seen a little farther off, Fiff. ID., which you may m hke manner amuse yourself by turnini; into sesrments of cir- cles — you will see witli what result. I hope, however, you have beside you, by this time, many good studies of tree boughs carefully made, in which you may study variations of curvature in their most complicated and lovely forms.* B. Not only does every good curve vary in general * If you happen to he reading' at this part of the book, without hav- ing ^one through any previous practice, turn back to the sketch of the ramification of stone pine, Fig. 4. p. 33., and examine the curves of its boughs one by one, trying them by the conditions here stated under the heads A and B. COMPOSITION. 65 tendency, but it is modulated, as it proceeds, by myriads of subordinate curves. Tlius the outlines of a tree trunk are never as at «, Fig. 20., but as at h. So also in waves, clouds, and all other nobly formed masses. Thus another essential difference between good and bad drawing, or good and bad sculpture", depends on the quantity and refinement of minor curvatures car- ried, by good work, into the great lines. Strictly speaking, however, this is not variation in large curves, but composition of large curves out of small ones ; it is an in- crease in the quantity of the beau- tiful element, hut not a change in its nature. 5. The Laio of Radiation. — We have hitherto been concerned oidy with the binding of our various objects into beautiful lines or pro- cessions. The next point we have to consider is, how we may unite these lines or processions them- selves, so as to make groups of them. Now, there are two kinds of har- monies of lines. One in which, moving more or less side bv side, they variously, l)ut evidently with consent, retire from or approach each other, intersect or oppose each otlier : currents of melody in music, for different voices, thus approach and cross, fall and rise, in harmony ; so the waves of the sea, as they approach the shore, flow into one another or cross, but Pig. 20. Q6 COMPOSITION. witli a great unity tliroiigli all ; and so various lines of composition often flow liarmoniously throngli and across each other in a picture. But the most simple and perfect connexion of lines is by radiation • that is, by their all springing from one point, or closing towards it: and this hai'nidny is often, in Nature almost always, united witli the other ; as the boughs of trees, thongh they intersect and play amongst each other irregularly, indicate by their gene- ral tendency their origin from one root. An essential part of the beauty of all vegetable form is in this radia- tion: it is seen most simply in a single flower or leaf, as ill a convolvnlus bell, or chestnnt leaf ; but more beantifully in the complicated arrangements of the large boughs and sprays. For a leaf is only a flat })iece of radiation ; bnt the tree throws its branches on all sides, and even in every profile view of it, which presents a radiation more or less correspondent to that of its leaves, it is more beau- tiful, because varied by the freedom of the sejDarate branches. I believe it has been ascertained that, in all trees, the angle at which, in their leaves, the lateral ribs are set on their central rib is approximately the same at wliich the branches leave the great stem ; and thns each section of the tree would present a kind of magnified view of its own leaf, were it not for the intei-fering force of gravity on the masses of foliage. This force in j)ro- ])()rtion to their age, and the lateral leverage upon them, bears them downwards at the extremities, so that, as be- foi'c noticed, the lower the bough grows on the stem, the more it droops (Fig. 1 7. }). (H.) ; besides this, nearly all l)eantiriil liees have a tendency to divide into two or more principal masses, which give a jtrettier and more com- plicated symmetry than if one stem ran all the way nj) the centre. Fig. 1^1. may thus b(! considered the simi^lest type of tree radiatioJi, as ojjposc*! to leaf radiation. In this figure, howevei", all secondary ramification is unrep- COMPOSITION. 07 Fig. Greek resented, for the sake of simplicity ; but if we take one half of such a tree, and merely u'i^'e two secondary branches to each main branch (as represented in the general branch structure shown at h, Fig. 18. p. 04:.), we shall have the form, 22. This I consider the perfect general type of tree struc- ture ; and it is curiously con- nected with certain forms of zantine, and Gothic ornamentation, into discussion of which, however, we must not enter here. It will be observed, that both in Figures 21. and 22. all the branches so spring from the main stem as very neai'ly to suggest their united radiation from the root e. This is by no means universally the case ; but if the branches do not bend towards a point in the root, they at least converge to some point or other. In the examples in Fig. 23., the mathematical centre of cur- vature, a, is thus, in one case, on the ground at some dis- tance from tlie root, and in the other, near the top of the tree. Half, only, of each tree is given, for the sake of clearness : Fia-. 24. p-ives both sides of another example, in which the origins of curvature are below the root. As the positions of such points may be varied without end, and as the arrangement of the lines is also farther complicated by the fact of the boughs springing for the most part in a spiral order round the tree, and at proportionate dis- tances, the systems of curvature which regulate the form of vegetation are quite infinite. Infinite is a word a .cs-- •' jL. Fig. 23. 68 coivrposiTioisr. a 7, Fig. 24. easily said, and easily written, and people do not always mean it when they say it ; in this case I do mean it; the number of systems is incalcu- lable, and even to furnish anvthino; like a representative number of types, I should have to give several hundreds of figures such as Fig. 24.* Thus far, however, we have only been speaking of the gi'eat relations of stem and branches. The forms of the l)ranches them- selves are reo-ulated bv still more subtle laws, for they occupy an intermediate position between the form of the tree and of the leaf. The leaf has a flat ramification ; the tree a completely rounded one ; the bough is neither rounded nor flat, but has a structure exactly balanced between the two, in a half-flattened, half- rounded flake, closely resembling in shape one of the thi(;k leaves of an artichoke or the flake of a fir cone ; by com- bination forming the solid mass of the tree, as the leaves compose the artichoke head. I have before pointed out to you the general resemblance of these branch flakes to an extended hand ; but they may be more accu- rately represented by the ribs of a boat. If you can imagine a very broad-headed aiul flat- tened boat a[)plied by its keel to flio end of a main branch,f as in Fig. 25., Fig. 25. * The reader, I hope, observes always that every line in these fig- ures is itself one of varying curvature, and cannot be drawn by com- passes. f I hope the reader understands that these woodeuts are merely fac- similes of the sketches I make at the side of my paper to illustrate my COMPOSITION. 69 the lines which its ribs will take, and the general con- tour of it, as seen in different directions, from above and below; and from one side and another, will give yon the closest approximation to the pers]:)ectives and foreshort- enings of a well-grown branch-flake. Fig. 26. below, is an iinhauned and unrestrained shoot of a healthv youncj oak ; and, if vou compare it with Fig. 25., jou will mider- stand at once the action of the lines of leafage ; the boat only failing as a type in that its ribs are too nearly paral- lel to each other at the sides, while the bough sends all its ramification well forwards, rounding to the head, that it may accomplish its part in the outer form of the whole tree, yet always securing the compliance with the great univei'sal law that the branches nearest the root bend most back ; and, of course, throwing some always back as well as forwards; the appearance of reversed action being much increased, and rendered more striking and beautiful, by perspective. Fig. 25. shows the perspective of such a bough as it is seen from be- low ; Fig. 26. gives rudely the look it would have from above. You may suppose, if you have not already discovered, j,. ^^ what subtleties of perspective and light and shade are involved in the drawing of these branch-flakes, as you see them in different directions and actions; now raised, now depressed; touched on the edges by the wind, or lifted up and bent back so as to show all the white under surfaces of the leaves shiverino^ in ]io-]it, meaning as I write— often sadlj- scrawled if I want to get on to some- thing else. This one is really a little too careless ; but it would take more time and trouble to make a proper drawing of so odd a boat than the matter is worth. It will answer the purpose well enough as it is. 70 COaiPOSITION. as the bottom of a boat rises white with spray at the surge- crest; or drooping in quietness towards the dew of the grass beneath them in windless mornings, or bowed down under oppressive grace of deep-chai-ged snow. Snow- time, by the way, is one of the best for practice in the placing of tree masses ; but you will only be able to under- stand them thoroughly by beginning with a single bough , and a few leaves placed tolerably even, as in Fig. IS. p. 64. First one with three leaves, a central and two lateral ones, as at a; then with five, as at b, and so on ; directing your M'hole attention to the expression, both by contour and light and shade, of the boat-like arrangements, which, in your earlier studies, will have been a good deal con- fused, partly oM'ing to your inexperience, and partly to the depth of shade, or absolute blackness of mass required in those studies. One thing more remains to be noted, and I will let you out of the wood. You see that in every generally repre- sentative figure I have surrounded the radiating branches with a dotted line: such lines do indeed terminate every vegetable form ; and you see that they are themselves beautiful curves, which, according to their flow, and the width or narrowness of the spaces they enclose, character- ize the species of tree or leaf, and express its free oi- for- mal action, its grace of youth or weight of age. So that, throughout all the freedom of her wildest fc^liaire, Xature is resolved on expressing an encompassing limit; and mark- ing a unity in the whole tree, caused not only l)y the rising of its branches from a common i-ciot, l)iit liv their joining in one work, and l>einij' bound bv a common law. .Viid having ascertained this, let us turn l)ack for a moment to a point in leaf structure which, I iloulit not, you must al- ready have observed in your earlier studies, but which it is well to state here, as connected with the iniity of the branches in the great trees. You nnist have noticed, I Q.V...., ..v.^^. ^v... .....^. ...v.v. ..v.l.v.^.^^, COMPOSITION. 71 should think, that whenever a leaf is compound, — that is to say, divided into other leaflets which in any way repeat or imitate the form of the whole leaf, — those leaflets are not symmetrical, as the whole leaf is, but always smaller on the side towards the point of the great leaf, so as to ex- press their subordination to it, and show, even when they are pulled off, that they are not small independent leaves, but members of one large leaf. A \B Fig. 27., which is a block-plan of a leaf of columbine, without its minor divisions on the edges, will illustrate the principle clearly. It is composed of a central large mass, A, and two lateral ones, of which the one on the right only is lettered, B. Each of these masses is again composed of three others, a central and tv/o lateral ones ; but observe, the minor one, a of A, is balanced equally by its opposite; but the minor /; 1 of B is larger than its opptjsite h 2. Again, each of these minor masses is divided into three ; but while the central mass, a of A, is symmetrically di- 72 COMPOSITION. vided, the b of B is iiiisymmetrical, its largest side-lobe being lowest. Again b 2, the lobe c 1 (its lowest lobe in relation to b) is larger than c 2 ; and so also in h 1. So that nnixersally one lobe of a lateral leaf is always larger than the-other, and the smaller lobe is that which is nearer the central mass ; the lower leaf, as it were by courtesy, subduing some of its own dignity or power, in the imme- diate presence of the greater or captain leaf ; and always expressing, therefore, its own subordination and secondary character. This law is carried out even in single leaves. As far as I know, the upper half, towards the point of the spray, is always the smaller ; and a slightly different curve, more convex at the springing, is used for the lower side, giving an exquisite variety to the form of the whole leaf; so tliat one of the chief elements in the beauty of every subordinate leaf throughout the tree, is made to depend on its confession of its own lowliness and subjection. And now, if we bring together in one view the princi- ples we have ascertained in trees, we shall hud tliey may be summed under four great laws ; and that all perfect * ^ egetable form is appointed to express these four laws in noble balance of authority. 1. Support from one living root. 2. Eadiation, or tendency of force from some one given point, either in the root, or in some stated connexion with it. •J. Liljerty of each bough to seek its own livelihood and happiness according to its needs, by irregularities of action * Imjierfcct vegetable form I consider that which is in its nature de- pendent, as in runners and climbers ; or which is susceptible of continual injury without materially losing the power of giving pleasure by its aspect, as in tJie case of the smaller grasses. I have not, of course, space here to explain these minor distinctions, but the lawsabo\e stated upjily to all the more important trees and shrubs likely to be familiar to the student. COMPOSITION. 73 both ill its play and its work, either stretching out to get its required nourishment from light and rain, by finding some sufiicient breathing-place among the other branches, or knotting and gathering itself up to get strength for any load which its fruitful blossoms may lay upon it, and for any stress of its storm-tossed luxuriance of leaves; or play- ing hither and thither as the fitful sunshine may tempt its young shoots, in their undecided states of mind about their future life. 4. Im2:)erative requirement of each bough to stop within certain limits, expressive of its kindly fellowship and fraternity with the boughs in its neighbourhood ; and to work with them according to its power, magnitude, and state of health, to bring out the general perfectness of the great curve, and circumferent stateliness of the whole tree. I think I may leave you, unhelped, to work out the . moral analogies of these laws ; you may, perhaps, how- ever, be a little puzzled to see the meeting of the second one. It typically expresses that healthy human actions should spring radiantly (like rays) from some single heart motive f the most beautiful systems of action taking place when this motive lies at the root of the whole life, and the action is clearly seen to proceed from it ; while also many beautiful secondary systems of action taking place from motives not so deej) oi- central, but in some beautiful sub- ordinate connexion with the central or life motive. The other laws, if you think over them, you will find equally significative ; and as you draw trees more and more in their various states of health and hardship, you \y[\\ be every day more struck by the beauty of the types they present of the truths most essential for mankind to know ; * and you will see what this vegetation of the * There is a very tender lesson of this kind in the shadows of leaves upon the ground ; shadows which are the most likely of all to attract attention, by their pretty play and change. If you examine them, you 4 74 cpau'OSiTioN. earth, wliich is necessary to our life, first, as purifying the air for us and then as food, and just as necessary to our joy in all places of the earth, — what these trees and leaves, I say, are meant to teach us as we contemplate them, and read or hear their lovely language, written or spoken for ns, not in frightful black letters, nor in dull sentences, but in fair green and shadowy shapes of waving words, and blossomed brightness of odoriferous wit, and sweet whispers of unintrusive wisdom, and playful morality. Well, I am sorry myself to leave the wood, whatever my reader may be ; but leave it we must, or we shall compose no more -pictures to-day. This law of radiation^ then, enforcing unison of action in arising from, or proceeding to, some given jioint, is perhaps, of all principles of composition, the most influen- tial in producing the heauty of groujys of form. Other laws make them forcible or interesting, but this generally is chief in rendering them beautiful. In the arrangement of masses in pictures, it is constantly obeyed by the great composers ; but, like the law of principality, with careful concealment of its imperativeness, the point to which the lines of main curvature are directed being very often far away out of the picture. Sometimes, however, a system of curves will l)e employed definitely to exalt, by their will find that the shadows do not take the forms of the leaves, but that, through each interstice, the light falls, at a little distance, in the form of a round or oval spot ; that is to say, it produces the image of the sun itself, cast either vertically or obliquely, in circle or ellipse according to the slope of the ground. Of course the sun's rays jn-oduce the same effect, when thoy fall through any small aperture : but the openings be- tween leaves are the only ones likely to show it to an ordinary observer, or to attract his attention to it by its frequency, and lead him to think what this type may signify respecting the greater Sun; and how it may show us that, even when the opening through which the earth receives light is too small to let us see the Sun himself, the ray of light that enters, if it comes straight from Him, will stiU bear with it His image. COMPOSITION. " 75 concurrence, the value of some leading object, and then the hiw becomes traceable enouo-h. In the instance before us, the principal object being, as we have seen, the tower on the bridge. Turner has de- termined that his system of curvature should have its origin in the top of this tower. The diagram Fig. 14. p. 61., compared with Fig. 12. p. 51., will show how this is done. One curve joins the two towers, and is continued by the back of the figure sitting on the bank into the piece of bent timber. Tliis is a limiting curve of great importance, and Turner has drawn a considerable part of it wutli the edge of the timber very carefully, and then led the eye uj) to the sitting girl by some white spots and indications of a ledge in the bank ; then the passage to the tops of the towers cannot be missed. The next curve is beffun and drawn carefullv for half an inch of its course by the rudder ; it is then taken up by the basket and the heads of the figures, and leads ac- curately to the tower angle. The gunwales of both the boats begin the next two curves, which meet in the same point ; and all are centralised by the long reflection which continues the vertical lines. Subordinated to this first system of curves there is another, begun by the small crossing bar of wood inserted in the angle behind the rudder ; continued by the bottom of the bank on which the figure sits, interrupted forcibly beyond it,* but taken up again by the water-line leading to the bridge foot, and passing on in delicate shadows un- * In the smaller figure (12), it will be seen that this interruption is caused by a cart coming- down to the water's edge ; and this object is serviceable as beginning another system of curves leading out of the picture on the right, bi\t so obscurely drawn as not to be easily repre- sented in outline. As it is unnecessary to the explanation of OTir point here, it has been omitted ui the larger diagram, the direction of the curve it begias being indicated by the dashes only. 7G COMPOSITION. der the arches, not easily shown in so rude a diagram, towards the other extremity of the hridge. This is a most important curve, indicating tliat the force and sweep of the river have indeed been in okl times under the lars^e arches ; while the antiquity of the bridge is told us by the long tongue of land, either of carted rubbish, or washed down by some minor stream, which has interrupted this curve, and is now used as a landing-place for the boats, and for embarkation of merchandise, of which some bales and bundles are laid in a heap, immediately beneath the great tower. A common comjooser would have put these bales to one side or the other, but Turner knows better; he uses them as a foundation for his tower, adding to its importance precisely as the sculptured base adorns a pil- lar ; and he farther increases the aspect of its height by throwing the reflection of it far down in the nearer water. All the great composers have this same feeling about sus- taining their vertical masses : you will constantly find Prout using the artifice most dexterously (see, for instance, the figure with the wheelbarrow under the great tower, iu the sketch of St. Nicolas, at Prague, and the white group of figu]-es under the tower in the sketch of Augsburg "" ) ; and Veronese, Titian, and Tintoret continually put their principal figures at bases of pillars. Turner found out their secret very early, the most prominent instance of his composition on this principle being the drawing of Turin from the Superga, iu Uakewell's Italy. I chose Fig. 10., already given to illustrate foliage drawing, chiefly because, being another instance of precisely the same arrangement, it will serve to convince you of its beiuff intentional. There, the vertical, formed by the larger tree, is continued by the figure of the farmer, and that of one of the snudlcr trees by his stick. The lines of the interior mass of the * Both in the Sketches La Flanders and Germany. COMPOSITION. 77 bushes radiate, under the law of radiation, from a point behind the farmer's head ; but their outline curves are carried on and repeated, under the law of continuity, by the curves of the dog and boy — by the way, note the re- markable instance in these of the use of darkest lines towards the light ; — all more or less guiding the eye up to the ]-ight, in order to bring it finally to the Keep of AYindsor, which is the central object of the picture, as the bridge tower is in the Coblentz. The wall on which the boy climbs answers the purpose of contrasting, both in direction and character, with these greater curves ; thus corresponding as nearly as possible to the minor tongue of land in the Coblentz. This, however, introduces us to another law, wliich we must consider separately. 6. The Laio of Contrast. — Of course the character of everything is best manifested by Contrast. Eest can only be enjoyed after labour; sound, to be heard clearly, must rise out of silence; light is exhibited by darkness, dark- ness by light ; and so on in all things. Now in art every colour has an ojpijonent colour, which, if brought near it, will relieve it more completely than any other ; so, also, every form and line may be made more striking to the eye by an opponent form or line near them ; a curved line is set off by a straight one, a massy form by a slight one, and so on ; and in all good work nearly double the value, which any given colour or form would have uncombined, is given to each by contrast.* In this case again, however, a too manifest use of the artifice vulgarises a picture. Great painters do not com- monly, or very visibly, admit violent contrast. They in- * If you happen to meet with the plate of Durer's representing a coat of arms with a skull in the shield, note the value given to the concave cur\'es and sharp point of the helmet by the convex leafage carried round it in front ; and the use of the blank white part of the shield in opposing the rich folds of the dress. 78 COMPOSITION. troduce it by stealth and with intermediate links of tender change; aUowing, indeed, the opposition to tell upon the mind as a surprise, but not as a shock.* Thk's in the rock of Ehrenbreitstein, Fig. 15., the main curren;-, of the lines being downwards, in a convex swell, they are suddenly stopped at the lowest tower by a counter series of beds, directed nearly straight across them. This adverse force sets off and relieves the great curvature, but it is reconciled to it by a series of radiating lines below, which at first sympathise with the oblique bar, then gradu- ally get steeper, till they meet and join in the fall of the great curve. No passage, however intentionally monoto- nous, is ever introduced by a good artist without some slight counter current of this kind ; so much, indeed, do the great composers feel the necessity of it, that tliey will even do things purposely ill or unsatisfactorily, in order to give greater value to their well-doing in other places. In a skil- ful poet's versification the so-called bad or inferior lines are not inferior because he could not do them better, but because he feels that if all M'ere equally Aveighty, there would 1)0 no real sense of weight anywhere ; if all were equally melodious, the melody itself would be fatiguing ; and he pui-posely introduces the labouring or discordant verse, that the full ring may be felt in his main sentence, and the finished sweetness in liis chosen rhythm.f And * Turner hardly ever, as far as I remember, allows a strong light to oppose a full dark, without some intervening tint. His suns never set behid dark mountains without a film of cloud above the mountain's edgo f " A prudent chief not always must display His powers in equal ranks and fair array, But with the occasion and the place comply, Conceal his force ; nay, seem sometimes to fly. Those oft are stratagems which errors seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream." Essay 9n Criticism, COMPOSITION. 79 continually in jDainting, inferior artists destroy their work by giving too much of all that they think is good, while the great painter gives just enough to be enjoyed, and passes to an opposite kind of enjoyment, or to an inferior state of enjoyment: he gives a passage of rich, involved, ex- quisitely wrought colour, then passes away into slight, and pale, and simple colour; he paints for a minute or two with intense decision, tlien suddenly becomes, as the spec- tator thinks, slovenly ; but he is not slovenly : you could not have taken any more decision from him just then; you have had as much as is good for you; he paints over a great space of his picture forms of the most rounded and melting tenderness, and suddenly, as you think by a freak, gives you a bit as jagged and sharp as a leafless Fig. 28. blackthorn. Perhaps the most exquisite piece of subtle contrast in the world of painting is the arrow point, laid sharp against the white side and among the flowing hair of Correggio's Antiope. It is quite singular how very little contrast will sometimes serve to make an entire group of forms interesting which would otherwise have been valueless. There is a good deal of picturesque ma- terial, for instance, in this top of an old tower, Fig. 28., 80 COMPOSITION. tiles and stones and sloping roof not disagreeably min- gled ; bnt all would have been unsatisfactory if there had not happened to be that iron ring on the inner wall, which by its vigorous black circular line precisely opposes all the square and angular characters of the battlements and roof. Draw the tower without the ring, and see what a diifer- ence it will make. One of the most important applications of the law of contrast is in association with the law of continuity, caus- ing an unexpected but gentle break in a continuous series. This artifice is perpetual in inusic, and perpetual also in good illumination ; the way in which little surprises of change are prepared in any current borders, or chains of ornamental design, being one of the most subtle character- istics of the work of the good periods. We take, for in- stance, a l)ar of ornament 'between two written colunms of an early 14th century MS., and at the first glance we sup- pose it to be quite monotonous all the way up, composed of a winding tendril, with alternately a blue leaf aud a scarlet bud. Presently, however, we see that, in order to observe the law^ of principality, there is one large scarlet leaf instead of a bud, nearly half-way up, which forms a centre to the whole rod; and when we begin to examine the order of the leaves, we find it varied carefully. Let a stand for scai^et bud, J) for blue leaf, g for two blue leaves on one stalk, s for a stalk without a leaf, and e for the lar, ., s continued, but liehold it runs away to COMPOSITION. 81 the end with a quick h, h^ a ; h, h,h,h\* Yery often, how- ever, the designer is satisfied with one surprise, but I never saw a good iUuminated border Avithout one at least ; and no series of any l^ind is ever introduced by a great com- poser in a painting witliout a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome, with the large balustrade for a foreground in the Ilakewell's Italy series : the single baluster struck out of the line, and showino; the street below through the gap, simply makes the whole composition right, when otherwise, it would have been stiff and absurd. If vou look back to Fig. 28. von will see, in the arrange- ment of the battlements, a simple instance of the use of such variation. The whole top of the tower, though actu- ally three sides of a square, strikes the eye as a continuous series of five masses. The first two, on the left, somewhat square and blank ; then the next two higher and richer, the tiles being seen on their slopes. Both these groups being couples, there is enough monotony in the series to make r change pleasant ; and the last battlement, there- fore, is a little higher than the first two, — a little lower than the second two, — and different in shape from either. Hide it with your fingei-, and see how ugly and formal the other four battlements look. There are in this figure several other simple illustrations of the laws we have been tracing. Thus the wdiole shape of the walls' mass being square, it is well, still for the sake of contrast, to oppose it not only by the element of curv- ature, in the ring, and lines of the roof below, but by that of sharpness ; lience the pleasure which the eye takes in the projecting point of the roof. Also because the walls are thick and sturdy, it is well to contrast their strength * I am describing- from an MS. , circa 1300, of Gregory's Decretalia, in my own possession. 4* 82 COMPOSITION. with weakness ; therefore we enjoy the evident decrepitude of this roof as it sinks between them. Tlie whole mass being nearly white, we want a contrasting shadow some- where ; and get it, under our piece of decrepitude. This shade, with the tiles of the wall below, forms another pointed mass, necessary to the first by the law of repeti- tion. Hide this inferior angle with your finger, and see how ugly the other looks. A sense of the law of sym- metry, though you might hardly suppose it, has some share in the feeling with which you look at the battlements ; there is a certain pleasure in the opposed slopes of their top, on one side down to the left, on the other to the right. Still less would you think the law of radiation had any- thing to do with the matter : but if you take the extreme point of the black shadow on the left for a centre, and follow first the low curve of the eaves of the wall, it will lead you, if you continue it, to the point of the tower cor- nice ; follow the second curve, the top of the tiles of the wall, and it will strike the top of the right-hand battle- ment ; then draw a curve from the highest point #f the angle battlement on the left, through the points of the roof and its dark echo ; and you will see how the whole top of the tower radiates from this lowest dark point. There are other curvatures crossing these main ones, to keep them fi-om being too conspicucnis. Follow the curve of the upper roof, it will take you to the top of the highest battlement ; and the stones indicated at the right-hand Bide of the tower are more extended at the bottom, in order to get some less direct expression of sympatliy, such as irregular stones may be capable of, with the general flow of the curves from left to right. You may not readily belie \e, at first, that all these laws are indeed involved in so trifiing a piece of composition. But as you study longer, you will discover that these laws, and many more, arc obeyed by the powerful composers iu COMPOSITION. 83 every touch : that literally, there is never a dash of their pencil which is not carrying out appointed purposes of this kind in twenty various ways at once ; and that there is as much difference, in way of intention and authority, between one of the great composers ruling his colours, and a common painter confused by them, as there is between a general directing the march of an army, and an old lady carried off her feet by a mob. 7. Tlie Law of InterGhange. — Closely connected with the law of contrast is a law" ^^'hich enforces the unity of ojpposite things, by giving to each a portion of the character of the other. If, for instance, you divide a shield into two masses of colour, all the way down — suj^pose blue and white, and put a bar, or iigure of an animal, partly on one division, partly on the other, you will find it pleasant to the eye if you make the part of the animal blue which comes upon the white half, and white which comes upon the blue half. This is done in heraldry, partly for the sake of perfect intelligibility, but yet more for the sake of delight in interchange of colour, since, in all ornamenta- tion whatever, the practice is continual, in the ages of good design. Sometimes this alternation is merely a reversal of con- trasts ; as that, after red has been for some time on one 'side, and l)lue on the other, red shall pass to blue's side and blue to red's. This kind of alternation takes place simply in four-quartered shields ; in more subtle pieces of treatment, a little bit only of each colour is carried into the other, and they are as it were dovetailed together. One of the most curious facts which will impress itself upon you, when you have drawn some time carefully from Nature in light and shade, is the appearance of inten- tional artifice with which contrasts of this alternate kind are produced by her; the artistry with which she will darken a tree trunk as long as it comes against light sky, 84 coMPOSiTiOiSr. and throw sunlight on it precisely at the spot where it conies against a dark hill, and similarly treat all her masses of shade and colour, is so great, that if you only follow her closely, every one who looks at your drawing with atten- tion will think that you have been inventing the most artificially and unnaturally delightful interchanges of shadow that could possibly be devised by human wit. You will find this law of interchange insisted upon at length by Prout in his Lessons on Light and Shade : it seems, of all his principles of composition, to be the one he is most conscious of ; many others he obeys by instinct, but this he formally accepts and forcibly declares. The typical purpose of the law of interchange is, of course, to teach us how opposite natures may be helped and strengthened by receiving each, as far as they can, some impress or im2:)arted power, from the other. 8. The Law of Consistency. — Breadth. — It is to be re- membered, in the next place, that while contrast exhibits the characters of things, it very often neutralises or paralyses their 'power. A number of white things may be shown to be clearly white by opposition of a black thing, but if we want the full power of their gathered light, the black thing may be sei'iously in our way. Thus, while contrast disjdays things, it is unity and sympathy which emjjloy them, concentrating the jyower of several into a mass. And, not in art merely, but in all the affairs of life, the wisdom of )iian is continually called upon to reconcile these oj)posite methods of exhibiting, or using, the materials in liis power. By change he gives them pleasantness, and by consistency value ; by change he is refreshed, and by j^ersevcrance strengthened. Hence many compositions address themselves to tlie spectator by aggregate force of colour or line, more than by contrasts of either ; many noble pictures are painted almost exclusively in various tones of red, or grey, or COMPOSITION. 85 gold, so as to be instantly striking by their breadth of fliisli, or glow, or tender coldness, these qnalities being exhibited only by slight and subtle use of contrast. Simi- larly as to form ; some compositions associate massive and r^iggecl forms, others slight and graceful ones, each with few interruptions Ijy lines of contrary character. And, in general, such compositions possess higlier sub- limity than those which are more mingled in their ele- ments. They tell a special tale, and summon a definite state of feeling, while the grand compositions merely please the eye. This unity or breadth of character generally attaches most to the works of the greatest men ; their separate pic- tures have all separate aims. We have not, in each, grey colour set against sombre, and sharp forms against soft, and loud passages against low : but we have the bright picture, Avith its delicate sadness ; the sombre picture, with its single ray of relief ; the stern picture, with only one tender group of lines ; the soft and calm picture, with only one rock angle at its flank ; and so on. Hence the variety of their work, as well as its impressivencss. ^\\q jprinci- jpal hearing of this law, however, is on the separate mass- es or divisions of a picture : the character of the whole composition may be broken or various, if we please, but there must certainly be a tendency to consistent assem- blage in its divisions. As an army may act on several points at once, but can only act effectually by having somewhere formed and regular masses, and not wholly by skirmishers ; so a picture may be various in its ten- dencies, but must be somewhere united and coherent in its masses. Good composers are always associating their colours in great groups j binding their forms together by encompassing lines, and securing, by various dexteri- ties of expedient, what they themselves call " breadth : " that is to say, a large gathering of each kind of tiling 86 COMPOSITION. into ONE j_>lace ; light being gathered to light, darkness to darkness, and colour to colour. If, however, tliis be done by introducing false lights or false colours, it is absurd and monstrous ; the skill of a painter consists in obtaining breadth by rational arrangement of his objects, not by forced or wanton treatment of them. It is an easy matter to paint one thing all white, and another all black or brown ; but not an easy matter to assemble all the circumstances which will naturally produce white in one place, and brown in another. General I3' speak- ing, however, breadth will result in suthcient de<>-ree from fidelity of study : Nature is always broad ; and if you paint her colours in true relations, you will paint them in majestic masses. If you find your work look broken and scattered, it is, in all probability, not only ill composed, but untrue. The opposite tpiality to breadth, that of division or scattering of light and colour, has a certain contrasting charm, and is occasionally introduced with exquisite effect by good composers.* Still, it is never the m<:^re scatter- ing, but the order discernible through this scattering, which is the real source of pleasure ; not the mere multi- tude, but the constellation of multitude. The broken lights in the work of a good painter wander like flocks upon the hills, not unshepherded ; speaking of: life and peace: the broken lights of a bad painter fall like hail- stones, and are capable only of mischief, leaving it to be wished they were also of dissolution. 9. 2'he Law of Harmony. — This last law is not, strictly speaking, so much one of composition as of trutli, but it * One of the most wonderful compositions of Tintoret in Venice, is little more than a field of subdued crimson, spotted with flakes of scat^ tered gold. The upper clouds in the most beautiful skies owe great part of their power to infinitude of division ; order being marked through this division. COMPOSITION. 87 must guide composition, and is properly, therefore, to be stated in this place. Good drawing is, as we have seen, an abstract of natural facts ; you cannot represent all that you w^ould, but must continually be falling short, whether you will or no, of the force, or quantity, of Xature. Now, suppose that your means and time do not admit of your giving the depth of colour in the scene, and tliat you are obliged to paint it paler. If you paint all the colours proportion- ately paler, as if an equal quantity of tint had been washed away from each of them, you still obtain a har- monious, though not an equally forcible statement of natural fact. But if you take away the colors unequally, and leave some tints nearly as deep as they are in Nature, while others are much subdued, you have no longer a true statement. You cannot say to the observer, " Fancy all those colours a little deeper, and you will have the actual fact." However he adds in imagination, or takes away, something is sure to be still wrong. The picture is out of harmony. It will happen, however, much more frequently, that you have to darken the whole system of colours, than to make them paler. You remember, in your first studies of colour from Nature, you w^ere to leave the passages of light which were too bright to be imitated, as white paper. 13ut, in completing the picture, it becomes necessary to put colour into them ; and then the other colours must be made darker, in some fixed relation to them. If you deepen all proportionately, though the whole scene is darker than reality, it is only as if you were looking at the reality in a lower light : but if, while you darken some of the tints, you leave others undarkened, the picture is out of harmony, and will not give the impression of truth. It is not, indeed, possible to deepen all the colors so much as to relieve the lights in their natural degree ; you 88 COMPOSITION. would merely sink most of your colours, if you tried to do so, into a broad mass of blackness : but it is quite possible to lower them harmoniously, and yet more in some parts of the picture than in otliers, so as to allow you to show the light you want in a visible relief. In well-harmonised pictures this is done by gradually deepening the tone of the picture towards the ligliter parts of it, without materi- ally lowering it in the very dark parts ; the tendency in such pictures being, of course, to include large inasses of middle tints. But the principal point to be observed iu doing this, is to deepen the individual tints without dirty- ing or obscuring them. It is easy to lower the tone of the picture by washing it over with grey or brown ; and easy to see the eifect of the landscape, when its colours are thus universally polluted with black, by using the black convex mirror, one of the most pestilent inventions for falsifying nature and degrading art which ever was put into an artist's hand.''' For the thing required is not to darken pale yellow by mixing grey with it, but to deepen the pure yellow ; not to darken crimson by mixing black with it, but by making it deeper and richer crimson : and thus the required eifect could oidy be seen in Nature, if you had pieces of glass of the colour of every object in your land- scape, and of every minor hue that made up those colours, and then could see the real landscape through this dee[) gorgeousness of the varied glass. You cannot do this with glass, but you can do it for yourself as you work ; that is to say, you can put deep blue for pale blue, deep gold for pale gold, and so on, in the projiortion you need ; and then yon may paint as forcibly as you choose, but * I fully believe that the stran^^e grey gloom, accompanied by consid- erable power of effect, which prevails in modern French art, must be owing to the use of this mischievous instnxmeut ; the French landscape always gives mo the idea of Nature seen carelessly in the dark mirror, and painted coarsely, but scientifically, through the veil of its perversion. COMPOSITION. 89 your work will still be in the manner of Titian, not of Caravao-o'io or Spagnoletto, or any other of the black slaves of painting.* Snpposing those scales of colonr, which I told yon to prepare in order to show yon the relations of colour to grey, were quite accurately made, and numerous enough, yon would have nothing ni:e at once. The munber nmst bo determined by the subjec^t, and left to the judgment of the painter. David's picture of the "Coroiuition of Napoleon" has 210 personages, 80 of whom are full lenii'th. Veronese's " Ma rriai^e at Cana" has !('>'» figures, life size. Tintoretto's " Paradise " has 500 figures. It is evident, therefore, that there can be no rule as to numbers of figiu'cs admissible in a group. COMPOSITION. 101 13. Principal and Subordinate Groups. — (1) If the figures be numerous, it is usual, if not necessary, to divide them into principal and subordinate or accessory , groups. (2) Between the divisions of a group, one of which, as we have said, must be a principal group as a focus from which the composition is to be developed, and upon which the whole picture is to be constructed, there must be unity of sentiment, action, and locality. (3) Group must balance group. 14. The Attitudes of Figures. — (1) The various atti- tudes of the bod}' must be carefully observed. When one side of the body bends in, the other will bend out. The lines of the body should be balanced. If one hand and arm hano; down, the other oui>:ht to be raised. If one arm goes to the right, the other will naturally and generally go to the left. But formality, stiffness, or posturings, ought to be carefully avoided, as indicating crude and pedantic composition. (2) Leslie says that in a group of several figures, one must always present its back to the spectator. This is unavoidable in circular groups, where the spectator is supposed not to be a party, but to stand outside the circle. (3) Attitudes and actions are often repeated by the figures of a group. In Baphael's picture of " Ananias and Sapj^hira " there are seven figures in a group on one side, and seven in a group on the other, and seven in the middle ; and no one, except Ananias and Sapphira, performs an action that is not repeated, though varied. 15. The Form of the Group. — According to the direc- tion into which the principal lines of a picture or group fall, the composition is distinguished into angular, circular, and horizontal. (1) Angular Grouping. — a. The diagonal line, the sim- 102 COMPOSITION. plest foi-m of angular composition, is exceedingly well adapted for the representation of perspective, especially, when, for greater range of effect, the distance is placed towards one side of the picture. b. The pyramidal line is the one most approved, espe- cially by Hogarth, for the effectiveness of a group. The Laocoon is that form. c. The diamond or lozenge shape is also well adaj^ted to groiij^s of four or live figures. (2) Circular Groujping. — This was Raphael's favourite form. It is the picturesque form and adapted to grand subjects. In some, the figures are arranged on the line of an ellipse, nearly closing up in front of the spectator, Avho is supposed to stand on the outside. In others, the eye of the sj)ectator is led into the depth of the group, arranged in a semicircle, in front and as a part of which tlie spec- tator is supposed to stand. In sacred groups this semi- circular arrangement seemed to bring the spectator into its immediate presence. It is said of P. Veronese, that where he introduced land- scape backgrounds into his pictures, that trees are lightly but masterly sketched in, and the other accessories are ar- ranged in a way so as not to intrude on the centre group. In his grandest compositions, in which he loved to intro- duce numerous figures and horses, and in the clouds above not unfrequently the apotheosis of the blessed, the whole is arranged in grand and powerful groups. Some of these groups are bo fine that their full merit can hardly be felt or appreciated at once, almost every head and every figure being a study in itself. Rarely do we meet with any crude or unsightly figures in the works of this great painter; be- sides, he liad an agreeable way of arranging his large cora- j^ositions, conti-ary to the general rule, so as not to allow all thought or attention to be directed towards the princi- pal or speaking figures ; thus the eye is never fatigued by COMPOSITION. 103 dwelling on one jjoint, but is refreshed by glancing from one point to another, and is thus al)le to enjoy those por- tions of the composition, which, while accessory in some degree to the story, are yet suthciently independent to be considered pictures in themselves. Some of Haphael's groups, as in the " School of Athens," have too little interior unity ; and some, as in the " Trans- figuration " and picture of " Ananias," are too formal, almost pedantic. Ruskin says that in Tintoretto's picture of "■ Paradise," the grouping is so intricate, at the upper part, it is not easy to distinguish one figure from another, but that the whole number could not be below 500. The whole com- position is divided into concentric zones, represented one above another like the stories of a cupola, round the fig- ures of Christ and the Madonna at the centi-al and high- est point. Between each zone or belt of the nearer figures, the white distances of heaven are seen filled with fioatinoc spirits. (3) Horizontal Grouping is distinguished as the form in which the great Da Yinci arranged the Apostles in his picture of the " Supper." Our Saviour sits in the middle <;)f the table, and on either side are two subordinate groups, of three Apostles each. No one ever criticised the suit- ableness of the form to the subject, and this suitableness is the test of its artistic truth. However, as to the form of groups, Fuseli remarks in his 5th sect.: ''Various are the shapes in wdiich composi- tion eml)odies its subject, and presents it to our eye. The cone or pyramid, the globe, the grape, flame, and stream, the circle and its segment lend their fio-ure to elevate, con- centrate, round, diffuse themselves, or undulate in its masses." CHAPTER YL OF TRUTH OF TONE. As I have already allowed, that in effects of tone, the old masters have never jet been equalled ; and as this is the first, and nearly the last, concession 1 shall have to make to them, I wish it at once to be thoroughly under- stood how far it extends. I understand two things by the word " tone : " — first, the exact relief and relation of objects against and to each other in substance and darkness, as they are nearer or more dis- tant, and thej)€rfect relation of the shades oi all of them to the chie/' 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 liMit : and the accurate relation amonij the ilhnni- nated parts tliemselves, with respect to the degree in which they are influenced liy the colour of the light itself, whether warm or cohl ; .so that the whole of the picture (or, where several tones are united, tliose parts of it which are under eacli,) may be felt to he in one climate, under one hind of light, and in one lind of atinosphere ; this being chiefly dependent on that jicculiar and inexplicable (piality of each colour laid on, which makes the eye feel both what is the actual coloui' of the object represented, and that it is raised to its apparent pitch by illuniiuation. A very bi-ight brown, foi- instance, out of sunshine, may be precisely of the same shade of colour as a very dead or cold brown in sunshine, but it will be totally different OF TRUTH OF TONE. 105 m qucdity ; and that quality by which the ilhiminated dead colour would be felt in nature different from the nnillmninated bright one, is what' artists are perpetually aiming at, and connoisseurs talking nonsense about, under the name of "'tone." The want of tone in 2:)ictures 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 confounded with what is commonly called "aerial perspective." But aei^al perspective is the EXPRESSION OF SPACE, hj any mearis whatsoever^ sharpness of edge, vividness of colour, etc., assisted by greater pitch of shadoic, and requires only that objects shoxdd he detached from each other, hy degrees of intensity in pro- p>ortion to their distance, without requiring that the difference het'tveen the farthest and nearest shoxdd he 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 are, in this respect, some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves below her key ; the dark objects in the mid- dle distance having precisely the same relation to the light of the sky which they have in nature, but the light being necessarily infinitely lowered, and the mass of the shadow deepened in the same degree. I have often been sti'uck, when looking at a camera-obscura on a dark day, with the exact resemblance the imao'e bore to one of the finest pictures of the old mastei'S ; 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 C(nild be done consistentlv, and all the 106 OF TRUTH OF TONE. notes of nature given in this waj an octave or tvro down, it would be right and necessary so to do : but be it observed, not only does nature surpass us in power of obtaining light as much as the sun surpasses white paper, bnt she also infinitely surpasses ns in her power of shade. Her deepest shades are void spaces from which no light whatever is reflected to the eye ; ours are black surfaces from which, paint as black as we may, a great deal of light is still reflected, and which, placed against one of nature's deep bits of gloom, would tell as distinct light. Here we are then, with white paper iov our highest ligiit, and visible illumined surface for our deepest shadow, set to run tlie gauntlet against nature, with the sun for her lio-ht, and vacuity for her Moom. It is evident that she can well aiford to throw her material objects dark against the l)rilliant aerial tone of her skv, and vet sive in those ol)jects themselves a thousand intermediate distances and tones before she comes to black, or to anvthino; like it — all the illumined surfaces of her objects being as distinctly and vividly bri^liter than lier 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 havino; 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, liow are we to express tlie distinction between its solid [)arts, already as dark as we can make them, and its vacant hollows, which natui'e has marked shai'p 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 OF TKUTH OF TONE. 107 one distance to another, we give the same quantity of dif- ference iu pitch of shade which nature does, we must pay for this expenditure of our means by totally missing half a d<3zen distances, not a whit less important or marked, and so sacrifice a multitude of truths, to obtain one. And this, accordingly, was the means by which the old masters obtained their (truth ?) of tone. They chose those steps of distance which are the most conspicuous and noticeable — that for instance from sky to foliage, or from clouds to hills — and they gave these their precise pitch of difference in shade with exquisite accuracy of imitation. Their means were then exhausted, and they were obliged to leave their trees fiat masses of mere filled-up outline, and to omit the truths of space in every individual part of their picture by the thousand. But this they did not care for; it saved them trouble ; they reached their gi-and end, imi- tative effect ; they thrust home just at the places where the common and careless eye looks for imitation, and they attained the broadest and most faithful appearance of truth of tone which art can exhibit. But they are prodigals, and foolish prodigals, in art; they lavish their whole means to get one truth, and leave themselves powerless when they should seize a thousand. And is it indeed Nvorthy 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 sacri- ficed is rendered falsehood by their absence, the relation of the tree to the sky is marked as an impossibility by the want of relation of its parts to each other. Turner starts from the beginning with a totally difl^er- eut principle. He boldly takes pure white (and justly, 108 OF TRUTH OF TONE. for it is tlie sign of the most intense sunbeams) for his highest light, and lampblack for his deej)est 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 difference in pitch which it would have in nature, but a difference bearing the same propor- tion 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 intei'- mediate space will have just its proportionate share of the lesser sum, and no more. Hence where the old masters exj^ressed one distance, he expresses a hundred ; and where they said furlongs, he says leagues. Which of these modes of procedure be most agreeable with truth, I think I may safely leave the reader to decide for himself. He will see in this very first instance, one proof of what we above asserted, that the deceptive imitation of nature is inconsistent with real truth ; for the very means by which the old masters attained the apparent accuracy of tone which is so satisfying to the eye, compelled them to give up all idea of i-eal relations ol: retirement, and to represent a few successive and marked stages of distance, like the scenes of a theatre, instead of the impei'ceptible, multitudinous, symmetrical retirement of nature, who is not more careful to separate her nearest bush from her farthest one, than to separate the nearest bt)Ugh of that bush from the one next to it. Take, for instance, one of the finest landscapes that ancient art has produced — the work of a really great and * Of course I am not speaking here of treatment of chiaroscuro, but of that quantity of depth of shade by which, crilerin jKirihiitt^ a neat object will exceed a distant one. For the truth of the systems of Tur- ner and the old masters, as regards chiaroscuro, vide Chap. IX. pp, 11)4-200. OF TRUTH OF TONE. 109 intellectual niind, the quiet Nicholas Poiissin, in our own JSTational Gallery, with the traveller washing his feet. The first idea we receive from this picture is, that it is evening, and all the light coming from the horizon. Not so. It is full 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 lat- eral, the shadow would slope, instead of being vertical.) Now, ask yourself, and answer candidly, if those black masses of foliage, in which scarcely any form is seen but the outline, be a true representation of trees under noon- day sunlight, sloping from the left, bringing out, as it necessarily would do, their masses into golden green, and markino; everv 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 unhesitatino-lv sacrificed. So much falsehood does it cost to obtain two apparent truths of tone. Or take, as a still more glaring instance. No. 260 in the Dulwich Gallery, wliere 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 an}^ other means, between them and the foreground. Compare with these, Turner's treatment of his mate- rials in the Mercury and Argus. He has here his light actually coming from the distance, the sun being nearly in the centre of the picture, and a violent relief of objects against it would be far more justifiable than in Poussin's case. But this dark relief is used in its full force only with the nearest leaves of the nearest group of foliage 110 OF TEUTII OF TONE. overliaiigiiio; tlie foreground from the left ; and between these and the more distant members of the same gronp, 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 coutrary mode of treatment, this is the only scientihc 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 Ilora Quieti," where everything, even the darkest parts of the trees, is kept pale and full of graduation; even the bridc-e where it crosses the descending stream of smishine, rather lost in the light than relieved against it, until we come up to the foreground, and then the vigor- ous 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 fur united intensity of light and repose. Observe, I am not at present speaking of the beauty or desirableness of the system of the old masters; it may be sublime, and affecting, aud ideal, and intellectual, and a great denl more; but all I am concerned witli at present is, that it is not true ; while Turner's is the closest and most studied approach to truth of wliich the materials of art admit. It was not, therefore, with reference to this division of OF TEL'TU OF TONE. Ill the subject that I admitted inferiority in onr great mod- ern master to Chinde or Poussin, but with reference to the second and more usual meaning of the word '' tone " — the exact relation and fitness of shadow and light, and of the hues of all objects under them; and more espe- cially that precious quality of each colour laid on, which makes k. ajipear a quiet colour illuminated, not a bright colour in shade. But I allow this inferiority only with respect to the paintings of Turner, not to his drawings. I could select from among the works named in Chap. IX. of this section, pieces of tone absolutely faultless and per- fect, from the coolest grays of wintry dawn to the intense fire of summer noon. And the difference between the prevailing character of these and that of nearly all the paintings (for the early oil pictures of Turner are far less perfect in tone than the most recent,) it is difiicult to account for, but on the supposition that there is some- thing in the material which modern artists in general ai-e incajjable of mastering, and which compels Turner him- self to think less of tone in oil color, than of other and more important qualities. The total failures of Callcott, whose struggles after tone ended so invariably in sliiver- ing winter or brown paint, the misfoi'tune of Landseer with his evening sky in 1842, the frigidity of Stanfield, and the earthiness and oj)acity which all the magnificent power and admirable science of Etty are unable entirely to conquer, are too fatal and convincing proofs (;f the want of knowledge of means, I'ather 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 othei-s painted at a time when he was producing the most exquisite hues of light in water-color) might seem to favor su(;h a supposition, there are passages in his recent works (such, for instance, as the sunlight along the sea, in 112 OF TJRUTII OF TONE. the Slaver) which directly contradict it, and which prove to us that where he now errs in tone, (as in the Cicero's Yilla,) 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 mitouched Claude beside the Crossing the Brook, and the difference in value and tenderness of tone will be felt in an instant, and felt the more painfully because all the cool and transparent qualities of Claude would have been here desirable, and in their jilace, and appear to have been aimed at. The foreo-round of the Buildino; 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. AUnutt, Esq., a sunset behind willows, but even this is wanting in refinement of shadow, and is crude in its extreme distance. Kot so with the recent Academy pic- tures ; many of their passages are absolutely faultless ; all are refined and marvellous, and with the exception of the Cicei'o's Yilla, we shall find few pictures painted within the last ten years which do not either present us with per- fect tone, or with some liigher beauty, to which it is neces- sarily 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. Lifjht^ with reference to the tO)ie it induces on objects, is either to he considered as neutral mid white, bringing out local colours with fidelity ; or coloured, and conse- quently nwdiff/iny 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 OF TKUTH OF TONE. 113 different days, independently of mere brilliancy, is as inconceivable as inexplicable. Every one knows liow 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 sti-ange, penetrating, deep, neutral light, which, while it alters 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 colourists as opposed to pictures of equally 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 far more of feeling than of proof, for any colour is possible under sucii lights ; it is meagreness and feebleness only which are to be avoided ; and these are rather matters of sensation than of reasoning. But it is yet easy enough to prove by what exaggerated and false means the pictures most celebrated for this quality are endowed with their richness and solemnity of colour. In the Bacchus and Ariadne of Titian, it is difficult to imag- ine anything more magnificently impossible than the blue of the distant landscape ; — impossible, not from its vivid- ness, but because it is not faint and aerial enough to account for its purity of colour ; it is too dark and blue at tiie same time ; and there is indeed so total a want of atmosphere in it, that, but for the difference of form, it jvould be impossible to tell the mountains (intended to be ten miles off) from the robe of Ariadne close to the spec- tator. 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 Dalwich Gallery ; the blue of the dark 114: OF TKUTII OF TONE, promontory on the left is thoronglilj absurd and impossi- ble, and the wai'ni tones of the clouds equally so, unless it were sunset ; but the blue especially, because it is nearer than several points of land which are equally in shadow, and yet are rendered^ in warm gray. But tlie whole value and tone of the picture would be destroyed if this blue were altered. xSow, as mu<;h 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 melo- dies 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 therefoie 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 ])econies necessarily inferior in richness of effect to the old masters of tone, (who always used a golden highest light,) but gains by the sacrifice a thousand more essential ti'uths. For, though we all know h<»w much more like liii-ht, in the abstract, a finelv-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, Avhich we can between this and white ; and as these yradations are ahsolufely necessarij to give the facts of form and distance, which, as we have above sliown, are more important than any truths of tone,* Turner sacrifices the richness of his picture to its (tonii)leteness — the mannci- of the statement to its matter. And not only is he I'ight in doing- this i'or the sake of * More important, observe, an 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 hare here no concern. OF TRUTH OF TONE. 115 Bjpace, bnt he is right also in the abstract question of colour ; for as Ave observed above (p. 112,) it is only the white light — the perfect uumodilied group of rays — which will bring out local colour perfectly ; and if the picture, there- fore, 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 second and more frequent quality of light, (which is assumed if we make our highest representation of it yellow,) the positive hue, namely, which it may itself possess, of course modifying whatever local tints it exhib- its, and thereby rendering certain colours necessary, and certain colours impossible. Uuder 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 horizoUj if the sky be clear, a rose light supersedes the golden one, still more over- whelming 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, M'hich, when in a picture it is so exactly proportioned that we feel at once both what the local colours are in them- selves, and what is the colour and strength of the light upon them, gives us truth of tone. For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art. But I much doubt if 116 OF TRUTH OF TONE. there be a single hrigJit Cuyp in the world, which, taken as a whole, does not present many glaring solecisms in tone. I have not seen many hne pictures of his, which were not ntterly spoiled by the vermilion dress of some principal figure, a vermilion totally unaffected and unwarmed by the golden hue of the rest of the picture ; and, what is worse, with little distinction, between its own illumined and shaded parts, so that it appears altogether out of sunshine, the colour of a bright vermilion in dead, cold dayliglit. It is possible that tlie original colour may have gone down in all cases, or that these parts may have been villanonsly 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 — o-reens for instance — as in the steep bank on the right of the largest picture in the Dulwich Gallery ; and browns, as in tlie lying cow in the same picture, which is in most visible and painful contrast with the one standing beside it, the flank of tlie standino; one beinof bathed in breathino; 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 rigures 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 Avhole effect that I cpiestion if there be many Cuyps in which vivid ccdours 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 ck)6e enough to rest on the right parts without in- OF TKUTH OF TONE. 117 clnding- the whole. Take, for instance, the large one in our National Gall-ery, seen from the opposite door, wliere the black cow appears a great deal nearer than the dogs, and the golden tones of the distance look like a sepia drawing rather than like sunshine, owing chiefly to the utter want of aerial grays indicated through them. Now, there is no instance in the works of Turner of anything so faithful and imitative of sunshine as the best parts of Cuyp ; but at the same time, there is not a single vestige of the same kind of solecism. It is true, that in liis 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 valu- able as colour, though, with all deference be it spoken, I think them sometimes slightly destructive of what would otherwise be perfect tone. For instance, the two blue and white stripes on the drifting flag of tiie Slave Ship, are, I think, the least degree too purely cool. I think both the blue and white would be impossible under such a light ; and in the same way the white parts of the dress of the Napoleon interfered by their coolness with the perfectly managed warmth of all the rest of the picture. But both these lights are reflexes, and it is nearly impossible to say what tones may be assumed even by the warmest light re- flected from a cool surface ; so that we cannot actually convict these parts of falsehood, and though we should have liked the tone of the picture better liad they been slightly warmer, we cannot I)ut like tlie colour of tlie pic- ture better w^ith 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 118 OF TRUTH OF TONE. tlie best proof of the grammatical accuracy of the tones of Turner is in the perfect and nnchanging influence of all his pictures at any distance. We approach only to follow the sunshine into ev^ery cranny of the leafage, and retire only to feel it diffused over the scene, the whole picture p-lowino; like a sun or star at whatever distance we stand, and lio-htino- the air between ns and it : while many even of the best pictures of Claude must be looked close into to be felt, and lose light every foot that we retire. The smallest of the three seaports in the National Gallery is "valuable and rio-ht in tone when we are close to it ; l»ut ten yards off, it is all brick-dust, offensively and evidently false in its whole hue. The com])arison of Turner with Cuyp and Claude may sound strange in most ears ; but this is chiefly because we are not in the habit of analyzing and dwelling upon those difticult and daring passages of the modern master which do not at fli-st 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 uj^per clouds are always different in tone from the lower ones, these from the rest of the land- scape, and in all probability, some part of the horizon from the rest. And when luiture allows this in a high degree, as iu her most gorgeous effects she always will, she does not herself inipress at once with intensity of tone, as in the deep and quiet yellows of a July evening, but I'athcr with the nuigniflcence and variety of associated col- our, in which, if we give time and attention to it, we shall gradually And the solenniity and the depth of twenty tones instead of one. Now in Tiii-ncr's power of associat- ing cold with warm light, no one has ever approached, or even ventured into the same field with him. The old OF TRUTH OF TOXE. 119 masters, content with one simple tone, sacrificed to its unity all the exquisite gradations and varied touches of relief and change by which nature unites her hours with each other. They gave the warmth of the sinking sun, overwhelming all things in its gold; but tliey did not five those 2::ray 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 mat- ter of comparison, as that in which the mere attempt is, in itself, superiority. Take the evening effect with the Temeraire. That picture will not, at the first glance, de- ceive as a piece of actual sunlight; but this is because there is in it more than sunlight, because under the blaz- ing veil of vaulted fire whicli lights the vessel on her last path, there is a blue, deep, desolate hollow of darkness, out of which you can hear the voice of the night wind, and the dull boom of the disturbed sea; because the cold, deadly shadows of the twilight are gathering through every sunbeam, and moment by moment as you look, you will fancy some new film and faintness of the night has risen over the vastness of the departing form, l m. p. 138. CHAPTER YII. OF TUENEEIAN LIGHT, § 1. Having seen the grounds (4 M, P., 15) on wliicli to explain and justify Turner's choice of facts, we pro- ceed to examine finally those modes of rejpresenting them introduced by him ; — modes so utterly at variance with tlie received doctrines on the sul)ject of art, as to cause his works to be regarded with contempt, or severe blame, by all reputed judges, at the period of their first appearance. And, chietly, I must confirm and farther illustrate the general statements made respecting light and shade in the chapters on Truth of Tone, and on Infinity, deduced from the great fact (p. 106, chapter on Truth of Tone) that " nature surpasses us in power of obtaining light as much as the sun surpasses white paper." I found that this part of the book was not well understood, because people in general have no idea how much the sun does sur- pass white j>aper. In order to know this practically, let tlie reader take a piece of pure Mhite drawing-paper, and ]tlace it in the position in which a drawing is usually seen. Tliis is, propei-ly, upright (all drawings being supposed^ to be made on vertical j)lanes), as a picture is seen on a room Avail. Also, the usual place in which paintings or draw- ings are seen is at some distance from a window, with a gentle side light* falliug upon them, front lights being un- favorable to nearly all drawino;. Therefore the hiirhest ^ • * Light from above is the same thing with reference to our present inquiry. I OF TUKNERIAN LIGHT. • 121 light an artist can ordinarily command for liis work is that of white paint, or paper, nnder a gentle side light. Bnt if we wished to get as much light as possible, and to place the artist nnder the most favorable circumstances, we should take the drawing near the window. Put therefore your white paper npright, and take it to the window. Let a 6\ G d, be two sides of your d room, with a window at h h. ^\. .y^^^^mp^?m^^w^-'y^^^ m. Under ordinary circumstances your picture would be hung at e, or in some such position on the wall G d. First, therefore, put your paper upright at e^ and then bring it gradually to the window, in the successive positions/", ^, and (opening the ''''m ^^^' ^' window) finally at j?. T9U will notice that as you come nearer the window the light gradually increases on the paper ; so that in the position at jyit is far better lighted than it was at e. If, hovvevei-, the sun actually falls upon it at ^?, the experiment is unfair, for the picture is not meant to be seen in sunshine, and your object is to com- pare pure white paper, as ordinarily used, with sunshine. So either take a time when the sun does not shine at all, or does not shine in the window where the experiment is to be tried ; or else keep the paper so far within the win- dow that the sun may not touch it. Then the experiment is perfectly fair, and you will find that you have the paper at ]) in full, serene, pictorial light, of the best kind, and highest attainable power. § 2. Now, leaning a little over the window sill, bring the edge of the pai)er at jp against the sky, rather low down on the horizon (I .suppose you choose a fine day for the experiment, that the sun is high, and the sky clear blue, down to the horizon). The moment you bring your 6 122 OF TURNEKIAN LIGHT. white paper against the sky you will be startled to find this bright white paper suddenly appear in shade. You will draw it back, thiidving you have changed its position. But no ; the paper is not in shade. It is as bright as ever it was ; brighter than under ordinary circumstances it ever can be. But, behold, the blue sky of the horizon is far brighter. The one is indeed blue, and the other white, but the vjhite is darkest* and by a great deal. And you will, though" perhaps not for the first time in your life, perceive that though black is not easily proved to be white, white may, under certain circumstances, be very nearly proved black, or at all events brown. § 3. When this fact is first shown to them, the general feeling with most people is, that, by being brought against the sky, the white paper is somehow or other brought "into shade." But this is not so ; the paper remains exactly as it was ; it is only compared with an actually brighter hue, and looks darker by comparison. The circumstances are precisely like those which affect our sensations of heat and cold. If, when by chance we have one hand warm, and another cold, we feel, with each hand, water warmed to an intermediate degree, we shall first declare the water to be cold, and then to be warm ; but the water has a definite heat wholly independent of our sensations, and a(;curately ascertainable bv a thermometer. So it is with lii'-ht and shade. Looking fi-om the bright sky to the white paper, we affirm the white paj)er to be " in shade," — that is, it produces on us a sensation of darkness, by comparison. But the hue of the paper, and that of the sky, ai'e just as fixed as temperatures are; and the sky is actually a brighter thing than wliitc i)aper, by a certain number of degrees of light, scientifically determinable. In the same * For which reason, I said in the Appendix to the third volume, that the expression " finite realization of infinity " was a considerably less rational one than " black realization of white." OF TUKNERIAN LIGHT. 123 way, every other colour, or force of colour, is a fixed tliin<^, not dependent on sensation, but numerically representable with as much exactitude as a degree of heat by a thermom- etei'. And of these hues, that of open sky is one not pro- ducible by human art. The sky is not blue Golourmerely, — it is bh;e Ji/'C, and cannot be painted. § 4. Xext, observe, this blue fire has in it %oldte fire ; that is, it has white clouds, as much brighter than itself as it is brighter than the white paper. So, then, above this azure light, we have another equally exalted step of white light. Sujiposing the value of the light of the pure white paper represented by the number 10, then that of the blue sky will be (approximately) about 20, and of the white clouds 30. But look at the white clouds carefully, and it will be seen they are not all of the same white ; parts of them are cpiite grey compared with other parts, and they are as full of passages of light and shade as if they were of solid earth. Nevertheless, their most deeply shaded part is that already so much lighter than the blue sky, which has brought us up to our number 30, and all these high lights of white are some 10 degrees above that, or, to wdiite paper, as 40 to 10. And now if you look from the blue sky and white clouds towards the sun, you will find that this cloud white, which is four times as white as white paper, is quite dark and lightless compared with those silver clouds that burn nearer the sun itself, which vou cannot gaze upon, — an infinite of briglitness. How will you estimate that ? And yet to express all this, we have but our poor white paper after all. We must not talk too proudly of our " truths " of art ; I am afraid we shall liave to let a good deal of black fallacy into it, at the best. § 5. Well, of the sun, and of the silver clouds, we will not talk for the present. But this principal fact we have 124 OF TLTKNERIAN LIGHT. learned by our experiment with the white paper, that, taken all in all, the calm sky, with such light and shade as are in it, is brighter than the earth ; brighter than the whitest thing on earth which has not, at the moment of compari- son, heaven's own direct light on it. Which fact it is gene- rally one of the first objects of noble painters to render. I liave already marked one part of their aim in doing so, namely, the expression of infinity ; but the oiyposing of heavenly light to earth-darhiiess is another most important one ; and of all ways of rendering a picture generally im- pressive, this is the simplest and surest. Make the sky calm and luminous, and raise against it dark trees, moun- tains, or towers, or any other substantial or terrestrial thing, in bold outline, and the mind accepts the assertion of this great and solemn truth with thankfulness. § 6. But this may be done either nobly or basely, as any other solemn truth may be assei'ted. It may be spoken with true feeling of all that it means ; or it may be declared, as a Turk declares that " God is great," when he means only that he himself is lazy. The " heaven is bi'ight," of many vulgar painters, has precisely the sanie amount of signification ; it means that they know nothing — will do nothing — are without thouij-ht — with- out care — without passion. They will not walk the earth, nor watch the ways of it, nor gather the flowers of it. They will sit in tlio shade, and only assert that very perceptible, long-ascertained fact, " heaven is bright." And as it may be asserted basely, so it may be accepted basely. ]\raiiy of our capacities for receiving noblest emotion are abused in mere idleness, for pleasure's Bake, and people take the excitement of a solemn sensa- tion as they do that of a strong drink. Thus the aban- doned court of Louis XIV. 1iaer, held upright in full light at the window, parallel to the direction in which the light entered. And it will thus generally he J^ouiul impossihle to represent^ in any of its true colotirs, scenery distant more than two or three oniles, in full day- light. The deepest shadows are whiter than white paper. § 9. As, however, we pass to nearer objects, true repre- sentation gradually becomes possible ; — to what degree is always of course ascertainable accurately by the same mode of experiment. Bring the edge of the paper against the thing to be drawn, and on that edge — as precisely as a lady would match the colours of two pieces of a dress — match the colour of tlie landscape (with a little opaque white mixed in the tints you use, so as to render it easy to lighten or darken tlieui). Take care not to imitate the tint as you believe it to be, but accurately as it is; so that the coloured edge of the ])aper shall not be dis- cernible from the colour of the landscape. You will then find (if before inexperienced) that shadows of trees, which you thought were dark green or black, are pale violets and purples ; that lights, which you thought were green, are intensely yellow, brown, or golden, and most of them far too bright to be matched at all. AVhen you have got all the imitable hues truly matched, sketch the masses of the landscape out completely iu those true and ascer- tained colours ; and you will find, to your amazement, that you have painted it in the colours of Tui-ner, — in those very colours which perhaps you have been laughing at all your life,— the fact being that he, and he alone, of all men, ever painted Nature in her own colours. § 10. " Well, but," you will answer, impatiently, " how is it, if they are the true colours, that they look so un- natural?" Because they are not shown ii^true contrast to the sky, 128 OF TURNEEIAN LIGHT. and to other high lights. JSfature paints her shadows in ixde ■i)urple^ and fh(3n, raises her lights of heaven and sunshine to such height that the pale jpurplehecomes^hy comparison^ a vigorous dai^Ji.^ But poor Turner has no sun at liis command to oppose his pale colours. He fol- lows Nature submissively as far as he can ; puts pale purple where she does, l,)j-ight gold where she does ; and then when, on the summit of the slope of light, she opens her wings and quits the earth altogether, l)urning into in- effable sunshine, what can he do but sit helpless, stretching his hands towards her in calm consent, as she leaves him and mocks at liim ! § 11. " Well," but you will farther ask, " is this right or wise? ought not ths contrast b3twe8n the masses be given, rather than the actual hues of a few parts of them, when the others are inimitable?" Yes, if tliis were possible, it ought to be done ; but the true contrasts can never be given. The whole question is simply whether you will be false at one side of the scale or at the other,^ — that is, whether you will lose yourself in light or in darkness. This necessity is easily expressible in numbers. Suppose the utmost light you wish to imi- tate is that of serene, feebly lighted, clouds in ordinary sky (not sun or stars, which it is, of course, impossible de- ceptively to imitate in paintiug by any artifice). Then, suppose the degrees of shadow between those clouds and Nature's utmost darkness accurately measured, and divided into a hundred degrees (darkness being zero). Next we measure our own scale, calling our utmost possible black, zero;f and we shall be able to keep parallel with Nature, perhaps up to as far as her 40 degrees ; all above that being whiter than our white paper. Well, with our power * Scarlet Shadows, 5 M. T., 333. t Even here we shall be defeated by Nature, her utmost darkness being deeper than ours. OF TUENEEIAN LIGHT. 129 of contrast between zero and 40, we have to imitate her contrasts between zero and 100. Now, if we want true contrasts, we can first set our 40 to represent her 100, our 20 for her 80, and our zero for her 60 ; everything below her 60 being lost in blackness. This is with certain modi- fications, Rembrandt's system. Or, secondly, we can put zero for her zero, 20 for her 20, and 40 for her 40 ; every- thing above 40 being lost in whiteness. This is, with cer- tain modifications, Paul Yeronese's sj^stem. Or, finally, we can put our zero for her zero, and our 40 for her 100 ; our 20 for her 50, our 30 for her T5, and our ten for her 25, proportioning the intermediate contrasts accordingly. This is, with certain modifications. Turner's system ; * the modifications, in each case, being the adoption, to a cer- tain extent, of either of the other systems. Thus, Turner inclines to Paul Veronese ; liking, as far as possible, to get his hues perfectly true up to a certain point, — -that is to say, to let his zero stand for Nature's zero, and his 10 for her 10, and his 20 for her 20, and then to expand towards the light by quick but cunning steps, putting 27 for 50, 30 for 70, and reserving some foi-ce still for the last 90 to 100. So Pembrandt modifies his system on the other side, putting his 40 for 100, liis 30 for 90, his 20 for 80; then going subtly downwards, 10 for 50, 5 for 30; nearly everything between 30 and zero being lost in gloom, yet so as still to reserve his zero for zero. The systems expressed in tabular form will stand thus : — Nature. Rembrandt. Turner. Veronese. 10 1 10 10 20 3 20 20 * When the clouds are brilliantly lighted, it may rather be, as stated above, in the proportion of 100 to 40. I take the number 100 as more calculable. 6* 130 OF TURNEKIAN LIGHT. 30 5 24 30 40 7 26 32 50 10 27 34 60 13 28 36 70 17 30 37 80 20 32 38 90 30. 36 39 100 40 40 40 § 12. Now it is evident that in Rembrandt's system, while the contrasts are not more right than with Veronese, the colours are all wrong, from beginning to end. Witli Tur- ner and Veronese, Nature's 10 is their 10, and Nature's 20 their 20 ; enabling them to give pure truth up to a certain point. But with Rembrandt not one colour is ab- solutely true, from one side of the scale to the other ; only the contrasts are true at the top of the scale. Of course, this supposes Rembrandt's system applied to a subject which shall try it to the utmost, such as landscape. Rem- brandt generally chose subjects in which the real coluors were very nearly imitable, — as single heads with, 'dark backgrounds, in wliich Nature's highest light was little above his own ; her 40 being then truly representable by his 40, his picture became nearly an absolute truth. But his system is only right when applied to such subjects : clearly, when we have the full scale of natural light to (leal with. Turner's and Veronese's convey the greatest sum of truth. But not the most complete deception, for people are so much more easily and instinctively impressed by force ()f light than truth of colour, that they instantly miss the I'elative power of the sky, and the upper tones ; and all the true local colouring looks strange to them, separated from its adjuncts of high light; whereas, give them the true contrast of light, and they will not ob- serve the false local colour. Thus all Gaspar Poussin's OF TUENERI^VN LIGHT. 131 and Salvator's pictures, and all effects obtained by leaving hio;li lio-lits in the midst of exa^o-erated darkness, catch the eye, and are received for true, while the pure truth of Veronese and Turner is rejected as unnatural ; only not so nnicli in Veronese's case as in Turner's, because Vero- nese confines himself to more imitable things, as draperies, figures, and architecture, in which his exquisite truth at the bottom of the scale tells on the eye at once ; but Tur- ner works a good deal also (see the table) at the top of the natural scale, dealino; with effects of sunlio-ht and other phases of the upper colours, more or less inimitable, and betraying therefore, more or less, the artifices used to ex- press them. It will be observed, also, that in order to reserve some force for the top of his scale. Turner is obliged to miss his gradations chiefiy in middle tints (see the tal)le), where the feebleness is sure to be felt. Ilis principal point for missing the midmost gradations is al- most always between the eartli and sky ; he draws the earth truly as far as he can, to the horizon ; then the sky as far as he can, with his 30 to 40 part of the scale. They run together at the horizon ; and the spectator complains that there is no distinction between earth and sky, or that the earth dt)es not looh solid enough. § 13. In the upper jJortions of the three pillars 5, 6, 7, Plate 25, are typically represented these three conditions of light and shade, characteristic, 5, of Rembrandt, 0, of Turnc]', and 7, of Veronese. Tlio pillar to be drawn is supposed, in all the three cases, white ; Rembrandt repre- sents it as white on its hio-hest lii>'ht: and, scettino: the true gradations between this highest light and extreme dark, is reduced to his zero, or black, for the dark side of the white object. This first pillar also represents the system of Leo- nardo da Vinci. In the room of the Louvre appropriated to Italian drawings is a study of a piece of drapery by Leonardo, Its lights are touched with the finest white & 132 OF TURNERIAN LIGHT. chalk, and its shadows wrought, through exquisite grada- tions, to utter blackness. The pillar is drawn on the system of Turner; the high point of light is still distinct: but even the darkest part of the shaft is kept pale, and the gradations which give the roundness are wrought out with the utmost possible delicacy. The thii-d shaft is drawn on Veronese's system. The light, though still focused, is more diffused than with Turner ; and a slight flatness re- sults from the determination that the fact of the shaft's l)cing white shall be discerned more clearly even than that it is round ; and that its darkest part shall still be capable of biilliant relief, as a white mass, from other ob- jects round it. § 14. This resolution, on Veronese's part, is owing to the pi'ofound respect for the colours of objects which neces- sarily influenced him, as the colourist at once the most brilliant and the most tender of all painters of the elder schools ; and it is necessary for us briefly to note the way in which this greater or less respect for local colour influ- ences the system of the three painters in light and shade. Take the whitest piece of note-paper you can find, put a blot of ink upon it, carry it into the sunshine, and hold it fully fronting the sunshine, so as to make the paper look as dazzling as possible, but not to let the wet blot of ink shine. - You will then And the ink look intensely black, — blacker, in fact, than anywhere else, owing to its vigorous contrast with the dazzling paper. Tvoiriove the jiaper from the sunshine. The ink will not look so black. Carry the paper gradually into the darkest ])art of the room, and the contrast will as gradually ap- pear to diminish; and, of course, in darkness, the distinc- tion between the black and the white vanishes. Wet ink is as pci'fect a representative as is by any means attainable of a perfectly dark colour ; that is, of one which absorbs all the light that falls on it; and the nature of such OF TUENERIAN LIGHT. 133 a colour is best understood by considering it as a piece of portaljle iiiglit. Now, of course, tlie hig-her you raise the daylight about this bit of night, the more vigorous is the contrast between the two. And, therefore, as a general rule, the higher you raise the light on any object with a pattern or stain upon it, the more distinctly that pattern or stain is seen. But observe : the distinction between the full black of ink, and full white of paper, is the utmost reach of light and dark possible to art. Therefore, if this contrast is to be represented truly, no deeper black can ever be given in any shadow than tliat offered at once, as local colour, in a full black pattern, on the highest light. And, where colour is the principal object of the picture, that colour must, at all events, be as right as possible where it is hest seen, i.e. in the lights. Hence th& principle of Paul Veronese, and of all the great Venetian colourists, is to use full black for full black in high light, letting the shadow shift for itself as best it may ; and sometimes even putting the local black a little darker in light than shadow, in order to give the more vigorous contrast noted above. Let the pillars in Plate 25 be supposed to have a black mosaic pattern on the lower part of their shafts. Paul Veronese's general practice will be, as at 7, having marked the rounding of the shaft as well as he can in the white parts, to paint the pattern with one even black over all, reinforcing it, if at all, a little in the light. § 15. Repeat the experiment on the note-paper with a red spot of carmine instead of ink. You will now find that the contrast in the sunshine appears about the same ' as in the shade — the red and white risino- and fallina; together, and dying away together into the darkness. The fact, however, is, that the contrast does actually for some time increase towards the lio-ht: for in utter dark- ness the distinction is not visible— the red cannot be dis- 134 OF TIIRNERIAN LIGHT. tiiiii-ulslied from tlie white; admit a little light, and the contrast is feebly discernible ; admit more, it is distinctly discernible. But you cannot increase the contrast beyond a certain point. From that point the red and white for some time rise very nearly equally in light, or fall together very nearly equally in shade ; but the contrast will begin to diminish in very high lights, for strong sun- light has a tendency to exhibit particles of dust, or any sparkling texture in the local colour, and then to diminish its power ; so that in order to see local colour w^ell, a cer- tain degi'ee of shadow is necessary : for instance, a very delicate complexion is not well seen in the sun ; and the veins of a marble pillar, or the colours of a picture, can only be properly seen in comparative shade. § 16. I will not entangle the reader in the very subtle and curious variations of the laws in this matter. The simple fact which is necessary for him to observe is, that the paler and purer the colour, the more the great Venetian colourists will reinforce it in the shadow, and allow it to fall or rise in synqiathy with the light ; and those especially whose object it is to re2:)resent sunshine, nearly always reinforce their local colours somewhat in the t.' 4/ shadows, and keep them both fainter and feebler in the light, so that they thus approach a condition of universal glow, the full colour being used for the shadow, and a del- icate and somewhat subdued hue of it for the lidit. And this to the eye is the loveliest possible condition of colour. TN-rhaps few people haye ever asked themselves why they admire a rose so nuich more than all other flowers. If they consider, they will find, first, that red is, in a deli- cately gi-adated state, the loveliest of all pure colours ; and secondly, that in the I'ose there is no shadow, except what is coiiqM)sed of colour. All its shadows are fuller in colour tlian its lights, owing to the translucency and reflective jKjwer of its leaves. OF TUBNERIAN LIGHT. 135 The second shaft, 6, in wliich the local colour is paler toM^ards tlie light, and reinforced in the shadow, will therefore represent the Venetian system with respect to paler colours, and the system, for the most part, even with respect to darker colours, of painters who attempt to render effects of strong sunlight. Generally, therefore, it repre- sents the practice of Turner. The first shaft, 5, exhibits the disadvantage of the practice of Eemhrandt and Leonardo, in that they cannot show the local colour on the dark side, since, however energetic, it must at last sink into their exaggerated darkness. § 17. Now, from all the preceding inquiry, the reader must perceive more and more distinctly the great truth, that all forms of right art consist in a certain cJwice made between various classes of truths, a few only being repre- sented, and others necessarily excluded; and that the ex- cellence of each style depends first on its consistency with itself^ — the jper feet fidelity, as far as possible, to the truths it has chosen / and secoiuihj, on the hreadth of its harmo- ny, or numher of truths it has been able to reconcile, and the consciousness with which the truths refused are acknowledged, even though they may not be represented. A great artist is just like a wise and hospitable man with a small house: the large companies of truths, like guests, are waiting his invitation ; he wisely chooses from among this crowd the guests who will be happiest with each other, mak- ing those whom he receives thoroughly comfortable, and kindly remembering even those whom he excludes; while the foolish host, trying to receive all, leaves a large ])art of his company on the staircase, without even knowing who is there, and destroys, by inconsistent fellowship, the pleasure of those who gain enti-ance. § IS. But even those hosts who choose well will be farther distinguished from each other by their choice of nobler or inferior companies ; and we fi)id the greatest 13 G OF TURNER! AN LIGHT. artists mainly divided into two gi'oups, — those who paint principally with respect to local colonr, headed by Panl Veronese, Titian, and Turner ; and those who paint prin- cipally with reference to light and shade irrespective of colour, headed by Leonardo da Yinci, Rembrandt, and Ra- phael. The noblest members of each of these classes intro- duce the element proper to the other class, in a subordinate way. Paul Veronese introduces a subordinate light and shade, and Leonardo introduces a subordinate local colonr. The main difference is, that with Leonardo, Rembrandt, and Raphael, vast masses of the picture are lost in compara- tively colourless (dark, grey, or brown) shadow; these l)ainters hecjinning with the lights, and going doxon to blackness; but with Veronese, Titian, and Turner, the whole picture is like the rose, — glowing with colour in the shadows, and rising into paler and more delicate hues, or masses of whiteness, in the lights, they having hegun with the shadoios, and gone uj? to whiteness. § 19. The colourists have in this respect one dis- advantaire, and three advantao;es. The disadvantage is, that between their less violent hues, it is not possible to draw all the forms which can be represented by the exaggei-ated shadow of the chiaroscurists, and therefore a slight tendency to flatness is always characteristic of the greater colourists, as opposed to Leonardo or Rembrandt. Wlit'M the lonii ot some single object is to be given, and its .subtleties are to be rendered to the utmost, the Leonard- esfpie inauner of drawing is often very noble. It is generally adopted by Albert Durer in his engravings, and is very useful, when employed by a thorough master, in many kinds of engraving;* but it is an utterly false inithod of study, as we shall see presently. ItiH ofton extrpmely (lifiicnlt to distinguish properly between the Loonnrile8. — Colours Hojrmonized : 1. Harmony of Analogy — a. Of scale, produced by the simultaneous view of different tones of the same scale, more or less approx- imate. }). Of hues, produced l)y the simultaneous view of tones of the same or nearly of the same depth, belong- ino; to neio-hbourino; scales. c. Of a dominant coloured light, produced by the simultaneous view of various colours assorted after the law of contrast, but one of them predominating, as would result from the view of these colours through a slightly coloured glass. 2. Harmony of Contrast — a. Of scale, produced by the simultaneous view of two very distant tones of the same scale. }). Of hues, produced by the simultaneous view of tones of different depths, belonging to neighbouring scales. c. Of colours, produced by the simultaneous view 152 COLOUE-AET. of colours belonging to very distant scales, assorted accord- ing to the law of contrast. This contrast of scale may be augmented by depth of adjacent tones. d. Harmony of Simultaneous Contrast, being that of different adjacent colours seen at the same time. e. Harmony of Successive Contrasts — This delu- sion takes place when but one colour is before the eye at the same moment. When wearied of this colour, the eye seeks to rest itself by seeing the secondary or comple- mentary of the colour present ; as when the eye has wea- ried of red, and turns from it, it sees not red but green, the complementary of red, and so of the other colours. f. Harmony of Mixed Contrasts — This is an op- tical effect of mixing upon the vision two colours seen suc- cessively ; for instance, look with one eye for a time upon red and then turn it upon blue, and the vision mixes the red and blue and creates the impression of purple. In simukaneous contrasts the effect is a inod'ification of one colour uj>on another v)hen seen in the same act of vision. In successive contrasts l)ut one colour is present, and the effect is in the eye and not in the colour. In mixed con- trasts one or more colours are present and seen successively., and tlie effect is also in the eye and not in the colour. Ke- meml)er the difference. See also Harmony of Colours, as mentioned in this chapter under "General Tone of Colour," clause (J. III. COLOUE-AKT. Colour-art may be considered under several heads — 1. 'Truth of colouring requires that colours should bo combined and arranged accordinor to the hiws of nature a.s revealed by the pi-ism and considered above. 2. Ideality of colour imj • if colour is not idealized it is mere i)aint, and cannot harmonize with the ideal charac ter of an ideal picture ; in otlier weirds, colour must sym- pathize with the subject and the sentiment. COLOUR- AET. 153 3. Force of colouring is not obtrusive colouring, but effective colouring ; as principal colour on the principal figure; bright or advanciug colours for advanced objects; and receding colours for receding objects ; subdued colours for less important objects. JThe distinct blue and red in the draperies of the Roman and Florentine schools, though destitute of the harmony produced by a variety of broken and transparent colours, yet possess the effect of grandeur recpiired, and strike the eye with more force than if they were harmonized by a greater niimber of tints. But only great masters have su(;ceeded in such force of colouring; in the hands of feebler powders it w^ould be raw and harsh. 4. Balance of colour. In nature we find the same colours dispersed everywhere. Take, for instance, a field of flow- ers. No mass of colour is in a spot by itself ; but all are in- termingled, which produces a balance of colour. If colour is introduced but once in a picture, it ajjpears like a spot and unsupported on the canvas ; and, again, in the repe- tition it must be sliglitly varied in form, tint, or hue ; as, for instance, a rose in a bnnch of flowei'S may be balanced by a pink azalia, or one purple flower by another differ- ing in form and hue. Perfect harmony of colouring re- quires a careful observance of this law of nature in all composition. If the subject requires a gay and brilliant tone, the life and vivacity of contrast, the colours intro- duced to secure that effect must be duly balanced by those that are harmonious, else the eye will become sated. On this point no definite rule can be given. If there is too much contrast the picture will be spotty and harsh ; if too little, where decided colours are introduced, it will be mo- notonous. In the arrangement of colours much is gained by varying the forms of objects. In nature, according to the prism, colours are balanced by three parts of yellow to five of red and eight of blue ; the sixteen parts making white light. Also in the complementaries and primaries, 7* lo-i COLOUR- ART. five of red balance eleven of green ; three of yellow, thir- teen of purple ; eight of blue, eight of orange ; and so of all other combinations of colour. 5. Gradation of colour. Look for gradation spaces in nature. a. In JS'ature. The slcv is the larojest and most beantifnl : watch it at twilight after the sun is down, and try to consider each pane of glass in the window you look through as a piece of paper coloured blue, or grey, or purple, as it happens to be, and observe how quietly and continuously the gradation extends over the space in the window of, one or two feet square. It is amazing how sliglit the differences of tint are by which, through infinite delicacy of grada- tion, nature can express form. Compare the gradated colours of the rainbow with the strii:)es of a target, and the gradual concentration of the youthful blood in the cheek with an abrupt patch of rouge, (jr with the sharply-drawn veining of old age. Gradation is so inseparable a quality of all natural shade and coloui-, that the eye refuses in art to understand anything which appears without it, while on the other hand nearlv all the i^radations in nature are so Bulttle, and between degrees of tint so slightly separated, that no human hand can in anv wise equal or do anvthiuir more than suggest the idea of them. In j)r()portion to the space over whicli gi-adation extends, and to its invisible subtilty, is its grandeur, and in proportion to its narrow limits and violent dei^-rees, its vul<;aritv. In Correiririo it is morbid in spite ()f its refinement of execution, because the eye is li in some- what thicker consistence of wet body-colour ; only observe, never mix in this way two mixtures ; let the colour you lay into the other be always a simjile, not a compound tint. J3. Lavino- one colour over another. If you lay on a solid t(nich of vei-milion, and, after it is quite dry, strike a little very wet carmine quickly over it, you will (tbtain a much more brilliant red than by mixing the carmine and \ermilion. Similarlv, if you lav a dark (•<>!(, Ill- first, and strike a little blue or white bodv-colour lightly over it, you will get a more beautiful gray than by mixing the colour and the blue or white. In very perfect painting, aitifices of this kind are continually used ; but I would jiot have you trust nmch to them: they are apt to make you tliiid-: too much of quality of colour. I should like you to depend on little more than the dead colours, simi.lv laid on, only observe always this, that the less colour you do the work with, the better it will always COLOUR- ART, 159 be : * so that if you have laid a red colour, and yon want a purple one abo^'e, do not mix the purple on your palette and lay it on so thick as to overpower the red, but take a little thin blue from your palette, and lay it lightly over the red, so as to let the red be seen through, and thus pro- duce the required purple ; and if you want a green hue over a blue one, do not lay a quantity of green on the blue, but a Vdtle yellow, and so on, always bringing the under colour into service as far as you possibly can. If, Ixjwever, the colour beneath is wholly opposed to the one you have to lay on, as, suppose, if green is to be laid over scarlet, you must either remove the requii-ed parts of the under colour daintily first with your knife, or with water ; or else, lay solid white over it massively, and leave that to dry, and then glaze the white with the upper colour. This is better, in general, than laying the upper colour itself so thick as to conquer the ground, which, in fact, if it be a transparent colour, you camiot do. Thus, if YOU have to strike warm boughs and leaves of trees over blue sky, and they are too intricate to have their places left for them in laying the blue, it is better to lay them first in solid white, and then glaze with sienna and ochre, than to mix the sienna and white ; though, of course, the process is longer and more troublesome. Nevertheless, if the forms of touches required are very delicate, the after glazing is impossible. You must then mix the warm colour thick at once, and so use it : and this is often necessary for delicate grasses, and such other fine threads of lio-ht in foreground work. * If colours were twenty times as costly as they are, we should have many more good painters. If I were Chancellor of the Exchequer I would lay a tax of twenty shillings a cake on all colours except black, Prxissian blue, Vandyke brown, and Chinese white, which I would leave for students. I don't say this jestingly ; I believe such a tax would do more to advance real art than a great many schools of design. 160 COLO UK-ART. C, Breaking one colour in small points throngli or over another. Tliis is the most important of all processes in good modern* oil and water-colour painting, but yon need not hope to attain very great skill in it. To do it well is very laborious, and requires such skill and delicacy of hand as can onl}' be acquired by unceasing practice. But you will find advantage in noting the following points : (a) In distant effects of kich subject, wood, or rip- pled water, or broken clouds, much may he done hy TOucuES or crumbling dashes of rattier dry colour, with other coloiiTS afterwards put cunningly into the interstices. The more you practise this, when the subject evidently calls for it, the more your eye will enjoy the higher quali- ties of colour. The process is, in fact, the carrying out of the principle of separate colours to the utmost possible refinement; using atoms of colour in juxtaposition, instead of large spaces. And note, in filling up minute inter- stices of this kind, that if you want the colour yon fill them with to show brightly, it is better to put a rather positive point of it, Avith a little white left beside or njund it in the interstice, than to put a pale tint of the colour over the whole interstice. Yellow or orano-e will hardlv show, if pale, in small spaces; but they show brightly in firm touches, however small, with white beside them. (/>») Jf a colour is to he darkened by superimposed por- tions OF another, it is, in many cases, hetter to lay the ■ujiperjHost colour in rather vigorous small touches, like jinely chopped straio, over the under one, than to lay it on as a tint, for two reasons : the first, that the play of the two colours together is pleasant to the eye; the second, that much expression of form may be got by wise admin- * I say modern, liecause Titiau's quiet way of blending colours, which is the perfectly right one, is not understood now by any artist. The best colour we reach is got by stiiipliug ; but this is not quite right. COLOUE-AET. 161 istration of the upper dark touches. In distant mountains they may be made pines of, or broken crags, or villages, or stones, or whatever you choose ; in clouds they may indi- cate the direction of the rain, the roll and outline of the cloud masses ; and in water, the minor waves. All nol)le effects of dark atmosphere are got in good water-colour dra^^^ng by these two expedients, interlacing the colours, or retouching the lower one with fine darker drawing in an upper. Sponging and wasliiug for dark atmospheric effect is barbarous, and mere tyro's work, though it is often usefid for passages of delicate atmosj)heric light, (c) When you have time, practise the production of MIXED TINTS by INTEELACED TOUCHES of the PUEE COLOUES out of which they are formed, and use the process at the parts of your sketches where you wish to get rich and luscious effects. Study the works of William Hunt, of the Old Water-colour Society, in this respect, continually, and make frequent memoranda of the vai'iegations in flowers; not painting the flower comjoletely, but laying the ground colour of one petal, and painting the spots on it with studious precision : a series of single petals of lilies, geraniums, tulij^s, &c., numbered with proper refer- ence to their position in the flower, will be interesting to you on many grounds besides those of art. Be careful to get the gradated distribution of the spots well followed in the calceolarias, foxgloves, and the like ; and work out the odd, indefinite hues of the spots themselves with minute grains of pure interlaced colour, otherwise you will never get their richness or bloom. You will find, first, the universality of the law of gradation much insisted upon ; secondly, that Nature is economical of her fine colours. You would think, by the way she jiaints, that her colours cost her something enormous : she will only give you a single pure touch, just where the petal turns into light ; but down in the bell all is subdued, and under the petal 162 - COLOUR- ART. all is subdued, even in the showiest flower. \Yhat you thought was bright blue is, when j^oulook close, only dusty gray.^ or green, or purple, or every colour in the world at once, onl}' a single gleam or sti-eak of pure blue in the centi-e of it. And so with all her colours. Sometimes I have really thought her miserliness intolerable : in a gen- tian, for instance, the way she economises her ultramarine dtnvn in the bell is a little too bad. C. Xext, resjDecting general tone of colour. I said, just now, that, for the sake of students, my tax should not be laid on hla(-l\', or on tohite pigments ; but if you mean to be a colourut, you must lay a tax on them yourself when you begin to use true colour ; that is to say, you must use them little, and make of them much. There is no better test of your colour tones being good, than your having made the white in your picture jprecious, and the blaoJc conspicuous. I say, frst, the white jpredous. I do not mean merely glittering or l)rilliant ; it is easy to sci-atch white sea- gulls out of black clouds, and dot clmnsy foliage with chalky dew ; but, when M'hite is well managed, it ouglit to be strangely delicious — tender as well as bi'ight — like inlaid motlier of pearl, or white roses washed in milk. The eye ought to seek it for n-st, brilliant though it may be ; and to feel it as a space of strange, heavenly paleness in the midst of the flushing of the colours. This effect you can only reach \)\ general depth of middle tint, by absolutely i-efusing to allow any white to exist except wliere you need it, and l.y keeping the white itself sub- dued by gray, except at ixfeiv jyoints of chief lustre. SiGoadlij, ijou. ninst make the hlack conspicuous. How- ever snuill a point of black may be, it ought to catch the i>i<', otherwise your work is too heavy in the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of some colour — never black, uor aj)proacl)ing black, they should be evi- COLOUR-ART. 163 deiitly and always of a luminous nature, and the black shonld look strange among them ; never occurring except in a black object, or in small points indicative of intense shade in the very centre of masses of shadow. Shadows of absolutely negative grey, however, may be beautifully used with white, or with gold ; but still though the black thus, in subdued strength, becomes spacious, it should always be consjncuous ^ the spectator should notice this grey neutrality with some wonder, and enjoy, all the more intensely on account of it, the gold colour and the white which it relieves. Of all the great colourists Velasquez is the greatest master of the black CHORDS. His hlach is more jprecious than tnost other peo- ple^s crimson. It is not, however, only white and black which you must make valuable ; you must give rare worth to every colour you. n&e ; but the white and hlach oxtght to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while the other colours should be continually passing one into the other, being all evidently comjyanions in the same gay world ; while the white, black, and neutral grey should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of them. You may melt your crimson into purple, your purple into blue, and your blue into green, but you must not melt any of them into black. You should, however, try, as I said, to givepreciousness to all your colours ; and this especially by never using a grain more than will just do the work, and giving each hue the highest value by opposition. All fine colouring, like tine drawing, is delicate ; and so delicate that if, at last, you see the colonr you are putting on, you are putting on too much. You ou2:ht to feel a chano-e wrouo-ht in the freneral tone, by touches of colour which individually are too pale to be seen ; and if there is one atom of any colour in the whole picture which is unnecessary to it, that atom Imrts it. Notice also, that nearly all good compound colours are 164 COLOUR- ART. odd colours. Tou shall look at a line in a good painter's work ten minntes before you know what to call it. 1 on thought it was brown, presently yon feel that it is red ; next that there is, somehow, yellow in it ; presently after- wards that there is blue in it. If you try to copy it you will always find your colour too warm or too cold — no colour in the box will seem to have any affinity with it; and yet it will be as pure as if it were laid at a single touch with a sino;le colour. Thirdly^ as to the choice and harmony of colours in general, if you cannot choose and harmonize them by in- stinct^ you will never do it at all. If you need examples of utterly harsh and horril)le colour, you may find plenty given in treatises upon colouring, to illustrate the laws of harmony ; and if you want to colour beautifully, colour as best pleases yourself at iiuiet times^ not so as to catch the eye, nor to look as if it were clever or difficult to colour in that way, but so that the colour may be pleasant to you when you are happy, or thoughtful. Look much at the morning and evening sky, and much at simple flowers — dog-roses, wood hyacinths,, violets, poppies, thistles, heathei', and such like — as Nature arranges them in the Avoods and fields. If ever any sci- entitle j)erson tells you that two colours are " discordant," make a note of the two colours, and put them together whenever you can. 1 have actually heard people say that blue and green were discordant ; the two colours which Nature seems to intend never to be separated, and never t<) be felt, either of them, in its full l)eauty Avithout the other! — a peacock's neck, or a l»lue sky through green leaves, or a blue wave M-ith green lights through it, being \)recise]y tlie loveliest things, next to clouds at sunrise, in . this coloured world of ours. If you have a good eye for colours, you will soon find out how constantly Nature puts purple and green together, purple and scarlet, green and COLOUK-AET. 165 blue, yellow and neutral grey, and the like ; and how she strikes these colour-concords for general tones, and then works into them with innumerable smbordinate ones ; and you will gradually come to like what she does, and find out new and beautiful chords of colour in her work eveiy day. If you enjoi/ them, depend upon it you will paint thera to a certain point right : oi", at least, if you do not enjoy them, you are certain to paint them wrong. If colour does not give you intense pleasure, let it alone; de- pend upon it, you are only tormenting the eyes and senses of people \\\iO feel colour, whenever you toucli it; and that is unkind and improper. You will find, also, your power of colouring depend much on your state of health and right balance of mind ; when you are fatigued or ill you will not see colours well, and when you are ill tempered you will not choose them well : thus, though not infallibly a test of character in individuals, colour power is a great sign of mental health in nations ; when they are in a state of intellectual decline, their colouring always gets dull.* You must also take great care not to be misled by af- fected talk .about colour from people who have not the gift of it : numbers are eager and voluble about it whc probably never in all their lives received one genuine col- our-sensation. The modern religionists of the school of Overbeck are just like peoj^le who eat slate-pencil and chalk, and assure everybody that they are nicer and purer than strawberries and plums. Fourthly^ take care also never to be misled into any idea that colour can help or display ^/oi^v^i y colour f always disguises form, and is meant to do so. » * The worst general character that colour can possibly have is a pre- valent tendency to a dirty yellowish green, like that of a decaying heap of vegetables ; this colour is accurately indicative of decline or paralysis in missal-painting. \ That is to say, local colour inherent in the object. The gradations 166 COLOUK-AET. Fifthly, it is a favourite dogma among modern writers on colour that "warm colours" (reds and yellows) "ap- proach" or express nearness, and "cold colours" (blue and o-rev) " retire " or express distauce. So far is this from being the case, that no expression of distance in tlie world is so great as that of the gold and orange in twilight sky. Colours, as such, are absolutely inexpressive re- specting distance. It is their quality (as depth, delicacy, &c.) which expresses distance, not their tint. A blue bandbox set on the same shelf with a yellow one will not look an inch farther oft", but a red or orange cloud, in the upper sky, will always ai:)i)ear to be beyond a blue cloud close to us, as it is in reality. It is cpiite true that in cer- tain objects, blue is a sign of distance; but that is not because blue is a retiring colour, but because the mist in the air is blue, and therefore any warm colour which has not strength of light enough to pierce the mist is lost or subdued in its l)lue: but blue is no more, on this account, a "i-ctiring colour," than brown is a retiring colour, because, when stones are seen through brown M'ater, the deeper they lie the browner they look ; or than yellow is a retiring colour, because, when objects are seen through a London fog, the farther off they are the yellower they of colom- in the vrvrious shadows belonging to v.ivions lights exhibit form, and therefore no one but a colourist can ever draw /c/v?^* perfectly (sec iModcm Painters, vol. iv., chap. iii. at the end) ; but all notions of explaining form by superimposed colour, as in architectural mouldings, are absurd. Colour (xhtriix form, but does )tot iiitcrpret it. An apple is prettier, because it is striped, l)ut it does not look a bit rounder; and a cheek i.s prettier because it is flushed, but you would see the form of the cheek bone better if it were not. Colour may, indeed, detach one shape from another, as in grounding a bas-relief, but it always di- minishes the appearance of projection, and whether you put blue, puri)le, red, yellow, or green, for your ground, the bas-relief will be just as clearly or jtist .-is imperfectly relieved, as long as the colours are of e'|u:il depth. The Vilue ground will not retire the hundredth jiart of on inch more than the rod cue. COLOUR- ART. 167 look. JSTeither blue, nor yellow, nor red, can have, as such, the smallest power of expressing either nearness or distance: they express them only nnder the peculiar circumstances which render them at the moment, or in that place, signs of nearness or distance. Thus, vivid orange iu an orange is a sign of nearness, for if you put the orange a great way off, its colonr will not look so bright ; but vivid orange in sky is a sign of distance, because yon cannot get the cok)ur of orange iu a cloud near ^^on. So purple in a violet or a hyacinth is a sign of nearness, because the closer you look at them the more purple yoii see. But purple in a mountain is a sign of distance, because a mountain close to you is not purple, but green or gray. It may, indeed, be generally assumed that a tender or pale colour will more or less express distance, and a powerful or dark colour nearness ; but even this is not always so. Heathery hills will usually give a pale and tender purple near, and an intense and dark purple far away ; the rose colour of sunset on snow is pale on the snow at your feet, deep and full on the snow in the dis- tance ; and the green of a Swiss lake is pale in the clear waves on the beach, but intense as an emerald in the sun- streak, six miles from shore. And in any case, when the foreground is in strong light, with much water about it, or white surface, casting intense reflections, all its colours may be perfectly delicate, pale, and faint ; while the dis- tance, when it is in shadow, may relieve the whole fore- ground with intense darks of purple, blue green, c)r ultramarine blue. So that, on the whole, it is quite hope- less and absurd to expect any helj) from laws of " aerial perspective." Look for the natural effects, and set them down as fully as you can, and as faithfully, and never alter a colour because it won't look in its right plac^e. Put the colour strong, if it be strong, though far off; faint, if it be faint, though close to you. Why should you 1G8 COLOUKISTS. suppose that Nature, always meaus you to know exact!}'- how far one thing is from another ? She certainly intends you always to enjoy her colouring, but she does not wish you always to measure her space. You would be hard put to it, every time you painted the sun setting, if you had to express his 95,000,000 miles of distance in " aerial perspecti\e." There is, however, I think, one law about distance, which has some claims to be considered a constant one : namelv, that chilness and Iteaviness of coloxir are more or less indicative of neai'ness. All distant colour is pure colour : it may not be bright, but it is clear and lovely, not opaque nor soiled ; for the air and light coming between us and any earthy or imperfect colour, purify or harmonise it; hence a bad colourist is peculiarly incapable of ex- pressing distance. I do not of course mean that you are to use l)ad colours in your foreground by way of making it come forward ; but only that a failure in colour, there, will not put it out of its place; while cv failure in colour in the distance will at once do a%oay vntli its remoteness : your dull-coloured foreground will still be a foreground, though ill-painted; but your ill-painted distance will not be merely a dull distance,— it will be no distance at all. Elements of Drawing, 151-1G5. [As to the art of colouring, see further on page 295, § 16 etc.] IV. — COLOUKISTS. 1. Tlie colourists as to shadows. The colourists painted masses or projecting spaces, and, aiming always at colour, perceived from the first and held to the last the fact that shadows, though of course dai'ker than the lights with reference to which they are shadows, are not therefore necessarily less vigorous colours, but perhaps more vigorous. Some of the most beautiful blues and purples in nature, for instance, are those of moun- COLOURISTS. 1G9 tains in shadow against amber sky; and the darkness of the hollow ill the centre of a wild rose is one glow of orange fire, owing to the quantity of its yellow sta- mens. Well, the Venetians always saw this, and all great colourists see it, and are thus separated from the iioii- coloiirists or schools of mere chiaroscuro, not by difference in style merely, but by being right while the others are wrong. It is an absolute fact that shadows are as much colours as lights are ; and whoever represents them by, merely, the subdued or darkened tint of the light, repre- sents them falsely. I particularly want you to observe that this is no matter of taste, but fact. If you are espe- cially sober-minded, you may indeed choose sober colours where Yenetians would have chosen gay ones ; that is a matter of taste: you may think it proj^er for a hero to wear a dress without patterns on it, rather than an embroidered one : that is similarlv a matter of taste, but though you may also think it would be dignified for a hero's limbs to be all black, or brown, on the shaded side of them, yet, if you are using colour at all, you cannot so have him to your mind, except by falsehood ; he never, under any circumstances, could be entirely black or brown on one side of him. 2. The colourists as to light. In this, then, the Venetians are separate from other schools by rightness, and they are so to their last days. Venetian painting is in this matter always right. But also, in their early days, the colourists are separated from other schools hy their contentment with tranquil cheerful- ness of light / hy their never wanting to he dazzled. None of tlieir lights are flashing or blinding; they are soft, winning, precious ; lights of pearl, not of lime : only, you know, on this condition thev cannot have sunshine : their day is the dav of Paradise ; thev need no candle, neither 8 2 70 COLOUKISTS. light of the sun, in their cities ; and everything is seen clear, as through crystal, far or near. This holds to the end of the fifteenth century. Then they begin to see that this, beautiful as it may be, is still a make-believe light ; that we do not live in the inside of a pearl ; but in an atmosphere tln-ough which a burning sun shines thwartedly, and over which a sorrowful night must far prevail. And then the chiaroscurists succeed in persuading them of the fact that there is mystery in the day as in the night, and show them how constantly to see truly, is to see dimly. And also they teach them the brilliancy of light, and the degree in which it is raised from the'^ darkness ; and, instead of their sweet and pearly peace, tempt them to look for the strength of liame and coruscation of lightning, and flash of sunshine on armor and on ])oints of spears. The noble painters take the lesson nobly, alike for gloom or flame. Titian with deliberate strength, Tintoret with stormy passion, read it, side by side. Titian deepens the hues of his Assumption, as of his Entombment, into a solemn twilight; Tintoret involves his earth in coils of volcanic cloud, and withdraws, through circle flaming above circle, the distant light of Paradise. Both of them, becoming naturalist and human, add the veracity of Hol- bein's intense portraiture to the glow and the dignity thcv had themselves inherited from the Masters of Peace: at the same moment another, as strong as they, "and in pure felicity of art-faculty, even greater llian they, but traiucd in a lower school, — Velasrpiez, — produced the miracles of colour aucf^adow-painting, which made Rey- nolds say of him, 'AVhat we all do with labor, he does with ease;' and one more, Correggio, uniting the sensual element of the (ireek schools with their gloom, and their light with their beauty, and all these with the Lombardic colour, became, as since I think it has been admitted tuenek's teuth of color. 171 without question, the captain of the painter's art as such. Other men have nobler or more numerous gifts, but as a jpainter, 'master of the art of laying colour so as to be LOVELY, Correggio is alone, {^ee a)ite,l-k7 .) Lectures on Art , 7. V. — turner's truth of colour. 1. There is, in the first room of the National Gallery, a landscape attributed to Gaspar Poussin, called some- times Aricia, sometimes Le or La Riccia, according to the fancy of catalogue printers. Whether it can be supposed to resemble the ancient Aricia, now La Riccia, close to Albano, I will not take upon me to determine, seeing that most of the tOM'ns 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 ^•ery 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 comj^letely in shade, is consistently and scien- tifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The fore- ground is a piece of road, which in order to make allow- ance for its greater nearness, for its being com23letely in light, and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vege- tation usually present on carriage-roads, is given in a very cool green grej^, and the truth of the picture is completed bv a luimber of dots in the skv on the rio'ht, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown. 2. Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage road, the first turn after you leave Albano, not a little impeded by the worthy successors of the ancient 172 tukner's truth of colouk. prototypes of Veieiito * It had been wild weather when I left Home, and all across the Campagna the clouds wei-e 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 hke the bridii-e 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 flush- in"- throuirh the last frao-uients of rain-cloud in deep, palpitating azure, half ether and half dew. The noon- day sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Eiccia, and its masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with ]-ain. I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, tlie rejoicing trees saidc 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 sun- beam, fii-st 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 ai-butus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of (M'ange spray tossed into the air ai'ound them, breakini; over tlie G-i-ev walls of rock into a thou- sand sej)arate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass bui lied lik-u tlie golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as tlie foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet- * " Caccus adulator — DiffnuR Aricinns qui mcnclicaret ad axes, Blandaiiuu devexai jactaret basia rhediie," turner's truth of colour. 1T3 lightning opens in a clone! at snnset ; tlie motionless masses of dark rock — dark tliongh 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 nnUtitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed re- pose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea. 3. Tell me who is likest this, Poussin or Turner? ISTot in his most darino; and dazzlino; efforts could Turner himself come near it ; but you could not at the time have thought or remembered the work of any other man as having the remotest hue or resemblance of what you saw. Xor am I speaking of what is uncommon or unnatural ; there is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in wliich nature does not exhibit colour which no mortal eifort can imitate or approacli. For all our arti- ficial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living col- on i- ; the green of a growing leaf, the scarlet of a fresli flower, no art nor expedient can reach; but in addition to this, nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sun- light which trebles their brilliancy ; while the painter, deprived of this splendid aid, works still with what is actually a grey shadow compared to the force of nature's colour. Take a blade of grass and a scarlet flower, and place tliem so as to receive sunlight beside the brightest canvas that ever left Turner's easel, and the pic- ture will be extinguished. So far from out-facino^ nature, he does not, as far as mere vi\idness 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 iT-i turner's truth of colour. compare his works in tliis respect with a few instances from the old masters. 4. There is, on the left hand side of Salvator's Mercury and the AVoodman in our jS^ational Gallery, somethino- without doubt intended for a rocky mountain, in the middle distance, near enough for all its fissures and crags to be distinctly visible, or, rather, for a great many awkward scratches of the brush over it to be \ isible, which, though not particularly representative either of one thing or another, are without doubt intended to be sym- bolical of rocks. Now no mountain in full light, and near enough for its details of ci-ag to be seen, is without great variety of delicate colour. Salvator has painted it throuo-h- out without one instant of variation ; but this, I suppose, is simplicity and generalization ; — let it pass: but what is the colour? Pure sky Hue, without one grain of grev, or any modifying hue Avhatsoever; — the same brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part of the pallet, and the whole moun- tain thrown in with unmitigated ultra-marine. Kow moun- tains only can become pure blue when there is so much air between us and them that thcv become mere flat, dark shades, every detail being totally lost: they become blue when they become air, and not till then. Consequently tliis part of Salvator's painting, being of hills perfectly clear and near, with all their details visible, is, as far as colour is c(nicerned, broad, bold falsehood — the direct as- sertion of direct impossibility. In the whole range of Turner's works, recent or of old date, you will not find an instance of anything near enouo-h to have details visible, painted in sky blue. Wherever Turner gives Id ue, there he gives atmosi)here ; it is air, not object. Blue he gives to his sea; so does nature ; — blue he gives, sapj. hire-deep, to his extreme distance; so does nature ;— blue he gives to the misty shadows and turner's truth of colour. 1Y5 holfows of his liills ; so does nature : but blue be gives not^ where detail and illumined surface are visible ; as he comes into lio-lit and chai-acter, 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 sav that Salvator's distance is not artist-like : both in that, and in the yet more glaringly false distances of Titian above alluded to, and in hundreds of others of equal boldness of exaggeration, I can take delight, and perhaps should be sorry to see them other than they are ; but it is somewhat singular to hear peopile talking of Turner's ex- quisite (;are and watchfulness in colour as false, while they receive such cases of preposterous and audacious fiction with the most generous and simple credulity. 5. Again, in the upper sky of the picture of Nicolas Poussin, before noticed, the clouds are of a very fine clear olive-green, about the same tint as the brightest parts of the trees beneath them. Tlicy cannot have altered, (or else the trees must have been painted in grey,) for the hue is harmonious and w^ell united with the rest of the picture, and the blue and white in the centre of the sky are still fresh and pure. Now a green sky in open and illumined distance is very frequent, and very beautiful ; but rich olive-green clouds, as far as I am acquainted with nature, are a piece of colour in which she is not apt to in- dulge. 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 * 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 176 turner's truth of coloub. Isaac and Eebecca, or Gaspar's Sacrifice of Isaac, for in- stance :) Can it be seriously supposed that tliose murky browns and melancholy greens are representative of the tints of leaves under full noonday sun ? I know that you cannot help looking upon all these pictures as pieces of dark relief against a light wholly proceeding from the distances; but they are nothing of the kind — they are noon and morninor effects with full lateral lif>ht. I3e so kind as to match the colour of a leaf in the sun (the dark- est 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 fidel- ity of imi^ression be brought forward here. I have noth- ing whatever to do with this at present. I am not talking about what is sublime, but about what is true. People attack Turner on this ground ; — they never speak of beauty or sublimity with respect to him, but of nature and truth, and let them support their own favorite masters on the same grounds. Perhaps I may have the very deepest ven- eration for W\Q feeling of the old masters, but I must not let it iiifiuence 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 truths may l)e ol)tained by local falsehood. Truth is only to be measured by close comparison of actual facts; we may talk forever about it in generals, and prove nothing. AYe aprecablc and allowable, had there been gold or crimson enough in the rcKt 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 same colour as the clouds, that the cloud colour becomes false. There is a fine in.stance of a sky, green in itself, but turned grey by the opposi- tion of wann colour, in Turner's Devonport ^nih the Dockyards. tfrneb's tkuth of colour, 177 cannot tell what efPect falsehood may produce on this or that person, but we can yery well tell what is false and what is not, and if it produce on our senses the effect of truth, that only demonstrates their imperfection and inac- curacy, and need of cultivation. Turner's colour is glar- ing- 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 close comparison of both with the known and demonstrable hues of nature, and this comparison Avill invariably turn Claude or Poussin into blackness, and even Turner into grey. Whatever depth of gloom may seem to invest the ob- jects of a real landscape, yet a window with that landscape seen through it, will invariably aj^pear a broad space of light as compared with the shade of the room walls ; and this single circumstance may prove to us both the intensi- ty and the diffusion of daylight in open air, and the ne- cessity if a picture is to be truthful in effect of colour, that it should tell as a broad space of graduated illumina- tion^not, as do those of the old masters, as a patchwork of black shades. Their works are nature in mourning weeds, — ouS' ev I'fKlw Kadaput reOpa/Jifievoi. uXX" viro av^pa- fyel (TKLa. • 6. It is true tliat there are, here and there, in the Acad- emy pictures, passages in which Turner has translated the unattainable intensity of one tone of colour into the attainable pitch of a higlier one : the golden green for instance, of intense sunshine on verdure, into pure yel- low, 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 178 turner's truth of colour. would go out to some warm, mossy green bank in full Slimmer sunshine, and try to reach its tone ; and when they iind, as find tliey will, Indian yellow and chrome look dark beside it, let them tell me candidly which is nearest truth, the gold of Turner, or the mourning and murky olive browns and verdigris greens in which Claude, with the industry and intelligence of a Sevres china painter, drags the laborious bramble leaves over his childish foreground. 7. But it is singular eilough that the chief attacks on Turner for overcharged brilliancy, are made, not when there could by any possibility be any chance of his out- stepping nature, but when he has taken subjects which no colours of earth could ever vie with or reach, snch, 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, nndtitudinous, and quiet clouds, arranged in bars, or streaks, or flakes, of wliich I speak at present, a region which no landscape j)ainters have ever made one effort to represent, except Ilubens and Turner — the latter taking it for his uKjst favourite and frequent study. Now we have- been speak- ing hitherto of ^vhat 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 wlien nature herself takes a colouring fit, and does some- thing extraordinary, something really to exhibit her power. Slie has a thousand ways and means of rising above herself, but incomparably the noblest manifestations of her capal)ility of colour are in these sunsets among the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment before the Bun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-colour, and when turner's truth of colour. 179 this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless clond- forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapour, which would in common daylight be pure snow white, and wliich give therefore fair field to the tone of light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check to the intensity of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes one molten, mantling sea of 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 thj'ough it all, — showing here deep, and pure, and lightless, there, modulated by the filmy, formless body of the transparent vapour, till it is lost impercep- tibly in its crimson and gold. Now there is no connection, no one link of association or i*esemblance between those skies and the Avork 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 Naj^oleon of last vear's exhibition, and the Temeraire of the vear before, would look colourless and cold if the eye came upon them after one of nature's sunsets amono- the hio-h clouds. 8. But there are a thousand reasons why this should not be believed. The concurrence of circumstances necessary to produce the sunsets of which I speak does not take place above five or six times in a summer, and then only for a space of from five to ten minutes, just as the sun reaches the horizon. Considering how seldom people think of looking for sunset at all, and how seldom, if they do, they are in a position from wliich it can be fully seen, the chances that their attention should be awake, and their position favourable, during these few flying instants 180 turner's truth or colour. of the yeai-, is almost as lu^tliiiig. What can the citizen, who can see onlv the red lio-ht on the canvas of the wagon at the end of the street, and the crimson colour of the bricks of liis neighbour's chimney, know of the Hood of fire which deluges the sky from the horizon to the zenith ? Wliat 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 j^assages of splendour which are tossed from Alp to Alp over the azure of a thousand miles of chamjiaigu 1 Even granting the constant vigor of observation, and supposing the possession of such impossible knowledge, it needs but a moment's reflection to prove how incapable the memory is of retaining for any time the distinct image of the sources even of its most vivid impressions. AVhat recollection have we of the sunsets wlii(;h delighted us last year? We may know that tliey were magnificent, or glowino;, but no distinct imao-e of colour or form is retained — nothing of whose degree (for the great difficulty with the memory is to retain, not facts, but degrees o£ 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 1)0 wrong; for we may 1)0 (piite certain that the energy of an impression fades from the memory, and becomes niore and more indistinct every day ; and thus we compare a faded and indistinct image with the decision and certainty of one [)resent to the senses. How constantly do we afiirm that the thunderstorm of last week was the most terrible one we ever saw in our lives, ])ecause wo compare it, not witli the thunder-stoiiu of last year, but with the faded and feeble recollection of it. And so, Avhen we enter an exhibition, as we have no defi- nite standard of tiuth l)efore us, our feelings are toned down and subdued to the quietness of colour, which is all turner's truth of colour. ISl that human power can ordinarily attain to ; and when we turn to a piece of In'gher 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 everywhere around us, but which is isolated and cut oif suddenly by a frame and a wall, and surrounded by darkness and coldness, w^hat can we expect but that it should surprise and shock the feelings ? 9. Suppose, where the Napoleon hung in the Academy last year, there could have been left, instead, an opening in the wall, and through that 023ening, in the midst of the obscurity of the dim room and the smoke-laden atmos- phere, there could suddenly have been poured the. full glory of a tropical sunset, reverberated from the sea: How would you have shruidc, l)linded, from its scarlet and intolerable lightnings ! What ^licture in the room would not have been blackness after it ? And why then do you blame Turner because he dazzles you ? Does not the falsehood rest with those who do not? There was not one hue in this whole picture wdiich was not far below what nature would have used in the same cir- cumstances, nor was there one inharmonious or at vari- ance with the rest ; — the storniy blood-red of the hori- zon, the scarlet of the breaking sunlight, the rich crimson browns of the wet and illumined sea-weed ; the pure gold and purple of the U2:)per sky, and, shed through it all, the deep passage of solemn blue, where the cold moonlight fell on one pensive spot of the limitless shore — all were given with harmony as perfect as their 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 picture, you would have found the sense of air and space blended with every line, and breathing in every cloud, and every colour instinct and radiant with visible, glowing, absorbing light. 182 tukner's truth of colour. 10. It is to be observed, howevei-, in general, that wherev- er in brilliant effects of this kind, we approach to anything like a true statement of nature's colour, there must yet be a distinct difference in the impression we convey, because we cannot apjjroach her light. All such hues are usually given by her with an accomj)anying intensity of sun- beams 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 imitation^ 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 accompanying truths of light, so that the more true we are in colour, the greater, ordinarily, will be the discrepance' 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 discrej^ancy in its parts, but which he knows to derive its apparent truth from a systematized falsehood, ^o; he will make you nnderstand 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 jjerfectly ; 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 imacquainted. with nature, seek elsewhere for whatever may happen to satisfy your feelinii-s; but do not ask for the truth which you would not acknowledge and could not enjoy. 11. Xevertheless the aim and struo-Me of the artist must CO always be to do away with this discrepancy as far as the tukner's tkutii of colour. 183 powers of art admit, not by lowering his colour, but by increasing his light. And it is indeed by this that the works of Turner are peculiarly distinguished from those of all c>ther colonrists, by the dazzling intensity, namely, of the lio;ht which he sheds thrDnii-h every hue, and which, far more than their brilliant colour, is the real source of their overpowering effect upon the eye, an effect so reasonahly made the subject of perpetual animadver- sion, as if the sun wliich they repi'esent were quite a quiet, and subdued, and gentle, and manageable lumi- nary, and never dazzled anybody, under any circum- stances whatsoever. 1 am fond of standing by a bright Turner in the Academy, to listen to the unintentional compliments of the crowd — "What a glaring thing!" " I declare I can't look at it ! " " Don't it hurt your eyes?" — expressed as if they were in the constant habit of looking the sun full in the face, with the most perfect comfort and entire facility of vision. 12. It is curious after hearing people malign some of Turner's noble passages of light, to pass to some really ungrammatical and false picture of the old masters, in which we have colour given witho^it light. Take, for instance, the landscape attributed to Eubens, Ko. 175, in the Dulwich Gallery. I never have spoken, and 1 never will speak of Rubens but with the most reverential feel- ing ; and whatever imperfections in his art may ha\'e resulted from his unf(_)rtimate want of seriousness and incapability of true passion, his calibre of mind was origi- nally such that I believe the world may see another Titian and another Kaffaelle, before it sees another Ilubens. But I have before alluded to the violent license he occa- sionally assumes ; and there is an instance of it in this pictuie apposite to the immediate question. The sudden streak and circle of yellow and crimson in the middle of the sky of that picture, being the occurrence of a frag- 184 turner's truth of colour. ment of a suiisot colour in pure daylight, and iu 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 absnrdity, come from whose pencil it may, that if every error which Tur- ner has fallen into in the whole course of his life were concentrated into one, that one wonld not equal it ; and as our connoisseurs gaze upon this with never-ending ap- probation, we must not be surprised that the accurate per- ceptions wliich thus take delight in pure fiction,. should consistently be disgusted by Turner's fidelity and truth. 13. Hitherto, however, we have been speaking of vivid- ness of pure colour, and showing that it is nsed by Turner onlv where nature uses it, and in no less degree. But we liave hitherto, therefore, been speaking of a most limited and uncharacteristic portion of his works ; for Turner, like all great colourists, is distinguished not more for his power of dazzling and overwhelming the eye with inten- sity of effect, than for his power of doing so by the nse of subdued and gentle means. There is no man living more cautious and sparing in the use of pure colour than Tur- ner. To say that he never perpetrates anything like the l)lue excrescences of foreground, or hills slwt like a housckeepci-'s best silk gown, witli blue and red, which certain of our celebrated artists consider the essence of the sublime, would be but a poor compliment. I might as well praise the portraits of Titian because they have not the grimace and paint of a clown in a pantomime; but I do say, and say Avith confidence, that there is scarcely a landscape artist of the present day, however sober and lightless their effects may look, wlio does not employ more pure and i-aw colour than Turner; and that the ordinary tinsel and trash, or rather vicious and peril- ous stuff, according to the power of the mind producing it, with which the walls of our Academy are half covered, turner's truth of colour. 185 disgracing, in weak hands, or in more powerful, degrad- ing and corrupting our whole school of art, is based on a system of colour beside which Turner's 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 sys- tem of each individual colour is concentrated by a single stroke, as pure as it can come from the pallet ; but throughout the great sj)ace 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 colon rists 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 sky is broken with grey and pearly white, the gold colour of the liglit warm- ing it more or less as it approaches or retii'es from the sun ; but throughout, there is not a grain of pure blue ; all is subdued and warmed at the same time by tlie mingling grey and gold, up to the very zenitli, where, breaking through the flaky mist, the transparent and deep azure of tlie 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 contra- distinction to this, with great names attached to them, in which the sky is a sheer piece of plumber's and glaziei-'s work, and should be valued per yard, with heavy extra charge for ultramarine. 186 turner's truth of colour. 14. Tliroiifrhont the works of Turner, the same truthful principle of delicate and subdued colour is carried out with a care and labour of which it is difficult to form a conception. lie 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 har- monized 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 coimect 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 sys- tem and under-current of grey pervading the whole of his (•()]< )ui', out of which his higliest lights, and those local touches of ])ure colour, which are, as I said before, the key- notes of the picture, flash with the peculiar brilliancy and intensity in which he stands alone. 15. Intimately associated with tliis toning down and connection of the coloni's actually used, is his inimitable power of varying and blending them, so as never to give a quarter of an inch of canvas without a change in it, a jnelody as well as a harmony of one kind or another. Observe, I aui not at present s])eaking of this as artistical or desirable in itself, not as a characteristic of the great colourist, but as the aim ol" tlic siiuplc follower of nature. For it is stranofe to see li<>\v iiiarxcUouslv nature varies the most general and simple of lier tones. A mass of mountain seen against the light, may, at first, a])pear all of one t)bie ; and so it is, blue as a whole, by comparison turner's truth of colour. 187 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, there are faint touches of stealthy warmth and cautious light along their edges; every bush, every stone, es'ery tuft of moss has its voice in the matter, and joins with individual character in the uni\'ersal will. Who is there who can do this as Turnei- will ? The old masters would have settled the matter at once with a transparent, agreeable, but monoto- nous grey. Many among the moderns would probably be equally monotonous with absurd and false colours. Tur- ner only would give the uncertainty — the palpitating, perpetual change — the subjection of all to a great in- fluence, without one part or portion being lost or merged in it — the unity of action with infinity of agent. 16. And I wish to insist on this the more particularly, because it is one of the eternal jprinGijjles of luiture, that she will not have one line nor colour, nor one portion nor atom of space without a change in it. There is not one of her shadows, tints, or lines that is not in a state of per- jietual variation : I do not mean in time, but in space. There is not a leaf in the world which has the same col- C'^r 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 brio-liter or o-rever. Pick up a common flint from the roadside, and count, if you can, its changes and hues of colour. Every bit of bare ground undei* your feet has in it a thousand such — the grey pebbles, the warm ochre, the green of inci23ient vege- tation, the greys and blacks of its reflexes and shadows, might keep a painter at work for a month, if he were obliged to follow them touch for touch : how nmch more, when the same infinity of change is carried oat with vastness of object and space. The extreme of distance 188 tuener's truth of colour. may appear at first monotonous ; but the least examina- tion will show it to be full of everv kind of (;hano;e — that its outlines are perpetually melting and appearing again — sharp here, vague there — now lost altogether, now just hinted and still confused among each other — and so forever in a state and necessity of change. Hence, wherever in a painting we have unvaried colour extended even over a small S})ace, there is falsehood. Nothing can be natural wdiich is monotonous ; nothing true which only tells one story. The brown foreground and rocks of Claude's Sinon l)efore 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, cpiiet 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. 17. Wliat I am next about to say with respect to Tur- ner'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 connnonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple, and an absence of yellow. I think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues, nevei-, or very rarely, using red without it, but frequently using yellow with scarcely any red ; and I believe it will bo in consequence found that her favourite opposition, that which generally charac- terizes 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 TUKNEIl's TRUTH OF COLOUK. 189 is v-ellow and black : and that on this, concentrated in one part of the picture, and modified in various greys through- out, chiefly depend the tones of all liis finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far greater tendency to the purple than in Rubens, 1 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, b}' the great colourists, nothing is so destructive of all fine colour as the slightest tendency to purple in gene- ral tone ; and I am equally cei'tain that Turner is dis- tinguished from all the vicious colourists of the present day, 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, impossi- ble purples. So fond indeed is Turner of black and yel- low, that he has given us more than one composition, both drawings and paintings, based on these two colours alone, of which the magnificent Quilleboeuf, which I consider one of the most j^erfect pieces of simple colour existing, is a most striking example ; and 1 think that where, as in some of the late Yenices, there has been something like a marked appearance of purple tones, even though exquisite- ly 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 SnoM^ 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 examina- tion, when we are considering the ideal of colour. IS. The above remarks have been made entirely with re- ference to the recent Academy pictures, which have been chiefly attacked for their colour. I by no means intend them to apply to the early works of Turner, those which 190 tuenee's teuth of coloue. the enlightened newspaper critics are perpetually talking about as characteristic of a time when Turner was "really great." He is, and was, really great, from the time when he first could hold a hrush, 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, l)ut 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, with all diffidence be it sj^oken, is, as far as my feelings are competent to judge, crude, suidess, 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. 19. Not so with the drawings ; these, countless as they are, from tlie earliest to the latest, though presenting an unbroken chain C)f increasing difficulty overcome, and truth illustrated, are all, according to their aim, equally faultless as to colour. Whatever we have hith- erto 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 tlian the Academy pictui-es, and, were they better known, mi^-ht enable our connoisseurs to form a some- wliat more accurate judgment of the intense study of nature on which all Turner's colour is based. 20. One j^oint only remains to be noted respecting his system of colour o'enerally — its entii'e subordination to light and shade, a subordination which there is no ne(^d to prove here, as every engraving from his works — and tuknek's truth of colour. 191 few are uiieno:i-aved — is sufficient demonstration of it. I have before shown the inferioi'ity 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 colonr; but most by Turner's, as their colour is most intense. Whatever brilliancy he may choose to assume, is subjected to an imnolahle lata of chiaroscuro, fronn which there is no ajypeal. JVo richness nor depth of tint is considered of value enough to atone for the loss of one jparticle of arranged light. No hrilliancy of hue is jpermitted to interfere with ths dejyth of a determined shadovj. And hence it is, that while engravings from works far less splendid in colour are often vapid and cold, because the little colour employed has not been rightly based on light and shade, an enffra\ino; from Turner is alwavs beautiful and forci- blc 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 cc^lour is, it is the least * This is saying too much ; for it not unfrequently happens that the light and shade of the original is lost in the engraving, the effect of which is afterwards partially recovered, with the aid of the artist him- self, by introductions of new features. Sometimes, when a drawing depends chiefly on colour, the engraver gets unavoidably embarrassed, and must be assisted by some change or exaggeration of the effect ; but the more frequent case is, that the engraver's difficulties result merely from his inattention to, or wilful deviations from his original ; and that the artist is obliged to assist him by such expedients as the error itself suggests. Not unfrequently in reviewing a plate, as very constantly in review- ing a picture after some time has elapsed since its completiou, even the pauiter is liable to make unnecessary or hurtful changes. In the plate of the Old Temeraire, lately published in Finden's gallery, I do not know whether it was Turner or the engraver who broke up the water into sparkling ripple, but it was a grievous mistake, and has destroyed the whole dignity aud value of the conception. The flash of lightning 192 turner's truth of colour. important of all his excellences, because it is the least im- portant feature of nature. He paints in colour, but he thinks in light and shade ; and Avere it necessary, rather than lose one line of his forms, or one ray of his sunshine, would, I apprehend, be content to paint in black and white to the end of his life. It is by mistalcing the shadow for the substance, and aiming at the brilliancy and the fire, withont perceiving of what deep-studied shade and inimi- table form it is at once the result and the illustration, that the host of his imitators sink into deserved disgrace. With 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 Ls an unfortunate persuasion among modern engravers that colour can be expressed by laarticular characters of line ; and in the en- deavour 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 Modem Italy, represented in the Art-Union engraving as nearly coal black, is in the original of a pale warm grey, hardly darker thau 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 i^roducible by lines with Yevy different intervals.) Texture of surface is only in a measure in the power of the steel, and ouglit not to be laboriously sought after; nature's surfaces are distin- guished 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 repre- sent 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 rci)rosented by these ? The stones in the foreground of Turner's Llanthony received from the artist the powdery texture of sandstone; the enj;raver covered them with con- torted lines and turned them into old timbei*. A still more fatal cause of failu' e is the practice of making out or finishing what the artist left incomplete. In the England plate of Dud- ley, there are two offensive blank windows in the large building with the chimney on the left. Tiiese are engraver's improvements ; in the original they are barely traceable, their lines being excessively faint turner's truth of colour. 193 him, as M'itli all the greatest painters, and in Turner's more than all, the hue is a l)eautiful auxiliary in working out the great impression to be conveyed, but is not the source nor the essence of that impression ; it is little more than a visible melodv, given to raise and assist the mind in the reception of nobler ideas — as sacred passages of sweet sound, to prepai-e the feelings for the reading of the mysteries of God. 1 M. P., 152. See Two Paths, Appendix, 316; El. Drawing, 160-6; Temperance in Colour, 8 S.V., 5._ and tremulous as with the movement of heated air between them and the spectator: their vulgarity is thus taken away, and the whole build- ing left in one grand unbroken mass. It is almost impossible to break engravers of this unfortunate habit. I have even heard of their taking journeys of some distance in order to obtain knowledge of the details which the artist intentionally omitted; and the evil will necessarily continue untU they receive something like legitimate artistical educa- tion. In one or two instances, however, especially in small plates, they have shown great feeling ; the plates of Miller (especially those of the Turner illustrations to Scott) are in most instances perfect and beautiful interpretations of the originals ; so those of Goodall in Rogers's works, and Cousens's in the Rivers of France ; those of the Yorkshire series are also very valuable, though singularly inferior to the drawings. But none even of these men appear capable of producing a large plate. They have no knowledge of the means of rendering their lines vital or valu- able ; 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 pre- served, and some mind and meaning stolen into the reticulation of the restless modern lines. 9 CHAPTER IX. OF TRUTH OF CHIAEOSCURO OR THE GREEK SCHOOL. 1. It is not my intention to enter, in the present portion of the work, npon any examination of Turner's particular effects of light. We must know something about what is beautiful before we speak of these. At present I wish only to insist uj)on two great princi- 'ples of chiarosGttro, 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 indisputa- bly necessary to truth. Go out some bright sunny day in winter, and look for a tree with a broad trunk, liaving rather delicate boughs hanging down on the sunny side, near the trunk. Stand four or five yards from it, with your back to the sun. You will find that the boughs between you and the trunk of the tree ai-e \ei'y indistinct, that you confound them in places with the trunk itself, and cannot possibly trace one of them fi'om its insertion to its extremity. But the shadows which they cast u})un the trunk, you will find clear, dark, and distinct, perfectly traceable through their whole course, except when they ai-e interrupted by tlie crossino; bouiii-hs. And if vou retire backwards, you \\\\\ come to a point Avhere you cannot see the intervening boiiii'lis at all, or onlv a frai»:nient of them here and there, but cau still see their shadows perfectly plain. Now, this may serve to show you the immense prominence and im- ]><)rtance of shadows where there is anything like bright light. They ai'e, in fact, commonly far more conspicuous OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCUEO. 195 than the tiling which casts them, for being as large as the casting object, and altogether made np of a blackness deeper than the darkest part of the casting object (while that object is also broken up with positive and reflected lights), their large, broad, unbroken spaces tell strongly on the eye, especially as all form is rendered partially, often totally invisible within them, and as they are sud- denly terminated by the sharpest lines which nature ever shows. For no oxdline of objects whatsoever is so sharp as the edge of a close shadow. Put your finger over a piece of white paper in the sun, and observe the difference between the softness of the outline of the finger itself and the decision of the edge of the shadow. And note also the excessive gloom of the latter. A piece of black cloth, laid in the light, will not attain one-fourth of the black- ness of the paper under the shadow. 2. Hence shadows are in reality, when the sun is shin- ing, the most consjpicuoxis thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights. All forums are understood and explained chiefly hy 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 ex- press vivid light, our very first aim must he to get the shadovjs 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 shadoio, if it be quite flat— if it conceal the details of the objects it crosses — if it be grey and cold compared to their color, and very sharp edged, will he far more conspicuous, and make everything out of tt looTc a great deal more like sunlight, than a shadow ten times its d(p)th, shaded off at the edge, and confounded with the colour of the objects on which it falls. 106 OF TRUTH OF ClIIAKOSCUEO. 3. ISTow 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 carr^n'ng them off by gradation ; in conse- quence utterly destroying every ajjpearance of sunlight. All their shadows are the faint, secondary darJcnesses of mere daylight j 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 day- light of your room), out of the sun ; and this iveaJc and secondary shadow is all that we ever find in the Italian masters as indicative of sunshine. 4. Even Cuyp and Berghem, though they know thorough- ly well what they are about in t\\e\Y foregrounds, forget the jjrinciple in their distances ; and "though in Claude's sea- ports, where he has plain architecture to deal with, he gives us something like real shadows along the stones, the moment we come to ground and foliage with lateral light, away go the shadows and the sun too-ether. In the Marriage of Isaac and Hebecca, in our own galler}^, the trunks of the trees between the water-wheel and the white fisrure in the middle distance, ai'e dark and visible ; but their shadows are scarcely discernible on the ground, and are quite vague and lost in the building. In nature, every bit of the shadow would have been darker than the darkest part of the trunks, and Ixith on the aground and building would have been defined and conspicuous ; while the trunks them- selves would have been faint, confused, and indistinguish- able, in tlieir illumined parts, from the grass or distance. So in Poussin's Phocion, the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right hand coi-ner is shaded ofi' and lost, while you see the stick jjlain all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct reverse — you would have OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO. 197 seen the shadow black and sharp all the way down ; but yon would have had to look for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have been confused with the stone behind it. And so throughout the works of Claude, Poussin, and Salvator, we shall find, especially in their conventional foliage, and unarticulated barbarisms of rock, that their whole sum and substance of chiaroscuro is merely the gra- dation and variation which nature gives in the hody of her shadows^ and that all which they do to express sun- shine, she does to vary shade. They take only one' step, while she always takes two ; marking, in the first place, with violent decision, the great transition from sun to shade, and then varviui;: the shade itself with a thousand gentle gradations and double shadows, in themselves equivalent, and more than equivalent, to all that the old masters did for their entire chiaroscuro. 5. iSTow if there be one principle, or secret more than another, on which Turner depends for attaining brilliancy of light, it is his clear and exquisite drawing of the shadoios. "Whatever is oljscure, misty, or undefined in his objects or his atmosphere, he takes care that the shadows be sharp and clear — and then he knows that the light will take care of itself, and he makes them clear, not by blackness, but by excessive evenness, unity, and sharpness of edge. He will keep them clear and distinct, and make them felt as shadows, though they are so faint, that, but for their decisive forms, we should not hare ob- served 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 198 or TRUTH OF CHIAKOSCUKO. principle, not one of his works is without constant evi- dence. Take the vit^nette of the garden ojDposite the title-page of Rogers's Poems, and note the drawing of the nearest balustrade on the right. The balusters themselves .are faint and misty, and the light through them feeble ; but the shadows of them are sharp and dark, and the in- terveniuo- lierht as intense as it can be left. And see how much more distinct the shadow of the ruiiniiio; fioaire is on the pavement, than the checkers of the pavement itself. Observe the shadows on the trunk of the tree at page 91, how they conquer all the details of the trunk itself, and become darker and more conspicuous than any part of the boughs or limbs, and so in the vignette to Campbell's Beech-tree's Petition. Take the beautiful concentration of all that is most characteristic of Italy as she is, at page 168 of Rogers's Italy, where we have the long shadows of the truidvs made by far the most conspicuous thing in the whole foreground, and hear how Wordsworth, the keenest- eyed of all modern poets for what is deep and essential in nature, illustrates Turner here, as we shall find him doing in all other points, "At Iheroot Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare And slender stem, while here I sit at eve, Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path, Traced faintly in the greensward." ExcuKSiox, Book VI. So again in the Rhymer's Glen (Illustrations to Scott), note the intertwining of the shadows across the path, and the checkering of the trunks by them ; and again on the l)ridge in the Armstrong's Tower; and yet more in the long avenue of Prienne, where we have a length of two or three miles expressed l)y the playing shadows alone, and tlie whole picture filled with sunshine by the long lines of darkness cast by the figures on the snow. The Hampton OF TRUTH OF CIIIAEOSCUEO. 199 Court in the England series, is another very striking in- stance. In fact, the general system of execution observ- able in all Turner's drawings, is to work his grounds richly and fully, sometimes stippling, and giving infinity of delicate, mysterious, and ceaseless detail ; and on the ground so prepared to cast his shadows with one dash of the brush, leaving an excessively sharp edge of watery color. 6. Such at least is commonly the case in such coarse and broad instances as those I have above given. Words are not accurate enough, nor delicate enough to express or trace the constant, all-pervading influence of the finer and vao-uer shadows throuirhout his works, that thrillino; in- fluence 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 pal- pitating before our eyes. There is the motion, the actual wave and radiation of the darted beam — not the dull uni- versal daylight, which falls on the landscape without life, or direction, or speculation equal on all tilings and dead on all things; but the lu-eathing, animated, exultant 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 ful- ness of its repose, and then again losing itself in bewilder- ment, and doubt, and dimness ; or perishing and passing away, entangled in drifting mist, or melted into melan- choly air, but still — kindling, or declining, sparkling or still, it is the living light, which breathes in its deepest, most entranced rest, which sleeps, but never dies. 7. I need scarcely insist farther on the marked distinction between the works, of the old masters and those of the great modern landscape-painters in this resp»ect. It is one which 200 OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO. the reader can perfectly well work out for himself, by the slightest systematic attention, — one which he will find ex- isting, not merely between this work and that, but through- out the whole body of their productions, and down to every leaf and line. And a little careful watching of nature, especially in her foliage and foregrounds, and comparison of her with Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator, will soon show him that those artists worked entirely on con- ventional principles, not rejjresenting 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 ncrt what they saw there.* I believe you may search the fore- grounds of Claude, from one end of Europe to an- other, and you will not find the shadow of one leaf cast uj)on another. You will find leaf after leaf painted more or less boldly or brightly out of the black ground, and you will find dark leaves defined in perfect form upon the light ; but you will not find the form of a single leaf disguised or interrupted by the shadow of another. And Poussin and Salvator are still farther from anything like genuine truth. There is nothing in their pictures which might not be manufactured in their painting-room, with a branch or two of brambles and a bunch or two of weeds before them, to give them the form of the leaves. And it is refreshing to turn from their ignorant and impotent repetitions of childish conception, to the clear, close, gen- uine studies of modei-n artists; for it is not Turner only (though here, as in all other points, the first), who is remarkable for fine and expressive decision of chiaro- scuro. Some passages by J. D. Harding are thoroughly Compare Sect. II. Chap. II. § 6. OF TKUTII OF CJIIAKOSCUKO. 201 admirable in this respect, thoiigli this master is getting a little too much into a habit of general keen execution, which prevents the parts vv'hich ought to be especially de- cisive from being felt as such, and which makes his pic- tures, especially the large ones, look a little thin. But some of his later passages of rock foreground have, taken in the abstract, been beyond all j)raise, owing to the ex- quisite forms and firm expressiveness of their shadows. And the chiaroscuro of Stanfield is equally deserving of the most attentive study. 8. The secoiid point to which I wish at present to direct attention has reference to the arrangement of light and shade. It is the constant habit of nature to use both her highest lights and deepest shadoios in exceedingly small quantitij ; always injwints, never in masses.* She will give a large mass of tender light in sky or water, impres- sive by its quantity, and a large mass of tender shadow relieved against it, in foliage, or hill, or building, but the light is always sabdued if it he extensive — the shadow always feeble if it he hroad. She will then fill up all the rest of her picture with middle tints and pale greys of S(mie 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 o-leam of a sino;le white- waslied cottage — or some such sources of local brilliancy, she will use so yividly and delicately as to throw every- thing else into definite shade by comparison. And then taking np 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 win- dow, so sharply as to throw everything else into definite light by comparison ; thus reducing the whole mass of her * Elements of Drawing, 65, note. 9* 202 OF TRUTH OF CIIIAKOSCUKO. picture to a delicate middle tint, ap2>roacliino;, of course, here to light, and there to gloom; but yet sharply sepa- rated from the utmost deo-rees either of the one or the other. 9. N^ow it is a curious thing that none of our writers on art seem to have noticed the great principle of nature in this respect. They all talk of deep shadow as a thing that may be given in quantity, — one-fourth of the picture, or, in certain effects, much more. Earry, for instance, says that the practice of the great painters, who " best understood the effects of chiaroscuro," was, for the most part, to make the mass of middle tint larger than the light, and the mass of dark larger than the masses of light and middle tint together, i. e., occupying more than one- half of the picture. Now I do not know what we are to suppose is meant by " understanding chiaroscuro." If it means being able to manufacture agreeable patterns in the shape of pyramids, and crosses, and zigzags, into which arms and legs are to be persuaded, and passion and mo- tion arranged, for the promotion and encouragement of the cant of criticism, such a principle may be productive of the most advantageous results. But if it means, being acquainted with the deep, perpetual, systematic, unintru- sive simplicity and unwearied variety of nature's chiaro- scuro — if it means the perception that blackness and sub- limity are not synonymous, and that space and liglit may possibl}^ be coadjutors — then no man, who ever advocated or dreamed of such a principle, is anything more than a novice, blunderer, and trickster in chiaroscuro. 10. And my firui belief is, that though colour is inveighed against l)y all artists, as the great Circe of art — the great transformer of mind into sensuality — no fondness for it, no study of it, is half so great a peril and stumbling-block to the young student, as the admii-ation he hears bestowed on such artificial, false, and juggling chiaroscuro, and the in- OF TRUTH OF CIIIAROSCUEO. 203 struction he receives, based on siicli principles as that given ns bj 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 arraugement — all extended shadows and narrow lights — ■ everything, in fact, in the least degree artificial, or tend- ing to make the mind dwell npon light and shade as such, is an injury, instead of an aid, to conceptions of high ideal dignity. I believe 1 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 tliat none think they can improve npon it but those who never understood it. 11. But however this may be, it is beyond dispute that every permission given to the student to amuse himself with painting one figure all black, and the next all white, and throwino; them out with a background of nothing — • every permission given to him to spoil his pocket-book with sixths of sunshine and sevenths of shade, and other such fractional sublimities, is so much more difficulty laid in the way of his ever becoming a master ; and that none are in the right road to real excellence but those who are struggling to render the simplicity, purity, and inexhaus- tible variety of nature's own chiaroscuro in open, cloud- less daylight, giving the expanse of harmonious light — • the speaking, decisive shadow — and the exquisite grace, tenderness, and grandeur of aerial opposition of local 204 OF TKUTH OF CHLAROSCUKO. colour and equally illuininated lines. ISTo chiaroscuro is so difficult as tins ; and none so noble, chaste or impressive. On this [lart of the subject, however, I must not enlarge at present. I wish now only to speak of those great prin- ciples of chiaroscuro which nature observes, even when slie is most working for effect — when she is playing with thunderclouds and sunbeams, and throwino- one thino- out and obscuring another, with the most marked artistical feeling and intention ; — even then, she never forgets her great rule, to give jweGlsely the same quantity of deepest shade which she does of highest light, ami 710 rnore / jyoints of the one answering to jpoints of the other, and hoth vividly conspicuoiis and separated from all the rest of the landscape. 12. And it is most singular that this separation, which is the great source of brilliancy in nature, should not only be unobserved, but absolutely forbidden by our great writers on art, who are always talking about connecting the light with the shade by imperceptible gradations. Now so surely as this is done, all sunshine is lost, for impercep- tihle gradation from light to dark is the characteristic of objects seen out of sunshine, in what is, i7i landscape, shadow. Nature's principle of getting light is the direct reverse. She will cover her whole landscape wdth middle tint, in lohich she will have as many gradations as you please, and a great many more than you can paint; hwt on this middle tint she touches her extreme lights, and ex- treme darks, isolated and sharp, so that the eye goes to them directly, and feels tliem to be key-notes of the whole composition. And although the dark touches are less at- tractive than tlie light ones, it is not because they arc less distinct, but because they exhibit nothing; while the bright touches are in parts where everything is seen, and where in consequence the eye goes to rest. But yet the high lights do not exhibit anything in themselves, they are OF TRUTH OF CHIAROSCURO. 205 too bright and dazzle the eye ; and having no shadows in them, cannot exhibit form, for form can only he seen hy shadow of some kind or another. Hence the highest lights and deeyest darhs agree in this, that nothing is seen in either of them ^ that both are in exceedingly small quan- tit}', and hoth are marked and distinct from the middle tones of the landscajje — the one by their hrilliancy, the other by their sharj) edges, even though many of the more energetic middle tints may approach their intensity very closely. 13. I need scarcely do more than tell yon to glance at any one of the works of Turner, and you will perceive in a moment the exquisite observation of all these principles ; the sharjpness, decision, consjjicuousness, and excessively small quantity, both of extreme light and extreme shade, all the mass of the picture heing graduated and delicate middle tint. Take up the Ilivers of Fi-ance, 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. Oi'leans. — The crowded figures supply both points of shade and light. Observe the delicate middle tint of both in the whole mass of buildings, and compare this with the blackness of Canaletto's shadows, against which neither figures nor anything else can ever tell, as points of shade. 3. Blois. — White figures in boats, buttresses of bridge, dome of church on the right, for light ; woman on horse- back, heads of boats, for shadow. Xote especially the isolation of the lio-ht on the church dome. 4. Chateau de Blois. — Torches and white fiijures for light, roof of chapel and monks' dresses for shade. 206 OF TRUTH OF CIIIAROSCUEO. 5. Beangeiicy. — Sails and spire opposed to buoy and boats. An exquisite instance of brilliant, sparkling, iso- lated touches of morning light. 6. Aniboise. — "White sail aud clouds ; cypresses under castle. 7. Chateau of Amboise. — The boat in the centre, with its reflections, needs no connnent. Kote the glanchig lights under the bridge. This is a very glorious and perfect instance. S. St. Julien, Tours. — Especially remarkable for its preservation of deep points of gloom, because the whole picture is one of extended sliade. I need scarcely go on. The above instances are taken as they happen to come, without selection. The reader can proceed for himself. I may, however, name a few cases of chiaroscuro more especially deserving of his study. Scene between Quilleboeuf and Villequier, — Honfleur, — Light Towers of the Heve, — On the Seine between Mantes and Yernon, — The Lantern at St. Cloud, — Confluence of Seine and Marne, — Troyes, — the first and last vignette, and those at pages 36, 63, 95, 184, 192, 203, of Rogers's Poems ; the first and second in Campbell, St. Maurice in the Italy, vvliere note the black storlc ; l>rienne, Skiddaw, Mayburgh, Melrose, Jedl)nrgh, in the illustrations to Scott, and the vignettes to Milton, not because these are one whit superior to others of liis works, but because the laws of whi{;h we have been spealcing are more strikingly de- veloped in them, and because they have been well engrav- ed. It is impossible to reason from the larger plates, in which half the chiaroscuro is totally destroyed by the liaf'u-linnr, bhackenino; and " makino; out" of the enm-avers. 1 M. P., 171. Elements of Drawing, 79, et seq. ; Lectures on Art, 155 ; Kinds of Light, 179, et passim. n, — Landscape Aet. CPIAPTER I. PERSPECTIVE. 1. Perspective is not of the slightest use, except in rudi- mentary work. You can draw the rounding line of a ta- ble in perspective, but you cannot draw the sweep of a sea bay ; you can foreshorten a log of wood by it, but you cannot foreshorten an arm. Its laws are too gross and few to be applied to any subtle form ; therefore, as you must learn to draw the subtle forms by the eye, certainly you may draw the simple ones. No great painters ever trouble themselves about perspective, and very few of them know its laAvs ; they draw everything by the eye, and, natui-ally enough, disdain in the easy parts of their work rules which cannot help them in difficult ones. It would take about a month's labour to draw imperfectly, h\ laws of perspective, what any great Venetian will draw perfectly in five minutes, when he is throwing a wreath of leaves round a liead, or bending the curves of a pattern in and out among the folds of drapery. It is true that when perspective was first discovered, everybody amused themselves with it ; and all tlie great painters put fine saloons and arcades behind their madonnas, merely to show that they could draw in perspective : but even this was generally done by them only to catch the public eye, and 208 PEKSPECTIVE. they disdained the perspective so mnch, that though they took the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown, or the rim of a crystal cup, in the heart of their picture, they would twist their capitals of columns and towers of churches about 111 the background in the most wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided only they left just perspec- tive enough to please the public. In modern days, I doubt if any artist among us, except David Roberts, knows so much perspective as would enable him to draw a Gothic arch to scale, at a given angle and distance. Turner, though he was professor of perspective to the Royal Acad- emy, did not know what he professed, and never, as far as I remember, drew a single building in true perspective in his life ; he drew them only with as much perspective as suited him. Front also knew nothing of perspective, and twisted his buildings, as Tui-ner did, into whatever shapes he liked. I do not justify this; and would recommend the student at least to treat perspective with common civility, but to pay no court to it. The best way he can learn it, by him- self, is by taking a pane of glass, fixed in a frame, so that it can be set upright before the eye, at the distance at which the proposed sketch is intended to be seen. Let the eye be placed at some fixed point, opposite the middle of the pane of glass, but as high or as low as the student likes; then with a brush at the end of a stick, and a little body-colour that will adhere to the glass, the lines of the landscape may be traced on the glass, as you see them through it. When so traced they are all in true perspec- tive. If the glass be sloped in any direction, the lines are still ill true perspective, only it is perspective calculated for a sloping plane, while common perspective always supposes the plane of the picture to be vertical. It is good, in early practice, to accustom yourself to enclose your subject, before sketching it, with a liglit frame of wood held upright before you ; it will show you what you may legitimately take into PERSPECTIVE. 209 your picture, and what choice there is between a narrow foreground near you, and a wide one farther off ; also, what heiirht of tree or building you can properly take in, &c.* Of fio-ure drawino;, nothincr is said in the following pages, because I do not think figures, as chief subjects, can be drawn to any good pnrj^ose by an amateur. As accessaries in landscape, they are just to be drawn on the same principles as anything else. 2, FIEST PRINCIPLES OF PERSPECTIVE. "When you begin to read this hook, sit down very near the window, and shut the window. I hope the view out of it is pretty ; but, whatever the view may be, we shall find enough in it for an illustration of the first principles of perspective (or, literally, o£ "looking through"). Every pane of your window may be considered, if you choose, as a glass picture ; and what you see through it, as painted on its surface. And if, holding your head still, you extend your hand to the glass, you may, with a brush full of any thick colour, trace, roughly, the lines of the landscape on the glass. But, to do this, you must hold your head very still. ISTot only you must not move it sideways, nor up and down, but it mnst not even move backwards or forwards; for, if you move your head forwards, you will see tnore of the landscape througli the pane ; and, if you move it backwards, you will see less : or considering the pane of glass as a picture, when you hold your head near it, the * If the student is fond of architecture and wishes to know more of perspective than he can learn in this rough way, Mr. Rounciman (of 49 Accacia Road, St. John's Wood), who was my first drawing-master, and to whom I owe many happy hours, can teach it him quickly, easily, and rightly. 210 PERSPECTIVE, objects are painted small, and a great many of them go into a little space ; but, when yon hold your head some distance back, the objects arc painted larger upon the pane, and fewer of them go into the field of it. But, besides holding your head still, you must, when you try to trace the picture on the glass, shut one of your eyes. If you do not, the point of the brush appears double ; and, on farther experiment, you will observe that each of your eyes sees the object in a different place on the glass, so that the tracing which is true to the sight of the right eye is a couple of inches (or more, according to your distance from the pane), to the left of that which is true to the sight of the left. Thus, it is oidy possible to draw what yon see through the window rightly on the surface of the glass, by fixing one eye at a given point, and neither moving it to the right nor left, nor up nor down, nor backwards nor for- wards. Every picture drawn in true pei'spective may be considered as an upright piece of glass,* on which the objects seen through it have been thus drawn. Perspec- tive can, therefore, only be cpiite right, by being calcu- lated for one fixed position of the eye of the observer; nor will it ever appear deceptwelt/ right unless seen pre- cisely from the point it is calculated for. Custom, how- ever, enables us to feel the rightness of the work on using both our eyes, and to be satisfied with it, even when we stand at some distance from the point it is designed for. Supposing that, instead of a window, an unbroken plate of crystal extended itself to the right and left of you, and high in front, and that you had a brush as long as you * If the glass were not upright, but sloping, the objects might still be drawn through it, but their perspective woiild then be different. Perspective, as commonly taught, is alwaj's calculated for a vertical plaue of picture. PERSPECTIVE. 211 wanted (a mile long, suppose), and could paint with such a bnish, then the clouds high up, nearly over your head, and tlie landscape far away to the right and left, might be traced, and painted, on this enormous crystal field.* But if the field were so vast (suppose a mile high and a mile wide), certainly, after the picture was done, you would not stand as near to it, to see it, as you are now sitting near to your window. In order to trace the upper clouds through your great glass, you would have had to stretch your neck quite back, and nobody likes to bend their neck back to see the top of a picture. So you would walk a long way back to see the great picture — a quarter of a mile, per- haps,- — and then all the perepective would be wrong, and would look quite distorted', and you would discover that you ought to have painted it from the greater distance, if you meant to look at it froui that distance. Thus, the distance at which you intend the observer to stand from a picture, and for which you calculate the perspective, ought to regulate to a certain degree the size of the pic- ture. If you place the point of observation near the canvas, you should not make the picture very large : vice versa, if you place the point of observation far from the canvas, you should not make it very small; the fixing, therefore, of this point of observation determines, as a matter of convenience, within certain limits, the size of your picture. But it does not determine this size by any perspective law ; and it is a mistake made by many writers on perspective, to connect some of their rules definitely with the size of the picture. For, suppose that you had what you now see through your window painted actually upon its surface, it would be quite optional to cut out any piece you chose, with the piece of the land- * Supposing it to have no thickness ; otherwise the images would be distorted by refraction. 212 , PERSPECTIVE. scape that was painted on it. Yon might have only half a 2:)ane, with a single tree ; or a whole pane, with two trees and a cottage ; or two panes, with tlie whole farm- yard and pond ; or fonr panes, with fai-myard, pond, and foregronnd. And any of tliese pieces, if the landscape npon them were, as a scene, pleasantly composed, would be agreeable pictures, though of quite different sizes ; and yet they would be all calculated for the same distance of observation. In the following treatise, therefore, I keep the size of the picture entirely undetermined. I consider the field of canvas as wholly unlimited, and on that condition de- termine the perspective laws. After we know how to apply those laws without limitation, we shall see what limi- tations of the size of the picture their results may render advisable. But although the size of the picture is thus independ- ent of the observers distance, the size of the ohject repre- sented in the picture is not. On the contrary, that size is fixed by absolute mathematical laAV ; that is to say, sup- posing you have to draw a tower a hundred feet high, and a quarter of a mile distant from you, the height which you ought to give that tower on your paper depends, with mathematical precision, on the distance at which you in- tend your paper to be placed. So, also, do all the rules for drawing the form of the tower, whatever it may be. Hence, the first thing to be done in begimung a draw- ing is to fix, at your choice, this distance of observation, or the distance at which you mean to stand from your paper. After that is determined, all is determined, ex- cept only the ultimate size of your picture, which you may make greater, or less, not by altering the size of the things represented, but by talcing in more, or fewer of them. So, then, before proceeding to apply any practical perspec- tive rule, we must always have our distance of observa- rERSPKCTIVE. 213 tion marked, and the most convenieiit way of marking it is the f olio win o; : 3. PLACING OF THE SIGHT-POINT, SIGHT-LINE, STATION-POINT, AND STATION-LINE. a. The Sight-point. — Let a b c d, Fig. 1., be your sheet of paper, the larger the better, though perhaps we may cut out of it at last only a small piece for our picture, such as the dotted circle n o p q. This circle is not intended to limit either the size or shape of our picture : you may ultimately have it round or oval, horizontal or upright, B G N/' \o / / s \ PV... ..-.-""S • T ' R / c II D Fig. 1. small or large, as you choose. I only dot the line to give you an idea of whereabouts you will probably like to have it ; and, as the operations of perspective are more conveniently performed upon paper underneath the picture than above it, I put this conjectural circle at the top of the paper, about the middle of it, leaving plenty of paper on both sides and at the bottom. Now, as an observer generally stands near the middle of a picture to "look at it, we had better at first, and for simplicity's sake, fix the 214 PERSPECTrVE. point of observation opposite the middle of our conjectural picture. So take the point s, the centre of the circle n o p Q ; — or, which will be simpler for you in your own work, take the point s at random near the top of your paper, and strike the circle n op q round it, any size you like. Then the point s is to represent the point oj>_posite which you wish the observer of your picture to place his eye, in look- ing at it. Call this point the " Sight-point." h. The Sight-line. — Through the Sight-point, s, draw a horizontal hue, G n, right across your paper from side to side, and call this line the " Sight-line." This line is of great practical use, representing the level of the eye of the (observer all through the picture. You wull find hereafter that if there is a horizon to be repre- sented in your j^icture, as of distant sea or jjlain, this line defines it. M. P., 334. Eubens makes 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 w^hip at it, his horses pull for it, the figures push for it, and the liorizon sloj)es towards it. If the horizon had been hori- zontal, it would have embarrassed everything and every- body. c. Tnio Station-line. — From s let fall a perpendicular line, s R, to the bottom of the paper, and call this line the '" Station-line." This reiu-esents the line on which the observer stands, at a greater or less distance from the picture ; and it ought 1o be imagined as di'awn right out from the paper at the point s. Hold your paper upright in front of you, and liold your pencil horizontally, with its point against the l)oint s, aS if you wanted to run it tlirough the paper there, and the pencil will rej^rescnt the direction in which PERSPECTIVE. 215 the line s k ouo-ht to be drawn. But as all the measure- nients which we have to set upon this line, and operations which we have to perform with it, are just the same when it is drawn on the paper itself, below s, as they would be if it were represented by a wire in the position of the levelled pencil, and as they are much more easily per- formed when it is drawn on the paper, it is always in practice so drawn. d. The Station-point. — On this line, mark the distance s T at your pleasure, for the distance at which you wish your picture to be seen, and call the point t the " Station-point." In practice, it is generally advisable to make the dis- tance s T about as great as the diameter of your intended picture ; and it should, for the most part, be more rather than less ; but, as I have just stated, this is quite arbitrary. However, in this figure, as an approximation to a gener- ally advisable distance, I make the distance s t equal to the diameter of the circle n o p q. Now, having fixed this distance, s t, all the dimensions of the objects in our picture are fixed likewise, and for this reason : — Q Fig. 2. Let the upright line a b, Fig. 2., represent a pane of glass placed where our picture is to be placed ; but seen 216 PERSPECTIVE. at the side of it, edgeways ; let s be the Sight-point ; s t the Station-line, Avhich, in this fignre, observe, is in its true position, drawn out from the paper, not down upon it ; and t the Station-point. Suppose the Station-line s t to be continued, or in mathematical language " produced," thi-ough s, far beyond the pane of glass, and let p q be a tower or other upright object situated on or above this line. Now the apparent height of the tower p q is measured by the angle q t p, between the rays of light which come from the top and bottom of it to the eye of the observer. But tlie actual height of the image of the tower on the pane of glass a b, between us and it, is the distance p' q,' between tlie points where the rays traverse the glass. Evidently, the farther from the point t we place the glass, making s t longer, the larger will l)e the image ; and the nearer we place it to t, the smaller the image, and that in a iixed ratio. Let the distance d t be the direct distance from tlie Station point to the foot of the object. Then, if wo, place the glass a b at one-third of that whole distance, p' q' will be one-third of the real height of the object ; if we place the glass at two-thirds of the distance, as at e f, p" q" (the height of the image at that point) will be two-thirds the height* of the object, and so on. Therefore the nuithematical law is that p' q' will be to p Q as s T to D T. I put this ratio clearly by itself that you may remember it : p' q' : p Q : : s T : D T or in words : p dash Q dash is to p q as s t to d t 111 which formula, recollect that p' q' is the height of * I say " height " instead of " maguitude," for a reason stated in Appendix I. , to which you will soon be referred. Read on here at present. PERSPECTIVE. 217 the ai->pearaiice of the object on the picture ; p q the height of the object itself ; s the Sight-point ; t the Station-point; d a point at the direct distance of the object ; though the object is seldom placed actually on the line t s produced, and may be far to the right or left of it, the formula is still the same. For let s, Fig. 3., be the Sight-point, and a b the glass — here seen looking doioii on its tijyjMi' edge^ not side- ways ; — then if the tower (represented now, as on a map, l>y the dark square), instead of being at d on the line s t produced, be at e, to the right (or left) of the spectator, still the apparent height of the tower on a b will l)e as s' t to E T, which is the same ratio as that of s T to D T. Now in many persjDective problems, the position of an ob- ject is more conveniently ex- pressed l)y the two measure- ments D T and D E, than by the A single oblique measurement e t. I shall call n t the " direct distance" of the object at e, and D E its "lateral distance." It is rather a license to call d t its " direct " distan(;e, for e t is the more direct of the two ; ln;t there is no other term which would not cause confusion. Lastly, in order to complete our knowledge of the position of an object, the vertical lieight of some point in it, above or below the eye, must be given ; that is to say, either d p or d q in Fig. 2.* : this I shall call the " vertical Fig. 3. * P and Q being- points indicative of the place of the tower's base and top. In this figure both are above the sight-Une ; if the to\yer were below the spectator both would be below it, and therefore measured below D 10 218 PERSPECTIVE. distance" of tlie point given. In all perspective prob- lems these three distances and the dimensions of the object, must be stated, otherwise the problem is imper- fectly g-iven. It ought not to be required of ns merely to draw a room or a church in perspective ; but to draw this room from this corner, and that church on that spot, in perspective. For want of knowing how to base their dj-a wings on the measurement and place of the object, I have known practised students represent a parish church, certainly in true perspective, but with a nave about two miles and a half long. It is true that in drawing landscapes from nature the sizes" and distances of the objects cannot be accurately known. When, however, we know how to draw them rightly, if their size were given, we have only to assuTne a rational aj)j)roximation to their size, and the resulting drawing will be true enough for all intents and purposes. It does not in the least matter that we represent a distant cottage as eighteen feet long when it is in reality only seventeen; but it matters much that we do not represent it as eighty feet long, as we easily might if we had not been accustomed to draw from measurement. Therefore, in all the following problems the measurement of the object is given. The student must observe, however, that in order to bring the diagrams into convenient compass, the measurements assumed are generally very different from any likely to occur in practice. Thus, in Fig. 3., the distance d s would be probably in practice half a mile or a mile, and the dis- tance T s, from the eye of the observer to tlie paper, oidy two or three feet. The mathematical law is however pre- cisely the same, whatever the proportions ; and I use such proportions as are best calculated to make the diagram clear. Now, therefore, the conditions of a perspective problem are the f (allowing : PERSPECTIVE. 219 The Sight-line g h given, Fig. 1.; The Sight-point s given ; The Station-point t given ; and The three distances of the object,"' direct, lateral, and vertical, with its dimensions given. The size of the picture, conjecturally limited by the dotted circle, is to be detennined afterwards at our pleas- ure. On these conditions I proceed at once to construc- tion. Ele. Perspective. 4. THE GENERAL PLACING AND SCALE OF THE PICTURE. As the horizontal sio-ht-line is drawn throusih the siii-ht- }x^int, and the sight-point is opposite the eye, the sight- line is always on a level with the eye. Above and below the sight-line, the eye comprehends, as it is raised or de- pressed while the head is held upright, about an equal space ; and, on each side of the sight-point, about the same space is easily seen without turning the head ; so that if a picture represented the true field of easy vision, it ought to be circular, and have the sight-point in its centre. But because some parts of any given view are usually more interesting than others, either the uninteresting parts are left out, or somewhat more than w(Hild generally be seen of the interesting parts is included, by moving the field of tlie j)icture a little upwards or downwards, so as to throw the sight-point low or liigh. The operation will be under- stood in a moment by cutting an aperture in a piece of pasteboard, and moving it up and down in front of the eye, without moving the eye. It will be seen to embrace sometimes the low, sometimes the high objects, without altering theii' perspective, only the eye will be opposite * More accurately, ' ' the three distances of any point, either in the object itself, or indicative of its distance." 220 PERSPECTIVE. the lower part of the aperture when it sees tlie higher ob- jects, and vice versa. There is no reason, in the laws of perspective, why the picture should not be moved to the right or left of the sight-point, as well as up or down ; but there is this prac- tical reason. The moment the spectator sees the hori- zon in a picture high, he tries to hold his head high, that is, in its right place. When he sees the horizon in a pic- ture low, he similarly tries to put his head low. But, if the sight-point is thrown to the left hand or right hand, he does not understand that he is to step a little to the right or left ; and if he places himself, as usual, in the jniddle, all the perspective is distorted. Hence it is gene- rally unadvisable to remove the sight-point latei-ally, from the centre of the picture. The Dutch painters, however, fearlessly take the license of placing it to the right or left ; and often with good effect. The rectilinear limitation of the sides, top, and base of the picture is of course quite arbitrary, as the space of a landscape would be which was seen through a window ; less or more being seen at the spectator's pleasure, as he retires or advances. The distance of the station-point is not so arbitrary. In ordinary cases it should not be less than the intended greatest dimension (height or breadth) of the picture. In most works by the great masters it is more ; they not only calculate on their pictures being seen at considei-able dis- tances, but they like Ijreadth of mass in liuildings, and dis- like the sharp angles which always result from station- points at short distances.* * Tne greatest masters are also fond of pai'allel perspective, that is to eay, of havin,' one side of their buildings fronting them full, and therefore parallel to the picture plane, while the other side vanishes to the side point. This is almost always done in figure backgrounds Becurmg simple and balanced lines. PERSPECTIVE. 221 "Whenever perspective, done by true rule, looks wrong, it is always because the station-point is too near. Deter- mine, in the outset, at what distance the spectator is likely to examine the work, and never use a station-point within a less distance. There is yet another and a very important reason, not only for care in placing the station-point, but for that accurate calculation of distance and observance of meas- urement which have been insisted on throuo-hout this work. All drawings of objects on a reduced scale are, if rightly executed, drawings of the appearance of the ob- ject at the distance which in true perspective reduces it to that scale. They are not small drawings of the object seen near, but drawings the real size of the object seen far off. Thus if you draw a mountain in a landscape, tliree inches high, you do not reduce all the features of the near mountain so as to come into three inches of paper. You could not do that. All that you can do is to give the appearance of the mountain, when it is so far off that three inches of paper would really hide it from you. It is precisely the same in drawing any other object. A face (;an no more be reduced in scale than a mountain can. It is infinitely delicate already ; it can only be quite rightly rendered on its own scale, or at least on the slightly diminished scale which would be fixed by placing the plate of glass, supposed to represent the field of the picture, close to the figures. Correggio and Raphael were both fond of this slightly subdued magnitude of figure. Colossal painting, in which Correggio excelled all others, is usually the enlargement of a small picture (as a colossal sculpture is of a small statue), in order to permit the sub- ject of it to be discerned at a distance. The treatment of colossal (as distinguished fi'om ordinary) paintings will depend therefore, in general, on the principles of optics more than on those of perspective, though, occasionally, 222 PERSPECTITE. poi'tions may be represented as if they were the pro- jection of near objects on a plane behind them. In all points the subject is one of great difficulty and subtlety; and its examination does not fall witliin the compass of this essay. Lastly, it will follow from these considerations, and the conclusion is one of great practical importance, that, though pictui*es may be enlarged, they cannot be reduced, in copying them. All attempts to engrave pictures com- pletely on a reduced scale are, for this reason, nugatory. The best that can be done is to give the aspect of the picture at the distance which reduces it in perspective to the size required ; or, in other words, to make a drawing of the distant effect of the picture. Good painting, like nature's own work, is infinite, and unreduceable. CHAPTER II. CLASSES OF LANDSCAPE. 1. We may arrange nearly all existing landscape under the following heads : — I. Heroic. — Representing an imaginary world, inhabit- ed by men not perhaps perfectly civilized, bnt noble, and usually subjected to severe trials, and by spiritual powers of the highest order. It is frequently without architecture ; never without figure-action, or emotion. Its principal master is Titian. II. Classical. — Representing an imaginary world, in- habited by perfectly civilized men, and by spiritual powers . of an inferior ordei". It generally assumes this condition of things to have ex- isted among the Greek and Roman nations. It contains usually architecture of an elevated character, and always incidents of figure-action and emotion. Its principal master is ISTicolo Poussin. III. Pastoral. — Representing peasant life and its daily ■work, or such scenery as may naturally be suggestive of it, consisting usually of simple landscape, in part subjected to agriculture, with figures, cattle, and domestic buildings. No supernatural being is ever visibly present. It does not in ordinary cases admit architecture of an elevated char- acter, nor exciting incident. Its principal master is Cuyp. lY. Contemplative. — Directed principally to the observ- ance of the powers of Nature, and record of the historical associations connected with landscape, illustrated by, or contrasted with, existing states of human life. No super- natural being is visibly present. It admits every variety 224 CLASSES OF LANDSCAPE. of subject, and requires, in general, figure incident, but not of an exciting character. It was not developed completely until recent times. Its principal master is Turner.* 2. These are the four true orders of landscape, not of course distinctly separated from each other in all cases, l)ut very distinctly in typical examples. Two spurious forms require separate note. (a.) Pictm'esque. — Tliis is indeed rather the degrada- tion (or sometimes the undeveloped state) of the Contem- plative, than a distinct class ; but it may be considered generally as including pictures meant to display the skill of the artist, and his powers of composition ; or to give agreeable forms and colours, irrespective of sentiment. It will include much modern art, witli the street views and church interiors of the Dutch, and the works of Canaletto, Guardi, Tempesta, and the like. (b.) Ilijlyrid. — ^Landscape in which the painter endeav- ours to unite their reconcilable sentiment of two or more of the above-named classes. Its principal masters are Bergliem and Wouvermans. Passing for the present by these inferior schools, we find that all true landscape, whether simple or exaUed, depends primarily for its interest on connection with hu- manity, or with spiritual powers. Banish your heroes and nymjihs from the classical landscape — its laurel shades will move you no more. Show that the dark clefts of the most romantic mountain are uninhabited and untraversed ; * I have been embarrassed in assigning the names to these orders of art, the term "Contemplative" belonging in justice nearly as much to the romantic and pastoral conception as to the modem landscape. I in- tended, originally, to call the four schools— Romantic, Classic, Georgic, and Theoretic — which would have been more accurate, and more con- sistent with the nomenclature of the second volume ; but would not have been pleasant in sound, nor, to the general reader, very clear in sense. CLASSES OF LANDSCAPE. 225 it will cease to be romantic. Fields without sliepherds and without fairies will have no gaiety in their green, nor will the noblest masses of o-round or colours of cloud arrest or raise your thoughts, if the earth has no life to sustain, and the heaven none to refresh. 3. It might perhaps be thought that, since from scenes in which the figure was principal, and landscape symbolical and subordinate (as in the art of Egypt), the process of ages had led us to scenes in which landscape was principal and the figure subordinate, — a continuance in the same current of feeling might bring forth at last an art from which humanity and its interests should wholly vanish, leaving us to the passionless admiration of herbage and stone. But this will not, and cannot be. For observe the parallel instance in the gradually increasing importance of dress. From the simplicity of Greek design, concentrat- ing, I suppose, its skill chiefly on the naked form, the course of time developed conditions of Venetian imagina- tion which found nearly as much interest, and expressed nearly as much dignity, in folds of dress and fancies of decoration as in the faces of the figures themselves ; so that if from Veronese's Marriage in Cana we remove the architecture and the srav dresses, we shall not in the faces and hands remaining, find a satisfactory abstract of the picture. But try it the other way. Take out the faces; leave the draperies, and how then ? Put the fine dresses and jewelled girdles into the best group you can ; paint them with all Veronese's skill : will the}^ satisfy you 'I 4. Not so. As long as they are in their due service and subjection — while their folds are formed by the motion of men, and their lustre adorns the nobleness of men — so long the lustre and the folds are lovely. But cast them from the human limbs ; — golden circlet and silken tissue are withered ; the dead leaves of autumn are more pre- cious than thev. 10* 226 CLASSES OF LANDSCAPE. This is just as true, but in a far deeper sense, of the weavius: of the natural I'obe of man's soul. Frao^rant tis- sue of flowers, golden circlets of clouds, are only fair when they meet the fondness of human thoughts, and glorify human visions of heaven. It is the leaning on this truth which, more than any other, has been the distinctive character of all my own past work. And in closing a series of Art-studies, j)ro- longed during so many years, it may be perhaps permitted me to point out this specialty — the rather that it has been, of all tiieir characters, the one most denied. I constantly see that the same thing takes place in the estimation form- ed by the modern public of the work of almost any true person, living or dead. It is not iieedf nl to state here the causes of such error : l)ut the fact is indeed so, that pre- cisely the distinctive root and leading force of any true man's work and way are the things denied concerning him. And in these books of mine, their distinctive character, as essays on art, is their bringing everything to a root in human passion or human hope. Arising tii-st not in any desire to explain the principles of art, but in the endeavour to defend an individual painter from injustice, they have been coloured throuo-hout, — nav, continuallv altered in shape, and even warped and broken, by digressions re- specting social questions, which had for me an interest tenfold greater than the work I had been forced into un- dertaking. Every principle of painting which I have stated is traced to some vital or sj)iritual fact ; and in my works on architecture the preference accorded liiuilly to one scliool over another, is founded on a comparison of their influences on the life of the w^orkman — a question by all other writers on the subject of architecture wholly forgot- ten or despised. The essential connection of the power of landscape with human emotion is not less certain, because in many im- CLASSES OF LANDSCAPE. 227 pressive pictures the link is slight or local. That tlie con- nection should exist at a single point is all that we need. The comparison with the dress of the body may be carried out into the extremest parallelism. It may often happen that no part of the figure wearing the dress is discernible, nevertheless, the perceivable fact that the drapery is worn by a figure makes all the difference. In one of the most sublime figures in the world this is actually so: one of the fainting Marys in Tintoret's Crucifixion has cast her mantle over her head, and lier face is lost in its shade, and her whole figure veiled in folds of grey. But M'hat the difference is between that grey woof, that gathers round her as she falls, and the same folds cast in a heap upon the ground, that difference, and more, exists between the power of Nature through which liumanity is seen, and her power in the desert. Desert— whether of leaf or sand — true desertness is not in the want of leaves, but of life. Where humanity is not, and was not, tlie best natural beauty is more than vain. It is even terrible ; not as the dress cast aside from the body ; but as an embroidered shroud hiding a skeleton. 5. And on each side of a right feeling in this matter there lie, as usual, two opposite errors. The first, that of cariug for man only ; and for the rest of the universe, little, or not at all, which, in a measure, was the error of the Greeks and Florentines ; the other, that of caring for the universe otdy ; for man, not at all, — which, in a measure, is the error of modern science, and of the Art connecting itself with such science. The degree of power which an}' man may ultimately possess in landscape-painting will depend finally on his perception of this influence. If he has to paint the des- ert, its awfulness — if the garden, its gladsomeness — will arise simply and only from this sensibility to the story of life. Without this he is nothino- but a scientific mechan- 228 CI.ASSES OF LANDSCAPE. ist ; this, though it cannot make him jet a painter, raises him to the sphere in which he may become one. Nay, the mere shadow and semblance of this have given dangerous power to works in all other respects unnoticeable ; and the least degree of its true presence has given value to work in all other respects vain. The true presence, observe, of sym- pathy with the spirit of man. Where this is not, sympa- thy with any higher spirit is impossible. 5 M. P., 205-210. CHAPTER III. THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. § 1. The reader has probably been surprised at my as- sertions made often before now, and reiterated here, that the minutest portion of a great composition is helpful to the whole. It certainly does not seem easily conceivable that this should be so. I will go farther, and say that it is inconceiv^able. But it ia the fact. "VVe shall discern it to be so by taking one or two com- positions to pieces, and examining the fragments. In doing which, we must remember that a great composition always has a leading emotional purpose, technically called its motive, to which all its lines and forms have some re- lation. Undulating lines, for instance, are expressive of action ; and would be false in effect if the motive of the picture was one of repose. Horizontal and angular lines are expressive of rest and streugth ; and would destroy a design whose purpose was to express disquiet and feeble- ness. It is therefore necessary to ascertain the motive be- fore descending to the detail. § 2. One of the simplest subjects, in the series of the Rivers of France, is "Rietz, near Savimur." The pub- lished Plate gives a better rendering than usual of its tone of liglit ; and my rough etching, Plate 5, sufficiently shows the arrangement of its lines. What is their motive ? To get at it completely, we must know something of the Loire. The district through which it here flows is, for the most 230 THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. part, a low place, yet not altogether at the level of the stream, but cut into steep banks of chalk or gravel, thirty or forty feet high, running for miles at about an equal height above the water. These banks are excavated by the peasantry, partly for houses, parth- for cellars, so economizing vineyard space above ; and thus a kind of continuous village runs along the river-side, composed half of caves, half of rude build- ings, backed by the cliff, propped against it, therefore always leaning away from the river ; mingled with over- lappings of vineyard trellis from above, and little towers or sunnner-houses for outlook, when the grapes are ripe, or for gossip over the garden wall. § 3, It is an autumnal evening, then, l)y this Loire side. The day has been hot, and the air is heavy and misty still; the sunlight warm, but dim ; the brown vine-leaves mo- tionless : all else quiet. Not a sail in sight on tlic river,* its strong, noiseless current lengthening the stream of low sunlight. The motive of the picture, therefore, is the exjjression of rude but perfect peace, slightly mingled with an indo- lent languor and despondency ; the peace between inter- vals of enforced labour ; happy, but listless, and having little care or hope about the future ; cutting its home out of this gravel bank, and letting the vine and the river twine and undermine as tliev will ; careless to mend or buihl. so long as the walls hold together, and the black fruit swells in the sunshine. § 4, To get this repose, together with rude stability, we have therefoi'e horizontal lines and l)<)ld angles. The grand horizontal space and sweep of Turner's distant river show pei'haps bettei" in tlie etching than in the * The sails in tlio engraving were put in to catch the public eye. There are none in the drawing. THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. 231 Plate ; but dei:)end wholly for value on the piece of near wall. It is the vertical line of its dark side which drives the eye up into the distance, right against the horizontal, and so makes it felt, while the flatness of the stone pre- pares the eye to understand the flatness of the river. Far- ther : hide with your finger the little ring on that stone, and you will find the river has stopped flowing. That ring is to repeat the curved lines of the river bank, w^iich ex- press its line of current, and to bring the feeling of them down near us. On the other side of the road the horizon- tal lines are taken up again by the dark pieces of wood, without which we should still lose half our space. ]S"ext : The repose is to be not only perfect, but indo- lent : the repose of out-wearied people : not caring much what becomes of them. You see the road is covered with litter. Even the crockery is left outside the cottage to dry in the sun, after being washed up. The steps of the cottage door have been too high for comfort originally, only it was less trouble to cut three lare-e stones than four or five small. Thev are now all aslope and broken, not repaired for years. Their weighty forms increase the sense of languor throughout the scene, and of stabilitv also, because we feel how difficult it would be to stir them. The crockery has its work to do also ; — the arched door on the left being necessary to show the great thickness of walls and the strength they requii-e to prevent falling in of the clifi above ; — as the horizontal lines must 1)0 diffused on the right, so this arch must be diffused on the left ; and the large round plate on one side of the steps, with the two small ones on the other, are to cai'ry down the element of circular curvature. Hide them, and see the result. As they carry the arched group of forms down, the arched window-shutter diffuses it upward, where all the lines of the distant buildings suggest one and the same 232 THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. idea of disorderly and careless strength, mingling masonry with rock. § 5,. So far of the horizontal and curved lines. How of the radiating ones ? What has the black vine trellis got to do ? Lay a pencil or ruler parallel with its lines. You will find that they point to the massive building in the dis- tance. To which, as nearly as is possible witliout at once showing the artifice, every other radiating line points also; almost ludicrously when it is once pointed out; even the curved line of the top of the terrace runs into it, and the last sweep of the river evidently leads to its base. And so nearly is it in the exact centre of the picture, that one diagonal from corner to corner passes through it, and the other only misses the base by the twentieth of an inch. If you are accustomed to France, you will know in a moment by its outline that this massive building is an old church. Without it, the repose would not have been essentially the laborer's rest — rest as of the Sabbath. Among all the groups of lines that point to it, two are principal: the first, those of the vine trellis : the second, those of the handles of the saw left in the beam : — the blessing of liunian life, and its labor. AVhenever Turner wishes to express profound repose, lie puts in the foreground some instrument of labor cast aside. See, in Rogers's Poems, the last vignette, " Datur lK)i-a quieti," with the plough in the furrow ; and in the first vignette of the same book, the scythe on the shoulder of the peasant going home. (There is nothing about the scythe in the passage of the poem which this vignette illustrates.) § G. Observe, farther, the outline of the church itself. As our habitations are, so is our church, evidently a f't^ ^. /-^- "¥ ■ - - - V, ' ''/i*^ .<•- . .if'' -1 St rvii 111 THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE, 233 heap of old, but massive, walls, patched, and repaired, and roofed in, and over and over, until its original shape is hard- ly recognizable. I know the kind of church well — can tell even here, two miles off, that I shall find some Norman arches in the apse, and a flamboyant porch, rich and dark, with e\ery statue broken out of it ; and a rude wooden belfry above all ; and a quantity of miserable shops built in among the buttresses ; and that I may walk in and out as much as I please, but that how often soever, I shall al- Avays find some one praying at the Holy Sepulchre, in the darkest aisle, and my going in and out will not disturb them. For they are praying, which in many a hand- somer and highlier-furbished edifice might, perhaps, not be so assuredly the case, § 7. Lastly : What kind of people have we on this winding road % Three indolent ones, leaning on the wall to look over into the s-lidina^ water ; and a matron with her market panniers, by her figure, not a fast rider. The road, besides, is bad, and seems unsafe for trotting, and she has passed, without disturbing the cat, who sits com- fortably on the block of wood in the middle of it. § 8. Next to this piece of quietness, let us glance at a composition in which the motive is one of tumult : that of the Fall of Schaffliausen. It is engraved in the Keep- sake. I have etched in Plate 6, at the top, the chief lines of its composition,* in which the first great purpose is to give swing enough to the water. The line of fall is * These etchings of compositions are all reversed, for they are merely sketches on the steel, and I cannot sketch easily except straight from the drawing, and without reversing. The looking-glass plagues me with cross lights. As examples of composition, it does not the least matter which way they are turned ; and the reader may see this Schaff- hausen subject from the right side of the Rhine, by holding the book before a glass. The rude indications of the figures in the Loire subject are nearly facsimiles of Turner's. 234 THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. straight and monotonous in reality. Turner wants to get tlie great concave sweep and rusli of tlie river well felt, in spite of the unbroken form. The column of spray, rocks, mills, and bank, all radiate like a plume, sweeping round together in grand curves to the left, where the group of figures, hurried about the ferry-boat, rises like a dash of spray ; they also radiating : so as to form one perfectly connected cluster, with the two gens-d'armes and the mill- stones ; the millstones at the bottom being the root of it ; the two soldiers laid right and left to sustain the branch of figures beyond, balanced just as a tree bough w^ould be. § 0. One of the gens-d'armes is flirting with a young lady in a round cap and full sleeves, under pretence of wantino; her to show him what she has in her bandbox. The motive of Mdiich flirtation is, so far as Turner is con- cerned in it, j)riinarily the bandbox: this and the mill- stones below, give him a series of concave lines, which, concentrated by the recumbent soldiers, intensify the hol- low sweep of the fall, precisely as the i-ing on the stone does the Loire eddies. These curves are carried out on the right by the small plate of eggs, laid to be washed at the spring ; and, all these concave lines being a little too quiet and recuml)ent, the staggering casks are set on the left, and the ill-balanced milk-pail on the right, to give a general feeling of things being rolled over and over. The things which are to give this sense of rolling are dark, in order to hint at the way in which the cataract rolls bonldei-s of rock ; while the forms which are to give the sense of its sweeping force are white. The little spring, splashing out of its pine-trough, is to give contrast M'ith the power of the fall, — while it carries out the gene- ral sense of splashing watei-. § 10. This spring exists on the spot, and so does every- thing else in the ])ictni-e; but the com1)iiuitions are wholly arbitrary; it being Turner's fixed principle to collect ont ^t/- ^"-a ■^■> '^'A 1 %} .r * '/ .-^'' *•<» ff -,.«i2?5^^ ■■■■'*;%■, o a; u H THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. 235 of any scene, whatever was characteristic, and put it to- gether just as lie liked. The changes made in this in- stance are highly curious. The mills have no resemblance whatever to the real group as seen from tliis spot ; for there is a vulo-ai- and formal dwellino'-house in front of them. But if you climb the rock behind them, you find they form on that side a towering cluster, which Turner has put with little modification into the drawing. What he has done to the mills, he has done with still greater audacity to the central I'ock. Seen from this spot, it shows, in realit}", its greatest breadth, and is heavy and uninteresting ; but on the Lauffen side, exposes its con- sumed base, worn away by the rush of water, which Tur- ner resolving to show, serenely draws the rock as it ap- pears from the other side of the Ehine, and brings that view of it over to this side. I have etched the bit with the rock a little larger below ; and if the reader knows the spot, he will see that this piece of the drawing, re- versed in the etching, is almost a bona fide unreversed study of the fall from the Lauffen side.* Finally, the castle of Lauffen itself, being, when seen from this spot, too much foreshortened to show its extent, Turner walks a cpiarter of a mile lower down the river, draws the castle accurately there, brings it back with him, and puts it in all its extent, where he chooses to have it, beyond the rocks. I tried to copy and engrave this piece of the drawing of its real size, merely to show the forms of the trees, drifted back by the breeze from the fall, and wet with its spray ; but in the endeavour to facsimile the touches, great part of their grace and ease has been lost ; still, Plate 7 may, if * With the exception of the jagged ledge rising out of the foam be- low, which comes from the north side, and is admirable in its expression of the position of the limestone-beds, which, rising from below the drift gravel of Constance, are the real cause of the fall of SchafEhausen. 236 THE MOTIVE OP LANDSCAPE. compared with the same piece in the Keepsake engraving, at least show that the original drawing has not yet been rendered with completeness. § 11. These two examples may snlKciently serve to show the mode in which minor details, both in form and spirit, are used by Turner to aid his main motives ; of course I cannot, in the space of this volume, go on examining sub- jects at this length, even if I had time to etch them ; but every design of Turner's would be equally instructive, examined- in a similar manner. Thus far, however, we have only seen the help of the parts to the whole : we must give yet a little attention to the mode of combining the smallest details. I am always led away, in spite of myself, from my proper subject here, invention formal, or the merely pleasant placing of lines and masses, into the emotional results of such arrangement. The chief reason of this is that the emotional power can be explained ; but the per- fection of formative arrangement, as I said, cannot be ex- plained, any more than that of melody in music. An instance or two of it, however, may be given. The Form and Group. (See Chapter on Grouping.) § 12. Much fine formative arrangement depends on a more or less elliptical or pear-shaped balance of the group, obtained by arranging the jirincipal members of it on two opposite curves, and either centralizing it by some jjowerful feature at the base, centre, or summit ; or else clasping it together by some conspicuous j)oint or knot. A very small object will often do this satisfactorily. If you can get the complete series of Lefebre's engrav- ings from Titian and Veronese, they will be quite enough to teach you, in their dumb way, everything that is teach- able of composition ; at all events, try to get the Madonna, THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAJ'E. 237 with St. Peter and St. George iiiider the two great pillars; the Madonna and Child, with mitred bishop ou her left, and St. Andrew on her right ; and Veronese's Triumph of Venice. The first of these Plates unites two formative symmetries ; tliat of the two pillars, clasped by the square altar-cloth below and cloud above, catches the eye first ; but the main group is the fivefold one rising to the left, crowned by the Madonna. St. Francis and St. Peter form its two wings, and the kneeling portrait figures, its base. It is clasped at the bottom by the key of St. Peter, which points straight at the Madonna's head, and is laid on the steps solely for this purpose ; the curved lines, which en- close the group, meet also in her face ; and the straight line of light, on the cloak of the nearest senator, points at her also. If you have Turner's Liber Studiorum, turn to the Lauffenburg, and compare the figure group there : a fivefold chain, one standing figure, central ; two recum- bent, for wings ; two half -recumbent, for bases ; and a cluster of weeds to clasp. Then tui'u to Lefebre's Europa (there are two in the series — I mean the one with the two tree truidcs over her head). It is a wonderful ninefold group. Europa central ; two stooping figures, each sur- mounted by a standing one, for wings ; a cupid on one side, and dog on the other, for bases; a cupid and trunk of tree, on each side, to terminate above ; and a garland for clasp. § 13. Fig. 4, page 238, will serve to show the mode in which similar arrano-ements are carried into the smallest detail. It is mag-nified four times from a cluster of leaves in the foreground of the " Isis " (Liber Studiorum). Figs. 5 and 6, page 239, show the arrangement of the two groups composing it ; the lower is purely symmetrical, with trefoiled centre and broad masses for wings ; the uppermost is a sweeping continuous curve, symmetrical, but foreshoitened. Both are clasped by arrow-shaped leaves. The two whole groups themselves are. in turn, 238 THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. members of another larger group, composing the entire foregronnd, and consisting of broad dock-leaves, with minor clusters on the right and left, of which these form the chief portion on the right side. Fig. 4. § 14. Unless every leaf, and every visible point or object, however small, forms a part of some harmony of this kind (these synmietrical conditions being only the most THE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. 239 simple and obvious), it has no business in the picture. It is the necessary connection of all the forms and colors, down Fig. 5. Pig. 6. to the last touch, which constitutes great or inventive work, separated from all common work by an impassable gulf. 240 THE MOTIVE OF LANJ)SCAPE. By diligently copying the etchings of the Liber Stiidi- oriim, the reader may, however, easily attain the percep- tion of the existence of these relations, and be prepared to understand Turner's more elaborate composition. It would take many figures to disentangle and explain tlie arrangements merely of the leaf cluster, Fig. 78, facino- page lO-l; but that there is a system, and that every leaf lias a fixed value and place in it, can hardly but be felt at a p'lance. It is curious that, in spite of all the constant talking of "composition" which goes on among art students, true composition is just the last thing which ajDpears to be per- ceived. One M'ould have thought that in this group, at least the value of the central black leaf would have been seen, of which the principal function is to point towards, and continue, the line of bank above. See Plate 62, But a glance at the published Plate in the England series will show that no idea of the composition had occurred to the engraver's mind. He thought any leaves w^ould do, and sujjplied them from his own repertoiy of hack vegetation. § 15. I would willingly enlarge farther on this subject — it is a favorite one with me ; but the figures recpiired for any exhaustive treatment of it would form a separate volume. All that I can do is to indicate, as these ex- amples do sufticiently, the vast field open to the student's analysis if he cares to pursue the subject; and to nuirk for the general reader these two strong conclusions: — that nothing in great work is ever either fortuitous or conten- tious. It is not fortuitous ; that is to sav, not left to fortune. The " must do it l)y a kind of felicity " of Bacon is true ; it is true also that an accident is often suggestive to an inventor. Turner himself said, " I never lose an accident." But it is this not losing it, this taking things out of the hands of Fortune, and putting them into those of force TnE MOTIVE OF LANDSCAPE. 241 and foresight, which attest the master. Chance may sometimes help, and sometimes provoke, a success ; but must never rule, and rarely allure. And, lastly, nothing must be contentious. Art has many uses and many pleasantnesses ; but of all its services, none are higher than its setting fortli, by a visible and enduring image, the nature of all true authority and freedom ; — Authority which defines and directs the action of benevo- lent law ; and Freedom which consists in deep and soft consent of individual " heljDfulness. 5 M. P., 175. * "Individual," that is to say, distinct and separate in character, though joined in purpose. I might have enlarged on this head, but that all I should care to say has been already said admirably by Mr. J. S. Mill iu his Essay on Liberty. 11 CHAPTEE lY. SKETCHESTG FROM NATURE, 1 ASSUME that you are now enabled to draw with fair success, either rounded and simple masses, like stones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves ; provided only these masses or complexities will stay quiet for you to copy, and do not extend into quantity so great as to baffle your patience. But if we are now to go out to the fields, and to draw anything like a complete landscape, neither of these conditions will any more be observed for us. Tlie clouds will not wait while we copy their heaps or clefts ; the shadows will escape from us as we try to shape them, each, in its stealthy juinute march, still leaving light where its tremulous edge had rested the moment before, and involving in eclipse objects that had seemed safe from its influence ; and instead of the small clusters of leaves which we c(jnld reckon point by point, embarrassing enouirh even thoiio-h numerable, we have now leaves as little to be counted as the sands of the sea, and restless, perhaps, as its foam. In all that we have to do now, therefore, direct imita- tion becomes more or less impossible. It is always to be aimed at so far as it is possible ; and Avhen you have time and oppoi'tunity, some portic^ns of a landscape may, as you gain greater skill, be rendered with an approximation almost to mirrored portraitnre. Still, wliatever skill you may reach, there will always be need of judgment to choose, and of speed to seize, certain things that are principal or fugitive; and you must give more and more effoi't daily SKETCHING. 243 to the observance of characteristic points, and the attain- ment of concise methods. 1. I have directed yonr attention early to foliage for two reasons. First, that it is always accessible as a study ; and secondly, that its modes of growth present simple ex- amples of the importance of leading or governing lines. It is by seizing these leading lines, when we cannot seize all, that likeness and expression are given to a portrait, and grace and a kind of vital truth to the rendering of every natui-al form. I call it vital truth, because these chief lines are ah\-ays expressive of the past history and present action of the thing. They show in a mountain, first, how it was built or heaped up ; and secondly, how it is now being worn away, and from what quarter the wildest storms strike it. In a tree they show what kind of fortune it has had to endure from its childhood ; how troublesome trees have come in its way, and pushed it aside, and tried to strangle or starve it ; where and when kind trees have sheltei-ed it ; and grown up lovingly together with it, bending as it bent; what winds torment it most ; what boughs of it be- have best, and bear most fruit; and so on. In a wave or cloud, these leading lines show the run of the tide and of the wind, and the sort of change which the water or va- pour is at any moment enduring in its form, as it meets shore, or counterwave, or melting sunshine. Now remem- ber, nothing distinguishes great men from inferior men more than their always, whether in life or in art, know- ing the way things are going. Your dunce thinks tliey are standing still, and draws them all fixed ; your wise man sees the change or changing in them, and draws them so — the animal in its motion, the tree in its growth, the cloud in its coui'se, the mountain in its wearing away. Try alwavs whenever vou look at a form, to see the linos in it which have had power over its past fate, and will have power over its futurity. Those are its aurf'al lines ; 2rt4: SKETCHING. see that jou seize on those, whatever else you miss. Thus, the leafage in Fig. 16. (p. 89.) grew round the root of a stone pine, on the brow of a crag at Sestri, near Genoa, and all the sprays of it are thrust away in their first bud- ding by the great rude root, and spring out in every di- rection round it, as water splashes when a heavy stone is thrown into it. Then, when they have got clear of the root, they begin to bend up again ; some of them, being little stone pines themselves, have a great notion of grow- ing upright, if they can ; and this struggle of theirs to re- cover their straight road towards the sky, after being obliged to grow sideways in their early years, is the effort that will mainly influence their future destiny, and deter- mine if they are to be crabbed, forky pines, striking from that rock of Sestri, whose clefts nourish them, with bared red lightning of angry arms towards the sea ; or if they are to be goodly and solemn pines, with trunks like pillars of temples, and the purple burning of their branches sheathed in deep globes of cloudy green. Those, then, are their fateful lines ; see that you give that spring and resilience, whatever you leave ungiven: depend upon it, their chief beauty is in these. 2, So in trees in general and bushes, large or small, you will notice that, thougli the boughs spring irregularly and at various angles, there is a tendency in all to stoop less and less as they near the top of the tree. This structure, typified in the simplest possible terms at c, Fig. 7., is common to all trees that I know of, and it gives them a certain plumy character, and aspect of unity in the hearts of their branches, which are essential to their beauty. The stem does not merely send off a wild branch here and there to take its own way, but all the branches share in one great fountain-like impulse; each has a curve and a })ath to take which fills a definite place, and each terminates all its minor branches at its outer extremity, SKETCHESTG. 245 so as to form a great outer curve, wliose character and proportion are peculiar for each species ; that is to say, the general type or idea of a tree is not as a, Fig. 7., but ^ as 5, in which, observe, the boughs all carry their minor divisions right out to the bounding curve ; not but that smaller branches, by thousands, terminate in the lieart of the ti'ee, but the idea and main purpose in every branch are to carry all its child branches well out to the air and light, and let each of them, however small, take its part in filling; the united flow of the bounding curve, so that the type of each separate bough is again not a, but h, Fig. 8. ; a Kg. 8. approximating, that is to sa}', so far to the structure of a plant of broccoli as to throw the great mass of spray and leafage out to a rounded surface ; therefore, beware of S-ettino; into a careless habit of drawing boughs with sac- cessive sweeps of the pen or brush, one hanging to the other, as in Fig. 9. If you look at the tree-boughs in any painting of Wilson's, you will see this structure, and nearly every other that is to be avoided, in their intensest 246 SKETCHING. types. You will also notice that Wilson never conceives a tree as a round mass, but flat, as if it had been pressed and dried. Most people, in drawing pines, seem to fancy, in the same way, that the boughs come out only on two Fig. 9. sides of the trunk, instead of all round it ; always, there- fore, take more pains in trying to draw the boughs of trees that grow towards you, than those that go off to the sides ; anybody can draw the latter, Ijut the fore- shortened ones are not so easy. It will help you in draw- ing them to observe that in most trees the ramification of each branch, though not of the tree itself, is more or less flattened, and approximates, in its position, to the look of a hand held out to receive something, or shelter some- thing. If you take a looking-glass, and hold your hand before it slightly hollowed, with the palm upwards, and the lingers open, as if you were going to suj^port the base of some great bowl, larger than you could easily hold, and sketch your hand as you see it in the glass, with the points of the fingers towards you, it will materially help you in understanding the way trees generally hold out their hands; and if then you will turn yours with its palm downwards, as if you were going to try to hide Bomething, but with the fingers expanded, you will get a good type of the action of the lower boughs in cedars and such other spreading trees. Fig. 10. will give you a good idea of the simplest way in which these and other sucli facts can be rapidly ex- pressed ; if you copy it carefully, you will be surprised to SKETCHING. 2tt7 %^^Jim^^y.^ o%f^ Kg. 10. 248 SKETCHING. find liow the touches all group together, in expressing the plumy toss of the tree branches, and the springing of the bushes out of the bank, and the undulation of the ground : note the careful drawing of the footsteps made by the climbers of the little mound on the left.* It is facsimiled from an etching of Turner's, and is as good an example as you can have of the use of pure and firm lines ; it will also show you how the particular action in foliage, or any- thing else to which you wish to direct attention, may be intensified by the adjuncts. The tall and upright trees are made to look more tall and upright still, because their line is continued below by the figure of the farmer with his stick ; and the rounded bushes on the bank are made to look more rounded, because their line is continued in one broad sweep by the black dog and the boy climbing the wall. These figures are placed entirely with this ob- ject, as we shall see more full}' hereafter when we come to talk about composition ; but, if you please, we will not talk about that yet awhile. What I have been telling you about the beautiful lines and action of foliage has nothing to do with composition, but only with fact, and the brief and expressive representation of fact. But there will be no harm in your looking forward, if you like to do so, to the account, in Letter III. of the " Law of Eadiation," and reading what is said there about tree growth : indeed it would in some respects have been better to have said it here tlian there, only it would have bj-oken up the account of the principles of composition somewhat awkwardly. 3. Now, although the lines indicative of action are not always quite so manifest in other things as in trees, a little attention will soon enable you to see that there are such lines in everything. In an old house roof, a bad observer and bad draughtsman will only sec and draw the spotty It is meant, I believe, for ' ' Salt Hill. " SKETCHING. 240 irref^iilarity of tiles or slates all over ; but a good dranghts- maii will see all the bends of the under timbers, v\diere they are weakest and the weight is telling on them most, and the trades of the run of the water in time of rain, where it runs off fastest, and where it lies long and feeds the moss ; and he will be careful, however few slates he draws, to mark the way they bend together towards tliose hollows (which have the future fate of the roof in them), and crowd gradually together at the top of the gable, partly diminishing in perspective, partly, perhaps, dimin- ished on purpose (they are so in most English old houses) by the slate-layer. So in ground, there is always the di- rection of the run of the water to be noticed, which rounds the earth and cuts it into hollows ; and, generally, in any bank, or heiirht worth drawing, a trace of bedded or other internal structure besides. The figure 10, will give you some idea of the way in which such facts may be expressed by a few lines. Do you not feel the depression in the ground all down the hill where the footsteps are, and how the people always turn to the left at the top, losing breath a little, and then how the water runs down in that other hollow towards the valley, behind the roots of the trees ? Now, I want you in your first sketches from nature to aim exclusively at understanding and representing these vital facts of form ; using the pen — not now the steel, but the quill— firmly and steadily, never scrawling with it, but saying to yourself before you lay on a single touch, — " That leaf is the main one, that bough is the guiding one, and this touch, so long, so broad, means that part of it," — point or side or knot, as the case may be. Resolve always, as you lo(»k at the thing, what you will take, and what raiss of it, and never let your hand run away with you, or get into any habit or method of touch. If you want a continuous line, your hand should pass calmly from one 11* 250 SKETCHING. end of it to the other, without a tremor; if jou want a shaking and broken line, your hand should shake, or break off, as easily as a musician's finger shakes or stops on a note : only remember this, that there is no general way of doing any thing ; no recipe can be given you for so much as the dj'awing of a cluster of grass. The grass may be ragged and stiff, or tender and flowing ; sunburnt and sheep-bitten, or rank and languid ; fresh or dry ; lustrous or dull : look at it, and try to draw it as it is, and don't think how somebody " told you to do grass." So a stone may be round or angular, polished or rough, cracked all over like an ill-glazed teacup, or as united and broad as the breast of Hercules. It may be as flaky as a wafer, as powdeiy as a field puff-ball; it may be knotted like a ship's hawser, or kneaded like hammered iron, or knit like a Damascus sabre, or fused like a glass bottle, or crystal- lised like hoar-frost, or veined like a forest leaf : look at it, and don't try to remember how anybody told you to " do a stone." 4. As soon as you find that your hand obeys you thorough- ly, and that you can render any form with a firmness and truth approaching that of Turner's or Durer's work,* you must add a simple but equally careful light and shade to your pen drawing, so as to make each study as complete as possible : for which you must prepare yourself thus. Get, if you have the means, a good impression of one plate of Turner's Liber Studiorum; if possible, one of the subjects named in the note below.f If you cannot obtain, * I do not mean that you can approacli Turner or Duror in their strength, that is to say, in their imagination or power of design. But you may approach them, by perseverance, in truth of manner, f The following are the most desirable plates : Grande Chartreuse. Pembury Jlill. j^sacus and Hesperie. Little Devil's Bridge. Cephalus and Procris. River Wye (woi Wye and Severn). SKETCHING. 251 or even borrow for a little while, any of these engravings, you must use a photograph instead (how, I will tell you presently) ; but, if you can get the Turner, it will be best. You will see that it is composed of a firm etching in line, Avith mezzotint shadow laid over it. You must first copy the etched part of it accurately; to which end put the print against the window, and trace slowly with the greatest care every black line; retrace tliison smooth drawing-paper; and, finally, go over the whole with your pen, looking at the original plate always, so that if you err at all, it may be on the right side, not making a line which is too curved or too straight already in the tracing, more curved or more straiglit, as you go over it. And in doing this, never work after you are tired, nor to " get the thing done," for if it Source of Arveron. Holy Island. Ben Arthur. Clyde. Watemiill. LaufEenbourg. Hindhead Hill. Blair Athol. Hedging and Ditching. Alps from Grenoble. Dumblane Abbey. Raglan. (Subject with quiet brook, Morpeth. trees, and castle on the right. ) Calais Pier. If you cannot get one of these, any of the others will be serviceable, except only the twelve following, which are quite useless : 1. Scene in Italy, with goats on a walled road, and trees above. 2. Interior of church. 3. Scene with bridge, and trees above ; figures on left, one playing a pipe. 4. Scene with figure playing on tambourine. 5. Scene on Thames with high trees, and a square tower of a church Been through them. 6. Fifth Plague of Egypt. 7. Tenth Plague of Egypt. 8. Rivaulx Abbey. 9. Wye and Severn. 10. Scene with castle in centre, cows under trees on the left. 11. Martello Towers. 13. Calm. It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the original 252 SKETCHING. is badlj done, it will be of no use to you. The true zeal and patience of a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky and inattentive labour of a whole day. If you have ncjt made the touches right at the first going over with the Y>en, retouch them delicately, with little ink in your pen, thickening or reinforcing them as they need : you cannot give too much care to the facsimile. Then keep this etched outline by yon, in order to study at your ease the way in which Turner uses his line as preparatory for the subsequent shadow ; * it is only in getting the two separate that you will be able to reason on this. Next, copy once more, though for the fourth time, any part of this etching which you like, and j^ut on the light and shade with the brush, and any brown colour that matches that of the etchings ; if you should, it will be a clrawing--master iu itself alone, for it is not only equivalent to a pen-and ink drawing by Turner, but to a very careful one : only observe, the Source of Arveron, Raglan, and Dumblane were not etched by Turner ; and the etchings of those three are not good for separate study, though it is deeply interesting to see how Turner, apparently provoked at the failure of the beginnings in the Arveron and Eaglan, took the plates up himself, and either con- quered or brought into use the bad etching by his marvellous engraving. The Dumblane was, however, well etched by Mr. Lupton, and beauti- fully engraved by him. The finest Turner etching is of an aqueduct with a stork standing in a mountain stream, not in the published series ; and next to it, are the unpul)lished etchings of the Via Mala and Crowhurst. Turner seems to have been so fond of these plates that he kept retouching and finishing them, and never made up his mind to let them go. The Via Mala is certainly, in the state in which Turner left It, the finest of the whole series: its etching is, as I said, the best after that of -the aqueduct. Figure 10., above, is part of another fine un- published etching, "Windsor, from Salt Hill." Of the published etchings, the finest are the Ben Arthur, ^sacus, Cephalus, and Stone Pines, with the Girl washing at a Cistern ; the three latter are the more generally instructive. Hindhead Hill, Isis, Jason, and Morpeth, are also very desirable. * You will find more notice of this point in the account of Harding's tree-drawing, a little farther on. SKETCIIING. 253 plate;* -working it with the point of the brush as deli- cately as if jou were drawing with pencil, and dotting and cross-hatching as lightly as you can touch the paper, till you get the gradations of Turner's engraving. In this exercise, as in the former one, a quarter of an inch worked to close resemblance of the copy is worth more than the whole subject carelessly done. Kot that in drawing after- wards from nature, you are to be obliged to finish every gradation in this way, but that, once having fully accom- plished the drawing sometliing rightly, you will thence- forward feel and aim at a higher j)erfection than you could otherwise have conceived, and the brush will obey you, and bring out quickly and clearly the loveliest results, with a submissiveness which it would have wholly refused if you had not put it to severest work. Nothing is more strange in art than tlie way that chance and materials seem to favour you, when once you have thoroughly conquered them. Make yourself quite independent of chance, get your result in spite of it, and from that day forward all things will somehow fall as you would have them. Show the camel's-haii", and the colour in it, that no bending nor blotting are of any use to escape your will ; that the touch and the shade shall finally be right, if it cost you a year's toil; and from that hour of corrective conviction, said camel's-hair will bend itself to all your wishes, and no blot will dare to transgress its appointed border. If you cannot obtain a print from the Liber Studiorum, get a photographf of some general landscape subject, with high hills and a village, or picturesque town, in the middle distance, and some calm water of varied character (a stream with stones in it, if possible), and copy any part of it you like, in this * The impressions vary so miicli in colour that no brown can be specified. f You had better get such a photograph, even though you have a Liber print as well. 254 SKETCHING. same brown coloni-, working, as I have just directed you to do from the Liber, a great deal with the point of the brush. You are under a twofold disadvantage here, how- ever ; first, there are portions in every photograph too deli- cately done for you at present to be at all able to copy ; and secondly, there are portions always more obscure or dai'k than there would be in the real scene, and involved in a mystery which you will not be able, as yet, to decipher. Both these characters will be advantageous to you for future study, after you have gained experience, but they are a little against you in early attempts at tinting ; still, you must fight through the difficulty, and get the power of producing delicate gradations with brown or grey, like those of the photograph. 5. Now observe ; the perfection of work would be tinted shadow, like photography, ^vithout any obscurity or exag- gerated darkness ; and as long as your effect depends in anywise on visible liiies, your art is not perfect, though it may be first-rate of its kind. But to get complete re- sults in tints merely, recpiires both long time and consum- mate skill ; and you will find that a few well-put pen lines, with a tint dashed over or under them, get more ex- pression of facts than you could reacli in any other way, by the same exj^enditure of time. Tiie use of the Lil:)er Studiorum ])ri]it to you is chiefly as an example of the simplest shorthand of this kind, a shorthand which is yet capable of dealing with the most subtle natural effects; for the firm etching gets at the expression of complicated details as leaves, masonry, textures of ground, &c., while the overlaid tint enables you to express the most tender distances of sky, and forms of playing light, mist or \\\. onlv those down, the result will be neither like Flo-. 9. nor Fiarallelopii)eds, and ternjinatcd by tolerably suiooth planes. The weather, OF THE FOEEGKOUND. 303 actino^ on the edges of these blocks, rounds them off, bnt tlie frost, which, while it cannot penetrate nor split the body of the stone, acts energetically on the angles, splits off the rounded fragments, and supplies sharp, fresh, and complicated edges. Hence the angles of such blocks are usually marked by a series of steps and fractures, in which the peculiar character of tlie rock is most distinctly seen ; the effect being increased in many limestones by the inter- position of two or three thinner beds between the lai-ge strata of which the block has ])een a part ; these thin lami- nne breaking easily, and supplying a number of fissures and lines of the edge of the detached mass. Thus, as a general jprinciple, if a rock have character anywhere, it %mU he on the angle, and however even and smooth its great 2)lanes may he, it will usually hreah 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 tlie Academy, 1842, this principle was beautifully exemplified in the complicated fractures of the u[)per 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 lai-ge fractures, and then by the rounding of the fine edges of these by the weather, perpetually present convex transi- tions from the light to the dark side, the planes of the rock almost always swelling a \\{i\e from the angle. 3. Xow it Avill 1)0 found throughout the works of Salvator, that his most usual practice was to give a concave sweep of the brush for his first expression of the dark side, leav- ing the paint darkest towards the light; by which daring and original method of procedure he has succeeded in covering his foregrounds with forms which approximate to those of drapery, of ribbons, of crushed cocked hats, of locks of hair, of waves, leaves, or anything, in short, flexible 304 OF THE rOREGEOUND. or tongh, but wliicli 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 daslied at random over their surfaces, only fail of destroying all resemblance whatever to rock structure from their frequent want of any meaning at all, and from the impossibility of our supposing any of them to be rep- resentative of shade. 4. Kow, 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 f]-actured 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 sepa- rated with the most delicious distinctness, and the organi- zation 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 * 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 incom- plete, and I cannot explain it nor complete it without example. It is not the absence of curves, but the suggestion of Jiardness through curves, and of the under tendencies of the uaward structure, which form the true chacteristics of rock form : and Salvator, whom neitlier here or elsewhere I have abused enough, is not wrong because he paints curved rocks, but because his curves are the curves of ribbons and not of rocks ; and the difference between rock curvature and other curvature I cannot explain verbally, but I hope to do it hereafter by illustration ; and, at present, let the reader study the rock-drawing of the Mont St. Gothard subject, in the Liber Studiorura, and compare it with any examples of Salvator to which he may happen to have access. All the account of rocks here given is altogether inadequate, and I only do not alter it because I first wish to give longer stud/ to the subject. OF THE FOEEGEOUND. 305 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 distingnished from the dark side — they scarcely seem to know the one to be darker than the other ; and the strokes of the brnsh are not nsed to explain or express a form known or conceived, l)ut are dashed and daubed about without any aim beyond the coverincj of the canvas. " A rock," the old masters appear to say to themselves, " is a great irregular, form- less, characterless lump ; but it must have shade upon it, and any grey marks will do for that shade." 5. Finally, while few, if any, of the rocks of nature are untraversed by delicate and slender fissures, whose black sharp lines are the only means by which the peculiar qua- lity in which rocks most differ from the other objects of the landscape, brittleness, can be effectually suggested, we look in vain aniono- the blots and stains with which the rocks of ancient art ai-e loaded, for any vestige or appear- ance of fissure or splintering. Toughness and malleabil- ity appear to be the qualities whose expression is most aimed at ; sometimes sponginess, softness, flexibility, tenu- ity, and occasionally transparency. Take, for instance, the foreo-round of Salvator, in No. 220 of the Dulwich Gallery. There is, on the right-hand side of it, an ol^ject, A\-hich I never walk throuo-h the room without contem- plating 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 gi-ound 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 30G OF THE FOREGROUND. it jDresents a series of concave curves, interrupted by cogs lil^e those of a water-wheel, which the boldest theorist would certainly not feel himself warranted in supposiuo- 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. 6. Let us contrast with this svstem of rock-drawing, the faithful, scientific, and dexterous studies of nature which we iind in the works of Clarkson Stanfield. He is a man especially to be opposed to the old masters, because he usu- ally confines himself to the same rock subjects as they — the mouldering and furrowed crags of the secondary for- mation which arrange themselves more or less into broad and simple masses ; and in the rendering of these it is impossible to go be^'ond him. Nothing can surpass his care, his fii-nmess, or his success, in markiug 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 wonderful play of line with which he will varv, and through which he will indicate, the regularity of stratificati(_)n, is almost as instructive as that of nature herself. I cannot point to any of his works as better or more characteristic than othei's; but liis Ischia, in the present British Institution, may be taken as a fair average example. The BotaHack Mine, Cornwall, engraved in tlie Coast Scenery, gives us a "rery finished and generic representation of 2'ock, whose primal organization has been violently affected by external influences. We have the stratification and cleavage indi- cated at its base, every fissure being sharp, angular, and decisive, disguised gradually as it rises by the rounding of the surface and the successive fui'rows caused Ijy the descent of streams. Ijut the exquisite drawing of the foi-eground is especiall}' wortliy of notice. No huge con- OF THE FOREGROUND. 307 cave sweeps of the brnsli, 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. 01)serv6 how totally contrary ever}^ one of its lines is to the absurd- ities of Salvator. Stanfield's are all angular and straight, every apparent curve made up of right lines, while Salva- tor's are all sweeping and flourishing like so much pen- manship. Stanfield's lines pass away into delicate splin- tery fissures. Salvator's are broad daubs throughout, Not one of Stanfield's lines is like another. Every one of Salvator's mocks all the rest. Ail 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. 7. The forescrounds of J, D. Harding and rocks of his middle distances are also thoroughly admiral)le. He is not quite so various and undulating in his line as Stan- field, and sometimes, in his middle distances, is wanting in solidity, owinar 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 per- fect 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 Ilardino-'s rocks fall from under his hand as if thev had just crashed down the hill-side, flying on the instant into lovely form. In colour also he incomparably surpasses Stanfield, who is apt to verge upon mud, or be cold in his grey. The rich, lichenous, and changeful warmth, and delicate weathered greys of Harding's rock, illustrated as 308 OF THE FOREGKOUND. they are by the most fearless, firm, and imerring 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 (dearly 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.* 8. Before passing to Turner, let us take one more glance at the foregromuls of the old masters, with reference, not to their 'management of rooh, 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 * A passage which I happened to see in an Essay of Mr. Pyne's, in the Art-Union, about nature's "foisting rubbish" upon the artist, suffi- ciently explains the cause of this decline. If Mr. Pyne will go to nature, as all great men have done, and as all men who mean to be great must do, that is not merely to be helped^ but to be taught by her ; and will once or twice take her gifts, without looking them in the mouth, he will most assuredly find — and I say this in no unkind or depreciatory feeling, for I should say the same of all artists who are in the habit of only sketching nature, and not studying her — that /««?• worst is better than Jtis best. I am quite siire that if Mr. Pyne, or any other painter who has hitherto been very careful in his choice of subject, will go into the next turnpike-road, and taking the first four trees that he comes to in the hedge, give them a day each, drawing them leaf for leaf, as far as may be, and even their smallest boughs, with as much care as if they were rivers, or . an important map of a newly-surveyed country, he will find when he has brought them all home, that at least three out of the four are better than the best he ever invented. Compare Part III. Sect. I. Chap. III. § 13, 13 (the reference in the note ought to be Chap. XV. § 7.) OF THE FOEEGEOUND. 309 hio-li jrratification to a careful observer. It is almost a fac-siinile of a iiiountain slope of soft and decomposing rock ; it possesses nearly as much variety of character, and is governed by laws of organization no less rigid. It is furrowed in tlie first place by undulating lines, by the descent of the rain, little ra\'ines, which are cut precisely at the same slope as those of the mountain, and leave ridges scarcely less graceful in their conto.ur, and beauti- fully sharp in their chiselling. Where a harder knot of ground or a stone occurs, the earth is washed from be- neath it, and accumulates above it, and there we have a little precipice connected by a sweeping curve at its sum- mit with the great slope, and casting a sliarp dark sha- dow ; wliere the soil has been soft, it will probal)ly be washed away underneath until it gives way, and leaves a jagged, hanging, irregular line of fracture ; and all these circumstances are explained to the eye in sunshine with the most delicious clearness; every touch of shadow being expressive of some pai'ticular truth of structure, and bear- ing witness to the symmetry into wdiich the whole mass has been redu<;ed. Where this operation has gone on l(^ng, and vegetation has assisted in softening 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 sejxirate things, nor feels inclined to count them, nor perceives a likeness in one to another ; they are not repetitions of each other, but are different parts of one system. Each would be imperfect without the one next to it. 9. Xow it is. all but impossible to express distinctly the particulars Avherein 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, 310 OF THE FOREGROUND. is an example of all that is wrong. It is a representation of the forms of shaken and distnrbed soil, such as we should see here and there after an earthquake, or over the ruins of fallen buildings. It has not one contour nor character of the soil of nature, and yet I can scarcely tell you why, except that the curves repeat one another, and are monotonous in their flow, and are unbroken by the delicate angle and momentary pause with which tlie feel- ing 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 f urj-owing 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 witli various ground colours, without a single indication of character by means of real shade. 10. Let not these points be deemed unimportant ; tlie truths of form in common ground are rjuite as valuable (let me anticipate myself for a moment), quite as heaictiful, as any others which nature presents, and in lowland land- scape they present us with a species of line which it is quite impossible to obtain in any other way, — the alter- nately flowing and broken line of mountain scenery, which, however small its scale, is always of inestimable vahie, contrasted witli 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 render's it one of the most essential, speaking a7id pleasurable parts of his comp)Osition. And be it remem- bered, that the man who, in the most conspicuous part of liis foregroimd, will violate truth wifli evei-y 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 u])on for animad- OF THE FOREGROUND. 311 ^-ersion, 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. 11. Nor do I myself see wherein the great difference lies between a master and a novice, except in the rendering of the finer truths, of which I am at present speaking. To han- dle the brush freely, and to paint grass and weeds with ac- curacy 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 inven- tion and combination, by which nature appeals to the intel- lect — to render the delicate iissure, 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 evi- dence of the constant working of the Divine power "for glory and for beauty," and to teach it and proclaim it to the unthinking and the unregardless — this, as it is the peculiar province and faculty of the master-mind, so it is the peculiar duty which is demanded of it by the Deity. 12. It would take me no reasonable nor endurable time, if I were to point out one half of the various kinds and classes of falsehood which the inventive facidties of the old masters succeeded in originating, in the drawing of foregrounds. It is not this man, nor that man, nor one school nor another; all agree in entire repudiation of everything resembling facts, and in the high degree of absurdity of what they substitute for them. Even Cuyp, who evidently saw and studied near nature, as an artist should do — not fishing for idealities, but taking what nature ga^'e him, and thanking her for it — even he appears to have supposed that the drawing of the earth might be trusted to chance or imagination, and, in consequence, strews liis banks with lumps of dough, instead of stones. 312 OF THE FOREGEOUND. 13, Perliaps, however, the " beautiful foregrounds " of Claude afford the most remarkable instances of childishness and incompetence of all. That of his morning landscape, with the large group of trees and high single-arched bridge, in the National Gallery, is a pretty fair example of the kind of error which he constantly falls into. I will not say anything of the agreeable comjiosition of the three banks, rising one behind another from the water. I merely afhrm that it amounts to a demonstration that all three were painted in the aitist's study, v/ithout any ref- erence to nature whatever. In fact, there is quite enough intrinsic evidence in each of them to prove this, seehig that what appears to be meant for vegetation upon them, amounts to nothing more than a green stain on their sur- faces, 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 crumb- ling earth could never show or assume, but are main- tained through their whole progress ungraduated, un- changing, and unaffected by any of the circumstances of varying shade to which everyone 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 apj)roach of earth which he finds himself in- capal)le of expressing by the drawing of the surface. Claude wished to make you understand tliat the edge of liis pond came nearer aiui nearer ; he had pi-obably often tried to do this with an unbroken bank, or a bank only varied by the delicate and harmonized anatomy of nature ; and he had found that owini-' to his total ignorance of the laws of ])erspective, such efforts on his part invariably ended in his reduciiig his pond to the form of a round O, and making it look perpendicular. Much comfort and solace of mind, in such unpleasant circumstauces, may bj OF THE FOREGROUND. 313 derived from instantlv dividina; the obnoxious Lank into a number of successive promontories, and developing their edges with comjDleteness and intensity. Every school- girl's drawing, as soon as her mind had arrived at so great a degree of enlightenment as to perceive that perpendicu- lar water is objectionable, will supply us with edifying in- stances of this unfailing resource ; and this foreground of Claude's is onlv one out of the thousand cases in which he has been reduced to it. 14. And if it be asked, how the proceeding differs from that of nature, I have only to point to nature herself, as she is drawn in the foreground of Turner's Mercury and Argus, a case precisely similar to Claude's, of earthy crum- bling banks cut away by water. It will be found in this picture (and I am now describing nature's work and Turner's with the same words) that the whole distance is given by retirement of solid surface ; and that if ever an edge is ex- pressed, it is only felt for an instant, and then lost again ; so that the eye cannot stop at it and prej)are for a long jump to another like it, but is guided over it, and round it, into the hollow beyond ; and thus the whole receding mass of ground, going back for more than a quarter of a mile, is made completely one — no part of it is separated from the rest for an instant — it is all united, and its modulations are members, not divisions of its mass. But those modu- lations are countless — heaving here, sinking there — now swelling, now mouldering, now blending, now breaking — giving, in fact, to the foreground of this universal master, precisely the same qualities which we have before seen in his hills, as Claude ga\e 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. 15. Let us, then, having now obtained some insight into the principles of the old masters in foreground drawing, contrast them throughout with those of our great modern 14 314 OF THE FOKEGEOUND. master. The investigation of the excellence of Turner's drawing becomes shorter and easier as we proceed, because the great distinctions between his work and that of other paiuters are the same, whatever the object or subject may- be ; and after once showing the general characters of the jjarticular 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. 16. The Upper Fall of the Tees, Yorkshire, engraved in the England series, may be given as a standard example of rock-drawing to be opposed to the work of Salvator. We have, in the great face of rock which divides the two streams, horizontal lines which indicate the real direction of the strata, and these same lines are given in ascending perspective all along the precipice on the right. But we see also on the central precipice fissures absolutely vertical, which inform us of one series of joints dividing- these hori- zontal strata ; and the exceeding smoothness and evenness of the precipice itself inform us that it has been caused by a great separation of substance in the direction of another more important line of joints, running in a direction across the river. Accordingly, we see on the left that the whole summit of the precipice is divided again and again l)y this great series of joints into vertical beds, whic-h lie against each other witli their sides towards us, and are traversed downwards by the same vertical lines traceable on the face of the central cliif. Now, let me direct especial attention to the way in which Turner has marked over this general and grand unity of structure, tlie modifying effects of the ■weather and the torrent. Observe how the whole surface of the hill above the precipice on the left* is brought into * In the light between the waterfall and the large dark mass on the extreme right. OF THE FOREGROUND. 315 one smooth, niibroken curvature of gentle convexity, nntil 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 eveiy oue of their inward angles is marked clear and sharp by the determined shadow and transparent reflex. Observe how exquisitely graceful are all the curves of the convex surfaces, indicating that every one of them has been modelled bv the winding and undulatina; of runnino; water ; and how gradually they become steeper as they descend, until they are torn down into the face of the precipice. Finally, observe the exquisite variety of all the touches which express fissure or shade ; every one in varvincr directi-ons and with new forms, and vet throuo-hout indicating that perfect parallelism which at once explained to us the geology of the rock, and falling into one grand mass, treated with the same simplicity of light and shade which a great jjortrait painter adopts in treating the fea- tures of the human face ; which, though each has its own separate chiaroscuro, never disturb the wholeness and grandeur of the head, considered as one ball or mass. So here, one deep and marked piece of shadow indicates the greatest proximity of the rounded mass ; and from this everv shade becomes fainter and fainter, imtil all are lost in the obscurity and dimness of the hanging precipice and the shattering fall. Again, see how the same fractm-es just upon the edge take place with the central cliif 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 al)Out 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: 316 OF THE FOEEGEOTIND. for this indicates not that one truth is given, nor another, not that a pretty or interesting morsel has been selected liere 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 uj^on the whole with the same certainty which we slionld after havino; climljed and hammered over the rocks bit by bit. With this drawing before him, a geolo- gist, could give a lecture upon the whole system of aqueous erosion, and sj)eculate as safely upon the past and future states of this vei'y spot, as if he were standing and getting wet with the spray. He would tell you, at once, that the waterfall was in a state of I'apid recession ; that it had once formed a wide cataract just at the spot where the figure is sitting on the heap of debris ; and that when it was there, part of it came down by the channel on the left, its bed being still marked by the delicately chiselled lines of fissure. He would tell you that the foreground had also once been the top of the fall, and that the vertical fissures on the right of it were evidently then the channel of a side stream. He would tell you that the fall was then much lower than it is now, and that being lower, it had less force, and cut itself a narrower bed ; and that the spot where it reached the higher precipice is marked by the expansion of the wide basin which its increased violence has excavated, and by the gradually increasing concavity of the rocks below, which we see have been hollowed into a complete vault by the elastic bound of the water. J3ut neither he nor I could tell you with wliat exquisite and fim'shed marking of every fragment and particle of soil or rock, both in its own structure and the evidence it bears of these great intiuences, the whole of this is confirmed and carried out. 17. With this iniinital)le drawing we may comjiare the rocks in the foregroiuid of the Llanthony. These latter OF THE FOREGROUND. 317 are not divided by joints, but into tliin horizontal and united beds, whicli the torrent in its times of flood has chiselled away, leaving one exposed under another, with the sweeping marks of its eddies upon their edges. And here we have an instance of an exception to a general rule, occasioned by particular and local action. AVe have seen that the action of water over any surface tmiversally^ whether falling, as in rain, or sweeping, as a torrent, in- duces 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 water- fall), and we ha\"e 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 inter- rupted 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 regu- lated, that universal command of subject which never acts for a moment on anvthino; conventional or habitual, but fills every corner and space with new evidence of knowl- edge, and fresh manifestation of thought. IS. The Lower Fall of the Tees, with the chain-bridge, might serve us for an illustration of all the properties and forms of vertical beds of rocks, as the upper fall has of horizontal ; but we pass rather to observe, in detached pieces of foreground, the particular modulation of parts wliich cannot be investigated in the grand combinations of general mass. The blocks of stone which form the foreground of the ITlleswater are, I believe, the finest examjile in the world of the finished drawing of rocks which have been sub- 318 OF THE FOEEGEOUND. jected to violent aqueous action. Their surfaces seem to palpitate from the fine touch of the waves, and every part of them is rising or falling in soft swell or gentle depres- sion, 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 charac- ter, dependent on the expression of the angular lines of which its contours were first formed, and which is retained and felt through all the modulation and melting of the water-worn surface. And what is done here in the most important part of the picture, to be especially attractive to the eye, is often done by Turner with lavish and over- whelming power, in the accumulated debris of a wide foreground, strewed with the ruin of ages, as, for in- stance, in the Junction of the Greta and Tees, where he has choked the torrent bed with a mass of shattered rock, thrown down with the profusion and carelessness of nature herself ; and yet every separate block is a study (and has evidently been drawn from nature), chiselled and varied in its parts, as if it were to be the chief mem- ber of a separate subject; yet without ever losing, in a single instance, its subordinate position, or occasioning, throughout the whole accumulated multitude, the repeti- tion of a single line. I consider cases like these, of perfect finish and new conception, applied and exerted in the drawing of every member of a confused and almost countlessly divided system, about the most wonderful, as well as the most characteristic passages of Turner's foregrounds. It is done not less marvellously, though less distinctly, in the individual parts of all his broken ground, as in examples like these of separate blocks. The articulation of such a passage as the nearest bank, in the picture we have already spoken of at so great length, the Upper Fall of the Tees, might serve us for a day's study, if we were to OF THE FOREGKOUND, 319 go into it part by part ; but it is imj)Ossible to do tliis, except witli the pencil ; we can only repeat the same general observations, about eternal change and unbroken unity, and tell yon 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 tind a single edge in Turner's work ; you are everywhere kept upon round surfaces, and you go l)ack on these — you cannot tell ho\v — never taking a leap, but progressing imperceptibly along the unbroken bank, till you find yourself a quarter of a mile into the picture, beside the figure at the bottom of the waterfall. 19. Finally, the bank of earth on the right of the grand drawing of Penraaen 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 tlie rank of a painter may always be determined by ob- serving how he uses, and with what respect he views the iTiinutiaj 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 iu what is great; he who cannot make a bank sublime, will make a mountain ridiculous. 20. 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 com- petent to enjoy the combination of all, in such works as the Mercury and Argus, or Bay of Baiie, iu which the mind is at first bewildered by the abundant outpouring 320 OF THE FOEEGEOUND, of the master's knowledge. Often as I have paused be- fore these noble works, I never felt on retm-ning 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 eifect is especially caused by the management of the foreground ; for the more marked objects of the j)icture 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 can- not take them by divisions, but is guided from stone to stone, and bank to bank, discovering truths totally differ- ent in aspect, according to the direction in which it ap- proaches them, and approaching them in a different direc- tion, and viewing them as a part of a new system, every time that it begins its course at a new point. 21. One lesson, however, we are invariably tauglit by all, however approached or viewed, — that the work of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects, — that the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth; and that to the rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering of the dust as in the kindling of the day-star. i m. p., 30j. II. 2116 hdtdrucdl Foregrounds of the Ancients. — The great masters of Italy, a'most without exception, and Titian perhaps more than any other (for he had the highest OF THE FOEEGEOUND. 321 knowledge of landscape), are in the constant habit of ren- dering every detail of their foregrounds with the most laborious hotanical 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 fore- grounds of Kaffaelle's two cartoons — " The Miraculous Draught of the Fishes " and " The Charge to Peter " — are covered with plants of the common sea-colewort, of which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have exhausted the patience of any other artist, but have ap- peared worthy of prolonged and thoughtful labour to the great mind of Raffaelle. Pref. 3d Ed. 1 M. P., xxvii. 14* CHAPTEE YII. BACKGROUNDS. 1. Conventional or MedlcBval Backgrounds are of a very formal kiud. The painters took an infinite delight in drawing pleasant flowers, always articnlating and ontlining them completely ; the sky is always bine, having only a few delicate white clonds in it, and iji the distance are bine monntains, very far away, if tlie landscape is to be simply delightful; bat brought near, and divided into quaint overhanging rocks, if it is intended to be medita- tive, or a place of saintly seclusion. But the whole of it always — flowers, brooks, castles, clouds, and rocks — subor- dinate to the figures in the foreground, and painted for no other end than that of explaining their adventures and occupations. 2. Before the idea of Landscape had been thus far de- veloped, the representations of the background had been purely typical; the objects which had to be shown in order to explain the scene jof the event, being firmly out- lined, usually on a pure golden or chequered background, not on sky. The change from the golden background (char- acteristic of the finest thirteenth-century work) and the coloured chequer (which in like manner belongs to the finest fourteenth) to the blue sky, gradated to the horizon, takes place early in the fifteentli century, and is the crisis of change in the spirit of mediiEval art. Strictly speaking, we might divide the art of Christian times into two great masses — Symbolic or conventional, and Imitative, the sym- bolic reaching from the earliest periods down to the close of the fourteenth century, and the imitative from that BACKGROUNDS. ■ 323 close to the present time ; and, then, the most important circumstance indicative of the cuhninating point, or turn of tide, would be this of the change from chequered back- ground to sky background. The uppermost figure, Plate I. (frontispiece), representing the tree of knowledge, taken from a somewhat late thirteenth-century manuscript, will !it once illustrate the mode of introducing the chequer background. 3. The moment sky is introduced (and it is curious how perfectly it is done at once, many manuscripts presenting in alternate pages chequered backgrounds and deep blue skies exquisitely gradated to the horizon) the moment the sky is introduced, the spirit of art becomes ever more changed, and gradually it jDroposes imitation instead of symbolism, more and more as an end. 3M. P., 209. II. Imitative Backgrounds. — It will be remembered that our mediaeval landscape was in a state of severe formality, and perfect subordination to the interest of figure subject. I will now rapidly trace the mode and progress of its emancipation. 1. The formalized conception of scenery remained little altered until the time of Raphael, being (^nly better exe- cuted as the knowledge of art advanced ; that is to say, though the trees were still stiif, and often set one on each side of the principal figures, their colour and relief on the sky were exquisitely imitated, and all groups of near leaves and flowers drawn with the most tender care and studious botanical accuracy. The better the subjects were painted, however, the more logically absurd they became : a back- ground wrought in Chinese confusion of towers and rivers was in early times passed over carelessly, and forgiven for the sake of its pleasant colour; but it appealed somewhat too far to imaginative indulgence when Ghirlandajo drew an exquisite perspective view of Venice and her lagoons 3l4 BACKGBOUNDS. behind an Adoration of the Magi ;* and the impossibly small boats which might be pardoned in a mere illnmina- tion, representing the miracnlous dranght of fishes, became, whatever may be said to the contrary, inexcusably absurd in Raphael's fully realized landscape ; so as at once to destroy the credibility of every circumstance of the event. 2. A certain charm, however, attached itself to many forms of this landscape, ownng to their very unnatnralness, as I have endeavoured to explain already in the last chapter of the second volume, §§ 9 to 12; noting, however, there, that it was in nowise to be made a subject of imitation ; a conclusion which I have since seen more and more ground for holding finally. The longer I think over the subject, the more I perceive that the pleasure we take in such unnatural landscapes is intimately connected with our habit of regarding the New Testament as a beautiful poem, instead of a statement of plain facts. He who believes thoroughly that the events are true will expect, and ought to expect, real olive copse behind real Madonna, and no sentimental absurdities in either. 3. Nor am I at all sure how far the delight which we take (when I say we, I mean, in general, lovers of old sacred art) in such quaint landscape, arises from its peculiar y^/^-f?- hoocl, and how far from its peculiar truth. For as it falls into certain errors more boldly, so, also, what truth it states, it states more firmly than subsecpient work. No engrav- ings, that I know, render the backgrounds of sacred pictures with sufficient care to enable the reader to judge of this matter unless before the works themselves. I have, therefore, engraved, on the ojjposite page, a Int of the background of Raphael's Holy Family, in the Tribune of the Uffizii, at Florence. I copied the trees leaf for leaf, and the rest of the work with the best care I could ; the * The picture is ia the Uffizii of Florence. BACKGEOUNDS. 325 engraver, Mr. Armytage, has admirably rendered the dehcate atmosphere, which partly veils the distance. Now I do not know liow far it is necessary to snch pleasui-e as we receive from this landscape, that the trees should be both so straight and formal in stem, and shoidd have branches no thicker than threads ; or that the outlines of the distant hills should ap- proximate so closely to those on any ordinary ^Yedge wood's china pat- tern. I know that, on the contrary, a great part of the pleasure arises from the sweet expression of air and sunshine; from the traceable resemblance of the city and tower to Florence and Fesole ; from the fact tliat, though the boughs are too thin, the lines of ramification are true and beautiful ; and from the expression of continually varied form in the clusters of leafage. And altliough all lovers of sacred art would ^'s- ^^• shrink iu liorror from the idea of substitutino- for such a landscape a bit of Cuyp or Rubens, I do not think that the horror they feel is because Cuyp and Kubens's landscape is truer, but because it is coarser and more vulgar in asso- 326 BACKGKUCJNDS. ciated idea than Raphael's ; and I thhik it possible that the true forms of hills, and true thicknesses of boughs, might be tenderly stolen into this background of Raphael's with- out giving offence to any one. •i. Take a somewhat more deiinite instance. The rock in Fig. 21, on p. 825, is one put by Ghirlandajo into the back- ground of his Baptism of Christ, I have no doubt Ghirlan- dajo's own rocks and trees are better, in several respects, than those here represented, since I have copied them from one of Lasinio's execrable engravings; still, tlie harsh out- line, and generally stiff and uninventful blankness of the design are true enongh, and characteristic of all rock-paint- ing of the period. In the plate opposite I have etched* the outline of a fragment of one of Turner's cliffs, out of his drawing of Bolton Abbey ; and it does not seem to me that, supposing them properly introduced in the composi- tion, the substitution of the soft natural lines for the hard unnatural ones would make Ghirlandajo's background one whit less sacred. 5. But be this as it may, the fact is, as ill luck would have it, that profanity of feeling, and skill in art, increased together, so that we do not find the hackgrounds rightly ixdnted till the figures hecome irreligious and feelingless j and hence we associate necessarily the perfect landscape with want of feeling. The first great innovator was either Masaccio or Filippino Lippi : their works are so confused together in the Chapel of the Carmine, that I know not to whom I may attribute, — or whether, without being imme- diately quarrelled with, and contradicted, I may attribute to anybody, — the landscape background of the fresco of the Tribute Money. But that background, with one or * This etching is prepared for receiving mezzotint in the next volume ; it is therefore much heavier in line, especially in the water, than I should have made it, if intended to be comi^lete as it is. ';./'i)^ W^ifim -/W'V 9. The Shores of Wharfe. BACKGROUNDS. 327 two other fragments in the same chapel, is far in advance of all other work I have seen of the period, in expression of the rounded contours and lai-ge slopes of hills, and the association of their summits with the clouds. The opposite eneravina- will o-ive some better idea of its character than can be gained from the outlines commonly published ; though the dark spaces, which in the original are deep blue, come necessarily somewhat too harshly on the eye when translated into lio-ht and shade. I shall have occa- sion to speak with greater speciality of this background in examining the forms of hills ; meantime, it is only as an isolated work that it can be named in the history of pic- torial progress, for Masaccio died too young to carry out his purposes ; and the men around him were too ignorant of landscape to understand or take advantage of the little he had done. Eaphael, though he borrowed from him in the human figure, never seems to have been influenced by his landscape, and retains either, as in Plate 8, the ujDright formalities of Perugino; or, by way of being natural, expands his distances into flattish flakes of hill, nearly formless, as in the backgrounds of the Charge to Peter and Draught of Fishes ; and thenceforward the Tuscan and Roman schools grew more and more artificial, and lost themselves finally under round-headed niches and Corinthian porticos. 6. It needed, therefore, the air of the northern mountains and of the sea to brace the hearts of men to the develop- ment of the true landscape schools. I sketched by chance one evening the line of the Apennines from the ramparts of Parma, and I have put the rough note of it, and the sky tliat was over it^ in Plate 1 1, and next to this (Plate 12) a moment of sunset, behind the Euganean hills at Venice. They have some interest here as types of the kind of scenes which were daily set before the eyes of Correggio and Titian, and of the sweet free spaces of sky through which 328 BACKGROUNDS. rose and fell, to them, the coloiired rays of the morning and evening. 7. And they are connected, also, with the forms of land- scape adopted by the Lombardic masters, in a very curious way. We noticed that the Flemings, educated entirely in flat land, seemed to be always contented with the scenery it supplied ; and we should naturally have expected that Titian and Correggio, living in the midst of the levels of the lagoons, and of the plain of Lombardy, would also have expressed, in their backgrounds, some pleasure in such level scenery, associated,- of course, with the sub- limity of the far-away Apennine, Euganean, or Alp. But not a whit. The plains of mulberry and maize, of sea and shoal, by which they were suiTOunded, never occur in their backgrounds but in cases of necessity ; and both of them, in all their important landscapes, bury them- selves in wild wood; Correggio delighting to relieve with green darkness of oak and ivy the golden hair and snowy flesh of his figures ; and Titian, whenever the choice of a scene was in his power, retiring to the narrow glens and forests of Cadore. 8. Of the vegetation introduced by both, I shall have to speak at length in the course of the chapters on Foliage ; meantime I give, in Plate 13, one of Titian's slightest bits of background, from one of the frescoes in the little chapel behind St. Antonio, at Padua, which may be com- pared more conveniently than any of his more elaborate landscapes with the purist work from Raphael. For in both these examples the trees are equally slender and delicate, only the formality of mediaeval art is, by Titian, entirely abandoned, and the old conception of the aspen grove and meadow done away with for ever. We are now far from cities : the jDainter takes true delight in tlie desert; the trees grow wild and free; the sky also has lost its peace, and is writhed into folds of motion, closely ' r^^S^v-^^J > ■■ 8. Latest Purism. BACKGROUNDS. 329 impendent upon earth, and somewhat threatening, through its solemn light. 9. Although, however, this example is characteristic of Titian in its wildness, it is not so in its looseness. It is only in the distant backgrounds of the slightest work, or when he is in a hurry, that Titian is vague : in all his near and studied work he completes every detail with scrupu- lous care. The next Plate, 14, a background of Tintoret's, from his picture of the Entombment at Parma, is more entirely characteristic of the Yenetiaus. Some mistakes made in the reduction of my drawing during the course of engraving have cramped the curves of the boughs and leaves, of which I will give the true outline further on; meantime the subject, which is that described in § 16 of the chapter on Penetrative Imagination, Yol. XL, will just as well answer the purpose of exemplifying the Yene- tiau love of gloom and wildness, united with perfect definition of detail. Every leaf and separate blade of grass is drawn ; but observe how the blades of grass are broken, how com])letely the aim at expression of f aultless- ness and felicity has been withdrawn, as contrary to the laws of the existent world. 10. From this great Yenetiau school of landscape Tur- ner received much important teaching — almost the only healthy teaching which he owed to preceding art. The designs of the Liber Studiorum are founded first on nature, but in many cases modified hj forced imitation of Claude, ?a\^fond imitation of Titian. All the worst and feeblest studies in the book — as the pastoral with the nym])li playing the tambourine, that with the long bridge seen tlirtaigh trees, and with the flock of goats on the walled road — owe the principal part of their imbecilities to Claude ; another group (Solway Moss, Peat Bog, Lauffenbourg, &c.) is taken with hardly any modification by pictorial influence, straight from nature; and the finest 330 BACKGROUNDS. works ill the Iwok — the Grande Chartreuse, Rizpah, Jason, Cephaliis, and one or two more — are strongly nnder the influence of Titian. II. Tlie Venetian school of landscape expired with Tintoret, in the year 1594; and the sixteenth century closed, like a grave, over the great art of the world. There is no entirely sincere or great art in the seven- teenth century. Rubens and Kenibrandt are its two greatest men, both deeply stained by the errors and affec- tations of their acje. The influence of the Venetians Jiardly extended to them ; the tower of the Titianesque art fell southwards ; and on the dust of its ruins grew various art-weeds, such as Domenichino and the Carraccis. Theii' landscape, which may in few words be accurately defined as " Scum of Titian," possesses no single merit, nor any ground for the forgiveness of demerit ; they are to be named only as the link through which the Venetian influence came dimly down to Claude and Salvator. 3 M. P., 319-824. III. 1. Light Bachgrounds.- — I think if there be any one grand division, by which it is at all possible to set the pro- ductions of painting, so far as their mere plan or system is concerned, on our right and left hands, it is this of light and dark hacJcground, of heaven light, or of ohject light. For I know not any truly great painter of any thne who manifests not the most intense pleasure in the luminous BjDace of his backgrounds, or whoever sacrifices this plea- sure where the natui-c of his subject admits of its attain- ment, as on the other hand I know not that the habitual use of dark l)ackgi-()unds can be shown as having ever been co-existent with pure or high, feeling, and, except in the case of Rembrandt (and then under peculiar circum- stances only), with any high power of intellect. It is however necessary carefully to observe the following modifications of this broad principle. o c 3 — t BACKGROUNDS. 331 2. The absolute necessity, for such indeed I consider it, is of no more than such a mere luminous distant point as may give to the feelings a species of escape from all the finite objects about them. There is a spectral etching of Rembrandt, a presentation of Christ in the Temple, where the figure of a robed priest stands glaring by its gems out of the gloom, holding a crosier. Behind it there is a subdued window light seen in the opening between two colunnis, without which the impressiveness of the whole subject would, I think, be incalculably brought down. I cannot tell whether I am at present allowing too much weight to my own fancies and predilections, but without so much escape into the outer air and open heaven as this, I can take permanent pleasure in no picture. 3. And I think I am supported in this feeling by the unanimous practice, if not the confessed opinion, of all artists. The painter of portrait is unhappy without his conventional white stroke under the sleeve, or beside the arm-cliair ; the painter of interiors feels like a caged bird uidess he can throw a window open, or set the door ajar ; the landscapist dares not lose himself in forest without a gleam of light under its farthest branches, nor ventures out in rain unless he may somewhere pierce to a better promise in the distance, or cling to some closing gap of variable blue above ; — escape, hope, infinity, by whatever conventionalism sought, the desire is the same in all, the instinct constant, it is no mere point of light that is wanted in the etching of Rembrandt above instanced, a gleam of armour or fold of temple curtain would have been utterly valueless, neither is it liberty, for though Ave cut d,own hedges and level hills, and give what waste and plain we choose, on the right hand and the left, it is all comfortless and undesii-ed, so long as we cleave not a wa}^ of escape forward ; and however narrow and thorny and difficult the nearer path, it matters not, so only that the clouds 332 BACKGKOUNDS. open for ns at its close. Neither will any amount of beauty in nearer form make us content to stay with it, so long as we are shut down to that alone, nor is any form so cold or so hurtful but that we may look upon it with khidness, so only that it rise against tlie infinite hope of light beyond. The reader can follow out the analogies of this unassisted. 4. But although this narrow portal of escape be all that is absolutely necessary, I think that the dignity of the painting increases with the extent and amount of the ex- pression. With the earlier and mightier ]3ainters of Italy, the practice is commonly to leave their distance of pure and open sky, of such simplicity, that it in nowise shall interfere with or draw the attention from the interest of the figures, and of such purity, that, especially towards the horizon, it shall be in the highest degree expressive of the infinite space of heaven. I do not mean to say that they did this with any occult or metaphysical motives. They did it, I think, with the child-like, unpretending simplicity of all earnest men ; they did what they loved and felt ; they sought what the heart naturally seeks, and gave what it most gratefully receives ; and I look to them as in all points of principle (not, observe, of knowledge or empirical attainment) as the most irrefragable authorities, precisely on account of the child-like innocence, which never deemed itself authoritative, but acted upon desire, and not upon dicta, and sought for sympathy, not for admiration. 5. And so we find the same simple and sweet treatment, the open sky, the tender, unpretending, horizontal white clouds, the far winding and abundant landscape, in Giotto, Taddeo, (niddi, Laurati, Angelico, Benozzo, Ghirlandajo, Francia, Perugino, and the young Haffaelle, the first symptom (»f conventionality appearing in Perugino, who, though with intense feeling of light and colour he carried i i -a (U I o 0) bJ) ^- o o a C/5 Gl BACKGROUNDS. 333 the gloiy of his himinons distance far beyond all his pre- decessors, began at the same time to use a somewhat morbid relief of his figures against the upper sky. Tlius in the Assumption of the Florentine Academy, in that of I'Annunziata ; and of the Gallery of Bologna, in all which 2)ictures the lo^\■er portions are incomparably the finest, owing to the light distance behind the heads. Kaifaelle, in his fall, betrayed the faith he had received from his faiher and his master, and substituted for the radiant sky of the Madonna del Cardellino, the chamber wall of the Malonna della Sediola, and the brown wainscot of the Baldacchino. Yet it is curious to observe how much of the dignity even of his later pictures depends on such portions as the green light of the lake, and sky behind the rocks, in the St. John of the Tribune, and liow the re- jiainted distortion of the Madonna dell' Impannata, is redeemed into something like elevated character, merely by the light of the linen window from which it takes its name. 6. That which by the Florentines was done in pure sim- plicity of heart, was done by the Venetians with intense love of the colour and splendour of the sky itself, even to the frecpient sacrificing of their subject to the passion of its distance. In Carpaccio, John Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, and Tintoret, the preciousness of the luminous sky, so far as it might be at all consistent with their subject, is nearly constant; abandoned altogether in portraiture only, seldom even there, and never with advantage. Titian and Veronese, who had less exalted feeling than the others, affording a few instances of ex- ception, the latter overpowering his silvery distances with foreground splendour, the other sometimes sacrificing them to a luscious fulness of colour, as in the Flagellation in the Louvre, by a comparison of which with the unequalled majesty of the Entombment, opposite, the whole power 334 BACKGROUNDS. and applicability of the general principle may at once be tested. 7. But of the value of this mode of treatment there is a farther and more convincing proof than its adoption either by the innocence of the Florentine or the ardour of the Venetian, namely, that when retained or imitated from them by the landscape painters of the seventeenth century, when appearing in isolation from all other good, among the weaknesses and paltrinesses of Claude, the mannerisms of Gaspar, and the caricatures and brutalities of Salvator^ it yet redeems and upholds all three, conquers all foulness by its purity, vindicates all folly by its dignity, and puts an uncomprehended power of permanent address to the human heart, upon the lips of the senseless and the pro- fane." Now, although I doubt not that the general value of this treatment will be acknowledged by all lovers of art, it is not certain that the point to prove which I have brought it forward, will be as readily conceded, namely, the * In one of the smaller rooms of the Pitti palace, over the door, is a temptation of St. Anthony, by Salvator, wherein such power as the artist possessed is fully manifested, with little, comparatively, that is offensive. It is a vigorous and ghastly thought, in that kind of horror which is dependent on scenic effect, jjerhaps unrivalled, and I shaU have occasion to refer to it again in speaking of the powers of imagination. I allude to it here, because the sky of the distance affords a remarkable instance of the power of light at present under discussion. It is formud with flakes of black cloud, with rents and openings of intense and lurid green, and at least half of the impressiveness of the picture depends on these openings. Close them, make the sky one mass of gloom, and the spectre will be awful no longer. It owes to the light of the distance both its size and its spirituality. The time would fail me if I were to name the tenth part of the pictures which occur to me whose vulgarity is redeemed by this circumstance alone, and yet let not the artist trust to such morbid and conventional use of it as may be seen in the common blue and yellow effectism of the present day. Of the value of modera- tion and simplicity in the use of this, as of all other sources of pleasur- able emotion, I shall presently have occasion to .speak farther. :J^^ -IM^-^-. ,s».*jtr 13. Early Naturalism. :5~H®is^gMws»ffi(j 'is —«*—«-•*.-« / 0) O c > «4 BACKGEOTJNDS. 335 inherent power of all representations of infinity over the human heart ; for there are, indeed, countless associations of pure and relii^ious kind, which combine with each other to enhance the impression, when presented in this partio ular form, whose power I neither deny nor am careful to distiiiguisli, seeing that they all tend to the same Divine point and have reference to heavenly hopes ; delights they are in seeing the narrow, black, miserable earth fairly compared with the bright firmament, reachings forward unto the things that are before, and joyfulness in the apparent though unreachable nearness and promise of them. 2M.P.,4l. 8. Historical painters, accustomed to treat their back- grounds slightly and boldly, and feeling that any ap- proach to completeness of detail therein injures their pictures by interfering with its principal subject, naturally lose sight of the peculiar and intrinsic beauty of subordi- nate things. Compare the background of Sir Joshua's '•Holy Family" vv'ith that of ISTicolo Poussin's " Nursing of Jupiter." The first, owing to all neglect of botanical detail, has lost every atom of ideal character, and reminds us of an English fashionable flower-garden ; Poussin's, in which every vine-leaf is drawn with consummate skill and untiring diligence, produces not only a tree group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but one which, in its pure and simple truth, belongs to every age of nature, and adapts itself to the history of all time. As to the backgrounds of the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, see Lecture 3d, on Architecture and Paint- ing, delivered at Edinburgh, Nov. 1853, page 123. CHAPTER VIII. DISTANCE. Distance and Outline. — In Turner's distances two facts are invariably given — transj)arency or filminess of mass, and excessive sharpness of edge. Sharpness of edge is the unfailing characteristio of distance. When the e}e is really directed to the distance, meltino: lines are characteristic only of thick mist and vapom- l)et\veen us and the object, not of the removal of the object. If a thing has character npon its outline, as a tree for instance, or a mossy stone, the farther it is removed frojn ns tlie sharper the outline of the whole mass will become, though the details will become confused. A tree fifty yards from lis, taken as a mass, has a soft outline, because the leaves and interstices have some effect on the eye. But ])ut it ten miles off against the sky, its outline will be so sliarp that you cannot tell it from a rock. So in a mountain five or six miles off, bushes, and heather, and roughness of knotty ground and rock, have still some effect on the eye, aud bv becomiug confused and minMed soften the outline. But let the mountain be thirty miles (;ff, and its edge M'ill be as sharp as a knife. Let it, as in case of the Alps, l)e seventy or eighty nn'lcs off, and tliough it has become so faint that the morning mist is not- so transparent, its out- line will be beyond all imitation for sliarpness. Thus^ then, the character of extreme distance is always exces- sive sha7'j)7iess of edge. If you soften your outline, you cither put mist between you and the object, and in doing so diminisli your distance, for it is impossible you should see so far througli mist as through clear air ; or if you DISTANCE. 337 keep an impression of clear air, yon bring the object close to the observer, diminisli its size in proportion, and if aerial colonrs, excessive blues, &c., be retained, represent an impossibility. Claude in his best expression of distance uses pure blue as ever came from the pallet, laid on thick; you cannot see through it, there is not tlie slightest vestige of transparency or iilminess about it, and its edge is soft and blunt. Hence if it be meant for near hills, the blue is impossible, and the want of details impossible in the clear atmosphere indicated through the whole picture. If it be meant for extreme distance the blunt edge is impos- sible, and the opacity is impossible. I do not know a sino-le distance of the Italian school to which the observa- tion is not applicable, except, perhaps, one or two of Nicholas Poussin. In Turner's pictures, observe the ex- cessive sharpness of all the edges, almost amounting to lines, in the distance, while there is scarcely one decisive edge in the foreground. 1 Such, then, are the chief cliaracteristics of the highest peaks and extreme distance of all hills, as far as the form of the rocks themselves, and the aerial appearances espe- cially belonging to them alone, are concerned. (For colour in distance, see p. 361.) 15 CHAPTER IX. DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS : — FIRST AS DEPENDENT ON THE FOCUS OF THE EYE.* 1. I iiAA^E noticed the distinction between real aerial per- spective, and that overcharged contrast of light and shade by wliicli the old masters obtained their deceptive effect ; and I sh(jwed that, though inferior to them in the precise qnality or tone of aerial colour, our great modern master is altogether more truthful in the expression of the propor- tionate relation of all his distances to one another. I am now about to examine those modes of expressing sj^ace, both in nature and art by far the most important, which are dependent, not on the relative hues of objects, but on the drawing of them : by far the most important, I say, because the most constant and certain ; for nature herself is not always aeriah Local effects are frequent which in- terru])t and violate tlie laws of aerial tone, and induce strange deception in our ideas of distance. I have often seen the sunnnit of a snowy mountain look nearer than its base, owing to the perfect clearness of the upper air. ]jut the drawing of objects, that is to say, the degree in * I am more than ever convinced of tlic truth of the position ad- vanced in the 8th paragraph ; nor can I at present assign any other cause, than that hero given, for what is there asserted ; and yet I can- not 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 Tamer's practice, with respect to some of his foregrounds, is to be elsewhere sought. I leave the subject, there- fore, to the reader's consideration. DISTxVNCE AND INDISTINCTNESS, 839 which their details and parts are distinct or confused, is an unfailing and certain criterion of their distance ^ and if this be rightly rendered in a painting, we shall have gennine truth of sj^ace, in spite of many errors in aerial tone ; while, if this be neglected, all space will be de- stroyed, whatever dexterity of tint may be employed to conceal the defective drawing. 2. First, then, it is to he noticed, that the eye, liTce any other lens, must have its focus altered, in order to convey a distinct image of ohjects at different distances', so that it is totally imjpossihle to see distinctly, at the same mo- onent, two ohjects, one of which is much farther off than another. Of this, any one may convince himself in an in- stant. 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 M'hatever 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 inteiTuption to whatever is perceived beyond it. A little attention di- ]ected to this fact will convince every one of its univer- sality, and i^rove beyond dispute that objects at unequal distances cannot be seen together, not from the interven- tion of air or mist, but from the impossibility of the rays proceeding from both converging to the same focus, so that the whole impression, either of one or the other, must necessarily be confused, indistinct, and inadequate. 3. But, be it observed (and I have only to request that whatever 1 say may be tested by immediate experiment) the dfference of focus necessary is greatest within the first five hundred yards, and therefore, though it is totally im- possible to see an object ten yards from the eye, and one a quarter of a mile beyond it, at the same moment, it is per- 3-iO DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. fectly 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, practically, that in a real landsccq^e, vje can see the whole of what would he called the 'middle dis- tance 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, vje look at any fore- ground ohject, so as to receive a distinct impression of it, the distance and middle distance become all disorder and mystery. 4. And therefore, if in a jpainting our foreground is anything, our distance must he nothing, and vice versa ; for if we represent our near and distant objects as giving both at once that distinct image to the eye, which we receive in nature from each, when we look at them separately ; * 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 * This incapacity of the eye must not be confounded with its incapa- bility to comprehend a large portion of lateral space at once. We indeed can see, at any one moment, little more than one point, the objects be- side it being confused and indistinct ; but we need pay no attention to this in art, because we can see just as little of the picture as we can of the landscape without turning the eye, and hence any slurring or con- fusing 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 ex- cellent and desirable one — to make the eye rest where he wishes it. But as the touch expressive of a distant object is as near upon the canvas as that expressive of a near one, both are seen distinctly and with the same focus of the eye, and hence an immediate contradiction of nature results, unless one or other be given with an artificial and increased in- di.stinctness, expressive of the appearance peculiar to the unudapted focus. On the other hand, it rau.st be noted that the gi'eater part of the effect above described is consequent not on variation of focus, but on the different angle at which near objects are seen by each of the two eyes, when both are directed towards the distance. DISTAJSrCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 341 by two separate acts of seeing, and tell a falsehood as gross as if we had represented four sides of a cubic object vis- ible together. 5. ISTow, to this fact and principle, no landscape painter of the old school, as far as I remembei', ever paid the slight- est attention. Finishing their foregrounds clearly and sharply, and with vigorous impression on the eye, giving even the leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge and shape, they proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what they could see of its details — they gave all that the eye can perceive in a distance, when it is fully and entirely devoted to it, and therefore, though masters of aerial tone, though employing every expedient that art could supply to conceal the intersection of lines, though caricaturing the force and shadow of near objects to throw them close upon the eye, they never succeeded in truly representing space. 6. Txiriier introduced a neio era in landscape art^ hy showing that the foreground might he sunk for the dis- tance^ ami that it was possible to express immediate proximity to the sptectator^ without giving anything like completeness to the forms of the near objects. This is not done by slurred or soft lines, observe {always the sign of vice in art), but by a decisive imperfection, a firtn, but partial assertion of form, which the eye feels to be close horne to it, and yet cannot rest upon, or cling to, nor entirely understand, and from which it is driven away of necessity, to those ptarts of distance on which it is intended to repose. And this principle, originated by Turner, though fully carried out by him only, has yet been acted on with judgment and success by several less powei'ful ar- tists of the English school. Some six years ago, the brown moorland foregrounds of Copley Fielding were very in- structive in this respect. ISTot a line in them was made out, not a single object clearly distinguishable. Wet broad 342 DISTANCE AND INDISTLNCTNESS. sweeps of tlie brush, sparkling, careless, and accidental as nature herself, always truthful as far as thej went, imply- ing knowledge, though not expressing it, suggested every- thing, while they represented nothing. But far off into the mountain distance came the sharp edge and the deli- cate fortn ; the whole intention and execution of the pic- ture 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 com- pletely the force and feeling of nature in these particular scenes. And it is a farther illustration f 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 sj)ace and sublimity. And among artists in general, who are either not aware of the princi- ple, or fear to act uj)on it (for it requires no small cour- age, as well as skill, to treat a foreground with that indis- tinctness and mystery which they have been accustomed to consider as characteristic of distance), the foreground is not only felt, as every landscape painter will confess, to be the most embarrassing and unmanageable part of the pic- ture, but, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, will go * There is no inconsistency, observe, between this passage and what was before asserted respecting the necessity of botanical fidelity — where the foregi-ound is the object of attention. Compare Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. § 10 : — " To paint mist rightly, space rightly, and light rightly, it may be often necessaiy to paint nothmg else rightly." f Hardly. It would have been so only had the recently finished fore- grounds been as accurate in detail as they are abundant ; they are pain- ful, I believe, not from their finish, but their falseness. DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 343 near to destroy the effect of the rest of the coiiiposition. Thus Callcott's Trent is severely injured by the harsh group of foreo-round figures ; and Staniield very rarely gets through an Academy picture witliout destro^ung 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 al- together, though indeed, with such foregrounds as he gives us, we are most happy so to do. 7. But it is in Turner onlv that we see a bold and deci- sive choice of the distance and middle distance, as his great object of attention ; and by him only that the fore- ground 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 effect of Turner's works at any distance; while tliose of almost all other artists are sure to lose space as soon as we lose sight of the details. 8. And now we see the reason for the singular, and to the ignorant in art, the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert tliat there is any reason whatso- ever for had drawing (though in landscape it matters ex- ceedingly little) ; but there is both reason and necessity for that vant of drawing which gives even the nearest figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet ; for it is totally impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the raj-s proceeding fi-ora the utmost distance, and some partial impressiou from all tlie distances, it should be capable of pei'ceiving more of t\\e forms and features of near figures than Turner gives. And how ab- solutely necessary to the faithful representation of space 344: DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. this indecision reallj is, might be proved with the utmost ease bj any one who had veneration enough for tlie artist to sacrifice one of his pictures to liis fame ; who would take some one of Jiis works in which tlie fio-ures were most incomplete, and have them painted in by any of our delicate and first-rate figure-painters, absolutely preserv- ing 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 pic- ture 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 under- gone decomposition, that it was now a grammatical sole- cism, a painting of impossibilities, a thing to torture the eye and offend the mind. CHAPTER X. DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS I SECONDLY, AS ITS APPEAR- ANCE IS DEPENDENT ON THE POWER OF THE EYE. 1. In the last chapter, we have seen how indistinctness of individual distances becomes necessary in order to ex- press the adaptation of the eye to one or other of them ; we have now to examine that kind of indistinctness which is dependent on real retirement of the object even wdien 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 dis- tance 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 theii- forms may be very distinct ; place your paper against the wall at the end of the room, and retire from it a greater or less distance according as you have drawn the figures larger or smaller. Yon will come to a point where, though you can see both the spots with perfect plainness, you cannot tell which is the square and which the circle. 2. Now this takes place of course with every object in a landscape, in proportion to its distance and size. The definite forms of the leaves of a tree, however sharply and separately they may appear to come against the sky, are quite indistinguishable at fifty yards off, and the form of everything becomes confused before we finally lose 15^ SiG DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. sight of it. ISTow if the character of an object, say the front of a house, be explained by a variety of forms in it, as the shadows in the tops of the windows, the lines of the architraves, the seams of the masonry, etc. ; these lesser details, as the object falls into distance, become confused and undecided, each of them losing their definite forms, but all being perfectly visible as something, a white or a dark spot or stroke, not lost sight of, observe, but yet so seen that vve camiot tell what they are. As the distance increases, the confusion becomes greater, until at last the whole front of the house becomes merely a flat, pale space, in which, however, there is still obsei'valjle a kind of richness and checkering, caused by the details in it, which, thouo;h totallv mero-ed and lost in the mass, have still an influence on the texture of that mass ; until at last the whole house itself becomes a mere light or dark spot which we can plainly see, but cannot tell what it is, nor distinguish it from a stone or any other object. 3, iS'ow what I particularly wish to insist upon is the state of vision in which all the details of an object are seen, and yet seen in such confusion and disorder that we can- not 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 mvs- tery, an interfering "of undecided lines with each other, not a diminution of their number; window and door, architrave and frieze, all are there : it is no cold and va- cant mass, it is full and rich and abundant, and yet you cannot see a single form so as to know what it is. 01)- serve your friend's face as he is coming up to you ; first it is nothing moi-e 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 sometliino; which vou know fi-om experience to be indicative of a face, and yet you can- not tell how it is so. Now he is nearer, and you can see DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 347 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 liglit and sparkle and expression in them, but nothing distinct. Now he is nearer still, and you can see that he is like your friend, but you cannot tell whether he is or not : there is a vagueness and indecision of line still. Now you are sure, but even yet there are a thousand things in his face, which have their effect in inducing the recognition, but which you cannot see so as to know what they are. 4. Changes like these, and states of vision corresponding to them, take place with each and all of the objects of na- ture, and two great principles of truth are deducible from their observation. Firist, place an ohject as close to the EYE as you like, there is always something in it which you cannot see, except in the hinted and mysterious man- ner 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, j^^'Ctce an ohject as EAK FROM THE EYE AS YOU LIKE, and untH it hecojnes itself a mere sjpot, there is ahvays something in it which you can see, though only in the hinted maimer 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 per- ceivable between an object possessing such details and a flat or vacant space. The grass blades of a meadow a mile off, are so far discernible that there will be a marked difference between its appearance and that of a piece of wood painted green. And thus nature is never distinct and never vacant, she is always mysterious, hut always ahundant ; you ahoays see something, hut you never see all. And thus arise that exquisite finish and fulness which 348 DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. God has appointed to be the perpetual source of fresh pleasure to the cultivated and observant eye, — a finish which no distance can render invisible, and no nearness comprehensible; which in every stone, every bough, every cloud, and every wave is multiplied around us, forever presented, and forever exhaustless. And hence in art, every space or touch in which we can see everything, or in which we can see nothing, is false. JSTothing can be true which is either complete or vacant ; every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing. 5. Now, I would ]iot wish for any more illustrative or marked examples of the total contradiction of these two great principles, than the landscape works of the old masters, taken as a body : — the Dutch masters furnishing the cases of seeing everything, and the Italians of seeiug nothing. The rule with both is indeed the same, differ- ently applied. '' You shall see the bricks in the wall, and be able to count them, or you shall see nothing but a dead flat ; but the Dutch give you the bricks, and the Italians the flat." Nature's rule being the precise reverse — " You shall never be able to count the bricks, but you shall never see a dead space." 6. Take, for instance, the street in the centre of the really great landscape of Poussin (great in feeling at least) marked 2G0 in the Didwich 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 differently would nature have treated us. She would have let us see the Indian corn hanging on the walls, and the image of the Virgin at the angles, and the sharp, broken, broad shadows of the tiled ea\es, and the deep ribbed tiles with the doves upon them, and the carved DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 349 Roman capital built into the wall, and the white and blue stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the windows, and the flapping corners of the mat blinds. All would have been there ; not as such, not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not to be comprehended nor understood, but a con- fusion of yellow and black spots and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow, microscopic in its minute- ness, and tilling every atom and part of space with mys- tery, out of which would have arranged itself the general impression of truth and life. 7. Again, take the distant city on the right bank of the river in Claude's Marriage of Isaac and Kebecca, in the National Gallery. I have seen many cities in my life, and drawn not a few ; and I have seen many fortifications, fancy ones included, which frequently supply us with very new ideas indeed, especially in matters of proportion ; but I do not remember ever having met with either a city or a fortress entirely GomiM&ed of round towers of various heights and sizes, all facsimiles of each other, and abso- lutelv ao-i'eeino- in the number of battlements. I have, indeed, some faint recollection of having delineated such an one in the first page of a spelling-book when I was four years old ; but, somehow or other, the dignity and per- fection of the ideal were not appreciated, and the volume was not considered to be increased in value by the frontis- piece. 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 battle- ment, and the first impulse we feel upon looking at the j)icture is to count how many there are. Nature would have given us a peculiar confused roughness of the upper lines, a multitude of intersections and spots, which we should have known from experience was indicative of 350 DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 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, nor felt, nor guessed at in it ; it is grey paint or grev shade, whichever you may choose to call it, but it is nothing more. Kature would have let you see, nay, would have compelled you to see, thousands of spots and lines, not one to be absolutely understood or accounted for, but yet all characteristic and different from each other; breaking lights on shattered stones, vague shadows from waving vegetation, irregular stains of time and weather, mouldering hollows, sparkling casements — all would have been there — none, indeed, seen as such, none comprehen- sible or like themselves, but all visible ; little shadows, and sparkles, and scratches, making that whole space of colour a transparent, palpitating, various iniinity. 8, Or take one of Poussin's extreme distances, such as that in the Sacrifice of Isaac. It is luminous, retiring, deli- cate and perfect in tone, and is quite complete enough to deceive and delimit the careless eve 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 grey and gold are not the landscape itself, but the treatment of it — not its substance, but its light and shade. They are just what nature would cast over it, and write upon it with every cloud, but which she would cast in play, and without cai'ef ulness, as matters of the very smallest possil)le import- ance. All lier work and her attention would be given to bring out fi-om undenieath tliis, and through this, the forms and tlie material character which this can only be valual)le U) illustrate, not to conceal. Everv one of those Iji'oad spaces she would linger over in protracted delight, teaching you fresh lessons in every hairsbreadth of it, and DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. • 351 pouring her fulness of invention into it, until the mind lost itself in followino- her, — now fringing; the dark edo-e 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 ffleamino; 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 distinct- ness, or one instant of vacancy. 9. Xow it is, indeed, impossible for the painter to follow all this — he cannot come up to the same degree and order of iniinity — but he can give us a lesser kind of infinity. He has not one-thousandth part of the space to occupy which nature has ; but he can, at least, leave no part of that space vacant and unprofitable. If nature carries out her minutige over miles, he has no excuse for generalizing in inches. And if he will only give us all he can, if he will give us a fulness as complete and as mysterious as nature's, we will pardon him for its being the fuhiess 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 unex- erted. Still less will we pardon him for mistaking the sport of nature for her labour, and for following her onlv in her hour of rest, without observinfij how she has worked for it. After spending centuries in raising the forest, and guiding the river, and modelling the moun- tain, 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 352 . DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 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 ; hut we will not be put off with the play before the lesson — ■ witli the adjunct instead of the essence — with the illus- tration instead of the fact. 10. I am somewhat anticipating my subject here, be- cause I call scarcely help answering the objections which I know must arise in the minds of most readers, espe- cially 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 explain- ing what it means ; and that we had more constant reference made to the principle which I can only re-mem- ber having seen once clearly explained and insisted on, that hi'eadth is not vacancy. Generalization is unity ^ Qiot destruction of parts f and composition is not anni- hilation, hut arrangement of materials. The bkeadtu which unites the truths of nature with her harmonies is rneritorioi(,s and heautiful / hut the hreadth which annihilates those truths hy the million is not painting nature, hut painting over her. And so the masses which result from right concords aiul relations of details are suhlime and impressive^ hut the masses which result from the eclipse of details are contemptihle and pain- ful.^ And we shall show, in following parts of the work, that distances like those of Poussin are mere mean- ingless tricks of clever execution, whicli, when once dis- covered, the artist may repeat over and over again, with * Of course mucli depends upon the kind of detail so lost. An artist may generalize the trunk of a tree, M'hcre he only loses lines of bark, and do us a kindness ; but he must not generalize the details of a champaign, in which there is a histoiy of creation. The full discussion of the subject belongs to a future part of our investigation. DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 353 mechanical contentment and perfect satisfaction, both to himself and to his superficial admirers, with no more exertion of intellect nor awakening of feeling than any tradesman has in multiplying some ornamental pattern of furniture. Be this as it may, however (for we caunot enter upon the discussion of tlie question here), the fal- sity and imperfection of such distances admit of no dispute. Beautiful and ideal they may be ; true they are not : and in the same way we might go through every part and portion of the works of the old masters, showing throughout, either that you have every leaf and blade of grass staring defiance to the mystery of nature, or that you have dead spaces of absolute vacuity, equally deter- mined in their denial of her fulness. And even if we ever find (as here and there, in their better pictures, we do) changeful passages of agreeable playing colour, or mellow and transparent modulations of mysterious atmos- phere, even hei^e the touches, though satisfactory to the eye, are suggestive of nothing, — they are characterless, — • they liave none of the peculiar expressiveness and mean- ing 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 difierent from all the others ; and we feel with every one, that though we cannot tell what it is, it cannot be anything ^ while even the most dexterous distances of the old masters pretend to secresy without having anything to conceal, and are ambiguous, not from the concentration of meaning, but from the want of it. 11. And now, take up one of Turner's distances, it mat- ters not which, or of what kind,— drawing or painting, small or gi'cat, done thirty years ago, or for last year's Acad- emy, as you like ; say that of the Mercury and Argus, and look if every fact which I have just been pointing out in nature be not carried out in it. Abundant, beyond 354 DISTANCE AND INDISTINCTNESS. 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 concej)tion of each individual inch of that distance is absolutely clear and complete in the master's mind, a separate picture fully worked out: but yet, clearly and fully as the idea is formed, just so much of it is given, and no more, as nature would have allowed us to feel or see ; just so much as would enable a spectator of expe- rience and knowledge to understand almost every minute fi-agment of separate detail, but ap^^ears, to the unprac- tised and careless eye, just what a distance of nature's own would appear, an unintelligible mass. N"ot one line out of the millions there is without meaning, yet there is not one which is not effected and disguised by the dazzle and indecision of distance. No form is unade out, and yet no form is unknown. 12. Perhaps the truth of this system of drawing is better to be understood by observing tlie distant character of rich arcliitecture than of any other object. Go to the top of Highgate Hill on a clear simmier morning at live o'clock, and look at Westminster Abbey. You will re- ceive an impression of a building enriched with multi- tudinous vertical lines. Try to distinguish one of those lines all the way down from the one next to it : You can- not. Try to count them : You cannot. Try to make out the beginning or end of any one of them : You cannot. Look at it genei'ally, anut pains — the coin could tell its own storv — but what did above all thino-s matter was that no letter of the word should curve in a wrong place with respect to the outline of the head, and divert the eye from it, or spoil any of its lines. So the whole inscription is thrown into a sweeping curve of gradually diminishing size, continuing from the lion's paw, round the neck, up to the forehead, and answering a decorative purpose as completely as the curls of the mane opposite. Of these, again, you cannot change or displace one without mischief; they are almost as even in reticula- tion as a piece of basket work, but each has a different 374 SCULPTUEE. form and due relation to the rest, and if you set to work to draw that mane rightly, you will find that, whatever time you give to it, you can't get the tresses quite into their places, and that every tress out of its place does an injury. But another question here arises. Granted that these tresses may be finely placed, still they are not like a lion's mane. If the face is to be like the face of man, why is not the lion's mane to be like a lion's mane? Simply be- cause fringes and jags would spoil the surface of the coin, and though they might be cut they could not be stamped by a die. So the Greek uses his common sense, wastes no time, loses no skill, and says to you, "Here are beautifully set tresses, which I have carefully designed, and easily stamped. Enjoy them; if you cannot understand that they mean a lion's mane, heaven mend your wits." The sum, then, of Greek art work is well-founded know- ledge, simple and right aims, thorough mastery of handi- craft, splendid invention of arrangement, and unerring common sense in treatment. The reason that Greek art so often disaf)points people is that indiscriminate and un- informed laudation leads thera to look in it for something that is not there, such as the Greek ideal of beauty; whereas the Greek race was not at all one of exalted heauty, hut only of general and healthy completeness of form. There is not a single instance of a very beautiful head left by the highest school of Greek art. You may take the Yen us of Melos as a standard of beautv of the central Greek type. She has tranquil, regular, and lofty features; but could not hold her own for a moment against the beauty of a simple English girl of pure race and kind heart. Queen of the Air, 169. This is more extensively considered in the chapter on " Schools of Sculpture." SCITLPTUKE. ' 375 d. Drapery. It is a rule that nothing must be repre- sented by sculpture, external to any living form, which does not helj^ to enforce or ilkistrate the conception of life. Botli dress and armour may be made to do this by great sculptors, and are continually so used by the greatest. One of the essential distinctions between the Athenian and Florentine schools is dependent on their treatment of dra- pery in this respect : an Athenian always sets it to exhibit the action of the body, by flowing with it, or over it, or from it, so as to illustrate both its form and gesture ; a Florentine, on the contrary, always nses his drapery to conceal or disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mental emotion • but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body or soul. Donatello and Michael An- gelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothic chivalry, ennoble armour in the same way ; but base sculptors carve drapery and armour for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only, and forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern that all delight in mere incidental beauty, which painting often triumphs in, is wholly forbidden to sculpture; — for instance, m painting the branch of a tree you may rightly rej)resent and enjoy the lichens and moss on it, but a sculptor must not touch one of them ; they are unessential to the tree's life — he must give the flow and bending of the branch only. A. P., 94. In " The Seven Lamps of Architecture," ch. iv., § xi., Ivuskin says : Di-apery, as such, is always ignoble ; it be- comes a subject of interest only by the colour it bears, and the impression it receives from some foreign form or force. All noble draperies, either in painting or sculpture, have, so far as they are anything more than necessities, one of two great functions ; they are the exponents of motion and of gravitation. They are the most valuable means of ex- pressing past as well as present motion in the figure, and 376 SCULPTURE. they are almost the only means of indicathig to the eye the force of gravity which resists such motion. The Greeks used drapery in sculpture for the most part as an ugly ne- cessity, but availed themselves of it gladly in all rej^resen- tation of action, exaggerating the arra7igements of it lohich €X2)ress ligJitness in the 7naterial, and follovj gesture in the person. The Christian sculptors, caring little for the body, or disliking it, and depending exclusively on the coun- tenance., received drapery at first contentedly as a veil, but soon perceived a capacity of expression in it which the Greek had not seen, or had despised. The principal ele- ment of this exj^ression was the entire removal of agitation from what was so 'pre-eminently capable of being agitated. It fell from their human foi"ms plumb down, sweeping tlie ground heavily, and concealing the feet ; while the Greek drapery was blown away from the thigh. The thick and coarse stuffs of the monkish dresses, so absolutely opposed to the thin and gauzy web of antique material, suggested simj)licity of division as well as weight of fall. Tliere was no crushing nor subdividing them. And thus the dra- pery began to represent the spirit of repose, as it before had of motion, repose saintly and severe. The wind had no power upon the garment, as the passion none upon the soul ; and the motion of the figure only bent into a softer line the stillness of the falling veil, followed by it, like a slow cloud, by dropping i-ain ; only in links of lighter un- dulation it followed the dances of the angels. Thus treated, drapery is indeed noble ; but it is as an ex- ponent of other and higher things. As that of gravitation it has especial majesty, being literally the only means we have of fully repj-esenting this mysterious natural force of the earth (for falling water is less passive and less defined ill its lines). So, again, in sails it is beautiful because it receives the forms of solid curved surface, and expresses the force of another invisible element. But drapery trust- SCULPTURE. 377 ed to its own merits, and given for its own sake — drapery like that of Carlo Dolce and the Carraccio — is always base. e. Accessories inadmissible. Every accessory in paint- ing is valnable, but not one can be admitted in sculpture. You must carve nothing but what has life. It is the Greeks who say it, but whatever they say of sculpture be assured is right. For instance, here is an excpiisite little painted poem by Edward Frere, a cottage interior. Every accessory in the painting is of value — the fireside, the tiled floor, the vegetables lying upon it, and the basket hanging from the roof. The poor little girl was more in- teresting to Edward Frere, he being a painter, because she was poorly dressed, and wore those clumsy shoes and old red cap and patched gown. May we sculpture her so ? No. We may sculpture her naked if we like, but not in rags. But if we may not put her into marble in rags, may we give her a pretty frock with ribands and flounces to it, and put her in marble in that ? No. We may put her simplest 13easant dress, so it be perfect and orderly, into marble ; anything finer than that would be more dishonourable in the eyes of the Athenians than rags. If she wei-e a French princess you might carve her embroidered robe and dia- dem ; if she were Joan of Arc you might carve her ar- mour, if she has it on. It is not the honourableness or beauty of it that are enough, but the direct bearing of it by her body. A. P., 96. f. Grouping.'^ Much fine formative ai'rangement de- pends on a more or less elliptical or pear-shaped balance of the group, obtained by arranging the principal members of it on two opposite curves, and either centralizing it by some powerful feature at the base, centre, or summit, or else clasp- ing it together by some conspicuous point or knot. A very small object will often do this satisfactorily. 5 m. P. 181. * See Laws of Grouping, page 99. 378 SCUIl'TUEE. g. Lines. — 1. Lines of Motive. We must remember that a great composition always has a leading emotional purpose, technically called its motive, to which all its lines and forms have some relation. Uridulating, and a majority of angular lines, for instance, m^e expressive of action, and would be false in effect if the motive of the composition was one of repose. Horizontal and some angular lines are expressive of rest and strength ; and would destroy a design whose purpose w^as to express disquiet and fee- bleness. It is therefore necessary to ascertain the motive before descending to detail. 5 M. P., 175. 2. Truth of Lines. The difference in the accuracy of the lines of the Torso of the Yatican (the Maestro of M. Angelo) from those in one of M. xlngelo's finest works, could, perhaps, scarcely be ajipreciated by any eye or feel- ing undisciplined by the most perfect and practical ana- tomical knowledge. It rests on points of such traceless and refined delicacy, that though we feel them in the result, we cannot follow them in the details, yet thev 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 on a level with antiques of the second class, under the Apollo and the Yenus, 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, were to sit down, pen in hand, to try to tell us wherein the peculiar truth of each line consisted. Could any words that he could use nuike us feel the hairbreadth of depth and distance on wliich all depends? or end in anything more than the bare assertion of the inferiority of this line to that, which, if we did not perceive hn- ourselves, no explanations could ever illustrate to us? lie might as well endeavour to ex- plain to us by words some taste or other subject of sense SCULPTURE. 379 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 a cultivated eye can in the least feel, and to ex- press which, all words are absolutely meaningless and useless. Two lines are laid on canvas or cut on stone; one is right and another wrong. There is no difference between them appreciable by the compasses — none appre- ciable 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 that sight have been the reward of years of labour. i m. P. , 404. 3. Lines of Beauty and Grace. That all forms of acknowledged beauty are composed exclusively of curves will, I believe, be at once allowed ; but that which there will be more need especially to prove is the suhtiHy and constancy of curvature in all natural forms whatsoever. I believe that except in crystals, in certain mountain forms, admitted for the sake of sublimity or contrasts (as in the slope of debris), in rays of light, in the levels of calm water and alluvial land, and in some few organic develop- ments, there are no lines or surfaces of nature without curvature. Right lines are often suggested which are not actual. For the most jpart the eye is fed on natural forms %iyith a grace of curvature which no hand nor instrument can follow. 2 M. p., 45. All curves, however, are not equally beautiful, and their differences of beauty depend on the different proportions borne to each other by those infinitely small right lines of whicli they may be conceived as composed. ^Vlien these lilies are equal and contain equal angles, there can be no unity of sequence in them. The resulting curve, 380 SCULPTUKE. the circle, is therefore the least beautiful of all curves. The simplest of the beautiful curves are the couic aud the various spirals; l)ut it is as rash as it is diffi- cult to endeavour to trace any ground of superiority or inferiority among the infinite number of the higher curves. 2M. P.,59. 4. Lines of Repose. Hence I think that there is ncj desire more intense or more exalted than that which exists in all rightly disciplined minds for the evidences of repose in external signs, and what I cautiously said respecting in- finity, I say fearlessly respecting repose, that no work of art can be great without it, and that all art is great in pro- portion to the appearance of it. It is the most unfailiug test of beauty, whether of matter or of motion, nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not, and in strict proportion to its appearance in the work is the majesty of mind to be inferred in the artificer. Without regard to other qualities, we may look to this for our evi- dence, and by the search for this alone we may be led to the rejection of all that is base, and the accepting of all that is good and great, for the paths of wisdom ai-e all peace. AVe shall see by this light three colossal images standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality above the whole world horizon, Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante ; and then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness and earnestness of Faith, Homer, and Shakspeare ; and from these we may go down step by step among the niighty men of every age, securely and certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of restlessness and effort, until the last trace of true inspira- tion vanishes in the tottering affectations or the tortured insanities of modern times. There is no art, no pursuit, whatsoever, Ijut its results may be classed by this test alone; everything of evil is betrayed and winnowed away SCULPTUKE. 3S1 by it, glitter and confusion and glare of color, inconsistency or absence of thought, forced expression, evil choice of subject, over-accumulation of matei'ials, whether in paint- ing or literature, the shallow and unreflecting nothingness of the English schools of art, the strained and disgusting horrors of the French, the distorted feverishness of the German : — pretence, over-decoration, over-division of parts in architecture, and again in music, in acting, in dancing, in whatsoever art, great or mean, there are yet degrees of greatness or meanness entirely dependent on this single quality of repose. Particular instances are at present both needless and cannot but be inadequate ;" needless, because I suppose tliat every reader, however limited his experience of art, can supply many for himself, and inadequate, because no number of them could illustrate the full extent of the in- fluence of the expression. I believe, however, that by comparing the disgusting convulsions of the Laocoon with the Elgin Theseus, we may obtain a general idea of the effect of the influence, as shown by its absence in one, and presence in the other, of two works which, as far as artistical merit is concerned, are in some measure parallel, not that I believe, even in this respect, the Laocoon justifiably comparable with the Theseus. 1 suppose that no group has exercised so pernicious an influence on art as this, a subject ill chosen, meanly conceived and unnaturally treated, recommended to imitation by subtleties of execu- tion and accumulation of technical knowledo-e.* * I would also have the reader compare with the meagre lines ani contemptible tortures of the Laocoon, the awfulness and quietness of M. Angelo's treatment of a subject in most respects similar (the Plague of the Fiery Serpents), but of which the choice was justified both by the place which the event holds in the typical system he had to arrange, and by the grandeur of the plague itself, in its multitudinous grasp, and its mystical salvation ; sources of sublimity entirely wanting to the slaughter of the Dardan priest. It is good to see how his gigantic in- 382 SCULPTUEE. lu Clii'ir>tian art, it would be well to compare the feel- ing of the finer among the altar tombs of -the middle ages, with any monumental works after Michael Angelo, perhaj>s more especially with works of Koubilliac or Canova, In the Cathedral of Lucca, near the entrance door of the north transept, there is a monument of Jacopo della Quercia's to Ilaria di Caretto, the wife of Paolo Guinigi. tellect reaches after repose, and truthfully finds it, in. the falling' hand of the near figure, and in the deathful decline of that whose hands are held up even in their venomed coldness to the cross ; and though irrel- evant to our laresent purpose, it is well also to note how the grandeur of this treatment results, not merely from choice, but from a greater knowledge and more faithful rendering of truth. For whatever knowl- edge of the hviman frame there may be in the Laocoon, there is certainly none of the habits of serpents. The fixing of the snake's head in the side of the principal figure is as false to nature as it is poor in composition of hne. A large serpent never wants to bite, it wants to hold, it seizes therefore always where it can hold best, by the extrem- ities, or throat, it seizes once and forever, and that before it coils, fol- lowing up the seizure with the twist of its body round the victim, as invisibly swift as the twist of a whii) lash round any hard object it may strike, and then it holds fast, never moving the jaws or the body ; if its prey has any power of struggling left, it throws round another coil, without quitting the hold with the jaws ; if Laocoon had had to do with real serpents, instead of pieces of tape with heads to them, he would have been held still, and not allowed to throw his arms or legs about. It is most instructive to observe the accuracy of Michael Angelo in the rendcrijig of these circumstances ; the binding of the arms to the body, and tbe knotting of the whole mass of agony together, until we hear the crashing of the bones beneath the grisly sliding of the engine-folds. Note also the expression in all the figures of another circumstance, the torpdr and cold numbness of the limbs induced by the serpent venom, which, though justifiably overlooked by the sculptor of the Laocoon, as well as by Virgil — in consideration of the rapidity of the death by crushing, adds infinitely to the power of the Florentine's conception, and would have been better hinted by Virgil than that sickening distri- bution of venom on the garlands. In fact, Virgil has missed both of truth and impressiveness every way — the "morsu depascitur" is un- natural butchery — the " perf usus veneno" gratuitous foulness — tha SCULPTUKE. 3S3 I name it not as more beautiful or perfect tlian otlier examples of the same jjeriod, but as furnishing an instance of the exact and right mean between the rigidity and rude- ness of the earlier monumental effigies, and the morbid imitation of life, sleep, or death, of which the fashion has taken place in modern times."^ She is lying on a simple couch, with a hound at her feet, not on the side, but witli the head laid sti'aight and simply on the hard pillow, in which, let it be obser\'ed, there is no effort at deceptive im- itation of pressure. It is understood as a pillow, but not mistaken for one. The hair is bound in a fiat braid over " clamores horrendos," impossible degradation; compare carefully the remarks on this statue in Sir Charles Bell's Essay on Expression (third, edition, p. 192), where he has most wisely and uncontrovertibly deprived the statue of all claim to expression of energy and fortitude of mind, and shown its common and coarse intent of mere bodily exertion and agouy, while he has confimied Payne Knight's just condemnation of the passage in VirgQ. If the reader wishes to see the opposite or imaginative view of the subject, let him compare Winkelmann ; and SchiUer, Letters on Esthetic Culture. * "Whenever, in monumental work, the sculjjtor reaches a deceptive appearance of life or death, or of concomitant details, he has gone too far. The statue should be felt for such, not look like a dead or sleep- ing body ; it should not convey the impression of a corpse, nor of sick and outwearied flesh, but it should be the marble image of death or weariness. So the concomitants should be distinctly marble, severe and monumental in their lines, not shroud, not bedclothes, not actual armour nor brocade, not a real soft pillow, not a downright hard stuffed mattress, but the mere type and suggestion of these : a certain rude- ness and incompletion of finish is very noble in all. Not that they are to be unnatural, such lines as are given should be pure and true, and clear of the hardness and mannered rigidity of the strictlj' Gothic types, but lines so few and grand as to appeal to the imagination only, and alwaj's to stop short of realization. There is a monument put up lately by a modern Italian sculptor in one of the side chapels of Santa Croce, the face fine and the execution dexterous. But it looks as if the per- son had been restless all night, and the artist admitted to a faithful study of the disturbed bedclothes in the morning. 384 SCULPTURE. the fair brow, the sweet and arched eyes are closed, the tenderness of the loving lips is set and qniet, there is that about them which forljids breath, something which is not death nor sleep, but the pure image of l)otli. The hands are not lifted in prayer, neither folded, but the arms are laid at length upon the body, and the hands cross as they fall. The feet are hidden by the drapery, and the forms of the limbs concealed, but not their tenderness. If any of us, after staying for a time beside this tomb, could see, through his tears, one of the vain and unkind encumbrances of the grave, which, in these hollow and heartless days, feigned sorrow builds to foolish pride, he would, I believe, receive such a lesson of love as no cold- ness could refuse, no fatuity forget, and no insolence dis- obey. 2 M. P. 67. li. Of Symmetry and Projxjrtlon. In all perfectly beautiful objects there is found the opposition of one part to another and a reciprocal balance obtained ; in animals the balance being commonly between opposite sides (note the disagreeableness occasioned by the excep- tion in fiat fish, having the eyes. on one side of the head), l)ut in vegetables the oi:)position is less distinct, as in the boughs on opposite sides of trees, and the lea^•es and sprays on eacli side of the boughs, and in dead matter less per- fect still, often amounting only to a certain tendency to- wards a balance, as in the opposite sides of valleys and alternate windings of streams. In things in which perfect symmetry is from their natui-e impossible or improper, a balance must be at least in some measure expressed before thev can be be held with ])leasure. Hence the necessitv of what artists recpiire as opposing lines or masses in composition, the propriety of which, as well as their value, depends chiefly on their inartificial and natural in- SCTILPTUEE. 385 vention. Absolute equality is not required, still less ab- solute similarity. A mass of subdued colour may be balanced by a point of a powerful one, and a lonaj and latent line overpowered by a short and conspicuous one. The only error against whicli it is necessary to guard the reader with respect to symmetry is the confounding it with proportion, though it seems strange that the two terms could ever have been used as synonymous. Sym- metry is the opposition of equal quantities to each other. Proporti(m the conneGtion of unequal quantities with each other. The property of a tree in sending out equal boughs on opposite sides is symmetrical. Its sending out sliorter and smaller towards the top, proportional. In the human face its balance of opposite sides is symmetry, its division upwards, proportion. Yitruvius, presenting the proportions observed in Gre- cian statues, says : " Nature in the composition of the human frame has so ordained that naturally and ordinarily there should be such a proportion that the face, froui the chin to the top of the forehead or roots of the hair, should be one tenth part of the whole stature ; while the same proportion is preserved in the hand measured from the bend of the wrist to the tip of the middle linger. • If the distance from the chin to the roots of the hair be divided into three parts, one of these terminates at the nostrils, the other at the eyebrows. The foot is a sixth of the stature ; the cubit, or distance from the elbow to the tip of the mid- dle finger, and also the breadth of the chest is a fourth. In the female figure the height is about one tenth less than in the male. The Apollo Belvidere is a little more than Beven heads high, and the foot on which he stands is two and one fifth inches longer than his head. Albert Durer makes his figures eight heads tall, and the length of the foot one sixth of their height. The shape of the Venus is uncommonly slender. Her height is within a 17 386 SCULPTUKE. fraction of live feet, and not more than seven and a half heads. Whether the agreeableness of symmetry be in any way referable to its expression of the Aristotelian la-orrj'ij that is to say of abstract justice, I leave the reader to deter- mine ; I only assert respecting it, that it is necessary to the dignity of every form, and that by the removal of it we shall render the other elements of beauty compara- tively ineffectual : thougli on the other hand it is to be observed that it is rather a mode of Arrangement of qualities than a quality itself ; and hence symmetry has little power over the mind, unless all the other constituents of beauty be found together with it. A form may be symmetrical and ugly, as many Elizabethan ornaments, and yet not so ugly as it had been if unsymmetrical, but bettered always by increasing degrees of sj'mmetry ; as in star figures, wherein there is a circular symmetry of many like members, whence their frequent use for the plan and ground of ornamental designs ; so also it is ob- servable that foliatre in which the leaves are concentric- ally grouped, as in the chestnuts and many shrubs — rlio- dodendrons for instance — (whence the perfect beauty of the Alpine rose) — is far nobler in its effect than any other, so that the sweet chestnut of all trees most fondlv and frequently occurs in the landscape of Tintoret and Titian, beside which all other landscape grandeur vanishes ; and even in the meanest things the rule holds, as in the ka- leidoscope, wherein agrceableness is given to forms alto- gether accidental merely by their repetition and reciprocal opposition ; which orderly balance and arrangement are essential to the' perfect operation of the more earnest and soleiiiii qualities of the beautiful, as being heavenly in their nature, and contrary to the violence and disorganiza- tion of sin, so that the seeking of thorn and submission to them is always marked in minds that have been sub- SCULPTUKE. 387 jected to higli moral discipline, constant in all tlie great religious painters, to the degree of being an offence and a scorn to men of less tuned and tranquil feeling. Equal ranks of saints are placed on each side of the picture, if there be a kneeling figure on one side, there is a corre- sponding one on the other, the attendant angels beneath and above are arranged in like order. The Raffaelle at Blenheim, the Madonna di St. Sisto, the St. Cicilia, and all the works of Perugino, Francia, and John Bellini present some such form, and the balance at least is preserved even in pictures of action necessitating variety of grouping, as always by Giotto ; and by Ghirlandajo in the introduc- tion of his chorus-like side figures, and by Tintoret most eminently in his noblest work, the Crucifixion, where not only the grouping but the arrangement of light is abso- lutely symmetrical. Where there is no symmetry, the effects of passion and violence are increased, and many very sublime pictures derive their sublimity from the want of it, but they lose proportionally in the diviner quality of beauty. In landscape the same sense of sym- metry is preserved, as we shall presently see, even to artificialness, by the greatest men, and it is one of the principal sources of deficient feeling in the landscapes of the j^resent day, that the symmetry of nature is sacrificed to irregular picturesqueness. 2 M. P., 71. i. Unity. To the perfection in the beauty in lines, or colours, or forms, or masses, or multitudes, the appear- ance of some species of unity is, in the most determined sense of the word, essential. First, there is suhjeGtional unity, or the unity of differ- ent and separate things subjected to one and the same influence, as of the clouds driven by the parallel winds, or as they are ordered by the electric currents — and this of the unity of the sea waves, and this of the bending and 388 8CULPTUEE. undulation of the forest masses ; and in creatures capable of will, it is the unity of will or of inspiration. Second, there is the unity of origin, which is of things, arising from one spring and source, as the unity of broth- erliood in man ; and this in matter is the unity of the branches of the trees, and of the petals and starry rays of flowers, and of beams of light. Third, there is the unity of sequence, as that of things that form links in chains, steps in ascent, and stages in journeys; and this in matter is the unity of communicated force from object to object, the beauty of continuous lines, and the orderly succession of motions and times. Fourth, there is the unity of membership, or essential unity, which is unity of things, separately imperfect, into a perfect whole. This is harmony. But this unity cannot exist between things similar to each other. Two or more equal or like things cannot be members one of another, nor can they form one or a whole thing. Two they must remain, both in nature and in our conception, so long as they remain alike, unless they are united by a third, different from both. Thus : the arms, which are alike each other, remain two arms in our conception : they could not be united by a third arm ; they must be united by something which is not an arm, and which, imperfect without them as they without it, shall f(jrm one perfect body ; nor is unity even thus ac- complished without a difference and opposition of direc- tion in the setting on of like members. 2 M. P., 51. j. Variety. Hence out of the necessity of unity arises that of variety. Its principle in our nature is the love of change and the power of contrast. But it is not variety as such, and in its highest degree, that is beautiful. A patched garment of many colours is not so agreeable as one of a single and continuous hue. A forest of all man- SCULPTUEE. 389 ner of trees is poor, compared to a mass of trees of one siDecies. Therefore it is only harmonious and chordal variety which is necessary to secure and extend unity that is rightly agreeable. 2 M. P., 53. h. Harmony. Harmony consists neither in likeness nor difference of parts, but only in that particular imperfec- tion in each of the harmonizhig parts which can only be supj)lied by its fellow part. The several j^arts must make one complete whole. If one of them be perfect by itself, the other will be an excrescence. Both must be faulty when separate, and each corrected by the presence of the other. If the artist can accomplish this, the result will be beautiful : it will be a whole, an oi-ganized body, with dependent members ; — he is an inventor. If not, let his separate features be as beautiful, as apposite, or as resem- blant as they ma}'-, they form no whole ; they are two mem- bers glued together. He is only a carpenter and joiiier. I. Exaggeration. As exaggeration is the vice of all bad artists, and may be constantly resorted to without any warrant of imagination, it is necessary to note strictly the admissible limits. A colossal statue is necessarily no more an exaggera- tion of what it represents than a miniature is a diminu- tion. It need not be a representation of a giant, but a representation, on a large scale, of a man ; ojily it is to be observed, that as any jjlane intersecting a cone of rays between us and the object must receive an image smaller than the object, a small image is rationally and completely expressive of a larger one; but not a large of a small one. Hence I think that all statues above the Elo-in standard. or that of Michael Angelo's ISTight and Morning, are, in a measure, taken by the eye for representations of giants, and I think them always disagreeable. The amount of 390 SCtTLPTUEE. exaggeration admitted by Michael Angelo is valuable be- cause it separates the emblematic from the human form, and o-ives greater freedom to the lines of the frame. For notice of his scientific system of increase- of size reference is made to Sir Cliarles Bell's remarks on the statues of the Medici Chapel; but there js one circumstance which Sir Charles has not noticed — the extremities are exceedingly small in proportion to the limbs, by which means there is an expression given of strength and activity greater than in the ordinary human type, which appears to me to be an allowance for that alteration in proportion necessitated by the increase of size ; not but that Michael Angelo always makes the extremities comparatively small, but smallest comparatively in his largest works. Such adaptations are not necessary when the exaggerated image is spectral ; for as the laws of matter in that case can have no operation, we may expand the form as far as we choose, only let careful distinction be made between the size of the thino- I'epresented and the scale of the representation. The can- vas on which Fuseli has stretched his Satan in the schools of the Royal Academy is a mere concession to inability. He might have made him look more gigantic in one of a foot square. 2 M. P., 204. m. Anatoiny. Such muscular development as is neces- sary to the perfect heauty of the body is to be rendered ; l)ut that which is necessary to strength^ or wliicli appears to have been tlio result of laborious exercise, is inad- missible. No herculean form is spiritual, for it is degrad- ing the spiritual creature to suppose it operative through impulse of bone and sinew ; its power is immaterial and constant, neither dependent on nor developed by exertion. Generally it is well to conceal anatomical development as far as may ; even Michael Ajigelo's anatomy interferes with hid divinity. How far it is possible to subdue or SCULPTURE. 391 generalize the naked form I venture not to affirm, but I believe it is best to conceal it, as far as may , not with draperies light and undulating, that fall in with and ex- hibit its principal lines, but with draperies severe and lin- ear, such as were constantly employed before the time of Raffaelle. I recollect no sino-le instance of a naked ano-el that does not look boylike or childlike and unspiritualized ; even Fra Bartolemeo's might with advantage be spared from the pictures at Lucca, and, in the hands of inferior men, the sky is merely encumbered with sprawling infants ; those of Domenichio, in the Madonna del Rosario, and Martyrdom of St. Agnes, are peculiarly offensive studies of bare-legged children, howling and kicking in volumes of smoke. Confusion seems to exist in the minds of subse- quent painters between Angels and Cupids. n. Bas-relief. The art of bas-relief is to give the effect of true form on flatness of surface. If nothing more were needed than to make first the cast of a solid form, then cut it in half, and apply the half of it to flat sur- face ; — if, for instance, to carve a bas-relief of an apple, all I had to do was to cut my sculpture of the whole apple in half, and pin it to the wall : any ordinary trained sculptor, or even a mechanical workman, could produce a bas-relief ; but the business is to carve a Tound thing out of 'A. flat thing ; — to carve an apple out of a biscuit ; — to conquer as a subtle Florentine has conquered his mar- ble, so as not only to get motion into what is most rigidly fixed, but to get boundlessness into what is most narrowly bounded ; and carve Madonna and Child, roll- ing clouds, flying angels, and space of heavenly air behind all, out of a film of stone not the third of an inch thick where it is the thickest. The design in solid sculpture involves considerations of Weight in mass, 392 SCTJLPTUEE. Balance, Perspective and opposition, Projecting forms, Restraint of those wliich must not project, such as none bnt the greatest masters have ever com- pletely solved, and these not always. The schools of good sculpture, considered in relation to projection, divide themselves into four entirely distinct groups : 1st. Flat Reliefs in which the surface is, in many places, absolutely Hat ; and the expression depends greatly on the lines of its outer contour, and on the fine incisions within them, 2d. Round Reliefs in which, as in the best coins, the sculptured mass projects so as to be capable of complete modulation into form, but is not aiiywhere undercut. The formation of a coin by the blow of a die necessitates, of course, severest obedience to this law. 3d. Edged Relief. Undercutting admitted so as to throw out the forms ao-ainst a bucko-round of shadows. 4th. Full Relief. The statue completely solid in form, and unreduced in retreating depth of it, yet connected locally with some definite part of the building, so as to be still dependent on the shadow of its background and di- rection of protective line. The laws of sight and distance determine the proper depth of bas-relief. Suppose that depth fixed ; then observe what a pretty problem, or, rather, continually vai-ying cluster of problems ^vill l)e offered us. You might at first imagine that, given what we may call our scale of solidity, or scale of depth, the diminution from nature would be in regular proportion, as, for instance, if the real depth of your siil)ject be, suppose a foot, and the depth of your bas- relief an inch, then the parts of the real subject which were six inches round the side of it would be carved, you might SCULPTUBE. 393 imagine, at the depth of half an inch, and so tlie whole tiling mechanically reduced to a scale. But not a hit of it. Here is a Greek bas-relief of a chariot with two horses ; your whole subject, therefore, has the depth of two horses, side by side, say six or eight feet, your bas-relief has, on the scale, say the depth of the third of an inch. Kow, if you gave only the sixth of an inch for the depth of the off horse, and, dividing him again, only the twelfth of an inch for that of each foreleg, you would make him look a mile away from the other, and his own forelegs a mile apart. The Greek has made the near leg of the off horse project nmch beyond the off leg of the near horse, and has put nearly the whole depth and power of his re- lief into the breast of the off horse, thus giving a most effective treatment to his perspective, projections and shadows. A. P., 149. 6. THE SCHOOLS OF SCULPTURE. The conditions necessary for the production of a perfect school of sculpture have only twice been met in the his- tory of the world, and then for a short time ^ nor for a short time only, but also in narroio districts,^ namely, in the valleys and Islands of Ionian Greece, and in the strip of land deposited by the Arno, between the Apennine crests and the sea. All other schools, except these two, led severally by Athens in the iifth century before Christ, and by Flor- ence in the hfteenth of our own era, are imperfect ; and the best of them are derivative : these two are consummate in themselves, and the origin of what is best in othei's. And observe, these Athenian and Florentine schools are both of equal rank, as essentially original and indepen- dent. The Florentine, being subsequent to the Greek, borrowed much from it; but it would have existed just as strongl}' — and, perhaps, in some respects more nobly — IT* 394 SCULPTUEE. liad it been the fii-st, instead of the latter of the two. The task set to each of these mightiest of the nations was, in- deed, practically the same, and as hard to the one as to the other. The Greeks found Phoenician and Etruscan art monstrous, and had to make them human. The Italians found Byzantine and Norman art monstrous, and had to make them human. The original power in the one case is easily traced ; in the other it has partly to be unmasked, because the change at Florence was, in many j)oints, suggested and stimulated by the former school. But we mistake in supposing that Athens taught Florence the laws of design ; she taught her, in reality, only the duty^ of truth. You remember that I told you the hio;hest art could do no more than rightly represent the human form. This is the simjple test, tlien, of a jperfeot school, — that it has rejyresented the human form so that it is imj>ossible to conceive of its heing letter done. And that, I repeat, has been accomplished twice only : once in Athens, once in Florence. And so narrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive schools, that it cannot be said of either of them that they represented the entire Jiuman form. The Greeks ^perfectly drew, and jperfectly moulded the body AND LIMBS ; but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance of their representing the face as well as any great Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and carved the FACE insuperably ; l)ut I l)elieve there is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by com- mand of his religion, it became his pride to despise, and liis safety to mortify. The general course of your study here renders it de- sirable that you should be accurately acquainted with the leading jprincixjles of Greek scxdpture ; but I cannot lay these before you Avithout giving undue jjrominence to Bome of the special merits of that school, unless I pre- SCULPTUKE, 395 viously indicate the relation it holds to the more advanced, though less disciplined, excellence of Christian art. In this and the last lecture of the present course,* I sliall endeavour, therefore, to mass for you, in such rude and diagram-like outline as may be possible or intelligible, the main characteristics of the two schools, completing and correcting the details of comparison afterwards ; and not answering, observe, at present, for any generalization 1 give you, except as a ground for subsequent closer and more qualified statements. And in carrying out this parallel, I shall speak indiffer- ently of works of sculpture, and of the modes of painting which propose to themselves the same objects as sculp- ture. And this, indeed, Florentine, as opposed to Yeile- tian painting, and that of Athens in the fifth century, nearly always did. I begin, therefore, by comparing two designs of the simplest kind — engravings, or, at least, linear drawings. both ; one on clay, one on copper, made in the central jieriods of each style, and representing the same goddess — Aphrodite. The first is from a patera lately found at Camirus, authoritatively assigned by Mr. ]^ewton, in his recent catalogue, to the best period of Greek art. The second is from one of the series of engravings executed, probably, by Baccio Baldini, in 14S5, out of which I chose your first practical exercise — the sceptre of Apollo. I camiot, how^ever, make the comparison accurate in all respects, for I am obliged to set the restricted type of the * The closing Lecture, on the religious temper of the Florentine, though necessary for the complete explanation of the subject to my class, at the time, introduced new ijoiuts of inquiry which I do not choose to lay before the general reader until they can be examined in fuller sequence. The present Tolume, therefore, closes with the Sixth Lecture, and that on Christian art will be given as the first of the pub- lished course on Fioreutine Sculpture. 396 SCULPTURE. Aphrodite Urania of the Greeks beside the universal Deity conceived by the Italian as governing the air, earth, and sea ; nevertheless the restriction in the mind of the Greek, and expatiation in that of the Florentine, are botli characteristic. The Greek Yenns Urania is flying in heaven, her power over the waters symbolized by her being borne by a swan, and her power over the earth by a single flower in her right hand ; but the Italian Aphrodite is rising ont of the actual sea, and only half risen ; her limbs are still in the sea, her merely animal strength fill- ing the waters with their life ; but her body to the loins is in the sunshine, her face raised to the sky ; her hand is about to lay a garland of flowers on the earth. The Yenus Urania of the Greeks, in her relation to men, has power only over lawful and domestic love ; therefore, she is fully dressed, and not only quite dressed, but most daintily and trimly : her feet delicately sandalled, her gown spotted with little stai-s, her hair bi'ushed exquisitely smooth at the top of her head, trickling in minute waves down her forehead ; and though, because there's such a quantity of it, she can't possibly help having a chignon, look how tightly she has fastened it in with her broad fillet. Of course she is married, so she must wear a cap with pretty minute pendant jewels at the border ; and a very small necklace, all that her husband can properly afford, just enough to go closely round the neck, and no more. On the contrary, the Aphrodite of the Italian, being universal love, is pure-naked ; and her long hair is thrown wild to the wind and sea. 1. These primal differences in the symbolism, observe, are only because the artists are thinking of separate 'powers ; they do not necessarily involve any national distinction in feeling. But the differences I have next to indicate are essential, and characterize the two opposed national inodes of mind. SCULPTURE. 397 First, and chiefly. The Greek Aphrodite is a very 23retty person, and the Italian a decidedly plain one. That is because a Greek thought no one could possibly love any but pretty people ; but an Italian thought that love could ffive dio-nitv to the meanest form that it in- habited, and light to the poorest that it looked upon. So his Aphrodite will not condescend to be pretty. Secondly. In the Greek Yenus the breasts are broad and full, though perfectly severe in their almost conical profile ; — (you are allowed on purpose to see the outline of the right breast, under the chiton) ; — also the right arm is left bare, and you can just see the contour of the front of the riglit limb and knee ; both arm and limb pure and firm, but lovely. The plant she holds in her hand is a branching and flowering one, the seed vessel prominent. These signs all mean that her essential function is child- bearing. On the contrary, in the Italian Yenus the breasts are so small as to be scarcely traceable ; the body strong and almost masculine in its angles ; the arms meagre aud un- attractive, and she lays a decorative garlaud of flowers on the earth. These simis mean that the Italian thouo-ht of love as tlio strength of an eternal spirit, forever helpful ; and forever crowned with flowers, that neither know seed-time nor harvest, and bloom where there is neither death nor birth. Thirdly. The Greek Aphrodite is entirely calm, and looks straightforward. Not one feature of her face is disturbed, or seems ever to have been subject to emotion. The Italian Aphrodite looks uj), her face all quivering aud burning with passion and wasting anxiety. The Greek one is quiet, self-possessed, and self-satisfied ; the Italian incapable of rest; she has had no thought nor care for herself ; her hair has been bound by a fillet like the Greeks ; but it is now all fallen loose, and clotted with 398 SCULPTURE. the sea, or clinging to her body ; only the front tress of it is caught by the breeze from her raised forehead, and lifted, in the place where the tongues of fire rest on the brows, in tlie early "Christian pictures of Pentecost, and the waving fires abide upon the heads of Angelico's seraphim. There are almost endless points of interest, great and small, to be noted in these differences of treatment. This binding of the hair hy the single fillet Qnarhs the straight course of one great system, of art method, from that Greek head which I showed you on the archaic coin of the seventh century before Christ, to this of the fifteenth of our own era — nay, when you look close, you will see the entire action of the head depends on one lock of hair falling back from the ear, which it does in compliance with the old Greek observance of its being bent there by the pressure of the helmet. That rippling of it down her shoulders comes from the Athena of Corinth ; the raising of it on her forehead, from the knot of the hair of Diana, changed into the vestal fire of the angels. But chiefly, the calmness of the features in the one face, and their anxiety in the other, indicate first, indeed, the charac- teristic difference in every conception of the schools, the Greek never representing expression, the Italian primarily seeking it ; but far more, mark for us here the utter change in the conception of love ; from the tranquil guide and cpieen of a happy terrestrial domestic life, ac- cepting its immediate pleasures and natural duties, to the agonizing hope of an infinite good, and the ever mingled joy and terror of a love divine in jealousy, crying, "Set me as a seal npon thine lieart, as a seal upon thine arm ; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave." 2. The vast issues dejDendent on this change in the concep- tion ()[' the ruling passion of the liuman soul, I will en- deavour to show you on a future occasion : in my present SCULPTUBE. 399 lecture, I shall limit myself to tlie definition of the temper of Gi'eek sculpture, and of its distinctions from Floren- tine in the treatment of any subject whatever, be it love or hatred, hope or despair. These great differences are maiidy the folloAving. 3. A Greek never expresses momentary passion / a Florentine loohs to momentarij passion as the ultimate ohject of his shill. When you are next in London, look carefully in the British Museum at the casts from the statues in the pedi- ment of the Temple of Minerva at ^gina. You have there Greek work of definite date ;— about 600 e.g., cer- tainly before 680 — of the j)^^i"est kind ; and you have the representation of a noble ideal subject, the combats of the yEacidaa at Troy, with Athena herself looking on. But there is no attempt whatever to represent expression in the features, none to give complexity of action or ges- ture ; there is no sti'uggling, no anxiety, no visible tem- l^orary exertion of muscles. There are fallen figures, one pulling a lance out of his wound, and others in attitudes of attack and defence ; several kneeling to draw their bows. But all inflict and suffer, conquer or expire, with the same smile. Secondly. The Greek, as %\\<^\ never expresses personal character, while a Florentine holds it to be the ultimate condition of beauty. You are startled, I suppose, at my saying this, having had it often pointed out to you as a transcendent piece of subtlety in Greek art, that you could distinguish Hercules from Apollo by his being stout, and Diaua from Juno by her being slender. That is very true ; but those are general distinctions of class, not spe- cial distinctions of personal character. Even as general, they are bodily, not mental. They are the distinctions, in fleshly aspect, between an athlete and a musician — between a matron and a huntress; but in nowise distinguish the 400 SCULPTUKE. simple-hearted hero from the subtle Master of the Muses, nor the wilful and fitful girl-goddess from the cruel and resolute matron-goddess. There is no j>^'^8onal character in true Greek art : — ■ abstract ideas of youth and age, strength and swiftness, virtue and vice, — yes : but there is no individuality ; and the negative holds down to the revived conventionalism of the Greek school by Leonardo, when he tells you how you are to paint young women, and how old ones ; though a Greek would hardly have been so discourteous to age as the Italian is in his canon of it, — '' old women should be represented as passionate and hasty, after the manner of Infernal Furies." " But at least, if the Greeks do not give character, they give ideal beauty ? " So it is said, without contradiction. But will you look again at the series of coins of the best time of Greek art, w^iich I have just set before you ? Are any of these goddesses or nymphs very beautiful? Certainly the Junos are not. Certainly the Deraeters are not. The Siren and Arethusa have well-formed and regu- lar features ; but I am quite sure that if you look at them without prejudice you will think neither reach even the average standard of pretty English girls. The Yenus Urania suggests at first the idea of a very charming per- son, but you will find theie is no real de2:)th nor sweetness in the contours, looked at closely. And remember, these are chosen examples ; the best I can find of art current in Greece at the great time ; and if even I were to take tlie celebrated statues, of which only two or three are extant, not one of them excels the Venus of Melos ; and she, as I have already asserted, in The Queen of the Air, p. 1(59, has nothing notable in feature except dignity and simpli- city. You need only look at two or three vases of the best time to assure yourselves that heauty of feature was, in popular art, not only unattained but unatteinj^ted ^ and SCULPTUKE. 401 finally, — and this you may accept as a conclusive proof of Greek insensitiveuess to the most subtle beauty — there is little evidence even in their literature, and none in theii* art, of their having ever perceived any beauty in infancy ^ or early childhood. And as the Greek strove only to teach what was true, so, in his sculptured symbol, he strove only to car\e what was — Eight. He rules over the arts to this day, and will for- ever, because he sought not first for heauty, not fii"st for passion, or for invention., hut for Bight ness ^ striving to display, neither himself nor his art, but the thing that he dealt with, in its simplicity. That is his specific character as a Greel'. Of course, every nation's character is con- nected with that of others surrounding or preceding it ; and in the best Greek work tou will find some things that are still false or fanciful ; but whatever in it is false or fanciful is not the Greek part of it — it is the Phoenician, or Egyptian, or Pelasgian part. The essential Hellenic stamp is veracity : — Eastern nations drew their heroes with eiolit leo-s, but the Greeks drew them with two ; — Egyptians drew their deities ^vith cats' heads, but the Greeks drew them with men's ; and out of all fallacy, dis- proportion and indefiniteness, they were, day by day, resolvedlv withdrawing and exalting themselves into restricted and demonstrable truth. 4. And now, having cut away the misconceptions which encumbered our thoughts, I shall be able to put the Greek school into some clearness of its position for you, with respect to the art of the world. That relation is strangely duplicate; for on one &ide Greeh art is the root of all sirnjilicity ; and on the other., of all comjplexity. a. On one side, J say, it is the root of all simplicity. If you were for some prolonged period to study Greek sculp- ture exclusivelv in the Elirin Room of the British Museum, and were then suddenly transported to the Hotel de Cluny, 402 SCULPTUEE. or any other museum of Gothic and barbarian workman ship, vou would imagine the Greeks were the masters of all that was grand, simple, wise, and tenderly human, opposed to the pettiness of the toys of the rest of mankind. On one side of their work they are so. From all vain and mean decoration — all weak and monstrous error, the Greeks rescue the forms of man and beast, and sculpture them in the nakedness of their true flesh, and with the fire of their living soul. Distinctively from other races, as 1 have now, perhaps to your weariness, told you, this is the work of the Greek, to give health to what was diseased, and chastisement to what was untrue. So far as this is found in any other school hereafter, it belongs to them by inheritance from the Greeks, or invests them with the brotherhood of the Greek. And this is the deep meaning of the myth of Daedalus as the giver of motion to statues. The literal ciiange from the binding together of the feet to their separation, and the other modifications of action which took place, either in progressive skill, or often, as the mere consequence of the transition from wood to stone (a fi<>;ure carved out of one wooden loa: must have necessarily its feet near each other, and hands at its sides), these literal chano-es are as nothinij, in the Greek fable, com])ared to the bestowing of apparent life. The figures of monsti'ous gods on Indian temples have their legs sepa- rate enough ; but they are infinitely more dead than the rude figures at Branchida^ sitting with their hands on their knees. And, briefiy, the work of Dicdalus is the giving of deceptive life, as that of Prometheus the giving of real life. In this aspect of it, then, I say, it is the simplest and nakedest of lovely vei-acities. But it has another aspect, or rather another pole, for the opposition is diametric. h. Ah the simjplest, so also it is the most comjplex of hiDiian art. I told you in my fifth Lecture, showing you the spotty picture of Yelasqucz, that an essential Greek SCULPTTJEE. 403 character is a liking for things that are dajppled. And you cannot but have noticed how often and how preva- lently the idea wliich gave its name to the Porch of Polygnotus, " arod ttolkCKt] " — the Painted Porch — occurs to the Greeks as connected with tiie finest art. Thus, when the htxurious city is opposed to the simple and healthful one, in the second book of Plato's Polity, you find that, next to perfumes, pretty ladies and dice, you nmst have in it " Trot/ciXto.," which, observe, both in that place and again in the third book, is the separate art of joiners' work, or inlaying; but the idea of exquisitely divided variegation or division, both in sight and sound — the " ravishing division to the lute," as in Pindar's " ttolkCKol vjxvoL " — runs through the compass of all Greek art-descrip- tion ; and if, instead of studying that art among marl)les, yon were to look at it only on vases of a fine time, your im- pression of it would be, instead of breadth and simplicity, one of universal spottiness and chequei-edness, " ev a^'yecov 'EpKecriv 7ra/ji7rotKi\ot,;ri omentum to the last fineness of fretwork in the Pisan Chapel of the Thorn. ISTot that a Greek never made mistakes. He made as many as we do ourselves, nearly ; — he died of his mistakes at last — as we shall die of them ; but so far he was sep- arated from the herd of more mistaken and more wretched nations— so far as he was Greek — it was by his rightness. He lived, and worked, and was satisfied with the fatness of his land, and the fame of his deeds, by his justice, and reason, and modesty. He became Grmoulus esurieiis, little, and hungry, and every man's errand-boy, by his ini- quity, and his competition, and his love of talk. But his Grgecism was in having done, at least at one period of his dominion, more than anybody else, what was modest, use- ful, and eternally true ; and, as a workman, lie verily did, or first suggested the doing of, everything possible to man. A. P., Sixth Lecture. PART III. ARCHITECTURE AEOHITEOTUEE. CHAPTER I. GENERAL HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. All European architecture, bad and good, old and new, is derived from Greece, throngh Rome, and coloured and perfected from the East. The history of architecture is nothina; but the tracino; of the various modes and direc- tions of this derivation. Understand this once for all : if you hold fast this great connecting clue, you may string all the types of the successive architectural inventions upon it like so many beads. The Doric and the Corinthian orders are the roots, the one of all the Romanesque, massy-capital- ed buildings — Norman, Lombard, Bizantine, and what else you can name of the kind ; and the Corinthian of all Goth- ic, Early English, French, German, and Tuscan. Now observe : these old Greeks gave the shaft ; Rome gave the arch ; the Arabs pointed and foliated the arch. The shaft and the arch, the framework and strength of architecture, are from the race of Japheth ; the spirituality and sanctity of it from Ismael, Abraham, and Shem. There is high probability that the Greek received his shaft system from Egypt ;* but I do not care to keep this earlier derivation in the mind of the reader. It is only necessary that he should be able to refer to a fixed point of origin, when the form of the shaft was first perfected. But it may be incidentally observed, that if the Greeks did indeed receive their Doric from Egypt, then the three families of the East have each contributed their * See Plate 1, page 413*. 408 GENERAL HISTORY OF ARCJIITECTURE. part to its noblest- architecture : and Ham, the servant of the others, furnishes the sustaininsr or bearino; member, the shaft ; Japheth the arch ; Shem the spiritualisation of botli. I have said that the two orders, Doric and Corinthian, are the roots of all Euroj^ean architecture. You have, per- haps, heard of five orders ; but there are only two real orders ; and there never can be any more till doomsday. On one of these orders the ornament is convex : those are the Doric, ISTorman, and whatever else yon can recollect of the kind. On the other, the ornament is concave / those are Corinthian, Early English, Decorated, and what else you recollect of that kind. The transitional form, in which the ornamental line is straight, is the centre or root of both. All other orders are varieties of those, or phan- tasms and grotesques altogether indefinite in number and species. This Greek architecture, then, with its two orders, was clumsily coj)ied and varied by the Romans with no par- ticular result, until they begun to bring the arch into ex- tensive practical service ; except only that the Doric capital was spoiled in endeavours to mend it, and the Corinthian much varied and enriched with fanciful, and often verv beautiful imagery. And in this state of things came Christianity : seized upon the arch as lier own ; decorated, and delighted in it ; invented a new Doric capital to replace the spoiled Roman one ; and all over the Roman empire set to Avork, with such materials as were nearest at hand, to express and adorn herself as best she could. This Roman Christian architecture is the exact expression of the time, very fervid and beautiful, — but very imperfect ; in many respects ignorant, and yet radiant with a strong, child-like light of tlie imagination, whicli flames up under Constantine, illumes all the shores of the Bosphorus and tlie Egean and the Adriatic sea, and then gradually, GENEKAL HISTOEY OF ARCniTEOTUEE. 409 as tlie people give themselves up to idolatry, becomes corpse-like. The ai-chitecture sinks into a settled form — a strange, gilded, and embalmed re230se: it, with the religion it expressed ; and so would have remained forever — does remain, where its languor has been undisturbed. But rough wakening was ordained for it. This Christian art of the declining empire is divided into two great branches, Western and Eastern ; one cen- tred at Rome, the other at Bizantium, of which the one is the early Christian Romanesque, properly so called, and the other, carried to higher imaginative perfection by Greek workmen, is distino-uished from it as the Bizantine. But I wish the reader, for the present, to class these two branches of art together in his mind, they being, in points of main importance, the same ; that is to say, both of tliem a true continuance and sequence of the art of old Rome itself, flowing uninterruptedly down from the fountain-head, and entrusted always to the best workmen who could be found — Latins in Italy and Greeks in Gi-eece ; and thus both branches may be ranged under the general term of Christian Romanesque, an architec- ture which had lost the refinement of Pa fiiii ->« -tR «r :Hr ntr w ; A'^^: ,V; .V^jL-nciA.rX'T^ l^p^ 4^ M Platk 2. — Roman Dome Ordeii. 414§ e < H S G PS ■< <»«^- ^JMJAfe^j^gjJAi^^^^JsgU^ii a-AAJlJlAAJUlAA>UO W>^->M\'V!:MiM^'''#i\'J'-t^i/.^v^tAi^'t\M^^ ^ 35 3* 'A'^' 28 ♦*?^ rn m m III In w m i;r m m m ul I'l ill Tn n- o -< 30 .a 37 ♦4 ;>«!$ 44 L^ AS^S^ x^'i . Plate 5. — Composite Ordek. 414t 62 58,/ 36 27 1 27- H f^ z^l «J 25 "^ Jt;: 35 n. 1=5 37 41 4J ^iR |v>^^XJ^■^AA.VAA.^AA..WV-X.■ .■V.VA■^■^^AA■\■VA.»,AA■■l■■V■l■■VA.^,A■\.^■\A.\A> V:.t.A:.^kV^VA^:,V^^,-V^\->^tcUUU\-t<<^-^V A.^A J4-^^.^^^,^.V■\^■l=..V. ^VV.^:^,V^^^ mJ^^V^$'^^J%i?iMMji^^MM&i£'!^M,^kJSt^^^%J^'- ^m far/A7x>;y2^yayzg/yA^ ^:^.'?fo^^^ OB sJ LJ v^ v_^ V-/ L/Ui. 4MMiScfe&#.MllMiM I'l-ATb; 3.— Roman Ionic Okdek. 414:t o-P. 3C-,. r»4n- • ilLi!aJL4J-3iU^.teJx'4JJIU<^^ Plate 4. — Roman CoRiNxniAN Order. 415 * 3 27 25 S 5C 30 3 35 13 15 41 Plate 6. — Tuscan Ordeu. THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTUEE. 415 5. The Tuscan^ a variety of the Doric, was founded by the Romans for the basement of buildings, and is thus dis- tinguished for its massiveness and strength. Its column is seldom hijdier than from five-and-a-half to seven times its diameter at the bottom. Plate 6. In the Doric temple the influence of the triglyph and cornice is rather in their simplicity and severity than in any beauty. The fluting of the column, I doubt not, was the Greek symbol of the bark of the tree. The beauty in it is felt to be of a low order. All the beauty it had was dependant on the precision of its ovolo, a natural curve of the most frecpient occurrence. 1>. liomanesque : Round-arch Architecture. — ISTever thoroughly develoj^ed until Christian times. It falls into two great branches, Eastern and AVestern, or 1. Bizantine, 2. Lombardic, changing respectively in process of time, with certain helps from each other, into 1. Arabian Gothic. 2. Teutonic Gothic. Its most perfect Lombardic type is the Duorao of Pisa ; its most perfect Bizantine type (I believe) is St. Mark's at Venice. Its highest glory is, that it has no corruption. It perishes in giving birth to another architecture as noble as itself. 2 S. v., 237 ; see also S. L., 86. C. Gothic: Architecture of the GaMe. 1. GENERAL DISTINCTIONS. This is the daughter of the Romanesque ; and, like the Romanesque, divided into two great branches. Eastern and Western, or 1. Pure Gcjthic, 2. Arabian Gothic, 416 THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTUEE. of whicli the latter is called Gothic only because it has many Gothic forms, jiointed arches, vaults, etc., but its spirit remains Bizantine, more especially in the form of the roof-mask. Observe the distinction between 1. The Toof.^ seen from below. 2. The roof-mask., seen from above. [By i-oof, Ruskin means the first thing that bridges space, whether lintel or arch, round or pointed.] In the Greek, the Western Romanesque, and the AVestern Gothic, the roof-mask is the gable ; in the Eastern Romanesque and Eastern Gothic it is the dome. The tliree groups, in the hands of the "Western builders, may be thus simply representcid : Fig. 2. <35, Greek, a flat or hor- izontal roof, and a low gable or roof -mask; J, Western Romanesque, a round arch for a roof and a low gable for a roof-mask ; c. Western or true Gothic, a pointed arch for a roof proper and a sharp gable for a roof-mask. Now, observe, firsts that the relation of the roof-inask to the roof proper, in the Greek type, forms that^j>(?c?iwew/, which gives its most striking character to the temple, and is the principal recij^ient of its sculptured decoration. See Doric Temple, Plate 2 (opposite). The relation of these lines, therefore, is just as important in the Greek as in the Gothic schools. Secondly., observe the steepness in the Rouianesquc and Gothic gables. This is not an unimportant distinctign, nor an undecided one. The Romanesque gable does not pass gradually into the more elevated form ; there Is a great gulf between the two ; tlie whole eifect of South- ern architecture being dependant on the use of the Hat a THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTTJEE. 41 : Fig. 3. gable, and all Northern upon that of the acute. I need not du^ell here npon the difference between the lines of an Italian village or the flat tops of most Italian towers, and the most peaked gables and spires of the North, at- taining their most fantastic development, I believe, in Belginm ; but it may be well to state the law of separa- tion, namely, tliat a Gothic gable Tnust have all its angles acute, and the Romanesque one must have the upper one obtuse ; or, to give a simple practical rule, take any gable, a or I (Fig. XIII., 2 S. V., 239), and strike a semicircle on its base ; if its top rises above, as at Z*, it is Gothic; if it falls below it, a Romanesque one ; but the best forms in each group are those which are distinct- ly steep or distinctly low. In the figure, y is the aver- age of Romanesque slope, and g of Gothic. But although we do not find a transition from one school into the other in the slojpe of the gables, there is Fig. 4. a h o d often a confusion between the two schools in the associa- tion of the gable with the arch, below it. It has just been 18* 413 THE SCHOOLS OF AKCniTECTUKE. I stated that the j)ure Romanesque condition is the round arch under the low gable, as in a, next Fig. ; the pure Gothic condition is the pointed arch under the high gable, as in h ; yet in the passage fi-om one style to the other, we sometimes find the conditions reversed ; the pointed arch under a low gable, as 6?, or the round arch under a high gable, as at g. Tlie form d occurs in the tombs of Verona, and c in the doors of Yenice. 2 S. v., Fig. XII., p. 240; Diet. Ai'ch., 34. 2. TESTS OF GOOD GOTHIC. First. Look if the roof rises in a steep gable, high above the walls. If it does not do this, there is somethinf>- wrong ; the building is not quite pure Gothic, or has been altered. Secondly. Look if the principal windows and doors have pointed arches with gables over them. If not pointed arches, the building is not Gothic; if they have not any gables over them, it is either not pure, or not iirst-rate. If, however, it has the steep roof, the pointed arch, and the gable all united, it is nearly certain to be a Gothic building of a very fine time. Thirdly. Look if the arches are cusped or aperture foliated. If the building has met the first two conditions, it is sure to be foliated somewhere ; but, if not everywhere, the ]:)arts which are unfoliated are imperfect unless they are lai'ge beariug arches, or small and sharp arches in groups, forming a kind of foliation by their own multiplicity, and relieved by sculpture and rich mouldings. The upper windows, for instance, in the east end of Westminster Abbey are imperfect for want of foliation. If there be Jio foliation anywhere, the building is assuredly imperfect Gothic. The term foil or feuille being universally applied to #91 fli ^gk ^^ "^^ THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTUEB. 419 the separate lobes of leaves, the pleasure received from them being the same as that which we feel in the triple, quadruple, or other , . radiated leaves of vegeta- ^^^ss J^^ .^^ ^^ tion, joined with the per- w%i r ^W^ ^^^^ /^^ ception of a severely ge- ometrical order and sj'm- metrj. A few of the most common forms are represented, unconfused bv exterior mouldings, in the annexed, Fig. 5. Foliation, therefore, is equally descriptive of the most perfect conditions both of the simple arch and the traceries by which, in later Gothic, it is filled ; and it is said to be geo- metrical as its fio-ures can Fig. 6. be formed by the compass. Fourthly. If the building ineets all the lirst three con- ditions, look if its arches in gejicral, whether of windows and doors, or of minor ornamentation, are carried on true shafts with bases and capitals. If they are, then the build- ing is assuredly of the finest Gothic style ; and this is all that is necessary to determine that question. 2 S. V.,251. I. Gothic Flexibility and Yaeiety oi^ Gothic Schools. The variety of the Gothic schools is the more healthy and beautiful, because in manj^ cases it is entirely un- studied, and results, not from the mere love of change, but from practical necessity. For in one point of view Gothic is not only the best, but the only rational architecture, as being that which can fit itself most easily to all services, 420 THE SCHOOLS of architectuke. vulgar or noble. Undefiued in its slope of roof, height of shaft, breadth of arch, or disposition of ground plan, it can shrink into a turret, expand into a hall, coil into a staircase, or spring into a spire, with undegraded grace and unexhausted energy ; and whenever it finds occasion for change in its form or purpose, it submits to it without the slightest sense of loss eithei* to its unity or majesty,— subtle and flexible like a fiery serpent, but ever attentive to the voice of the charmer. And it is one of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they never suffered ideas of outside symmetries and consistencies to intei'fere in the real use and value of w^hat they did. If they wanted a window, the}^ opened one ; a room, they added one ; a buttress, they built one ; utterly regardless of any estab- •lished conventionalities of external appearance, knowing (as indeed it always happened) that such daring interrup- tions of the formal plan would rather give additional interest to its symmetry than injure it, so that, in the best times of Gothic, a useless window would rather have been opened in an unexpected place for the sake of surprise, than a useful one forbidden for the sake of symmetry. Eveiy successive architect employed upon a great woik built the pieces he added in his own way, utterly regard- less of the style adopted by his predecessors ; and if two towers were raised in nominal correspondence at the sides of a cathedral front, one was iiearly sure to be different from the other, and in each the style at the top to be different from the style at the bottom. 2 S. v., 192, IT. Aspiration as a Law of Gothic Schools. 1 need not remind you of the effect upon the northern mind which has always been produced by the heaven- pointing spire, nor of the theory which has been founded upon it of the general meaning of Gothic Architecture as expressive of religious aspiration. In a few minutes, THE SCHOOLS OF ARCHITECTURE. 42 L jon may ascertain the exact value of that theory, and the degree in which it is true. 1, The first tower of which we hear as built upon the earth, was certainly built in a species of aspiration ; but I do not suppose that any one here will think it was a reliirious one. "Go to now. Let us build a tower whose top may reach unto heaven." From that day to this, "whenever men have become skilful architects at all, there has been a tendency in them to build high ; not in any religious feeling, but in mere exuberance of spirit and power — as they dance or sing — with a certain mingling of vanity — like the feeling in which a child builds a tower of cards; and, in nobler instances, with also a strong sense of, and delight in the majesty, height, and strength of the building itself, such as we have in that of a lofty tree or a peaked mountain. Add to this instinct the frequent necessity of points of elevation for watch-towers, or of points of offence, as in towers built on the ramparts of cities, and, finallv, the need of elevations for the trans- mission of sound, as in the Turkish minaret and Christian belfry, and you have, I thiidc, a sufficient explanation of the tower-building of the world in general. Look through your Bibles oidy, and collect the various expressions with reference to tower-building there, and yon will have a very couiplete idea of the spirit in which it is for the most part undertaken. You begin with that of Babel; then you remember Gideon beating down the Tower of Penuel, in order more completely to humble the pride of the men of the city ; you remember the defence of the tower of Shechem against Abimelech, and the death of Abimelech by the casting of a stone from it by a woman's hand ; you recollect the husljandman building a tower in his vineyard, and the beautiful expressions in Solomon's Spng — " The Tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus;" " I am a wall, and my breasts like towers ; " — you 422 THE SCHOOLS OF ARCHITECTUEE. recollect the Psalmist's expressions of love and delight, " Go ye round about Jerusalem ; tell the towers thereof : mark ye well her bulwarks ; consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following." You see in all these cases how completely the tower is a subject of human pride, or delight, or defence, not in anywise asso- ciated with religious sentiment ; the towers of Jerusalem being named in the same sentence, not with her temple, but with her bulwarks and palaces. And thus, when the tower is in reality connected with a place of worship, it was generally done to add to its magnificence, but not to add to its religious expression. And over tlie whole of the world, you have various species of elevated buildings, the Egyptian pyramid, the Indian and Chinese pagoda, the Turkish minaret, and the Christian belfry — all of them raised either to make a show from a distance, or to cry from, or swing bells in, or hang them round, or for some other very human reason. Thus, when tlie good people of Beanvais were building their cathedral, that of Amiens, then just completed, had excited the admiration of all France, and the peoj)le of Beauvais, in their jealousy and determination to beat the people of Amiens, set to work to build a tower to their own cathedral as high as they possibly could. They built it so high that it tumbled down, and they were never able to finish their cathedral at all — it stands a wreck to this day. But you will not, I should think, imagine this to have been done in heaven- ward aspiration. Mind, however, I don't blame the people of Beauvais, except for their bad building. I think their desire to beat the citizens of Amiens a most amiable weakness, and only wish I could see the citizens of Edin- l)urgh and Glasgow* inflamed with the same enuilation, - - ^ ■ * I did not, at tlie time of the delivery of these lectures, know how many Gothic towers the worthy Glaswegians have lately built : that of St. Peter's, in particular, being a most meritorious effort. m Fi^.lO ^§ M : . Tower F.gO 1li««4«r»KMB [oJJ(»JSl*C«.St P3*,P«t!.N V THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTUEK. 423 building Gotliic towers instead of manufactory chimneys; only do not confound a feeling whicli, though healthy and i-io-ht, may be nearly analogous to that in which you play a cricket-match, with any feeling allied to your hope of heaven. Such being the state of the case with respect to tower buildiuir in rreneral, let me follow for a few minutes the changes whicli occur in the towers of northern and southern architects. 2. Many of us are familiar with the ordinary form of the Italian bell-tower or campanile (Plate 15). From the eighth century to the tliirteenth there was little change in that form : "'^ four-square, rising high and without taper- ing into the air, story above story, they stood like giants in the quiet fields beside the piles of the basilica or the Lom- bardic church, in this form {fion the sympathy of the spectator, we are to use con- trast ; but, when we wish to extend the operation of tlie impression, or to awaken the selfish feelings, we are to use assimilation. Tliis i-ule, however, becomes complicated where the fea- ture of contrast is not altogether passive; that is, where we wish to give a conception of any qualities inherent in that feature, as well as in what it relieves ; and, besides, it is not THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTUKE. 437 always easy to kuow whether it will be best to increase the abstract idea, or its operation. In most cases, energy, the degree of influence, is beauty ; and, in many, the duration of influence is monotony. In others, duration is sublimity, and energy painful : in a few, energy and duration are attainable and delightful together. It is impossible to give rules for judgment in every case ; but the following points must always be observed : — 1. When we use contrast, it mast be natural, and likely to occur. Thus, the contrast in tragedy is the natural consequence of the character of human existence : it is what we see and feel every day of our lives. When a contrast is unnatural, it destroys the effect it should enliance. Canning called on a French refugee in 1794. The conversation naturally turned on the execution of the queen, then a recent event. Overcome by his feelings, the Parisian threw himself upon the ground, exclaiming, in an agony of tears, " La bonne reine ! la j^auvre reine ! " Presently he sprang up, ex- claiming, " Cependant, Monsieur, il faut vous faire voir mon petit cliien danser." This contrast, though natural in a Parisian, was unnatural in the nature of things, and therefore injurious. 2dly. When the general influence, instead of being extei"- nal, is an attribute or energy of the thing itself, so as to bestow on it a permanent character, the contrast which is obtained by the absence of that character. is injurious and becomes what is called an interruption of the unity. Thus, the raw and colorless tone of the Swiss cottage, noticed at page 36, is an injurious contrast to the richness of the landscape, which is an inherent and necessary energ}' in surrounding objects. So, tlie character of Italian landscape is curvilinear ; therefore, the outline of the buildings entering into its composition must be arranged on cmwi- linear principles, as investigated at page 130. p. a. 3dly. But, if the pervading character can be obtained in 438 THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTUKE. the single object by different means, the contrast will be delightful. Thus, the elevation of character which the hill districts of Italy possess by the magnificence of their forms, is transmitted to the villa by its dignity of detail, and simplicity of outline ; and the rectangular interruption to the curve of picturesque blue country, partaking of the nature of' that ^vhich it interrupts, is a contrast giving relief and interest, while any Elizabethan acute angles, on the contrary, would have been a contrast obtained by the absence of the pervading energy of the universal curvi- linear character, and therefore imj)roper. 4thly. When the general energy, instead of pervading simultaneously the multitude of objects, as with one spirit, is independently possessed and manifested by every indi-. vidual object, the result is repetition, not unity: and con- trast is not merely agreeable, but necessary. Thus, in Fig. 7, the number of objects, forming the line of beauty, is pervaded by one simple energy; but in Fig. 8 that energy is separately manifested in each, and the result is painful monotony. Parallel right lines, without grouping, are always liable to this objection ; and, therefore, a dis- tant view of a flat country is never beautiful, unless its horizontals are lost in richness of vegetation, as iu Lom- bardy ; or broken with masses of forest, or with distant Fig. 7.— Hiirmony of Contrast. hills. If none of these interruptions take place, there is immediate monotony, and no introduction can be more THE SCHOOLS OF AKCHITECTUKE. 439 delightful than such a tower in the distance as Strasburg or, indeed, than any architectural combination of verticals. to? Fig. S. — Harmony of Analogy. Peterborough is a beautiful instance of such an adaptation. It is always, then, to be remembered that repetition is not assimilation. 5thly. When any attribute is necessarily beautiful, that is, beautiful in every place and circumstance, we need hardly say tliat the contrast consisting in its absence is painful. It is only when beauty is local or accidental that opposition may be employed. 6thly. The edge of all contrasts, so to speak, should be as soft as is consistent with decisive effect. We mean, that a gradual change is better than instantaneous transfigura- tion ; for, though always less effective, it is more agreeable. But this must be left very mu.ch to the judgment. 7thly. We must be very careful in ascertaining whether any given contrast is obtained by freedom from external, or absence of internal, energy, for it is often a difhcult point to decide. Thus, the peace of the Alpine valley might, at first, seem to be a contrast caused by the want of the character of strength and sublimity manifested in the hills ; but it is really caused by the freedom from the gen- ei'al and external influence of violence and desolation. T/iese, then, are principles ajypUcable to all arts, without a single exception, and of particular importance in paint- ing and architecture. It will sometimes be found that one rule comes in the way of another ; in which case, the most 440 THE SCHOOLS OF AKCniTECTUEE. important is, of course, to be obeyed ; but, in general, they will afford us an easy means of arriving at certain results, when, before, our conjectures must have been vague and unsatisfactory. We may now proceed to determine the most proper ybrm for the mountain villa of England. CONTRAST, OR FORM FOR THE MOUNTAIN VH^LA OF ENGLAND. We must Jlrsi observe the prevailing lines of the near hills : if they are vertical, there will most assuredly be monotony, for the vertical lines of ci*ag are never grouped, and accordingly, by o\n' fourth rule, the prevailing lines of our edifice must be horizontal. In Fig. 9, which is a village half-way up the Lake of Tliun, the tendency of the hills is vertical ; this tendency is repeated by the build- ings, and the composition becomes thoroughly bad : but, at Fig. 27, P. A., we have the same vertical tendeucy iji the hills, while the grand lines of the buildings are hori- zontal, and the composition is good. But, if the prevailing lines of the near hills be curved (and they will l)e either curved or vertical), we must not interrupt their character, for the energy is then pervading, not individual ; and, therefore, our edifice must be rectangular. In both cases, therefore, the grand outline of the villa is the same ; but in the one we have it set off by contrast, in the other by assimilation ; and we must work out in the architecture of each edifice the princi])le on which we have begun. Com- mencing with that in which we are to work by contrast: the vertical crags must be the result of violence, and the infiuence of destruction, of distortion, of torture, to speak strongly, must be evident in their every line. We free the building from this influence, and give it repose, graceful- ness, and ease ; and we have a contrast of feeling as well as of line, by which the desirable attributes are rendered evident in both objects, while the duration of neither THE SCHOOJLS OF AKCHITECTUEE. Ml energy being allowed, there can be no disagreeable effect upon the spectator, who will not shrink from the terror of 'S^si^gSJ^^^ ^FF^^ =i\—z =• Kg. 9. the crags, nor feel a want of excitement in the gentleness of the buildino;, 2d7i/. Solitude is powerful and evident in its effect on the distant hills, therefore, the effect of the villa should be joyous and life-like (not flippant, however, but serene) ; and, by rcuderiug it so, we shall enhance the sul)limity of the distance, as we showed in speaking of the AVestmore- land cottage ; and, therefore, we may introduce a number of windows with good effect, provided that they are kept in horizontal lines, and do not disturl) the repose which we have shown to be necessary. These three poiuts of contrast will be quite enough : there is no other external influence from which we can 19" 442 THE SCHOOLS OF AECHITECTUKE. free tlie building, and the pervading energy must be com- Hiunicated to it, or it will not harmonize with our feelings ; therefore, hef ore proceedings we had hetter determine how this contrast is to he carried oiit in detail. Our lines are to he horizontal ^ then the roof must he as flat as possihle. We need not think of snow, because, how- ever much we may slope the roof, it will not slip off from the material which, here, is the only proper one ; and the roof of the cottage is always very flat, which it would not be if there were any inconvenience attending such a form. But, for the sake of the second contrast, we are to have gracefulness and ease, as well as horizontality. The7i we' tnust hreah the line of the roof into different elevations, yet not onaJdng the difference great, or v^e shall have visi- hle verticals. And this must not be done at random. Take a flat line of beauty, a d, l^^ig. 10, for the length of the edifice. Strike a h horizontally from «, c d from d ^ let fall the verticals ; make c y equal m n, the maximum ; and draw h f The curve should be so far continued as tliat h /'shall be to c d as c d to a h. Then Ave are sure of a beautifully jiroportioned form. Much variety may be introduced by using different curves; joining paraboles with cycloids, etc. : but the use of curves is always the best mode of obtaining good forms. Further ease may be obtained by added combinations. For instance, strike another curve {a q h) through the flat line a h; bisect the o^^"^^ -^ r.-^ T/^*= ^^^ h — ^9 7» ^^^•^^ "^"^^ c m ing is the manner of execution by which the artist produces Jiniish ; it is the method of manipulation peculiar to each artist in the use of his pencil. Hanging-style. — That to which the hinges of doors and windows are fixed. 4:00 GLOSSARY. HAR5IOST. — The pi-incipal means of producing effect. It consists in the unity, connection, similarity, and agreement of one part with another, under the relations of form, light, and colour. Parallelism or repetition is an element of harmony, and also of monotony. Harmony of Chiaroscuro is when the lights and shades are in the same general strength. Harmony of C'oloursis a repose of tone with- out sameness of tint throughout the picture. Repose is harmony. Hem. — The spiral projecting jjart of an Ionic capital. Heptastyle. — A building with seven columns in front. Hexastyle. — A building with six columns in front. Horizontal Like. — See Perspective, in text. Hovel. — A niche or canopy for a statue. Hue. — A mixture of two or more primary colours. Hypcetukal. — Having no roof. Ideal. — The ideal is that which unites in one form all the excellences found only in different individual forms, as the Medicean Venus. This, considered as the ideal, is not a portrait statue of an individual model, but is an aggregate of many models, each of which contrib- uted its peculiar excellence. Ruskin says, " Any work of art which j represents, not a material object, but the mental conception of a ' material object, is, in the primary sense of the word, ideal. Raphael \said. ' To paint a beautiful woman I must see several.' " Imitation is such a resemblance as to make anything to so look like what it is not as nearly to deceive. See this fully discussed, 1 M. P., ch. iv. Impasto. — The thickness or thinness of paint. Rembrandt and Salvator Rosa used thick ; Raphael and Guido, so thin that the threads of the canvas and crayon outline may be seen through it. I.MPOST. — The point of junction between an arch and its pier or col- umn. Intaglio. — Figures cut into the material used for seals, etc. INTERCOLUMNIATION. — The Space between the columns of a temple or portico. INTEKPENETRATION is a principle of great technical value in composi- tion. It consists in carrying portions of light into the principal masses of shade, and placing small spaces of dark upon light into proper balance and relation to each other. It is, in fact, contrast artfully contrived, and its "success depends on proportion and bal- ance. The principle refers to an exchange of colours also, carrying the warm colours into cold colours, and cold into warm. GLOSSARY. 461 J. JuBE. — A gallery or rude loft over the choir, to which was generally at- tached a piilpit. K. Keep. — The central tower of a castle. Keeping.— An attention to the proper subserviency of tone and colour in every part of a pictui'e, so that the general effect is harmonious to the eye, all parts keeping together. When this is unattended to, a harshness is produced which gives improper isolation to indi- vidual parts, and the picture is said to be out of keeping. Knob. — The boss at the crowning of a groin. Key-stone. — The central stone at the top of an arch. King-post. — The middle po-st in a roof. Lectern. — A desk at which the Scripture lessons are read. Lintel. — A horizontal beam over a doorway or window. Linear Perspective, in contradistinction to aerial perspective, is that art which matheniatically determines the gradation which every line and angle in a building should take in a picture in refer- ence to a vanishing point. Line op Beauty. — The ideal line formed by a graceful figure of any kind. The w&yj line. Line of Grace. — The serpentine line. Loggia. — A covered space with open sides. Loop. — A small nai-row window. LoDVRE. — A window in a turret. M. Maciitcolations. — Openings in a parapet, set out on corbels, through which missels may be dropped on assailants below. MACniNiSTS. — Painters remarkable for gaudiness of colour, fluttering di'aperies, and unnatural exaggeration. Manner. — 1. A peculiarity of habit, whether good or bad, by which an artist's work may be known. 3. In a more special sense the man- 462 GLOSSARY. ner of a master is nothing but his peculiar way of choosing, imag- ining, and representing the subjects of his pictures. It includes what are called his style and handling; that is, the ideal part, and the medumieal part. The style of a painter may be known by that which is 'peculiar to Mm^ just as that of a writer may be known by his handwriting, fashion of words, choice of subject?, and turn of phrases. Mannered. — -An aflfectation of style. Mannerism. — The excess or obtrusion of a style. Mannerist.— One who practises a marked peculiarity of style adopted, improperly, for all subjects. Masses. — To mass a part is to give prominence to principal things and to reject those details which cut it up into little pieces. Members. — Different parts of an entablature, moulding, etc. Metope. — The space between the triglyph on the frieze of the Doric order. Merlon. — The solid part of an embattled parapet. Miserere. — Choir seats for the aged clergy. Mitre. — Anything joined at an angle of forty-five degrees. Mitre.— The head-covering of a bishop, cardinal, etc. MoDiLLiON. — A horizontal bracket under a Corinthian cornice. Module. — The semi-diameter of a column. MoNOTRiGLYPnic . — Triglyphs only over each column. / Morbidezza. — The soft and delicate flesh-colouring of Titian and Cor- reggio. MuLLioN. — The tracery and perpendicular divisions in the interior framework of a Gothic window. MuTULES. — A flat modillion ornament under a Doric cornice. K Naturalisti. — Artists who strictly copied nature, as the pre-Ra- phaelite. Naos, or Cella. — The interior of a temple. Nave. — The long central part of the church for the people. It is from the Latin navis^ a ship. Newel. — The post at the foot of stairs. Nimbus. — The nimbus is of Pagan origin, used to ornament the heads of the statues of their emperors and divinities, and to protect them from the filth of birds, and with much difficulty, about the eleventh century, was admitted into Christian art. The aureola was for the whole body. Among the miniatures of the Htn'tus Deliciarum, GLOSSARY. 463 painted in 1180, is a representation of the Celestial Paradise, in which the heads of the Virgin, the apostles, the martyrs, and con- fessors wear the golden nimbus ; those of the prophets and the patriarchs, the white or silver nimbus ; those of the saints who strove with temptation, the red nimbus ; those who were married have the nimbus green ; while the beatified penitents have theirs of yellowish white. The nimbus is variously formed , but generaUy round. O. Ogee. — The French for Gothic. A moulding with contrasted curves, convex on the upper side, and concave at the under. Olive. — A mixture of purple and green. Oratory. — A larivate chapel for prayer. Order. — An entire column, consisting of base, shaft, and capital, with an entablature. There are strictly three ; the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The Tuscan and the Composite are but modi- fications of the other three. Oriel. — -A window projecting from a wall, used originally as a little oratory, a place for private prayer. Ordonnance. — The arrangement of a design. OuTLiNE.^See text. OvoLO.— A moulding, the quarter of » round of a circle. P. Palette. — Apiece of wood, usually of walnut or mahogany, upon which the painter lays the pigments with which he paints his pic- tures. To "set the palette " is to lay upon it the pigments in cer- tain order, selecting them according to the key in which the picture is to be painted, and arranging them very much as the colours are to be distributed on tlie canvas. Parapet. — A breastwork around a roof or wall. Pastel.- — Coloured crayons. Pastel paintings have too soft and mealy a look, or moulder by the natural disintegration of the chalk. Pasticcio. — An original picture closely after the maimer of another artist. Pedestal. — A base, die, and cornice, supporting a statue, and some- times a column. Pediment. — The obtuse gable over the portico of a classic temple, sup- ported by columns. Pendant. — A hanginff ornament on roofs or ceiluiga. 464 GLOSSAEY. Pentasttle. — A portico of five columns. Pentacle.— A five-pointed star or double triangle ornament, the sym- bol of tlie Trinity. Penthouse. — A covering or canopy over a door or window, or stairs. Perches. — Brackets in churches, for images or candlesticks. Peripteral. — A temple with columns on all sides. Peristyle. — A colonnade around the interior of a square. Piazza.— Arcades ; or an open area or square surrounded by arcades. Picturesque.— Romantic scenery, or the variety of light and shade, colour, and broken surfaces. In architecture a ruin. JSfo new build- ing can be picturesque. Pier. — A wall between two windows ; the two legs of an arch— the supports of a bridge. Pigment. — The vegetable, animal, and mineral coloured materials used in painting; they are opaque, and hide all beneath them, or trans- parent, and combine when laid one above another, as transparent yel- low over a blue ground produces green, etc. Pilaster. — A square shallow pillar, engaged or attached to a wall. Pillar.— Any round or polygonal shaft, disengaged from the wall, and not conformed in the proportions of a column of the classical orders, used to support an arch or pediment. Pinnacle. — A small spire or pointed termination to towers, turrets, and buttresses. Pix. —A small vessel to contain ftie consecrated wafer or host. Plan. — A map of a building. Plinth. — The block under the basse of a column. Podium. — A running pedestal, supporting a series of columns round a building. A stylobate. Point of distance. See text. Point of sight. See text. Porch. — A small covered entrance into a building. Portable Art. — Statues or cabinet pictures as distinguished from, frescoes. Portico. — The vestibule of a temijle ; a covered walk. pRE-RArHAi<^HTES.— A school of modern artists who profess to follow the mode of study and expression adopted by the early painters who flourished before the time of Raphael, and whose principle was that of absolute uncompromising truth in all that it does, obtained by working everythmg down to the most minute detail from nature, and from nature only ; or,, as must have happened, not jn-eftHn miijht have happened, in contradi.stinction to the style or rendering of any particular school of art. Every pre-Raphaelite landscape background is painted to the last touch, and in the open GLOSSARY. 4G5 air, from the thing' itself. Every pre-Raphaelite figure, however studied in expression, is a true portrait of some living person. Every minute accessory is painted in the same manner. This is the main pre-Raphaelite principle. Primary Colours. — Red, blue, and yellow. Princip.vlity. — A leading idea. See text. Proxaos. — The vestibule of a temple. Proscenium. — The front imrt of the stage before the curtain of a theatre. Proportion. — A suitable relation of height to breadth ; symmetry; a balance of equal horizontal parts. Propyleum. — A vestibule to the gates of a building, as at Athens. Prostyle. — A building with columns in front only. Purlins. ^ — Horizontal timbers sustaining the common rafters. PuLViNATED. — A convex instead of a flat frieze. PrcNOSTYLE. — Columns one and a half diameters apart. Q. Quadrangle. — A square or court surrounded by buildings. Quatrefoil. — An ornament of four leaves formed by fovu* points in a circle called cusps. Quoins. — The corners, sometimes with ornamented stones. R. Rails.^ — In framing the pieces horizontal to the perpendicular stUes. Raking Cornices. — The inclined cornices of a pediment. Relieto. — The projection of an architectural ornament, either high or low relief. Renaissance. — Literally neic birth. A term applied to the revival of classic art and literature in the fifteenth centuiy, resulting, so far as decoration is concerned, from a discovery by Raphael of the paint- ings in the then recently exhumed Thermae of Titus, of classic original. Respond. — A pilaster or half pier to sustain an arch. Rere-dos. — The screen at the back of the altar ; sometimes applied to the screen in front of the choir, upon which the rood or cnicifix was placed. Rib.— The mouldings of ceilings, vaults and groins. Ridge. — The top of the roof. Rood. — A crucifix. 20* 466 GLOSSARY. llooD-LOFT. — The top of tlae screen for the rood. Rose Window. — A circular window in which the muHions converge like the spokes of a wheel, sometimes called Catherine wheel. Russet.— Orange and purple mixed. Schools of Akt. — Certain modes of drawing and painting of some great master, and followed by his pupils, have led to the founda- tion of well-defined " schools." A new line of subjects can hardly be said to originate a school. But Raphael in his jjower of expres- sion, Titian in his force of colour, Rembrandt in centralizing light, and Turner in his original treatment of landscape, may be said to have been masters, and given something new to art, as teachers and jDatterns to students. I. — The Florentine School, or the school of Expression, founded by Fiesole and Masaccio. This school diverged into different styles, consisting of 1. Such as studied exact natural truth, like the pre- Raphaelites now, led by Ghirlandajo. 2. Such as combined with such truth a species of poetic treatment, as Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli and Gozzoli. 8. Such as adopted a sculpturesque treat- ment of the figure, as seen in the works of Verrochio. To this school belonged Da Vinci and Michael Angelo. II. — The Roman School, or the school of Form, led by Raphael and adorned by Giulio Romano and Marratti, Mazzolina, Zucchero, and Baraccio. III. — The Venetian School, or the school of Colour, led by Titian and distinguished by Tintoretto and Paul Veronese. IV. — The Lombard or Bolognian School, or the school of the Eclectics, founded by the Caracci. Its aim was to " adopt the design of the Roman, with the colour of the Lombard school, adding the motion and shade of that of Venice ; join the just symmetry of Raphael with the fower of IMichael Augclo, the purity of Correggio, the truth of Titian, the decorum and solidity of Tebaldi, the learned invention of Primaticcio, and a little of Parmegiano's grace.'''' Ludo- vico Caracci and his cousins, Agostino and Annibale Caracci, and Correggio, Guido Rene, Guercino, Giardano and Nicholas Poussin distinguished this school. V. — The German School was founded by the versatile genius of Albert Durer, and numbered in its disciples Holbein and Mengs. It was pre-Raphaelite, adhering closely to nature, as is seen in its modem representatives, Coruelius, Kaulbach, and Overbeck. GLOSSAKY. 46Y VI. — The Flemish ScJiool combines with the German after the middle of the sixteenth century. The Van Eycks began it. Its great glories centre in. Rubens and Van Dyck. Teniers was also of it. VII. — The DutcJi School had Rembrandt for its glory. Its great artistic excellences were mainly bestowed on unexalted subjects. Ostade, Gerard Dow, Paul Potter, Jan Steen, Terburg and Woavermans, Berghem, Both, Hobbema and Van de Velde, and a host of others, were of this school. VIII. — Hie Spanish School^ while it possesses great power, has for its characteristic a certain ghom and icildness belonging to the national mind. The painters of this school have been divided into three principal schools, local rather than characteristic. Velasquez was of the Madrid school, Murillo of Seville, and Ribera, known in Italy as Spagnoletto, from Valencia. Murillo is known most by his "Assumption," in the Louvre, and Ribera by the horribleness of his subjects. IX. — The French School is illustrious through its Claude Lorraine, Gas- par Poussin, Watteau, Le Brun, David, Gericault, Delaroche, Ingres, Vemet, Ary SchefEer, Rosa Bonheur, Gerome — the number is legion. X. — The English School may be said to have been founded by Hogarth. Its greatest names are Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, West, Wilkie, Lawrence, and Turner. ScOLiA.— A hollow moulding, chiefly used in the base of the Ionic column. Scumbling. — The same as glazing. It is done by colours transpa- rent and diaphanous, having but little body, which are thinly scumbled with a fitch pencil over colours that are more staring, in order to bring them down and sweeten them into a harmony with those about them. Shaft.— That part of the column between the base and the capital. Sketch:. — A perfect but incomplete drawing. Soffit. — The under surface of any arch, Mntel, or projecting mould- ing or member. Spandril. — The triangular space between an arch and the right angle above it. Spike. — The pyramidical structure crowning a tower or turret. Splay. — The expansion given to doors and windows by slanting their sides. Stalls. — Elevated seats on the sides of a choir, with canopies over them, for the clergy. Still-life. — Pictures of fruits, flowers, game, furniture, etc. 468 GLOSSARY. Stipple. — Painting urith the point of a pencil by dots and short strokes. Stody. — A carefully finished record in form, or colour and form, of the whole or some part of a picture or a single object. A sketc/i, as distinguished from a study, will generally mean the completion of a stage of the whole picture, or a part of it, as a study is the whole of a part. A study is a finished drawing, as of a head, a hand, or a limb, etc. Stump. — A roll of soft leather paper or cloth, cut tapering, and used with the powder of the crayon in drawing. Style. — The manner peculiar to a school or an artist in composition, drawing, and colouring. Wiakelmann assigns to Grecian art four styles. 1. The ancient style, or that which preceded Phidias ; 2. The grand style, or that which he established ; 3. The graceful style of Praxiteles and Apelles ; 4. The imitative style of subse- quent and worthless artists. Stylobate. — An uninterrupted base or continuous pedestal on which a line of columns is placed. SuPPORTrNG. — 1. Of a figure. Supporting a figure is said of the inter- position of objects, or even the effects of chiaroscuro, between parts that would otherwise appear insulated, or be thrown forward in too separate and distinct relief from the ground, making a gap in the gi'oup to which the figure belongs, and rendering the effect of the compo.sition meagre. This fault of emptiness is obviated by a skilful adjustment of draperies, by a happy arrangement of ob- jects in i^erspective or otherwise, which fiU \\\i the bare spots, but without obtrusion, so that they are felt to be there rather than re- marked, or, finally and simply, by a learned management of light and shadow. 2. Supporting colour. Colours are said to be sup- ported by similar tints adjacent, but inferior in brilliancy, as blues by purples, crimsons by reddish browns, and yellows by orange. Observe, the supporting tints must not only be similar, though in- ferior in brilliancy, but they must be adjacent. When introduced in different pails of the ijic'aire, colour is not siipported, but echoed. Symmetry. — Equality or balance of parts horizontally placed. Systyle. — Columns placed two diameters apart. Tabernacle. — A canopy over seats, for the clergy and choir. Tetrastyle. — A portico with four columns In front. GLOSSAET. 469 TnsTT. — Any colour reduced by white. Tone. — The prevailing tint or shade of colour. TOKSO. — The human trunk without limbs, used especially of that of Hercules in the Vatican. Torus. — A round moulding at the base of columns. Tracery. — The ornamental work in the head of a window or screen. Transept. — The anns of the cross in a cruciform church. Transom. — A horizontal bar dividing a window. Trefoil. — An ornament representing the three leaves of a flower, formed within a circle. Triglyph. — Three vertical channels in a Doi-ic frieze. Truss. — Truss means to tie. The thrust or spread of a roof or arch may be resisted by an outside buttress resisting the comiiression, or by the tension of a truss tying its feet together, like a string on the ends of a bow. Tudor Flowers. — An upright flower employed for open parapets. Turret — Small towers placed at the angles of buildings. Volute. — The spirals on an Ionic capital. AN ALPHABETICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OP PAINTEES, SCULPTOKS, AND ARCHITECTS, AND AN TO PAINTEES AND PICTURES EEFEEEED TO IN RUSKIN'S MODERN PAINTERS, BY LETTERS AND FIGURES. NATION. NAME AND PROFESSION. BOEN. DIED. Gr. Agatharcus, the inventor of perspective scenery in theatres Painter B. c. 480 Gr. Ageldas /Sculptor f . b. c. 5th cent. Gr. Age^ander (sculptor of " Laocoon and his Children'') Sculptor b. c. 5th cent. Ital. Albano, Francis ("the painter of the Gra- ces") Painter 1578 1060 Ital. Alberti, Leo Baptist, a Florentine Pn., Sc. it Arcfiit 1400 1490 Ital. AlbcrtinelU. Mariotto Painter 1520 Gr. Alcamenes (pui)il of Phidias) Sculptor f. B. O. 450 Scotch. Allan, Sir William Painter Amer. Allston, Washington Poet dk JBistor. Painter . . 1779 184.3 Ital. Angelo, Michael (Buonarotti), a pre-emi- nent Pa., Sc. & Architect 1474 156-3 Ital. Angelo, Michael (Caravaggio) Painter 15(1!) 1609 Ital. Angelico da Fiesole Painter 1387 1445 Angel choirs of, ii. 219 ; attained the highest beauty, ii. 1.34 ; cramped by traditional treatment, ii. 124 : decoration of, ii. 214 ; distances of, iv. 347 : finish of, ii. 82, lii. 126 ; his hatred of fog, iv. 53; influence of hills upon, iv. .350; introduction of portrai- ture in pictitres by. ii. 119, iii. 'ib ; his purity of life, iii. 74 ; spir- itual beauty of, iii. 35 : treatment of Passion subjects by, ii. 127 ; nnison of expressional with pictorial power in, iii. 30 ; contrast between, and Wouvermans, v. 298 ; contrast between, and Sal- vator, V. 299. Pictures referred to — Annunciation, ii. 171 ; Cru- cifixion, i. 81, ii. 215; Infant Christ, ii. 217: Last Judgment, i. 83 : Last Judgment and Paradise, ii. 219, iii. 59; Spirits in Pri- son at the Feet of Christ, fresco in St. Mark".s. ii. 55 (note) ; St. Pinninic of Fiesole, ii. 55 ; Vita di Christo, ii. 214. Gr. Apellea. the most celebrated of ancient painters Painter f . B. C. .3.30 Gr. Apollodorus, an Athenian Painter f. b. c. 408 Ital. Appiani, of Milan Painter 17.54 1817 Gr. Aristides, of Thebes Painter f. b. c. 240 473 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. NATION. Fr. Ital. Erig. Flem. It;il. Eng. Irisb. Ital. Ital. Ital. Eng. Ital. Flem. Plem. Eng. Dutch. Fr. Swiss. Eng. Ital. Dutch. Dutch, Flem. Ital. Eng. Itiil. Ital. Bug. NAME AND PBOFESSION. BORN. Andran, Gerard, a colebrated Histor. EnQraver 1<540 Baccid, Delia Porta (known as San JIarco)/^«*»<«r l'^''; Bacon, John Sriil],eor 1 '-lU Balcn. Henry Van Fainter lol'l) BandincUi, Baccio ..Sculptor Ho" Cacus, ii. 181; Hercules, ii. 181. Banks, Thomas Sculptor 1^-lJ Barry, James Painter 1 '-H Bartolini Eiujruver. Bartolomeo, Fra, di St. Marco Painter 14b J Introduction of portraiture by, ii. 119. Pictures referred to- Last Judgment, ii. ITS ; St. Stephen, ii. 218. Basaiti. Marco '^°^° Open skies of, i. 83. Picture— St. Stephen, ii. 218. Eatoni, Pompey Painter l^'ro Becchy, Sir Wm Landscape Painter loo Bella, Stephano Deila,'a Florentine Engraver. IWO Bellini, Gentile 14-,1 Architecture of the Kenaissance style, i. 101, 100 : introduction of portraiture in pictures, ii. 119. .14^:6 DIED, 17(1:^ 1,517 1799 ](io-2 1559 1805 1805 1517 1630 1787 18:^9 1084 1501 151G Bellini, Giovanni . Finish of, ii. 82 ; hatred of fog, iv. 53 ; introduction of portrai- ture in pictures, ii. 119 ; landscape of, i. 84, iv. o(i ; luminous skies of, ii. 43 ; unison of expressional and pictorial power in, iii. SO ; use of mountain distances, iv. 347 ; refinement and gi-a- dation, i. 84. Pictures refeiTcd to— Madonna at Milan, i. 84; San Francesco della Vigna at Venice, i. 84; St. Christopher, ii. 119: St. Jerome, ii. 211; St. Jerome in the Church of San Chrysostome. i. 84. Berghem, Nicolas Engraver 1024 Landscape, Dulwich Gallery, i. 37, iii. 130, v. 297. Bird, Edward Painter 1* i2 Blacldock, drawing of the inferior hills, i. 303. Bkike, William ; ■ ..Painter <& Engraver. . . .1 .57 Illustrations of the Book of Job, iii. 102. Bonifazio • • ;, ^'^^^ Camp of Israel, iu. 325 ; what subjects treated by, v. 23o. ,^^„ .„^„ , ^„ Both, John and Andrew Painters 1010 1050 & ob Failures of, i. 194, v. 331. _.„ Bourdon, Sebastian Painter A Engraver ... 101b Bourgeoise, Sir Francis (born in London). PatViZer 1 loo Boydell, John (a printseUer, and lord mayor of London) Engraver I'lJ Bramante D'Urbino, Francis L. (1st of St. Peter's Church) Architect : • }^o^ Brentel, Francis Painter f . 1035 Brill, Matthew Painter l&.'O Brouzino "^r • : VVr-' '.l' Base grotesque, iii. 102. Pictures referred to— Chnst Visitmg the Spirits in Prison, ii. 55. Bruges, John of, or John Van Eyck Painter i-iM Buonarotti, Michael Angelo Painter, Sculptor A Ar . .14.4 Anatomy interfering with the divinity of figures, ii. 21b; con- ception "of human form, ii. 122, 124; completion of lietail, iii. 12() ; finish of, ii. 82 ; intluence of mountains ui)on, iv. 349 ; use of symbol, ii. 210 ; repose in, ii. 08 (note) ; impetuous execution of, li. 183 (not.O ; exi)ression of inspiration by, ii. 204. Pictures referred to— Bacchus, ii. 182 (note) ; Daniel, i. 02 ; Jonah, ii. 197; Last Judgment, ii. 180, 182: Night and Day, ii. 203, iii. 100: Pieta of Florence, ii. 182; Pieta of Genoa, ii. 82; Plague of the Fiery Serpents, ii. 08 (note); St. Matthew, ii. 182; Twi- light, i. .33; Vaults of Sistine Chapel, i. -30, 33. Burnett, James Landscape Painter 1 (88 Cagliari, Paul (known as Paul Veronese), a celebrated Painter Cagliari, Benedict, Carletto, and Gabriel, brothers and sons of Paul. Callcott. Sir A. W Landscape Painter. Trent, i. 180. ie&3 1819 1826 1553 1671 1811 1804 1514 1584 1580 1441 1563 1S16 .1532 1588 1779 1844 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. 473 NATION. NAME AND PEOFESSION. BORN. DIED. Gr. Callimachtis Sculptor <£ Architect, f . b. c. 5 10 Ital. Cambiaso, Lncns. a Genoese Painter 1527 1585 Ital. Canaletto, Anthony, a Venetian Landscape Painter 1697 171S False treatment of water, i. 33G : mannerism of, i. lO'J : paintin? in the Palazzo Manfrini, i. I'.t7 ; Venice, as seen by, i, 109 ; works of, V. 207. Ital. Canova, Antonio Sculptor 1757 1822 Unimaginative work of, ii. 181 ; Perseus, i. 62. Ital. Caracci Lodovico Painter 1555 161!) Itnl Agostino Painter 1558 1601 Ital. Annibale Painter 1560 1609 Landscape of, iii. -324, iv. 72 ; use of base models of poitraiture bv, ii. 119. Ital. Caravaggio, Amei-igi 1569 1609 Ital, Caravaggio, Polidoro 1495 1543 Vulgaiity of, iii. 263 ; perpetual seeking for horror and ugliness, ii. 135 ; a worshipper of the depraved, iii. .34. Carpaccio, Vittor about 1500 Delineation of architecture by, i. 105 ; luminous skies of, ii. 43 ; painting of St. Mark's Church, i. 106. Castagna, Andrea del 1409 1480 Rocks of, iii. 245. Ital. Carpi, Ugo da, discoverer of the art of printing in Chiaro-oscuro — with three plates— to imitate drawings about 1700 Fr. Casas, Louis Francis Painter tfi Architect 1756 1827 Span. Castillo Y Saaved)-a, Anthony Painter 1003 1667 Cattermole, G Foliage of, i. 401 ; Fall of the Clyde, i. 114 ; Glendearg, i. 114. Ital. Cavendone, James Fresco Painter 1.577 1606 Ital. Cellini, Benvenuto, a Florentine Engraver riam, i. 165, 275 : Liber Vcritatis. No. 5, iv. 302 : Liber V., No. 86, iv. 216; L. V.. No. 91. iv. 248, 249; L. V.. No. 140, iii. 121 ; L. v.. No. 145. iii. 329 ; L. V., No. 180, iii. 328. Gr. Cleomenes, an Athenian (The Medicean Venus). .. Sculptor f. B. c. 180 Amer. Clevenger Sculptor 1S44 Amer. Cole, Thomas Land, it Hist. Painter. . . 1802 1848 474 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. NATIOX. Eng. Ital. NAME AND PROFESSION. BORV. DIED. Bug Eng. Amcr. Itul. Ital. Fr. Fr. Amer. Dutch. Dutch. Dutch. Eng. Ger. Fr. Fr. Fr. Ger. Gr. Ital. Ital. Ital. Dutch. Fr. Fr. Amor. Ger. 1837 1776 1815 1534 Collins, William Land. & Fam. Life Pa. .1788 Couegliano, Cima da Painter 15th cent. Entire realization of foreground painting, iii. 182; painting in church of the Madonna dell' Orto, i. 8U. Constable, John Painter, 1776 Landscape of, iii. 1.30 ; simphcity and earnestness of, i. 92 ; aspen drawing of, iv. 75 ; Helmingham Park, Suffolk, iii. 123 ; Lock on the Stour, iii. 122; foliage of, i. 4U0, iii. 123; landscape of, iv. 36. Cooper, Samuel Miniature Painter 1680 Coplej', John Singleton (bom in Boston) . . Painter 1737 Correggio, Ant. (founder of the Lombard school) Painter 1493 Choice of background, iii. 323 ; painting of flesh by, iii. 101 ; leaf drawing of, v. 38; power of, to paint rain-clouds, v. 146 (note) ; love of physical beauty, iii. 34; morbid gradation, ii. 46; morbid sentimentalism, ii. 170 ; mystery of, iv. 59 ; sensuality of, ii. 124. 134; sidelong grace of, iii. 29: tenderness of, iii. 43. Pictures referred to — Antiope, iii. ()5, v. 39, 98, 140 ; Charioted Diana, ii. 124 ; Madonna of the Incoronazione, ii. 124 ; St. Cath- erine of the Giorno, ii. 124. Cortona, Pietro da, a Tuscan Painter 1596 1669 Courtois, James (known as II Borgognone)P«(«<«;" 1621 1673 Coixston, Nicholas (also his brother \\'Ta.).Souiptor 1658 1731 Cox, David ' 1783 1859 Drawings of. i. xlii. preface, i. 95; .foliage of, i. 400 ; rain-clouds of. i. 245 ; skies of, in water-colour, 1. 253 ; sunset on distant hills, i. 97. Crawford, Thomas Sculptor 1813 185T Creswick, Thomas Painter 1811 1869 Tree-painting of, i. 392. Pictures referred to — Nut-brown Maid, i. 392 ; Weald of Kent, i. 401, Cruikshank, G iv. 379 ; Noah Claypole (" OUver Twist"), v. 281. Cuyp, Jacob G Landxcai^e & Cattle Pa. . 1568 1649 Cuyp, Albert (son of above) Landscape <.t Cattle Pa . . 1606 1667 Cuyp. Benjamin Historical Painter 1650 Pnncipal master of pastoral landscape, v. 206 : tone of, i. 148 ; no sense of beautv, i. 75; skv of. i. 211, 222, 206; cattle painting of, V. 274; sunlight of, v. 269. m,\ ; water of, i. 342; foliage of, V. 38, 40 ; and llubens, v. 26-4-275. Pictures referred to — Hilly LandKiape in Dulwich Gallery, No. 169, i. 118, 206 ; Landscape, in National Gallery, No. 53, i. 148, v. 41 ; Waterloo etchings, i. 90 ; Landscape, Dulwich Gallery, No. 83, i. 336, No. 163, v. 40. Daniel, Thomas TMndscape Painter 1840 Dannecker, John Henry — (Ariadne, Sic) . Sculptor 1758 1834 Ariadne, iii. 77. David, James Louis, a celebrated Painter 1750 1825 David (founder of recent French sohooX) . .Sculptor 1780 Delaroclie, Paul If tutor ical Painter. Denner, Balthaser. Portrait Painter 1G85 1747 Dighton, W. E Hayfield in a Shower, ii. 224 ; Haymeadow Corner, ii. 224. Dinocrates, a Macedonian (builder of Alex- andria, &c.) Architect f. B. c. 330 Dolci, Carlo ■ Scripture Painter 1616 1686 Finish for finish's sake, iii. 117; softness and smoothness, iii. 117; St. Peter, ii. 200. Domenichino (excelk^l in expression) Painter 1581 1641 Angels of, ii. 216 : landscape of, iii. 325 ; Madonna del Rosario, and Martyrdom of St. .\gr.es, both utterly hateful, i. 87, ii. 216. Donatello, or Donato. a Florentine S-ulptor 1383 1466 Douw, Gerard Familiar Life Painter.. .1613 1674 Drummond Banditti on the Watch, ii. 224. Dnbuffo ITistnrical Painter. Duf resnoy, Charles Alphonso Painter. Dnnlap, William I/intorical Pai7iter 1766 Durer, Albert (and author) /'a., Eng., Sc, db .4rcA. .1471 1528 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. 475 NATION, NAME AND PROFESSION. BORN. And Salvator, v. 2-J4-354 ; deficiency in perception of tiie beau- tiful, iv. 320 ; eductitiou of, v. 2-J6-249 ; mind of, how shown, v. 29'J : decision of, iv. 76, ii. 221 ; tree-drawing, v. Tl ; fi»li.^h of, iii. 43, 128; gloomily minute, i. 88; hatred of fog, iv. 53; draw- ing of crests, iv. 211 ; love of sea, v. 248. Pictures referred to— Dragon of the Apocalypse, iv. 211 ; Fall of Lucifer, iv. 197 ; The Cannon, v. 24S ; Knight and Death, iii. 97, 102, v. 249, 252 ; Melancholia, iv. 45, iii. lUO, v. 252, 253 ; Boot of Apple-tree in Adam and Eve, iii. 120, v. 71 ; St. Hubert, v. 104, 248 ; St. Je- rome, v. 24S. Ger. Eberhardt Sculptor. Eng. Eginton, Francis (restorer of the art of painting on glans) Painter 17.37 Eng. Etty, WiUiam nistorical Painter 1787 Kichness and play of colour of, ii. 199 ; Morning Prayer, ii. 223 ; Still Life, ii. 223 : St. John, ii. 223. Gr. Eupompus (founder of school at Sicyon)..Pai««e?'. Dutch. Eyck, John Van (said to have invented painting in 0(7) Painter. 1370 Deficiency in perception of the beautiful, iv. 326. Fielding, Copley 1787 Paithf ul rendering of natui-e, i. 96 ; feeling in the drawing of inferior mountains, i. 303 ; foliage of, i. 401 ; water of, i. 343 ; moorland foreground, i. 185 ; use of crude colour, i. 90 ; love of mist, iv. 72 ; rainclouds of, i. 245 ; sea of, i. 346 ; truth of, i. 245. Picture referred to — Bolton Abbej', i. 98. Eng. Flaxman, John Sculptor 1755 Alpine stones, iv. 302 ; Pool of Envy (in his Dante), iv. 801. Francia, Francesco 1450 Aicliitecturo of the Renaissance style, i, 101 ; finish of, iii. 126; treatment of the open sky, ii. 42 ; Madonnas of, ii. 219 ; Nativ- ity, iii. 49. Swiss. Fuseli, Henry (resided in England) Paxntei' 1741 DIED. Eng. Ital. Eng. Ital. Ital. Ital. Gaddi, Taddeo 1300 Treatment of the open Rky, ii. 42. Gainsborough, Thomas Landscape Painter 1727 Colour of, i. 91 ; execution of, i. xx. preface ; aerial distances of, i. 91 ; imperfect treatment of details, i. 81. Ghiberti, Laurence, a Florentine Sculptor 1378 Leaf moulding and bas-reliefs of, v. 38. Gibson Sculptor. Giordani, Luke (The Proteus of painting). P«iw«e/' 1 029 Ghu-landajo 1449 Architecture of the Renaissance style, i. 101 ; introduction of portraiture in pictures, ii. 119; reality of conception, iii. 59; rocks of, iii. 245, 321 ; symmetrical arrangement of pictures, ii. 73 ; treatment of the open sky, ii, 42 ; quaintness of landscape, iii. 329 ; garlanded backgrounds of, v. 97. Pictures referred to,— Adoration of the Magi, iii. 319 ; Baptism of Christ, iii, 321 ; Pisa, iv, 1, Giorgione, Barbarelli Painter 1477 Boyhood of. v, 301-309 ; perfect intellect of, v, 300 : landscape of. i, 85 ; luminous sky of, ii. 42 ; modesty of, ii, 122, 123 ; one of the few who has painted leaves, v, 38 ; frescoes of, v, 299, 354 ; sacrifice of form to colour by, ii. 198 ; two figiu-es, or the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, i, 108 ; one of the seven supreme colour- ists, v, 335 (note), Giotto (one of the earliest modern) Painter, Sculp, ct Ardi. .1276 Cramped b}' traditional treatment, ii. 175 ; decoration of, ii, 214 ; inlluencc of hills upon, iv, 350 ; introduction of portraiture in l>ictiuvs, ii, 1-19: landscape of, ii, 212: power in detail, iii, 59; reality of concc^ption, )ii, 59 ; sj-mmetrical an-angement in pic- tures, ii. 72: treatment of the open sky, ii, 42; unison of es- pressional and pictorial power in detjiil, iii, 30 ; use of mountain distances, iv, ;347, Pictures referred to — B.'ptism of Christ, li. 172 : Charity, iii, 101 ; Crucifixion and Arena frescoes, ii. 127 ; Sacrifice for the Friedes, i. 86. 1805 1849 1441 1855 1826 1518 1825 1352 1788 1455 1704 1498 1511 1336 476 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. KATION. Fr. Fr. Fr. Ital. NAME AND PKOFESSION. BOKN. Amer. Ital. Ital. Giraldon, Francis Sculptor ]630 Girodet — Trioson, Aime Louis Painter II'GT Gougou, John ("The French VhiAias^) .. Sculptor Gozzoli, Benuzzo 1408 LahcLscape of, ii. 212; love of .simple domestic incident, iii. 2i) ; reality of conception, iii. 59 ; treatment of the open skj-, ii. 42. Greenough, Horatio Sculptor 1S05 Guercuio (real name Francis Barbieri).. . . Painter 1590 Hagar, ii. 128. Guido Reni (excelled in beauty of expres- sion and grace) Painter 1574 Seu.suality, ii. 124, 134 : use of base models for portraiture, ii. 119. Picture — Susannah and the Elders, ii. 124. DIED. 171.5 1824 1572 1478 1852 1606 1643 Harding, J. D 1798 1863 Aspen, drawing of, iv. 75 ; execution of, i. 176, 397, iv. 75 ; chiaroscuro of, i. 176, 400 ; distance of, i. 18() ; foliage, i. 382, 397; trees of, v. 66 (note), i. 382; rocks of, i. 3Q9 : water of, i. 345. Pictures referred to — Chamouni, i. 262 ; Sunrise on the Swiss Alps, i. 99. Eng. Harlow, George Henry Painter 1787 181 9 Eng. Haydon, R. B Ilixtorical Painter 1786 1846 Eng. Heath, Charles _, ■ Engraver 1849 Flem. Heniling 1450 Finish of, iii. 126. Eng. Hilton. WiUiam Historical Painter 1786 18;-J9 Flem. Hobbema, Mynderhout Landscape Painter 1611 lti99 NiggUng of, V. 39, 40 ; distances of, i. 199 ; failures of, i. 195, 393 ; landscape in Dulwich Gallery, v. 39. Eng. Hogarth, William Painter 1()97 1764 Swiss. Holbein, Hans Portrait dk IJisiorical P(?.149S 1564 Best northern art represented by, v. 221, 245 ; the most accu- rate portrait painter, v. 338 ; Dance of. Death, iii. 97 ; glorious severity of, ii. 122 ; cared not for flowers, v. !)7. Ger. Hollar, Wenceslaus (executed 2400 plates). Engraver 1607 1677 Dutch. Hooghe, De Painter 1643 1708 Quiet painting of, v. 297. Flem. Honthorst, Gerard (called Gherarda dal Notte) Painter 1592 1660 Dutch. Houbraken, Jacob (600 portraits) Engraver 1698 1780 Fr. Houdon (executed statue of Franklin). . . Scul]}tor 1746 1828 Fr. Houel, John (Picturesque Travels, &c.). .Painter (t Engraver 1736 1813 Hunt, Holman Painter Finish of, i. 410 (note). Pictures refen'ed to — Awakened Con- science, iii. 93; Claudio and Isabella, iii. 28; Light of the World, iii. 30, 41, 59, 78, 840, iv. 58 (note) ; Christ in the Tem- ple, V. 364. Hunt. William 1790 1864 Anecdote of, iii. 90 ; Farmer's Girl. iii. So ; foliage of, 1. 401 ; great ideality in treatment of still life, ii. 199. Dutch. Huysum, John Van (flowers and fruit).. . . Painter 1682 1749 Amer. Inman, Henry Portrait cfc Landsc. Pa . . 1801 1846 Eng. Jones, Inigo Architect 1572 16.52 Flem. Jordacns, .Jacob Painter 1595 1670 Ital. Julio, Ilomano Painter dc Architect 1492 1£46 Swiss. Kauffman, M. A. Angelica C. (in Eng- land) Poetical Painter 1747 1807 Ger. Knellcr, Sir Godfrey (resided in 'England.) Painter 1648 1723 Eng. Landseer, Edwin Animal N. DIED, Fr. Lanflon. C. P. (morp eminent as an author of works on the fine arts) Painter 1826 Laurati 12S2 1340 Treatment of the open sky, ii. 42. Eng. Lawrence, Sir Thomas Fortrall dc, Hist. Pai«ier.l769 1830 • Satan of, ii. 204. Lewis, John CUmax of water-colour drawing, i. .35; success in seizing Span- ish character, i. 121. Fr. Lebrun, Charles (painter to Louis XIV.). . Painter 1019 1690 Ger. Lelr, Sir Peter (painter to Charles II. of ' England) Painter I(i48 KiSO Fr. Le .Sieur, Eustace (the French Raphael) . . Painter 1017 lOOS Eng. Leslie, C. R Painter 1794 1859 Ainer. Leutze, Emmanuel 1810 Fr. Leyden. Lucas. Dammesz Painter (& Engraver 1494 1533 Linuell Cumuli of, i. 141 (note). Picture referred to — Eve of the Del- uge, ii. 221. Ital. Lipiii.''Filippino 1400 1505 Heads of, ii. 215 ; Tribute Money, iii. 322. Eng. Liverseege, Henry Painter 1803 1832 Gr. Lysiiipus (made 000 statues) Sculptor f. b. c. 324 Amer. Malbone, Edward G Miniature Painter 1777 1807 Mantegna, Andrea Painter 1431 1506 Pa-nting of stones by, iv. 296 ; decoration of, ii. 215. Ital. Masaccio Painter 1402 1427 Painting of vital truth from vital present, iii. 94; introduction of portraiture into pictures, ii. 119; mountain scenery of. i. 93, iv. 293 ; Deliverance of Peter, ii. 217 ; Tribute Money, i. 83, 93, iii. 322. Flem. Matsys, Quintin Painter 1400 1529 Ger. Mayer Sc/itptor. Ital. Mazzuolo. Francis (inventor of etching). . . Painter 1503 1540 Memrni, Simone 1285 1344 Abstract of the Duomo at Florence, at Santa Maria Novella, i. 101 : introduction of portraiture in pictures, ii. 119. Ger. Mengs, Anthony R. (the Raphael of Ger- many) Painter 1729 1779 Fr. Mi'.rnard. Peter Painter 1010 1095 Millais Huguenot, iii. 93. Swiss. Muid, Gottfried Painter 1708 1814 Mino da Fiesole Truth and tenderness of, ii. 181 ; two statues by, ii. 197. Eng. Moieland. George Painter 1704 1804 Mulready 1796 1803 Pictures by — The Butt, perfect colour, ii. 221 ; Burchell and So- phia, ii. 221 ; Choosing of the Wedding Gown, ii. 221 : Gravel Pit, ii. 222. Span. Murillo, Bartholomew S Painter 1613 1682 Painting of, ii. 82. Eng. Newton, Gilbert Stuart Historical Painter 1785 1835 Nesfield Treatment of water by, i. 344. Eng. NoUekins, Joseph Sculptor 1737 1823 Eng. Northcote, James Painter 1746 18;J1 Eng. Opie, John Painter 1701 1807 Orcagna Kjoi) jg^g Influence of hills upon, iv. 350 : intense solemnity and energy of, iii. 29 ; un.son of expressional and pictorial power in detail of, iii. 30 ; Inferno, ii. 127 : Last Judgment, ii. 178, iii. 58 ; Ma- donna, ii. 197 ; Triumph of Death, Ui. 59, 100. Dutch. Ostade, Adrian Van (interiors) Familiar Life Painter. . . 1010 1685 Dutch. Ostade, Isaac (winter scenes) Painter 1017 1671 Eng. Owen, William Painter .1769 1825 Fr. Pajou, AugusUn Sculptor 1730 1809 478 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. NATION. NAME AND PROFESSION. BORN, DIED. Ital. Pallaclio, Andrew Architect 1518 1580 Span, Palomino de Castro Y Velasco, A. A Painter 1658 1720 Gr. Parrhasius, of Ephesus. Painter f . b. c. 4'iO Amer. Peale, Charles W Histor. <& Portrait Pa. . . 1741 1827 Fr. Perraiilt, Claudius (designed the Front of the Louvre) Architect Ifil3 16S8 Ital. Perugino, Peter (the master of Raphael) . . Painter 1446 1524 Decoration of, li. 214 ; finish of, ii. 83 ; formalities of, iii. 128, 322 ; hatred of fog, iv. 53 ; landscape of, ii. 212 ; mountain dis- tances of, iv. S48; right use of gold by, i. lOli; rationalism of, how affecting his works, v. 217 ; sea of, i. 342 ; expression of, inspiration by, ii. 218. Pictures referred to — Annunciation, ii. 43 ; Assumption of the Virgin, ii. 43 ; Michael the Archangel, ii. 218 ; Nativity, iii. 49 : Portrait of Himself, ii. 134 ; Queen- Vir- gin, iii. 52 ; St. Maddelena at Florence, i. 342. Swiss. Petitot, John (excelled in enamel) Painter 1607 1691 Gr, Phidias (the most famous of ancient sculp- tors) ficulinor B. c. 498 b. c. 431 Fr. Picart, Bernard Engraver 1663 1733 Pickersgill _ Contest of Beauty, ii. 223. Fr. Pigalle, John Baptiste Sculptor 1714 1785 Fr, Piles, Roger de (an author and ^auitei) .. Painter 1655 1709 Pinturicchio 1454 1513 Finish of, ii. 82 ; Madonnas of, ii. 210, Ital, Piranesi, John Baptiste (16 vols, folio) Engraver 1707 1778 Piselhno, Filippo Rocks of, iii. 245. Gr, Polycletus (statue of Juno at Argos) Sculptor B. c. 430 Ital, Pordencne, Regillo da Painter 1584 Dutch, Potter, Paul (unequalled in animal paint- ing) Painter 1625 1654 Landscape, in Grosvenor Gallery, ii. 220 : Landscape, No. 176, Dulwich Gallery, i. 3S6 ; foliage of, compared with Hobbima's and Ruysdael's, v. 88 ; best Dutch painter of cattle, 269, Ital. Poussin, Gaspar (Dughot) liindscape Painter 1613 1675 Foliage of, i. 381-390; distance of, i. 199; narrowness of, con- trasted with vastness of nature, i. 176 ; mannerism of, i, 88. ii. 44, iv. 36 ; perception of moral ti-uth, i. 75 ; skies of, i. 224, 227 ; want of imagination, ii. 155 ; false sublimity, iv, 240. Pictures referred to — Chimborazn, i. 205 ; Destruction of Niobo's Chil- dren, in Dulwicli Gallery, i. 290 : Dido and yEneas, i. 254, 386, ii. 1.56: La Riccin. i. 381, 152, ii, 156; Mont Blanc, i. 205; Sac- rifice of Isaac, i. 192, 205, 227. ii. 156, Fr. Poussin, Nicholas (excelled in landscape painting) Painter 1594 1665 And Claude, v. 255-262 ; principal master of classical landscape, V, 206, 261 ; peculiarities of, v. 262; conijiared with Claude and Titian, v. 262; characteristics of works by, v. 262 ; want of sen- sibility in, v, 262; landscape of, v. 262-203; trees of, i, 395; landscape of, composed on right principles, i, 88, iii. 380, ii. 156. Pictures referred to — The Plague, v, 262 : Death of Polydectes, V, 262; Triumph of David, v^ 262; The Deluge, v. 262; Apollo, ii, 202; Deluge (Louvre), i. 341, iv, 239 ; Landscape, No. 260, Dulwich Oallerv, i. 142: Landscape, No. 212, Dulwich Gallery, i. 227 ; Phocion; i, 142, 155, 178, 254 ; Triumph of Flora, iii. 330. Amer. Powers, Hiram Sculptor 1805 1872 Gr, Praxiteles Sculptor f. B. c. 350 Amer, Pratt, Matthew Painter 17:'4 1805 Procaccini, Camillo Painter 1540 1626 Picture referred to — Martyrdom (Milan), ii. 128, Prout, Samuel Painter 1786 1853 Master of noble picturesque, iv. 14; influence on modem art by works of, i. 100 : excellent composition and colour of, i. 110, 112; expression of the crumbling character of stone, i. 94, 110, 112, Pictures referred to — Brussels i. Ill : Cologne, i. Ill : Flemish Hotel de Ville, i. 118: Gothic Well at Ratisbon, i. Ill; Italy and Switzerland, i. Ill ; Louvain, i. Ill: Nuremberg, i. Ill; Sion, i. Ill ; Sketches in Flanders and Germany, i. 111 ; Spire of Calais, iv, 14 ; Tours, i. 111, ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. 479 NATION. NAME AND PROFESSION. BORN. DIED. Fr. Prudhon, of Cluny Painter 1760 1S23 Fr. Puget, Peter Sculp., Pa. dk Arch 1623 161)4 Punch Instance of modern gi-otesque from, iv, 3T!>. Pyue, J. B Drawing of, i. 310. Gr. Pythagoras Sculptor. Ital. Kaphael (real name Sanzio), a pre-emi- nent Painter 14&3 1520 Chiaroscuro of, iv. 44; completion of detail by, i. 81, iii. 119; finish of, ii. 82; instances of leaf drawing by, v. 38 ; convention- alism of branches by, v. 41 ; his hatred of fog, iii. 126, iv. 53 ; influence of hills upon, iv. S40; influenced by Masaccio, iii. S22; introduction of portraiture in pictures by, ii. 11!) ; composition of, V. 193 : lofty disdain of colour in drawings of, v. 337 (note); landscape of, ii. 212 : mountain distance of, iv. 317 ; subtle gra- dation of sky, ii. 45-48 ; symbolism of, iii. lUO. Pictures referred to — Baklacchino, ii. 43; Charge to Peter, iii. 54. 322; Draught of Pishes, i. preface, xxviii., ii. 199; Holy Famil.y — Tribune of the Uffizii, iii. 320 ; Madonna della Sediola, ii. 43, iii. 52 ; Ma- donna deir Inipannata, ii. 43 ; Madonna del Cardellino, ii. 43 ; Madonna di San Sisto, iii. 58 ; Massacre of the Innocents, ii. 128, 176 ; Michael the Archangel, ii. 118 ; Moses at the Burning Bush. ii. 122 ; Nativity, iii. 847 ; St. Catherine, i. preface, xxx., i. .34.' 136, ii. 97, 218; St. Cecilia, ii. 134, 213, iii. 16, 56 ; St. John of the Tribune, ii. 43 ; School of Athens, iii. 28 ; Trans- figuration, iii. .'56 (note). Ital. Kembrandt, Paul Painter 1606 1674 Landscape of, i. 189; chiaro.scuro of, iii. 36, iv. 38-45; etchings of, i. 399 (note); vulgarity of, iii. 263. Pictures referred to — • Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ii. 41 ; Spotted Shell, ii. 199 ; Painting of himself and his wife, v. 267. Bethel, A Pictures referred to — Death the Avenger, iii. 102 ; Death the Priend. iii. 102. Eetsch Painter 1779 1859 Pictui-es referred to — Illustrations to Schiller's Fight of the Dragon, ii. 167. Eng. Rej-nolds, Sir Joshua Painter 1723 1792 Swiftest of painters, v. 203 ; influence of early life of, on paint- ing of, V. 304 ; lectirres quoted, i. 7, 44, iii. 4 ; tenderness of, iv, 63 (note). Picture referred to — Charity, iii. 101. Roberts, David 1796 1864 Architectural drawing of, i. 115; drawings of the Holy Land. i. 116; hieroglyphics of the Egyptian temples, i. 117; Roslin Chapel, 1. 117. Eobson, G 1776 1833 Mountain scenery of, i. 94, iii. 332. Fr. Roland, Philip L. (Homer in the Louvre) . Sculptor 1 746 1 81 6 Eng. Romney, George Painter 1734 1802 Ital. Rosa, Salvator (scenes of gloom) Painter 1614 1673 And Albert Durer, v. 244-254 ; landscape of, i. 385 ; characteris- tics of, V. 250, 299 ; how influenced by Calalirian scenery, v. 250 ; of what capable, v. 250 ; death, how regarded by, v. 251 ; con- trast between, and Angelico, v. 299 ; leaf branches of, com- pared with Durer" s, v. 72, 73 ; example of tree bough of, v. 49 ; education of, v. 249, 250 ; fallacies of contrast with early artists, V. 52 ; narrowness of, contrasted with freedom and vastness of natm-e, i. 76 ; iierpetual seeking for horror and tigliness, ii. 126, 135, V. 50-71 ; skies of, i. 224, 227 : vicious execution of, i. 39, ii. 82 ; vigorous inuigination of, ii. 156 ; vuK-arity of, iii. 34, iii. 325, 263. Pictures refen-ed to— Apollo and Sibyl, v. 75 ; Uniana Fragilita, v. 251 ; Baptism of Christ, ii. 172 (note); Battles by, ii. 124: Diogenes, ii. 1.56; Finding of CEdipus, iii. 119, v. 70; Landscape, No. 220, Dulwich Gidlery, i. 228, 237, 289, 307; Landscape, No. 159, Dulwich Galiery. i. 251 ; Sea-piece (Pitti Palace), i. 340 ; Peace burning the arms of War, i. 885 ; St. Jerome, ii. 156 ; Temptation of St. Anthony, ii. 44 (note) ; Mer- cury and the Woodman (National Gallery), i. 154. 4:80 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. NATION. NAME AND PEOFESSION. BORN, Eng. Kowlanrlsoii, Th. (caricature — Dr. Syntax, &c. ) .'.... Painter <6 Engraver 1756 Flem. Eubens, Teter Panl, a celebrated Painter Ib'il And Cuyp, v. 21)4-275 ; colour of, 1. 16G ; landscape of, 1. 89, 217, iil. 187, 325 ; leaf drawing of, v. 38 ; tlowers of, v. 97 ; realistic temper of, iii. lUl : symbolism of, iii. lOU ; treatment of light, ii. 40, i. 162 ; want of feeling for grace and mystery, iv. 14 ; cha- i-acteristics of, v. 266 ; religion of, v. 267 ; delight in martyr- doms, V. 266 ; painting of dogs and horses by, v. 272, 273 : de- scriptions of his own pictures by, v. 267 ; imitation of sunlight by, V. 331 (nntej ; hunts by, v. 272. Tictures referred to — Ado- ration of the Magi. i. 37 ; Battle of the Amazons, v. 266 ; Land- scape, No. 175, ijulwich Orallery, iv. 15 ; His Family, v. 267 ; Waggoner, iii. 118; Landscapes in Pitti Palace, i, 89; Sunset behind a Tournament, iii. 325. Scotch. Runciman, Alexander Painter 1736 Dutch. Euysdael, Jacob Laudxcape Painter 1636 Pictures referred to — Running and Falling Water, i. 321. 340 ; Sea-piece, i. 340. Dutch. Ruysdael, Solomon Painter 1616 Eng. Bysbraoh, John Michael (works in West- minster Abbey) SculxHor 1094 Ital. Sanmicheli, Michael Architect 1484 Ital. Sarto, Andrea del, see Vanucchi. Ital. Scamozzi, Vincent Architect 1550 Ger. Schadow, Rudolf Sculptor 17S6 Dutch. Schalken, Godfrey (candlelight scenes). . . Painter 1643 Schimgauer, Martin 1420 Joy in ugliness, iv. 32.3 ; missal drawing of, iv. 323. Gr. Scopas Sculptor B. c. 460 B. Eng. Sharp, WiUiam Emjraver 1740 Eng. Sherwin, John Keyse Engraver Amer. Smybert, John Painter 1728 Flem. Snyders, Francis (landscape and ?im.m&\).. Painter 1579 Painting of dogs by, v. 272. Fr. Soufflot, J. G. (church of St. Genevieve at Paris) Architect 1714 Dutch. Spaendonck, Gerradvan (flower) Painter 1746 Spagnoletto 1589 Vicious execution of, ii. 82. Stanfield, Clarkson 1793 Architectural drawing of, i. 118 ; bo;its of, i. 119 ; chiaroscuro of, i. 277 ; clouds of, i. 221, 239 ; a realistic painter, i. 118, iv. 57 (note) : knowledge and jiower of, i. 348. Pictures referred to — Amalfi, ii. 222 ; Borromean Islands, with St. Gothnrd in the dis- tance, i. 278 ; Botallack Mine (coast scenery), i. 309 ; Brittany, near Dol, iv. 7 ; Castle of Ischia, i. 119 ; Doge"s Palace at Ven- ice, i.- 120 : East Cliff, Hastings, i. 308 ; Magra, ii. 223 ; Rocks of Suh, i. 302; Wreck on the Coast of Holland, i. 119. Scotch. Strange, Robert Engraver 1721 Eng. Striitt, Joseph (an author and painter).. . . Painter 1749 Eng. Stuart, James (author of the "Antiquities of Athens"') Architect 1713 Amer. Stuart, Gilbert (pupil of Benjamin West). Portrait Painter 1756 Amer. Sullj', Thomas Painter 1783 Taylor, Frederick Drawings of, power of rwift execution, i. 35, 253. Flem. Tenlers, David, the elder (pni>il of Rubens )7'«/Mto' 1582 Flem. Teniers, David, the younger (pupil of Ru- bens) ". Painter 1610 Scenery of. v. 2G8: painter of low subjects, v. 272. Pictures re- fi-rrcd to — Landscape, No. 139, Dulwich (Jallery, J. 311. Dan. Thorwaldsen Sculptor 1772 Gr. Timanthes (contemporary with Parrha- sius) M. Painter f . b. r. 420 Ital. Tintoretto (a Venetian — pupil of Titian). . Painter 1512 Colouring of, iii. 43 ; Delicacy of, hi. 39 ; ])ainting of vital truth from the vital present, iii. 93 ; use of concentrically-grouped 1827 1040 1785 1684 1670 1770 1559 1616 1!S22 1706 1486 c. 353 1824 1790 1751 16.57 1781 li-i22 1615 1867 1792 1802 1788 1828 1649 1694 1844 15!)4 AI.PHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. 481 NATION. NAME ANB PBOFESSION. BOBN. DIED. leaves by, ii. 72: imagination, ii. 155, 15(), 170, 176; inadequ;icy of landscapes by, i. 77; intUience of hills upon, iv. S50 ; inten- sity of imagination of, ii. 170, iv. 6^ ; inti'odiiclion of portrait- ure in pictures, ii. 119; lumiuous slcy of, ii. 42; modesty of, ii. 122 ; neglectful of flower-beauty, v. S)7 ; mystery about tne pen- cilling of, ii. 65 ; no sympathy with the huaionr of the world, iv. 13 ; painter of space, i. So : realistic temper of, iii. lUl ; sacrifice of form to colour bj', ii. 197 ; slightness and earnest haste of, ii. 81 (note); 1S3 (note); synibolisiu of, iii. 100. Pictures referred to — Agony in the Garden, ii. 150; Adoration of the Magi, iii. 81, 126, iv. 03; Annunciation, ii. 101 : Baptism, ii. 200; Cain and Abel, i. g9:i (note) ; Crucifixion, ii. 17'4, l&O, iii. 72 ; v. 209, 2-35 ; Doge Loredano before the Madonna, ii. 200 ; Entombment, ii. 170, iii. 324 ; Fall of Adam, i. 7'.l (note) ; FUght into Egypt, ii. 156, 202; Golden Calf, ii. 200; Last Judgment, ii. 17S ; picture in Church of Madonna delF Orto, i, 106 ; Massacre of the Inno- cents, ii. 129, 176, 180 ; Murder of Abel, i. 386 : Paradise, i. 334, iv. 62, V. 235, 242 ; Plague of Fiery Serpents, ii. 180 ; St. Francis, ii. 203 ; Temptation, ii. 156, 184. Ital. Titian (the greatest painter of Venetian school) Painter 1480 1579 Tone of, i. 146 ; tree drawing of, i. 387 ; want of foreshortening, V. 77 ; bough drawing of, i. 387 ; good leaf drawing, v. 39 ; dis- tant branches of, v. 41 ; drawing of crests by, iv. 214 ; colour in the shadows of, iv. 45 ; mind of, v. 240, 241 ; imagination of, ii. 156 ; master of heroic landscape, v. 206 ; landscape of, i. 77, iii. 823 ; influence of hills upon, iv. 350 ; introduction of portraiture in pictures, ii. 119 ; home of, v. 301, 302 ; modesty of, ii. 122 ; mystery about the pencilling of, iv. 59 ; partial want of sense of beauty of, ii. 134 ; ju'efers jewels and fans to flowers, v. 97 ; right conception of the human form, ii. 122, v. 241 ; sacrifice of form to coloiir by, ii. 198; colour of, v. 331, 334; stones of, iv. 29S, 299 ; trees of, i. 387, ii. 72. Pictures referred to — Assump- tion, iv. 197 (note), v. 235, 242, 266, 329 ; Bacchus and Ariadne, L 33, 146, iii. 127, v. 97 ; Death of Abel, i. 79 (note) ; Enttmib- ment, iii. 126 ; Europa (Dulwich Gallery), i. 146 ; Faith, i. 107 ; Holy Family, v. 199 (note) ; JIadonna and Child, v. 181 ; iladon- na with St. Peter and St. George, v. 181 ; Flagellation, ii. 43 ; Magdalen (Pitti Palace), ii. 123, v. 240, 354 (noiej ; MaiTiage of St. Catherine, i. 89 ; Portrait of Lavinia, v. 97 ; preface viii. ; Older Lavinia, preface viii. ; St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, i. 211 (note); St. Jerome, i. 85, ii. 156; St. John, ii. 119; San Pietro Martire, ii. 156, 202 ; Supper at Emmaus, iii. 20, 126 ; Venus, iii. 65 ; Kotomie, v. 354. Amer. Trumbull, John Historical Painter 1756 1843 Turner, WilUam, of Oxford Mountain drawings, i. 301. Eng. Turner, Joseph Mallord William 1775 1851 Character of, v. 358-:359, (note) 365 ; affection of, for humble scenery, iv. 243, 244 ; architectural dra\ving of, i. 107, 196 ; his notion of "Eris" or "Discord," v. 323, 324; admiration of, for Vandevelde, i. 324 ; boyhood of, v. 303-313 ; chiaroscuro of, i. 132, 141, 146, 278, 358, iv. 38-50 ; only painter of sun-colour, v. 331 ; painter of " the Rose and the Cankerworm," v. 340 ; his subjection of colour to chiaroscuro, i. I(i8 ; colour of, i. 132. 149, 154, 157, 163, 166-168, ii. 198, ui. 242 (note), iv. .38 : v. 335 (note) ; composition of, iv. 26, 302 ; cui-vature of, i. 123. 395, iii. 123 ; iv. 188, 286 ; tree drawing of, i. 388, v. 41, 70, 74, 77 ; drawing of banks by, iv. 287, 269 ; discovery of scarlet shadow by, v. 331, 333, 334 ; drawing of cUffs by, iv. 241 ; drawing of crests by, iv. 216, 218, 22^3 ; drawing of figures by, i. 186 ; drawing of reflections by, i. 149, 354, 356, 373, 374 ; drawing of leaves by, v. 41, 10() ; drawing of water by, i. 350, 3T6; exceeding refinement of truth in. i. 405; education of, iii. 316, V. 315 (note) ; execution of, v. 41 ; ruin of his pictures by decay of pigments, i. 133 (note) ; gradation of, i. 256 ; supe- riority of intellect in, i. 29 ; expression of weight in water by, i. 862, 371 ; expression of infinite redundance by, iv. 285 ; aspects, iii. 285, 313 ; first great landscape painter, iii. 285, v. 342 ; form sacrificed to coloirr, ii. 198 ; head of Pre-liaphaehtism, iv. 58 ; 21 482 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. NATION. NAME AND PROFESSION. BORN. DIED, master of contemplative landscape, v. 207 ; work of, in first period, v. 314 ; inftnity of, i. 2oO, 278 ; ii. 237, 288, 294 ; inttu- ence of Yorkshire scenery upon, i. 123, iv. 241, 21)1, 29G, 302 ; his love of stones and rocks, iii. 321, iv. 22 ; love of rounded hills, iv. 241 : master of the science of aspects, iii. 313 ; mystery of, i. 195, 254, 407, iv. 33, 58, v. 41 ; painting of French and Swiss landscape bj', i. 127 ; spirit of pines not entered into by, v. 86, 87 ; flowers not often i>ainted by, v. 99 ; painting of distant ex- panses of water by. i. SliO ; rendering of Italian character by, i. 127 ; skies of, i. 135, 198, 232, 2()3 ; storm-clouds, how regarded by, v. 159 ; study of clouds by, i. 218, 232, 238, 246-2.57, v. 127 ;" study of old masters by, iii. 330; sketches of, v. 195, 196, 350, £50 (note), v. preface, v. vi. ; system of tone of, i. 141, 150, 3.58 ; treatment of foregrounds by, i. 314, v. 105 ; treatment of pictur- esque by, iv. 6-14 ; treatment of snow mountains by, iv. 236 ; memoranda of, v. 197, 198, 351 (note); topography of, iv. 15-32; unity of, i. 316 ; views of Italy by, i. 129 ; memory of, iv. 26, 29 ; ideal conception of, i. 377 ; endurance of ugliness by, v. 303, 304 ; inventive imagination of, dependent on mental vision and ti-uth of impression, iv. 20-23, 302 ; lessons to be learnt from Liber Studiorum, v. 349, 350 ; life of, v. 357 ; death of, v. 367. Pictures referred to — yEsacus and Hesperie, i. 389 ; Acro-Cor- inth, i. 218 ; Alnwick, i. 124, 265 : Ancient Ital.y, i. 128 ; Apollo - and Sibyl, v. 348 ; Arona with St.Jlothard, i. 278 ; Assos, i. 198 (note); Avenue of Brienne, i. 175; Babylon, i. 232; Bam- borough, i. 369; Bay of Baite, 1. 129, 319, "iii. 318, v. 1C6, 3.39; Bedford, i. 124 ; Ben Lomond, i. 254 ; Bethlehem, i. 239 ; Bin- gen, i. 264 ; Blenheim, i. 264 ; Bolton Abbey, i. 389, iii. 122, iv. 244 ; I3onneville in Savov, i. 130 : Boy of Egremont, i. 367 ; Buckfastleigh, i. 263. iv. 15; Building of Carthage, i. 29, 133, 145, 159, 167, iii. 318 ; Burning of Parliament House, i. 265 ; Cacr- laverock, i. 198 (note), 260 ; Calais, i. 265 ; Calder Bridge, i. 130 ; Caldron Snout Pall, i. 264 ; Caligula's Bridge, i. 128 ; v. 348 ; Canale della Guidecca, i. .357 ; Carew Castle, i. 264 ; Carthages, thr; two, i. 128, V. 352 ; Castle TJpnor, i. 263, 353 ; Chain Bridge over the Tees, i. 863. 389 ; Chateau de la Belle Gabrielle, i. 389, V. 66 : Chateau of Prince Albert, i. 352 ; Cicero's Villa, i. 128, 133, 144, 145 ; Cliff from Bolton Abbey, iii. 321 : Constance, i. i61 ; Corinth, i. 263 : Coventry, i. 251, 264 : Cowes, i. 264, 357, ;:59 ; Crossing the Brook, i. 128, 167, 389 ; Daphne and Leucip- pus, i. 197, 198 (note), 289, 29,5, iv. 285, v. 106: Dartmouth (river scenery), i. 209 ; Dartmouth Cove (Southern Coast), i. 389 ; Dazio Grande, i. 367 ; Departure of Regulus, i. 128 ; Devonport, with the Dockyards, i. 156 (note), 356 ; Dragon of the Hesper- ides, iii. 101, V. 323-328 ; Drawing of the spot where Harold fell, ii. 196 ; Drawings of the Rivers of Prance, i. 126 ; Drawings of Swiss Scenei-y, i. 124 ; Drawing of the Chain of the Alps of the Superga above Turin, iii. 129 ; Drawing of Mouirt Pilate, iv. 22.3, 292, 293; Dudley, i. 169 (note), 265 ; Durham, i. 263, 389; Dunbar, i. 370 ; Dunstaffnage, i. 258. 281 ; Ely, i. 404 ; Eton College, i. 124; Faiiio, Pass of, iv. 20, 218; Fall of Carthage, i. 144, 167 ; Fall of Schaffhaiisen, v. 178, 353 (note) ; Flight into Egypt, i. 239 ; Fire at Sea, v. 200 (note) ; Folkestone, i. 239, 264 ; Fort Augustus, i. £00 : Fountain of Fallacy, i. 128 ; Fowey Har- bour, !. 262, ;i70, V. 152 (note) ; Florence, i. 129; Glencoe, i. 281 ; Goldau (a recent drawing), i. 260 (note); Goldau, i. 362, iv. 307, 308, V. 353 (note) ; Golden Bongh, iv. 285 : Gosport, i. 254 : Great Yarmouth, i. 377 (note); Hannibal passing the Alps, i. 127; Hampton Court, i. 175 ; Hero and Leandcr, i. 128, 174, 239, 369, 403, V. 200 (note) ; Holy Isle, iii. 317 ; lUustration to the Anti- quary, 260; Inverary, v. 70; Isola Bella, iii. 129; Ivy Bridge, i. 130; Jason, ii. 168', iii. 127; Juliet and her Nurse, i. 132, 134 (note), 265 ; Junction of the Greta and Tees, i. 367, iv. 303 ; Kenilworth, i. 264 ; Killie-Crankie, i. 366 ; Kilgarren, i. 124 ; Kirby Lonsdale Churchyard, i. 2()3, 389, iv. 14, 308; Lancaster Sands, i. 335; Land's End, i. 248 (note), 250, 347, 370, 372; Laugharne, i. 870; Llanberis, i. 91. 264, v. 3.36 (note) (English scries); Llanthony Abbey, i. 124, 169 (note), 248, 317. 366; Long Ship's Lighthouse, i. 2.50 ; Lowestoft, i. 263, 347, 377 (note) ; Lucerne, iv. 22;^ ; " Male Bolge" (of the Splugen and St. Goth- ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. 483 NATION. NAME AND PROFESSION. BOI ard, iv. 308 ; Malvern, i. 264 : Marly, 1. 79, 393 ; Mercury and Argus, i. 14-2, lli3, Ki'J (note), 195, 21S, 314, 319, 3(3(5, v. (W ; Modern Italy, i. 1^9, 109 (note), iv. 2S6 ; Morecambe Baj% i. 255 ; Mount Lebanon, i. 2S9 ; Murano, view of, i. 135 ; Napo- leon, i. 149, 158, 1(30, 1G7, 218, 2(34, 30(5, v. 128, 350 (note) : Na- poleon at St. Helena, iv. 308 ; Narcissus and Echo, v. 315 ; Neini, i. 2(34 : Nottingham, i. 264, S54, iv. 28 ; Oakhampton, i. 124, 254, 2(33, 394 ; Oberwesel, i. 204, 301 ; Orford, Suffolk, 1. 203; Ostend, i. 374; Palestrina, i. 129: Pas-de-Calais, i. 334, 374 ; Penmaen Mawr, i. 319 ; Picture of the Deluge, i. 342 ; Pools of Solomon, i. 233, 264, v. 126 : Port Ruysdael, i. 374 ; Py- ramid of Cains Cestius, i. 264 ; Python, v. 330, 332 ; Kape of Proserpine, i. 129 ; Rheinfels, v. 351 (note) ; Rhymer's Glen, i. 366; Richmond (Middlesex), i. 2(34; Richmond (Yorkshire), i. 258. iv. 15, V. 100; Rome from the Forum, i. 331, v. 353; Salis- bury, V. 154 ; Saltash, i. 264, 353 : San Benedetto, looking to- ward Fusina, i. 357, 135, v. 128 ; Scarborough, iii. 125 ; Shores of Wharfe, iv. 244 ; Shylook, i. 218, 263 ; Sketches in National Gallery, v. 175. 196 ; Sketches in Switzerland, i. 135 ; Slave Ship, i. 132, 134 (note), 144, 149, 167, 258, 264, ii. 292, iv. 308, v. 152, 353; Snowstorm, i. 127, 167, 347, v. 359 (note); St. Goth- ard, iv. 25, 286, 294; St. Herbert's Isle, i. 265 ; St. Michael's Mount, i. 258, 2(30 ; Stonehenge, i. 257, 264. v. 154 (English series) ; Study (Block of Gneiss at Chamouni), iii. 129 ; Study (Pffistum), V. 155 ; Sun of "Venice going to Sea, i. 135. 350 ; Swiss Fribourg, iii. 129; T-intallon Castle, i. 373: Tees (Upper Fall of), i. 315, 319, :362, iv. 303 ; Tees (Lower FuU of), i. 317, 366 ; Temptation on the Mountain (Illustration to Milton), ii. 205; Temple of Jupiter, i. 128, iii. 317; Temple of Minerva, v. 155; Tenth Plague of Egypt, i. 128, v. 311 (note), 315 : The Old Tem6raire, i. 132, Iv. 308, v. 128, 305 ; Tivoli, i. 129 ; Towers of H6ve, i. 265 ; Trafalgar, v. 3 5 ; Trematon Castle, i. 265 ; Ulles- water, i. 318, 353, iv. 303 ; Ulysses and Polypheme, iv. 303, v. 353 (note) ; various vignettes, i. 263 ; Venices, i. 107. 263, v. 353, 354 ; Walhalla, i. 134 (note) ; Wall Tower of a Swiss Town, iv. 68; War.«-ick, i. 264, 389; -Waterloo, i. 258, 265; Whitby, iii. 317 ; Wilderness of Eusedi, 1. 198 (note), 264 ; Winchelsea (Eng- lish series), i. 168 (note), 264; Windsor, from Eton, i. 124; Wy- « cliffe, near Rokeby, iv. 303. Pinden's Bible Series :— Babylon, i. 232; Bethlehem, i. 239; Mount Lebanon, i. 289, v. 155; Sinai, v. 1.55; Pyramids of Egypt, 1. 239 ; Pool of Solomon, i. 233, v. 126 ; Fifth" Plague of Egypt, i. 128, V. 315. lUustrations to Campbell : — Hohenlinden, i. 263 : Second Vig- nette, i. 254 : The Andes, i. 273 ; Vignette to the Beech-Tree's Petition, i. 174 ; Vignette to Last Man, i. 268. Illustrations to Rogers' " Italy : " — Amalfi, i. 235 ; Ao.sta, i. 273 ; Battle of Marengo, i. 269, "281 ; Farewell, i. 281 ; Lake of Albano, i. 264 ; Lake of Como, i. 2:34 : Lake of Geneva, i. 235, 263 ; Lake of Lucerne, i. 259. 361 ; Perngia, i. 174; Piacenza, i. 264, 292; Passtum, i. 256, 264; Second "vignette, i. 260, 367; The Great .St. Bernard, i. 260 ; Vignette to St. Maurice, i. 260, 361 (note), V. 136. Illustrations to Rogers' "Poems:" — -Bridge of Sighs, i. 265; Datur Hora Quieti, i. 143, 264, v. 178 ; Garden opposite title-page, i, 174: Jacqueline, i, 273. ii. 205; Loch Lomond, i. 360: Rialto, i. 2:39, 2(55; Sunset behind Willows, i. 145; Sunrise, i. 209; Sun- rise on the Sea, i. 219. 259 ; the Alps at Daybreak, i. 220, 259, 263, 272 : Vignette to Human Life, i. 263 ; Vignette to Slowly along the Evening Sky, i. 210 : Vignette to the Second Part of Jacque- line, ii. 205 ; Villa of Galileo, i. 129 ; Voyage of Columbus, i. 239, 263, il. 196. Illustrations to Scott : — Armstrong's Tower, i. 175 ; Chiefswood Cottage, i. 389 ; Derwentwater, i. 360 ; Drvburgh, i. 361 ; Dun- staffnage, i. 258, 281 ; Glencoe, i. 281, 289 ; Loch Axchray, i. 281 ; 484 ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. NATION. NAME AND PROFESSION. BORN. DIED. Loch Corisldn, i. 249. 988, iv. 210 ; Loch Katrine, i. 289, 360 ; MeU-ose, i, 361 ; Skiddaw, i. 263, 300. Liber Stiidiorum : — iEsacus and Hesperie, i. 127, 394 (note), ii. 159 ; Ben Arthur, i. 133, iv. 302, 303 ; Blair Athol, i. 388 ; Cephalus and Procris, i. 388, 394 (note), ii. 157. 203, iii. 324. v. 350 ; Chartreuse, i. 125. 388. iii. 324 ; Chepstow, v. 350 ; Domes- tic subjects of L. S., i. 125 : Dunstan bOTOugh, v. S50 ; Foliage of L. S., i. 126 ; Garden of Hesperides. iii. 317, v. 316 ; Gate of Win- chelsea Wall. v. 350 ; Raglan, v. 350 ; Rape of Europa, v. 350 ; Via Mala. v. 351 (note), iv. 254; Isis, v. 182, 183; Hedging and Ditching,i. 125, 388, v. 349; Jason, i. 128, ii. 166, 193, iii. 324; Juvenile Ti-icks, i. 388 ; Lauffenbourg, i. 125, iii. 324, v. 182 ; Little Devils Bridge, i. 124, iv. 25 ; Llanberis, i. 255 ; Mer de Glace, i. i'Z-i, 282, iv. 186 ; Mill near Grande Chartreuse, iv. 254, V. 349 ; Morpeth Tower, v. 350 ; Mont St. Gothard. i. 124, 307 (note) ; Peat Bog, iii. 324, v. 349 ; Rivaubc choir, v. 350 ; Eizpah, i. 127, iii. 324, iv. 14, v. 311, 350 ; Solwav Moss. iii. 324 ; Source of Avernon, iv. 302, v. 86 ; Study of the Lock, iv. 7, v. 349 ; Young Anglers, v. 349 ; Water Mill, v. 349. Rivers of France, i. 126 ; Amboise, i. 180, 264 ; Amboise (the Chateau), i. 180 ; Beaugency. i. ISO ; Blois. i. 180 ; Blois (Cha- teau de), i. 180. 198, 264 ; Caudebec, i. 264, 298, 361 ; Chateau Gaillard, i. ISO ; Clairmont, i. 264, 299 ; Continence of the Seine and Marne, i. 359 : Drawings of, i. 127 : Havre, i. 220 ; Honfleiir, i. 299 ; Jumieges, i. 247, 359 ; La Chaise de Gargantua, i. 359 ; Loire, i. 358; Mantes, i. 265; Mauves, i. 299; Montjan, i. 264; Orleans, i. 180 : Quillebneuf, i. 372, 166 ; Roitz, near Sanmur, v. 168, 169; Rouen, i. 495, v. 127 ; Rouen, from St. Catherine's Hill, i. 237, 361 ; St. Denis, i. 260, 265 ; St. Julien, i. 181, 265 ; The Lantern of St. Cloud, i. 263 ; Troyes, i. 264 ; Tours, i. 181, 265 ; Vernon, i. 359. Yorkshire Series :— Aske Hall, i. 389, v. 75 ; Brignail Church, i. 3S9 ; Hardraw Pall, iv. 303 ; Ingleborough, iv. 216 : Greta, iv. 131, 244 ; Junction of the Greta and Tees, i. 318, 367, iv. 303 ; Kirkbv Lonsdale, i. 263, 389, iv. 14. 308 ; Richmond, i. 258, iv. 14, V. 41 ; Richmond Castle, iii. 2:36 ; Tees (Upper Fall of), i. 315, 31S, 362, iv. 303 ; Zurich, i. 362, TJccello, Paul 1349 14:32 Battle of Sant' Bgidio, National Gallery, v. 5, 296. Uwin 1^3 1857 Vineyard Scene in the South of France, ii, 223. Eng. Vanbrugh, Sir John (Blenheim and Castle Howard) Architect 1672 1726 Dutch. Vandcrvelde, William (marine and battle)/'a/«<«- llilO 1693 Dutch. Vandervelde, Adrian Landscape Painter 1639 1672 Dutch. Vanderworf, Adrian Iliatorical Painter 16.54 1718 Dutch, Vandci-veldc, the younger Painter 16:33 1707 Refli ction of, i. 353 ; waves of, iii. 331 ; Vessels Becalmed, No. 11:3, Dulwich Gallery, i. 336. Flem. Vandvke, Sir Anthony (the greatest of portrait painters) Portrait Painter 1598 1641 Flowers of, v. 97 ; delicacy of, v. 290 (note). Pictures — Portrait of King Charles' Children, v. 97 ; the Knight, v. 288 (note). lUil. Vannucchi, or Andrea del Sarto Paintnr 14S8 1530 Ital. Van Vilelli, Louis, a Neapolitan Architect 1700 1773 Ital. Vasari, George (a biographer of artists).. .Arcliitect r. P., 'i^i (note). Fr. Vernet, Joseph Painter 1714 1789 Fr. Vcrnct. Horace IliHloriail Painter. Am. Ver Bryck, C Uindxcape Painter 1 813 1 844 ItaU Veronese, Paul Painter 1532 1588 Chiaroscuro of, iii. 36, iv. 39-45 ; colour in the shadows of, iv. 45 ; delicacy of, iii. 39 ; influence of hills upon, iv. 350 ; love o£ ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX. 485 NATION. NAME AND PROFESSION. BOEN. Ital. Eng. Ital. Ital. Gr. Ital, Fr. Fr. Eng. Amer. Scotch, Eng. Eng. Dutch. Eng. Eng. Ital. Gr. Ger, Ital. Ital. Ital. physical beauty, iii. 34 ; mystery about the pencilling of, iv. 59 ; no sympathy with the tragedy and horror of the world, iv. 14 ; sincerity of manner, iii. 42 : symbolism of, iii. 100 ; treatment of the open sky, ii. 42 ; tree drawing of, v. 72 ; foreground of, v. 97 ; religion of, (love casting out fear), v. 235 ; animal jiainting, com- pared with Laudseer's, ii. 198. Pictures — Entombment, ii. 43 ; Magdalen washing the feet of Christ, iii. 20, 31 : JIarriage in Cana, iii. 12tj, iv. 63, v. 208, 233, 235 ; two freeco figures at Ven- ice, i. 108; Supper at Emmaus, iii. 31, 62; Queen of Sheba, v. preface, vii. 238 ; Family of Veronese, v. 235-237 ; Holy Family, V. 239 ; Veronica, v. 239 : Europa, v. 97, 182 ; Triumph of Ven- ice, V. 181 ; Family of Darius, National Gallery, v. 200. Verrochio, And'w (inventor of the method of taking the features in a plaster mould) SciiJptor 1422 Vertue, George (500 plates) Enytaver 1684 Vignola, James (Caprarola palace and St. Peter's) Architect 1507 Vinci, Leonardo da Painter 1453 Chiaroscuro of, iv. 45 (and note) : completion of detail by, iii. 126 ; drapery of, iv. 46 ; finish of, ii. 82, iii. 267 ; hatred of fog, iv. 53 ; introdiiction of portraiture in pictures, ii. 119 : influence of hills upon, iv. 351 : laadscape of, i. 86 ; love of beauty, iii. 42 ; rocks of, iii. 245 ; system of contrast of masses, iv. 41. Pictures — Angel, ii. 173 ; Cenacolo, ii. 210 ; Holy Family (Lountc), i, 86 ; Last Supper, iii. 28, 347 ; St. Anne, iv. 296, iii."l26. Vitruvius (temp. Augustus) Architect f. B. C. 30 Volpato, John Engraver 1733 Vouet, Simon, founder of French school (temp. Charles I.) Painter 1582 Waillv, Charles de Architect 1729 AYallis Snow scenes of, 1. 281 (note). Warren, Charles (perfecter of engraving on steel) Engraver West, Benjamin Painter 1738 Wilkie, David Fainiliar Life Painter. . . 1785 Wilson, Richard Landscape Painter 1713 Woollet, William Engraver 1735 Wouvermans, Philip Painter 1620 Leaves of, v. 40 ; landscape of, v. 207 ; vulgarity of, v. 29.3, 297 ; contrast between, and Angelico, v. 298. Pictures referred to — Landscape, with hunting party, v. 293 ; Battle piece, with bridge, V. 295. Wren, Sir Christopher (St. Paul's, &c.), ..Architect 1632 Wyatt, James (Pantheon, Kew Palace, &c,),4rc/t«ec« 1743 Zablia, Nicholas Zeuxis, a celebrated ancient Picture of Centaur, v. 273. Zincke Enamel Portrait Pa 1684 Zuccaro, or Zucchero, Taddeo Painter 1529 Zuccaro, or Zucchero, Frederigo Painter 1539 ZuccareUi fainter, 1710 1488 1756 1.573 1519 Architect 1674 Painter b. c. 490 b. 1802 1649 1798 1893 1820 1841 1782 1785 1668 1723 1813 1750 c. 400 1767 1560 1610 1788 DATE DUE MAR 2 ;1976 APR 2 3 1976 r APR 4 19TT" TTR 1 7 1977 9 ■ 1 l,'-s UCLA GOL RFPFIWI t'(5 .-^FP '. 5 2006 nlzOCl V 1 ■> n r •■ .m£ CAYLORD PRINTED IN USA *.«) |r3 r-n iMlWi !^\^fi4!^