POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE | |
SEVEN LAMPS | |
MODERN PAINTERS | |
Volume I | |
NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION | |
NEW YORK | CHICAGO |
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN RUSKIN
VOLUME II
MODERN PAINTERS
VOLUME I
MODERN PAINTERS.
BY
A GRADUATE OF OXFORD.
VOL. I.
PART I—II.
TO
THE LANDSCAPE ARTISTS OF ENGLAND
This Work
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THEIR SINCERE ADMIRER,
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The work now laid before the public originated in indignation at the shallow and false criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works of the great living artist to whom it principally refers. It was intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobating the matter and style of those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency, as guides of public feeling. But, as point after point presented itself for demonstration, I found myself compelled to amplify what was at first a letter to the Editor of a Review, into something very like a treatise on art, to which I was obliged to give the more consistency and completeness, because it advocated opinions which, to the ordinary connoisseur, will sound heretical. I now scarcely know whether I should announce it is an Essay on Landscape Painting, and apologize for its frequent reference to the works of a particular master; or, announcing it as a critique on particular works, apologize for its lengthy discussion of general principles. But of whatever character the work may be considered, the motives which led me to undertake it must not be mistaken. No zeal for the reputation of any individual, no personal feeling of any kind, has the slightest weight or influence with me. The reputation of the great artist to whose works I have chiefly referred, is established on too legitimate grounds among all whose admiration is honorable, to be in any way affected by the ignorant sarcasms of pretension and affectation. But when public taste seems plunging deeper and deeper into degradation day by day, and when the press universally exerts such power as it possesses to direct the feeling of the nation more completely to all that is theatrical, affected, and false in art; while it vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted truth, and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any other age has ever witnessed, it becomes the imperative duty of all who have any perception or
Whatever may seem invidious or partial in the execution of my task is dependent not so much on the tenor of the work, as on its incompleteness. I have not entered into systematic criticism of all the painters of the present day; but I have illustrated each particular excellence and truth of art by the works in which it exists in the highest degree, resting satisfied that if it be once rightly felt and enjoyed in these, it will be discovered and appreciated wherever it exists in others. And although I have never suppressed any conviction of the superiority of one artist over another, which I believed to be grounded on truth, and necessary to the understanding of truth, I have been cautious never to undermine positive rank, while I disputed relative rank. My uniform desire and aim have been, not that the present favorite should be admired less, but that the neglected master should be admired more. And I know that an increased perception and sense of truth and beauty, though it may interfere with our estimate of the comparative rank of painters, will invariably tend to increase our admiration of all who are really great; and he who now places Stanfield and Callcott above Turner, will admire Stanfield and Callcott more than he does now, when he has learned to place Turner far above them both.
In three instances only have I spoken in direct depreciation of the works of living artists, and these are all cases in which the reputation is so firm and extended, as to suffer little injury from the opinion of an individual, and where the blame has been warranted and deserved by the desecration of the highest powers.
Of the old masters I have spoken with far greater freedom; but let it be remembered that only a portion of the work is now presented to the public, and it must not be supposed, because in that particular portion, and with reference to particular excellencies, I have spoken in constant depreciation, that I have no feeling of other excellencies of which cognizance can only be taken in future parts of the work. Let me not be understood to mean more than I have said, nor be made responsible for conclusions
Whatever I have asserted throughout the work, I have endeavored to ground altogether on demonstrations which must stand or fall by their own strength, and which ought to involve no more reference to authority or character than a demonstration in Euclid. Yet it is proper for the public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has been devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art.
Whatever has been generally affirmed of the old schools of landscape-painting is founded on familiar acquaintance with every important work of art, from Antwerp to Naples. But it would be useless, where close and immediate comparison with works in our own Academy is desirable, to refer to the details of pictures at Rome or Munich; and it would be impossible to speak at once with just feeling, as regarded the possessor, and just freedom, as regarded the public, of pictures in private galleries. Whatever particular references have been made for illustration, have been therefore confined, as far as was in my power, to works in the National and Dulwich Galleries.
Finally, I have to apologize for the imperfection of a work which I could have wished not to have executed, but with years of reflection and revisal. It is owing to my sense of the necessity of such revisal, that only a portion of the work is now presented to the public; but that portion is both complete in itself, and is more peculiarly directed against the crying evil which called for instant remedy. Whether I ever completely fulfil my intention, will partly depend upon the spirit in which the present volume is received. If it be attributed to an invidious spirit, or a desire for the advancement of individual interests, I could hope to effect little good by farther effort. If, on the contrary, its real feeling and intention be understood, I shall shrink from no labor in the execution of a task which may tend, however feebly, to the advancement of the cause of real art in England, and to the honor of those great living Masters whom we now neglect or malign, to pour our flattery into the ear of Death, and exalt, with vain acclamation, the names of those who neither demand our praise, nor regard our gratitude.
The Author.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
It is allowed by the most able writers on naval and military tactics, that although the attack by successive divisions absolutely requires in the attacking party such an inherent superiority in quality of force, and such consciousness of that superiority, as may enable his front columns, or his leading ships, to support themselves for a considerable period against overwhelming numbers; it yet insures, if maintained with constancy, the most total ruin of the opposing force. Convinced of the truth, and therefore assured of the ultimate prevalence and victory of the principles which I have advocated, and equally confident that the strength of the cause must give weight to the strokes of even the weakest of its defenders, I permitted myself to yield to a somewhat hasty and hot-headed desire of being, at whatever risk, in the thick of the fire, and began the contest with a part, and that the weakest and least considerable part, of the forces at my disposal. And I now find the volume thus boldly laid before the public in a position much resembling that of the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, receiving, unsupported, the broadsides of half the enemy's fleet, while unforeseen circumstances have hitherto prevented, and must yet for a time prevent, my heavier ships of the line from taking any part in the action. I watched the first moments of the struggle with some anxiety for the solitary vessel,—an anxiety which I have now ceased to feel,—for the flag of truth waves brightly through the smoke of the battle, and my antagonists, wholly intent on the destruction of the leading ship, have lost their position, and exposed themselves in defenceless disorder to the attack of the following columns.
If, however, I have had no reason to regret my hasty advance, as far as regards the ultimate issue of the struggle, I have yet found it to occasion much misconception of the character,
Yet, to prevent such misconception in future, I may perhaps be excused for occupying the reader's time with a fuller statement of the feelings with which the work was undertaken, of its general plan, and of the conclusions and positions which I hope to be able finally to deduce and maintain.
Nothing, perhaps, bears on the face of it more appearance of folly, ignorance, and impertinence, than any attempt to diminish the honor of those to whom the assent of many generations
There is, I fear, so much malice in the hearts of most men, that they are chiefly jealous of that praise which can give the greatest pleasure, and are then most liberal of eulogium when it can no longer be enjoyed. They grudge not the whiteness of the sepulchre, because by no honor they can bestow upon it can the senseless corpse be rendered an object of envy; but they are niggardly of the reputation which contributes to happiness, or advances to fortune. They are glad to obtain credit for generosity and humility by exalting those who are beyond the reach of praise, and thus to escape the more painful necessity of doing homage to a living rival. They are rejoiced to set up a standard of imaginary excellence, which may enable them, by insisting on the inferiority of a contemporary work to the things that have been, to withdraw the attention from its superiority to the
And thus well says the good and deep-minded Richard Hooker: "To the best and wisest, while they live, the world is continually a froward opposite; and a curious observer of their defects and imperfections, their virtues afterwards it as much admireth. And for this cause, many times that which deserveth admiration would hardly be able to find favor, if they which propose it were not content to profess themselves therein scholars and followers of the ancient. For the world will not endure to hear that we are wiser than any have been which went before."—Book v. ch. vii. 3. He therefore who would maintain the cause of contemporary excellence against that of elder time, must have almost every class of men arrayed against him. The generous, because they would not find matter of accusation against established dignities; the envious, because they like not the sound of a living man's praise; the wise, because they prefer the opinion of centuries to that of days; and the foolish, because they are incapable of forming an opinion of their own. Obloquy so universal is not lightly to be risked, and the few who make an effort to stem the torrent, as it is made commonly in favor of their own works, deserve the contempt which is their only reward. Nor is this to be regretted, in its influence on the progress and preservation of things technical and communicable. Respect for the ancients is the salvation of art, though it sometimes blinds us to its ends. It increases the power of the painter, though it diminishes his liberty; and if it be sometimes an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is oftener a protection from the consequences of audacity. The whole system and discipline of art, the collected results of the experience of ages, might, but for the fixed authority of antiquity, be swept away by the rage of fashion, or lost in the glare of novelty; and the knowledge which it had taken centuries to accumulate, the principles which mighty minds had arrived at only in dying, might be overthrown by the frenzy of a faction, and abandoned in the insolence of an hour.
Neither, in its general application, is the persuasion of the
We must therefore be cautious not to lose sight of the real use of what has been left us by antiquity, nor to take that for a model of perfection which is, in many cases, only a guide to it. The picture which is looked to for an interpretation of nature is invaluable, but the picture which is taken as a substitute for nature, had better be burned; and the young artist, while he should shrink with horror from the iconoclast who would tear from him every landmark and light which has been bequeathed him by the ancients, and leave him in a liberated childhood, may be equally certain of being betrayed by those who would give him the power and the knowledge of past time, and then fetter his strength from all advance, and bend his eyes backward on a beaten path—who would thrust canvas between him and the sky, and tradition between him and God.
And such conventional teaching is the more to be dreaded, because all that is highest in art, all that is creative and imaginative, is formed and created by every great master for himself, and cannot be repeated or imitated by others. We judge of the excellence of a rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of his works to what has been done before, as by their difference from it; and while we advise him, in his first trials of strength, to set certain models before him with respect to inferior points,—one for versification, another for arrangement, another for treatment,—we yet admit not his greatness until he has broken away from all his models, and struck forth versification, arrangement, and treatment of his own.
Three points, therefore, I would especially insist upon as necessary to be kept in mind in all criticism of modern art. First, that there are few, very few of even the best productions of antiquity, which are not visibly and palpably imperfect in some kind or way, and conceivably improvable by farther study; that every nation, perhaps every generation, has in all probability some peculiar gift, some particular character of mind, enabling it to do something different from, or something in some sort better than what has been before done; and that therefore, unless art be a trick, or a manufacture, of which the secrets are lost, the greatest minds of existing nations, if exerted with the same industry, passion, and honest aim as those of past time, have a chance in their particular walk of doing something as great, or, taking the advantage of former example into account, even greater and better. It is difficult to conceive by what laws of logic some of the reviewers of the following Essay have construed its first sentence into a denial of this principle,—a denial such as their own conventional and shallow criticism of modern works invariably implies. I have said that "nothing has been for centuries consecrated by public admiration without possessing in a high degree some species of sterling excellence." Does it thence follow that it possesses in the highest degree every species of sterling excellence? "Yet thus," says the sapient reviewer, "he admits the fact against which he mainly argues,—namely, the superiority of these time-honored productions." As if the possession of an abstract excellence of some kind necessarily implied the possession of an incomparable excellence of every kind! There are few works of man so perfect as to admit of no conception of their being excelled,[A]—there are thousands which have been for centuries, and will be for centuries more, consecrated by public admiration, which are yet imperfect in many respects, and have been excelled, and may be excelled again. Do my opponents mean to assert that nothing good can ever be bettered, and that what is best of past time is necessarily best of all time? Perugino, I suppose, possessed some species of sterling
The second point on which I would insist is that if a mind were to arise of such power as to be capable of equalling or excelling some of the greatest works of past ages, the productions of such a mind would, in all probability, be totally different in manner and matter from all former productions; for the more powerful the intellect, the less will its works resemble those of other men, whether predecessors or contemporaries. Instead of reasoning, therefore, as we commonly do, in matters of art, that because such and such a work does not resemble that which has hitherto been a canon, therefore it must be inferior and wrong in principle; let us rather admit that there is in its very dissimilarity an increased chance of its being itself a new, and perhaps, a higher canon. If any production of modern art can be shown to have the authority of nature on its side, and to be based on eternal truths, it is all so much more in its favor, so much farther proof of its power, that it is totally different from all that have been before seen.[B]
The third point on which I would insist, is that if such a mind were to arise, it would necessarily divide the world of criticism into two factions; the one, necessarily the largest and loudest, composed of men incapable of judging except by precedent, ignorant of general truth, and acquainted only with such particular truths as may have been illustrated or pointed out to them by former works, which class would of course be violent in vituperation, and increase in animosity as the master departed farther from their particular and preconceived canons
Such a mind has arisen in our days. It has gone on from strength to strength, laying open fields of conquest peculiar to itself. It has occasioned such schism in the schools of criticism as was beforehand to be expected, and it is now at the zenith of its power, and, consequently, in the last phase of declining popularity.
This I know, and can prove. No man, says Southey, was ever yet convinced of any momentous truth without feeling in himself the power, as well as the desire of communicating it. In asserting and demonstrating the supremacy of this great master, I shall both do immediate service to the cause of right art, and shall be able to illustrate many principles of landscape painting which are of general application, and have hitherto been unacknowledged.
For anything like immediate effect on the public mind, I do not hope. "We mistake men's diseases," says Richard Baxter, "when we think there needeth nothing to cure them of their errors but the evidence of truth. Alas! there are many distempers of mind to be removed before they receive that evidence." Nevertheless, when it is fully laid before them, my duty will be done. Conviction will follow in due time.
Writers like the present critic of Blackwood's Magazine[C] deserve more respect—the respect due to honest, hopeless, helpless imbecility. There is something exalted in the innocence of their feeblemindedness: one cannot suspect them of partiality, for it implies feeling; nor of prejudice, for it implies some previous acquaintance with their subject. I do not know that even in this age of charlatanry, I could point to a more barefaced instance of imposture on the simplicity of the public, than the insertion of these pieces of criticism in a respectable periodical. We are not insulted with opinions on music from persons ignorant of its notes; nor with treatises on philology by persons unacquainted with the alphabet; but here is page after page of criticism, which one may read from end to end, looking for something which the writer knows, and finding nothing. Not his own language, for he has to look in his dictionary, by his own confession, for a word[D] occurring in one of the most important chapters of his Bible; not the commonest traditions of the schools, for he does not know why Poussin was called
It is not, however, merely to vindicate the reputation of those whom writers like these defame, which would but be to anticipate by a few years the natural and inevitable reaction of the public mind, that I am devoting years of labor to the development of the principles on which the great productions of recent art are based. I have a higher end in view—one which may, I think, justify me, not only in the sacrifice of my own time, but in calling on my readers to follow me through an investigation far more laborious than could be adequately rewarded by mere insight into the merits of a particular master, or the spirit of a particular age.
It is a question which, in spite of the claims of Painting to be
But, however this may be, and whatever influence we may be disposed to admit in the great works of sacred art, no doubt can, I think, be reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility of all that has been hitherto accomplished by the painters of landscape. No moral end has been answered, no permanent good effected, by any of their works. They may have amused the intellect, or exercised the ingenuity, but they never have spoken to the heart. Landscape art has never taught us one deep or holy lesson; it has not recorded that which is fleeting, nor penetrated that which was hidden, nor interpreted that which was obscure; it has never made us feel the wonder, nor the power, nor the glory, of the universe; it has not prompted to devotion, nor touched with awe; its power to move and exalt the heart has been fatally abused, and perished in the abusing. That which ought to have been a witness to the omnipotence of God, has become an exhibition of the dexterity of man, and that which should have lifted our thoughts to the throne of the Deity, has encumbered them with the inventions of his creatures.
If we stand for a little time before any of the more celebrated works of landscape, listening to the comments of the passers-by, we shall hear numberless expressions relating to the skill of the artist, but very few relating to the perfection of nature. Hundreds will be voluble in admiration, for one who will be silent in delight. Multitudes will laud the composition, and depart with the praise of Claude on their lips,—not one will feel
These are the signs of a debased, mistaken, and false school of painting. The skill of the artist, and the perfection of his art, are never proved until both are forgotten. The artist has done nothing till he has concealed himself,—the art is imperfect which is visible,—the feelings are but feebly touched, if they permit us to reason on the methods of their excitement. In the reading of a great poem, in the hearing of a noble oration, it is the subject of the writer, and not his skill,—his passion, not his power, on which our minds are fixed. We see as he sees, but we see not him. We become part of him, feel with him, judge, behold with him; but we think of him as little as of ourselves. Do we think of Æschylus while we wait on the silence of Cassandra,[G] or of Shakspeare, while we listen to the wailing of Lear? Not so. The power of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation. It is commensurate with the degree in which they themselves appear not in their work. The harp of the minstrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it records. Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding the mind far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his creation, and the knowledge which is past his finding out.
And must it ever be otherwise with painting, for otherwise it has ever been. Her subjects have been regarded as mere themes on which the artist's power is to be displayed; and that power, be it of imitation, composition, idealization, or of whatever other kind, is the chief object of the spectator's observation. It is man and his fancies, man and his trickeries, man and his inventions,—poor, paltry, weak, self-sighted man,—which the connoisseur forever seeks and worships. Among potsherds and dunghills, among drunken boors and withered beldames, through every scene of debauchery and degradation, we follow
I speak not only of the works of the Flemish School—I wage no war with their admirers; they may be left in peace to count the spiculÆ of haystacks and the hairs of donkeys—it is also of works of real mind that I speak,—works in which there are evidences of genius and workings of power,—works which have been held up as containing all of the beautiful that art can reach or man conceive. And I assert with sorrow, that all hitherto done in landscape, by those commonly conceived its masters, has never prompted one holy thought in the minds of nations. It has begun and ended in exhibiting the dexterities of individuals, and conventionalities of systems. Filling the world with the honor of Claude and Salvator, it has never once tended to the honor of God.
Does the reader start in reading these last words, as if they were those of wild enthusiasm,—as if I were lowering the dignity of religion by supposing that its cause could be advanced by such means? His surprise proves my position. It does sound like wild, like absurd enthusiasm, to expect any definite moral agency in the painters of landscape; but ought it so to sound? Are the gorgeousness of the visible hue, the glory of the realized form, instruments in the artist's hand so ineffective, that they can answer no nobler purpose than the amusement of curiosity, or the engagement of idleness? Must it not be owing to gross neglect or misapplication of the means at his command, that while words and tones (means of representing nature surely less powerful than lines and colors) can kindle and purify the very inmost souls of men, the painter can only hope to entertain by his efforts at expression, and must remain forever brooding over his incommunicable thoughts?
The cause of the evil lies, I believe, deep-seated in the system of ancient landscape art; it consists, in a word, in the painter's taking upon him to modify God's works at his pleasure, casting the shadow of himself on all he sees, constituting himself arbiter where it is honor to be a disciple, and exhibiting his ingenuity by the attainment of combinations whose highest praise is that they are impossible. We shall not pass through a single gallery of old art, without hearing this topic of praise
We sometimes hear such infringement of universal laws justified on the plea, that the frequent introduction of mythological abstractions into ancient landscape requires an imaginary character of form in the material objects with which they are associated. Something of this kind is hinted in Reynolds's 14th Discourse; but nothing can be more false than such reasoning. If there be any truth or beauty in the original conception of the spiritual being so introduced, there must be a true and real connection between that abstract idea[H] and the features
Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal character of landscape? Undoubtedly; and Sir Joshua, with the great master of this character, Nicolo Poussin, present to his thoughts, ought to have arrived at more true conclusions respecting its essence than, as we shall presently see, are deducible from his works. The true ideal of landscape is precisely the same as that of the human form; it is the expression of the specific—not the individual, but the specific—characters of every object, in their perfection; there is an ideal form of every herb, flower, and tree: it is that form to which every individual of the species has a tendency to arrive, freed from the influence of accident or disease. Every landscape painter should know the specific characters of every object he has to represent, rock, flower, or cloud; and in his highest ideal works, all their distinctions will be perfectly expressed, broadly or delicately, slightly or completely, according to the nature of the subject, and the degree of attention which is to be drawn to the particular object by the part it plays in the composition. Where the sublime is aimed at, such distinctions will be indicated with severe simplicity, as the muscular markings in a colossal statue; where beauty is the object, they must be expressed with the utmost refinement of which the hand is capable.
This may sound like a contradiction of principles advanced by the highest authorities; but it is only a contradiction of a particular and most mistaken application of them. Much evil
In his observations on the foreground of the St. Pietro Martire, Sir Joshua advances, as matter of praise, that the plants are discriminated "just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more." Had this foreground been occupied by a group of animals, we should have been surprised to be told that the lion, the serpent, and the dove, or whatever other creatures might have been introduced, were distinguished from each other just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more. Yet is it to be supposed that the distinctions of the vegetable world are less complete, less essential, or less divine in origin, than those of the animal? If the distinctive forms of animal life are meant for our reverent observance, is it likely that those of vegetable life are made merely to be swept away? The latter are indeed less
But Sir Joshua is as inaccurate in fact, as false in principle. He himself furnishes a most singular instance of the very error of which he accuses Vaseni,—the seeing what he expects; or, rather, in the present case, not seeing what he does not expect. The great masters of Italy, almost without exception, and Titian perhaps more than any, (for he had the highest knowledge of landscape,) are in the constant habit of rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the most laborious botanical fidelity: witness the "Bacchus and Ariadne," in which the foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia, and the wild rose; every stamen of which latter is given, while the blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have been studied with the most exquisite accuracy. The foregrounds of Raffaelle's two cartoons,—"The Miraculous Draught of Fishes" and "The Charge to Peter,"—are covered with plants of the common sea colewort, (crambe maritima,) of which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have exhausted the patience of any other artist; but have appeared worthy of prolonged and thoughtful labor to the great mind of Raffaelle.
It appears then, not only from natural principles, but from the highest of all authority, that thorough knowledge of the lowest details is necessary and full expression of them right, even in the highest class of historical painting; that it will not take away from, nor interfere with, the interest of the figures; but, rightly managed, must add to and elucidate it; and, if further proof be wanting, I would desire the reader to compare the background of Sir Joshua's "Holy Family," in the National Gallery, with that of Nicolo Poussin's "Nursing of Jupiter," in the Dulwich Gallery. The first, owing to the utter neglect of all botanical detail, has lost every atom of ideal character, and reminds us of nothing but an English fashionable flower garden;—the formal pedestal adding considerably to the effect. Poussin's, in which every vine leaf is drawn with consummate skill and untiring diligence, produces not only a tree group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but one which, in its pure and simple truth, belongs to every age of nature, and adapts itself to the history of all time. If, then, such entire
There is a singular sense in which the child may peculiarly be said to be father of the man. In many arts and attainments, the first and last stages of progress—the infancy and the consummation—have many features in common; while the intermediate stages are wholly unlike either, and are farthest from the right. Thus it is in the progress of a painter's handling. We see the perfect child,—the absolute beginner, using of necessity a broken, imperfect, inadequate line, which, as he advances, becomes gradually firm, severe, and decided. Yet before he becomes a perfect artist, this severity and decision will again be exchanged for a light and careless stroke, which in many points will far more resemble that of his childhood than of his middle age—differing from it only by the consummate effect wrought out by the apparently inadequate means. So it is in many matters of opinion. Our first and last coincide, though on different grounds; it is the middle stage which is farthest from the truth. Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain,—which it is the pride of utmost age to recover.
Perhaps this is in no instance more remarkable than in the opinion we form upon the subject of detail in works of art. Infants in judgment, we look for specific character, and complete finish—we delight in the faithful plumage of the well-known bird—in the finely drawn leafage of the discriminated flower. As we advance in judgment, we scorn such detail altogether; we look for impetuosity of execution, and breadth of effect. But, perfected in judgment, we return in a great measure to our early feelings, and thank Raffaelle for the shells upon his sacred beach, and for the delicate stamens of the herbage beside his inspired St. Catherine.[I]
Of those who take interest in art, nay, even of artists themselves,
It is not, therefore, detail sought for its own sake,—not the calculable bricks of the Dutch house-painters, nor the numbered hairs and mapped wrinkles of Denner, which constitute great art,—they are the lowest and most contemptible art; but it is detail referred to a great end,—sought for the sake of the inestimable beauty which exists in the slightest and least of God's works, and treated in a manly, broad, and impressive manner. There may be as much greatness of mind, as much nobility of manner in a master's treatment of the smallest features, as in his management of the most vast; and this greatness of manner chiefly consists in seizing the specific character of the object, together with all the great qualities of beauty which it has in common with higher orders of existence,[J] while he utterly rejects the meaner beauties which are accidentally peculiar to the object, and yet not specifically characteristic of it. I cannot give
These laws being observed, it will not only be in the power, it will be the duty,—the imperative duty,—of the landscape painter, to descend to the lowest details with undiminished attention. Every herb and flower of the field has its specific, distinct, and perfect beauty; it has its peculiar habitation, expression, and function. The highest art is that which seizes this specific character, which develops and illustrates it, which assigns to it its proper position in the landscape, and which, by means of it, enhances and enforces the great impression which the picture is intended to convey. Nor is it of herbs and flowers alone that such scientific representation is required. Every class of rock, every kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied with equal industry, and rendered with equal precision. And thus we find ourselves unavoidably led to a conclusion directly opposed to that constantly enunciated dogma of the parrot-critic, that the features of nature must be "generalized,"—a dogma whose inherent and broad absurdity would long ago have been detected, if it had not contained in its convenient falsehood an apology for indolence, and a disguise for incapacity. Generalized! As if it were possible to generalize things generically different. Of such common cant of criticism I extract a characteristic passage from one of the reviews of this work, that in this year's AthenÆum for February 10th: "He (the author) would have geological landscape painters, dendrologic, meteorologic, and doubtless entomologic, ichthyologic, every kind of physiologic painter united in the same person;
To all such criticism as this (and I notice it only because it expresses the feelings into which many sensible and thoughtful minds have been fashioned by infection) the answer is simple and straightforward. It is just as impossible to generalize granite and slate, as it is to generalize a man and a cow. An animal must be either one animal or another animal; it cannot be a general animal, or it is no animal; and so a rock must be either one rock or another rock; it cannot be a general rock, or it is no rock. If there were a creature in the foreground of a picture, of which he could not decide whether it were a pony or a pig, the AthenÆum critic would perhaps affirm it to be a generalization of pony and pig, and consequently a high example of "harmonious union and simple effect." But I should call it simple bad drawing. And so when there are things in the foreground of Salvator of which I cannot pronounce whether they be granite or slate, or tufa, I affirm that there is in them neither harmonious union nor simple effect, but simple monstrosity. There is no grandeur, no beauty of any sort or kind; nothing but destruction, disorganization, and ruin, to be obtained by the violation of natural distinctions. The elements of brutes can only mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic nature only in annihilation. We may, if we choose, put together centaur monsters; but they must still be half man, half horse; they cannot be both man and horse, nor either man or horse. And so, if landscape painters choose, they may give us rocks which shall be half granite and half slate; but they cannot give us rocks which shall be either granite or slate, nor which shall be both granite and slate. Every attempt to produce that which shall be any rock, ends in the production of that which is no rock.
It is true that the distinctions of rocks and plants and clouds are less conspicuous, and less constantly subjects of observation than those of the animal creation; but the difficulty of observing
Again, it does not follow that because such accurate knowledge is necessary to the painter that it should constitute the painter, nor that such knowledge is valuable in itself, and without reference to high ends. Every kind of knowledge may be sought from ignoble motives, and for ignoble ends; and in those who so possess it, it is ignoble knowledge; while the very same knowledge is in another mind an attainment of the highest dignity, and conveying the greatest blessing. This is the difference between the mere botanist's knowledge of plants, and the great poet's or painter's knowledge of them. The one notes their distinctions for the sake of swelling his herbarium, the other, that he may render them vehicles of expression and emotion. The one counts the stamens, and affixes a name, and is content; the other observes every character of the plant's color and form; considering each of its attributes as an element of expression, he seizes on its lines of grace or energy, rigidity or
The particularization of flowers by Shakspeare and Shelley affords us the most frequent examples of the exalted use of these inferior details. It is true that the painter has not the same power of expressing the thoughts with which his symbols are connected; he is dependent in some degree on the knowledge and feeling of the spectator; but, by the destruction of such details, his foreground is not rendered more intelligible to the ignorant, although it ceases to have interest for the informed. It is no excuse for illegible writing that there are persons who could not have read it had it been plain.
I repeat then, generalization, as the word is commonly understood, is the act of a vulgar, incapable, and unthinking mind. To see in all mountains nothing but similar heaps of earth; in all rocks, nothing but similar concretions of solid matter; in all trees, nothing but similar accumulations of leaves, is no sign of high feeling or extended thought. The more we know, and the more we feel, the more we separate; we separate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the thoughts of the peasant, lie as they do on his field, one is like another, and there is no connection between any of them. The geologist distinguishes, and in distinguishing connects them. Each becomes different from its fellow, but in differing from, assumes a relation to its fellow; they are no more each the repetition of the other,—they are parts of a system, and each implies and is connected with the existence of the rest. That generalization then is right, true, and noble, which is based on the knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relations of individual kinds. That generalization is wrong, false, and contemptible,
Let us, then, without farther notice of the dogmata of the schools of art, follow forth those conclusions to which we are led by observance of the laws of nature.
I have just said that every class of rock, earth and cloud, must be known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic accuracy.[K] Nor is this merely for the sake of obtaining the character of these minor features themselves, but more especially for the sake of reaching that simple, earnest, and consistent character which is visible in the whole effect of every natural landscape. Every geological formation has features entirely peculiar to itself; definite lines of fracture, giving rise to fixed resultant forms of rock and earth; peculiar vegetable products, among which still farther distinctions are wrought out by variations of climate and elevation. From such modifying circumstances arise the infinite varieties of the orders of landscape, of which each one shows perfect harmony among its several features, and possesses an ideal beauty of its own; a beauty not distinguished merely by such peculiarities as are wrought on the human form by change of climate, but by generic differences the most marked and essential; so that its classes cannot be generalized or amalgamated by any expedients whatsoever. The level marshes and rich meadows of the tertiary, the rounded swells and short pastures of the chalk, the square-built cliffs and cloven dells of the lower limestone, the soaring peaks and ridgy precipices of the primaries, having nothing in common among them—nothing which is not distinctive and incommunicable.
There is, however, such a thing as composition of different orders of landscape, though there can be no generalization of them. Nature herself perpetually brings together elements of various expression. Her barren rocks stoop through wooded promontories to the plain; and the wreaths of the vine show through their green shadows the wan light of unperishing snow.
The painter, therefore, has the choice of either working out the isolated character of some one distinct class of scene, or of bringing together a multitude of different elements, which may adorn each other by contrast.
I believe that the simple and uncombined landscape, if wrought out with due attention to the ideal beauty of the features it includes, will always be the most powerful in its appeal to the heart. Contrast increases the splendor of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power. On this subject I shall have much to say hereafter; at present I merely wish to suggest the possibility, that the single-minded painter, who is working out on broad and simple principles, a piece of unbroken, harmonious landscape character, may be reaching an end in art quite as high as the more ambitious student who is always "within five minutes' walk of everywhere," making the ends of the earth contribute to his pictorial guazzetto;[L] and the certainty, that unless the
Let me, at the risk of tediously repeating what is universally known, refer to the common principles of historical composition, in order that I may show their application to that of landscape. The merest tyro in art knows that every figure which is unnecessary to his picture, is an encumbrance to it, and that every figure which does not sympathize with the action, interrupts it. He that gathereth not with me, scattereth,—is, or ought to be, the ruling principle of his plan: and the power and grandeur of his result will be exactly proportioned to the unity of feeling manifested in its several parts, and to the propriety and simplicity of the relations in which they stand to each other.
All this is equally applicable to the materials of inanimate nature. Impressiveness is destroyed by a multitude of contradictory facts, and the accumulation, which is not harmonious, is discordant. He who endeavors to unite simplicity with magnificence, to guide from solitude to festivity, and to contrast melancholy with mirth, must end by the production of confused inanity. There is a peculiar spirit; possessed by every kind of scene; and although a point of contrast may sometimes enhance and exhibit this particular feeling more intensely, it must be only a point, not an equalized opposition. Every introduction of new and different feeling weakens the force of what has already been impressed, and the mingling of all emotions must conclude in apathy, as the mingling of all colors in white.
Let us test by these simple rules one of the "ideal" landscape compositions of Claude, that known to the Italians as "Il Mulino."
The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery, with a dance of peasants by a brookside; quite enough subject to form, in the hands of a master, an impressive and complete picture. On the other side of the brook, however, we have a piece of pastoral life, a man with some bulls and goats tumbling headforemost into the water, owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this group is one too many; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle.
This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an "ideal landscape," i.e., a group of the artist's studies from nature, individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as may insure their neutralizing each other's effect, and united with sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association to insure their producing a general sensation of the impossible. Let us analyze the separate subjects a little in this ideal work of Claude's.
Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men.[M] The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly
Let us, with Claude, make a few "ideal" alterations in this landscape. First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices of the Apennines to four sugar-loaves. Secondly, we will remove the Alban mount, and put a large dust-heap in its stead. Next, we will knock down the greater part of the aqueducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with round white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant ruins in the foreground; we will plant some handsome trees therein, we will send for some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and a picnic party.
It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species of improvement is made on the materials which Claude had ready to his hand. The descending slopes of the city of Rome, towards the pyramid of Caius Cestius, supply not only lines of the most exquisite variety and beauty, but matter for contemplation and reflection in every fragment of their buildings. This passage has been idealized by Claude into a set of similar round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached, beyond the difficulty of conjecturing what they could have been built for. The ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive by the juxtaposition of the water-mill, and inexplicable by the introduction of the Roman soldiers. The glide of the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and Anio through the Campagna, is impressive in itself, but altogether ceases to
It cannot, I think, be expected, that landscapes like this should have any effect on the human heart, except to harden or to degrade it; to lead it from the love of what is simple, earnest and pure, to what is as sophisticated and corrupt in arrangement, as erring and imperfect in detail. So long as such works are held up for imitation, landscape painting must be a manufacture, its productions must be toys, and its patrons must be children.
My purpose then, in the present work, is to demonstrate the utter falseness both of the facts and principles; the imperfection of material, and error of arrangement, on which works such as these are based; and to insist on the necessity, as well as the dignity, of an earnest, faithful, loving, study of nature as she is, rejecting with abhorrence all that man has done to alter and modify her. And the praise which, in this first portion of the work, is given to many English artists, would be justifiable on this ground only, that although frequently with little power and desultory effort, they have yet, in an honest and good heart, received the word of God from clouds, and leaves, and waves, and kept it,[N] and endeavored in humility to render to the world
If, however, I shall have frequent occasion to insist on the necessity of this heartfelt love of, and unqualified submission to, the teaching of nature, it will be no less incumbent upon me to reprobate the careless rendering of casual impression, and the mechanical copyism of unimportant subject, which are too frequently visible in our modern school.[O] Their lightness and desultoriness
Since, then, I shall have to reprobate the absence of study in the moderns nearly as much as its false direction in the ancients, my task will naturally divide itself into three portions. In the first, I shall endeavor to investigate and arrange the facts of nature with scientific accuracy; showing as I proceed, by what total neglect of the very first base and groundwork of their art the idealities of some among the old masters are produced. This foundation once securely laid, I shall proceed, in the second portion of the work, to analyze and demonstrate the nature of the emotions of the Beautiful and Sublime; to examine the particular characters of every kind of scenery, and to bring to light, as far as may be in my power, that faultless, ceaseless, inconceivable, inexhaustible loveliness, which God has stamped upon all things, if man will only receive them as He gives them. Finally, I shall endeavor to trace the operation of all this on the hearts and minds of men; to exhibit the moral function and end of art, to prove the share which it ought to have in the thoughts, and influence on the lives of all of us; to attach to the artist the responsibility of a preacher, and to kindle in the general mind that regard which such an office must demand.
It must be evident that the first portion of this task, which is all that I have yet been enabled to offer to the reader, cannot but be the least interesting and the most laborious, especially because it is necessary that it should be executed without reference to any principles of beauty or influences of emotion. It is the hard, straightforward classification of material things, not the study of thought or passion; and therefore let me not be accused of the feelings which I choose to repress. The consideration of the high qualities of art must not be interrupted by the work of the hammer and the eudiometer.
Again, I would request that the frequent passages of reference to the great masters of the Italian school may not be looked upon as mere modes of conventional expression. I think there is enough in the following pages to prove that I am not likely to be carried away by the celebrity of a name; and therefore that the devoted love which I profess for the works of the great historical and sacred painters is sincere and well-grounded. And indeed every principle of art which I may advocate, I shall be able to illustrate by reference to the works of men universally allowed to be the masters of masters; and the public, so long as my teaching leads them to higher understanding and love of the
Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the present day, for advocacy of Michael Angelo against the pettiness of the moderns, as there is for support of Turner against the conventionalities of the ancients. For, though the names of the fathers of sacred art are on all our lips, our faith in them is much like that of the great world in its religion—nominal, but dead. In vain our lecturers sound the name of Raffaelle in the ears of their pupils, while their own works are visibly at variance with every principle deducible from his. In vain is the young student compelled to produce a certain number of school copies of Michael Angelo, when his bread must depend on the number of gewgaws he can crowd into his canvas. And I could with as much zeal exert myself against the modern system of English historical art, as I have in favor of our school of landscape, but that it is an ungrateful and painful task to attack the works of living painters, struggling with adverse circumstances of every kind, and especially with the false taste of a nation which regards matters of art either with the ticklishness of an infant, or the stolidity of a Megatherium.
I have been accused, in the execution of this first portion of my work, of irreverent and scurrile expression towards the works which I have depreciated. Possibly I may have been in some degree infected by reading those criticisms of our periodicals, which consist of nothing else; but I believe in general that my words will be found to have sufficient truth in them to excuse their familiarity; and that no other weapons could have been used to pierce the superstitious prejudice with which the works of certain painters are shielded from the attacks of reason. My answer is that given long ago to a similar complaint, uttered under the same circumstances by the foiled sophist:— (" Os d? ?st?? ? ????p??; ?? ?pa?de?t?? t??, ?? ???? fa??a ???ata ?????e?? t??? ?? se?? p???at?.) ?????t?? t??, ? ?pp?a ??de? ???? f??????? ? t? a?????."
It is with more surprise that I have heard myself accused of thoughtless severity with respect to the works of contemporary painters, for I fully believe that whenever I attack them, I give myself far more pain than I can possibly inflict; and, in many
And now—but one word more. For many a year we have heard nothing with respect to the works of Turner but accusations of their want of truth. To every observation on their power, sublimity, or beauty, there has been but one reply: They are not like nature. I therefore took my opponents on their own ground, and demonstrated, by thorough investigation of actual facts, that Turner is like nature, and paints more of nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition (the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been disputed with desperate struggles, and that I should have had to fight my way to my position inch by inch. Not at all. My opponents yield me the field at once. One (the writer for the AthenÆum) has no other resource than the assertion, that "he disapproves the natural style in painting. If people want to see nature, let them go and look at herself. Why should they see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other, (Blackwood,) still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more remarkable line of defence. "It is not," he says, "what things in all respects really are, but how they are convertible by the mind into what they are not, that we have to consider." (October, 1843, p. 485.) I leave therefore the reader to choose whether, with Blackwood and his fellows, he will proceed to consider how things are convertible by the mind into what they are not, or whether, with me, he will undergo the harder, but perhaps on the whole more useful, labor of ascertaining—What they are.
[A] One or two fragments of Greek sculpture, the works of Michael Angelo, considered with reference to their general conception and power, and the Madonna di St. Sisto, are all that I should myself put into such a category, not that even these are without defect, but their defects are such as mortality could never hope to rectify.
[B] This principle is dangerous, but not the less true, and necessary to be kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does not admit of being wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny the desirableness of originality, because men may err in seeking for it, or because a pretence to it may be made, by presumption, a cloak for its incompetence. Nevertheless, originality is never to be sought for its own sake—otherwise it will be mere aberration—it should arise naturally out of hard, independent study of nature; and it should be remembered that in many things technical, it is impossible to alter without being inferior, for therein, as says Spencer, "Truth is one, and right is ever one;" but wrongs are various and multitudinous. "Vice," says Byron, in Marino Faliero, "must have variety; but Virtue stands like the sun, and all which rolls around drinks life from her aspect."
[C] It is with regret that, in a work of this nature, I take notice of criticisms, which, after all, are merely intended to amuse the careless reader, and be forgotten as soon as read; but I do so in compliance with wishes expressed to me since the publication of this work, by persons who have the interests of art deeply at heart, and who, I find, attach more importance to the matter than I should have been disposed to do. I have, therefore, marked two or three passages which may enable the public to judge for themselves of the quality of these critiques; and this I think a matter of justice to those who might otherwise have been led astray by them—more than this I cannot consent to do. I should have but a hound's office if I had to tear the tabard from every Rouge Sanglier of the arts—with bell and bauble to back him.
[D] Chrysoprase, (Vide No. for October, 1843, p. 502.)
[E] Every school-boy knows that this epithet was given to Poussin in allusion to the profound classical knowledge of the painter. The reviewer, however, (September, 1841,) informs us that the expression refers to his skill in "Composition."
[F] Critique on Royal Academy, 1842. "He" (Mr. Lee) "often reminds us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is superior to him always in subject, composition, and variety."—Shade of Gainsborough!—deep-thoughted, solemn Gainsborough,—forgive us for re-writing this sentence; we do so to gibbet its perpetrator forever,—and leave him swinging in the winds of the Fool's Paradise. It is with great pain that I ever speak with severity of the works of living masters, especially when, like Mr. Lee's, they are well-intentioned, simple, free from affectation or imitation, and evidently painted with constant reference to nature. But I believe that these qualities will always secure him that admiration which he deserves—that there will be many unsophisticated and honest minds always ready to follow his guidance, and answer his efforts with delight; and therefore, that I need not fear to point out in him the want of those technical qualities which are more especially the object of an artist's admiration. Gainsborough's power of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift) is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens; he is the purest colorist—Sir Joshua himself not excepted—of the whole English school; with him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part die, and exists not now in Europe. Evidence enough will be seen in the following pages of my devoted admiration of Turner; but I hesitate not to say, that in management and quality of single and particular tint, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is a child of Gainsborough. Now, Mr. Lee never aims at color; he does not make it his object in the slightest degree—the spring green of vegetation is all that he desires; and it would be about as rational to compare his works with studied pieces of coloring, as the modulation of the Calabrian pipe to the harmony of a full orchestra. Gainsborough's hand is as light as the sweep of a cloud—as swift as the flash of a sunbeam; Lee's execution is feeble and spotty. Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division in heaven of light from darkness; Lee's (perhaps necessarily, considering the effects of flickering sunlight at which he aims) are as fragmentary as his leaves, and as numerous. Gainsborough's forms are grand, simple, and ideal; Lee's are small, confused, and unselected. Gainsborough never loses sight of his picture as a whole; Lee is but too apt to be shackled by its parts. In a word, Gainsborough is an immortal painter; and Lee, though on the right road, is yet in the early stages of his art; and the man who could imagine any resemblance or point of comparison between them, is not only a novice in art, but has not capacity ever to be anything more. He may be pardoned for not comprehending Turner, for long preparation and discipline are necessary before the abstract and profound philosophy of that artist can be met; but Gainsborough's excellence is based on principles of art long acknowledged, and facts of nature universally apparent; and I insist more particularly on the reviewer's want of feeling for his works, because it proves a truth of which the public ought especially to be assured that those who lavish abuse on the great men of modern times, are equally incapable of perceiving the real excellence of established canons, are ignorant of the commonest and most acknowledged principia of the art, blind to the most palpable and comprehensible of its beauties, incapable of distinguishing, if left to themselves, a master's work from the vilest school copy, and founding their applause of those great works which they praise, either in pure hypocrisy, or in admiration of their defects.
[G] There is a fine touch in the Frogs in Aristophanes, alluding probably to this part of the Agamemnon. "??? d? ??a???? t? s??p? ?a? e t??t? ?te?pe? ??? ?tt?? ?? ?a????te?." The same remark might be well applied to the seemingly vacant or incomprehensible portions of Turner's canvas. In their mysterious, and intense fire, there is much correspondence between the mind of Æschylus and that of our great painter. They share at least one thing in common—unpopularity. ?? d??? ??e?a ???s?? p??e??. ??. ? t?? pa???????; ??. ?? ??, ???????? ?? ?s??. ??. et? ??s????? ? ??? ?sa? ?te??? s?a???; ??. ?????? t? ????t?? ??t??.
[H] I do not know any passage in ancient literature in which this connection is more exquisitely illustrated than in the lines, burlesque though they be, descriptive of the approach of the chorus in the Clouds of Aristophanes,—a writer, by the way, who, I believe, knew and felt more of the noble landscape character of his country than any whose works have come down to us except Homer. The individuality and distinctness of conception—the visible cloud character which every word of this particular passage brings out into more dewy and bright existence, are to me as refreshing as the real breathing of mountain winds. The line "d?? t?? ?????? ?a? t?? das???, p????a?," could have been written by none but an ardent lover of hill scenery—one who had watched, hour after hour, the peculiar oblique, sidelong action of descending clouds, as they form along the hollows and ravines of the hills. There are no lumpish solidities—no pillowy protuberances here. All is melting, drifting, evanescent,—full of air, and light, and dew.
[I] Let not this principle be confused with Fuseli's, "love for what is called deception in painting marks either the infancy or decrepitude of a nation's taste." Realization to the mind necessitates not deception of the eye.
[J] I shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are principles of universal beauty common to all the creatures of God; and that it is by the greater or less share of these that one form becomes nobler or meaner than another.
[K] Is not this—it may be asked—demanding more from him than life can accomplish? Not one whit. Nothing more than knowledge of external characteristics is absolutely required; and even if, which were more desirable, thorough scientific knowledge had to be attained, the time which our artists spend in multiplying crude sketches, or finishing their unintelligent embryos of the study, would render them masters of every science that modern investigations have organized, and familiar with every form that Nature manifests. Martin, if the time which he must have spent on the abortive bubbles of his Canute had been passed in working on the seashore, might have learned enough to enable him to produce, with a few strokes, a picture which would have smote like the sound of the sea, upon men's hearts forever.
"A green field is a sight which makes us pardon
The absence of that more sublime construction
Which mixes up vines, olive, precipices,
Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices."
Don Juan.
[M] The vegetable soil of the Campagna is chiefly formed by decomposed lavas, and under it lies a bed of white pumice, exactly resembling remnants of bones.
[N] The feelings of Constable with respect to his art might be almost a model for the young student, were it not that they err a little on the other side, and are perhaps in need of chastening and guiding from the works of his fellow-men. We should use pictures not as authorities, but as comments on nature, just as we use divines, not as authorities, but as comments on the Bible. Constable, in his dread of saint-worship, excommunicates himself from all benefit of the Church, and deprives himself of much instruction from the Scripture to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the reading of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beaumont, on the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes given of him in Constable's life, a melancholy instance of the degradation into which the human mind may fall, when it suffers human works to interfere between it and its Master. The recommending the color of an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and the vapid inquiry of the conventionalist, "Where do you put your brown tree?" show a prostration of intellect so laughable and lamentable, that they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery, a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous extremes to be shunned,—forgetfulness of the Scripture, and scorn of the divine—slavery on the one hand, free-thinking on the other. The mean is nearly as difficult to determine or keep in art as in religion, but the great danger is on the side of superstition. He who walks humbly with Nature will seldom be in danger of losing sight of Art. He will commonly find in all that is truly great of man's works, something of their original, for which he will regard them with gratitude, and sometimes follow them with respect; while he who takes Art for his authority may entirely lose sight of all that it interprets, and sink at once into the sin of an idolater, and the degradation of a slave.
[O] I should have insisted more on this fault (for it is a fatal one) in the following Essay, but the cause of it rests rather with the public than with the artist, and in the necessities of the public as much as in their will. Such pictures as artists themselves would wish to paint, could not be executed under very high prices; and it must always be easier, in the present state of society, to find ten purchasers of ten-guinea sketches, than one purchaser for a hundred-guinea picture. Still, I have been often both surprised and grieved to see that any effort on the part of our artists to rise above manufacture—any struggle to something like completed conception—was left by the public to be its own reward. In the water-color exhibition of last year there was a noble work of David Cox's, ideal in the right sense—a forest hollow with a few sheep crushing down through its deep fern, and a solemn opening of evening sky above its dark masses of distance. It was worth all his little bits on the walls put together. Yet the public picked up all the little bits—blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn—all that was clever and petite; and the real picture—the full development of the artist's mind—was left on his hands. How can I, or any one else, with a conscience, advise him after this to aim at anything more than may be struck out by the cleverness of a quarter of an hour. Cattermole, I believe, is earthed and shackled in the same manner. He began his career with finished and studied pictures, which, I believe, never paid him—he now prostitutes his fine talent to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his way to emolument and oblivion. There is commonly, however, fault on both sides; in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank tricks of the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the knowledge and labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he has himself formed in his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a common actor will oftentimes render apparently vapid the finished touches of perfect nature; and in the public, for taking less real pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate, the various powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate the excellence of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
It is with much regret, and partly against my own judgment, that I republish the following chapters in their present form. The particular circumstances (stated in the first preface) under which they were originally written, have rendered them so unfit for the position they now hold as introductory to a serious examination of the general functions of art, that I should have wished first to complete the succeeding portions of the essay, and then to write another introduction of more fitting character. But as it may be long before I am able to do this, and as I believe what I have already written may still be of some limited and partial service, I have suffered it to reappear, trusting to the kindness of the reader to look to its intention rather than its temper, and forgive its inconsideration in its earnestness.
Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever I have found a passage which I thought required modification or explanation, I have cut it out; what I have left, however imperfect, cannot I think be dangerously misunderstood: something I have added, not under the idea of rendering the work in any wise systematic or complete, but to supply gross omissions, answer inevitable objections, and give some substance to passages of mere declamation.
Whatever inadequacy or error there may be, throughout, in materials or modes of demonstration, I have no doubt of the truth and necessity of the main result; and though the reader may, perhaps, find me frequently hereafter showing other and better grounds for what is here affirmed, yet the point and bearing of the book, its determined depreciation of Claude, Salvator, Gaspar, and Canaletto, and its equally determined support of Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of Turner's
These points are somewhat farther developed in the general sketch of ancient and modern landscape, which I have added to the first section of the second part. Some important additions have also been made to the chapters on the painting of sea. Throughout the rest of the text, though something is withdrawn, little is changed; and the reader may rest assured that if I were now to bestow on this feeble essay the careful revision which it much needs, but little deserves, it would not be to alter its tendencies, or modify its conclusions, but to prevent indignation from appearing virulence on the one side, and enthusiasm partisanship on the other.
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION (1873).
I have been lately so often asked by friends on whose judgment I can rely, to permit the publication of another edition of "Modern Painters" in its original form, that I have at last yielded, though with some violence to my own feelings; for many parts of the first and second volumes are written in a narrow enthusiasm, and the substance of their metaphysical and religious speculation is only justifiable on the ground of its absolute honesty. Of the third, fourth, and fifth volumes I indeed mean eventually to rearrange what I think of permanent interest, for the complete edition of my works, but with fewer and less elaborate illustrations: nor have I any serious grounds for refusing to allow the book once more to appear in the irregular form which it took as it was written, since of the art-teaching and landscape description it contains I have little to retrench, and nothing to retract.
This final edition must, however, be limited to a thousand copies, for some of the more delicate plates are already worn, that of the Mill Stream in the fifth volume, and of the Loire Side very injuriously; while that of the Shores of Wharfe had to be retouched by an engraver after the removal of the mezzotint for reprinting. But Mr. Armytage's, Mr. Cousen's, and Mr. Cuff's magnificent plates are still in good state, and my own etchings, though injured, are still good enough to answer their purpose.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
PART I.
OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
SECTION I.
OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.
Chapter I.—Introductory.
| page | ||
| §1. | Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long periods of time. | 1 |
| §2. | And therefore obstinate when once formed. | 4 |
| §3. | The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances. | 5 |
| §4. | But only on points capable of demonstration. | 5 |
| §5. | The author's partiality to modern works excusable. | 6 |
Chapter II.—Definition of Greatness in Art.
| §1. | Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and technical knowledge. | 8 |
| §2. | Painting, as such, is nothing more than language. | 8 |
| §3. | "Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier." | 9 |
| §4. | Example in a painting of E. Landseer's. | 9 |
| §5. | Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought. | 9 |
| §6. | Distinction between decorative and expressive language. | 10 |
| §7. | Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools. | 10 |
| §8. | Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself. | 11 |
| §9. | The definition. | 12 |
Chapter III.—Of Ideas of Power.
| §1. | What classes of ideas are conveyable by art. | 13 |
| §2. | Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity. | 13 |
| §3. | But are received from whatever has been the subject of power. The meaning of the word "excellence." | 14 |
| §4. | What is necessary to the distinguishing of excellence. | 15 |
| §5. | The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right. | 16 |
Chapter IV.—Of Ideas of Imitation.
| §1. | False use of the term "imitation" by many writers on art. | 17 |
| §2. | Real meaning of the term. | 18 |
| §3. | What is requisite to the sense of imitation. | 18 |
| §4. | The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible that can be derived from art. | 19 |
| §5. | Imitation is only of contemptible subjects. | 19 |
| §6. | Imitation is contemptible because it is easy. | 20 |
| §7. | Recapitulation. | 20 |
Chapter V.—Of Ideas of Truth.
| §1. | Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art. | 21 |
| §2. | First difference between truth and imitation. | 21 |
| §3. | Second difference. | 21 |
| §4. | Third difference. | 22 |
| §5. | No accurate truths necessary to imitation. | 22 |
| §6. | Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation. | 24 |
Chapter VI.—Of Ideas of Beauty.
| §1. | Definition of the term "beautiful." | 26 |
| §2. | Definition of the term "taste." | 26 |
| §3. | Distinction between taste and judgment. | 27 |
| §4. | How far beauty may become intellectual. | 27 |
| §5. | The high rank and function of ideas of beauty. | 28 |
| §6. | Meaning of the term "ideal beauty." | 28 |
Chapter VII.—Of Ideas of Relation.
| §1. | General meaning of the term. | 29 |
| §2. | ideas are to be comprehended under it. | 29 |
| §3. | The exceeding nobility of these ideas. | 30 |
| §4. | Why no subdivision of so extensive a class is necessary. | 31 |
SECTION II.
OF POWER.
Chapter I.—General Principles respecting Ideas of Power.
| §1. | No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation. | 32 |
| §2. | Nor for separate study of ideas of power. | 32 |
| §3. | Except under one particular form. | 33 |
| §4. | There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly inconsistent. | 33 |
| §5. | First reason of the inconsistency. | 33 |
| §6. | Second reason for the inconsistency. | 34 |
| §7. | The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art. | 34 |
| §8. | Instances in pictures of modern artists. | 35 |
| §9. | Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution. | 35 |
Chapter II.—Of Ideas of Power, as they are dependent upon Execution.
| §1. | Meaning of the term "execution." | 36 |
| §2. | The first quality of execution is truth. | 36 |
| §3. | The second, simplicity. | 36 |
| §4. | The third, mystery. | 37 |
| §5. | The fourth, inadequacy; and the fifth, decision. | 37 |
| §6. | The sixth, velocity. | 37 |
| §7. | Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution. | 37 |
| §8. | Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure in execution are inconsistent with each other. | 38 |
| §9. | And fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the lowest. | 39 |
| §10. | Therefore perilous. | 40 |
| §11. | Recapitulation. | 40 |
Chapter III.—Of the Sublime.
| §1. | Sublimity is the effect upon the mind of anything above it. | 41 |
| §2. | Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and why. | 41 |
| §3. | Danger is sublime, but not the fear of it. | 42 |
| §4. | The highest beauty is sublime. | 42 |
| §5. | And generally whatever elevates the mind. | 42 |
| §6. | The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient. | 42 |
PART II.
OF TRUTH.
SECTION I.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.
Chapter I.—Of Ideas of Truth in their connection with those of Beauty and Relation.
| §1. | The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation of facts and thoughts. | 44 |
| §2. | They induce a different choice of material subjects. | 45 |
| §3. | The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition. | 45 |
| §4. | The second necessitating variety. | 45 |
| §5. | Yet the first is delightful to all. | 46 |
| §6. | The second only to a few. | 46 |
| §7. | The first necessary to the second. | 47 |
| §8. | The exceeding importance of truth. | 48 |
| §9. | Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth. | 48 |
| §10. | How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art. | 48 |
Chapter II.—That the Truth of Nature is not to be discerned by the Uneducated Senses.
| §1. | The common self-deception of men with respect to their power of discerning truth. | 50 |
| §2. | Men usually see little of what is before their eyes. | 51 |
| §3. | But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to what is beautiful. | 52 |
| §4. | Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling. | 52 |
| §5. | And of the intellectual powers. | 53 |
| §6. | How sight depends upon previous knowledge. | 54 |
| §7. | The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature. | 55 |
| §8. | We recognize objects by their least important attributes. Compare Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4. | 55 |
Chapter III.—Of the Relative Importance of Truths:—First, that Particular Truths are more important than General Ones.
| §1. | Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths. | 58 |
| §2. | Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more important than particular ones." | 58 |
| §3. | Falseness of this maxim, taken without explanation. | 59 |
| §4. | Generality important in the subject, particularity in the predicate. | 59 |
| §5. | The importance of truths of species is not owing to their generality. | 60 |
| §6. | All truths valuable as they are characteristic. | 61 |
| §7. | Otherwise truths of species are valuable, because beautiful. | 61 |
| §8. | And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in connection with others. | 62 |
| §9. | Recapitulation. | 63 |
Chapter IV.—Of the Relative Importance of Truths:—Secondly, that Rare Truths are more important than Frequent Ones.
| §1. | No accidental violation of nature's principles should be represented. | 64 |
| §2. | But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly exemplified. | 65 |
| §3. | Which are comparatively rare. | 65 |
| §4. | All repetition is blamable. | 65 |
| §5. | The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher. | 66 |
Chapter V.—Of the Relative Importance of Truths:—Thirdly, that Truths of Color are the least important of all Truths.
| §1. | Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies. | 67 |
| §2. | The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so. | 67 |
| §3. | Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than form. | 68 |
| §4. | Color no distinction between objects of the same species. | 68 |
| §5. | And different in association from what it is alone. | 69 |
| §6. | It is not certain whether any two people see the same colors in things. | 69 |
| §7. | Form, considered as an element of landscape, includes light and shade. | 69 |
| §8. | Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of bodies, and unimportance of color. | 70 |
| §9. | Recapitulation. | 71 |
Chapter VI.—Recapitulation.
| §1. | The importance of historical truths. | 72 |
| §2. | Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths. Tone, light, and color, are secondary. | 72 |
| §3. | And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all. | 73 |
Chapter VII.—General Application of the Foregoing Principles.
| §1. | The different selection of facts consequent on the several aims at imitation or at truth. | 74 |
| §2. | The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation. | 74 |
| §3. | What truths they gave. | 75 |
| §4. | The principles of selection adopted by modern artists. | 76 |
| §5. | General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted with the freedom and vastness of nature. | 77 |
| §6. | Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret. | 78 |
| §7. | Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools. | 79 |
| §8. | The value of inferior works of art, how to be estimated. | 80 |
| §9. | Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its completion. | 81 |
| §10. | Finish, and the want of it, how right—and how wrong. | 82 |
| §11. | The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione. | 84 |
| §12. | Landscape of Titian and Tintoret. | 86 |
| §13. | Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna. | 88 |
| §14. | Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins. | 89 |
| §15. | German and Flemish landscape. | 90 |
| §16. | The lower Dutch schools. | 92 |
| §17. | English school, Wilson and Gainsborough. | 93 |
| §18. | Constable, Callcott. | 94 |
| §19. | Peculiar tendency of recent landscape. | 95 |
| §20. | G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style." | 95 |
| §21. | Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color. | 97 |
| §22. | Beauty of mountain foreground. | 99 |
| §23. | De Wint. | 101 |
| §24. | Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding. | 101 |
| §25. | Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient. | 103 |
| §26. | Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable. | 104 |
| §27. | Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail. | 106 |
| §28. | Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio. | 107 |
| §29. | And of the Venetians generally. | 109 |
| §30. | Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto. | 110 |
| §31. | Expression of the effects of age on Architecture by S. Prout. | 112 |
| §32. | His excellent composition and color. | 114 |
| §33. | Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole. | 115 |
| §34. | The evil in an archÆological point of view of misapplied invention, in architectural subject. | 117 |
| §35. | Works of David Roberts: their fidelity and grace. | 118 |
| §36. | Clarkson Stanfield. | 121 |
| §37. | J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great painters. | 123 |
| §38. | Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject. | 125 |
| §39. | Its peculiar manifestation in Turner. | 125 |
| §40. | The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum. | 127 |
| §41. | Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter deficient. | 129 |
| §42. | His rendering of Italian character still less successful. His large compositions how failing. | 130 |
| §43. | His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant quantity. | 133 |
| §44. | Changes introduced by him in the received system of art. | 133 |
| §45. | Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies. | 134 |
| §46. | Reflection of his very recent works. | 137 |
| §47. | Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects. | 139 |
SECTION II.
OF GENERAL TRUTHS.
Chapter I.—Of Truth of Tone.
| §1. | Meanings of the word "tone:"—First, the right relation of objects in shadow to the principal light. | 140 |
| §2. | Secondly, the quality of color by which it is felt to owe part of its brightness to the hue of light upon it. | 140 |
| §3. | Difference between tone in its first sense and aerial perspective. | 141 |
| §4. | The pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle tints to light. | 141 |
| §5. | And consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to darkness. | 141 |
| §6. | General falsehood of such a system. | 143 |
| §7. | The principle of Turner in this respect. | 143 |
| §8. | Comparison of N. Poussin's "Phocion." | 144 |
| §9. | With Turner's "Mercury and Argus." | 145 |
| §10. | And with the "Datur Hora Quieti." | 145 |
| §11. | The second sense of the word "tone." | 146 |
| §12. | Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings and drawings of Turner. | 146 |
| §13. | Not owing to want of power over the material. | 146 |
| §14. | The two distinct qualities of light to be considered. | 147 |
| §15. | Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality in light. | 148 |
| §16. | Turner will not use such means. | 148 |
| §17. | But gains in essential truth by the sacrifice. | 148 |
| §18. | The second quality of light. | 148 |
| §19. | The perfection of Cuyp in this respect interfered with by numerous solecisms. | 150 |
| §20. | Turner is not so perfect in parts—far more so in the whole. | 151 |
| §21. | The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones. | 152 |
| §22. | Recapitulation. | 153 |
Chapter II.—Of Truth of Color.
| §1. | Observations on the color of G. Poussin's La Riccia. | 155 |
| §2. | As compared with the actual scene. | 155 |
| §3. | Turner himself is inferior in brilliancy to nature. | 157 |
| §4. | Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian. | 157 |
| §5. | Poussin, and Claude. | 158 |
| §6. | Turner's translation of colors. | 160 |
| §7. | Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even approach that of reality. | 161 |
| §8. | Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect to their representation. | 162 |
| §9. | Color of the Napoleon. | 163 |
| §10. | Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of color and light. | 164 |
| §11. | This discrepancy less in Turner than in other colorists. | 165 |
| §12. | Its great extent in a landscape attributed to Rubens. | 165 |
| §13. | Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid color. | 166 |
| §14. | The basis of gray, under all his vivid hues. | 167 |
| §15. | The variety and fulness even of his most simple tones. | 168 |
| §16. | Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature. | 168 |
| §17. | His dislike of purple, and fondness for the opposition of yellow and black. The principles of nature in this respect. | 169 |
| §18. | His early works are false in color. | 170 |
| §19. | His drawings invariably perfect. | 171 |
| §20. | The subjection of his system of color to that of chiaroscuro. | 171 |
Chapter III.—Of Truth of Chiaroscuro.
| §1. | We are not at present to examine particular effects of light. | 174 |
| §2. | And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means of expressing vividness of light. | 175 |
| §3. | Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian school. | 175 |
| §4. | And partial absence in the Dutch. | 176 |
| §5. | The perfection of Turner's works in this respect. | 177 |
| §6. | The effect of his shadows upon the light. | 178 |
| §7. | The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the ancient and modern schools. | 179 |
| §8. | Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and deep shadow are used in equal quantity, and only in points. | 180 |
| §9. | Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art. | 180 |
| §10. | And consequent misguiding of the student. | 181 |
| §11. | The great value of a simple chiaroscuro. | 182 |
| §12. | The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle tint. | 182 |
| §13. | The truth of Turner. | 183 |
Chapter IV.—Of Truth of Space:—First, as Dependent on the Focus of the Eye.
| §1. | Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than by their hue. | 185 |
| §2. | It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances distinctly at one moment. | 186 |
| §3. | Especially such as are both comparatively near. | 186 |
| §4. | In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must be partially sacrificed. | 187 |
| §5. | Which not being done by the old masters, they could not express space. | 187 |
| §6. | But modern artists have succeeded in fully carrying out this principle. | 188 |
| §7. | Especially of Turner. | 189 |
| §8. | Justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures. | 189 |
Chapter V.—Of Truth of Space:—Secondly, as its Appearance is dependent on the Power of the Eye.
| §1. | The peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of objects from the eye. | 191 |
| §2. | Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details. | 191 |
| §3. | Instances in various objects. | 192 |
| §4. | Two great resultant truths; that nature is never distinct, and never vacant. | 193 |
| §5. | Complete violation of both these principles by the old masters. They are either distinct or vacant. | 193 |
| §6. | Instances from Nicholas Poussin. | 194 |
| §7. | From Claude. | 194 |
| §8. | And G. Poussin. | 195 |
| §9. | The imperative necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness and finish. | 196 |
| §10. | Breadth is not vacancy. | 197 |
| §11. | The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances. | 198 |
| §12. | Farther illustrations in architectural drawing. | 199 |
| §13. | In near objects as well as distances. | 199 |
| §14. | Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto. | 200 |
| §15. | Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds. | 200 |
| §16. | Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by vacancy. | 202 |
| §17. | Swift execution best secures perfection of details. | 202 |
| §18. | Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical subjects. | 202 |
| §19. | Recapitulation of the section. | 203 |
SECTION III.
OF TRUTH OF SKIES.
Chapter I.—Of the Open Sky.
| §1. | The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and teaching of man. | 204 |
| §2. | The carelessness with which its lessons are received. | 205 |
| §3. | The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest. | 205 |
| §4. | Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional. | 205 |
| §5. | Nature, and essential qualities of the open blue. | 206 |
| §6. | Its connection with clouds. | 207 |
| §7. | Its exceeding depth. | 207 |
| §8. | These qualities are especially given by modern masters. | 207 |
| §9. | And by Claude. | 208 |
| §10. | Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his general treatment of open sky. | 208 |
| §11. | Errors of Cuyp in graduation of color. | 209 |
| §12. | The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and Dutch schools. Their qualities are unattainable in modern times. | 210 |
| §13. | Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause. | 211 |
| §14. | They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky is free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds. | 211 |
| §15. | Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by the old masters. | 212 |
| §16. | The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be represented. | 213 |
| §17. | The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more delicate phenomena of rays. | 213 |
| §18. | The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the works of the old masters. | 213 |
| §19. | Truth of the skies of modern drawings. | 214 |
| §20. | Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in quality, inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish. | 215 |
Chapter II.—Of Truth of Clouds:—First, of the Region of the Cirrus.
| §1. | Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds consists. | 216 |
| §2. | Variation of their character at different elevations. The three regions to which they may conveniently be considered as belonging. | 216 |
| §3. | Extent of the upper region. | 217 |
| §4. | The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds. | 217 |
| §5. | Their exceeding delicacy. | 218 |
| §6. | Their number. | 218 |
| §7. | Causes of their peculiarly delicate coloring. | 219 |
| §8. | Their variety of form. | 219 |
| §9. | Total absence of even the slightest effort at their representation, in ancient landscape. | 220 |
| §10. | The intense and constant study of them by Turner. | 221 |
| §11. | His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea. | 222 |
| §12. | His use of the cirrus in expressing mist. | 223 |
| §13. | His consistency in every minor feature. | 224 |
| §14. | The color of the upper clouds. | 224 |
| §15. | Recapitulation. | 225 |
Chapter III.—Of Truth of Clouds:—Secondly, of the Central Cloud Region.
| §1. | Extent and typical character of the central cloud region. | 226 |
| §2. | Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought for their representation, are therefore favorite subjects with the old masters. | 226 |
| §3. | The clouds of Salvator and Poussin. | 227 |
| §4. | Their essential characters. | 227 |
| §5. | Their angular forms and general decision of outline. | 228 |
| §6. | The composition of their minor curves. | 229 |
| §7. | Their characters, as given by S. Rosa. | 230 |
| §8. | Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian school generally. | 230 |
| §9. | Vast size of congregated masses of cloud. | 231 |
| §10. | Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges. | 231 |
| §11. | And consequent divisions and varieties of feature. | 232 |
| §12. | Not lightly to be omitted. | 232 |
| §13. | Imperfect conceptions of this size and extent in ancient landscape. | 233 |
| §14. | Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of ancient landscape. | 234 |
| §15. | Farther proof of their deficiency in space. | 235 |
| §16. | Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon. | 236 |
| §17. | And in his Pools of Solomon. | 237 |
| §18. | Truths of outline and character in his Como. | 237 |
| §19. | Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus. | 238 |
| §20. | The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of Geneva. | 238 |
| §21. | Farther principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi. | 239 |
| §22. | Reasons for insisting on the infinity of Turner's works. Infinity is almost an unerring test of all truth | 239 |
| §23. | Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator. | 240 |
| §24. | And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The conclusions which may be arrived at from it. | 240 |
| §25. | The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will not give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices. | 241 |
| §26. | Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner. | 242 |
| §27. | The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield. | 242 |
| §28. | The average standing of the English school. | 243 |
Chapter IV.—Of Truth of Clouds:—Thirdly, of the Region of the Rain-Cloud.
| §1. | The apparent difference in character between the lower and central clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity. | 244 |
| §2. | Their marked differences in color. | 244 |
| §3. | And in definiteness of form. | 245 |
| §4. | They are subject to precisely the same great laws. | 245 |
| §5. | Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud. | 246 |
| §6. | The old masters have not left a single instance of the painting of the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it. Gaspar Poussin's storms. | 247 |
| §7. | The great power of the moderns in this respect. | 248 |
| §8. | Works of Copley Fielding. | 248 |
| §9. | His peculiar truth. | 248 |
| §10. | His weakness, and its probable cause. | 249 |
| §11. | Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from engravings. | 250 |
| §12. | His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges. | 250 |
| §13. | Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of smoke and steam. | 250 |
| §14. | Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony. | 251 |
| §15. | And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch Coriskin. | 252 |
| §16. | The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End. | 253 |
| §17. | The individual character of its parts. | 253 |
| §18. | Deep-studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry. | 254 |
| §19. | Compared with forms given by Salvator. | 254 |
| §20. | Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and circumstances in the Coventry. | 255 |
| §21. | Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose. | 255 |
| §22. | The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky only seen after rain, and how seen. | 256 |
| §23. | Absence of this effect in the works of the old masters. | 256 |
| §24. | Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it by Turner. | 257 |
| §25. | Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works. | 257 |
| §26. | Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and Æneas. | 258 |
| §27. | Turner's power of rendering mist. | 258 |
| §28. | His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once understood, they can no more be explained or reasoned on than nature herself. | 259 |
| §29. | Various instances. | 259 |
| §30. | Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by engravers. | 260 |
| §31. | General system of landscape engraving. | 260 |
| §32. | The storm in the Stonehenge. | 260 |
| §33. | General character of such effects as given by Turner. His expression of falling rain. | 261 |
| §34. | Recapitulation of the section. | 261 |
| §35. | Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole, compared with the works of Turner and of the old masters. Morning on the plains. | 262 |
| §36. | Noon with gathering storms. | 263 |
| §37. | Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight. | 264 |
| §38. | And sunrise on the Alps. | 264 |
Chapter V.—Effects of Light rendered by Modern Art.
| §1. | Reasons for merely, at present, naming, without examining the particular effects of light rendered by Turner. | 266 |
| §2. | Hopes of the author for assistance in the future investigation of them. | 266 |
SECTION IV.
OF TRUTH OF EARTH.
Chapter I.—Of General Structure.
| §1. | First laws of the organization of the earth, and their importance in art. | 270 |
| §2. | The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study by modern artists. | 271 |
| §3. | General structure of the earth. The hills are its action, the plains its rest. | 271 |
| §4. | Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their support. | 272 |
| §5. | Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when deposited by quiet water. | 273 |
| §6. | Illustrated by Turner's Marengo. | 273 |
| §7. | General divisions of formation resulting from this arrangement. Plan of investigation. | 274 |
Chapter II.—Of the Central Mountains.
| §1. | Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the world. | 275 |
| §2. | Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical fissures. | 275 |
| §3. | Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose. | 276 |
| §4. | The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps at Daybreak. | 276 |
| §5. | Vignette of the Andes and others. | 277 |
| §6. | Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such mountains. | 277 |
| §7. | Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art. | 278 |
| §8. | Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of Claude. | 278 |
| §9. | Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance. | 279 |
| §10. | And violation of specific form. | 280 |
| §11. | Even in his best works. | 280 |
| §12. | Farther illustration of the distant character of mountain chains. | 281 |
| §13. | Their excessive appearance of transparency. | 281 |
| §14. | Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfield. The Borromean Islands of the latter. | 282 |
| §15. | Turner's Arona. | 283 |
| §16. | Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by very sharp outline. | 283 |
| §17. | Want of this decision in Claude. | 284 |
| §18. | The perpetual rendering of it by Turner. | 285 |
| §19. | Effects of snow, how imperfectly studied. | 285 |
| §20. | General principles of its forms on the Alps. | 287 |
| §21. | Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has scarcely yet been caught. | 289 |
Chapter III.—Of the Inferior Mountains.
| §1. | The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central, by being divided into beds. | 290 |
| §2. | Farther division of these beds by joints. | 290 |
| §3. | And by lines of lamination. | 291 |
| §4. | Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are manifested. | 291 |
| §5. | The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin. | 292 |
| §6. | Glencoe and other works. | 293 |
| §7. | Especially the Mount Lebanon. | 293 |
| §8. | Compared with the work of Salvator. | 294 |
| §9. | And of Poussin. | 295 |
| §10. | Effects of external influence on mountain form. | 296 |
| §11. | The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion. | 297 |
| §12. | And the effect of the action of torrents. | 297 |
| §13. | The exceeding simplicity of contour caused by these influences. | 298 |
| §14. | And multiplicity of feature. | 299 |
| §15. | Both utterly neglected in ancient art. | 299 |
| §16. | The fidelity of treatment in Turner's Daphne and Leucippus. | 300 |
| §17. | And in the Avalanche and Inundation. | 300 |
| §18. | The rarity among secondary hills of steep slopes or high precipices. | 301 |
| §19. | And consequent expression of horizontal distance in their ascent. | 302 |
| §20. | Full statement of all these facts in various works of Turner.—Caudebec, etc. | 302 |
| §21. | The use of considering geological truths. | 303 |
| §22. | Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the work of Claude. | 304 |
| §23. | The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher hills. | 304 |
| §24. | The peculiar difficulty of investigating the more essential truths of hill outline. | 305 |
| §25. | Works of other modern artists.—Clarkson Stanfield. | 305 |
| §26. | Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing. | 306 |
| §27. | Works of Copley Fielding. His high feeling. | 307 |
| §28. | Works of J. D. Harding and others. | 308 |
Chapter IV.—Of the Foreground.
| §1. | What rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape foreground. | 309 |
| §2. | Salvator's limestones. The real characters of the rock. Its fractures, and obtuseness of angles. | 309 |
| §3. | Salvator's acute angles caused by the meeting of concave curves. | 310 |
| §4. | Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of nature. | 311 |
| §5. | Peculiar confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator. | 311 |
| §6. | And total want of any expression of hardness or brittleness. | 311 |
| §7. | Instances in particular pictures. | 312 |
| §8. | Compared with the works of Stanfield. | 312 |
| §9. | Their absolute opposition in every particular. | 313 |
| §10. | The rocks of J. D. Harding. | 313 |
| §11. | Characters of loose earth and soil. | 314 |
| §12. | Its exceeding grace and fulness of feature. | 315 |
| §13. | The ground of Teniers. | 315 |
| §14. | Importance of these minor parts and points. | 316 |
| §15. | The observance of them is the real distinction between the master and the novice. | 316 |
| §16. | Ground of Cuyp. | 317 |
| §17. | And of Claude. | 317 |
| §18. | The entire weakness and childishness of the latter. | 318 |
| §19. | Compared with the work of Turner. | 318 |
| §20. | General features of Turner's foreground. | 319 |
| §21. | Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees. | 319 |
| §22. | Their convex surfaces and fractured edges. | 319 |
| §23. | And perfect unity. | 320 |
| §24. | Various parts whose history is told us by the details of the drawing. | 321 |
| §25. | Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the Llanthony. | 321 |
| §26. | Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone. | 322 |
| §27. | And of complicated foreground. | 323 |
| §28. | And of loose soil. | 323 |
| §29. | The unison of all in the ideal foregrounds of the Academy pictures. | 324 |
| §30. | And the great lesson to be received from all. | 324 |
SECTION V.
OF TRUTH OF WATER.
Chapter I.—Of Water, as Painted by the Ancients.
| §1. | Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water. | 325 |
| §2. | The ease with which a common representation of it may be given. The impossibility of a faithful one. | 325 |
| §3. | Difficulty of properly dividing the subject. | 326 |
| §4. | Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among all painters. | 326 |
| §5. | Difficulty of treating this part of the subject. | 328 |
| §6. | General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, The imperfection of its reflective surface. | 329 |
| §7. | The inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does not affect right ones. | 330 |
| §8. | Water takes no shadow. | 331 |
| §9. | Modification of dark reflections by shadow. | 332 |
| §10. | Examples on the waters of the Rhone. | 333 |
| §11. | Effect of ripple on distant water. | 335 |
| §12. | Elongation of reflections by moving water. | 335 |
| §13. | Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images. | 336 |
| §14. | To what extent reflection is visible from above. | 336 |
| §15. | Deflection of images on agitated water. | 337 |
| §16. | Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science. Licenses, how taken by great men. | 337 |
| §17. | Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp, Vandevelde. | 339 |
| §18. | And Canaletto. | 341 |
| §19. | Why unpardonable. | 342 |
| §20. | The Dutch painters of sea. | 343 |
| §21. | Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator. | 344 |
| §22. | Nicolo Poussin. | 345 |
| §23. | Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion. | 346 |
chapter II.—Of Water, as Painted by the Moderns.
| §1. | General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. The lakes of Fielding. | 348 |
| §2. | The calm rivers of De Wint, J. Holland, &c. | 348 |
| §3. | The character of bright and violent falling water. | 349 |
| §4. | As given by Nesfield. | 349 |
| §5. | The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding. | 350 |
| §6. | His color; and painting of sea. | 350 |
| §7. | The sea of Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity. | 351 |
| §8. | Its high aim at character. | 351 |
| §9. | But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays. | 352 |
| §10. | Variety of the grays of nature. | 352 |
| §11. | Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power. | 353 |
| §12. | But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern art. | 353 |
Chapter III.—Of Water, as Painted by Turner.
| §1. | The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water. | 355 |
| §2. | Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by which the reflected rays are perceived. | 355 |
| §3. | Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by distinctness of reflections. | 356 |
| §4. | How avoided by Turner. | 357 |
| §5. | All reflections on distant water are distinct. | 357 |
| §6. | The error of Vandevelde. | 358 |
| §7. | Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected object and its image. | 359 |
| §8. | Illustrated from the works of Turner. | 359 |
| §9. | The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it. | 360 |
| §10. | The texture of surface in Turner's painting of calm water. | 361 |
| §11. | Its united qualities. | 361 |
| §12. | Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, &c., by the most trifling incidents, as in the Cowes. | 363 |
| §13. | In scenes on the Loire and Seine. | 363 |
| §14. | Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore. | 364 |
| §15. | Various other instances. | 364 |
| §16. | Turner's painting of distant expanses of water.—Calm, interrupted by ripple. | 365 |
| §17. | And rippled, crossed by sunshine. | 365 |
| §18. | His drawing of distant rivers. | 366 |
| §19. | And of surface associated with mist. | 367 |
| §20. | His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of weight. | 367 |
| §21. | The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by him. | 368 |
| §22. | Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of its bed. | 369 |
| §23. | But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed. | 370 |
| §24. | Its exquisite curved lines. | 370 |
| §25. | Turner's careful choice of the historical truth. | 370 |
| §26. | His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the Llanthony Abbey. | 371 |
| §27. | And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus. | 372 |
| §28. | Various cases. | 372 |
| §29. | Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam. | 373 |
| §30. | Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible. | 374 |
| §31. | Their effect how injured when seen from the shore. | 375 |
| §32. | Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea. | 376 |
| §33. | With peculiar expression of weight. | 376 |
| §34. | Peculiar action of recoiling waves. | 377 |
| §35. | And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore. | 377 |
| §36. | General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in the Land's End. | 378 |
| §37. | Open seas of Turner's earlier time. | 379 |
| §38. | Effect of sea after prolonged storm. | 380 |
| §39. | Turner's noblest work, the painting of the deep open sea in the Slave Ship. | 382 |
| §40. | Its united excellences and perfection as a whole. | 383 |
SECTION VI.
OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.—CONCLUSION.
Chapter I.—Of Truth of Vegetation.
| §1. | Frequent occurrence of foliage in the works of the old masters. | 384 |
| §2. | Laws common to all forest trees. Their branches do not taper, but only divide. | 385 |
| §3. | Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds. | 385 |
| §4. | And care of nature to conceal the parallelism. | 386 |
| §5. | The degree of tapering which may be represented as continuous. | 386 |
| §6. | The trees of Gaspar Poussin. | 386 |
| §7. | And of the Italian school generally, defy this law. | 387 |
| §8. | The truth, as it is given by J. D. Harding. | 387 |
| §9. | Boughs, in consequence of this law, must diminish where they divide. Those of the old masters often do not. | 388 |
| §10. | Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old masters do not. | 389 |
| §11. | Bough-drawing of Salvator. | 390 |
| §12. | All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches, and concentrated in a work of G. Poussin's. | 391 |
| §13. | Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of them by wind. | 392 |
| §14. | Bough-drawing of Titian. | 392 |
| §15. | Bough-drawing of Turner. | 394 |
| §16. | Leafage. Its variety and symmetry. | 394 |
| §17. | Perfect regularity of Poussin. | 395 |
| §18. | Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage. | 396 |
| §19. | How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin. | 396 |
| §20. | How followed by Creswick. | 397 |
| §21. | Perfect unity in nature's foliage. | 398 |
| §22. | Total want of it in Both and Hobbima. | 398 |
| §23. | How rendered by Turner. | 399 |
| §24. | The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good. | 399 |
| §25. | Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves. | 400 |
| §26. | Altogether unobserved by the old masters. Always given by Turner. | 401 |
| §27. | Foliage painting on the Continent. | 401 |
| §28. | Foliage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies. | 402 |
| §29. | His brilliancy of execution too manifest. | 403 |
| §30. | His bough-drawing, and choice of form. | 404 |
| §31. | Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with what advantage. | 404 |
| §32. | Opposition between great manner and great knowledge. | 406 |
| §33. | Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattermole. | 406 |
| §34. | Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive of light, and offensive if otherwise. | 407 |
| §35. | Conclusion. Works of J. Linnel and S. Palmer. | 407 |
Chapter II.—General remarks respecting the Truth of Turner.
| §1. | No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural truth. | 409 |
| §2. | Extreme difficulty of illustrating or explaining the highest truth. | 410 |
| §3. | The positive rank of Turner is in no degree shown in the foregoing pages, but only his relative rank. | 410 |
| §4. | The exceeding refinement of his truth. | 411 |
| §5. | There is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without knowledge. | 411 |
| §6. | And nothing which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy. | 412 |
| §7. | His former rank and progress. | 412 |
| §8. | Standing of his present works. Their mystery is the consequence of their fulness. | 413 |
Chapter III.—Conclusion.—Modern Art and Modern Criticism.
| §1. | The entire prominence hitherto given to the works of one artist caused only by our not being able to take cognizance of character. | 414 |
| §2. | The feelings of different artists are incapable of full comparison. | 415 |
| §3. | But the fidelity and truth of each are capable of real comparison. | 415 |
| §4. | Especially because they are equally manifested in the treatment of all subjects. | 415 |
| §5. | No man draws one thing well, if he can draw nothing else. | 416 |
| §6. | General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation. | 417 |
| §7. | Truth, a standard of all excellence. | 417 |
| §8. | Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste. | 418 |
| §9. | Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment. | 418 |
| §10. | Duty of the press. | 418 |
| §11. | Qualifications necessary for discharging it. | 418 |
| §12. | General incapability of modern critics. | 419 |
| §13. | And inconsistency with themselves. | 419 |
| §14. | How the press may really advance the cause of art. | 420 |
| §15. | Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works. | 420 |
| §16. | By which the public defraud themselves. | 421 |
| §17. | And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves. | 421 |
| §18. | Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly. | 421 |
| §19. | Sketches not sufficiently encouraged. | 422 |
| §20. | Brilliancy of execution or efforts at invention not to be tolerated in young artists. | 422 |
| §21. | The duty and after privileges of all students. | 423 |
| §22. | Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of aim. | 423 |
| §23. | What should be their general aim. | 425 |
| §24. | Duty of the press with respect to the works of Turner. | 427 |
