(Go to Summary of review of Modern Painters I and II, Foreign Quarterly Review, July 1846, pp. 380-416.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thought, according to the Oxford Graduate, is the first and greatest thing in a picture. (p.382)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What has hitherto been accomplished by the painters of landscape, he condemns for its 'utter inutility'.
No moral end has been
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
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 omnipo
tence 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 admi
ration,
for one who will be silent in delight. Multitudes will laud the
composition,
and depart with the praise of Claude on their lips,-not one
will feel
as if it were nocomposition, and depart with the praise of God
in his
heart.
These are the signs of a debased, mistaken, and false school of
paint
ing. 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,' 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 know
ledge 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 for ever seeks and worships.
Among
potsherds and dunghills, among drunken boors and withered beldames,
through
every scene of debauchery and degradation, we follow the erring
artist,
not to receive one wholesome lesson, not to be touched with
pity, nor
moved with indignation, but to watch the dexterity of the
pencil, and
gloat over the glittering of the hue.
I speak not only of the works of
the FlemishSchool-I wage no war
with their admirers; they may be left
in peace to count the spiculæof
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
commonlyconceived its masters, has
never prompted one holy thought in
the minds of nations. It has begun
and ended in exhibiting the dexterities
of individuals, and conventionalities
of systems. Filling the world with
the honour of Claude and Salvator, it
has never once tended to the honour
of God[.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
According to him, a picture is a moral essay, tending to the glory of God, and the instruction of man: such with him is the nature and end of art. (p.383)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Particular truths, he says, counter to the general idea, are more important than general ones, as being most characteristic of the subject:
It is self-evident that when we are painting or describing any-
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the passage in Modern Painters I
thing,
those truths must be the most important which are most
characteristic
of what is to be told or represented. Now that
which is first and most
broadly characteristic of a thing is that
which distinguishes its genus,
or which makes it what it is. For
instance, that which makes drapery
bedrapery, is not its being
made of silk or worsted or flax, for things
are made of all
these which are not drapery, but the ideas peculiar to
drapery;
the properties which, when inherent in a thing, make it drapery,
are
extension, non-elastic flexibility, unity and comparative thinness.
Everything
which has these properties, a waterfall, for instance, if
united and
extended, or a net of weeds over a wall, is drapery, as
much as silk
or woollen stuff is. So that these ideas separate
drapery in our minds
from everything else; they are peculiarly
characteristic of it, and therefore
are the most important group of
ideas connected with it; and so with
everything else, that which
makes the thing what it is, is the most important
idea, or group
of ideas connected with the thing. But as this idea must
neces
sarily be common to all individuals of the species it belongs to,
it
is a general idea with respect to that species; while other ideas,
which
are not characteristic of the species, and are therefore in
reality general
(as black or white are terms applicable to more
things than drapery),
are yet particular with respect to that species,
being predicable only
of certain individuals of it. Hence it is care
lessly and falsely said
that general ideas are more important than
particular ones; carelessly
and falsely, I say, because the so called
general idea is important,
not because it is common to all the
individuals of that species, but
because it separates that species
from everything else. It is the distinctiveness,
not the universality
of the truth, which renders it important. And the
so called par
ticular idea is unimportant, not because it is not predicable
of the
whole species, but because it is predicable of things out of that
species.
It is not its individuality, but its generality which renders
it unimportant.
So then, truths are important just in proportion
as they are characteristic,
and are valuable, primarily, as they
separate the species from all other
created things; secondarily, as
they separate the individuals of that
species from one another:
thus " silken" or "woollen" are unimportant
ideas with respect
to drapery, because they neither 'separate the species
from other
things, nor even the individuals of that species from one
another,
since, though not common to the whole of it, they are common
to
indefinite numbers of it; but the particular folds into which any
piece
of drapery may happen to fall, being different in many par
ticulars from
those into which any other piece of drapery will fall,
are expressive
not only of the characters of the species, (flexibility,
non-elasticity,
&c.), but of individuality and definite character in
the case immediately
observed, and are consequently most important
and necessary ideas. So
in a man to be short-legged or long-nosed
or anything else of accidental
quality, does not distinguish him from
other short-legged or long-nosed
animals, but the important truths
respecting a man are, first, the marked
developement of that distinctive
organization which separates him as
man from other animals, and
secondly, that group of qualities which distinguish
the individual
from all other men, which make him Paul or Judas, Newton
or
Shakspeare[.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I. Nothing can hinder water from being a reflecting
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
medium, but dry dust
or filth of some kind on its sur-
face. Dirty water, if the foul matter
be dissolved or
suspended in the liquid, reflects just as clearly and
sharply
as pure water, only the image is coloured by
the hue of the mixed matter,
and becomes compara-
tively brown or dark.
II. If water be rippled,
the side of every ripple next
to us reflects a piece of the sky, and
the side of every
ripple farthest from us reflects a piece of the opposite
shore,
if it be near, or of whatever objects may be be-
yond the ripple. But
as we soon lose sight of the far-
ther sides of the ripples on the retiring
surface, the
whole rippled space will then be reflective of the sky
only.
Thus, in a lake where calm distant water receives
reflections of high
shores, every extent of rippled sur-
face will appear as a bright line
interrupting that reflec-
tion with the colour of the sky.
III. When
a ripple or swell is seen at such an angle
as to afford a view of its
farther side, it carries the re-
flection of objects beyond it farther
down than calm
water would. Therefore all ripple or motion in water
elongates
reflections, and throws them into confused
vertical lines.
IV. Rippled
water, of which we can see the farther
side of the waves, will reflect
a perpendicular line
clearly, a bit of its length being given on the
side of
each wave, and easily joined by the eye. But if the
line slope,
its reflection will be excessively confused and
disjointed; and if horizontal,
nearly invisible.
V. Every reflection is the image in reverse of just
so
much of the objects beside the water, as we could see
we were placed
as much under the level of the water as
we are actually above it. We
cannot see the reflection
of the top of a flat stone, because we could
not see the
real top of the stone if we were under the level of the
water;
and if an object be so far back from the bank,
that if we were five feet
under the water level we
could not see it over the bank, then, standing
five feet
above the water, we shall not be able to see its image
under
the reflected bank.
VI. But if the object subtend the proper angle for
reflection,
it does not matter how great its distance may
be. The image of a mountain
fifty miles off is as clear,
in proportion to the clearness of the mountain
itself, as
the image of a stone on the beach, in proportion to the
clearness
of the stone itself.
VII. There is no shadow on clean water. Every dark-
ness
on it is reflection, not shadow. If it have rich colour
ing matter suspended
on it, or a dusty surface, it will
take a feeble shadow, and where there
is even very faint
and variable positive colour, as in the sea, it will
take
something like shadows in distant effect, but never near.
Those
parts of the sea which appear bright in sunshine,
as opposed to other
parts, are composed of waves of
which every one conveys to the eye a
little image of
the sun, but which are not themselves illumined in
doing
so, for the light on the wave depends on your
position, and moves as
you move; it cannot therefore
be positive light on the object, for you
will not get the
light to move off the trunk of a tree because you move
away
from it. The horizontal lines, therefore, cast by
clouds on the sea,
are not shadows but reflections.
Optical effects of great complication
take place by
means of refraction and mirage, but it may be taken
for
granted that if ever there is a real shadow, it is
cast on mist, and
not on water. And on clear water,
near the eye, there never can be even
the appearance
of a shadow, except a delicate tint on the foam.
By these rules are tested the paintings of the ancients, beginning with Canaletti:
He
almost always
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the passage in Modern Painters I
covers the whole space of it with one monotonous ripple,
composed
of a coat of well chosen, but perfectly opaque
and smooth sea-green,
covered with a certain number,
I cannot state the exact average, but
it varies from
three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards,
according
to the extent of canvass to be covered, of
white concave touches, which
are very properly sym-
bolical of ripple. On the water so prepared, he
fixes
his gondolas in very good perspective, and thus far,
no objection
is to be made to the whole arrangement.
But a gondola, as every body
knows, is a very long
shallow boat, little raised above the water except
at
the extremities, but having a vertical beak, and rowed
by two men,
or sometimes only one, standing. Conse-
quently, wherever the water is
rippled, as by Canaletti,
we have, by our fourth rule, only a broken
and indis-
tinct image of the horizontal and oblique lines of the
gondola,
but a tolerably clear one of the vertical beak,
and the figures, shooting
down a long way under or
along the water. What does Canaletti give us?-A
clear,
dark, unbroken reflection of the whole boat,
except the beak and the
figure, which cast none at all.
A worthy beginning!
Next, as the canal
retires back from the eye, Cana-
letti very properly and geometrically
diminishes the
size of his ripples, until he arrives at an even field
of
apparently smooth water. Now by our second rule,
this rippling
water as it retires should show more and
more of the reflection of the
sky above it, and less and
less of that of objects beyond it, until at
two or three
hundred yards down the canal, the whole field of water
should
be one even grey or blue, the colour of the sky,
receiving no reflections
whatever of other objects. What
does Canaletti do ? Exactly in proportion
as he retires,
he displays more and more of the reflection of objects,
and
less and less of the sky, until, three hundred yards
away, all the houses
are reflected as clear and sharp as
in a quiet lake. Exemplary Canaletti!
Observe,
I do not suppose Canaletti, frequently as
he must have been afloat on
these canals, to have been
ignorant of their every-day appearance. I
believe him
to be a shameless asserter of whatever was most con-
venient
to him;
[I]f
it be remembered that every
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
one of the surfaces of those multitudinous
ripples is in
nature a mirror which catches, according to its position,
either
the image of the sky or of the silver beaks of the
gondolas, or of their
black bodies and scarlet draperies,
or of the white marble, or the green
sea-weed on the low
stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would
have
something more of colour upon them than that opaque
dead green.
Green they are by their own nature. but it
is a transparent and emerald
hue, mixing itself with
the thousand reflected tints without overpowering
the
weakest of them, and thus, in every one of those indivi-
dual
waves, the truths of colour are contradicted by
Canaletti by the thousand,
not less fatally, though, of
course, less demonstrably, than in the broad
cases pre-
sented by his general arrangement.
Let us next look at a piece of calm water, by Vande-
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the passage in Modern Painters I
velde, such as that
marked 113 in the Dulwich Gallery[.]
Cuyp is convicted of casting half a dozen reflections from one object in the picture, marked 83 at Dulwich... There is a general onslaught on the Dutch painters:
The
men who could allow them-
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
selves to lay a coal-black shadow upon what
never takes
any shadow at all, and whose feelings were not hurt by
the
sight of falsehood so distinct, and recoiled not at
the shade themselves
had made, can be little
credit in anything that they do or assert. Then
their foam
is either deposited in spherical and tubular concretions,
opaque
and unbroken, on the surfaces of the waves, or
else, the more common
case, it is merely the whiteness
of the wave shaded gradually off as
if it were the light
side of a spherical object, of course representing
every
breaker as crested, not with spray, but with a puff of
smoke.
Neither let it be supposed that in sodoing,
they had any intention of
representing the vaporous
spray taken off wild waves by violent wind.
That
magnificent effect only takes place on large breakers,
and has
no appearance of smoke except at a little dis-
stance; seen near, it
is dust. But the Dutch painters
cap every little cutting ripple with
smoke, evidently in-
tending it for foam, and evidently thus representing
it
because they had not sufficient power over the brush to
produce
the broken effect of real spray. Their seas, in
consequence, have neither
frangibility nor brilliancy[.]
The modern painters are examined with equal minuteness... this is a masterly piece of description:
Stand for half an hour beside the fall of Schaffhausen, on
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the passage in Modern Painters I
the north
side where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault
of water first
bends, unbroken, in pure, polished velocity, over the
arching rocks at
the brow of the cataract, covering them with a
dome of crystal twenty
feet thick-so swift that its motion is unseen
except when a foam globe
from above darts over it like a falling
star; and how the trees are lighted
above it under all their leaves,
at the instant that it breaks into foam;
and how all the hollows of
that foam burn with green fire like so much
shattering chrysoprase;
and how, ever and anon, startling you with its
white flash, a jet of
spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket,
bursting in the
wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light;
and how,
through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss
below,
the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer
than
the sky through white rain-cloud; while the shuddering iris
stoops in
tremulous stillness over all, fading and flushing alternately
through
the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at
last among
the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sym
pathy with the wild
water; their dripping masses lifted at intervals,
like sheaves of loaded
corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract,
and bowed again upon the
mossy rocks as its roar dies away; the
dew gushing from their thick branches
through drooping clusters of
emerald herbage, and sparkling in white
threads along the dark
rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens which
chase and chequer
them with purple and silver. I believe, when you have
stood by
this for half an hour, you will have discovered that there is
some
thing more in nature than has been given by Ruysdael[.]
Then the modern artists are reviewed:
J. D. Harding is, I think, nearly unequalled in the drawing of
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the passage in Modern Painters I
running
water. I do not know what Stanfield would do ; I have
never seen an
important piece of torrent drawn by him; but I
believe even he could
scarcely contend with the magnificent abandon
of Harding's brush. There
is perhaps nothing which tells more in
the drawing of water than decisive
and swift execution; for, in a
rapid touch the hand naturally falls into
the very curve of pro
jection which is the absolute truth; while in slow
finish, all pre
cision of curve and character is certain to be lost,
except under
the hand of an unusually powerful master. But Harding has
both
knowledge and velocity , and the fall of his torrents is beyond
praise;
impatient, chafing, substantial, shattering, crystalline, and
capricious;
full of various form, yet all apparently instantaneous
and accidental,
nothing conventional, nothing dependent upon parallel
lines or radiating
curves; all broken up and dashed to pieces over
the irregular rock, and
yet all in unity of motion. The colour also
of his falling and bright
water is very perfect; but in the dark
and level parts of his torrents
he has taken up a bad grey, which
has hurt some of his best pictures.
His grey in shadows under
rocks or dark reflections is admirable; but
it is when the stream is
in full light, and unaffected by reflections
in distance, that he gets
wrong. We believe that the fault is in a want
of expression of
darkness in the colour, making it appear like a positive
hue of the
water, for which it is much too dead and cold[.]
Copley Fielding has painted in all his life only one sea; 'all the rest are duplicates', but the one is true and impressive:
The works of Stanfield evidently, and at all times, proceed from
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the passage in Modern Painters I
the
hand of a man who has both thorough knowledge of his subject,
and thorough
acquaintance with all the means and principles of art.
We never criticise
them, because we feel, the moment we look care-
fully at the drawing
of any single wave, that the knowledge pos-
sessed by the master is much
greater than our own, and therefore
believe that if anything offends
us in any part of the work, it is
nearly certain to be our fault, and
not the painter's. The local
colour of Stanfield's sea is singularly
true and powerful, and entirely
independent of any tricks of chiaroscuro.
He will carry a mighty
wave up against the sky, and make its whole body
dark and sub-
stantial against the distant light, using all the while
nothing more
than chaste and unexaggerated local colour to gain the relief.
His
surface is at once lustrous, transparent, and accurate to a hair's-
breadth
in every curve ; and he is entirely independent of dark
skies, deep blues,
driving spray, or any other means of concealing
want of form, or atoning
for it. He fears no difficulty, desires no
assistance, takes his sea
in open daylight, under general sunshine,
and paints the elementin its
pure colour and complete forms. But
we wish that he were less powerful,
and more interesting ; or that
he were a little less Diogenes-like, and
did not scorn all that he
does not want[.]
A whole chapter is devoted to 'Water as painted by Turner'; but still with constant reference to nature:
I BELIEVE it is a result of the experience of all artists, that it is
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
the
easiest thing in the world to give a certain degree of depth
and transparency
to water ; but that it is next thing to impossible,
to give a full impression
of surface. If no reflection be given-a
ripple being supposed-the water
looks like lead: if reflection be
given, it in nine cases out of ten
looks morbidly clear and deep, so
that we always go down into it, even
when the artist most wishes
us to glide over it. Now. this difficulty
arises from the very same
circumstance which occasions the frequent failure
in effect of the
best drawn foregrounds, noticed in Section II. Chapter
III. the
change, namely, of focus necessary in the eye in order to receive
rays
Of light Coming from different distances. Go to the edge of
a pond,
in a perfectly calm day, at some place where there is
duck-weed floating
on the surface,-not thick, but a leaf here and
there. Now, you may either
see in the water the reflection of the
sky, or you may see the duck-weed;
but you cannot, by any effort,
see both together. If you look for the
reflection, you will be
sensible of a sudden change or effort in the
eye, by which it
adapts itself to the reception of the rays which have
come all the
way from the clouds, have struck on the water, and so been
sent
,UP again to the eye. The focus you adopt is one fit for great
distance;
and, accordingly, you will feel that you are looking down
a great way
under the water, while the leaves of the duck-weed,
though they lie upon
the water at the very spot on which you are
gazing so intently, are felt
only as a vague, uncertain interruption,
causing a little confusion in
the image below, but entirely indis
tinguishable as leaves,-and even
their colour unknown and un
perceived. Unless you think of them, you
will not even feel
that anything interrupts your sight, so excessively
slight is their
effect. If, on the other hand, you make up your mind
to look
for the leaves of the duck-weed, you will perceive an instantaneous
change
in the effort of the eye, by which it becomes adapted to
receive near
rays-those which have only come from the surface
of the pond. You will
then see the delicate leaves of the duck
weed with perfect clearness,
and in vivid green; but while you do
so~ you will be able to perceive
nothing of the reflections in the
very water on which they float-nothing
but a vague flashing and
melting of light and dark hues, without form
or meaning, which,
to investigate, or find out what they mean or are,
you must quit
your hold of the duck-weed, and plunge down.
Hence it
appears, that whenever we see plain reflections of com-
paratively distant
objects, in near water, we cannot possibly see the
surface, and vice
versa; so that when in a painting we give the
reflections with the same
clearness with which they are visible in
nature, we pre-suppose the effort
of the eye to look under the
surface, and, of course, destroy the surface,
and induce an effect of
clearness which, perhaps, the artist has not
particularly wished to
attain, but which he has found himself forced
into, by his reflections,
in spite of himself. And the reason of this
effect of clearness appear
ing preternatural is, that people are not
in the habit of looking at
water with the distant focus adapted to the
reflections, unless by
particular effort. We invariably, under ordinary
circumstances, use.
the surface focus; and, in consequence, receive nothing
more than a
vague and confused impression of the reflected colours and
lines,
however clearly, calmly, and vigorously all may be defined under
neath,
if we choose to look for them. We do not look for them,
but glide along
over the surface, catching only playing light and
capricious colour for
evidence of reflection, except where we come
to images of objects close
to the surface, which the surface focus is
of course adapted to receive
; and these we see clearly, as of the
weeds on the shore, or of sticks
rising out of the water, &c. Hence,
the ordinary effect of water
is only to be rendered by giving the
reflections of the margin clear
and distinct (so clear they usually
are in nature, that it is impossible
to tell where the water begins) ;
but the moment we touch the reflection
of distant objects, as of
high trees or clouds, that instant we must
become vague and
uncertain in drawing, and, though vivid in colour and
light as the
object itself, quite indistinct in form and feature. If
we take such
a piece of water as that in the foreground of Turner's Chateau
of
Prince Albert, the first impression from it is, -" What a wide
surface!"
We glide over it a quarter of a mile into the picture
before we know
where we are, and yet the water is as calm and
crystalline as a mirror;
but we are not allowed to tumble into it,
and gasp for breath as we go
down,-we are kept upon the surface,
though that surface is flashing and
radiant with every hue of cloud,
and sun, and sky,, and foliage. But
the secret is in the drawing
of these reflections.' . We cannot tell
when we look at them and
for them, what they mean. They have all character,
and are evi
dently reflections of something definite and determined ;
but yet
they are all uncertain and inexplicable ; playing colour and
palpitating
shade, which, though we recognize in an instant for images
of some
thing, and feel that the water is bright, and lovely, and calm,
we
cannot penetrate nor interpret : we are not allowed to go down to
them,
and we repose, as we should in nature, upon the lustre of
the level surface.
It is in this power of saying everything, and yet
saying nothing too
plainly, that the perfection of art here, as in
all other cases, consists[.]
These illustrations are carried out at considerable length.
We will take another illustration on the Oxford Graduate's plan of comparison from the chapter of the Truth of Space.
First, then, it is to be noticed, that the eye, like any other lens,
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
must
have its focus altered, in order to convey a distinct image of
objects
at different distances; so that it is totally impossible to see
distinctly,
at the same moment, two objects, one of which is much
farther off than
another. Of this, any one may convince himself in
an instant. Look at
the bars of your window-frame, so as to get
a clear image of their lines
and form, and you cannot, while your
eye is fixed on them, perceive anything
but the most indistinct and
shadowy images of whatever objects may be
visible beyond. But
fix your eyes on those objects, so as to see them
clearly, and though
they are just beyond and apparently beside the window-frame,
that
frame will only be felt or seen as a vague, flitting, obscure inter
ruption
to whatever is perceived beyond it. A little attention
directed to this
fact will convince every one of its universality, and
prove beyond dispute
that objects at unequal distances cannot be
seen together, not from the
intervention of air or mist, but from
the impossibility of the rays proceeding
from both, converging
to the same focus, so that the whole impression,
either of one
or the other, must necessarily be confused, indistinct,
and inade-
quate.
But, be it observed (and I have only to request
that whatever
I say may be tested by immediate experiment), the difference
of
focus necessary is greatest within the first five hundred yards, and
therefore,
though it is totally impossible to see an object ten yards
from the eye,
and one a quarter of a mile beyond it, at the same
moment, it is perfectly
possible to see one a quarter of a mile off,
and one five miles beyond
it, at the same moment. The conse
quence of this is, practically, that
in a real landscape, we can see
the whole of what would be called the
middle distance and distance
together, with facility and clearness; but
while we do so, we can
see nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and
indistinct
arrangement of lines and colours; and that if, on the contrary,
we
look at any foreground object, so as to receive a distinct impres
sion
of it, the distance and middle distance become all disorder
and mystery.
And
therefore, if in a painting our foreground is anything, our
distance
must be nothing, and vice versa ; for if we represent
our near and distant
objects as giving both at once that distinct
image to the eye, which
we receive in nature from each, when we
look at them separately;] and
if we distinguish them from each
other only by the air-tone; and indistinctness
dependent on positive
distance, we violate one of the most essential
principles of nature;
we represent that as seen at once which can only
be seen by two
separate acts of seeing, and tell a falsehood as gross
as if we had
represented four sides of a cubic object visible together.
Now,
to this fact and principle, no landscape painter of the old
school, as
far as I remember, ever paid the slightest attention.
Finishing their
foregrounds clearly and sharply, and with vigorous
impression on the
eye, giving even the leaves of their bushes and
grass with perfect edge
and shape, they proceeded into the distance
with equal attention to what
they could see of its details-they
gave all that the eye can perceive
in a distance, when it is fully
and entirely devoted to it, and therefore,
though masters of aërial
tone, though employing every expedient
that art could supply to
conceal the intersection of lines, though caricaturing
the force and
shadow of near objects to throw them close upon the eye,
they never
succeeded in truly representing space[.]
There is one exception, in the landscapes of Rubens... which is exemplified by the picture of his own Villa in the National Gallery.
Titian,
Claude, or Pous-
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
sin, it matters not, however scientifically opposed
in
colour, however exquisitely mellowed and removed in
tone, however
vigorously relieved with violent shade,
all will look flat canvass beside
this truthful, melting,
abundant, limitless distance of Rubens. But it
was
reserved for modern art to take even a bolder step in
the pursuit
of truth. To sink the distance for the fore-
ground was comparatively
easy; but it implied the
partial destruction of exactly that part of
the landscape
which is most interesting, most dignified, and most
varied;
of all in fact, except the mere leafage and stone
under the spectator's
feet. Turner introduced a new
era in landscape art, by showing that the
foreground
might be sunk for the distance, and that it was possible
to
express immediate proximity to the spectator, with-
out giving anything
like completeness to the forms of
the near objects. This is not done
by slurred or soft
lines, observe, (always the sign of vice in art*,)
but by a
decisive imperfection, a firm, but partial assertion of
form,
which the eye feels indeed to be close home to it,
and yet cannot rest
upon, nor cling to, nor entirely
understand, and from which it is driven
away of neces-
sity, to those parts of distance on which it is intended
to
repose. And this principle, originated by Turner,
though fully carried
out by him only, has yet been acted
on with judgment and success by several
less powerful
artists of the English school. Some six years ago, the
brown
moorland foregrounds of Copley Fielding were
very instructive in this
respect. Not a line in them
was made out, not a single object clearly
distinguish-
able. Wet broad sweeps of the brush, sparkling, care-
less,
and accidental as nature herself, always truthful
as far as they went,
implying knowledge, though not
expressing it, suggested everything, while
they repre-
sented nothing. But far off into the mountain distance
came
the sharp edge and the delicate form; the whole
intention and execution
of the picture being guided
and exerted where the great impression of
space and
size was to be given. The spectator was compelled to
go
forward into the waste of hills-there, where the sun
broke wide upon
the moor, he must walk and wander-
he could not stumble and hesitate
over the near rocks,
nor stop to botanize on the first inches of his
path.
And the impression of these pictures was always great
and enduring,
as it was simple and truthful. I do
not know any thing in art which has
expressed more
completely the force and feeling of nature in these par-
ticular
scenes. And it is a farther illustration of the
principle we are insisting
upon, that where, as in some
of his later works, he has bestowed more
labour on the
foreground and designed it more completely, the picture
has
lost both in space and sublimity. And among artists
in general, who are
either not aware of the principle, or
fear to act upon it (for it requires
no small courage, as
well as skill, to treat a foreground with that indistinct-
ness
and mystery which they have been accustomed to
consider as characteristic
of distance), the foreground is
not only felt, as every landscape painter
will confess, to
be the most embarrassing and unmanageable part of the
picture,
but, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, will
go near to destroy the
effect of the rest of the composi-
tion. Thus Callcott's magnificent
"Trent"(perhaps
the best picture, on the whole, he has ever painted),
is
severely injured by the harsh group of foreground
figures; and Stanfield
very rarely gets through an
Academy picture without destroying much of
its space,
by too much determination of near form; while Harding
constantly
sacrifices his distance, and compels the spec-
tator to dwell on the
foreground altogether, though in
deed, with such foregrounds as he gives
us, we are most
happy so to do. But it is in Turner only that we see
a
bold and decisive choice of the distance and middle
distance, as
his great object of attention; and by him
only that the foreground is
united and adapted to it, not
by any want of drawing, or coarseness,
or carelessness of
execution, but by the most precise and beautiful indica-
tion
or suggestion of just so much of even the minutest
forms as the eye can
see when its focus is not adapted to
them. And herein is another reason
for the vigour and
wholeness of the effect of Turner's works at any dis-
tance;
while those of almost all other artists are sure to
lose space as soon
as we lose sight of the details.
And now we see the reason for the singular,
and to
the ignorant in art, the offensive execution of Turner's
figures.
I do not mean to assert that there is any reason
whatsoever, for bad
drawing (though in landscape it
matters exceedingly little); but that
there is both reason
and necessity for that want of drawing which gives
even
the nearest figures round balls with four pink spots in
them
instead of faces, and four dashes of the brush
instead of hands and feet;
for it is totally impossible
that if the eye be adapted to receive the
rays proceed
ing from the utmost distance, and some partial impres-
sion
from all the distances, it should be capable of
perceiving more of the
forms and features of near
figures than Turner gives. And how absolutely
neces-
sary to the faithful representation of space this inde-
cision
really is, might be proved with the utmost ease
by any one who had veneration
enough for the artist to
sacrifice one of his pictures to his fame; who
would take
some one of his works in which the figures were most
incomplete,
and have them painted in by Goodall, or
any of our delicate and first-rate
figure painters, ab-
solutely preserving every colour and shade of Turner's
group,
so as not to lose one atom of the composition,
but giving eyes for the
pink spots, and feet for the
white ones. Let the picture be so exhibited
in the
Academy, and even novices in art would feel at a
glance that
its truth of space was gone, that every one
of its beauties and harmonies
had undergone decom-
position, that it was now a grammatical solecism,
a
painting of impossibilities, a thing to torture the eye,
and offend
the mind.
The laborious completeness of the figures and fore-
grounds
of the old masters, then, far from being a
source of distance and space,
is evidently destructive of
both. It may perhaps be desirable on other
grounds;
it may be beautiful and necessary to the ideal of
landscape.
I assert at present nothing to the contrary;
I assert merely, that it
is mathematically demonstrable
to be untrue[.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We see the extent to which the Oxford Graduate is prepared to exalt that one painter whose extravagances have perplexed the British public... he prepares, earlier in the book, a kind of apology for those unmentioned extravagances.
But art, in its second and highest aim, is not an appeal to con
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
stant
animal feelings, but an expression and awakening of individual
thought.
it is therefore as various and as extended in its efforts -as
the compass
and grasp of the directing mind[.]
[T]he
simple statement of the
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
truths of nature must in itself be, pleasing
to every order of mind;
because every truth of nature is more or less
beautiful; and if there
be just and right selection of the more important
of these truths-
-based, as above explained, on feelings and desires
common to all
mankind-the facts so selected must, in some degree, be
delightful
to all, and their value appreciable by all : more or less,
indeed,
as their senses and instinct have been rendered more or less
acute
and accurate by use and study ; but in some degree by all, and
in
the same way by all. But the highest art, being based on sensa-
tions
of peculiar minds, sensations occuring to them only at particu-
lar times,
and to a plurality of mankind perhaps never, and being
expressive of
thoughts which could only rise out of a mass of the
most extended knowledge,
and of dispositions modified in a thou
sand ways by peculiarity of intellect
-can only be met and under
stood by persons having some sort of sympathy
with the high and
solitary minds which produced it-sympathy only to be
felt by minds
in some degree high and solitary themselves. He alone can
appre
ciate the art, who could comprehend the conversation of the painter,
and
share in his emotion, in moments of his most fiery passion and
most original
thought. And whereas the true meaning and end of
his art must thus be
sealed to thousands, or misunderstood by
them; so also, as he is sometimes
obliged, in working out his
own peculiar end, to set at defiance those
constant laws which
have arisen out of our lower and changeless desires,
that whose
purpose is unseen, is frequently in its means and parts displeasing[.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He describes, most eloquently, a glorious sunset, to which even Turner's pictures would look cold, and then he remarks:
The
concurrence of circum-
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
stances necessary to produce the sunsets of which
I speak does
not take place above five or six times in a summer, and
then
only for a space of from five to ten minutes, just as the sun
reaches
the horizon. Considering how seldom people think of
looking for a sunset
at all, and how seldom, if they do, they are
in a position from which
it can be fully seen, the chances that
their attention should be awake,
and their position favourable, during
these few flying instants of the
year, is almost as nothing. What
can the citizen, who can see only the
red light on the canvass of
the waggon at the end of the street, and
the crimson colour of the
bricks of his neighbours chimney, know of the
flood of fire which
deluges the sky from the horizon to the zenith? What
can even
the quiet inhabitant of the English lowlands, whose scene for
the
manifestation of the fire of heaven is limited to the tops of hayricks,
and
the rooks' nests in the old elm-trees, know of the mighty
passages of
splendour which are tossed from Alp to Alp over the,
azure of a thousand
miles of champaign? Even granting the constant
vigour of observation,
and supposing the possession of such impossible
knowledge, it needs but
a moment's reflection to prove how in
capable the memory is of retaining
for any time the distinct image
of the sources even of its most vivid
impressions[.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *