Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, October 1843

(Go to Summary of review of Modern Painters I, Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, October 1843, pp. 633-34.)

The work before us is a bold and not altogether unsuccessful effort to negative the superiority of antient (sic) art in landscape painting over modern... Still we cannot think Prout... equal to Canaletti; but taking the British School - bereft as it is of National patronage - unsupported by cathedral architecture, using painting as a sister art - the houses of our nobility and gentry, without embellishments for the most part from the arts of design - the marvel is at the maximum produced, and not the minimum.

With respect to the hero of the book before us, Mr Turner, we have never entertained but one opinion of him, and that is that he is unequalled in some of his efforts, by any artist, ancient or modern. We hear him daily abused, but we see the abusers lingering again and again in the Exhibition Room around the pictures of this master... We regret that an artist like Turner should play with the public too often, but we are quite of opinion that he should draw his inspiration from purer sources than popular taste... We trust he will attempt pictures on a larger scale, with a certainty that they will stand for centuries, from the endurance of the colours and material employed. (p. 633-34)

CW