OF TURNERIAN TOPOGRAPHY.
Sec. 1. We saw, in the course of the last chapter, with what kind of
feeling an artist ought to regard the character of every object he
undertakes to paint. The next question is, what objects he _ought_ to
undertake to paint; how far he should be influenced by his feelings in
the choice of subjects; and how far he should permit himself to alter,
or, in the usual art language, improve, nature. For it has already been
stated (Vol. III. Chap. III. Sec. 21.), that all great art must be
inventive; that is to say, its subject must be produced by the
imagination. If so, then great landscape art cannot be a mere copy of
any given scene; and we have now to inquire what else than this it may
be.
Sec. 2. If the reader will glance over that twenty-first, and the following
three paragraphs of the same chapter, he will see that we there divided
art generally into "historical" and "poetical," or the art of relating
facts simply, and facts imaginatively. Now, with respect to landscape,
the historical art is simple topography, and the imaginative art is what
I have in the heading of the present chapter called Turnerian
topography, and must in the course of it endeavor to explain.
Observe, however, at the outset, that, touching the duty or fitness of
altering nature at all, the quarrels which have so wofully divided the
world of art are caused only by want of understanding this simplest of
all canons,--"It is always wrong to draw what you don't see." This law
is inviolable. But then, some people see only things that exist, and
others see things that do not exist, or do not exist apparently. And if
they really _see_ these non-apparent things, they are quite right to
draw them; the only harm is when people try to draw non-apparent things,
who _don't_ see them, but think they can calculate or compose into
existence what is to them for evermore invisible. If some people really
see angels where others see only empty space, let them paint the angels;
only let not anybody else think _they_ can paint an angel, too, on any
calculated principles of the angelic.
Sec. 3. If, therefore, when we go to a place, we see nothing else than is
there, we are to paint nothing else, and to remain pure topographical or
historical landscape painters. If, going to the place, we see something
quite different from what is there, then we are to paint that--nay, we
_must_ paint that, whether we will or not; it being, for us, the only
reality we can get at. But let us beware of pretending to see this
unreality if we do not.
The simple observance of this rule would put an end to nearly all
disputes, and keep a large number of men in healthy work, who now
totally waste their lives; so that the most important question that an
artist can possibly have to determine for himself, is whether he has
invention or not. And this he can ascertain with ease. If visions of
unreal things present themselves to him with or without his own will,
praying to be painted, quite ungovernable in their coming or
going,--neither to be summoned if they do not choose to come, nor
banished if they do,--he has invention. If, on the contrary, he only
sees the commonly visible facts; and, should he not like them, and want
to alter them, finds that he must think of a _rule_ whereby to do so, he
has no invention. All the rules in the world will do him no good; and if
he tries to draw anything else than those materially visible facts, he
will pass his whole life in uselessness, and produce nothing but
scientific absurdities.
Sec. 4. Let him take his part at once, boldly, and be content. Pure history
and pure topography are most precious things; in many cases more useful
to the human race than high imaginative work; and assuredly it is
intended that a large majority of all who are employed in art should
never aim at anything higher. It is _only_ vanity, never love, nor any
other noble feeling, which prompts men to desert their allegiance to the
simple truth, in vain pursuit of the imaginative truth which has been
appointed to be for evermore sealed to them.
Nor let it be supposed that artists who possess minor degrees of
imaginative gift need be embarrassed by the doubtful sense of their own
powers. In general, when the imagination is at all noble, it is
irresistible, and therefore those who can at all resist it _ought_ to
resist it. Be a plain topographer if you possibly can; if Nature meant
you to be anything else, she will force you to it; but never try to be a
prophet; go on quietly with your hard camp-work, and the spirit will
come to you in the camp, as it did to Eldad and Medad, if you are
appointed to have it; but try above all things to be quickly perceptive
of the noble spirit in others, and to discern in an instant between its
true utterance and the diseased mimicries of it. In a general way,
remember it is a far better thing to find out other great men, than to
become one yourself: for you can but become _one_ at best, but you may
bring others to light in numbers.
Sec. 5. We have, therefore, to inquire what kind of changes these are,
which must be wrought by the imaginative painter on landscape, and by
whom they have been thus nobly wrought. First, for the better comfort of
the non-imaginative painter, be it observed, that it is not possible to
find a landscape, which, if painted precisely as it is, will not make an
impressive picture. No one knows, till he has tried, what strange beauty
and subtle composition is prepared to his hand by Nature, wherever she
is left to herself; and what deep feeling may be found in many of the
most homely scenes, even where man has interfered with those wild ways
of hers. But, beyond this, let him note that though historical
topography forbids _alteration_, it neither forbids sentiment nor
choice. So far from doing this, the proper choice of subject[8] is an
absolute duty to the topographical painter: he should first take care
that it is a subject intensely pleasing to himself, else he will never
paint it well; and then also, that it shall be one in some sort
pleasurable to the general public, else it is not worth painting at all;
and lastly, take care that it be instructive, as well as pleasurable to
the public, else it is not worth painting with care. I should
particularly insist at present on this careful choice of subject,
because the Pre-Raphaelites, taken as a body, have been culpably
negligent in this respect, not in humble honor of Nature, but in morbid
indulgence of their own impressions. They happen to find their fancies
caught by a bit of an oak hedge, or the weeds at the sides of a
duck-pond, because, perhaps, they remind them of a stanza of Tennyson;
and forthwith they sit down to sacrifice the most consummate skill, two
or three months of the best summer time available for out-door work
(equivalent to some seventieth or sixtieth of all their lives), and
nearly all their credit with the public, to this duck-pond delineation.
Now it is indeed quite right that they should see much to be loved in
the hedge, nor less in the ditch; but it is utterly and inexcusably
wrong that they should neglect the nobler scenery which is full of
majestic interest, or enchanted by historical association; so that, as
things go at present, we have all the commonalty that may be seen
whenever we choose, painted properly; but all of lovely and wonderful,
which we cannot see but at rare intervals, painted vilely: the castles
of the Rhine and Rhone made vignettes of for the annuals; and the
nettles and mushrooms, which were prepared by Nature eminently for
nettle porridge and fish sauce, immortalized by art as reverently as if
we were Egyptians, and they deities.
Sec. 6. Generally speaking, therefore, the duty of every painter at
present, who has not much invention, is to take subjects of which the
portraiture will be precious in after times; views of our abbeys and
cathedrals; distant views of cities, if possible chosen from some spot
in itself notable by association; perfect studies of the battle-fields
of Europe, of all houses of celebrated men, and places they loved, and,
of course, of the most lovely natural scenery. And, in doing all this,
it should be understood, primarily, whether the picture is topographical
or not: if topographical, then not a line is to be altered, not a stick
nor stone removed, not a color deepened, not a form improved; the
picture is to be, as far as possible, the reflection of the place in a
mirror; and the artist to consider himself only as a sensitive and
skilful reflector, taking care that no false impression is conveyed by
any error on his part which he might have avoided; so that it may be
for ever afterwards in the power of all men to lean on his work with
absolute trust, and to say: "So it was:--on such a day of June or July
of such a year, such a place looked like this; these weeds were growing
there, so tall and no taller; those stones were lying there, so many and
no more; that tower so rose against the sky, and that shadow so slept
upon the street."
Sec. 7. Nor let it be supposed that the doing of this would ever become
mechanical, or be found too easy, or exclude sentiment. As for its being
easy, those only think so who never tried it; composition being, in
fact, infinitely easier to a man who can compose, than imitation of this
high kind to even the most able imitator; nor would it exclude
sentiment, for, however sincerely we may try to paint all we see, this
_cannot_, as often aforesaid, be ever done: all that is possible is a
certain selection, and more or less wilful assertion, of one fact in
preference to another; which selection ought always to be made under the
influence of sentiment. Nor will such topography involve an entire
submission to ugly accidents interfering with the impressiveness of the
scene. I hope, as art is better understood, that our painters will get
into the habit of accompanying all their works with a written statement
of their own reasons for painting them, and the circumstances under
which they were done; and, if in this written document they state the
omissions they have made, they may make as many as they think proper.
For instance, it is not possible now to obtain a view of the head of the
Lake of Geneva without including the "Hotel Biron"--an establishment
looking like a large cotton factory--just above the Castle of Chillon.
This building ought always to be omitted, and the reason for the
omission stated. So the beauty of the whole town of Lucerne, as seen
from the lake, is destroyed by the large new hotel for the English,
which ought, in like manner, to be ignored, and the houses behind it
drawn as if it were transparent.
Sec. 8. But if a painter has inventive power he is to treat his subject in
a totally different way; giving not the actual facts of it, but the
impression it made on his mind.
And now, once for all, let it be clearly understood that an "impression
on the mind" does not mean a piece of manufacture. The way in which most
artists proceed to "invent," as they call it, a picture, is this: they
choose their subject, for the most part, well, with a sufficient
quantity of towers, mountains, ruined cottages, and other materials, to
be generally interesting; then they fix on some object for a principal
light; behind this they put a dark cloud, or, in front of it, a dark
piece of foreground; then they repeat this light somewhere else in a
less degree, and connect the two lights together by some intermediate
ones. If they find any part of the foreground uninteresting they put a
group of figures into it; if any part of the distance, they put
something there from some other sketch; and proceed to inferior detail
in the same manner, taking care always to put white stones near black
ones, and purple colors near yellow ones, and angular forms near round
ones;--all being as simply a matter of recipe and practice as cookery;
like that, not by any means a thing easily done well, but still having
no reference whatever to "impressions on the mind."
Sec. 9. But the artist who has real invention sets to work in a totally
different way. First, he receives a true impression from the place
itself, and takes care to keep hold of that as his chief good; indeed,
he needs no care in the matter, for the distinction of his mind from
that of others consists in his instantly receiving such sensations
strongly, and being unable to lose them; and then he sets himself as far
as possible to reproduce that impression on the mind of the spectator of
his picture.
Now, observe, this impression on the mind never results from the mere
piece of scenery which can be included within the limits of the picture.
It depends on the temper into which the mind has been brought, both by
all the landscape round, and by what has been seen previously in the
course of the day; so that no particular spot upon which the painter's
glance may at any moment fall, is then to him what, if seen by itself,
it will be to the spectator far away; nor is it what it would be, even
to that spectator, if he had come to the reality through the steps which
Nature has appointed to be the preparation for it, instead of seeing it
isolated on an exhibition wall. For instance, on the descent of the St.
Gothard, towards Italy, just after passing through the narrow gorge
above Faido, the road emerges into a little breadth of valley, which is
entirely filled by fallen stones and debris, partly disgorged by the
Ticino as it leaps out of the narrower chasm, and partly brought down
by winter avalanches from a loose and decomposing mass of mountain on
the left. Beyond this first promontory is seen a considerably higher
range, but not an imposing one, which rises above the village of Faido.
The etching, Plate 20, is a topographical outline of the scene, with the
actual blocks of rock which happened to be lying in the bed of the
Ticino at the spot from which I chose to draw it. The masses of loose
debris (which, for any permanent purpose, I had no need to draw, as
their arrangement changes at every flood) I have not drawn, but only
those features of the landscape which happen to be of some continual
importance. Of which note, first, that the little three-windowed
building on the left is the remnant of a gallery built to protect the
road, which once went on that side, from the avalanches and stones that
come down the "couloir"[9] in the rock above. It is only a ruin, the
greater part having been by said avalanches swept away, and the old
road, of which a remnant is also seen on the extreme left, abandoned,
and carried now along the hillside on the right, partly sustained on
rough stone arches, and winding down, as seen in the sketch, to a weak
wooden bridge, which enables it to recover its old track past the
gallery. It seems formerly (but since the destruction of the gallery) to
have gone about a mile farther down the river on the right bank, and
then to have been carried across by a longer wooden bridge, of which
only the two abutments are seen in the sketch, the rest having been
swept away by the Ticino, and the new bridge erected near the spectator.
Sec. 10. There is nothing in this scene, taken by itself, particularly
interesting or impressive. The mountains are not elevated, nor
particularly fine in form, and the heaps of stones which encumber the
Ticino present nothing notable to the ordinary eye. But, in reality, the
place is approached through one of the narrowest and most sublime
ravines in the Alps, and after the traveller during the early part of
the day has been familiarized with the aspect of the highest peaks of
the Mont St. Gothard. Hence it speaks quite another language to him
from that in which it would address itself to an unprepared
spectator: the confused stones, which by themselves would be almost
without any claim upon his thoughts, become exponents of the fury of the
river by which he has journeyed all day long; the defile beyond, not in
itself narrow or terrible, is regarded nevertheless with awe, because it
is imagined to resemble the gorge that has just been traversed above;
and, although no very elevated mountains immediately overhang it, the
scene is felt to belong to, and arise in its essential characters out
of, the strength of those mightier mountains in the unseen north.
[Illustration: 20. Pass of Faido. (1st. Simple Topography.)]
Sec. 11. Any topographical delineation of the facts, therefore, must be
wholly incapable of arousing in the mind of the beholder those
sensations which would be caused by the facts themselves, seen in their
natural relations to others. And the aim of the great inventive
landscape painter must be to give the far higher and deeper truth of
mental vision, rather than that of the physical facts, and to reach a
representation which, though it may be totally useless to engineers or
geographers, and, when tried by rule and measure, totally unlike the
place, shall yet be capable of producing on the far-away beholder's mind
precisely the impression which the reality would have produced, and
putting his heart into the same state in which it would have been, had
he verily descended into the valley from the gorges of Airolo.
Sec. 12. Now observe; if in his attempt to do this the artist does not
understand the sacredness of the truth of _Impression_, and supposes
that, once quitting hold of his first thought, he may by Philosophy
compose something prettier than he saw, and mightier than he felt, it is
all over with him. Every such attempt at composition will be utterly
abortive, and end in something that is neither true nor fanciful;
something geographically useless, and intellectually absurd.
But if, holding fast his first thought, he finds other ideas insensibly
gathering to it, and, whether he will or not, modifying it into
something which is not so much the image of the place itself, as the
spirit of the place, let him yield to such fancies, and follow them
wherever they lead. For, though error on this side is very rare among us
in these days, it _is_ possible to check these finer thoughts by
mathematical accuracies, so as materially to impair the imaginative
faculty. I shall be able to explain this better after we have traced the
actual operation of Turner's mind on the scene under discussion.
Sec. 13. Turner was always from his youth fond of stones (we shall see
presently why). Whether large or small, loose or embedded, hewn into
cubes or worn into boulders, he loved them as much as William Hunt loves
pineapples and plums. So that this great litter of fallen stones, which
to any one else would have been simply disagreeable, was to Turner much
the same as if the whole valley had been filled with plums and
pineapples, and delighted him exceedingly, much more than even the gorge
of Dazio Grande just above. But that gorge had its effect upon him also,
and was still not well out of his head when the diligence stopped at the
bottom of the hill, just at that turn of the road on the right of the
bridge; which favorable opportunity Turner seized to make what he called
a "memorandum" of the place, composed of a few pencil scratches on a bit
of thin paper, that would roll up with others of the sort and go into
his pocket afterwards. These pencil scratches he put a few blots of
color upon (I suppose at Bellinzona the same evening, certainly _not_
upon the spot), and showed me this blotted sketch when he came home. I
asked him to make me a drawing of it, which he did, and casually told me
afterwards (a rare thing for him to do) that he liked the drawing he had
made. Of this drawing I have etched a reduced outline in Plate +21+.
Sec. 14. In which, primarily, observe that the whole place is altered in
scale, and brought up to the general majesty of the higher forms of the
Alps. It will be seen that, in my topographical sketch, there are a few
trees rooted in the rock on this side of the gallery, showing by
comparison, that it is not above four or five hundred feet high. These
trees Turner cuts away, and gives the rock a height of about a thousand
feet, so as to imply more power and danger in the avalanche coming down
the couloir.
Next, he raises, in a still greater degree, all the mountains beyond,
putting three or four ranges instead of one, but uniting them into a
single massy bank at their base, which he makes overhang the valley, and
thus reduces it nearly to such a chasm as that which he had just passed
through above, so as to unite the expression of this ravine with that
of the stony valley. A few trees, in the hollow of the glen, he feels to
be contrary in spirit to the stones, and fells them, as he did the
others; so also he feels the bridge in the foreground, by its
slenderness, to contradict the aspect of violence in the torrent; he
thinks the torrent and avalanches should have it all their own way
hereabouts; so he strikes down the nearer bridge, and restores the one
farther off, where the force of the stream may be supposed less. Next,
the bit of road on the right, above the bank, is not built on a wall,
nor on arches high enough to give the idea of an Alpine road in general;
so he makes the arches taller, and the bank steeper, introducing, as we
shall see presently, a reminiscence from the upper part of the pass.
[Illustration: 21. Pass of Faido. (2d. Turnerian Topography.)]
Sec. 15. I say he "_thinks_" this, and "introduces" that. But, strictly
speaking, he does not think at all. If he thought, he would instantly go
wrong; it is only the clumsy and uninventive artist who thinks. All
these changes come into his head involuntarily; an entirely imperative
dream, crying, "thus it must be," has taken possession of him; he can
see, and do, no otherwise than as the dream directs.
This is especially to be remembered with respect to the next
incident--the introduction of figures. Most persons to whom I have shown
the drawing, and who feel its general character, regret that there is
any living thing in it; they say it destroys the majesty of its
desolation. But the dream said not so to Turner. The dream insisted
particularly upon the great fact of its having come by the road. The
torrent was wild, the stones were wonderful; but the most wonderful
thing of all was how we ourselves, the dream and I, ever got here. By
our feet we could not--by the clouds we could not--by any ivory gates we
could not--in no other wise could we have come than by the coach road.
One of the great elements of sensation, all the day long, has been that
extraordinary road, and its goings on, and gettings about; here, under
avalanches of stones, and among insanities of torrents, and overhangings
of precipices, much tormented and driven to all manner of makeshifts and
coils to this side and the other, still the marvellous road persists in
going on, and that so smoothly and safely, that it is not merely great
diligences, going in a caravanish manner, with whole teams of horses,
that can traverse it, but little postchaises with small postboys, and a
pair of ponies. And the dream declared that the full essence and soul of
the scene, and consummation of all the wonderfulness of the torrents and
Alps, lay in a postchaise, with small ponies and postboy, which
accordingly it insisted upon Turner's inserting, whether he liked it or
not, at the turn of the road.
Sec. 16. Now, it will be observed by any one familiar with ordinary
principles of arrangement of form (on which principles I shall insist at
length in another place), that while the dream introduces these changes
bearing on the expression of the scene, it is also introducing other
changes, which appear to be made more or less in compliance with
received rules of composition,[10] rendering the masses broader, the
lines more continuous, and the curves more graceful. But the curious
part of the business is, that these changes seem not so much to be
wrought by imagining an entirely new condition of any feature, as by
_remembering_ something which will fit better in that place. For
instance, Turner felt the bank on the right ought to be made more solid
and rocky, in order to suggest firmer resistance to the stream, and he
turns it, as will be seen by comparing the etchings, into a kind of rock
buttress, to the wall, instead of a mere bank. Now, the buttress into
which he turns it is very nearly a facsimile of one which he had drawn
on that very St. Gothard road, far above, at the Devil's Bridge, at
least thirty years before, and which he had himself etched and engraved,
for the Liber Studiorum, although the plate was never published. Fig. 1
is a copy of the bit of the etching in question. Note how the wall winds
over it, and observe especially the peculiar depression in the middle of
its surface, and compare it in those parts generally with the features
introduced in the later composition. Of course, this might be set down
as a mere chance coincidence, but for the frequency of the cases in
which Turner can be shown to have done the same thing, and to have
introduced, after a lapse of many years, memories of something which,
however apparently small or unimportant, had struck him in his earlier
studies. These instances, when I can detect them, I shall point out as I
go on engraving his works; and I think they are numerous enough to
induce a doubt whether Turner's composition was not universally an
arrangement of remembrances, summoned just as they were wanted, and set
each in its fittest place. It is this very character which appears to
me to mark it as so distinctly an act of dream-vision; for in a dream
there is just this kind of confused remembrance of the forms of things
which we have seen long ago, associated by new and strange laws. That
common dreams are grotesque and disorderly, and Turner's dream natural
and orderly, does not, to my thinking, involve any necessary difference
in the real species of act of mind. I think I shall be able to show, in
the course of the following pages, or elsewhere, that whenever Turner
really tried to _compose_, and made modifications of his subjects on
principle, he did wrong, and spoiled them; and that he only did right in
a kind of passive obedience to his first vision, that vision being
composed primarily of the strong memory of the place itself which he had
to draw; and secondarily, of memories of other places (whether
recognized as such by himself or not I cannot tell), associated, in a
harmonious and helpful way, with the new central thought.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
Sec. 17. The kind of mental chemistry by which the dream summons and
associates its materials, I have already endeavored, not to explain, for
it is utterly inexplicable, but to illustrate, by a well-ascertained
though equally inexplicable fact in common chemistry. That illustration
(Sec. 8. of chapter on Imaginative Association, Vol. II.) I see more and
more ground to think correct. How far I could show that it held with all
great inventors, I know not, but with all those whom I have carefully
studied (Dante, Scott, Turner, and Tintoret) it seems to me to hold
absolutely; their imagination consisting, not in a voluntary production
of new images, but an involuntary remembrance, exactly at the right
moment, of something they had actually seen.
Imagine all that any of these men had seen or heard in the whole course
of their lives, laid up accurately in their memories as in vast
storehouses, extending, with the poets, even to the slightest
intonations of syllables heard in the beginning of their lives, and,
with the painters, down to the minute folds of drapery, and shapes of
loaves or stones; and over all this unindexed and immeasurable mass of
treasure, the imagination brooding and wandering, but dream-gifted, so
as to summon at any moment exactly such groups of ideas as shall justly
fit each other: this I conceive to be the real nature of the imaginative
mind, and this, I believe, it would be oftener explained to us as
being, by the men themselves who possess it, but that they have no idea
what the state of other persons' minds is in comparison; they suppose
every one remembers all that he has seen in the same way, and do not
understand how it happens that they alone can produce good drawings or
great thoughts.
[Illustration: Turner. T. Boys.
22. Turner's Earliest "Nottingham."]
Sec. 18. Whether this be the case with all inventors or not, it was
assuredly the case with Turner to such an extent that he seems never to
have lost, or cared to disturb, the impression made upon him by any
scene,--even in his earliest youth. He never seems to have gone back to
a place to look at it again, but, as he gained power, to have painted
and repainted it as first seen, associating with it certain new thoughts
or new knowledge, but never shaking the central pillar of the old image.
Several instances of this have been already given in my pamphlet on
Pre-Raphaelitism; others will be noted in the course of our
investigation of his works; one, merely for the sake of illustration, I
will give here.
Sec. 19. Plate +22+ is an outline of a drawing of the town and castle of
Nottingham, made by Turner for Walker's Itinerant, and engraved in that
work. The engraving (from which this outline was made, as I could not
discover the drawing itself) was published on the 28th of February,
1795, a period at which Turner was still working in a very childish way;
and the whole design of this plate is curiously stiff and commonplace.
Note, especially, the two formal little figures under the sail.
In the year 1833, an engraving of Nottingham, from a drawing by Turner,
was published by Moon, Boys, and Graves, in the England and Wales
series. Turner certainly made none of the drawings for that series long
before they were wanted; and if, therefore, we suppose the drawing to
have been made so much as three years before the publication of the
plate, it will be setting the date of it as far back as is in the
slightest degree probable. We may assume therefore (and the conclusion
is sufficiently established, also, by the style of the execution), that
there was an interval of at least thirty-five years between the making
of those two drawings,--thirty-five years, in the course of which Turner
had become, from an unpractised and feeble draughtsman, the most
accomplished artist of his age, and had entirely changed his methods of
work and his habits of feeling.
Sec. 20. On the page opposite to the etching of the first, I have given an
etching of the last Nottingham. The one will be found to be merely the
amplification and adornment of the other. _Every incident_ is preserved;
even the men employed about the log of wood are there, only now removed
far away (beyond the lock on the right, between it and the town), and so
lost in mist that, though made out by color in the drawing, they cannot
be made clear in the outline etching. The canal bridge and even the
stiff mast are both retained; only another boat is added, and the sail
dropped upon the higher mast is hoisted on the lower one; and the
castle, to get rid of its formality, is moved a little to the left, so
as to hide one side. But, evidently, no new sketch has been made. The
painter has returned affectionately to his boyish impression, and worked
it out with his manly power.
Sec. 21. How far this manly power itself acted merely in the accumulation
of memories, remains, as I said, a question undetermined; but at all
events, Turner's mind is not more, in my estimation, distinguished above
others by its demonstrably arranging and ruling faculties, than by its
demonstrably retentive and submissive faculties; and the longer I
investigate it, the more this tenderness of perception and grasp of
memory seem to me the root of its greatness. So that I am more and more
convinced of what I had to state respecting the imagination, now many
years ago, viz., that its true force lies in its marvellous insight and
foresight--that it is, instead of a false and deceptive faculty, exactly
the most accurate and truth-telling faculty which the human mind
possesses; and all the more truth-telling, because, in _its_ work, the
vanity and individualism of the man himself are crushed, and he becomes
a mere instrument or mirror, used by a higher power for the reflection
to others of a truth which no effort of his could ever have ascertained;
so that all mathematical, and arithmetical, and generally scientific
truth, is, in comparison, truth of the husk and surface, hard and
shallow; and only the imaginative truth is precious. Hence, whenever we
want to know what are the chief facts of any case, it is better not to
go to political economists, nor to mathematicians, but to the great
poets; for I find they always see more of the matter than any one else:
and in like manner those who want to know the real facts of the world's
outside aspect, will find that they cannot trust maps, nor charts, nor
any manner of mensuration; the most important facts being always quite
immeasurable, and that (with only some occasional and trifling
inconvenience, if they form too definite anticipations as to the
position of a bridge here, or a road there) the Turnerian topography is
the only one to be trusted.
[Illustration: Turner. T. Boys.
23. Turner's Latest "Nottingham."]
Sec. 22. One or two important corollaries may be drawn from these
principles, respecting the kind of fidelity which is to be exacted from
men who have no imaginative power. It has been stated, over and over
again, that it is not _possible_ to draw the whole of nature, as in a
mirror. Certain omissions must be made, and certain conventionalities
admitted, in all art. Now it ought to be the instinctive affection of
each painter which guides him to the omissions he is to make, or signs
he is to use; and his choice of this or the other fact for
representation, his insistence upon this or the other character in his
subject, as that which to him is impressive, constitutes, when it is
earnest and simple, part of the value of his work. This is the only
inspiration he is capable of, but it is a kind of inspiration still; and
although he may not have the memory or the associative power which would
enable him to compose a subject in the Turnerian manner, he may have
certain _affections_, perfectly expressible in his work, and of which he
ought to allow the influence to be seen.[11]
Sec. 23. And this may especially be permitted in rapid sketching of effects
or scenes which, either in their speedy passing away, or for want of
time, it is impossible to draw faithfully. Generally, if leisure permit,
the detailed drawing of the object will be grander than any "impression
on the mind" of an unimaginative person; but if leisure do not permit, a
rapid sketch, marking forcibly the points that strike him, may often
have considerable interest in its way. The other day I sketched the
towers of the Swiss Fribourg hastily from the Hotel de Zahringen. It was
a misty morning with broken sunshine, and the towers were seen by
flickering light through broken clouds,--dark blue mist filling the
hollow of the valley behind them. I have engraved the sketch on the
opposite page, adding a few details, and exaggerating the exaggerations;
for in drawing from nature, even at speed, I am not in the habit of
exaggerating enough to illustrate what I mean. The next day, on a clear
and calm forenoon, I daguerreotyped the towers, with the result given on
the next plate (+25+ Fig. 2); and this unexaggerated statement, with its
details properly painted, would not only be the more right, but
infinitely the grander of the two. But the first sketch nevertheless
conveys, in some respects, a truer idea of Fribourg than any other, and
has, therefore, a certain use. For instance, the wall going up behind
the main tower is seen in my drawing to bend very distinctly, following
the different slopes of the hill. In the daguerreotype this bend is
hardly perceptible. And yet the notablest thing in the town of Fribourg
is, that all its walls have got flexible spines, and creep up and down
the precipices more in the manner of cats than walls; and there is a
general sense of height, strength and grace, about its belts of tower
and rampart, which clings even to every separate and less graceful piece
of them when seen on the spot; so that the hasty sketch, expressing
this, has a certain veracity wanting altogether in the daguerreotype.
Nay, sometimes, even in the most accurate and finished topography, a
slight exaggeration may be permitted; for many of the most important
facts in nature are so subtle, that they _must_ be slightly exaggerated,
in order to be made noticeable when they are translated into the
comparatively clumsy lines of even the best drawing,[12] and removed
from the associating circumstances which enhanced their influence, or
directed attention to them, in nature.
[Illustration: 24. The Towers of Fribourg.]
[Illustration: J. Ruskin J. H. Le Keux.
25. Things in general.]
Sec. 24. Still, in all these cases, the more unconscious the
draughtsman is of the changes he is making, the better. Love will
then do its own proper work; and the only true test of good or bad is,
ultimately, strength of affection. For it does not matter with what wise
purposes, or on what wise principles, the thing is drawn; if it be not
drawn for love of it, it will never be right; and if it _be_ drawn for
love of it, it will never be wrong--love's misrepresentation being truer
than the most mathematical presentation. And although all the reasonings
about right and wrong, through which we have been led in this chapter,
could never be brought to bear on the work at the moment of doing it,
yet this test of right holds always;--if the artist is in any wise
modifying or methodizing to exhibit himself and his dexterity, his work
will, in that precise degree, be abortive; and if he is working with
hearty love of the place, earnest desire to be faithful to it, and yet
an open heart for every fancy that Heaven sends him, in that precise
degree his work will be great and good.
FOOTNOTES
[8] Observe, what was said in the second volume respecting the
spirit of choice as evil, refers only to young students, and to that
choice which assumes that any common subject is not good enough, nor
interesting enough, to be studied. But, though all is good for
study, and all is beautiful, some is better than the rest for the
help and pleasure of others; and this it is our duty always to
choose, if we have opportunity, being quite happy with what is
within our reach, if we have not.
[9] "Couloir" is a good untranslateable Savoyard word, for a place
down which stones and water fall in storms; it is perhaps deserving
of naturalization.
[10] I have just said, Sec. 12, that if, _quitting hold_ of this
original impression, the artist tries to compose something prettier
than he saw, it is all over with him; but, retaining the first
impression, he will, nevertheless, if he has invention,
instinctively modify many lines and parts of it--possibly all parts
of it--for the better; sometimes making them individually more
pictorial, sometimes preventing them from interfering with each
other's beauty. For almost all natural landscapes are redundant
treasures of more or less confused beauty, out of which the human
instinct of invention can by just choice arrange, not a better
treasure, but one more fitted to human sight and emotion, infinitely
narrower, infinitely less lovely in detail, but having this great
virtue, that there shall be absolutely nothing which does not
contribute to the effect of the whole; whereas in the natural
landscape there is a redundancy which impresses only as redundance,
and often an occurrence of marring features; not of ugliness only,
but of ugliness _in the wrong place_. Ugliness has its proper virtue
and use; but ugliness occurring at the wrong time (as if the negro
servant, instead of standing behind the king, in Tintoret's picture,
were to thrust his head in front of the noble features of his
master) is justly to be disliked and withdrawn.
"Why, this," exclaims the idealist, "is what _I_ have always been
saying, and _you_ have always been denying." No; I never denied
this. But I denied that painters in general, when they spoke of
improving Nature, knew what Nature was. Observe: before they dare as
much as to _dream_ of arranging her, they must be able to paint her
as she is; nor will the most skilful arrangement ever atone for the
slightest wilful failure in truth of representation; and I am
continually declaiming against arrangement, not because arrangement
is wrong, but because our present painters have for the most part
nothing to arrange. They cannot so much as paint a weed or a post
accurately; and yet they pretend to improve the forests and
mountains.
[11] For instance, even in my topographical etching, Plate 20, I
have given only a few lines of the thousands which existed in the
scene. Those lines are what I considered the leading ones. Another
person might have thought other lines the leading ones, and his
representation might be equally true as far as it went; but which of
our representations went furthest would depend on our relative
degrees of knowledge and feeling about hills.
[12] Or the best photograph. The question of the exact relation of
value between photography and good topographical drawing, I hope to
examine in another place.