OF TURNERIAN MYSTERY:--FIRST, AS ESSENTIAL.
Sec. 1. In the preceding chapters we have shown the nature of Turner's art;
first, as respected sympathy with his subject; next, as respected
fidelity in local detail; and thirdly, as respected principles of color.
We have now finally to confirm what in various places has been said
respecting his principles of _delineation_, or that mysterious and
apparently uncertain execution by which he is distinguished from most
other painters.
In Chap. III. Sec. 17 of the preceding volume we concluded generally that
all great drawing was _distinct_ drawing; but with reference,
nevertheless, to a certain sort of indistinctness, necessary to the
highest art, and afterwards to be explained. And the inquiry into this
seeming contradiction has, I trust, been made somewhat more interesting
by what we saw respecting modern art in the fourth paragraph of Chap.
XVI., namely, that it was distinguished from old art eminently by
_in_distinctness, and by its idle omission of details for the sake of
general effect. Perhaps also, of all modern artists, Turner is the one
to whom most people would first look as the great representative of this
nineteenth century cloudiness, and "ingenious speaking concerning
smoke;" every one of his compositions being evidently dictated by a
delight in seeing only a part of things rather than the whole, and in
casting clouds and mist around them rather than unveiling them.
Sec. 2. And as the head of modern mystery, all the ranks of the best
ancient, and of even a very important and notable division of modern
authority, seem to be arrayed against him. As we saw in preceding
chapters, every great man was definite until the seventeenth century.
John Bellini, Leonardo, Angelico, Durer, Perugino, Raphael,--all of them
hated fog, and repudiated indignantly all manner of concealment. Clear,
calm, placid, perpetual vision, far and near; endless perspicuity of
space; unfatigued veracity of eternal light; perfectly accurate
delineation of every leaf on the trees, every flower in the fields,
every golden thread in the dresses of the figures, up to the highest
point of calm brilliancy which was penetrable to the eye, or possible to
the pencil,--these were their glory. On the other--the entirely
mysterious--side, we have only sullen and sombre Rembrandt; desperate
Salvator; filmy, futile Claude; occasionally some countenance from
Correggio and Titian, and a careless condescension or two from
Tintoret,[26]--not by any means a balanced weight of authority. Then,
even in modern times, putting Turner (who is at present the prisoner at
the bar) out of the question, we have, in landscape, Stanfield and
Harding as definers, against Copley Fielding and Robson on the side of
the clouds;[27] Mulready and Wilkie against Etty,--even Etty being not
so much misty in conception as vague in execution, and not, therefore,
quite legitimately to be claimed on the foggy side; while, finally, the
whole body of the Pre-Raphaelites--certainly the greatest men, taken as
a class, whom modern Europe has produced in concernment with the
arts--entirely agree with the elder religious painters, and do, to their
utmost, dwell in an element of light and declaration, in antagonism to
all mist and deception. Truly, the clouds seem to be getting much the
worst of it; and I feel, for the moment, as if nothing could be said for
them. However, having been myself long a cloud-worshipper, and passed
many hours of life in the pursuit of them from crag to crag, I must
consider what can possibly be submitted in their defence, and in
Turner's.
Sec. 3. The first and principal thing to be submitted is, that the clouds
_are there_. Whether we like them or not, it is a fact that by far the
largest spaces of the habitable world are full of them. That is Nature's
will in the matter; and whatever we may theoretically determine to be
expedient or beautiful, she has long ago determined what shall _be_. We
may declare that clear horizons and blue skies form the most exalted
scenery; but for all that, the bed of the river in the morning will
still be traced by its line of white mist, and the mountain peaks will
be seen at evening only in the rents between their blue fragments of
towering cloud. Thus it is, and that so constantly, that it is
impossible to become a faithful landscape painter without continually
getting involved in effects of this kind. We may, indeed, avoid them
systematically, but shall become narrow mannerists if we do.
Sec. 4. But not only is there a _partial_ and variable mystery thus caused
by clouds and vapors throughout great spaces of landscape; there is a
continual mystery caused throughout _all_ spaces, caused by the absolute
infinity of things. WE NEVER SEE ANYTHING CLEARLY. I stated this fact
partly in the chapter on Truth of Space, in the first volume, but not
with sufficient illustration, so that the reader might by that chapter
have been led to infer that the mystery spoken of belonged to some
special distance of the landscape, whereas the fact is, that everything
we look at, be it large or small, near or distant, has an equal quantity
of mystery in it; and the only question is, not how much mystery there
is, but at what part of the object mystification begins. We suppose we
see the ground under our feet clearly, but if we try to number its
grains of dust, we shall find that it is as full of confusion and
doubtful form as anything else; so that there is literally _no_ point of
clear sight, and there never can be. What we call seeing a thing
clearly, is only seeing enough of it to _make out what it is_; this
point of intelligibility varying in distance for different magnitudes
and kinds of things, while the appointed quantity of mystery remains
nearly the same for all. Thus: throwing an open book and an embroidered
handkerchief on a lawn, at a distance of half a mile we cannot tell
which is which; that is the point of mystery for the whole of those
things. They are then merely white spots of indistinct shape. We
approach them, and perceive that one is a book, the other a
handkerchief, but cannot read the one, nor trace the embroidery of the
other. The mystery has ceased to be in the whole things, and has gone
into their details. We go nearer, and can now read the text and trace
the embroidery, but cannot see the fibres of the paper, nor the threads
of the stuff. The mystery has gone into a third place. We take both up
and look closely at them; we see the watermark and the threads, but not
the hills and dales in the paper's surface, nor the fine fibres which
shoot off from every thread. The mystery has gone into a fourth place,
where it must stay, till we take a microscope, which will send it into a
fifth, sixth, hundredth, or thousandth place, according to the power we
use. When, therefore, we say, we see the book _clearly_, we mean only
that we know it is a book. When we say that we see the letters clearly,
we mean that we know what letters they are; and artists feel that they
are drawing objects at a convenient distance when they are so near them
as to know, and to be able in painting to show that they know, what the
objects are, in a tolerably complete manner; but this power does not
depend on any definite distance of the object, but on its size, kind,
and distance, together; so that a small thing in the foreground may be
precisely in the same _phase_ or place of mystery as a large thing far
away.
Sec. 5. The other day, as I was lying down to rest on the side of the hill
round which the Rhone sweeps in its main angle, opposite Martigny, and
looking carefully across the valley to the ridge of the hill which rises
above Martigny itself, then distant about four miles, a plantain
seed-vessel about an inch long, and a withered head of a scabious half
an inch broad, happened to be seen rising up, out of the grass near me,
across the outline of the distant hill, so as seemingly to set
themselves closely beside the large pines and chestnuts which fringed
that distant ridge. The plantain was eight yards from me, and the
scabious seven; and to my sight, at these distances, the plantain and
the far away pines were equally clear (it being a clear day, and the sun
stooping to the west). The pines, four miles off, showed their branches,
but I could not count them; and two or three young and old Spanish
chestnuts beside them showed their broken masses distinctly; but I could
not count those masses, only I knew the trees to be chestnuts by their
general look. The plantain and scabious in like manner I knew to be a
plantain and scabious by their general look. I saw the plantain
seed-vessel to be, somehow, rough, and that there were two little
projections at the bottom of the scabious head which I knew to mean the
leaves of the calyx; but I could no more count distinctly the seeds of
the plantain, or the group of leaves forming the calyx of the scabious,
than I could count the branches of the far-away pines.
Sec. 6. Under these circumstances, it is quite evident that neither the
pine nor plantain could have been rightly represented by a single dot or
stroke of color. Still less could they be represented by a definite
drawing, on a small scale, of a pine with all its branches clear, or of
a plantain with all its seeds clear. The round dot or long stroke would
represent nothing, and the clear delineation too much. They were not
mere dots of color which I saw on the hill, but something full of
essence of pine; out of which I could gather which were young and which
were old, and discern the distorted and crabbed pines from the
symmetrical and healthy pines; and feel how the evening sun was sending
its searching threads among their dark leaves;--assuredly they were more
than dots of color. And yet not one of their boughs or outlines could be
distinctly made out, or distinctly drawn. Therefore, if I had drawn
either a definite pine, or a dot, I should have been equally wrong, the
right lying in an inexplicable, almost inimitable, confusion between the
two.
Sec. 7. "But is this only the case with pines four miles away, and with
plantains eight yards?"
Not so. Everything in the field of sight is equally puzzling, and can
only be drawn rightly on the same difficult conditions. Try it fairly.
Take the commonest, closest, most familiar thing, and strive to draw it
verily as you see it. Be sure of this last fact, for otherwise you will
find yourself continually drawing, not what you _see_, but what you
_know_. The best practice to begin with is, sitting about three yards,
from a bookcase (not your own, so that you may _know_ none of the titles
of the books), to try to draw the books accurately, with the titles on
the backs, and patterns on the bindings, as you see them. You are not to
stir from your place to look what they are, but to draw them simply as
they appear, giving the perfect look of neat lettering; which,
nevertheless, must be (as you find it on most of the books) absolutely
illegible. Next try to draw a piece of patterned muslin or lace (of
which you do not know the pattern), a little way off, and rather in the
shade; and be sure you get all the grace and _look_ of the pattern
without going a step nearer to see what it is. Then try to draw a bank
of grass, with all its blades; or a bush, with all its leaves; and you
will soon begin to understand under what a universal law of obscurity we
live, and perceive that all _distinct_ drawing must be _bad_ drawing,
and that nothing can be right, till it is unintelligible.
Sec. 8. "How! and Pre-Raphaelitism and Durerism, and all that you have been
talking to us about for these five hundred pages!"
Well, it is all right; Pre-Raphaelitism is quite as unintelligible as
need be (I will answer for Durerism farther on). Examine your
Pre-Raphaelite painting well, and you will find it is the precise
fulfilment of these laws. You can make out your plantain head and your
pine, and see entirely what they are; but yet they are full of mystery,
and suggest more than you can see. So also with Turner, the true head of
Pre-Raphaelitism. You shall see the spots of the trout lying dead on the
rock in his foreground, but not count them. It is only the Germans and
the so-called masters of drawing and defining that are wrong, not the
Pre-Raphaelites.[28]
Not, that is to say, so far as it is _possible_ to be right. No human
skill can get the absolute truth in this matter; but a drawing by Turner
of a large scene, and by Holman Hunt of a small one, are as close to
truth as human eyes and hands can reach.
Sec. 9. "Well, but how of Veronese and all the firm, fearless draughtsmen
of days gone by?"
They are indeed firm and fearless, but they are all mysterious. Not one
great man of them, but he will puzzle you, if you look close, to know
what he means. Distinct enough, as to his general intent, indeed, just
as Nature is distinct in her general intent; but examine his touches,
and you will find in Veronese, in Titian, in Tintoret, in Correggio, and
in all the great _painters_, properly so called, a peculiar melting and
mystery about the pencilling, sometimes called softness, sometimes
freedom, sometimes breadth; but in reality a most subtle confusion of
colors and forms, obtained either by the apparently careless stroke of
the brush, or by careful retouching with tenderest labor; but always
obtained in one way or another: so that though, when compared with work
that has no meaning, all great work is _distinct_,--compared with work
that has narrow and stubborn meaning, all great work is _in_distinct;
and if we find, on examining any picture closely, that it is all clearly
to be made out, it cannot be, as painting, first-rate. There is no
exception to this rule. EXCELLENCE OF THE HIGHEST KIND, WITHOUT
OBSCURITY, CANNOT EXIST.
Sec. 10. "But you said that all authority was against Turner,--Titian's and
Veronese's, as well as that of the older painters."
Yes, as regards his choice of misty or foggy subject, it is so; but in
this matter of mere _execution_, all the great painters are with him,
though at first he seems to differ from them, on account of that choice
of foggy subject; and because, instead of painting things under
circumstances when their general character is to be discerned at once
(as Veronese paints human figures close to us and the size of life), he
is always painting things twenty and thirty miles away, reduced to
unintelligible and eccentric shades.
Sec. 11. "But how, then, of this foggy choice; can _that_ be right in
itself?"
That we will discuss in the next chapter: let us keep at present to the
question of execution.
"Keeping to that question, why is it that a photograph always looks
clear and sharp,--not at all like a Turner?"
Photographs never look entirely clear and sharp; but because clearness
is supposed a merit in them, they are usually taken from very clearly
marked and un-Turnerian subjects; and such results as are misty and
faint, though often precisely those which contain the most subtle
renderings of nature, are thrown away, and the clear ones only are
preserved. Those clear ones depend for much of their force on the faults
of the process. Photography either exaggerates shadows, or loses detail
in the lights, and, in many ways which I do not here pause to explain,
misses certain of the utmost subtleties of natural _effect_ (which are
often the things that Turner has chiefly aimed at,) while it renders
subtleties of _form_ which no human hand could achieve. But a delicately
taken photograph of a truly Turnerian subject, is far more like Turner
in the drawing than it is to the work of any other artist; though, in
the system of chiaroscuro, being entirely and necessarily
Rembrandtesque, the subtle mystery of the touch (Turnerism carried to an
infinitely wrought refinement) is not usually perceived.
Sec. 12. "But how of Van Eyck, and Albert Durer, and all the clear early
men?"
So far as they are _quite_ clear, they are imperfect, and knowingly
imperfect, if considered as painters of real appearances; but by means
of this very imperfection or conventionalism, they often give certain
facts which are more necessary to their purpose than these outward
appearances. For instance, in Fig. 2 of Plate 25, facing page 32, I
requested Mr. Le Keux to facsimile, as far as might be, the look of the
daguerreotype; and he has admirably done so. But if Albert Durer had
drawn the wall between those towers, he would have represented it with
all its facts distinctly revealed, as in Fig. 1; and in many respects
this clear statement is precious, though, so far as regards ocular
truth, it is not natural. A modern sketcher of the "bold" school would
represent the tower as in Fig. 3; that is to say, in a manner just as
trenchant and firm, and therefore ocularly false, as Durer's; but, in
all probability, which involved entireness of fallacy or ignorance as
to the wall facts; rendering the work nearly valueless; or valuable only
in color or composition; not as draughtsmanship.
Of this we shall have more to say presently, here we may rest satisfied
with the conclusion that to a perfectly great manner of painting, or to
entirely finished work, a certain degree of indistinctness is
indispensable. As all subjects have a mystery in _them_, so all drawing
must have a mystery in _it_; and from the nearest object to the most
distant, if we can quite make out what the artist would be at, there is
something wrong. The strokes of paint, examined closely, must be
confused, odd, incomprehensible; having neither beginning nor
end,--melting into each other, or straggling over each other, or going
wrong and coming right again, or fading away altogether; and if we can
make anything of them quite out, that part of the drawing is wrong, or
incomplete.
Sec. 13. Only, observe, the method by which the confusion is obtained may
vary considerably according to the distance and scale of the picture
itself; for very curious effects are produced upon all paintings by the
distance of the eye from them. One of these is the giving a certain
softness to all colors, so that hues which would look coarse or bald if
seen near, may sometimes safely be left, and are left, by the great
workmen in their large works, to be corrected by the kind of _bloom_
which the distance of thirty or forty feet sheds over them. I say,
"sometimes," because this optical effect is a very subtle one, and seems
to take place chiefly on certain colors, dead fresco colors especially;
also the practice of the great workmen is very different, and seems much
to be regulated by the time at their disposal. Tintoret's picture of
Paradise, with 500 figures in it, adapted to a supposed distance of from
fifty to a hundred feet, is yet colored so tenderly that the nearer it
is approached the better it looks; nor is it at all certain that the
color which is wrong near, will look right a little way off, or even a
great way off: I have never seen any of our Academy portraits made to
look like Titians by being hung above the line: still, distance _does_
produce a definite effect on pictorial color, and in general an
improving one. It also deepens the relative power of all strokes and
shadows. A touch of shade which, seen near, is all but invisible, and,
as far as effect on the picture is concerned, quite powerless, will be
found, a little way off, to tell as a definite shadow, and to have a
notable result on all that is near it; and so markedly is this the case,
that in all fine and first-rate drawing there are many passages in which
if we _see_ the touches we are putting on, we are doing too much; they
must be put on by the feeling of the hand only, and have their effect on
the eye when seen in unison, a little way off. This seems strange; but I
believe the reason of it is, that, seen at some distance, the parts of
the touch or touches are gathered together, and their relations truly
shown; while, seen near, they are scattered and confused. On a large
scale, and in common things, the phenomenon is of constant occurrence;
the "dirt bands" on a glacier, for instance, are not to be counted on
the glacier itself, and yet their appearance is truly stated by
Professor Forbes to be "_one of great importance_, though from the two
circumstances of being _best seen at a distance_, or considerable
height, and in a feeble or slanting light, it had very naturally been
overlooked both by myself and others, like what are called blind paths
over moors, visible at a distance, but lost when we stand upon
them."[29]
Sec. 14. Not only, however, does this take place in a picture very notably,
so that a group of touches will tell as a compact and intelligible mass,
a little way off, though confused when seen near; but also a dark touch
gains at a little distance in apparent _darkness_, a light touch in
apparent _light_, and a colored touch in apparent color, to a degree
inconceivable by an unpractised person; so that literally, a good
painter is obliged, working near his picture, to do in everything only
about half of what he wants, the rest being done by the distance. And if
the effect, at such distance, is to be of confusion, then sometimes seen
near, the work must be a confusion worse confounded, almost utterly
unintelligible; hence the amazement and blank wonder of the public at
some of the finest passages of Turner, which look like a mere
meaningless and disorderly work of chance; but, rightly understood, are
preparations for a given result, like the most subtle moves of a game of
chess, of which no bystander can for a long time see the intention, but
which are, in dim, underhand, wonderful way, bringing out their
foreseen and inevitable result.
Sec. 15. And, be it observed, no other means would have brought out that
result. Every distance and size of picture has its own proper method of
work; the artist will necessarily vary that method somewhat according to
circumstances and expectations: he may sometimes finish in a way fitted
for close observation, to please his patron, or catch the public eye;
and sometimes be tempted into such finish by his zeal, or betrayed into
it by forgetfulness, as I think Tintoret has been, slightly, in his
Paradise, above mentioned. But there never yet was a picture thoroughly
effective at a distance, which did not look more or less unintelligible
near. Things which in distant effect are folds of dress, seen near are
only two or three grains of golden color set there apparently by chance;
what far off is a solid limb; near is a grey shade with a misty outline,
so broken that it is not easy to find its boundary; and what far off may
perhaps be a man's face, near, is only a piece of thin brown color,
enclosed by a single flowing wave of a brush loaded with white, while
three brown touches across one edge of it, ten feet away, become a mouth
and eyes. The more subtle the power of the artist, the more curious the
difference will be between the apparent means and the effect produced;
and one of the most sublime feelings connected with art consists in the
perception of this very strangeness, and in a sympathy with the
foreseeing and foreordaining power of the artist. In Turner, Tintoret,
and Paul Veronese, the intenseness of perception, first, as to what is
to be done, and then, of the means of doing it, is so colossal, that I
always feel in the presence of their pictures just as other people would
in that of a supernatural being. Common talkers use the word "magic" of
a great painter's power without knowing what they mean by it. They mean
a great truth. That power _is_ magical; so magical, that, well
understood, no enchanter's work could be more miraculous or more
_appalling_; and though I am not often kept from saying things by
timidity, I should be afraid of offending the reader, if I were to
define to him accurately the kind and the degree of awe, with which I
have stood before Tintoret's Adoration of the Magi, at Venice, and
Veronese's Marriage in Cana, in the Louvre.
Sec. 16. It will now, I hope, be understood how easy it is for dull artists
to mistake the mystery of great masters for carelessness, and their
subtle concealment of intention for want of intention. For one person
who can perceive the delicacy, invention, and veracity of Tintoret or
Reynolds[30] there are thousands who can perceive the dash of the brush
and the confusion of the color. They suppose that the merit consists in
dash and confusion, and that they may easily rival Reynolds by being
unintelligible, and Tintoret by being impetuous. But I assure them, very
seriously, that obscurity is _not_ always admirable, nor impetuosity
always right; that disorder does not necessarily imply discretion, nor
haste, security. It is sometimes difficult to understand the words of a
deep thinker; but it is equally difficult to understand an idiot; and
young students will find it, on the whole, the best thing they can do to
strive to be _clear_;[31] not affectedly clear, but manfully and firmly.
Mean something, and say something, whenever you touch canvas; yield
neither to the affectation of precision nor of speed, and trust to time,
and your honest labor, to invest your work gradually, in such measure
and kind as your genius can reach, with the tenderness that comes of
love, and the mystery that comes of power.
FOOTNOTES
[26] In the clouds around Mount Sinai, in the picture of the Golden
Calf; the smoke turning into angels, in the Cenacolo in San Giorgio
Maggiore; and several other such instances.
[27] Stanfield I call a definer, as opposed to Copley Fielding,
because, though, like all other moderns, he paints cloud and storm,
he will generally paint all the masts and yards of a ship, rather
than merely her black bows glooming through the foam; and all the
rocks on a hill side, rather than the blue outline of the hill
through the mist.
[28] Compare, if at hand, my letter in the Times of the 5th of May,
1854, on Hunt's Light of the World. I extract the passage bearing
chiefly on the point in question.
"As far as regards the technical qualities of Mr. Hunt's painting, I
would only ask the spectator to observe this difference between true
Pre-Raphaelite work and its imitations. The true work represents all
objects exactly as they would appear in nature, in the position and
at the distances which the arrangement of the picture supposes. The
false work represents them with all their details, as if seen
through a microscope. Examine closely the ivy on the door in Mr.
Hunt's picture, and there will not be found in it a single clear
outline. All is the most exquisite mystery of color; becoming
reality at its due distance. In like manner, examine the small gems
on the robe of the figure. Not one will be made out in form, and yet
there is not one of all those minute points of green color, but it
has two or three distinctly varied shades of green in it, giving its
mysterious value and lustre. The spurious imitations of
Pre-Raphaelite work represent the most minute leaves and other
objects with sharp outlines, but with no variety of color, and with
none of the concealment, none of the infinity of nature."
[29] Travels through the Alps, chap. viii.
[30] Reynolds is usually admired for his dash and speed. His true
merit is in an ineffable subtlety combined with his speed. The
tenderness of some of Reynolds' touches is quite beyond telling.
[31] Especially in distinction of species of things. It may be
doubtful whether in a great picture we are to represent the bloom
upon a grape, but never doubtful that we are to paint a grape so as
to be known from a cherry.