[Illustration: DOVER.]
This port has some right to take precedence of others, as being that
assuredly which first exercises the hospitality of England to the
majority of strangers who set foot on her shores. I place it first
therefore among our present subjects; though the drawing itself, and
chiefly on account of its manifestation of Turner's faulty habit of
local exaggeration, deserves no such pre-eminence. He always painted,
not the place itself, but his impression of it, and this on steady
principle; leaving to inferior artists the task of topographical detail;
and he was right in this principle, as I have shown elsewhere, when the
impression was a genuine one; but in the present case it is not so. He
has lost the real character of Dover Cliffs by making the town at their
feet three times lower in proportionate height than it really is; nor is
he to be justified in giving the barracks, which appear on the left
hand, more the air of a hospice on the top of an Alpine precipice, than
of an establishment which, out of Snargate street, can be reached,
without drawing breath, by a winding stair of some 170 steps; making the
slope beside them more like the side of Skiddaw than what it really is,
the earthwork of an unimportant battery.
This design is also remarkable as an instance of that restlessness which
was above noticed even in Turner's least stormy seas. There is nothing
tremendous here in scale of wave, but the whole surface is fretted and
disquieted by torturing wind; an effect which was always increased
during the progress of the subjects, by Turner's habit of scratching out
small sparkling lights, in order to make the plate "bright," or
"lively."[Q] In a general way the engravers used to like this, and,
as far as they were able, would tempt Turner farther into the practice,
which was precisely equivalent to that of supplying the place of healthy
and heart-whole cheerfulness by dram-drinking.
[Q] See the farther explanation of this practice in the notice of
the subject of "Portsmouth."
The two sea-gulls in the front of the picture were additions of this
kind, and are very injurious, confusing the organization and concealing
the power of the sea. The merits of the drawing are, however, still
great as a piece of composition. The left-hand side is most interesting,
and characteristic of Turner: no other artist would have put the round
pier so exactly under the round cliff. It is under it so accurately,
that if the nearly vertical falling line of that cliff be continued, it
strikes the sea-base of the pier to a hair's breadth. But Turner knew
better than any man the value of echo, as well as of contrast,--of
repetition, as well as of opposition. The round pier repeats the line of
the main cliff, and then the sail repeats the diagonal shadow which
crosses it, and emerges above it just as the embankment does above the
cliff brow. Lower, come the opposing curves in the two boats, the whole
forming one group of sequent lines up the whole side of the picture. The
rest of the composition is more commonplace than is usual with the great
master; but there are beautiful transitions of light and shade between
the sails of the little fishing-boat, the brig behind her, and the
cliffs. Note how dexterously the two front sails[R] of the brig are
brought on the top of the white sail of the fishing-boat to help to
detach it from the white cliffs.
[R] I think I shall be generally more intelligible by explaining
what I mean in this way, and run less chance of making myself
ridiculous in the eyes of sensible people, than by displaying the
very small nautical knowledge I possess. My sailor friends will
perhaps be gracious enough to believe that I _could_ call these
sails by their right names if I liked.