[Illustration: RAMSGATE.]
This, though less attractive, at first sight, than the former plate, is
a better example of the master, and far truer and nobler as a piece of
thought. The lifting of the brig on the wave is very daring; just one of
the things which is seen in every gale, but which no other painter than
Turner ever represented; and the lurid transparency of the dark sky, and
wild expression of wind in the fluttering of the falling sails of the
vessel running into the harbor, are as fine as anything of the kind he
has done. There is great grace in the drawing of this latter vessel:
note the delicate switch forward of her upper mast.
There is a very singular point connected with the composition of this
drawing, proving it (as from internal evidence was most likely) to be a
record of a thing actually seen. Three years before the date of this
engraving Turner had made a drawing of Ramsgate for the Southern Coast
series. That drawing represents the _same day_, the _same moment_, and
the _same ships_, from a different point of view. It supposes the
spectator placed in a boat some distance out at sea, beyond the
fishing-boats on the left in the present plate, and looking towards the
town, or into the harbor. The brig, which is near us here, is then, of
course, in the distance on the right; the schooner entering the harbor,
and, in both plates, lowering her fore-topsail, is, of course, seen
foreshortened; the fishing-boats only are a little different in position
and set of sail. The sky is precisely the same, only a dark piece of it,
which is too far to the right to be included in _this_ view, enters into
the wider distance of the other, and the town, of course, becomes a more
important object.
The persistence in one conception furnishes evidence of the very
highest imaginative power. On a common mind, what it has seen is so
feebly impressed, that it mixes other ideas with it immediately; forgets
it--modifies it--adorns it,--does anything but keep _hold_ of it. But
when Turner had once seen that stormy hour at Ramsgate harbor-mouth, he
never quitted his grasp of it. He had _seen_ the two vessels; one go in,
the other out. He could have only seen them at that one moment--from one
point; but the impression on his imagination is so strong, that he is
able to handle it three years afterwards, as if it were a real thing,
and turn it round on the table of his brain, and look at it from the
other corner. He will see the brig near, instead of far off: set the
whole sea and sky so many points round to the south, and see how they
look, so. I never traced power of this kind in any other man.