[Illustration: SHEERNESS.]
I look upon this as one of the noblest sea-pieces which Turner ever
produced. It has not his usual fault of over-crowding or over-glitter;
the objects in it are few and noble, and the space infinite. The sky is
quite one of his best: not violently black, but full of gloom and power;
the complicated roundings of its volumes behind the sloop's mast, and
downwards to the left, have been rendered by the engraver with notable
success; and the dim light entering along the horizon, full of rain,
behind the ship of war, is true and grand in the highest degree. By
comparing it with the extreme darkness of the skies in the Plymouth,
Dover, and Ramsgate, the reader will see how much more majesty there is
in moderation than in extravagance, and how much more darkness, as far
as sky is concerned, there is in gray than in black. It is not that the
Plymouth and Dover skies are false,--such impenetrable forms of
thunder-cloud are amongst the commonest phenomena of storm; but they
have more of spent flash and past shower in them than the less
passionate, but more truly stormy and threatening, volumes of the sky
here. The Plymouth storm will very thoroughly wet the sails, and wash
the decks, of the ships at anchor, but will send nothing to the bottom.
For these pale and lurid masses, there is no saying what evil they may
have in their thoughts, or what they may have to answer for before
night. The ship of war in the distance is one of many instances of
Turner's dislike to draw _complete_ rigging; and this not only because
he chose to give an idea of his ships having seen rough service, and
being crippled; but also because in men-of-war he liked the mass of the
hull to be increased in apparent weight and size by want of upper spars.
All artists of any rank share this last feeling. Stanfield never makes
a careful study of a hull without shaking some or all of its masts out
of it first, if possible. See, in the Coast Scenery, Portsmouth harbor,
Falmouth, Hamoaze, and Rye old harbors; and compare, among Turner's
works, the near hulls in the Devonport, Saltash, and Castle Upnor, and
distance of Gosport. The fact is, partly that the precision of line in
the complete spars of a man-of-war is too formal to come well into
pictorial arrangements, and partly that the chief glory of a ship of the
line is in its aspect of being "one that hath had losses."
The subtle varieties of curve in the drawing of the sails of the near
sloop are altogether exquisite; as well as the contrast of her black and
glistering side with those sails, and with the sea. Examine the wayward
and delicate play of the dancing waves along her flank, and between her
and the brig in ballast, plunging slowly before the wind; I have not
often seen anything so perfect in fancy, or in execution of engraving.
The heaving and black buoy in the near sea is one of Turner's "echoes,"
repeating, with slight change, the head of the sloop with its flash of
luster. The chief aim of this buoy is, however, to give comparative
lightness to the shadowed part of the sea, which is, indeed, somewhat
overcharged in darkness, and would have been felt to be so, but for this
contrasting mass. Hide it with the hand, and this will be immediately
felt. There is only one other of Turner's works which, in its way, can
be matched with this drawing, namely, the Mouth of the Humber in the
River Scenery. The latter is, on the whole, the finer picture; but this
by much the more interesting in the shipping.