[23] It is meant, I believe, for "Salt Hill."
[24] I do not mean that you can approach Turner or Dürer in their
strength, that is to say, in their imagination or power of design.
But you may approach them, by perseverance, in truth of manner.
[25] The following are the most desirable plates:--
Grande Chartreuse. Little Devil's Bridge.
Æsacus and Hesperie. River Wye (_not_ Wye and Severn).
Cephalus and Procris. Holy Island.
Source of Arveron. Clyde.
Ben Arthur. Lauffenburg.
Watermill. Blair Athol.
Hindhead Hill. Alps from Grenoble.
Hedging and Ditching. Raglan. (Subject with quiet brook,
Dumblane Abbey. trees, and castle on the right.)
Morpeth.
Calais Pier.
Pembury Mill.
If you cannot get one of these, any of the others will be
serviceable, except only the twelve following, which are quite
useless:--
1. Scene in Italy, with goats on a walled road, and trees above.
2. Interior of church.
3. Scene with bridge, and trees above; figures on left, one playing
a pipe.
4. Scene with figure playing on tambourine.
5. Scene on Thames with high trees, and a square tower of a church
seen through them.
6. Fifth Plague of Egypt.
7. Tenth Plague of Egypt.
8. Rivaulx Abbey.
9. Wye and Severn.
10. Scene with castle in center, cows under trees on the left.
11. Martello Towers.
12. Calm.
It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the original
etchings; if you should, it will be a drawing-master in itself
alone, for it is not only equivalent to a pen-and-ink drawing by
Turner, but to a very careful one; only observe, the Source of
Arveron, Raglan, and Dumblane were not etched by Turner; and the
etchings of those three are not good for separate study, though it
is deeply interesting to see how Turner, apparently provoked at the
failure of the beginnings in the Arveron and Raglan, took the plates
up himself, and either conquered or brought into use the bad etching
by his marvelous engraving. The Dumblane was, however, well etched
by Mr. Lupton, and beautifully engraved by him. The finest Turner
etching is of an aqueduct with a stork standing in a mountain
stream, not in the published series; and next to it, are the
unpublished etchings of the Via Mala and Crowhurst. Turner seems to
have been so fond of these plates that he kept retouching and
finishing them, and never made up his mind to let them go. The Via
Mala is certainly, in the state in which Turner left it, the finest
of the whole series: its etching is, as I said, the best after that
of the aqueduct. Figure 20, above, is part of another fine
unpublished etching, "Windsor, from Salt Hill." Of the published
etchings, the finest are the Ben Arthur, Æsacus, Cephalus, and Stone
Pines, with the Girl washing at a Cistern; the three latter are the
more generally instructive. Hindhead Hill, Isis, Jason, and Morpeth,
are also very desirable.
[26] You will find more notice of this point in the account of
Harding's tree-drawing, a little farther on.
[27] The impressions vary so much in color that no brown can be
specified.
[28] You had better get such a photograph, even though you have a
Liber print as well.
[29] See the closing letter in this volume.
[30] [In 1857.]
[31] If you are not acquainted with Harding's works, (an unlikely
supposition, considering their popularity,) and cannot meet with the
one in question, the diagrams given here will enable you to
understand all that is needful for our purposes.
[32] I draw this figure (a young shoot of oak) in outline only, it
being impossible to express the refinements of shade in distant
foliage in a wood-cut.
[33] His lithographic sketches, those for instance in the Park and
the Forest, and his various lessons on foliage, possess greater
merit than the more ambitious engravings in his Principles and
Practice of Art. There are many useful remarks, however, dispersed
through this latter work.
[34] On this law you do well, if you can get access to it, to look
at the fourth chapter of the fourth volume of Modern Painters.
[35] See Note 3 in Appendix I.
[36] The student may hardly at first believe that the perspective of
buildings is of little consequence; but he will find it so
ultimately. See the remarks on this point in the Preface.
[37] See Note 4 in Appendix I.
[38] See Note 5 in Appendix I.
[39] It is a useful piece of study to dissolve some Prussian blue in
water, so as to make the liquid definitely blue: fill a large white
basin with the solution, and put anything you like to float on it,
or lie in it; walnut shells, bits of wood, leaves of flowers, etc.
Then study the effects of the reflections, and of the stems of the
flowers or submerged portions of the floating objects, as they
appear through the blue liquid; noting especially how, as you lower
your head and look along the surface, you see the reflections
clearly; and how, as you raise your head, you lose the reflections,
and see the submerged stems clearly.
[40] Respecting Architectural Drawing, see the notice of the works
of Prout in the Appendix.