200. Another important and pleasurable way of expressing unity, is by
giving some orderly succession to a number of objects more or less
similar. And this succession is most interesting when it is connected
with some gradual change in the aspect or character of the objects. Thus
the succession of the pillars of a cathedral aisle is most interesting
when they retire in perspective, becoming more and more obscure in
distance: so the succession of mountain promontories one behind another,
on the flanks of a valley; so the succession of clouds, fading farther
and farther towards the horizon; each promontory and each cloud being of
different shape, yet all evidently following in a calm and appointed
order. If there be no change at all in the shape or size of the objects,
there is no continuity; there is only repetition--monotony. It is the
change in shape which suggests the idea of their being individually free,
and able to escape, if they like, from the law that rules them, and yet
submitting to it.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.]
201. I will leave our chosen illustrative composition for a moment to
take up another, still more expressive of this law. It is one of
Turner's most tender studies, a sketch on Calais Sands at sunset; so
delicate in the expression of wave and cloud, that it is of no use for
me to try to reach it with any kind of outline in a wood-cut; but the
rough sketch, Fig. 33, is enough to give an idea of its arrangement.
The aim of the painter has been to give the intensest expression of
repose, together with the enchanted, lulling, monotonous motion of cloud
and wave. All the clouds are moving in innumerable ranks after the sun,
meeting towards that point in the horizon where he has set; and the
tidal waves gain in winding currents upon the sand, with that stealthy
haste in which they cross each other so quietly, at their edges; just
folding one over another as they meet, like a little piece of ruffled
silk, and leaping up a little as two children kiss and clap their hands,
and then going on again, each in its silent hurry, drawing pointed
arches on the sand as their thin edges intersect in parting. But all
this would not have been enough expressed without the line of the old
pier-timbers, black with weeds, strained and bent by the storm waves,
and now seeming to stoop in following one another, like dark ghosts
escaping slowly from the cruelty of the pursuing sea.
202. I need not, I hope, point out to the reader the illustration of
this law of continuance in the subject chosen for our general
illustration. It was simply that gradual succession of the retiring
arches of the bridge which induced Turner to paint the subject at all;
and it was this same principle which led him always to seize on subjects
including long bridges wherever he could find them; but especially,
observe, unequal bridges, having the highest arch at one side rather
than at the center. There is a reason for this, irrespective of general
laws of composition, and connected with the nature of rivers, which I
may as well stop a minute to tell you about, and let you rest from the
study of composition.
203. All rivers, small or large, agree in one character, they like to
lean a little on one side: they cannot bear to have their channels
deepest in the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to
sun themselves upon, and another to get cool under; one shingly shore to
play over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike, and
another steep shore, under which they can pause, and purify themselves,
and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasion. Rivers
in this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of their life for
play, and another for work; and can be brilliant, and chattering, and
transparent, when they are at ease, and yet take deep counsel on the
other side when they set themselves to their main purpose. And rivers
are just in this divided, also, like wicked and good men: the good
rivers have serviceable deep places all along their banks, that ships
can sail in; but the wicked rivers go scooping irregularly under their
banks until they get full of strangling eddies, which no boat can row
over without being twisted against the rocks; and pools like wells,
which no one can get out of but the water-kelpie that lives at the
bottom; but, wicked or good, the rivers all agree in having two kinds of
sides. Now the natural way in which a village stone-mason therefore
throws a bridge over a strong stream is, of course, to build a great
door to let the cat through, and little doors to let the kittens
through; a great arch for the great current, to give it room in flood
time, and little arches for the little currents along the shallow shore.
This, even without any prudential respect for the floods of the great
current, he would do in simple economy of work and stone; for the
smaller your arches are, the less material you want on their flanks. Two
arches over the same span of river, supposing the butments are at the
same depth, are cheaper than one, and that by a great deal; so that,
where the current is shallow, the village mason makes his arches many
and low: as the water gets deeper, and it becomes troublesome to build
his piers up from the bottom, he throws his arches wider; at last he
comes to the deep stream, and, as he cannot build at the bottom of that,
he throws his largest arch over it with a leap, and with another little
one or so gains the opposite shore. Of course as arches are wider they
must be higher, or they will not stand; so the roadway must rise as the
arches widen. And thus we have the general type of bridge, with its
highest and widest arch towards one side, and a train of minor arches
running over the flat shore on the other: usually a steep bank at the
river-side next the large arch; always, of course, a flat shore on the
side of the small ones: and the bend of the river assuredly concave
towards this flat, cutting round, with a sweep into the steep bank; or,
if there is no steep bank, still assuredly cutting into the shore at the
steep end of the bridge.
Now this kind of bridge, sympathizing, as it does, with the spirit of
the river, and marking the nature of the thing it has to deal with and
conquer, is the ideal of a bridge; and all endeavors to do the thing in
a grand engineer's manner, with a level roadway and equal arches, are
barbarous; not only because all monotonous forms are ugly in themselves,
but because the mind perceives at once that there has been cost
uselessly thrown away for the sake of formality.[57]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.]
204. Well, to return to our continuity. We see that the Turnerian bridge
in Fig. 32 is of the absolutely perfect type, and is still farther
interesting by having its main arch crowned by a watch-tower. But as I
want you to note especially what perhaps was not the case in the real
bridge, but is entirely Turner's doing, you will find that though the
arches diminish gradually, not one is _regularly_ diminished--they are
all of different shapes and sizes: you cannot see this clearly in Fig.
32, but in the larger diagram, Fig. 34, over leaf, you will with ease.
This is indeed also part of the ideal of a bridge, because the lateral
currents near the shore are of course irregular in size, and a simple
builder would naturally vary his arches accordingly; and also, if the
bottom was rocky, build his piers where the rocks came. But it is not as
a part of bridge ideal, but as a necessity of all noble composition,
that this irregularity is introduced by Turner. It at once raises the
object thus treated from the lower or vulgar unity of rigid law to the
greater unity of clouds, and waves, and trees, and human souls, each
different, each obedient, and each in harmonious service.