This is done, more or less, by all the old masters, without an

exception.[32] Their idea of clouds was altogether similar; more or less

perfectly carried out, according to their power of hand and accuracy of

eye, but universally the same in conception. It was the idea of a

comparatively small, round, puffed-up white body, irregularly associated

with other round and puffed-up white bodies, each with a white light

side, and a gray dark side, and a soft reflected light, floating a great

way below a blue dome. Such is the idea of a cloud formed by most

people; it is the first, general, uncultivated notion of what we see

every day. People think of the clouds as about as large as they

look--forty yards over, perhaps; they see generally that they are solid

bodies subject to the same laws as other solid bodies, roundish,

whitish, and apparently suspended a great way under a high blue

concavity. So that these ideas be tolerably given with smooth paint,

they are content, and call it nature. How different it is from anything

that nature ever did, or ever will do, I have endeavored to show; but I

cannot, and do not, expect the contrast to be fully felt, unless the

reader will actually go out on days when, either before or after rain,

the clouds arrange themselves into vigorous masses, and after arriving

at something like a conception of their distance and size, from the mode

in which they retire over the horizon, will for himself trace and watch

their varieties of form and outline, as mass rises over mass in their

illuminated bodies. Let him climb from step to step over their craggy

and broken slopes, let him plunge into the long vistas of immeasurable

perspective, that guide back to the blue sky; and when he finds his

imagination lost in their immensity, and his senses confused with their

multitude, let him go to Claude, to Salvator, or to Poussin, and ask

them for a like space, or like infinity.

Sec. 14. Total want of transparency and evanescence in the clouds of

ancient landscape.

But perhaps the most grievous fault of all, in the clouds of these

painters, is the utter want of transparency. Not in her most ponderous

and lightless masses will nature ever leave us without some evidence of

transmitted sunshine; and she perpetually gives us passages in which the

vapor becomes visible only by the sunshine which it arrests and holds

within itself, not caught on its surface, but entangled in its

mass--floating fleeces, precious with the gold of heaven; and this

translucency is especially indicated on the dark sides even of her

heaviest wreaths, which possess opalescent and delicate hues of partial

illumination, far more dependent upon the beams which pass through them

than on those which are reflected upon them. Nothing, on the contrary,

can be more painfully and ponderously opaque than the clouds of the old

masters universally. However far removed in aerial distance, and however

brilliant in light, they never appear filmy or evanescent, and their

light is always on them, not in them. And this effect is much increased

by the positive and persevering determination on the part of their

outlines not to be broken in upon, nor interfered with in the slightest

degree, by any presumptuous blue, or impertinent winds. There is no

inequality, no variation, no losing or disguising of line, no melting

into nothingness, nor shattering into spray; edge succeeds edge with

imperturbable equanimity, and nothing short of the most decided

interference on the part of tree-tops, or the edge of the picture,

prevents us from being able to follow them all the way round, like the

coast of an island.

Sec. 15. Farther proof of their deficiency in space.

Sec. 16. Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon.

And be it remembered that all these faults and deficiencies are to be

found in their drawing merely of the separate masses of the solid

cumulus, the easiest drawn of all clouds. But nature scarcely ever

confines herself to such masses; they form but the thousandth part of

her variety of effect. She builds up a pyramid of their boiling volumes,

bars this across like a mountain with the gray cirrus, envelops it in

black, ragged, drifting vapor, covers the open part of the sky with

mottled horizontal fields, breaks through these with sudden and long

sunbeams, tears up their edges with local winds, scatters over the gaps

of blue the infinity of multitude of the high cirri, and melts even the

unoccupied azure into palpitating shades. And all this is done over and

over again in every quarter of a mile. Where Poussin or Claude have

three similar masses, nature has fifty pictures, made up each of

millions of minor thoughts--fifty aisles penetrating through angelic

chapels to the Shechinah of the blue--fifty hollow ways among bewildered

hills--each with their own nodding rocks, and cloven precipices, and

radiant summits, and robing vapors, but all unlike each other, except in

beauty, all bearing witness to the unwearied, exhaustless operation of

the Infinite Mind. Now, in cases like these especially, as we observed

before of general nature, though it is altogether hopeless to follow out

in the space of any one picture this incalculable and inconceivable

glory, yet the painter can at least see that the space he has at his

command, narrow and confined as it is, is made complete use of, and that

no part of it shall be without entertainment and food for thought. If he

could subdivide it by millionths of inches, he could not reach the

multitudinous majesty of nature; but it is at least incumbent upon him

to make the most of what he has, and not, by exaggerating the

proportions, banishing the variety and repeating the forms of his

clouds, to set at defiance the eternal principles of the

heavens--fitfulness and infinity. And now let us, keeping in memory what

we have seen of Poussin and Salvator, take up one of Turner's skies,

and see whether _he_ is as narrow in his conception, or as niggardly in

his space. It does not matter which we take, his sublime Babylon[33] is

a fair example for our present purpose. Ten miles away, down the

Euphrates, where it gleams last along the plain, he gives us a drift of

dark elongated vapor, melting beneath into a dim haze which embraces the

hills on the horizon. It is exhausted with its own motion, and broken up

by the wind in its own body into numberless groups of billowy and

tossing fragments, which, beaten by the weight of storm down to the

earth, are just lifting themselves again on wearied wings, and perishing

in the effort. Above these, and far beyond them, the eye goes back to a

broad sea of white, illuminated mist, or rather cloud melted into rain,

and absorbed again before that rain has fallen, but penetrated

throughout, whether it be vapor or whether it be dew, with soft

sunshine, turning it as white as snow. Gradually as it rises, the rainy

fusion ceases, you cannot tell where the film of blue on the left

begins--but it is deepening, deepening still,--and the cloud, with its

edge first invisible, then all but imaginary, then just felt when the

eye is _not_ fixed on it, and lost when it is, at last rises, keen from

excessive distance, but soft and mantling in its body, as a swan's bosom

fretted by faint wind, heaving fitfully against the delicate deep blue,

with white waves, whose forms are traced by the pale lines of opalescent

shadow, shade only because the light is within it, and not upon it, and

which break with their own swiftness into a driven line of level spray,

winnowed into threads by the wind, and flung before the following vapor

like those swift shafts of arrowy water which a great cataract shoots

into the air beside it, trying to find the earth. Beyond these, again,

rises a colossal mountain of gray cumulus, through whose shadowed sides

the sunbeams penetrate in dim, sloping, rain-like shafts; and over which

they fall in a broad burst of streaming light, sinking to the earth, and

showing through their own visible radiance the three successive ranges

of hills which connect its desolate plain with space. Above, the edgy

summit of the cumulus, broken into fragments, recedes into the sky,

which is peopled in its serenity with quiet multitudes of the white,

soft, silent cirrus; and under these again, drift near the zenith,

disturbed and impatient shadows of a darker spirit, seeking rest and

finding none.

Sec. 17. And in his Pools of Solomon.

Now this is nature! It is the exhaustless living energy with which the

universe is filled; and what will you set beside it of the works of

other men? Show me a single picture, in the whole compass of ancient

art, in which I can pass from cloud to cloud, from region to region,

from first to second and third heaven, as I can here, and you may talk

of Turner's want of truth. Turn to the Pools of Solomon, and walk

through the passages of mist as they melt on the one hand into those

stormy fragments of fiery cloud, or, on the other, into the cold

solitary shadows that compass the sweeping hill, and when you find an

inch without air and transparency, and a hairbreadth without

changefulness and thought; and when you can count the torn waves of

tossing radiance that gush from the sun, as you can count the fixed,

white, insipidities of Claude; or when you can measure the modulation

and the depth of that hollow mist, as you can the flourishes of the

brush upon the canvas of Salvator, talk of Turner's want of truth!

But let us take up simpler and less elaborate works, for there is too

much in these to admit of being analyzed.

Sec. 18. Truths of outline and character in his Como.

In the vignette of the Lake of Como, in Rogers's Italy, the space is so

small that the details have been partially lost by the engraver; but

enough remain to illustrate the great principles of cloud from which we

have endeavored to explain. Observe first the general angular outline of

the volumes on the left of the sun. If you mark the points where the

direction of their outline changes, and connect those points by right

lines, the cloud will touch, but will not cut, those lines throughout.

Yet its contour is as graceful as it is full of character--toppling,

ready to change--fragile as enormous--evanescent as colossal. Observe

how, where it crosses the line of the sun, it becomes luminous,

illustrating what has been observed of the visibility of mist in

sunlight. Observe, above all, the multiplicity of its solid form, the

depth of its shadows in perpetual transition: it is not round and

swelled, half light and half dark, but full of breaking irregular

shadow and transparency--variable as the wind, and melting

imperceptibly above into the haziness of the sunlighted atmosphere,

contrasted in all its vast forms with the delicacy and the multitude of

the brightly touched cirri. Nothing can surpass the truth of this; the

cloud is as gigantic in its simplicity as the Alp which it opposes; but

how various, how transparent, how infinite in its organization!

Sec. 19. Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus.

I would draw especial attention, both here and in all other works of

Turner, to the beautiful use of the low horizontal bars or fields of

cloud, (cirrostratus,) which associate themselves so frequently--more

especially before storms--with the true cumulus, floating on its flanks,

or capping it, as if it were a mountain, and seldom mingling with its

substance, unless in the very formation of rain. They supply us with one

of those beautiful instances of natural composition, by which the artist

is superseded and excelled--for, by the occurrence of these horizontal

flakes, the rolling form of the cumulus is both opposed in its principal

lines, and gifted with an apparent solidity and vastness, which no other

expedient could have exhibited, and which far exceed in awfulness the

impression of the noblest mountains of the earth. I have seen in the

evening light of Italy, the Alps themselves out-towered by ranges of

these mighty clouds, alternately white in the starlight, and inhabited

by fire.

Sec. 20. The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of Geneva.

Turn back to the first vignette in the Italy. The angular outlines and

variety of modulation in the clouds above the sail, and the delicate

atmosphere of morning into which they are dissolved about the breathing

hills, require no comment; but one part of this vignette demands

especial notice; it is the repetition of the outline of the snowy

mountain by the light cloud above it. The cause of this I have already

explained (vide page 228,) and its occurrence here is especially

valuable as bearing witness to the thorough and scientific knowledge

thrown by Turner into his slightest works. The thing cannot be seen once

in six months; it would not have been noticed, much less introduced by

an ordinary artist, and to the public it is a dead letter, or an

offence. Ninety-nine persons in a hundred would not have observed this

pale wreath of parallel cloud above the hill, and the hundredth in all

probability says it is unnatural. It requires the most intimate and

accurate knowledge of the Alps before such a piece of refined truth can

be understood.

Sec. 21. Further principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.

At the 216th page we have another and a new case, in which clouds in

perfect repose, unaffected by wind, or any influence but that of their

own elastic force, boil, rise, and melt in the heaven with more approach

to globular form than under any other circumstances is possible. I name

this vignette, not only because it is most remarkable for the buoyancy

and elasticity of inward energy, indicated through the most ponderous

forms, and affords us a beautiful instance of the junction of the

cirrostratus with the cumulus, of which we have just been speaking (Sec.

19,) but because it is a characteristic example of Turner's use of one

of the facts of nature not hitherto noticed, that the edge of a

partially transparent body is often darker than its central surface,

because at the edge the light penetrates and passes through, which from

the centre is reflected to the eye. The sharp, cutting edge of a wave,

if not broken into foam, frequently appears for an instant almost black;

and the outlines of these massy clouds, where their projecting forms

rise in relief against the light of their bodies, are almost always

marked clearly and firmly by very dark edges. Hence we have frequently,

if not constantly, multitudinous forms indicated only by outline, giving

character and solidity to the great masses of light, without taking away

from their breadth. And Turner avails himself of these boldly and

constantly,--outlining forms with the brush of which no other indication

is given. All the grace and solidity of the white cloud on the

right-hand side of the vignette before us, depends upon such outlines.

Sec. 22. Reasons for insisting on the _infinity_ of Turner's works.

Infinity is almost an unerring test of _all_ truth.

As I before observed of mere execution, that one of the best tests of

its excellence was the expression of _infinity_; so it may be noticed

with respect to the painting of details generally, that more difference

lies between one artist and another, in the attainment of this quality,

than in any other of the efforts of art; and that if we wish, without

reference to beauty of composition, or any other interfering

circumstances, to form a judgment of the truth of painting, perhaps the

very first thing we should look for, whether in one thing or

another--foliage, or clouds, or waves--should be the expression of

_infinity_ always and everywhere, in all parts and divisions of parts.

For we may be quite sure that what is not infinite, cannot be true; it

does not, indeed, follow that what is infinite, always is true, but it

cannot be altogether false, for this simple reason; that it is

impossible for mortal mind to compose an infinity of any kind for

itself, or to form an idea of perpetual variation, and to avoid all

repetition, merely by its own combining resources. The moment that we

trust to ourselves, we repeat ourselves, and therefore the moment we see

in a work of any kind whatsoever, the expression of infinity, we may be

certain that the workman has gone to nature for it; while, on the other

hand, the moment we see repetition, or want of infinity, we may be

certain that the workman has _not_ gone to nature for it.

Sec. 23. Instances of the total want of it in the works of Salvator.

Sec. 24. And of the universal presence of it in those of Turner. The

conclusions which may be arrived at from it.

Sec. 25. The multiplication of objects, or increase of their size, will not

give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices.

For instance, in the picture of Salvator before noticed, No. 220 in the

Dulwich Gallery, as we see at once that the two masses of cloud

absolutely repeat each other in every one of their forms, and that each

is composed of about twelve white sweeps of the brush, all forming the

same curve, and all of the same length; and as we can count these, and

measure their common diameter, and by stating the same to anybody else,

convey to him a full and perfect idea and knowledge of that sky in all

its parts and proportions,--as we can do this, we may be absolutely

certain, without reference to the real sky, or to any other part of

nature, without even knowing what the white things were intended for, we

may be certain that they cannot possibly resemble _anything_; that

whatever they were meant for, they can be nothing but a violent

contradiction of all nature's principles and forms. When, on the other

hand, we take up such a sky as that of Turner's Rouen, seen from St.

Catherine's Hill, in the Rivers of France, and find, in the first place,

that he has given us a distance over the hills in the horizon, into

which, when we are tired of penetrating, we must turn and come back

again, there being not the remotest chance of getting to the end of it;

and when we see that from this measureless distance up to the zenith,

the whole sky is one ocean of alternate waves of cloud and light, so

blended together that the eye cannot rest on any one without being

guided to the next, and so to a hundred more, till it is lost over and

over again in every wreath--that if it divides the sky into quarters of

inches, and tries to count or comprehend the component parts of any

single one of those divisions, it is still as utterly defied and

defeated by the part as by the whole--that there is not one line out of

the millions there which repeats another, not one which is unconnected

with another, not one which does not in itself convey histories of

distance and space, and suggest new and changeful form; then we may be

all but certain, though these forms are too mysterious and too delicate

for us to analyze--though all is so crowded and so connected that it is

impossible to test any single part by particular laws--yet without any

such tests, we may be sure that this infinity can only be based on

truth--that it _must_ be nature, because man could not have originated

it, and that every form must be faithful, because none is like another.

And therefore it is that I insist so constantly on this great quality of

landscape painting, as it appears in Turner; because it is not merely a

constant and most important truth in itself, but it almost amounts to a

demonstration of every other truth. And it will be found a far rarer

attainment in the works of other men than is commonly supposed, and the

sign, wherever it is really found, of the very highest art. For we are

apt to forget that the greatest _number_ is no nearer infinity than the

least, if it be definite number; and the vastest bulk is no nearer

infinity than the most minute, if it be definite bulk; so that a man may

multiply his objects forever and ever, and be no nearer infinity than he

had reached with one, if he do not vary them and confuse them; and a man

may reach infinity in every touch and line, and part, and unit, if in

these he be truthfully various and obscure. And we shall find, the more

we examine the works of the old masters, that always, and in all parts,

they are totally wanting in every feeling of infinity, and therefore in

_all_ truth: and even in the works of the moderns, though the aim is far

more just, we shall frequently perceive an erroneous choice of means,

and a substitution of mere number or bulk for real infinity.

Sec. 26. Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner.

And therefore, in concluding our notice of the central cloud region, I

should wish to dwell particularly on those skies of Turner's, in which

we have the whole space of the heaven covered with the delicate dim

flakes of gathering vapor, which are the intermediate link between the

central region and that of the rain-cloud, and which assemble and grow

out of the air; shutting up the heaven with a gray interwoven veil,

before the approach of storm, faint, but universal, letting the light of

the upper sky pass pallidly through their body, but never rending a

passage for the ray. We have the first approach and gathering of this

kind of sky most gloriously given in the vignette at page 115 of

Rogers's Italy, which is one of the most perfect pieces of feeling (if I

may transgress my usual rules for an instant) extant in art, owing to

the extreme grandeur and stern simplicity of the strange and ominous

forms of level cloud behind the building. In that at page 223, there are

passages of the same kind, of exceeding perfection. The sky through

which the dawn is breaking in the Voyage of Columbus, and that with the

Moonlight under the Rialto, in Rogers's Poems, the skies of the

Bethlehem, and the Pyramids in Finden's Bible series, and among the

Academy pictures, that of the Hero and Leander, and Flight into Egypt,

are characteristic and noble examples, as far as any individual works

can be characteristic of the universality of this mighty mind. I ought

not to forget the magnificent solemnity and fulness of the wreaths of

gathering darkness in the Folkestone.

Sec. 27. The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield.

Sec. 28. The average standing of the English school.

We must not pass from the consideration of the central cloud region

without noticing the general high quality of the cloud-drawing of

Stanfield. He is limited in his range, and is apt in extensive

compositions to repeat himself, neither is he ever very refined; but his

cloud-form is firmly and fearlessly chiselled, with perfect knowledge,

though usually with some want of feeling. As far as it goes, it is very

grand and very tasteful, beautifully developed in the space of its solid

parts and full of action. Next to Turner, he is incomparably the noblest

master of cloud-form of all our artists; in fact, he is the only one

among them who really can _draw_ a cloud. For it is a very different

thing to rub out an irregular white space neatly with the handkerchief,

or to leave a bright little bit of paper in the middle of a wash, and

to give the real anatomy of cloud-form with perfect articulation of

chiaroscuro. We have multitudes of painters who can throw a light bit of

straggling vapor across their sky, or leave in it delicate and tender

passages of breaking light; but this is a very different thing from

taking up each of those bits or passages, and giving it structure, and

parts, and solidity. The eye is satisfied with exceedingly little, as an

indication of cloud, and a few clever sweeps of the brush on wet paper

may give all that it requires; but this is not _drawing_ clouds, nor

will it ever appeal fully and deeply to the mind, except when it occurs

only as a part of a higher system. And there is not one of our modern

artists, except Stanfield, who can do much more than this. As soon as

they attempt to lay detail upon their clouds, they appear to get

bewildered, forget that they are dealing with forms regulated by

precisely the same simple laws of light and shade as more substantial

matter, overcharge their color, confuse their shadows and dark sides,

and end in mere ragged confusion. I believe the evil arises from their

never attempting to render clouds except with the brush; other objects,

at some period of study, they take up with the chalk or lead, and so

learn something of their form; but they appear to consider clouds as

altogether dependent on cobalt and camel's hair, and so never understand

anything of their real anatomy. But whatever the cause, I cannot point

to any central clouds of the moderns, except those of Turner and

Stanfield, as really showing much knowledge of, or feeling for, nature,

though _all_ are superior to the conventional and narrow conceptions of

the ancients. We are all right as far as we go, our work may be

incomplete, but it is not false; and it is far better, far less

injurious to the mind, that we should be little attracted to the sky,

and taught to be satisfied with a light suggestion of truthful form,

than that we should be drawn to it by violently pronounced outline and

intense color, to find in its finished falsehood everything to displease

or to mislead--to hurt our feelings, if we have foundation for them, and

corrupt them, if we have none.

FOOTNOTES

[32] Here I include even the great ones--even Titian and

Veronese,--excepting only Tintoret and the religious schools.

[33] Engraved in Findel's Bible Illustrations.

CHAPTER IV.

OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS: THIRDLY, OF THE REGION OF THE RAIN-CLOUD.

Sec. 1. The apparent difference in character between the lower and central

clouds is dependent chiefly on proximity.

The clouds which I wish to consider as characteristic of the lower, or

rainy region, differ not so much in their real nature from those of the

central and uppermost regions, as in appearance, owing to their greater

nearness. For the central clouds, and perhaps even the high cirri,

deposit moisture, if not distinctly rain, as is sufficiently proved by

the existence of snow on the highest peaks of the Himaleh; and when, on

any such mountains, we are brought into close contact with the central

clouds,[34] we find them little differing from the ordinary rain-cloud

of the plains, except by being slightly less dense and dark. But the

apparent differences, dependent on proximity, are most marked and

important.

Sec. 2. Their marked difference in color.

In the first place, the clouds of the central region have, as has been

before observed, pure and aerial grays for their dark sides, owing to

their necessary distance from the observer; and as this distance permits

a multitude of local phenomena capable of influencing color, such as

accidental sunbeams, refractions, transparencies, or local mists and

showers, to be collected into a space comparatively small, the colors of

these clouds are always changeful and palpitating; and whatever degree

of gray or of gloom may be mixed with them is invariably pure and

aerial. But the nearness of the rain-cloud rendering it impossible for a

number of phenomena to be at once visible, makes its hue of gray

monotonous, and (by losing the blue of distance) warm and brown compared

to that of the upper clouds. This is especially remarkable on any part

of it which may happen to be illumined, which is of a brown, bricky,

ochreous tone, never bright, always coming in dark outline on the lights

of the central clouds. But it is seldom that this takes place, and when

it does, never over large spaces, little being usually seen of the

rain-cloud but its under and dark side. This, when the cloud above is

dense, becomes of an inky and cold gray, and sulphureous and lurid if

there be thunder in the air.

Sec. 3. And in definiteness of form.

Sec. 4. They are subject to precisely the same great laws.

With these striking differences in color, it presents no fewer nor less

important in form, chiefly from losing almost all definiteness of

character and outline. It is sometimes nothing more than a thin mist,

whose outline cannot be traced, rendering the landscape locally

indistinct or dark; if its outline be visible, it is ragged and torn;

rather a spray of cloud, taken off its edge and sifted by the wind, than

an edge of the cloud itself. In fact, it rather partakes of the nature,

and assumes the appearance, of real water in the state of spray, than of

elastic vapor. This appearance is enhanced by the usual presence of

formed rain, carried along with it in a columnar form, ordinarily, of

course, reaching the ground like a veil, but very often suspended with

the cloud, and hanging from it like a jagged fringe, or over it in

light, rain being always lighter than the cloud it falls from. These

columns, or fringes, of rain are often waved and bent by the wind, or

twisted, sometimes even swept upwards from the cloud. The velocity of

these vapors, though not necessarily in reality greater than that of the

central clouds, appears greater, owing to their proximity, and, of

course, also to the usual presence of a more violent wind. They are also

apparently much more in the power of the wind, having less elastic force

in themselves; but they are precisely subject to the same great laws of

form which regulate the upper clouds. They are not solid bodies borne

about with the wind, but they carry the wind with them, and cause it.

Every one knows, who has ever been out in a storm, that the time when it

rains heaviest is precisely the time when he cannot hold up his

umbrella; that the wind is carried with the cloud, and lulls when it has

passed. Every one who has ever seen rain in a hill country, knows that

a rain-cloud, like any other, may have all its parts in rapid motion,

and yet, as a whole, remain in one spot. I remember once, when in

crossing the Tete Noire, I had turned up the valley towards Trient, I

noticed a rain-cloud forming on the Glacier de Trient. With a west wind,

it proceeded towards the Col de Balme, being followed by a prolonged

wreath of vapor, always forming exactly at the same spot over the

glacier. This long, serpent-like line of cloud went on at a great rate

till it reached the valley leading down from the Col de Balme, under the

slate rocks of the Croix de Fer. There it turned sharp round, and came

down this valley, at right angles to its former progress, and finally

directly contrary to it, till it came down within five hundred feet of

the village, where it disappeared; the line behind always advancing, and

always disappearing, at the same spot. This continued for half an hour,

the long line describing the curve of a horseshoe; always coming into

existence, and always vanishing at exactly the same places; traversing

the space between with enormous swiftness. This cloud, ten miles off,

would have looked like a perfectly motionless wreath, in the form of a

horseshoe, hanging over the hills.

Sec. 5. Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud.

Sec. 6. The old masters have not left a single instance of the painting of

the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at it. Gaspar Poussin's

storms.

To the region of the rain-cloud belong also all those phenomena of

drifted smoke, heat-haze, local mists in the morning or evening; in

valleys, or over water, mirage, white steaming vapor rising in

evaporation from moist and open surfaces, and everything which visibly

affects the condition of the atmosphere without actually assuming the

form of cloud. These phenomena are as perpetual in all countries as they

are beautiful, and afford by far the most effective and valuable means

which the painter possesses, for modification of the forms of fixed

objects. The upper clouds are distinct and comparatively opaque, they do

not modify, but conceal; but through the rain-cloud, and its accessory

phenomena, all that is beautiful may be made manifest, and all that is

hurtful concealed; what is paltry may be made to look vast, and what is

ponderous, aerial; mystery may be obtained without obscurity, and

decoration without disguise. And, accordingly, nature herself uses it

constantly, as one of her chief means of most perfect effect; not in one

country, nor another, but everywhere--everywhere; at least, where there

is anything worth calling landscape. I cannot answer for the desert of

the Sahara, but I know that there can be no greater mistake, than

supposing that delicate and variable effects of mist and rain-cloud are

peculiar to northern climates. I have never seen in any place or country

effects of mist more perfect than in the Campagna of Rome, and among the

hills of Sorrento. It is therefore matter of no little marvel to me, and

I conceive that it can scarcely be otherwise to any reflecting person,

that throughout the whole range of ancient landscape art, there occurs

no instance of the painting of a real rain-cloud, still less of any of

the more delicate phenomena characteristic of the region. "Storms"

indeed, as the innocent public persist in calling such abuses of nature

and abortions of art as the two windy Gaspars in our National Gallery,

are common enough; massive concretions of ink and indigo, wrung and

twisted very hard, apparently in a vain effort to get some moisture out

of them; bearing up courageously and successfully against a wind, whose

effects on the trees in the foreground can be accounted for only on the

supposition that they are all of the India-rubber species. Enough of

this in all conscience, we have, and to spare; but for the legitimate

rain-cloud, with its ragged and spray-like edge, its veilly

transparency, and its columnar burden of blessing, neither it, nor

anything like it, or approaching it, occurs in any painting of the old

masters that I have ever seen; and I have seen enough to warrant my

affirming that if it occur anywhere, it must be through accident rather

than intention. Nor is there stronger evidence of any perception, on the

part of these much respected artists, that there were such things in the

world as mists or vapors. If a cloud under their direction ever touches

a mountain, it does it effectually and as if it meant to do it. There is

no mystifying the matter; here is a cloud, and there is a hill; if it is

to come on at all, it comes on to some purpose, and there is no hope of

its ever going off again. We have, therefore, little to say of the

efforts of the old masters, in any scenes which might naturally have

been connected with the clouds of the lowest region, except that the

faults of form specified in considering the central clouds, are, by way

of being energetic or sublime, more glaringly and audaciously committed

in their "storms;" and that what is a wrong form among clouds possessing

form, is there given with increased generosity of fiction to clouds

which have no form at all.

Sec. 7. The great power of the moderns in this respect.

Sec. 8. Works of Copley Fielding.

Sec. 9. His peculiar truth.

Sec. 10. His weakness and its probable cause.

Supposing that we had nothing to show in modern art, of the region of

the rain-cloud, but the dash of Cox, the blot of de Wint, or even the

ordinary stormy skies of the body of our inferior water-color painters,

we might yet laugh all efforts of the old masters to utter scorn. But

one among our water-color artists, deserves especial notice--before we

ascend the steps of the solitary throne--as having done in his peculiar

walk, what for faithful and pure truth, truth indeed of a limited range

and unstudied application, but yet most faithful and most pure, will

remain unsurpassed if not unrivalled,--Copley Fielding. We are well

aware how much of what he has done depends in a great degree upon

particular tricks of execution, or on a labor somewhat too mechanical to

be meritorious; that it is rather the _texture_ than the _plan_ of his

sky which is to be admired, and that the greater part of what is

pleasurable in it will fall rather under the head of dexterous imitation

than of definite thought. But whatever detractions from his merit we may

be compelled to make on these grounds, in considering art as the

embodying of beauty, or the channel of mind, it is impossible, when we

are speaking of truth only, to pass by his down scenes and moorland

showers, of some years ago, in which he produced some of the most

perfect and faultless passages of mist and rain-cloud which art has ever

seen. Wet, transparent, formless, full of motion, felt rather by their

shadows on the hills than by their presence in the sky, becoming dark

only through increased depth of space, most translucent where most

sombre, and light only through increased buoyancy of motion, letting the

blue through their interstices, and the sunlight through their chasms,

with the irregular playfulness and traceless gradation of nature

herself, his skies will remain, as long as their colors stand, among the

most simple, unadulterated, and complete transcripts of a particular

nature which art can point to. Had he painted five instead of five

hundred such, and gone on to other sources of beauty, he might, there

can be little doubt, have been one of our greatest artists. But it often

grieves us to see how his power is limited to a particular moment, to

that easiest moment for imitation, when knowledge of form may be

superseded by management of the brush, and the judgment of the colorist

by the manufacture of a color; the moment when all form is melted down

and drifted away in the descending veil of rain, and when the variable

and fitful colors of the heaven are lost in the monotonous gray of its

storm tones.[35] We can only account for this by supposing that there is

something radically wrong in his method of study; for a man of his

evident depth of feeling and pure love of truth ought not to be, cannot

be, except from some strange error in his mode of out-of-door practice,

thus limited in his range, and liable to decline of power. We have

little doubt that almost all such failures arise from the artist's

neglecting the use of the chalk, and supposing that either the power of

drawing forms, or the sense of their beauty, can be maintained

unweakened or unblunted, without constant and laborious studies in

simple light and shade, of form only. The brush is at once the artist's

greatest aid and enemy; it enables him to make his power available, but

at the same time, it undermines his power, and unless it be constantly

rejected for the pencil, never can be rightly used. But whatever the

obstacle be, we do not doubt that it is one which, once seen, may be

overcome or removed; and we are in the constant hope of seeing this

finely-minded artist shake off his lethargy, break the shackles of

habit, seek in extended and right study the sources of real power, and

become, what we have full faith in his capability of being, one of the

leading artists of his time.

Sec. 11. Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from

engravings.

In passing to the works of our greatest modern master, it must be

premised that the qualities which constitute a most essential part of

the truth of the rain-cloud, are in no degree to be rendered by

engraving. Its indefiniteness of torn and transparent form is far beyond

the power of even our best engravers: I do not say beyond their

_possible_ power, if they would make themselves artists as well as

workmen, but far beyond the power they actually possess; while the depth

and delicacy of the grays which Turner employs or produces, as well as

the refinement of his execution, are, in the nature of things, utterly

beyond all imitation by the opaque and lifeless darkness of the steel.

What we say of his works, therefore, must be understood as referring

only to the original drawings; though we may name one or two instances

in which the engraver has, to a certain degree, succeeded in distantly

following the intention of the master.

Sec. 12. His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumieges.

Sec. 13. Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of smoke

and steam.

Jumieges, in the Rivers of France, ought perhaps, after what we have

said of Fielding, to be our first object of attention, because it is a

rendering by Turner of Fielding's particular moment, and the only one

existing, for Turner never repeats himself. One picture is allotted to

one truth; the statement is perfectly and gloriously made, and he passes

on to speak of a fresh portion of God's revelation.[36] The haze of

sunlit rain of this most magnificent picture, the gradual retirement of

the dark wood into its depth, and the sparkling and evanescent light

which sends its variable flashes on the abbey, figures, foliage, and

foam, require no comment--they speak home at once. But there is added to

this noble composition an incident which may serve us at once for a

farther illustration of the nature and forms of cloud, and for a final

proof how deeply and philosophically Turner has studied them.

We have on the right of the picture, the steam and the smoke of a

passing steamboat. Now steam is nothing but an artificial cloud in the

process of dissipation; it is as much a cloud as those of the sky

itself, that is, a quantity of moisture rendered visible in the air by

imperfect solution. Accordingly, observe how exquisitely irregular and

broken are its forms, how sharp and spray-like; but with all the facts

observed which were pointed out in Chap. II. of this Section, the convex

side to the wind, the sharp edge on that side, the other soft and lost.

Smoke, on the contrary, is an actual substance existing independently in

the air, a solid opaque body, subject to no absorption nor dissipation

but that of tenuity. Observe its volumes; there is no breaking up nor

disappearing here; the wind carries its elastic globes before it, but

does not dissolve nor break them.[37] Equally convex and void of angles

on all sides, they are the exact representatives of the clouds of the

old masters, and serve at once to show the ignorance and falsehood of

these latter, and the accuracy of study which has guided Turner to the

truth.

Sec. 14. Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony.

From this picture we should pass to the Llanthony,[38] which is the

rendering of the moment immediately following that given in the

Jumieges. The shower is here half exhausted, half passed by, the last

drops are rattling faintly through the glimmering hazel boughs, the

white torrent, swelled by the sudden storm, flings up its hasty jets of

springing spray to meet the returning light; and these, as if the heaven

regretted what it had given, and were taking it back, pass, as they

leap, into vapor, and fall not again, but vanish in the shafts of the

sunlight[39]--hurrying, fitful, wind-woven sunlight--which glides

through the thick leaves, and paces along the pale rocks like rain;

half conquering, half quenched by the very mists which it summons itself

from the lighted pastures as it passes, and gathers out of the drooping

herbage and from the streaming crags; sending them with messages of

peace to the far summits of the yet unveiled mountains whose silence is

still broken by the sound of the rushing rain.

Sec. 15. And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning for Loch Coriskin.

With this noble work we should compare one of which we can better judge

by the engraving--the Loch Coriskin, in the illustrations to Scott,

because it introduces us to another and a most remarkable instance of

the artist's vast and varied knowledge. When rain falls on a mountain

composed chiefly of barren rocks, their surfaces, being violently heated

by the sun, whose most intense warmth always precedes rain, occasion

sudden and violent evaporation, actually converting the first shower

into steam. Consequently, upon all such hills, on the commencement of

rain, white volumes of vapor are instantaneously and universally formed,

which rise, are absorbed by the atmosphere, and again descend in rain,

to rise in fresh volumes until the surfaces of the hills are cooled.

Where there is grass or vegetation, this effect is diminished; where

there is foliage it scarcely takes place at all. Now this effect has

evidently been especially chosen by Turner for Loch Coriskin, not only

because it enabled him to relieve its jagged forms with veiling vapor,

but to tell the tale which no pencilling could, the story of its utter

absolute barrenness of unlichened, dead, desolated rock:--

"The wildest glen, but this, can show

Some touch of nature's genial glow,

On high Benmore green mosses grow,

And heath-bells bud in deep Glencoe.

And copse on Cruchan Ben;

But here, above, around, below,

On mountain, or in glen,

Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower,

Nor aught of vegetative power,

The wearied eye may ken;

But all its rocks at random thrown,

Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone."

LORD OF THE ISLES, Canto III

Here, again, we see the absolute necessity of scientific and entire

acquaintance with nature, before this great artist can be understood.

That which, to the ignorant, is little more than an unnatural and

meaningless confusion of steam-like vapor, is to the experienced such a

full and perfect expression of the character of the spot, as no means of

art could have otherwise given.

Sec. 16. The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End.

Sec. 17. The individual character of its parts.

In the Long Ships Lighthouse, Land's End, we have clouds without

rain--at twilight--enveloping the cliffs of the coast, but concealing

nothing, every outline being visible through their gloom; and not only

the outline--for it is easy to do this--but the _surface_. The bank of

rocky coast approaches the spectator inch by inch, felt clearer and

clearer as it withdraws from the garment of cloud--not by edges more and

more defined, but by a surface more and more unveiled. We have thus the

painting, not of a mere transparent veil, but of a solid body of cloud,

every inch of whose increasing distance is marked and felt. But the

great wonder of the picture is the intensity of gloom which is attained

in pure warm gray, without either blackness or blueness. It is a gloom,

dependent rather on the enormous space and depth indicated, than on

actual pitch of color, distant by real drawing, without a grain of blue,

dark by real substance, without a stroke of blackness; and with all

this, it is not formless, but full of indications of character, wild,

irregular, shattered, and indefinite--full of the energy of storm, fiery

in haste, and yet flinging back out of its motion the fitful swirls of

bounding drift, of tortured vapor tossed up like men's hands, as in

defiance of the tempest, the jets of resulting whirlwind, hurled back

from the rocks into the face of the coming darkness; which, beyond all

other characters, mark the raised passion of the elements. It is this

untraceable, unconnected, yet perpetual form--this fulness of character

absorbed in the universal energy--which distinguish nature and Turner

from all their imitators. To roll a volume of smoke before the wind, to

indicate motion or violence by monotonous similarity of line and

direction, is for the multitude; but to mark the independent passion,

the tumultuous separate existence of every wreath of writhing vapor, yet

swept away and overpowered by one omnipotence of storm, and thus to bid

us

"Be as a Presence or a motion--one

Among the many there----while the mists

Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes

And phantoms from the crags and solid earth,

As fast as a musician scatters sounds

Out of an instrument,"--

this belongs only to nature and to him.

Sec. 18. Deep studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry.

Sec. 19. Compared with forms given by Salvator.

The drawing of Coventry may be particularized as a farther example of

this fine suggestion of irregularity and fitfulness, through very

constant parallelism of direction, both in rain and clouds. The great

mass of cloud, which traverses the whole picture, is characterized

throughout by severe right lines, nearly parallel with each other, into

which every one of its wreaths has a tendency to range itself; but no

one of these right lines is actually and entirely parallel to any other,

though all have a certain tendency, more or less defined in each, which

impresses the mind with the most distinct _idea_ of parallelism. Neither

are any of the lines actually straight and unbroken; on the contrary,

they are all made up of the most exquisite and varied curves, and it is

the imagined line which joins the apices of these--a tangent to them

all, which is in reality straight.[40] They are suggested, not

represented, right lines; but the whole volume of cloud is visibly and

totally bounded by them; and, in consequence, its whole body is felt to

be dragged out and elongated by the force of the tempest which it

carries with it, and every one of its wreaths to be (as was before

explained) not so much something borne _before_ or _by_ the wind, as the

visible form and presence of the wind itself. We could not possibly

point out a more magnificent piece of drawing as a contrast to such

works of Salvator as that before alluded to (159 Dulwich Gallery). Both

are rolling masses of connected cloud; but in Turner's, there is not one

curve that repeats another, nor one curve in itself monotonous, nor

without character, and yet every part and portion of the cloud is

rigidly subjected to the same forward, fierce, inevitable influence of

storm. In Salvator's, every curve repeats its neighbor, every curve is

monotonous in itself, and yet the whole cloud is curling about hither

and thither, evidently without the slightest notion where it is going

to, and unregulated by any general influence whatsoever. I could not

bring together two finer or more instructive examples, the one of

everything that is perfect, the other of everything that is childish or

abominable, in the representation of the same facts.

Sec. 20. Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and circumstances

in the Coventry.

But there is yet more to be noticed in this noble sky of Turner's. Not

only are the lines of the rolling cloud thus irregular in their

parallelism, but those of the falling rain are equally varied in their

direction, indicating the gusty changefulness of the wind, and yet kept

so straight and stern in their individual descent, that we are not

suffered to forget its strength. This impression is still farther

enhanced by the drawing of the smoke, which blows every way at once, yet

turning perpetually in each of its swirls back in the direction of the

wind, but so suddenly and violently, as almost to assume the angular

lines of lightning. Farther, to complete the impression, be it observed

that all the cattle, both upon the near and distant hill-side, have left

off grazing, and are standing stock still and stiff, with their heads

down and their backs to the wind; and finally, that we may be told not

only what the storm is, but what it has been, the gutter at the side of

the road is gushing in a complete torrent, and particular attention is

directed to it by the full burst of light in the sky being brought just

above it, so that all its waves are bright with the reflection.

Sec. 21. Especially by contrast with a passage of extreme repose.

But I have not quite done with this noble picture yet. Impetuous clouds,

twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and

oppressed cattle, all speak the same story of tumult, fitfulness, power,

and velocity. Only one thing is wanted, a passage of repose to contrast

with it all, and it is given. High and far above the dark volumes of the

swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left, through their opening, the

quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the highest cirrus, resting in the

repose of the deep sky. Of all else that we have noticed in this

drawing, some faint idea can be formed from the engraving: but not the

slightest of the delicate and soft forms of these pausing vapors, and

still less of the exquisite depth and palpitating tenderness of the blue

with which they are islanded. Engravers, indeed, invariably lose the

effect of all passages of cold color, under the mistaken idea that it is

to be kept _pale_ in order to indicate distance; whereas it ought

commonly to be darker than the rest of the sky.

Sec. 22. The truth of this particular passage. Perfectly pure blue sky only

seen after rain, and how seen.

Sec. 23. Absence of this effect in the works of the old masters.

To appreciate the full truth of this passage, we must understand another

effect peculiar to the rain-cloud, that its openings exhibit the purest

blue which the sky ever shows. For, as we saw in the first chapter of

this section, that aqueous vapor always turns the sky more or less gray,

it follows that we never can see the azure so intense as when the

greater part of this vapor has just fallen in rain. Then, and then only,

pure blue sky becomes visible in the first openings, distinguished

especially by the manner in which the clouds melt into it; their edges

passing off in faint white threads and fringes, through which the blue

shines more and more intensely, till the last trace of vapor is lost in

its perfect color. It is only the upper white clouds, however, which do

this, or the last fragments of rain-clouds, becoming white as they

disappear, so that the blue is never _corrupted_ by the cloud, but only

paled and broken with pure white, the purest white which the sky ever

shows. Thus we have a melting and palpitating color, never the same for

two inches together, deepening and broadening here and there into

intensity of perfect azure, then drifted and dying away through every

tone of pure pale sky, into the snow white of the filmy cloud. Over this

roll the determined edges of the rain-clouds, throwing it all far back,

as a retired scene, into the upper sky. Of this effect the old masters,

as far as I remember, have taken no cognizance whatsoever; all with them

is, as we partially noticed before, either white cloud or pure blue:

they have no notion of any double-dealing or middle measures. They bore

a hole in the sky, and let you up into a pool of deep, stagnant blue,

marked off by the clear round edges of imperturbable, impenetrable cloud

on all sides--beautiful in positive color, but totally destitute of that

exquisite gradation and change, that fleeting, panting, hesitating

effort, with which the first glance of the natural sky is shed through

the turbulence of the earth-storm.

Sec. 24. Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. Use of it by

Turner.

They have some excuse, however, for not attempting this, in the nature

of their material, as one accidental dash of the brush with water-color

on a piece of wet or damp paper, will come nearer the truth and

transparency of this rain-blue than the labor of a day in oils; and the

purity and felicity of some of the careless, melting water-color skies

of Cox and Tayler may well make us fastidious in all effects of this

kind. It is, however, only in the drawings of Turner that we have this

perfect transparency and variation of blue, given in association with

the perfection of considered form. In Tayler and Cox the forms are

always partially accidental and unconsidered, often essentially bad, and

always incomplete; in Turner the dash of the brush is as completely

under the rule of thought and feeling as its slowest line; all that it

does is perfect, and could not be altered, even in a hairbreadth,

without injury; in addition to this, peculiar management and execution

are used in obtaining quality in the color itself, totally different

from the manipulation of any other artist; and none, who have ever spent

so much as one hour of their lives over his drawing, can forget those

dim passages of dreamy blue, barred and severed with a thousand delicate

and soft and snowy forms, which, gleaming in their patience of hope

between the troubled rushing of the racked earth-cloud, melt farther and

farther back into the height of heaven, until the eye is bewildered and

the heart lost in the intensity of their peace. I do not say that this

is beautiful--I do not say it is ideal, nor refined--I only ask you to

watch for the first opening of the clouds after the next south rain, and

tell me if it be not _true_?

Sec. 25. Expression of near rain-cloud in the Gosport, and other works.

Sec. 26. Contrasted with Gaspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and Aeneas.

The Gosport affords us an instance more exquisite even than the passage

above named in the Coventry, of the use of this melting and dewy blue,

accompanied by two distances of rain-cloud, one towering over the

horizon, seen blue with excessive distance through crystal atmosphere;

the other breaking overhead in the warm, sulphurous fragments of spray,

whose loose and shattering transparency, being the most essential

characteristic of the near rain-cloud, is precisely that which the old

masters are sure to contradict. Look, for instance, at the wreaths of

_cloud_? in the Dido and Aeneas of Gaspar Poussin, with their unpleasant

edges cut as hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick black paint

can make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail badly

reefed; or look at the agreeable transparency and variety of the

cloud-edge where it cuts the Mountain in N. Poussin's Phocion, and

compare this with the wreaths which float across the precipice in the

second vignette in Campbell, or which gather around the Ben Lomond, the

white rain gleaming beneath their dark transparent shadows; or which

drift up along the flanks of the wooded hills, called from the river by

the morning light, in the Oakhampton; or which island the crags of

Snowdon in the Llanberis, or melt along the Cumberland hills, while

Turner leads us across the sands of Morecambe Bay. This last drawing

deserves especial notice; it is of an evening in spring, when the south

rain has ceased at sunset, and through the lulled and golden air, the

confused and fantastic mists float up along the hollows of the

mountains, white and pure, the resurrection in spirit of the new-fallen

rain, catching shadows from the precipices, and mocking the dark peaks

with their own mountain-like but melting forms till the solid mountains

seem in motion like those waves of cloud, emerging and vanishing as the

weak wind passes by their summits; while the blue, level night advances

along the sea, and the surging breakers leap up to catch the last light

from the path of the sunset.

[Illustration: OKEHAMPTON CASTLE.

From a painting by Turner.]

Sec. 27. Turner's power of rendering mist.

Sec. 28. His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once understood,

they can no more be explained or reasoned on than nature

herself.

I need not, however, insist upon Turner's peculiar power of rendering

_mist_, and all those passages of intermediate mystery, between earth

and air, when the mountain is melting into the cloud, or the horizon

into the twilight; because his supremacy in these points is altogether

undisputed, except by persons to whom it would be impossible to prove

anything which did not fall under the form of a Rule of Three. Nothing

is more natural than that the studied form and color of this great

artist should be little understood, because they require for the full

perception of their meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as

not one in a thousand possesses, or can bestow; but yet the truth of

them for that very reason is capable of demonstration, and there is hope

of our being able to make it in some degree felt and comprehended even

by those to whom it is now a dead letter, or an offence. But the

aerial and misty effects of landscape, being matters of which the eye

should be simply cognizant, and without effort of thought, as it is of

light, must, where they are exquisitely rendered, either be felt at

once, or prove that degree of blindness and bluntness in the feelings of

the observer which there is little hope of ever conquering. Of course

for persons who have never seen in their lives a cloud vanishing on a

mountain-side, and whose conceptions of mist or vapor are limited to

ambiguous outlines of spectral hackney-coaches and bodiless lamp-posts,

discern through a brown combination of sulphur, soot, and gaslight,

there is yet some hope; we cannot, indeed, tell them what the morning

mist is like in mountain air, but far be it from us to tell them that

they are incapable of feeling its beauty if they will seek it for

themselves. But if you have ever in your life had one opportunity with

your eyes and heart open, of seeing the dew rise from a hill-pasture, or

the storm gather on a sea-cliff, and if you have yet no feeling for the

glorious passages of mingled earth and heaven which Turner calls up

before you into breathing, tangible being, there is indeed no hope for

your apathy--art will never touch you, nor nature inform.

Sec. 29. Various instances.

It would be utterly absurd, among the innumerable passages of this kind

given throughout his works, to point to one as more characteristic or

more perfect than another. The Simmer Lake, near Askrig, for expression

of mist pervaded with sunlight,--the Lake Lucerne, a recent and

unengraved drawing, for the recession of near mountain form, not into

dark, but into _luminous_ cloud, the most difficult thing to do in

art,--the Harlech, for expression of the same phenomena, shown over vast

spaces in distant ranges of hills, the Ehrenbreitstein, a recent

drawing, for expression of mist, rising from the surface of water at

sunset,--and, finally, the glorious Oberwesel and Nemi,[41] for passages

of all united, may, however, be named, as noble instances, though in

naming five works I insult five hundred.

Sec. 30. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by

engravers.

Sec. 31. General system of landscape engraving.

Sec. 32. The storm in the Stonehenge.

One word respecting Turner's more violent storms, for we have hitherto

been speaking only of the softer rain-clouds, associated with gusty

tempest, but not of the thunder-cloud and the whirlwind. If there be any

one point in which engravers disgrace themselves more than in another,

it is in their rendering of dark and furious storm. It appears to be

utterly impossible to force it into their heads, that an artist does

_not_ leave his color with a sharp edge and an angular form by accident,

or that they may have the pleasure of altering it and improving upon it;

and equally impossible to persuade them that energy and gloom may in

_some_ circumstances be arrived at without any extraordinary expenditure

of ink. I am aware of no engraver of the present day whose ideas of a

storm-cloud are not comprised under two heads, roundness and blackness;

and, indeed, their general principles of translation (as may be

distinctly gathered from their larger works) are the following: 1. Where

the drawing is gray, make the paper black. 2. Where the drawing is

white, cover the page with zigzag lines. 3. Where the drawing has

particularly tender tones, cross-hatch them. 4. Where any outline is

particularly angular, make it round. 5. Where there are vertical

reflections in water, express them with very distinct horizontal lines.

6. Where there is a passage of particular simplicity, treat it in

sections. 7. Where there is anything intentionally concealed, make it

out. Yet, in spite of the necessity which all engravers impose upon

themselves, of rigidly observing this code of general laws, it is

difficult to conceive how such pieces of work, as the plates of

Stonehenge and Winchelsea, can ever have been presented to the public,

as in any way resembling, or possessing even the most fanciful relation

to the Turner drawings of the same subjects. The original of the

Stonehenge is perhaps the standard of storm-drawing, both for the

overwhelming power and gigantic proportions and spaces of its

cloud-forms, and for the tremendous qualities of lurid and sulphurous

colors which are gained in them. All its forms are marked with violent

angles, as if the whole muscular energy--so to speak--of the cloud, were

writhing in every fold, and their fantastic and fiery volumes have a

peculiar horror--an awful life--shadowed out in their strange, swift,

fearful outlines, which oppress the mind more than even the threatening

of their gigantic gloom. The white lightning, not as it is drawn by less

observant or less capable painters, in zigzag fortifications, but in its

own dreadful irregularity of streaming fire, is brought down, not merely

over the dark clouds, but through the full light of an illumined opening

to the blue, which yet cannot abate the brilliancy of its white line;

and the track of the last flash along the ground is fearfully marked by

the dog howling over the fallen shepherd, and the ewe pressing her head

upon the body of her dead lamb.

Sec. 33. General character of such effects given by Turner. His expression

of falling rain.

I have not space, however, to enter into examination of Turner's

storm-drawing; I can only warn the public against supposing that its

effect is ever rendered by engravers. The great principles of Turner are

angular outline, vastness and energy of form, infinity of gradation, and

depth without blackness. The great principles of the engravers (_vide_

Paestum, in Rogers's Italy, and the Stonehenge, above alluded to) are

rounded outline, no edges, want of character, equality of strength, and

blackness without depth.

Sec. 34. Recapitulation of the section.

I have scarcely, I see, on referring to what I have written,

sufficiently insisted on Turner's rendering of the rainy _fringe_,

whether in distances, admitting or concealing more or less of the

extended plain, as in the Waterloo, and Richmond (with the girl and dog

in the foreground,) or as in the Dunstaffnage, Glencoe, St. Michael's

Mount, and Slave Ship, not reaching the earth, but suspended in waving

and twisted lines from the darkness of the zenith. But I have no time

for farther development of particular points; I must defer discussion of

them until we take up each picture to be viewed as a whole; for the

division of the sky which I have been obliged to make, in order to

render fully understood the peculiarities of character in the separate

cloud regions, prevents my speaking of any one work with justice to its

concentration of various truth. Be it always remembered that we pretend

not, at present, to give any account or idea of the sum of the works of

any painter, much less of the universality of Turner's; but only to

explain in what real truth, as far as it is explicable, consists, and to

illustrate it by those pictures in which it most distinctly occurs, or

from which it is most visibly absent. And it will only be in the full

and separate discussion of individual works, when we are acquainted also

with what is beautiful, that we shall be completely able to prove or

disprove the presence of the truth of nature.

The conclusion, then, to which we are led by our present examination of

the truth of clouds, is, that the old masters attempted the

representation of only one among the thousands of their systems of

scenery, and were altogether false in the little they attempted; while

we can find records in modern art of every form or phenomenon of the

heavens, from the highest film that glorifies the ether to the wildest

vapor that darkens the dust, and in all these records we find the most

clear language and close thought, firm words, and true message,

unstinted fulness and unfailing faith.

Sec. 35. Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole, compared

with the works of Turner and of the old masters. Morning on the

plains.

Sec. 36. Noon with gathering storms.

Sec. 37. Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight.

Sec. 38. And sunrise on the Alps.

And indeed it is difficult for us to conceive how, even without such

laborious investigation as we have gone through, any person can go to

nature for a single day or hour, when she is really at work in any of

her nobler spheres of action, and yet retain respect for the old

masters; finding, as find he will, that every scene which rises, rests,

or departs before him, bears with it a thousand glories of which there

is not one shadow, one image, one trace or line, in any of their works;

but which will illustrate to him, at every new instant, some passage

which he had not before understood in the high works of modern art.

Stand upon the peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, when the

night mists first rise from off the plains, and watch their white and

lake-like fields as they float in level bays and winding gulfs about the

islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn,

colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight;

watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels, how the

foam of their undulating surface parts and passes away; and down under

their depths, the glittering city and green pasture lie like Atlantis,

between the white paths of winding rivers; the flakes of light falling

every moment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed

surges break and vanish above them, and the confused crests and ridges

of the dark hills shorten their gray shadows upon the plain. Has Claude

given this? Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered

mists rallying in the ravines, and floating up towards you, along the

winding valleys, till they couch in quiet masses, iridescent with the

morning light,[42] upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, whose

leagues of massy undulation will melt back and back into that robe of

material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear

again above, in the serene heaven, like a wild, bright, impossible

dream, foundationless and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in

the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below.[43] Has

Claude given this? Wait yet a little longer, and you shall see those

mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand like fortresses

along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piled with every

instant higher and higher into the sky,[44] and casting longer shadows

athwart the rocks; and out of the pale blue of the horizon you will see

forming and advancing a troop of narrow, dark, pointed vapors,[45] which

will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their gray network, and take the

light off the landscape with an eclipse which will stop the singing of

the birds and the motion of the leaves together; and then you will see

horizontal bars of black shadow forming under them, and lurid wreaths

create themselves, you know not how, along the shoulders of the hills;

you never see them form, but when you look back to a place which was

clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it, hanging by the precipices,

as a hawk pauses over his prey.[46] Has Claude given this? And then you

will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and you will see those

watch-towers of vapor swept away from their foundations, and waving

curtains of opaque rain let down to the valleys, swinging from the

burdened clouds in black, bending fringes,[47] or pacing in pale columns

along the lake level, grazing its surface into foam as they go. And

then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm drift for an instant

from on the hills, leaving their broad sides smoking, and loaded yet

with snow-white torn, steam-like rags of capricious vapor, now gone, now

gathered again;[48] while the smouldering sun, seeming not far away, but

burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it,

plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall,

as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with

blood.[49] Has Claude given this? And then you shall hear the fainting

tempest die in the hollow of the night, and you shall see a green halo

kindling on the summit of the eastern hills,[50] brighter--brighter yet,

till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the

barred clouds,[51] step by step, line by line; star after star she

quenches with her kindling light, setting in their stead an army of

pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give light upon the

earth, which move together, hand in hand, company by company, troop by

troop, so measured in their unity of motion, that the whole heaven seems

to roll with them, and the earth to reel under them. Ask Claude, or his

brethren, for that. And then wait yet for one hour until the east again

becomes purple,[52] and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in

darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory

of its burning; watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths

about the mountains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire; watch the

columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm by chasm,

each in itself a new morning; their long avalanches cast down in keen

streams brighter than the lightning, sending each his tribute of driven

snow, like altar-smoke, up to the heaven; the rose-light of their silent

domes flushing that heaven about them and above them, piercing with

purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new

glory on every wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven--one

scarlet canopy,--is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and tossing,

vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of

angels; and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when you

are bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of this, tell me

who has best delivered this His message unto men!

FOOTNOTES

[34] I am unable to say to what height the real rain-cloud may

extend; perhaps there are no mountains which rise altogether above

storm. I have never been in a violent storm at a greater height than

between 8000 and 9000 feet above the level of the sea. There the

rain-cloud is exceedingly light, compared to the ponderous darkness

of the lower air.

[35] I ought here, however, to have noted another effect of the

rain-cloud, which, so far as I know, has been rendered only by

Copley Fielding. It is seen chiefly in clouds gathering for rain,

when the sky is entirely covered with a gray veil rippled or waved

with pendent swells of soft texture, but excessively hard and liny

in their edges. I am not sure that this is an agreeable or

impressive form of the rain-cloud, but it is a frequent one, and it

is often most faithfully given by Fielding; only in some cases the

edges becoming a little doubled and harsh have given a look of

failure or misadventure to some even of the best studied passages;

and something of the same hardness of line is occasionally visible

in his drawing of clouds by whose nature it is not warranted.

[36] Compare Sect. I. Chap. IV. Sec. 5.

[37] It does not do so until the volumes lose their density by

inequality of motion, and by the expansion of the warm air which

conveys them. They are then, of course, broken into forms resembling

those of clouds.

[38] No conception can be formed of this picture from the engraving.

It is perhaps the most marvellous piece of execution and of gray

color existing, except perhaps the drawing presently to be noticed,

Land's End. Nothing else can be set beside it, even of Turner's own

works--much less of any other man's.

[39] I know no effect more strikingly characteristic of the

departure of a storm than the _smoking_ of the mountain torrents.

The exhausted air is so thirsty of moisture, that every jet of spray

is seized upon by it, and converted into vapor as it springs; and

this vapor rises so densely from the surface of the stream as to

give it the exact appearance of boiling water. I have seen the whole

course of the Arve at Chamonix one line of dense cloud, dissipating

as soon as it had risen ten or twelve feet from the surface, but

entirely concealing the water from an observer placed above it.

[40] Note especially the dark uppermost outline of the mass.

[41] In the possession of B. G. Windus, Esq. of Tottenham.

[42] I have often seen the white thin, morning cloud, edged with the

seven colors of the prism. I am not aware of the cause of this

phenomenon, for it takes place not when we stand with our backs to

the sun, but in clouds near the sun itself, irregularly and over

indefinite spaces, sometimes taking place in the body of the cloud.

The colors are distinct and vivid, but have a kind of metallic

lustre upon them.

[43] Lake Lucerne.

[44] St. Maurice (Rogers's Italy).

[45] Vignette, the Great St. Bernard.

[46] Vignette of the Andes.

[47] St. Michael's Mount--England series.

[48] Illustration to the Antiquary. Goldeau, a recent drawing of the

highest order.

[49] Vignette to Campbell's Last Man.

[50] Caerlaverock.

[51] St. Denis.

[52] Alps at Daybreak (Rogers's Poems:) Delphi, and various

vignettes.

CHAPTER V.

EFFECTS OF LIGHT RENDERED BY MODERN ART.

Sec. 1. Reasons for merely at present naming, without examining the

particular effects of light rendered by Turner.

Sec. 2. Hopes of the author for assistance in the future investigation of

them.

I have before given my reasons (Sect. II. Chap. III.) for not wishing at

present to enter upon the discussion of particular effects of light. Not

only are we incapable of rightly viewing them, or reasoning upon them,

until we are acquainted with the principles of the beautiful; but, as I

distinctly limited myself, in the present portion of the work, to the

examination of _general_ truths, it would be out of place to take

cognizance of the particular phases of light, even if it were possible

to do so, before we have some more definite knowledge of the material

objects which they illustrate. I shall therefore, at present, merely set

down a rough catalogue of the effects of light at different hours of the

day, which Turner has represented: naming a picture or two, as an

example of each, which we will hereafter take up one by one, and

consider the physical science and the feeling together. And I do this,

in the hope that, in the mean time, some admirer of the old masters will

be kind enough to select from the works of any one of them, a series of

examples of the same effects, and to give me a reference to the

pictures, so that I may be able to compare each with each; for, as my

limited knowledge of the works of Claude or Poussin does not supply me

with the requisite variety of effect, I shall be grateful for

assistance.

The following list, of course, does not name the hundredth part of the

effects of light given by Turner; it only names those which are

distinctly and markedly separate from each other, and representative

each of an entire class. Ten or twelve examples, often many more, might

be given of each; every one of which would display the effects of the

same hour and light, modified by different circumstances of weather,

situation, and character of objects subjected to them, and especially by

the management of the sky; but it will be generally sufficient for our

purposes to examine thoroughly one good example of each.

The prefixed letters express the direction of the light. F. front light

(the sun in the centre, or near the top of the picture;) L. lateral

light, the sun out of the picture on the right or left of the spectator;

L. F. the light partly lateral, partly fronting the spectator, as when

he is looking south, with the sun in the south-west; L. B. light partly

lateral, partly behind the spectator, as when he is looking north, with

the sun in the south-west.

MORNING.

EFFECTS. NAMES OF PICTURES.

L. An hour before sunrise in winter. Violent | Lowestoffe, Suffolk.

storm, with rain, on the sea. Light-houses |

seen through it. |

|

F. An hour before sunrise. Serene sky, with | Vignette to Voyage

light clouds. Dawn in the distance. | of Columbus.

|

L. Ten minutes before sunrise. Violent | Fowey Harbor.

storm. Torchlight. |

|

F. Sunrise. Sun only half above the horizon. | Vignette to Human

Clear sky, with light cirri. | Life.

|

F. Sun just disengaged from horizon. Misty, | Alps at Daybreak.

with light cirri. |

|

F. Sun a quarter of an hour risen. Sky covered | Castle Upnor.

with scarlet clouds. |

|

L.F. Serene sky. Sun emerging from a bank | Orford, Suffolk.

of cloud on horizon, a quarter of an hour |

risen. |

|

L.F. Same hour. Light mists in flakes on | Skiddaw.

hill-sides. Clear air. |

|

L.F. Light flying rain-clouds gathering in | Oakhampton.

valleys. Same hour. |

|

L.B. Same hour. A night storm rising off the | Lake of Geneva.

mountains. Dead calm. |

|

L. Sun half an hour risen. Cloudless sky. | Beaugency.

|

L. Same hour. Light mists lying in the valleys. | Kirby Lonsdale.

|

F. Same hour. Bright cirri. Sun dimly seen | Hohenlinden.

through battle smoke, with conflagration. |

|

L. Sun an hour risen. Cloudless and clear. | Buckfastleigh.

NOON AND AFTERNOON.

EFFECTS. NAMES OF PICTURES.

L.B. Midday. Dead calm, with heat. Cloudless. | Corinth.

|

L. Same hour. Serene and bright, with | Lantern at

streaky clouds. | St. Cloud.

|

L. Same hour. Serene, with multitudes of | Shylock, and other

the high cirrus. | Venices.

|

L. Bright sun, with light wind and clouds. | Richmond, Middlesex.

|

F. Two o'clock. Clouds gathering for rain, with | Warwick. Blenheim.

heat. |

|

F. Rain beginning, with light clouds and wind. | Piacenza.

|

L. Soft rain, with heat. | Caldron Snout Fall.

|

L.F. Great heat. Thunder gathering. | Malvern.

|

L. Thunder breaking down, after intense heat, | Winchelsea.

with furious wind. |

|

L. Violent rain and wind, but cool. | Llamberis, Coventry,

| &c.

|

L.F. Furious storm, with thunder. | Stonehenge, Paestum,

| &c.

|

L.B. Thunder retiring, with rainbow. Dead calm, | Nottingham.

with heat. |

|

L. About three o'clock, summer. Air very | Bingen.

cool and clear. Exhausted thunder-clouds |

low on hills. |

|

F. Descending sunbeams through soft clouds, | Carew Castle.

after rain. |

|

L. Afternoon, very clear, after rain. A few | Saltash.

clouds still on horizon. Dead calm. |

|

F. Afternoon of cloudless day, with heat. | Mercury and Argus.

| Oberwesel. Nemi.

EVENING.

EFFECTS. NAMES OF PICTURES.

L. An hour before sunset. Cloudless. | Trematon Castle.

|

F. Half an hour before sunset. Light clouds. | Lake Albano.

Misty air. | Florence.

|

F. Within a quarter of an hour of sunset. | Dater Hora Quieti.

Mists rising. Light cirri. |

|

L.F. Ten minutes before sunset. Quite cloudless. | Durham.

|

F. Same hour. Tumultuous spray of illumined | Solomon's Pools.

rain-cloud. | Slave ship.

|

F. Five minutes before sunset. Sky covered | Temeraire. Napoleon.

with illumined cirri. | Various vignettes.

|

L.B. Same hour. Serene sky. Full moon rising. | Kenilworth.

|

F. Sun setting. Detached light cirri and clear | Amboise.

air. |

|

L. Same hour. Cloudless. New moon. | Troyes.

|

L.F. Same hour. Heavy storm clouds. Moonrise. | First vignette.

| Pleasures of

| Memory.

|

L.B. Sun just set. Sky covered with clouds. New | Caudebec.

moon setting. |

|

L.B. Sun five minutes set. Strong twilight, | Wilderness of Engedi.

with storm clouds. Full moonrise. | Assos.

|

L.B. Same hour. Serene, with light clouds. | Montjan.

|

L.B. Same hour. Serene. New moon. | Pyramid of Caius

| Cestius.

|

L.B. Sun a quarter of an hour set. Cloudless. | Chateau de Blois.

|

L.F. Sun half an hour set. Light cirri. | Clairmont.

|

F. Same hour. Dead calm at sea. New moon and | Cowes.

evening star. |

|

F. Sun three quarters of an hour set. Moon | Folkestone.

struggling through storm clouds, over |

heavy sea. |

NIGHT.

EFFECTS. NAMES OF PICTURES.

F. An hour after sunset. No moon. Torchlight. | St. Julien. Tours.

|

F. Same hour. Moon rising. Fire from furnaces. | Dudley.

|

L.F. Same hour, with storm clouds. Moon | Nantes.

rising. |

|

L. Same hour, with light of rockets and fire. | Juliet and her Nurse.

|

F. Midnight. Moonless, with light-houses. | Calais.

Same hour, with fire-light. | Burning of

| Parliament Houses.

|

F. Ditto. Full moon. Clear air, with delicate | Towers of the Heve.

clouds. Light-houses. |

|

F. Ditto, with conflagration, battle smoke, and | Waterloo.

storm. |

|

F. Ditto. Moonlight through mist. Buildings | Vignette. St.

illuminated in interior. | Herbert's Isle.

|

F. Ditto. Full moon with halo. Light | St. Denis.

rain-clouds. |

|

F. Full moon. Perfectly serene. Sky covered | Alnwick. Vignette of

with white cirri. | Rialto, and Bridge.

| of Sighs

SECTION IV.

OF TRUTH OF EARTH.

CHAPTER I.

OF GENERAL STRUCTURE.

Sec. 1. First laws of the organization of the earth, and their importance

in art.

By truth of earth, we mean the faithful representation of the facts and

forms of the bare ground, considered as entirely divested of vegetation,

through whatever disguise, or under whatever modification the clothing

of the landscape may occasion. Ground is to the landscape painter what

the naked human body is to the historical. The growth of vegetation, the

action of water, and even of clouds upon it and around it, are so far

subject and subordinate to its forms, as the folds of the dress and the

fall of the hair are to the modulation of the animal anatomy. Nor is

this anatomy always so concealed, but in all sublime compositions,

whether of nature or art, it must be seen in its naked purity. The laws

of the organization of the earth are distinct and fixed as those of the

animal frame, simpler and broader, but equally authoritative and

inviolable. Their results may be arrived at without knowledge of the

interior mechanism; but for that very reason ignorance of them is the

more disgraceful, and violation of them more unpardonable. They are in

the landscape the foundation of all other truths--the most necessary,

therefore, even if they were not in themselves attractive; but they are

as beautiful as they are essential, and every abandonment of them by the

artist must end in deformity as it begins in falsehood.

Sec. 2. The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study

by modern artists.

That such abandonment is constant and total in the works of the old

masters, has escaped detection, only because of persons generally

cognizant of art, few have spent time enough in hill countries to

perceive the certainty of the laws of hill anatomy; and because few,

even of those who possess such opportunities, ever think of the common

earth beneath their feet, as anything possessing specific form, or

governed by steadfast principles. That such abandonment should have

taken place cannot be surprising, after what we have seen of their

fidelity to skies. Those artists who, day after day, could so falsely

represent what was forever before their eyes, when it was to be one of

the most important and attractive parts of their picture, can scarcely

be expected to give with truth what they could see only partially and at

intervals, and what was only to be in their picture a blue line in the

horizon, or a bright spot under the feet of their figures.

That such should be all the space allotted by the old landscape painters

to the most magnificent phenomena of nature; that the only traces of

those Apennines, which in Claude's walks along the brow of the Pincian,

forever bounded his horizon with their azure wall, should, in his

pictures, be a cold white outline in the extreme of his tame distance;

and that Salvator's sojourns among their fastnesses should only have

taught him to shelter his banditti with such paltry morsels of crag as

an Alpine stream would toss down before it like a foam-globe; though it

may indeed excite our surprise, will, perhaps, when we have seen how

these slight passages are executed, be rather a subject of

congratulation than of regret. It might, indeed, have shortened our

labor in the investigation of mountain truth, had not modern artists

been so vast, comprehensive, and multitudinous in their mountain

drawings, as to compel us, in order to form the slightest estimate of

their knowledge, to enter into some examination of every variety of hill

scenery. We shall first gain some general notion of the broad

organization of large masses, and then take those masses to pieces,

until we come down to the crumbling soil of the foreground.

Sec. 3. General structure of the earth. The hills are its action, the

plains its rest.

Mountains are, to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent

muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its

anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with fierce and convulsive

energy, full of expression, passion, and strength; the plains and the

lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, when

its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty,

yet ruling those lines in their every undulation. This, then, is the

first grand principle of the truth of the earth. The spirit of the hills

is action; that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to

be found every variety of motion and of rest; from the inactive plain,

sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks,

which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with the clouds drifting

like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to

Heaven, saying, "I live forever!"

Sec. 4. Mountains come out from underneath the plains, and are their

support.

But there is this difference between the action of the earth, and that

of a living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and

tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh

altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the bones

of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its

anatomy which in the plains lie buried under five and twenty thousand

feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in

the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their garment

of earth away from them on each side. The masses of the lower hills are

laid over and against their sides, like the masses of lateral masonry

against the skeleton arch of an unfinished bridge, except that they

slope up to and lean against the central ridge: and, finally, upon the

slopes of these lower hills are strewed the level beds of sprinkled

gravel, sand, and clay, which form the extent of the champaign. Here

then is another grand principle of the truth of earth, that the

mountains must come from under all, and be the support of all; and that

everything else must be laid in their arms, heap above heap, the plains

being the uppermost. Opposed to this truth is every appearance of the

hills being laid upon the plains, or built upon them. Nor is this a

truth only of the earth on a large scale, for every minor rock (in

position) comes out from the soil about it as an island out of the sea,

lifting the earth near it like waves beating on its sides.

Sec. 5. Structure of the plains themselves. Their perfect level, when

deposited by quiet water.

Such being the structure of the framework of the earth, it is next to be

remembered that all soil whatsoever, wherever it is accumulated in

greater quantity than is sufficient to nourish the moss of the

wallflower, has been so, either by the direct transporting agency of

water, or under the guiding influence and power of water. All plains

capable of cultivation are deposits from some kind of water--some from

swift and tremendous currents, leaving their soil in sweeping banks and

furrowed ridges--others, and this is in mountain districts almost

invariably the case, by slow deposit from a quiet lake in the mountain

hollow, which has been gradually filled by the soil carried into it by

streams, which soil is of course finally left spread at the exact level

of the surface of the former lake, as level as the quiet water itself.

Hence we constantly meet with plains in hill districts, which fill the

hollows of the hills with as perfect and faultless a level as water, and

out of which the steep rocks rise at the edge with as little previous

disturbance, or indication of their forms beneath, as they do from the

margin of a quiet lake. Every delta--and there is one at the head of

every lake in every hill-district--supplies an instance of this. The

rocks at Altorf plunge beneath the plain, which the lake has left, at as

sharp an angle as they do into the lake itself beside the chapel of

Tell. The plain of the Arve, at Sallenche, is terminated so sharply by

the hills to the south-east, that I have seen a man sleeping with his

back supported against the mountain, and his legs stretched on the

plain; the slope which supported his back rising 5000 feet above him,

and the couch of his legs stretched for five miles before him. In

distant effect these champaigns lie like deep, blue, undisturbed water,

while the mighty hills around them burst out from beneath, raging and

tossing like a tumultuous sea. The valleys of Meyringen, Interlachen,

Altorf, Sallenche, St. Jean de Maurienne; the great plain of Lombardy

itself, as seen from Milan or Padua, under the Alps, the Euganeans, and

the Apennines; and the Campo Felice under Vesuvius, are a few, out of

the thousand instances, which must occur at once to the mind of every

traveller.

Sec. 6. Illustrated by Turner's Marengo.

Let the reader now open Rogers's Italy, at the seventeenth page, and

look at the vignette which heads it of the battle of Marengo. It needs

no comment. It cannot but carry with it, after what has been said, the

instant conviction that Turner is as much of a geologist as he is of a

painter. It is a summary of all we have been saying, and a summary so

distinct and clear, that without any such explanation it must have

forced upon the mind the impression of such facts--of the plunging of

the hills underneath the plain--of the perfect level and repose of this

latter laid in their arms, and of the tumultuous action of the emergent

summits.

Sec. 7. General divisions of formation resulting from this arrangement.

Plan of investigation.

We find, according to this its internal structure, which, I believe,

with the assistance of Turner, can scarcely now be misunderstood, that

the earth may be considered as divided into three great classes of

formation, which geology has already named for us. Primary--the rocks,

which, though in position lower than all others, rise to form the

central peaks, or interior nuclei of all mountain ranges. Secondary--the

rocks which are laid in beds above these, and which form the greater

proportion of all hill scenery. Tertiary--the light beds of sand,

gravel, and clay, which are strewed upon the surface of all, forming

plains and habitable territory for man. We shall find it convenient, in

examining the truth of art, to adopt, with a little modification, the

geological arrangement, considering first, the formation and character

of the highest or central peaks; then the general structure of the lower

mountains, including in this division those composed of the various

slates which a geologist would call primary; and, lastly, the minutiae

and most delicate characters of the beds of these hills, when they are

so near as to become foreground objects, and the structure of the common

soil which usually forms the greater space of an artist's foreground.

Hence our task will arrange itself into three divisions--the

investigation of the central mountains, of the interior mountains, and

of the foreground.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE CENTRAL MOUNTAINS.

Sec. 1. Similar character of the central peaks in all parts of the world.

It does not always follow, because a mountain is the highest of its

group, that it is in reality one of the central range. The Jungfrau is

only surpassed in elevation, in the chain of which it is a member, by

the Schreckhorn and Finster-Aarhorn; but it is entirely a secondary

mountain. But the central peaks are usually the highest, and may be

considered as the chief components of all mountain scenery in the snowy

regions. Being composed of the same rocks in all countries, their

external character is the same everywhere. Its chief essential points

are the following.

Sec. 2. Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by vertical

fissures.

Their summits are almost invariably either pyramids or wedges. Domes may

be formed by superincumbent snow, or appear to be formed by the

continuous outline of a sharp ridge seen transversely, with its

precipice to the spectator; but wherever a rock appears, the uppermost

termination of that rock will be a steep edgy ridge, or a sharp point,

very rarely presenting even a gentle slope on any of its sides, but

usually inaccessible unless encumbered with snow.

These pyramids and wedges split vertically, or nearly so, giving smooth

faces of rock, either perpendicular or very steeply inclined, which

appear to be laid against the central wedge or peak, like planks upright

against a wall. The surfaces of these show close parallelism; their

fissures are vertical, and cut them smoothly, like the edges of shaped

planks. Often groups of these planks, if I may so call them, rise higher

than those between them and the central ridge, forming detached ridges

inclining towards the central one. The planks are cut transversely,

sometimes by graceful curvilinear fissures; sometimes by straight

fissures, which are commonly parallel to the slope of one of the sides

of the peak, while the main direction of the planks or leaves is

parallel to that of its other side, or points directly to its summit.

But the _universal_ law of fracture is--first, that it is clean and

sharp, having a perfectly smooth surface, and a perfectly sharp edge to

all the fissures; secondly, that every fissure is steeply inclined, and

that a horizontal line, or one approaching to it, is an impossibility,

except in some turn of a curve.

Sec. 3. Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose.

Hence, however the light may fall, these peaks are seen marked with

sharp and defined shadows, indicating the square edges of the planks of

which they are made up, which shadows sometimes are vertical, pointing

to the summit; but are oftener parallel to one of the sides of the peak,

and intersected by a second series, parallel to the other side. Where

there has been much disintegration, the peak is often surrounded with

groups of lower ridges or peaks, like the leaves of an artichoke or a

rose, all evidently part and parcel of the great peak; but falling back

from it, as if it were a budding flower, expanding its leaves one by

one.

Sec. 4. The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps at

Daybreak.

Now, if I were giving a lecture on geology, and were searching for some

means of giving the most faithful idea possible of the external

appearance caused by this structure of the primary hills, I should throw

my geological outlines aside, and take up Turner's vignette of the Alps

at Daybreak. After what has been said, a single glance at it will be

enough. Observe the exquisite decision with which the edge of the

uppermost plank of the great peak is indicated by its clear dark side

and sharp shadow; then the rise of the second low ridge on its side,

only to descend again precisely in the same line; the two fissures of

this peak, one pointing to its summit, the other rigidly parallel to the

great slope which descends towards the sun; then the sharp white

_aiguille_ on the right, with the great fissure from its summit, rigidly

and severely square, as marked below, where another edge of rock is laid

upon it. But this is not all; the black rock in the foreground is

equally a member of the mass, its chief slope parallel with that of the

mountain, and all its fissures and lines inclined in the same direction;

and, to complete the mass of evidence more forcibly still, we have the

dark mass on the left articulated with absolute right lines, as parallel

as if they had been drawn with a ruler, indicating the tops of two of

these huge plates or planks, pointing, with the universal tendency, to

the great ridge, and intersected by fissures parallel to it. Throughout

the extent of mountain, not one horizontal line, nor an approach to it,

is discernible. This cannot be chance--it cannot be composition--it may

not be beautiful--perhaps nature is very wrong to be so parallel, and

very disagreeable in being so straight;--but this _is_ nature, whether

we admire it or not.

Sec. 5. Vignette of the Andes and others.

In the vignette illustration to Jacqueline, we have another series of

peaks, whose structure is less developed, owing to their distance, but

equally clear and faithful in all points, as far as it is given. But the

vignette of Aosta, in Italy, is perhaps more striking than any that

could be named for its rendering of the perfect parallelism of the lower

and smaller peaks with the great lines of the mass they compose; and

that of the Andes, the second in Campbell, for its indication of the

multitudes of the vertical and plank-like beds arranged almost like the

leaves of a flower. This last especially, one of the very noblest, most

faithful, most scientific statements of mountain form which even Turner

has ever made, can leave little more to be said or doubted.

Sec. 6. Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such

mountains.

Now, whenever these vast peaks, rising from 12,000 to 24,000 feet above

the sea, form part of anything like a landscape, that is to say,

whenever the spectator beholds them from the region of vegetation, or

even from any distance at which it is possible to get something like a

view of their whole mass, they must be at so great a distance from him

as to become aerial and faint in all their details. Their summits, and

all those higher masses of whose character we have been speaking, can by

no possibility be nearer to him than twelve or fifteen miles; to

approach them nearer he must climb--must leave the region of vegetation,

and must confine his view to a part, and that a very limited one, of the

mountain he is ascending. Whenever, therefore, these mountains are seen

over anything like vegetation, or are seen in mass, they _must_ be in

the far distance. Most artists would treat an horizon fifteen miles off

very much as if it were mere air; and though the greater clearness of

the upper air permits the high summits to be seen with extraordinary

distinctness, yet they never can by any possibility have dark or deep

shadows, or intense dark relief against a light. Clear they may be, but

faint they must be, and their great and prevailing characteristic, as

distinguished from other mountains, is want of apparent solidity. They

rise in the morning light rather like sharp shades, cast up into the

sky, than solid earth. Their lights are pure, roseate, and

cloud-like--their shadows transparent, pale, and opalescent, and often

indistinguishable from the air around them, so that the mountain-top is

seen in the heaven only by its flakes of motionless fire.

Sec. 7. Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient art.

Now, let me once more ask, though I am sufficiently tired of asking,

what record have we of anything like this in the works of the old

masters? There is no vestige in any existing picture of the slightest

effort to represent the high hill ranges; and as for such drawing of

their forms as we have found in Turner, we might as well look for them

among the Chinese. Very possibly it may be all quite right,--very

probably these men showed the most cultivated taste, the most unerring

judgment, in filling their pictures with mole-hills and sand-heaps. Very

probably the withered and poisonous banks of Avernus, and the sand and

cinders of the Campagna, are much more sublime things than the Alps; but

still what limited truth it is, if truth it be, when through the last

fifty pages we have been pointing out fact after fact, scene after

scene, in clouds and hills, (and not individual facts nor scenes, but

great and important classes of them,) and still we have nothing to say

when we come to the old masters; but, "they are not here." Yet this is

what we hear so constantly called painting "general" nature.

Sec. 8. Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of

Claude.

Sec. 9. Their total want of magnitude and aerial distance.

Although, however, there is no vestige among the old masters of any

effort to represent the attributes of the higher mountains seen in

comparative proximity, we are not altogether left without evidence of

their having thought of them as sources of light in the extreme

distance, as for example, in that of the reputed Claude in our National

Gallery, called the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. I have not the

slightest doubt of its being a most execrable copy; for there is not one

touch nor line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as

connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our

Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I

may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are

wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those

which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall

continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form,

which cannot have been much altered by the copyist. In the distance of

that picture (as well as in that of the Sinon before Priam, which I have

little doubt is at least partially original, and whose central group of

trees is a very noble piece of painting) is something white, which I

believe must be intended for a snowy mountain, because I do not see that

it can well be intended for anything else. Now no mountain of elevation

sufficient to be so sheeted with perpetual snow, can by any possibility

sink so low on the horizon as this something of Claude's, unless it be

at a distance of from fifty to seventy miles. At such distances, though

the outline is invariably sharp and edgy to an excess, yet all the

circumstances of aerial perspective, faintness of shadow, and isolation

of light, which I have described as characteristic of the Alps fifteen

miles off, take place, of course, in a threefold degree; the mountains

rise from the horizon like transparent films, only distinguishable from

mist by their excessively keen edges, and their brilliant flashes of

sudden light; they are as unsubstantial as the air itself, and impress

their enormous size by means of this aerialness, in a far greater degree

at these vast distances, than even when towering above the spectator's

head. Now, I ask of the candid observer, if there be the smallest

vestige of an effort to attain--if there be the most miserable, the most

contemptible shadow of attainment of such an effect by Claude? Does that

white thing on the horizon look seventy miles off? Is it faint, or

fading, or to be looked for by the eye before it can be found out? Does

it look high? does it look large? does it look impressive? You cannot

but feel that there is not a vestige of any kind or species of truth in

that horizon; and that, however artistical it may be, as giving

brilliancy to the distance, (though, as far as I have any feeling in the

matter, it only gives coldness,) it is, in the very branch of art on

which Claude's reputation chiefly rests, aerial perspective, hurling

defiance to nature in her very teeth.

Sec. 10. And violation of specific form.

But there are worse failures yet in this unlucky distance. Aerial

perspective is not a matter of paramount importance, because nature

infringes its laws herself and boldly too, though never in a case like

this before us; but there are some laws which nature never violates--her

laws of form. No mountain was ever raised to the level of perpetual

snow, without an infinite multiplicity of form. Its foundation is built

of a hundred minor mountains, and, from these, great buttresses run in

converging ridges to the central peak. There is no exception to this

rule; no mountain 15,000 feet high is ever raised without such

preparation and variety of outwork. Consequently, in distant effect,

when chains of such peaks are visible at once, the multiplicity of form

is absolutely oceanic; and though it is possible in near scenes to find

vast and simple masses composed of lines which run unbroken for a

thousand feet, or more, it is physically impossible when these masses

are thrown seventy miles back, to have simple outlines, for then these

large features become mere jags, and hillocks, and are heaped and

huddled together with endless confusion. To get a simple form, seventy

miles away, mountain lines would be required unbroken for leagues; and

this, I repeat, is physically impossible. Hence these mountains of

Claude, having no indication of the steep vertical summits which we have

shown to be the characteristic of the central ridges, having soft edges

instead of decisive ones, simple forms (one line to the plain on each

side) instead of varied and broken ones, and being painted with a crude

raw white, having no transparency, nor filminess, nor air in it, instead

of rising in the opalescent mystery which invariably characterizes the

distant snows, have the forms and the colors of heaps of chalk in a

lime-kiln, not of Alps. They are destitute of energy, of height, of

distance, of splendor, and of variety, and are the work of a man,

whether Claude or not, who had neither feeling for nature, nor knowledge

of art.

Sec. 11. Even in his best works.