'There are one or two in this parcel that some people might like; I consider them all done in some careless or sickly state of mind, and have therefore put all aside, except one.'
Poor Turner! It is hard to have the work of one's bad days as well as of one's good days passed before the critical eyes of a temperamental genius who also had his bad and his good days. Ruskin was always either hot or cold—never tepid. I dip at random into his pages and find this:—
'In the modern French School, all the colour is taken out of Nature, and only the mud left. By Turner, all the mud is taken out of Nature, and only the colour left.'
Great praise for Turner, but grossly unfair to the 'modern French School.'
[CHAPTER XXXIII]
1827: AGED FIFTY-TWO