Light and shade, then, imply the understanding of things—Color, the imagination and the sentiment of them.
262. In Turner's distinctive work, color is scarcely acknowledged unless under influence of sunshine. The sunshine is his treasure; his lividest gloom contains it; his grayest twilight regrets it, and remembers. Blue is always a blue shadow; brown or gold, always light;—nothing is cheerful but sunshine; wherever the sun is not, there is melancholy or evil. Apollo is God; and all forms of death and sorrow exist in opposition to him.
But in Perugino's distinctive work,—and therefore I have given him the captain's place over all,—there is simply no darkness, no wrong. Every color is lovely, and every space is light. The world, the universe, is divine: all sadness is a part of harmony; and all gloom, a part of peace.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[BL] See note to the close of this article, [p. 156.]
[BM] The raven, however, like all Dickens's animals, is perfect: and I am the more angry with the rest because I have every now and then to open the book to look for him.
[BN] "Laws of Fésole."
[BO] 2, Church Terrace, Richmond, Surrey. Note.—I have hitherto permitted Mr. Ward to copy any Turner drawing he was asked to do; but, finding there is a run upon the vignettes of Loch Lomond and Derwent, I have forbidden him to do more of them for the present, lest his work should get the least mechanical. The admirable drawings of Venice, by my good assistant, Mr. Bunney, resident there, will become of more value to their purchasers every year, as the buildings from which they are made are destroyed. I was but just in time, working with him at Verona, to catch record of Fra Giocondo's work in the smaller square; the most beautiful Renaissance design in North Italy.
[BP] The engraving of Turner's "Scene on the Rhine" (near Bingen?) with boats on the right, and reedy foreground on the left; the opening between its mountain banks in central distance. It is exquisitely engraved, the plate being of the size of the drawing, about ten inches by six, and finished with extreme care and feeling.