[74] The above paragraphs I have left as originally written, because they are quite true as far as they reach; but like many other portions of this essay, they take in a very small portion of the truth. I shall not add to them at present, because I can explain my meaning better in our consideration of the laws of beauty; but the reader must bear in mind that what is above stated refers, throughout, to large masses of foliage seen under broad sunshine,—and it has especial reference to Turner's enormous scale of scene, and intense desire of light. In twilight, when tree-forms are seen against sky, other laws come into operation, as well as in subject of narrow limits and near foreground. It is, I think, to be regretted that Turner does not in his Academy pictures sometimes take more confined and gloomy subjects, like that grand one, near the Chartreuse, of the Liber Studiorum, wherein his magnificent power of elaborating close foliage might be developed; but, for the present, let the reader, with respect to what has been here said of close foliage, note the drawing of the leaves in that plate, in the Æsacus and Hesperie, and the Cephalus, and the elaboration of the foregrounds in the Yorkshire drawings; let him compare what is said of Turner's foliage painting above in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII. § 40, § 41, and of Titian's previously, as well as Part III. Sect. I. Chap. VIII., and Sect. II. Chap. IV. § 21. I shall hereafter endeavor to arrange the subject in a more systematic manner; but what additional observations I may have to make will none of them be in any wise more favorable to Gaspar, Salvator, or Hobbima, than the above paragraphs.
[75] Perhaps in some instances, this may be the case with the trees of Nicholas Poussin; but even with him the boughs only touch the line of limit with their central points of extremity, and are not sectors of the great curve—forming a part of it with expanded extremities, as in nature. Draw a few straight lines, from the centre to the circumference of a circle. The forms included between them are the forms of the individual boughs of a fine tree, with all their ramifications (only the external curve is not a circle, but more frequently two parabolas—which, I believe, it is in the oak—or an ellipse.) But each bough of the old masters is club-shaped, and broadest, not at the outside of the tree, but a little way towards its centre.
[76] On the other hand, nothing can be more exquisitely ridiculous than the French illustrations of a second or third-rate order, as those to the Harmonies of Lamartine.
[77] Of Stanfield's foliage I remember too little to enable me to form any definite judgment; it is a pity that he so much neglects this noble element of landscape.
[78] It is true that many of Rembrandt's etchings are merely in line, but it may be observed that the subject is universally conceived in light and shade, and that the lines are either merely guides in the arrangement, or an exquisite indication of the key-notes of shade, on which the after-system of it is to be based—portions of fragmentary finish, showing the completeness of the conception.
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL REMARKS RESPECTING THE TRUTH OF TURNER.
We have now arrived at some general conception of the extent of Turner's knowledge, and the truth of his practice, by the deliberate examination of the characteristics of the four great [§ 1. No necessity of entering into discussion of architectural truth.]elements of landscape—sky, earth, water, and vegetation. I have not thought it necessary to devote a chapter to architecture, because enough has been said on this subject in Part II. Sect. I. Chap. VII.; and its general truths, which are those with which the landscape painter, as such, is chiefly concerned, require only a simple and straightforward application of those rules of which every other material object of a landscape has required a most difficult and complicated application. Turner's knowledge of perspective probably adds to his power in the arrangement of every order of subject; but ignorance on this head is rather disgraceful than knowledge meritorious. It is disgraceful, for instance, that any man should commit such palpable and atrocious errors in ordinary perspective as are seen in the quay in Claude's sea-piece, No. 14, National Gallery, or in the curved portico of No. 30; but still these are not points to be taken into consideration as having anything to do with artistical rank, just as, though we should say it was disgraceful if a great poet could not spell, we should not consider such a defect as in any way taking from his poetical rank. Neither is there anything particularly belonging to architecture, as such, which it is any credit to an artist to observe or represent; it is only a simple and clear field for the manifestation of his knowledge of general laws. Any surveyor or engineer could have drawn the steps and balustrade in the Hero and Leander, as well as Turner has; but there is no man living but himself who could have thrown the accidental shadows upon them. I may, however, refer for general illustration of Turner's power as an architectural draughtsman, to the front of Rouen Cathedral, engraved in the Rivers of France, and to the Ely in the England. I know nothing in art which can be set beside the former of these for overwhelming grandeur and simplicity of effect, and inexhaustible intricacy of parts. I have then only a few remarks farther to offer respecting the general character of all those truths which we have been hitherto endeavoring to explain and illustrate.