SECTION III.

OF TRUTH OF SKIES.

Chapter I.—Of the Open Sky.

[§ 1.]The peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing and teaching of man.[204]
[§ 2.]The carelessness with which its lessons are received.[205]
[§ 3.]The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest.[205]
[§ 4.]Many of our ideas of sky altogether conventional.[205]
[§ 5.]Nature, and essential qualities of the open blue.[206]
[§ 6.]Its connection with clouds.[207]
[§ 7.]Its exceeding depth.[207]
[§ 8.]These qualities are especially given by modern masters.[207]
[§ 9.]And by Claude.[208]
[§ 10.]Total absence of them in Poussin. Physical errors in his general treatment of open sky.[208]
[§ 11.]Errors of Cuyp in graduation of color.[209]
[§ 12.]The exceeding value of the skies of the early Italian and Dutch schools. Their qualities are unattainable in modern times.[210]
[§ 13.]Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause.[211]
[§ 14.]They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the sky is free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds.[211]
[§ 15.]Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena by the old masters.[212]
[§ 16.]The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be represented.[213]
[§ 17.]The practice of Turner. His keen perception of the more delicate phenomena of rays.[213]
[§ 18.]The total absence of any evidence of such perception in the works of the old masters.[213]
[§ 19.]Truth of the skies of modern drawings.[214]
[§ 20.]Recapitulation. The best skies of the ancients are, in quality, inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish.[215]

Chapter II.—Of Truth of Clouds:—First, of the Region of the Cirrus.

[§ 1.]Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds consists.[216]
[§ 2.]Variation of their character at different elevations. The three regions to which they may conveniently be considered as belonging.[216]
[§ 3.]Extent of the upper region.[217]
[§ 4.]The symmetrical arrangement of its clouds.[217]
[§ 5.]Their exceeding delicacy.[218]
[§ 6.]Their number.[218]
[§ 7.]Causes of their peculiarly delicate coloring.[219]
[§ 8.]Their variety of form.[219]
[§ 9.]Total absence of even the slightest effort at their representation, in ancient landscape.[220]
[§ 10.]The intense and constant study of them by Turner.[221]
[§ 11.]His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea.[222]
[§ 12.]His use of the cirrus in expressing mist.[223]
[§ 13.]His consistency in every minor feature.[224]
[§ 14.]The color of the upper clouds.[224]
[§ 15.]Recapitulation.[225]