THE BROAD QUESTION.

33

not so

arrangements — everything, in fact, in the least degree artificial, &c.—an injury." (§ 10.) My position is, that, not only is the "inexhaustible variety of Nature's own chiaroscuro, in open cloudless daylight" (§ 11.), beyond the reach and power of Art to copy, but that Art is not confined to the mere functions of the copyist not bound down to the most scrupulous possible observance of these phenomena in all their actualities; that a picture is not, even within attainable limits, a mere copy of an actual scene meant not so to be taken, save when it is so specifically understood on both sides; but such a presentation of natural elements as shall produce the effect designed by the artist. All short of this, or rather all that denies this, directly or indirectly, I hold for an abnegation, so far, of our great charter and heritage of the world God has placed us in. I say nothing of the great rule of subserviency to the Creator's glory. This will be admitted, or rather claimed, alike on both sides. Nor will I stop to defend my view by independent arguments. I prefer, for obvious reasons, to take my proof from Mr. Ruskin.

First, then, we have only to read through the following section (§ 11.) of this same chapter, to find, under the somewhat anomalous heading " The Great Value of a Simple Chiaroscuro," with the inferential peril of "painting one figure all black and the next all white, with a background of nothing," and "spoiling pocket-books with sixths of sunshine and sevenths of shade," and the "simplicity of Nature's own chiaroscuro," to find distinct notice of

D

"Nature herself working for effect-playing with thunder-clouds and sunbeams throwing one thing out, and obscuring another with the most marked artistic intention;” and in the succeeding section (§ 12.) the consequent "key-notes to the whole composition."

So that Nature, having soon forgotten, with Mr. Ruskin, her "unintrusive simplicity," is busied, it seems, with those artistic "tricks and visible intended arrangements" just denounced as "an injury." I cannot but say I think my scheme is the more simple one.

It is not now first adopted. I said, in my first lecture two years ago, that "if Art be the child of Nature, its mother's spirit will be found to live in it." It may not be quite so "illegitimate," therefore, after all, to throw out one thing and obscure another, with marked intended feeling, or even to play, now and then, for artistic, not agricultural purposes, with thunder-clouds and sunshine.

But, secondly, not to quote at large, when the real matter is plain enough, we have just read how there

are

"few natural scenes whose harmonies are not conceivably improvable, either by banishment of some discordant point, or by addition of some sympathetic one," and that "the Imagination will banish all that is extraneous." (Pt. iii. sec. ii. chap. ii. § 21.)

I suppose that, if the imagination may improve harmonies, and banish points, it can be no great sacrilege to do something of the like kind with shadows.

ART AND NATURE

CONSISTENCIES.

35

Now, of all this, valeat quantum valere debet. I am not speaking of degrees, nor of discretion, good taste, adaptation to a particular purpose, and so on. We talk now of legitimate or illegitimate. It may be of the greatest moment to observe how Nature works out her artistic purpose; and Mr. Ruskin may give, and has given, some very serviceable hints in very beautiful language, to that effect. This is not the question. I want artistic ground to be kept broad, catholic, and habitable—that it be not turned into fields of fight, on angry, uncharitable questions. I want truthfulness. I want Nature. I want the natural liberty God has given us. I want Art to have the same kind and amount of usufruct in His glorious world that we enjoy in other things.

Mr. Ruskin talks incessantly of "truth and nature. I am compelled to report a humble conviction that I am more consistent with both — I do not, of course, mean morally than he is himself.

The chapter

One word more as to chiaroscuro. before us concludes with some instances of Turner. It is not a little singular that I shall have to speak directly of this very series of illustrations, though, of course, with a different object. There, as elsewhere, his praise is my complaint; only I think I am consistent, while he is not. I say, let light and shade. be amongst your appliances-not even denying to Paul Veronese the pure gratuitous shadow he confessed to in his "Andromeda." It is not inconsistent if I complain of Turner that his lights and shadows kill too often what they should illustrate that he has contrived "artistic intention" that does not

'bring out," but obscure and nullify, what he led us to look for. This I take for consistency in my view of Turner. Mr. Ruskin, on the other hand, calls for "simplicity, purity, legitimacy," and scoffs at figures in black and white, so long as they are in Old Masters' pictures: and then adulates Turner for

'black figures and boats, with sun touches on castles," figures "supplying points of shade and light"-"white figures in boats, with women on horseback for shadow

"torches and white figures for light; roof of chapel and monks' dresses for shadow"-" sails and spire opposed to buoys and boats "isolated touches of morning light" -and "preservation of deep points of gloom, because the whole scene is of extended shade."

All is characteristically bracketed under title of "Truth of Turner." I only ask for leave to take truth not for special purposes but for good and all.

CHAP. V.

THE TURNER CONTROVERSY CONTINUED.- TRUTH OF SPACE. DEFENCE OF TURNER'S FOREGROUND FIGURES, WITH CASUALTIES.

OUR course is still, in object and essence, defensive. We find at chapter iv. of the second section of part ii., the following words:

"And now we see the reason for the singular, and to the ignorant in art, the offensive, execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert that there is any reason whatsoever for bad drawing (though in landscape it matters exceedingly little), but there is both reason and necessity for that want of drawing which gives even the nearest figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet: for it is totally impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and features of near figures than Turner gives."

This passage is highly characteristic, and deserves analysis.

In the first place, like many others from the same source, it is founded on unquestionable fact. A man need be neither artist nor metaphysician to know that a single pair of eyes have but a single focus. The eye, like the mind, shifts its focus, and so brings a