(Go to Summary of review of Modern Painters I and II, British Quarterly Review, May 1847)
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[T]he
pale and vaporous blue of the heated
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
sky is broken with grey and pearly
white, the gold colour of the
light warming it more or less as it approaches
or retires from the
sun; but throughout, there is not a grain of pure
blue; all is
subdued and warmed at the same time by the mingling grey
and
gold, up to the very zenith, where, breaking through the flaky
mist,
the transparent and deep azure of the sky is expressed with
a single
crumbling touch; the key-note of the whole is given, and
every part of
it passes at once far into glowing and aërial space[.]
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Nothing
is so bad a symptom, in the
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the passage in Modern Painters I
work of young artists, as too much dexterity
of handling; for it is
a sign that they are satisfied with their work,
and have tried to do
nothing more than they were able to do. Their work
should be
full of failures ; for these are the signs of efforts. They
should keep
to quiet colours-greys and browns ; and, making the early
works
of Turner their example, as his latest are to be their object of
emulation,
should go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk
with her laboriously
and trustingly, having no other thoughts but
how best to penetrate her
meaning, and remember her instruction,
rejecting nothing, selecting nothing,
and scorning nothing ; believing
all things to be right and good, and
rejoicing always in the truth[.]
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I am quite sure that if Mr. Pyne, or any other painter who has hitherto
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the passage in Modern Painters I
been
very careful in his choice of subject, will go into the next turnpike-road,
and
taking the first four trees that he comes to in the hedge, give them a day
each,
drawing them leaf for leaf, as far as may be, and even their smallest
boughs with as
much care as if they were rivers, or an important map
of a newly-surveyed country,
he will find, when he has brought them all
home, that at least three out of the
four are better than the best he
ever invented[.]
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Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most
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the passage in Modern Painters I
brilliant imagination,
the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling,
(supposing that feeling
could be pure and false at the same time;)
not the most exalted conception,
nor the most comprehensive grasp
of intellect, can make amends for the
want of truth, and that for
two reasons.; first, because falsehood is
in itself revolting and de
grading; and secondly, because nature is so
immeasurably' superior
to all that the human mind can conceive, that
every departure from
her is a fall beneath her, so, that there can be
no such thing as an
ornamental falsehood. All falsehood must be a blot
as well as a
sin, an injury as well as a deception[.]
Having minutely discussed general truths, our author begins his third section with a passage of genuine eloquence, 'of the open sky'. We wish we had room for the whole; but a sentence must suffice:-
If
in our moments of utter idleness
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the passage in Modern Painters I
and insipidity, we turn to the sky as
a last resource, which of its
phenomena, do we speak of? One says it
has been wet, and another,
it has been windy, and another, it has been
warm. Who, among
the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms
and the
precipicesof the chain of tall white mountains that girded the
horizon
at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that
cameout of the south,
and smote upon their summits until they
melted and mouldered away in
a dust of blue rain? Who saw
the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight
left them last
night and the west wind blew them before it like withered
leaves?
All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy be
ever shaken
off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or
what is extraordinary[.]
It
is in quiet and subdued passages of
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the passage in Modern Painters I
unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and
the calm, and the perpetual,
that which must be sought ere it is seen,
and loved ere it is
understood, -things which the angels work out for
us daily, and
yet vary eternally, which are never wanting, and never
repeated,
which are to be found always, yet each found but one once ;
it is
through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and
the
blessing of beauty given[.]