Chapter VI: Sec. 13,) and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of

finely divided water, but with boiling mist; imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave; and finally, conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lifting themselves in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos; and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon, nor any landmark or natural evidence of position is left; that the heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no farther in any direction than you could see through a cataract. Suppose the effect of the first sunbeam sent from above to show this annihilation to itself, and you have the sea picture of the Academy, 1842--the Snowstorm, one of the very grandest statements of sea-motion, mist, and light that has ever been put on canvas, even by Turner. Of course it was not understood; his finest works never are; but there was some apology for the public's not comprehending this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a mast or a rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning which few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons of nature.

Sec. 39. Turner's noblest work, the deep open sea in the Slave Ship.

But, I think, the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so, the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of the Slave Ship, the chief Academy picture of the Exhibition of 1840. It is a sunset on the Atlantic after prolonged storm; but the storm is partially lulled, and the torn and streaming rain-clouds are moving in scarlet lines to lose themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of sea included in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell, not high, nor local, but a low, broad heaving of the whole ocean, like the lifting of its bosom by deep-drawn breath after the torture of the storm. Between these two ridges, the fire of the sunset falls along the trough of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious light, the intense and lurid splendor which burns like gold and bathes like blood. Along this fiery path and valley, the tossing waves by which the swell of the sea is restlessly divided, lift themselves in dark, indefinite, fantastic forms, each casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along the illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, but three or four together in wild groups, fitfully and furiously, as the under strength of the swell compels or permits them; leaving between them treacherous spaces of level and whirling water, now lighted with green and lamp-like fire, now flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now fearfully dyed from above with the indistinguishable images of the burning clouds, which fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and give to the reckless waves the added motion of their own fiery flying. Purple and blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of the night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of death upon the guilty[69] ship as it labors amidst the lightning of the sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, girded with condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky with horror, and mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight,--and cast far along the desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, incarnadines the multitudinous sea.

Sec. 40. Its united excellences and perfection as a whole.

I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose this. Its daring conception--ideal in the highest sense of the word--is based on the purest truth, and wrought out with the concentrated knowledge of a life; its color is absolutely perfect, not one false or morbid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every square inch of canvas is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate as fearless; the ship buoyant, bending, and full of motion; its tones as true as they are wonderful;[70] and the whole picture dedicated to the most sublime of subjects and impressions--(completing thus the perfect system of all truth, which we have shown to be formed by Turner's works)--the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep, illimitable Sea.

FOOTNOTES

[66] Not altogether. I believe here, as in a former case, I have
attributed far too much influence to this change of focus. In
Turner's earlier works the principle is not found. In the rivers of
the Yorkshire drawings, every reflection is given clearly, even to
the farthest depth, and yet the surface is not lost, and it would
deprive the painter of much power if he were not sometimes so to
represent them, especially when his object is repose; it being, of
course, as lawful for him to choose one adaptation of the sight as
another. I have, however, left the above paragraphs as first
written, because they are true, although I think they make too much
of an unimportant matter. The reader may attribute to them such
weight as he thinks fit. He is referred to Sec. 11 of this chapter, and
to Sec. 4 of the first chapter of this section.

[67] On a large scale it is so, but the same lines are to be seen
for the moment whenever water becomes exceedingly rapid, and yet
feels the bottom as it passes, being not thrown up or cast clear of
it. In general, the drawing of water fails from being too
interrupted, the forms flung hither and thither, and broken up and
covered with bright touches, instead of being wrought out in their
real unities of curvature. It is difficult enough to draw a curved
surface, even when it is rough and has texture; but to indicate the
varied and sweeping forms of a crystalline and polished substance,
requires far more skill and patience than most artists possess. In
some respects, it is impossible. I do not suppose any means of art
are capable of rightly expressing the smooth, multitudinous rippling
of a rapid rivulet of shallow water, giving its transparency lustre
and fully-developed forms; and the greater number of the lines and
actions of torrent-waves are equally inexpressible. The effort
should, nevertheless, always be made, and whatever is sacrificed in
color, freedom, or brightness, the real contours ought always in
some measure to be drawn, as a careful draughtsman secures those of
flesh, or any other finely-modelled surface. It is better, in many
respects, the drawing should miss of being _like_ water, than that
it should miss in this one respect the grandeur of water. Many
tricks of scratching and dashing will bring out a deceptive
resemblance; the determined and laborious rendering of contour alone
secures sublimity.

[68] The "yesty waves" of Shakspeare have made the likeness
familiar, and probably most readers take the expression as merely
equivalent to "foamy;" but Shakspeare knew better. Sea-foam does
not, under ordinary circumstances, last a moment after it is formed,
but disappears, as above described, in a mere white film. But the
foam of a prolonged tempest is altogether different; it is "whipped"
foam,--thick, permanent, and, in a foul or discolored sea, very
ugly, especially in the way it hangs about the tops of the waves,
and gathers into clotted concretions before the driving wind. The
sea looks truly working or fermenting. The following passage from
Fenimore Cooper is an interesting confirmation of the rest of the
above description, which may be depended upon as entirely free from
exaggeration:--"For the first time I now witnessed a tempest at sea.
Gales, and pretty hard ones, I had often seen, but the force of the
wind on this occasion as much exceeded that in ordinary gales of
wind, as the force of these had exceeded that of a whole-sail
breeze. The seas seemed crushed; the pressure of the swooping
atmosphere, as the currents of the air went howling over the surface
of the ocean, fairly preventing them from rising; or where a mound
of water did appear, it was scooped up and borne off in spray, as
the axe dubs inequalities from the log. When the day returned, a
species of lurid, sombre light was diffused over the watery waste,
though nothing was visible but the ocean and the ship. Even the
sea-birds seemed to have taken refuge in the caverns of the adjacent
coast, none reappearing with the dawn. The air was full of spray,
and it was with difficulty that the eye could penetrate as far into
the humid atmosphere as half a mile,"--_Miles Wattingford_. Half a
mile is an over-estimate in coast.

[69] She is a slaver, throwing her slaves overboard. The near sea is
encumbered with corpses.

[70] There is a piece of tone of the same kind, equal in one part,
but not so united with the rest of the picture, in the storm scene
illustrative of the Antiquary,--a sunset light on polished sea. I
ought to have particularly mentioned the sea in the Lowestoffe, as a
piece of the cutting motion of shallow water, under storm,
altogether in gray, which should be especially contrasted, as a
piece of color, with the grays of Vandevelde. And the sea in the
Great Yarmouth should have been noticed for its expression of water
in violent agitation, seen in enormous extent from a great
elevation. There is almost every form of sea in it,--rolling waves
dashing on the pier--successive breakers rolling to the shore--a
vast horizon of multitudinous waves--and winding canals of calm
water along the sands, bringing fragments of bright sky down into
their yellow waste. There is hardly one of the views of the Southern
Coast which does not give some new condition or circumstance of sea.