LINE-ENGRAVINGS OF TURNER'S LANDSCAPES.
THOSE who would know wherein consists the power of TURNER as a landscape-painter, and on what his high reputation rests, should repair to Mr. GRIFFITH'S in Waterloo Place, and ask to see the proofs of five line-engravings of large dimensions and finished execution, to which he is receiving the names of subscribers. If after looking at them they fail to appreciate the wondrous skill and daring of the painter as re- flected in the engravers' versions of his pictorial effects, their prejudice arainst the name of Tuft:4ER, founded not unjustly on the insane freaks he has recently committed on canvas, must be stronger than their sense of what is beautiful in art and lovely in nature: but we confidently be- lieve that no one who sees these engravings but will feel a conviction that neither English art nor the art of any other country has any thing to show finer of the kind. Three of them are from pictures painted when TURNER was in the zenith of his reputation, when he painted Nature as she is—before he became maddened with the intoxication of bright hues, and abandoned earthly forms and atmospheric appearances for visionary fantasies of colour and effect: the other two are in his later style, but are among the least unreal and the most brilliant of his pictures. We will speak of these two first, as being the most ex- traordinary productions of the burin as well as of the pencil. Caligula's Bridge is the title given to a grand architectural composi- tion, where a gorgeous pile, rising column upon column above a ruined bridge intercepts the rays of an afternoon sun, streaming resplendently through the colonnades and shedding a dazzling lustre on the water that floods the foreground : the gallies in the distance, and the peasant- girls cooling their feet in the stream, or playing with the goats that browse the herbage on its banks, give repose and simplicity to the landscape, and counterbalance the artificial magnificence of the scene. This plate is engraved by EDWARD GOODALL ; and it vividly recalled to our recollection the original picture, which was exhibited at Somerset House about the last year that the Academy occupied those apartments : the lustrous splendour of the sunlight, the various gradations of intensity in its glowing warmth, and the different qualities of its brightness, ac- cording as it illumines the blue of the sky, the light fleecy clouds, the crumbling ruins, the sparkling water, or the verdant turf, are re- presented to admiration in the engraving ; which preserves the brilliant tone of the painting throughout. Juliet after the Masquerade is the misnomer of a moonlight view of Venice at Carnival time, taken from a lofty balcony looking down on the Piazza of St. Mark's, and commanding the front of the church Rad the Doge's Palace, before which rises the lofty campanile tower : two grotesque figures in one corner of the balcony furnish an excuse for the title and an evidence of the painter's inability to imitate humanity : but these are easily overlooked, and the eye glances at the groups that crowd the piazza, and thence to the domes of the church silvered with the moonlight, ranging over the city right and left. The extraordinary chiaroscuro of the original picture, which was exhibited within these three or four years at the National Gallery, is admirably rendered in this plate, engraved by Hours; who has preserved the breadth of effect, the vastness, and aerial space, in which TURNER excels. The only faulty passage is the sea: the darks of the waves are infeli- citously managed, being harsh, and catching the eye. The appear- ance of a bright moon, high in the heavens of a Southern clime, partially obscured by masses of cloud, between which the stars shine out with lustre—these luminaries being partially eclipsed by the scintillations of rockets and the blaze of other fireworks : and the com- bined influence of these various lights on the scene are imitated with surprising art, producing a coup d'teil equally wonderful and beautiful. In these two prints, the forms, both human and architectural, are better made out than in the paintings ; and instead of the excessive bright- ness of their hues, we have a sober version of the results of that brilliant harmony of colouring for which TURNER is celebrated. Of the three early pictures, Crossing the Brook is the most pleasing: it is a view on the Tamar, looking along the vale of the river, fringed with trees, and over the richly-wooded undulating scenery of that part of Devonshire, towards the sea, which bounds the horizon : the romantic beauty and pastoral tranquillity are characteristic of the loveliest Eng- lish scenery ; and a rack of clouds rising from the sea gives a cool freshness to the atmosphere, without dimming the sunny brightness of the effect. We well remember the beautiful picture from which this plate is engraved : the solid finished style of the painting, and its chaste tone of colour—the cool gray tints blended with the green of the foliage with such consummate art that they seemed but the same hue melting into the blue of the atmosphere from the effect of distance— arise to the memory though years have passed since we saw this most perfect example of TURNER'S best and purest style. And admirably has BRANDARD rendered the verdurous luxuriance of the scene, the airy distance, the graceful trees, and the glassy brilliancy of the brook in the foreground : the clouds nearest the eye are somewhat woolly ; but this slight defect scarcely impairs the beauty of the engraving, which is full of daylight. Mercury and Herse is the title of a classic landscape composition, up- right like the preceding, having a rained temple and trees in the fore- ground, and a broad river spanned by ruined bridges, flowing through a hilly country studded with towered Cities: the group of figures in the foreground, which indicates the story, is not ill-drawn ; but the charm of the design lies in the elegant combination of architecture and land scape, and the serene glowing brightness of the scene. These charac- teristics are admirably conveyed in the engraving by COUSEN, who has conveyed the tone of the painting in the plate : the shadows of the trees in the foreground are too heavy and black, as regards the execu- tion only, not the effect. Dido and 1Eneas—an architectural landscape representing a classic seaport, with the lovers setting out for the chase—is a noble composition of trees and buildings ; but its tone is cold and its style rigid in com- parison with the others. Whether this be owing to the engraver, W. R. &urn, whose manner is dry and laboured, we are unable to say, not remembering the original. The execution of the plate is solid and good ; but as a whole it is less attractive to the eye than the others, though not unworthy to rank with them and other first-rate works of art. The subscribers to these plates have the option of choosing their im- pressions either on India paper or white ; the price being, contrary to custom, the same in either case and regulated according to the order of printing; each successive hundred impressions diminishing in price after the first. The plates being copper, not steel, only five hundred will be taken, when they will be destroyed, to prevent the possibility of inferior prints appearing: this will of course enhance their money- value to subscribers.
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