TURNER, STANFIELD, AND IIARIJING.
LANDSCAPES tentless superseded the feeble and unsatisfactory efforts of designers as illustrations of books, we have every month spread before us it eteaaty of ehatardeg scenes from the pencils of these three popular artists, and are thus in a manner compelled to cranium. their merits. Their productions meet together %yid' Ca stcorr's classical composi. tions— Odell we wish more numerons—in DE IS'a Land- scapc ///u.struiii.,us if Mc Bible ; and they ;deo embellish the monthly
editions of stai.dald authors. Trust:ft is illustrating Milton and
.S'ettfi, Sr ANF I EL D ./e/inStt/t, at HARDING (..■ dr pl. r. ..‘10 [cover, Si'. N. 11 E D has entionenerd a series of views of Coast Seenery, British and Continental ; and TUlt NT It'S A 111111111 TODP is reappearing, under the title of the Ricers (:f France, in shilling nualber-:— a spleudid addi- tion to our catalogue of shrilling pieture-books. !I Al; DIN(;':= Silnple eleaaat sketchea of rustic scenery, in ( 'wepee, are inq i rh t o it:;11 alloy of hardness anal liesliness to their sharpness and brightness ; and STas;- tarma)s accurate limul wastr rly vie■ys of the loralities that Jolissos's fame has wade itr,•!•(.!-ting, imik inertly elyver t!nri divehailit.al in their execllera.c, col:Tared NV■ Va,ttless, ii tl eth et it Tun- xrat's transci•mient la:cis:capes. Sc.vNiara.D's distant view if Lichfield, in the First Psrt of iLesup:Irate series of Geapide illmesollaats /jibe 1.!fi.; and Timrs ,,.—tnrmt,iti i'o1 pOrtIllitS, atul biogra- phival notice,: :Is II a, t ie•xs,—looks like a fuithful representation of the actual stmslie m amid het ft ItAIN lit We Should not be so sensible of the cold monotony of it aspect. do not find the same want of air and f't'sitnmes iut S'TA N eel Flee pictures : is more et home on the sea. In the s.iew of St. mIlichael's Alining, Cornwall, in his First Number of ( 'oast Se( U, fy, the waves nre fluent and in motion, and the clouds are light amid spongy ; do, calm sea in time view of Falmouth, too, is transparerit, and the old hulk looks like a floating castle, though the distant land is too near and the effect is nrtificial. The view of the mine inns neither space tier air ; the eye catches the distant ol,jects first, just as it does in the view of St. Andrew's, in Volume Fourth of .Athosenems 1.i/a a I el it lets tile Sarni! hard, (sold opacity. The view' of the St. Mielewl's Alount, Normaudy, is a mere architectural draw- ing, as unreal in effect as it is accurate in form. In &MRS, Si. N rt C 1.0 is niasterly and correct—he gives us the truth, but not the %Oleic truth : we see the body and limits of nature laid out in due otder. but the soul is wanting. A shbourm, Church, in the Third Volume of Jo/asset', looks like a white model set in a border of black foliage ; there is a vanishing bit of distance, however, though it is in a fog. Haninsc.'s skies are often clear, but he does not imlways make us sensible of the effect of ateno- splwre between buildings; ;mil he encumbers his middle distances with heavy shadows, that crowd the picture, without giving, by contrast, air to the distance. His distant view of St. Albales Abbey, in the Fourth Volume of Cowper, is an example of these defects. The Abbey, by being too near, appears insignificant ; the effect of the ground is lost, as in STANFIELD'S, for the eye passes by it, mid though stopped for an in- stant by the black barrier of shade, holm& over it, and reaches the tiny Abbey at once. IlAnnixo is most successful in near views with few objects, and those of a solid description, such as buildings, timber, wags gons, faze. his street scenes in Berkhampstead and Huntingdon, of Coweries house at Weston, mid that where he was born, are delightful. The little distant view of Olney is aarial, but then it is all foreground and distance. The vignette of Benel College, in Volume Fourth, is clever; but there is the dark shade again, which we see in STANFIELD too, and in Itoersurs, and all who make arbitrary effects of their own by recipe, instead of studying the appearances of nature as TuRNER does. Look at TURNER'S view of Paris from Nre la Chaise, in the Fourteenth Volume of Scott's Prose Works—bow crowded with objects, yet what space there is! The rising ground of this garden of the grave, studded thick with monuments interspersed with cypresses, forms the fore- ground, and beyond is stretched out the plain of Paris, covered with buildings—the heights on the other side of the city bounding the dis- tance. It is a panoramtvin miniature. We look down from a height on a little world of life and death. The eye travels over time scene as in looking at a real prospect. We breathe freely : we are sensible of the extent and vastness not only of what we see in the picture, but of svhat is out of it. See again his lovely view of Rhodes, and the sea of mountains in that of Lebanon, iii Part Sixteenth of the Landscape Illus- trations of the Bible. This Part contains two architectural views— the Sepulchre of the Sons of David, by HARDING, and one of the superb gates of Baalbec, by SraNriusn—both of which are admirable specimens of their finished style. They are subjects where their excel- lencies are seen to advantage, and their defects are less apparent, though the hardness and want of air are evident. - These, however, seem but detached fragments compared with the comprehensive grasp of Tea- NER'S genius. He takes up in his hand a whole city, spreads out a tract of country, and lights up over all a glowing atmosphere. His pic- torial creations are complete : he gives us the totality of nature. How vividly he represents the wild waste of snow in the Alps, in Part Fourth of Rogers's Poems! Ile can be simple and graceful too, on occasion— witness his chaste and elegant vignette of a garden seen from an alcove, in the same Part. His scenes in the Lift of Cokmbns show his genius as a painter of epic or historic landscapes. But great as he is in terres- trial scenes, TuateEn is out of his element when be attempts to scale the heaven of invention. Ile is a "prince of the power of the air," but Ile cannot get beyond the atmosphere of earth. His designs for Milton will, we fear, illustrate the fall of TURNER more palpably than that of Lucifer. In the vignette to the First Volume of Sir EGERTON BRYDGES. edition, he has been literally "playing at bowls with the sun and moon :" or perhaps it is more like the gods having a game at celes- tial ring-taw with the planets. Juno has just shot a shining bead, and that huge marble we may fancy to have sped from the tremendous "knuckle-down" of Jove himself! TURNER does not possess a fine imagination ; his fancy is material. The poetry of his pencil needs physical subjects to work upon.
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