TURNER'S WATER - COLOUR PAINTINGS.
THROUGH the kindness of two liberal possessors of TURNER'S wonder- fully beautiful drawings in water-colours for the Views qf England and Wales, we have enjoyed the rich treat of feasting our eyes upon the splendours of his colouring. We have for two whole mornings revelled in these luxuries of art, and have drunk in the golden flood of light that he pours over his lovely scenes ; now basking in the broad sunshine of noon-tide, gazing upon the lingering light of day "fading in splendour," or watching the slant rays of the morning sun glancing over the sum- mits of the hills, and "gilding tower and tree ;" then turning to the calm beauty of a moonlight scene, or to the lowering sky across which stretches the piled-up rack of tempest clouds, that bang stupendous over the weltering sea beneath. TURNER'S drawings look to most advantage when seen together. We found them ranged side by side round the walls of the rooms "in burning row ;" and the coup d'ceil was surpassingly beautiful. The fretted' gold frames coming close up to the drawing, as in the case of an oil picture, and with a flat profile to the moulding, were like rich settings to the brilliant gems which they enclosed. The plate glass before them, too, was a harmonizing medium. These arc matters of importance, though it may appear too technical to speak of them here ; but be it remembered, that an injudicious mode of framing may take from the effect of a drawing: no one who prizes a jewel will be indifferent to the setting. We could not help thinking, that any uncultivated taste might covet these works purely from the dazzling splendour of their - effect. As mere articles of costly furniture, they are admirable. But this is taking too physical a view of these gorgeous works. It is not merely for the lavish display of colour, and of the resources of art, that we admire them ; but because they are true representations of the• varied effects of nature. The best half of their beauty consists in their truth. It is a vulgar error to suppose that TURNER exaggerates in his water-colour drawings : and even his landscapes painted in oil are overcharged only when viewed in detail. The general effect is true to nature—nature in her brightest looks, radiant with sunny smiles, and. clothed in her most gorgeous robe. We have not had the good fortune to visit Italy, but we can believe from all that we have heard and read of its cerulean skies, its pure atmosphere, and burning sun, that no colours in TURNER'S pictures come tip to the intense brilliancy of Italian. nature. We have seen effects here in foggy England, and within a short distance of smoky London too, that if truly represented on canvass- would be pronounced exaggerations : stems of trees looking like molten gold, where a ray of sunlight slanted across a shady nook—the broad leaves of the chestnut reflecting its light like plates of metal. Even now,. when Autumn strews the ground with the leafy honours of the woods, the grass thickly scattered over with the ruddy-golden beech-leaves, mingled with all the gradations of yellow in rich confusion, a ray of light will show a floor overspread with emerald and gold, with hues that would beggar the palette even of TURNER. That great magician himself confesses• that he dare not attempt to put on canvass colours that would convey the nearest idea of some effects of nature. When on the occasion of visiting St. Peter's at Rome, with LAWRENCE, they passed under the colonnade, he looked up, and seeing the stupendous fabric steeped in the bright beam of an Italian noon-tide sun, appealed to LAWICENCE—. saying, " Now, who says I paint too yellow ?" 'People unthinkingly exclaim, " Who ever saw a building of this colour, or ground of that ?.' forgetting that light is the parent of colour, and that the sun takes very great liberties with local tints. The effect subdues the whole scene to its own quality. TURNER paints the landscape as seen under this effect. Doubtless he takes extraordinary means to produce it ; but in the result, he is borne out by the truth of his imitation. For instances the colour of the sea is just what the sky chooses to make it.
We may be accused of being 'llaradoxical, but we only state the fact when we assert, that what struck us as most remarkable in the majority
of TURNER'S drawings, was their chasteness of colour. We do not here speak of his earlier works, which are neutral tint compared with some of his burning effects of sunlight ; but of those produced in his later day. This is owing to the exquisite subtilty with which they are harmonized ; for they are full of colour. His outlines, his shadows, are colour-as it is in nature ; for shade is the neutralization of colour, not its nega- tion. TURNER'S chiaroscuro is all of colour. Hence the transparency of his drawings. Herein he surpasses other landscape-painters. He makes his moonlight scenes partake of the warmth of the moon's rays. There are no cutting outlines, rigid and cold ; no raw white light on a black ground, like an ivory moon inlaid oil an ebony landscape. The effects of moonlight are as subtle in their gradations, and blend as har- nioniouly, as the hues of twilight. Moonlight is no more cold to the eye than it is to the body. The strongest opposition of light and shade in nature is harmonious. in effect. The sharpest outline of 'a gable or chimney-, strongly relieved against an intense blue sky, is blended by the atmosphere, or light, into an harmony of colour, which carries off the painful effect of a startling opposition of form. If, for instance, on a dark night you look up to the illuminated dial of a clock in a. church, steeple, you will see a halo of yellow light-which harmonizes the strong contrast. If you see a tree whose leaves are entirely changed to a bright yellow, or ruddy golden colour, close to one whose leaves arc still green and unchanged, there is strong contrast of colour, but 'perfect harmony of effect. " How," it will perhaps be said, "is green, the cold, to be har- monized with yellow, the warm colour, in a picture ?" We answer, that no colour is cold ; it is only less warm. So that when LIMIERBOURG paints a red-hot tree, and a burning sun illumining it, surrounded with a cold green landscape, it is not nature that is out, but the painter. He has imitated the warm green of nature with a leaden pigment, which kills the warmth of the colour ; and he has not harmonized his picture, as Nature does her lovely scenes, with a tender atmosphere interfused with golden light.
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