popularity and favour of the artist are so great as to render the opinion of an individual a matter of indifference to him. And now, but one word more. For many a year we have heard nothing with respect to the works of Turner but accusations of their want of truth. To every observation on their power, sublimity, or beauty, there has been but one reply: They are not like nature. I therefore took my opponents on their own ground, and demonstrated, by thorough investigation of actual facts, that Turner is like nature, and paints more of nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition (the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been disputed with desperate struggles, and that I should have had to fight my way to my position inch by inch. Not at all. My opponents yield me the field at once. One (the writer for the Athenæum) has no other resource than the assertion, that "he disapproves the natural style in painting. If people want to see nature, let them go and look at herself. Why should they see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other (Blackwood), still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more remarkable line of defence. "It is not," he says, "what things in all respects really are, but how they are convertible by the mind into what they are not, that we have to consider." (October, 1843, p. 485.) I leave therefore the reader to choose whether, with Blackwood and his fellows, he will proceed to consider how things are convertible by the mind into what they are not; or whether, with me, he will undergo the harder, but perhaps on the whole more useful, labour of ascertaining what they are. SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. PART I. OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES. SECTION I. OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART. CHAPTER I. Introductory. PAGE. § 1. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long periods of time 1 § 2. And therefore obstinate when once formed 3 § 3. The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances 4 § 4. But only on points capable of demonstration.. 5 6 § 5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable CHAPTER II.-Definition of Greatness in Art. § 1. Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and technical knowledge § 2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language.. § 5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought. § 7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools.. § 8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself 9. The definition....... 9 10 11 § 7. The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect art 8. Instances in pictures of modern artists § 9. Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution CHAPTER II.-Of Ideas of Power, as they are dependent upon Execution. PART II. OF TRUTH. SECTION I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH. CHAPTER I.-Of Ideas of Truth in their connection with those of Beauty and Relation. PAGE § 1. The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation of facts and thoughts 43 § 2. They induce a different choice of material subjects 44 § 3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition.... 44 CHAPTER II.-That the Truth of Nature is not to be dis cerned by the uneducated Senses. § 1. The common self-deception of men with respect to the power of discerning truth. § 2. Men usually see little of what is before their eyes § 3. But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to what is beautiful § 4. Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling 51 § 8. We recognise objects by their least important attributes. Compare Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4. 54 |