These are not the
only good drawings, but there is in them a simplicity and singleness
of purpose, a total subordination of all minor matters to the great
impression, which makes them points of poetic value in the collection.
There are some drawings by Finch, scarcely less noticeable for their
rendering of solemn twilight, tender and touching as the memory of a
loved one long dead. The water-color representation is, indeed, complete
and interesting; but we have only present use with five of these
drawings, by Turner, and from different stages of his progress.
Ruskin, in his pamphlet on Pre-Raphaelitism, has drawn such a comparison
between Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites as to make them only different
manifestations of the same spirit in Art. Nothing, it seems to us, could
be more mistaken than this; for, in all that concerns either the end of
Art or its paths of approach, its purposes or its methods, Turner and
the Pre-Raphaelites are diametrically opposed. Turner was intensely
subjective,--the Pre-Raphaelites are as intensely objective. There is
no evidence whatever in Turner's works that he ever made the slightest
attempt to reproduce Nature in such guise as the Pre-Raphaelites paint
her in; on the contrary, the early drawings of Turner are as inattentive
to absolute truth of detail as they could well be.
Pages:
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329