In the
drawing next in date, the "Hastings from the Sea," we have the further
step from monochrome to polychrome; we have the distinct trio, the
golden yellow in the sky, the blue in the sea, and the red in the
figures in the boats,--as in a vocal trio we have the only three
possible musical sounds of the human voice, the soprano, the basso,
and the falsetto of the child's voice. All these colors are distinctly
asserted and perfectly harmonized in a most exquisite play of tints, but
it is still no more like Nature than the trio in "I Puritani" is like
conversation. Turner never dreamed of painting _like_ Nature, and no
sane man ever saw or can see, in this world, Nature in the colors in
which he has painted her, any more than he will find men conducting
business in operatic notes.
One step farther, and we leave the analogy. In the "Swiss Valley," one
of his last works, we are from the first conscious that his harmonies
have run away with his theme. In Ole Bull's "Niagara" we have almost as
much of matter-of-fact Nature as in Turner's "Swiss Valley." The eye
untrained by study of Turner's works finds nothing but a blaze of color
with no intelligible object, just as we have, in opera, music of which
the words are inaudible;--both are there for practised ear and eye, but
in neither case as of primary importance.
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