think him much to be blamed for
checking. The portion of his pictures usually most defective in this
respect is the sky, which is apt to be cold and uninventive, always well
drawn, but with a kind of hesitation in the clouds whether it is to be
fair or foul weather; they having neither the joyfulness of rest, nor
the majesty of storm. Their color is apt also to verge on a morbid
purple, as was eminently the case in the large picture of the wreck on
the coast of Holland exhibited in 1844, a work in which both his powers
and faults were prominently manifested, the picture being full of good
painting, but wanting in its entire appeal. There was no feeling of
wreck about it; and, but for the damage about her bowsprit, it would
have been impossible for a landsman to say whether the hull was meant
for a wreck or a guardship. Nevertheless, it is always to be
recollected, that in subjects of this kind it is probable that much
escapes us in consequence of our want of knowledge, and that to the eye
of the seaman much may be of interest and value which to us appears
cold. At all events, this healthy and rational regard of things is
incomparably preferable to the dramatic absurdities which weaker artists
commit in matters marine; and from copper-colored sunsets on green waves
sixty feet high, with cauliflower breakers, and ninepin rocks; from
drowning on planks, and starving on rafts, and lying naked on beaches,
it is really refreshing to turn to a surge of Stanfield's true salt,
serviceable, unsentimental sea. It would be well, however, if he would
sometimes take a higher flight. The castle of Ischia gave him a grand
subject, and a little more invention in the sky, a little less muddiness
in the rocks, and a little more savageness in the sea, would have made
it an impressive picture; it just misses the sublime, yet is a fine
work, and better engraved than usual by the Art Union.

One fault we cannot but venture to find, even in our own extreme
ignorance, with Mr. Stanfield's boats; they never look weather-beaten.
There is something peculiarly precious in the rusty, dusty,
tar-trickled, fishy, phosphorescent brown of an old boat, and when this
has just dipped under a wave and rises to the sunshine it is enough to
drive Giorgione to despair. I have never seen any effort at this by
Stanfield; his boats always look new painted and clean; witness
especially the one before the ship in the wreck picture above noticed;
and there is some