such absence of a right sense of color in other
portions of his subject; even his fishermen have always clean jackets
and unsoiled caps, and his very rocks are lichenless. And, by the way,
this ought to be noted respecting modern painters in general, that they
have not a proper sense of the value of dirt; cottage children never
appear but in fresh got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed beggars
excite compassion in unexceptionable rags. In reality, almost all the
colors of things associated with human life derive something of their
expression and value from the tones of impurity, and so enhance the
value of the entirely pure tints of nature herself. Of Stanfield's rock
and mountain drawing enough will be said hereafter. His foliage is
inferior; his architecture admirably drawn, but commonly wanting in
color. His picture of the Doge's palace at Venice was quite clay-cold
and untrue. Of late he has shown a marvellous predilection for the
realization, even to actually relieved texture, of old worm-eaten wood;
we trust he will not allow such fancies to carry him too far.

Sec. 37. J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great painters.

The name I have last to mention is that of J. M. W. Turner. I do not
intend to speak of this artist at present in general terms, because my
constant practice throughout this work is to say, when I speak of an
artist at all, the very truth of what I believe and feel respecting him;
and the truth of what I believe and feel respecting Turner would appear
in this place, unsupported by any proof, mere rhapsody. I shall
therefore here confine myself to a rapid glance at the relations of his
past and present works, and to some notice of what he has failed of
accomplishing: the greater part of the subsequent chapters will be
exclusively devoted to the examination of the new fields over which he
has extended the range of landscape art.

It is a fact more universally acknowledged than enforced or acted upon,
that all great painters, of whatever school, have been great only in
their rendering of what they had seen and felt from early childhood; and
that the greatest among them have been the most frank in acknowledging
this their inability to treat anything successfully but that with which
they had been familiar. The Madonna of Raffaelle was born on the Urbino
mountains, Ghirlandajo's is a Florentine, Bellini's a Venetian; there is
not the slightest effort on the part of any one of these g