grieves me to have to do this, but the fact is indeed so. No
_picture_ of Turner's is seen in perfection a month after it is
painted. The Walhalla cracked before it had been eight days in the
Academy rooms; the vermilions frequently lose lustre long before the
exhibition is over; and when all the colors begin to get hard a year
or two after the picture is painted, a painful deadness and opacity
comes over them, the whites especially becoming lifeless, and many
of the warmer passages settling into a hard valueless brown, even if
the paint remains perfectly firm, which is far from being always the
case. I believe that in some measure these results are unavoidable,
the colors being so peculiarly blended and mingled in Turner's
present manner as almost to necessitate their irregular drying; but
that they are not necessary to the extent in which they sometimes
take place, is proved by the comparative safety of some even of the
more brilliant works. Thus the Old Temeraire is nearly safe in
color, and quite firm; while the Juliet and her Nurse is now the
ghost of what it was; the Slaver shows no cracks, though it is
chilled in some of the darker passages, while the Walhalla and
several of the recent Venices cracked in the Royal Academy. It is
true that the damage makes no further progress after the first year
or two, and that even in its altered state the picture is always
valuable and records its intention; but it is bitterly to be
regretted that so great a painter should not leave a single work by
which in succeeding ages he might be estimated. The fact of his
using means so imperfect, together with that of his utter neglect of
the pictures in his own gallery, are a phenomenon in human mind
which appears to me utterly inexplicable; and both are without
excuse. If the effects he desires cannot be to their full extent
produced except by these treacherous means, one picture only should
be painted each year as an exhibition of immediate power, and the
rest should be carried out, whatever the expense of labor and time
in safe materials, even at the risk of some deterioration of
immediate effect. That which is greatest in him is entirely
independent of means; much of what he now accomplishes
illegitimately might without doubt be attained in securer
modes--what cannot should without hesitation