apparently uncertain execution by which he is distinguished from most
other painters.

In Chap. III. Sec. 17 of the preceding volume we concluded generally that
all great drawing was _distinct_ drawing; but with reference,
nevertheless, to a certain sort of indistinctness, necessary to the
highest art, and afterwards to be explained. And the inquiry into this
seeming contradiction has, I trust, been made somewhat more interesting
by what we saw respecting modern art in the fourth paragraph of Chap.
XVI., namely, that it was distinguished from old art eminently by
_in_distinctness, and by its idle omission of details for the sake of
general effect. Perhaps also, of all modern artists, Turner is the one
to whom most people would first look as the great representative of this
nineteenth century cloudiness, and "ingenious speaking concerning
smoke;" every one of his compositions being evidently dictated by a
delight in seeing only a part of things rather than the whole, and in
casting clouds and mist around them rather than unveiling them.

Sec. 2. And as the head of modern mystery, all the ranks of the best
ancient, and of even a very important and notable division of modern
authority, seem to be arrayed against him. As we saw in preceding
chapters, every great man was definite until the seventeenth century.
John Bellini, Leonardo, Angelico, Durer, Perugino, Raphael,--all of them
hated fog, and repudiated indignantly all manner of concealment. Clear,
calm, placid, perpetual vision, far and near; endless perspicuity of
space; unfatigued veracity of eternal light; perfectly accurate
delineation of every leaf on the trees, every flower in the fields,
every golden thread in the dresses of the figures, up to the highest
point of calm brilliancy which was penetrable to the eye, or possible to
the pencil,--these were their glory. On the other--the entirely
mysterious--side, we have only sullen and sombre Rembrandt; desperate
Salvator; filmy, futile Claude; occasionally some countenance from
Correggio and Titian, and a careless condescension or two from
Tintoret,[26]--not by any means a balanced weight of authority. Then,
even in modern times, putting Turner (who is at present the prisoner at
the bar) out of the question, we have, in landscape, Stanfield and
Harding as definers, against Copley Fielding and Robson on the side of
the clouds;[27] Mulready and Wilkie against Etty,--even Etty being not
so much misty in conception as