[N] As in the very beautiful picture of this year's Academy, "The
Abandoned."

Shipping, therefore, in its perfection, never can become the subject of
noble art; and that just because to represent it in its perfection would
tax the powers of art to the utmost. If a great painter could rest in
drawing a ship, as he can rest in drawing a piece of drapery, we might
sometimes see vessels introduced by the noblest workmen, and treated by
them with as much delight as they would show in scattering luster over
an embroidered dress, or knitting the links of a coat of mail. But ships
cannot be drawn at times of rest. More complicated in their anatomy than
the human frame itself, so far as that frame is outwardly discernible;
liable to all kinds of strange accidental variety in position and
movement, yet in each position subject to imperative laws which can only
be followed by unerring knowledge; and involving, in the roundings and
foldings of sail and hull, delicacies of drawing greater than exist in
any other inorganic object, except perhaps a snow wreath,[O]--they
present, irrespective of sea or sky, or anything else around them,
difficulties which could only be vanquished by draughtsmanship quite
accomplished enough to render even the subtlest lines of the human face
and form. But the artist who has once attained such skill as this will
not devote it to the drawing of ships. He who can paint the face of St.
Paul will not elaborate the parting timbers of the vessel in which he is
wrecked; and he who can represent the astonishment of the apostles at
the miraculous draught will not be solicitous about accurately showing
that their boat is overloaded.

[O] The catenary and other curves of tension which a sail assumes
under the united influence of the wind, its own weight, and the
particular tensions of the various ropes by which it is attached, or
against which it presses, show at any moment complexities of
arrangement to which fidelity, except after the study of a lifetime,
is impossible.

"What!" it will perhaps be replied, "have, then, ships never been
painted perfectly yet, even by the men who have devoted most attention
to them?" Assuredly not. A ship never yet has been painted at all, in
any other sense than men have been painted in "Landscapes with figures."
Things have been painted which have a general effect of ships, just as
things have been painted which have a general effect of shepherds