phemus, and sailing away
in his boat, taunts the giant, who stands by the water's edge, cursing
Ulysses and bemoaning the loss of his sight. Turner has used this
mythical scene as an opportunity for creating stupendous rocks never
seen by a pair of mortal eyes, and a galley worthy of heroes or gods.
The picture is the purest phantasy, even more like a fairy-tale than
the story it illustrates. He has made the whole scene burn in the red
light of a flaming sunrise, redder by far than the sunset of the old
'Temeraire.'

The story is told of a gentleman who, looking at a picture of Turner's,
said to him, 'I never saw a sunset like that.' 'No, but don't you wish
you could?' replied Turner. That is what we feel about the sunrise
in the picture of Ulysses and Polyphemus. Next to it in the National
Gallery hangs another picture called 'Rain, Steam, and Speed'--the
Great Western Railway. From the realm of the mythical, this takes us
back to the class of scenes of which the 'Fighting Temeraire' is one,
actually beheld by Turner, but magically transfigured by his brush.
A train is coming towards us over a bridge, prosaic subject enough,
especially in 1844, when railways were supposed to be ruining the
aspect of the country and were hated by beauty-loving people. But
Turner saw romance in the swift passage of a train, and painted a
picture in which smoke and rain, cloud and sunset, river and bridge,
boats and trees, are all fused in a mist, pearly and golden as well
as smutty and grey. When you look at it, you must stand away and look
long, till gradually the vision of Turner shapes itself before your
eyes and the scene as he beheld it lives again for you.

We saw how Venice opened his eyes to flaming colour. In his pictures
of Venice, her magic beauty is revealed by a delicate sympathy, that
re-creates the fairy city in her day of glory. Never tired of painting
her in all her aspects, at morning, at even, in pomp, and at peace,
a sight of his pictures is still the best substitute for a visit to
the city itself.

Other artists have interpreted scenery beautifully, and a few have
painted ideal landscapes, but who besides Turner has ever united such
diversities of power? He continued to paint water-colour sketches to
the end of his life, for these were appreciated by a public that did
not understand, and neglected to buy, his oil-paintings. He sketched
throughout France and Switzerland for various publications as he had
sketched