ugh the manufacture of this, too, is often attempted, namely,
Composition. The true ground of perspective in a picture is not a
mechanical arrangement of lines, but a definite vision,--an affection of
the painter by the subject, the net result of it in his mind,
instantaneous and complete. It is a mistake to suppose that Composition
is anything arbitrary,--that in the landscape out-of-doors we see the
world as God made it, but in the picture as the painter makes it.
Composition is nothing but the logic of vision; an uncomposed view is
no more possible than an unlogical sentence. The eyes convey in each
case what the mind is able to grasp,--no less, no more. As to any
particular work, it is always a question of fact what it amounts to; the
composition may be shallow, it may be bad,--the work of the
understanding, not of the imagination,--put together, instead of seen
together. But a picture _without_ composition would be the mathematical
point. Mr. Ruskin thinks any sensible person would exchange his
pictures, however good, for windows through which he could see the
scenes themselves. This does not quite meet the point, for it may be
only a preference of quantity to quality. The window gives an infinitude
of pictures; the painter, whatever his merit, but one. A fair comparison
would be to place by the side of the Turner drawing a photograph of the
scene, which we will suppose taken at the most favorable moment, and
complete in color as well as light and shade. Whoever should then prefer
the photograph must be either more of a naturalist than an artist, or
else a better artist than Turner. The photograph, supposing it to be
perfect in its way, gives what is seen at a first glance, only with the
optical part of the process expanded over the whole field, instead of
being confined to one point, as the eye is. The picture in it is the
first glance of the operator, as he selected it; whatever delicacy of
detail told in the impression on his mind tells in the impression on the
plate; whatever is more than that does not go to increase the richness
of the result, _as picture_, but belongs to another sphere. The
landscape-photographs that we have lately had in such admirable
perfection, however they may overpower our judgment at first sight,
will, I believe, be found not to _wear_ well; they have really less in
them than even second-rate drawings, and therefore are sooner exhausted.
The most satisfactory results of the photograph ar