te
exertion of intellect, implies two subjects, and some connection or
relation inferred between them, the term "ideas of relation" is not
incorrect, though it is inexpressive.

Sec. 2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it.

Under this head must be arranged everything productive of expression,
sentiment, and character, whether in figures or landscapes, (for there
may be as much definite expression and marked carrying out of particular
thoughts in the treatment of inanimate as of animate nature,) everything
relating to the conception of the subject and to the congruity and
relation of its parts; not as they enhance each other's beauty by known
and constant laws of composition, but as they give each other expression
and meaning, by particular application, requiring distinct thought to
discover or to enjoy: the choice, for instance, of a particular lurid or
appalling light, to illustrate an incident in itself terrible, or of a
particular tone of pure color to prepare the mind for the expression of
refined and delicate feeling; and, in a still higher sense, the
invention of such incidents and thoughts as can be expressed in words as
well as on canvas, and are totally independent of any means of art but
such as may serve for the bare suggestion of them. The principal object
in the foreground of Turner's "Building of Carthage" is a group of
children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as
expressive of the ruling passion, which was to be the source of future
greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming
soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is
seen,--it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a
scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the
intellect as much as the elaborate realizations of color. Such a thought
as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest
order. Claude, in subjects of the same kind, commonly introduces people
carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and dwells, with infantine
delight, on the lustre of the leather and the ornaments of the iron. The
intellect can have no occupation here; we must look to the imitation or
to nothing. Consequently, Turner rises above Claude in the very first
instant of the conception of his picture, and acquires an intellectual
superiority which no powers of the draughtsman or the artist (supposing
that such existed in his antagonist) could