een under the same circumstances, dead and
lightless beside her living color; the green of a growing leaf, the
scarlet of a fresh flower, no art nor expedient can reach; but in
addition to this, nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of
sunlight which trebles their brilliancy, while the painter, deprived of
this splendid aid, works still with what is actually a gray shadow
compared to the force of nature's color. Take a blade of grass and a
scarlet flower, and place them so as to receive sunlight beside the
brightest canvas that ever left Turner's easel, and the picture will be
extinguished. So far from out-facing nature, he does not, as far as mere
vividness of color goes, one-half reach her;--but does he use this
brilliancy of color on objects to which it does not properly belong? Let
us compare his works in this respect with a few instances from the old
masters.

Sec. 4. Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian;

There is, on the left hand side of Salvator's Mercury and the Woodman in
our National Gallery, something, without doubt intended for a rocky
mountain, in the middle distance, near enough for all its fissures and
crags to be distinctly visible, or, rather, for a great many awkward
scratches of the brush over it to be visible, which, though not
particularly representative either of one thing or another, are without
doubt intended to be symbolical of rocks. Now no mountain in full light,
and near enough for its details of crag to be seen, is without great
variety of delicate color. Salvator has painted it throughout without
one instant of variation; but this, I suppose, is simplicity and
generalization;--let it pass: but what is the color? _Pure sky blue_,
without one grain of gray, or any modifying hue whatsoever;--the same
brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more
loaded at the same part of the pallet, and the whole mountain thrown in
with unmitigated ultramarine. Now mountains only can become pure blue
when there is so much air between us and them that they become mere
flat, dark shades, every detail being totally lost: they become blue
when they become air, and not till then. Consequently this part of
Salvator's painting, being of hills perfectly clear and near, with all
their details visible, is, as far as color is concerned, broad, bold
falsehood--the direct assertion of direct impossibility.

In the whole range of Turner's works, recent or of old date, you will
not find