lack. The principles of nature in this respect.

What I am next about to say with respect to Turner's color, I should
wish to be received with caution, as it admits of dispute. I think that
the first approach to viciousness of color in any master is commonly
indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple, and an absence of yellow. I
think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues, never, or
very rarely, using red without it, but frequently using yellow with
scarcely any red; and I believe it will be in consequence found that her
favorite opposition, that which generally characterizes and gives tone
to her color, is yellow and black, passing, as it retires, into white
and blue. It is beyond dispute that the great fundamental opposition of
Rubens is yellow and black; and that on this, concentrated in one part
of the picture, and modified in various grays throughout, chiefly depend
the tones of all his finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far
greater tendency to the purple than in Rubens, I believe no red is ever
mixed with the pure blue, or glazed over it, which has not in it a
modifying quantity of yellow. At all events, I am nearly certain that
whatever rich and pure purples are introduced locally, by the great
colorists, nothing is so destructive of all fine color as the slightest
tendency to purple in general tone; and I am equally certain that Turner
is distinguished from all the vicious colorists of the present day, by
the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and the
intermediate grays, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is
invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples. So fond indeed is Turner
of black and yellow, that he has given us more than one composition,
both drawings and paintings, based on these two colors alone, of which
the magnificent Quilleboeuf, which I consider one of the most perfect
pieces of simple color existing, is a most striking example; and I think
that where, as in some of the late Venices, there has been something
like a marked appearance of purple tones, even though exquisitely
corrected by vivid orange and warm green in the foreground, the general
color has not been so perfect or truthful: my own feelings would always
guide me rather to the warm grays of such pictures as the Snow Storm, or
the glowing scarlet and gold of the Napoleon and Slave Ship. But I do
not insist at present on this part of the subject, as being perhaps more
proper for future