ble, had there been gold or
crimson enough in the rest of the picture to have thrown it into
gray. It is only because the lower clouds are pure white and blue,
and because the trees are of the same color as the clouds, that the
cloud color becomes false. There is a fine instance of a sky, green
in itself, but turned gray by the opposition of warm color, in
Turner's Devonport with the Dockyards.

[21] This is saying too much; for it not unfrequently happens that
the light and shade of the original is lost in the engraving, the
effect of which is afterwards partially recovered, with the aid of
the artist himself, by introductions of new features. Sometimes,
when a drawing depends chiefly on color, the engraver gets
unavoidably embarrassed, and must be assisted by some change or
exaggeration of the effect; but the more frequent case is, that the
engraver's difficulties result merely from his inattention to, or
wilful deviations from his original; and that the artist is obliged
to assist him by such expedients as the error itself suggests.

Not unfrequently in reviewing a plate, as very constantly in
reviewing a picture after some time has elapsed since its
completion, even the painter is liable to make unnecessary or
hurtful changes. In the plate of the Old Temeraire, lately published
in Finden's gallery, I do not know whether it was Turner or the
engraver who broke up the water into sparkling ripple, but it was a
grievous mistake, and has destroyed the whole dignity and value of
the conception. The flash of lightning in the Winchelsea of the
England series does not exist in the original; it is put in to
withdraw the attention of the spectator from the sky which the
engraver destroyed.

There is an unfortunate persuasion among modern engravers that color
can be expressed by particular characters of line; and in the
endeavor to distinguish by different lines, different colors of
equal depth, they frequently lose the whole system of light and
shade. It will hardly be credited that the piece of foreground on
the left of Turner's Modern Italy, represented in the Art-Union
engraving as nearly coal black, is in the original of a pale warm
gray, hardly darker than the sky. All attempt to record color in
engraving, is heraldry out of its place: the engraver has no power
beyond that of