r laws--yet without any
such tests, we may be sure that this infinity can only be based on
truth--that it _must_ be nature, because man could not have originated
it, and that every form must be faithful, because none is like another.
And therefore it is that I insist so constantly on this great quality of
landscape painting, as it appears in Turner; because it is not merely a
constant and most important truth in itself, but it almost amounts to a
demonstration of every other truth. And it will be found a far rarer
attainment in the works of other men than is commonly supposed, and the
sign, wherever it is really found, of the very highest art. For we are
apt to forget that the greatest _number_ is no nearer infinity than the
least, if it be definite number; and the vastest bulk is no nearer
infinity than the most minute, if it be definite bulk; so that a man may
multiply his objects forever and ever, and be no nearer infinity than he
had reached with one, if he do not vary them and confuse them; and a man
may reach infinity in every touch and line, and part, and unit, if in
these he be truthfully various and obscure. And we shall find, the more
we examine the works of the old masters, that always, and in all parts,
they are totally wanting in every feeling of infinity, and therefore in
_all_ truth: and even in the works of the moderns, though the aim is far
more just, we shall frequently perceive an erroneous choice of means,
and a substitution of mere number or bulk for real infinity.

Sec. 26. Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner.

And therefore, in concluding our notice of the central cloud region, I
should wish to dwell particularly on those skies of Turner's, in which
we have the whole space of the heaven covered with the delicate dim
flakes of gathering vapor, which are the intermediate link between the
central region and that of the rain-cloud, and which assemble and grow
out of the air; shutting up the heaven with a gray interwoven veil,
before the approach of storm, faint, but universal, letting the light of
the upper sky pass pallidly through their body, but never rending a
passage for the ray. We have the first approach and gathering of this
kind of sky most gloriously given in the vignette at page 115 of
Rogers's Italy, which is one of the most perfect pieces of feeling (if I
may transgress my usual rules for an instant) extant in art, owing to
the extreme grandeur and stern simplicity