want of those technical qualities which are more
especially the object of an artist's admiration. Gainsborough's
power of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift)
is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens; he is the purest
colorist--Sir Joshua himself not excepted--of the whole English
school; with him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part
die, and exists not now in Europe. Evidence enough will be seen in
the following pages of my devoted admiration of Turner; but I
hesitate not to say, that in management and quality of single and
particular tint, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is
a child of Gainsborough. Now, Mr. Lee never aims at color; he does
not make it his object in the slightest degree--the spring green of
vegetation is all that he desires; and it would be about as rational
to compare his works with studied pieces of coloring, as the
modulation of the Calabrian pipe to the harmony of a full orchestra.
Gainsborough's hand is as light as the sweep of a cloud--as swift as
the flash of a sunbeam; Lee's execution is feeble and spotty.
Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division in heaven
of light from darkness; Lee's (perhaps necessarily, considering the
effects of flickering sunlight at which he aims) are as fragmentary
as his leaves, and as numerous. Gainsborough's forms are grand,
simple, and ideal; Lee's are small, confused, and unselected.
Gainsborough never loses sight of his picture as a whole; Lee is but
too apt to be shackled by its parts. In a word, Gainsborough is an
immortal painter; and Lee, though on the right road, is yet in the
early stages of his art; and the man who could imagine any
resemblance or point of comparison between them, is not only a
novice in art, but has not capacity ever to be anything more. He may
be pardoned for not comprehending Turner, for long preparation and
discipline are necessary before the abstract and profound philosophy
of that artist can be met; but Gainsborough's excellence is based on
principles of art long acknowledged, and facts of nature universally
apparent; and I insist more particularly on the reviewer's want of
feeling for his works, because it proves a truth of which the public
ought especially to be assured that those who lavish abuse on the
great men of modern t