t
always be in some measure a matter of dispute and feeling, and the more
so because there is no perfect or even tolerably perfect sea painting to
refer to: the sea never has been, and I fancy never will be nor can be
painted; it is only suggested by means of more or less spiritual and
intelligent conventionalism; and though Turner has done enough to
suggest the sea mightily and gloriously, after all it is by
conventionalism still, and there remains so much that is unlike nature,
that it is always possible for those who do not feel his power to
justify their dislike, on very sufficient and reasonable grounds; and to
maintain themselves obstinately unreceptant of the good, by insisting on
the deficiency which no mortal hand can supply, and which commonly is
most manifest on the one hand, where most has been achieved on the
other.

With calm water the case is different. Facts are ascertainable and
demonstrable there, and by the notice of one or two of the simplest, we
may obtain some notion of the little success and intelligence of the
elder painters in this easier field, and so prove their probable failure
in contending with greater difficulties.

Sec. 6. General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, the
imperfection of its reflective surface.

First: Water, of course, owing to its transparency, possesses not a
perfectly reflective surface, like that of speculum metal, but a surface
whose reflective power is dependent on the angle at which the rays to be
reflected fall. The smaller this angle, the greater are the number of
rays reflected. Now, according to the number of rays reflected is the
force of the image of objects above, and according to the number of rays
transmitted is the perceptibility of objects below the water. Hence the
visible transparency and reflective power of water are in inverse ratio.
In looking down into it from above, we receive transmitted rays which
exhibit either the bottom, or the objects floating in the water; or else
if the water be deep and clear, we receive very few rays, and the water
looks black. In looking along water we receive reflected rays, and
therefore the image of objects above it. Hence, in shallow water on a
level shore the bottom is seen at our feet, clearly; it becomes more and
more obscure as it retires, even though the water do not increase in
depth, and at a distance of twelve or twenty yards--more or less
according to our height above the water--be