ike a peruke; and waves appear to me to fall, and plunge, and
toss, and nod, and crash over, and not to curl up like shavings; and
water appears to me, when it is gray, to have the gray of stormy air
mixed with its own deep, heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not
the gray of the first coat of cheap paint on a deal door; and many other
such things appear to me which, as far as I can conjecture by what is
admired of marine painting, appear to no one else; yet I shall have
something more to say about these men presently, with respect to the
effect they have had upon Turner; and something more, I hope, hereafter,
with the help of illustration.

Sec. 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator.

There is a sea-piece of Ruysdael's in the Louvre[63] which, though
nothing very remarkable in any quality of art, is at least forceful,
agreeable, and, as far as it goes, natural; the waves have much freedom
of action, and power of color; the wind blows hard over the shore, and
the whole picture may be studied with profit as a proof that the
deficiency of color and everything else in Backhuysen's works, is no
fault of the Dutch sea. There is sublimity and power in every field of
nature from the pole to the line; and though the painters of one country
are often better and greater, universally, than those of another, this
is less because the subjects of art are wanting anywhere, than because
one country or one age breeds mighty and thinking men, and another none.

Ruysdael's painting of falling water and brook scenery is also generally
agreeable--more than agreeable it can hardly be considered. There
appears no exertion of mind in any of his works; nor are they calculated
to produce either harm or good by their feeble influence. They are good
furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.

The seas of Claude are the finest pieces of water-painting in ancient
art. I do not say that I like them, because they appear to me selections
of the particular moment when the sea is most insipid and characterless;
but I think that they are exceedingly true to the forms and time
selected, or at least that the fine instances of them are so, of which
there are exceedingly few.

On the right hand of one of the marines of Salvator, in the Pitti
palace, there is a passage of sea reflecting the sunrise, which is
thoroughly good, and very like Turner; the rest of the picture, as the
one opposite to it, utterly virtueless. I have not s