he foreground and
distance at the same instant: but, as we have stated, the eye and mind
are rapid, the one to see, the other to combine; and as a horse let
loose into a field, runs to the extremity of it and around it, the
first thing he does--so do we range over every part of the picture,
but with wondrous rapidity, before our impression of the whole is
perfect. We must not, therefore, slur over any thing; the difficulty
in art is to give the necessary, and so made necessary, detail of
foreground unostentatiously--to paint nothing, that which is to tell
as nothing, but so as it shall satisfy upon examination; and we think
so the old masters did paint the foregrounds, particularly Gaspar
Poussin--so Titian, so Domenichino, and all of any merit. But this is
merely an introduction, not to a palliation of, but the approbation
and praise of a glaring defect in Turner. "Turner introduced a new era
in landscape art, by showing that the foreground might be sunk for the
distance, and that it was possible to express immediate proximity to
the spectator, without giving any thing like completeness to the forms
of the near objects." We are now, therefore, prepared for an absurd
"justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures," thus
contemptuously, with regard to all but himself, accounted for. "And
now we see the reason for the singular, and, to the ignorant in art,
the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert
that there is any reason whatsoever for _bad_ drawing, (though in
landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but there is both reason and
necessity for that want of drawing which gives even the nearest
figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and
four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally
impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding
from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the
distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and
features of near figures than Turner gives." Yet what wonderful detail
has he required from Canaletti and others?--But is there any reason
why we should have "_pink_ spots?"--is there any reason why Turner's
foreground figures should resemble penny German dolls?--and for the
reason we have above given, there ought to be reason why the figures
should be made out, at least as they are in a camera-obscura. We here
speak of nature, of "truth," and with him ask,