ual and those subtile analogies between
painting (color) and music,--analogies often hinted at, but never, that
we are aware, fully followed out. Color bears the same relation to form
that sound does to language. If a painter sit down before Nature
and accurately match all her tints, we have an absolute but prosaic
rendering of her; and the analogy to this in music would be found in
a passage of ordinary conversational language written down, with its
inflections and pauses recorded in musical signs. Both are transcripts
of Nature, but neither is in any way poetic, or, strictly speaking,
artistic; we cannot, by any addition or refinement, make them so. Now
mark that in the two early drawings of Turner we have white and
black with only the slightest possible suggestion of blue in the
distance;--the corresponding form in language is verse, with its measure
of time for measure of space, and just so much inflection of voice as
these drawings have of tint,--enough not to be absolutely monotonous. We
have in both cases left the idea of mere imitation of Nature, and have
entered on Art. Verse grows naturally into music by simple increase of
the range of inflection, as Turner's color will grow more melodic and
finally harmonic. And in thus beginning Turner has placed his works
above the level of prosaic painting of Nature, just as verse is placed
above prose by the unanimous consent of mankind. From these simple
presages of Art we may diverge and follow his development as a poet by
his engravings, without ever making reference to him as a colorist. But
beside being a poet, he was a great color-composer. If, leaving poetry
as recited, we take the ballad, or poetry made fully melodic, we have
the single voice, passing through measured inflections and with measured
pauses. Correspondingly, the next in the series of Turner drawings, the
"Aysgarth Force," shows no attempt to give the real color of Nature, but
a single color governing the whole drawing, a golden brown passing in
shadow into its exact negative. There is an absolute tint, full, and
inflected through every shade of its tones to the bottom of the scale.
The strict analogy is broken in this case by a dash of delicate
gray-blue in the sky and gray-red in the figures, the slightest possible
accompaniment to his golden-brown melody; but these were not needed, and
we find earlier drawings which adhere to the strict monochrome. In the
drawing next in date, the "Hastings from the