TURNER AND MIS WORKS..
Appreciative criticism of Turner is no easy thing. In the first place, the artist, in poetic insight and creativeness, is greatly above what his critic is likely to be. Then comes the difficulty of disentangling instead of cutting the Gordian knot presented by the question of the later as con- nected with the earlier examples of his final style. Even the earnest and intelligent admirer of Turner is liable to be betrayed into investing these from his own imagination with the qualities he desires to find in them. The adopter of opinion from hearsay has no resource but to suppose they must be right somehow, because he knows Turner was a great msi, or else to follow the stream of those who can only laugh. The uninrmed spectator, who has no reputation for connoisseurship to keep up, is sure to do the latter. Few can venture honestly to say that they are not puzzled at times what to think. For our own part—speaking without the clue which might perhaps have been gained from personal acquaintance with the deceased painter— we are unable to form or gather any theory more satisfactory to ourselves than what we expressed at the time of his death—that in his latest works he aimed simply and experimentally at representing essences, and not facts. He painted blueness, not a Southern sky ; multitudinousness, not a multitude gorgeousness, not "barbaric pearl and gold" or (to take his own tide) "Rain, Steam, and Speed," not "the Great Western Rail- way." On this principle, it would often be indifferent to him whether he coloured a cat green or tabby, for some essential quality of the cat, other than its colour, may have been that which he desired to express for the particular purpose of the work in hand.
Of the book before us we recognize the former part, the Memoir by Mr Cunningham, as an enlargement of that which appeared as an obituary notice in the Athemeum. The preface disclaims any mutual responsibility between Mr. Cunningham's opinions and Mr. Burners; and evidently not without reason. In the eyes of the former, Turner's genius reached its culminating point in 1820; after which he entered upon a course of extravagance more or less poetic and mitigated by fine quali- ties, his latest works being " dotages and lees." We can by no means acquiesce in the opinion, which would exclude from examples of the painter's best period such pictures as the "Mercury and Argue," the
Ancient Italy," and "The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth." On the contrary, we believe that the decade within which these works, and other such, were produced—or from about 1829 to 1839—was the noblest of Turner's career, as it was certainly that which chiefly made his life an epoch in art.
Mr. Burners portion of the book is an intelligent technical essay., show- ing diligent investigation and sifting of the particular instances in order to extract a general principle. It is a manual of style, well adapted to assist the student in his analysis, or to cram him, as the case may be. But Mr. Burnet does not quite rise "to the height of his great argu- ment." He confines himself too exclusively to matters of light and shade, the harmonizing and contrasting of lines, tree-forms and sky- forms; and we are not satisfied with finding the change from a darker to a lighter tone of colour propounded substantially as the ultimatum of Turner's later style. In a word, Mr. Burnet' a point of view is too much that of a believer in traditions and authorities, which, however respectable, do not supply a standard of height whereby to measure such a man as Turner. Moreover, the matter is placed rather unsystematically, so that the reader scarcely gets all the profit he might out of it in the readiest way. This want of sequence in the broader outlines affects even the indi- vidual sentences, and passages occur of which the wording at least, if not the thought, is illogical. As thus— "This training of the ideas to be under the control of the eye constitutes the education of a painter and he who commences with merely a palette and brushes as his stock in trade will soon be made sensible of his wants. This education is not to be found in Nature, unless we refer to the works of the great artists who have preceded us as a means of learning her language. Reynolds was taught by the contemplation of the works of Titian, Velasmiez and Rembrandt; Lawrence by the pictures of Vandyek and Rubens; EU; by those of Titian and Paul Veronese; and Turner from the contemplation of the pictures of Claude, Cuyp, and Poussin. He who expects to arrive at excellence by any other method, will dwindle into a mere imitator or fol- lower in the wake of these great masters of the English school, and acquire that celebrity only which successful plagiarism confers." Now we cannot understand how neglect of the study of preceding art- ists should end in plagiarism. Learning from Nature and nothing but Nature may be a good plan or a bad one' but we are at a loss to trace the steps by which it should lead its devotee down among the mere imitators or followers of great masters of the English or any other school.
Mr. Burnet illustrates the book by some very clever etchings from Turner's works—brilliant and masterly. That of the Temeraire, for in- stance, gives as good a notion of the painter's water and sky as can be reasonably hoped for ; though Mr. Burnet is apt to touch some of the cloud-outlines too scratchily.
A word of that old butt the "Fallacies of Hope" ; which Mr. Cun- ningham holds up to ridicule in his Memoir, gathering together its un- revered bones from the Academy catalogues, though some passages, quoted in the index of Turner's pictures, are omitted from his budget. That they contain more than a spice of extravagance, and no spice worth mentioning of metre, is undeniable - but they are really not unworthy of a Bedlam muse," and the idea that their obscurity reaches the unin- telligible pitch is exaggerated. Vigorous thought and expression gleam here and there. At any. rate, the "MS. Fallacies of Hope" is a literary curiosity, and as such might be worth publishing.
• Turner and his Works. By John Burnet. The Memoir by Peter Cunningham. Published by Bogue.
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