[24] The inconsistency between perfections of color and form, which I have had to insist upon in other places, is exactly like that between articulation and harmony. We cannot have the richest harmony with the sharpest and most audible articulation of words: yet good singers will articulate clearly: and the perfect study of the science of music will conduct to a fine articulation; but the study of pronunciation will not conduct to, nor involve, that of harmony. So, also, though, as said farther on, _subtle_ expression can be got without color, perfect expression never can; for the color of the face is a part of its expression. How often has that scene between Francesca di Rimini and her lover been vainly attempted by sculptors, simply because they did not observe that the main note of expression in it was in the fair sheet-lightning--fading and flaming through the cloud of passion!
Per più flate gli occhi ci sospinse Quella lettura, _e scolorocci il viso_.
And, of course, in landscape, color is the principal source of expression. Take one melancholy chord from the close of Crabbe's Patron:
"Cold grew the foggy morn; the day was brief, Loose on the cherry hung the crimson leaf. The dew dwelt ever on the herb; the woods Roared with strong blasts; with mighty showers, the floods All green was vanished, save of pine and yew That still displayed their melancholy hue; Save the green holly, with its berries red And the green moss that o'er the gravel spread."
OF TURNERIAN MYSTERY:--FIRST, AS ESSENTIAL.
§ 1. In the preceding chapters we have shown the nature of Turner's art; first, as respected sympathy with his subject; next, as respected fidelity in local detail; and thirdly, as respected principles of color. We have now finally to confirm what in various places has been said respecting his principles of _delineation_, or that mysterious and apparently uncertain execution by which he is distinguished from most other painters.
In Chap. III. § 17 of the preceding volume we concluded generally that all great drawing was _distinct_ drawing; but with reference, nevertheless, to a certain sort of indistinctness, necessary to the highest art, and afterwards to be explained. And the inquiry into this seeming contradiction has, I trust, been made somewhat more interesting by what we saw respecting modern art in the fourth paragraph of Chap. XVI., namely, that it was distinguished from old art eminently by _in_distinctness, and by its idle omission of details for the sake of general effect. Perhaps also, of all modern artists, Turner is the one to whom most people would first look as the great representative of this nineteenth century cloudiness, and "ingenious speaking concerning smoke;" every one of his compositions being evidently dictated by a delight in seeing only a part of things rather than the whole, and in casting clouds and mist around them rather than unveiling them.