Of Turner’s technical skill in water-colour, there is no need to speak; his command of his material was absolute and has never been equalled. And his sense of design, of balance, of rhythm--of what is termed “style”--was always present. He had caught it at the outset of his career from his close study of Richard Wilson, who had inherited it as a tradition from Caspar Poussin, Claude, and the painters of the seventeenth century. Rarely is there anything tentative about his drawings. They are decisive--the design was almost invariably seen by him as a whole, from the beginning. Often his work did not please him, and if it was finished it was discarded; if unfinished, it was carried no further--as may be seen in several of the drawings recently (1908) exhibited at the National Gallery, and a good many of the oil pictures at the Tate Gallery. He was also emphatically a great colourist--one of the greatest; during the latter half of his life he thought in colour, and composed in colour, and it was with him an integral part of every design. That is why his drawings can never be adequately reproduced by ordinary photography. During middle life, as has been pointed out, his colour at times became forced and florid, but it was never more pure, never more beautiful, never more noble, than in his latest sketches.
At times, no doubt, Turner’s water-colours, especially those executed between 1820 and 1836, have a tendency to undue complexity of design, and to overcrowding both of subject and lights. Possibly to some extent this was due to the prevailing standard of English art and English taste at that time. Then, perhaps even more than now, high finish was too often unduly insisted on. But you will never find too high finish or overcrowding in the drawings which he made _for himself_! His figures, also, were frequently unsatisfactory. It was not that he could not draw them--at first they were dainty and careful, as may be seen in the two early drawings, Plates I. and III. But in his later years he seemed to regard figures simply as points of light, colour or composition--they were always effective as such--and he often treated them carelessly--sometimes even coarsely--to the detriment of some of his otherwise most beautiful works.