Section V. Of Truth of Water

Chapter I.—Of Water, as Painted by the Ancients.

§ 1. Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water.

§ 2. The ease with which a common representation of it may be given. The impossibility of a faithful one.

§ 3. Difficulty of properly dividing the subject.

§ 4. Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among all painters.

§ 5. Difficulty of treating this part of the subject.

§ 6. General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. First, The imperfection of its reflective surface.

§ 7. The inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does not affect right ones.

§ 8. Water takes no shadow.

§ 9. Modification of dark reflections by shadow.

§ 10. Examples on the waters of the Rhone.

§ 11. Effect of ripple on distant water.

§ 12. Elongation of reflections by moving water.

§ 13. Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images.

§ 14. To what extent reflection is visible from above.

§ 15. Deflection of images on agitated water.

§ 16. Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science. Licenses, how taken by great men.

§ 17. Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp, Vandevelde.

§ 18. And Canaletto.

§ 19. Why unpardonable.

§ 20. The Dutch painters of sea.

§ 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator.

§ 22. Nicolo Poussin.

§ 23. Venetians and Florentines. Conclusion.

chapter II.—Of Water, as Painted by the Moderns.

§ 1. General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. The lakes of Fielding.

§ 2. The calm rivers of De Wint, J. Holland, &c.

§ 3. The character of bright and violent falling water.

§ 4. As given by Nesfield.

§ 5. The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding.

§ 6. His color; and painting of sea.

§ 7. The sea of Copley Fielding. Its exceeding grace and rapidity.

§ 8. Its high aim at character.

§ 9. But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays.

§ 10. Variety of the grays of nature.

§ 11. Works of Stanfield. His perfect knowledge and power.

§ 12. But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern art.

Chapter III.—Of Water, as Painted by Turner.

§ 1. The difficulty of giving surface to smooth water.

§ 2. Is dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by which the reflected rays are perceived.

§ 3. Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by distinctness of reflections.

§ 4. How avoided by Turner.

§ 5. All reflections on distant water are distinct.

§ 6. The error of Vandevelde.

§ 7. Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected object and its image.

§ 8. Illustrated from the works of Turner.

§ 9. The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it.

§ 10. The texture of surface in Turner's painting of calm water.

§ 11. Its united qualities.

§ 12. Relation of various circumstances of past agitation, &c., by the most trifling incidents, as in the Cowes.

§ 13. In scenes on the Loire and Seine.

§ 14. Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore.

§ 15. Various other instances.

§ 16. Turner's painting of distant expanses of water.—Calm, interrupted by ripple.

§ 17. And rippled, crossed by sunshine.

§ 18. His drawing of distant rivers.

§ 19. And of surface associated with mist.

§ 20. His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of weight.

§ 21. The abandonment and plunge of great cataracts. How given by him.

§ 22. Difference in the action of water, when continuous and when interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of its bed.

§ 23. But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.

§ 24. Its exquisite curved lines.

§ 25. Turner's careful choice of the historical truth.

§ 26. His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the Llanthony Abbey.

§ 27. And of the interrupted torrent in the Mercury and Argus.

§ 28. Various cases.

§ 29. Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.

§ 30. Character of shore-breakers, also inexpressible.

§ 31. Their effect how injured when seen from the shore.

§ 32. Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea.

§ 33. With peculiar expression of weight.

§ 34. Peculiar action of recoiling waves.

§ 35. And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore.

§ 36. General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in the Land's End.

§ 37. Open seas of Turner's earlier time.

§ 38. Effect of sea after prolonged storm.

§ 39. Turner's noblest work, the painting of the deep open sea in the Slave Ship.

§ 40. Its united excellences and perfection as a whole.