§ 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 to local detail; and thirdly, as respected principles of colour. 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; referring, 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 indistinctness, 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 part of things rather than the whole, and in casting clouds and mist around them rather than unveiling them.