MASTERPIECES OF THE SEA
soul which stood for him, and him alone—his penetrating individuality—he would not have made works which all his contemporaries acknowledge as embodiments of truth and beauty when they say: "That is a Richards."
And this suffusion of his art into himself was shown as well in his color. He was not at the beginning a rich or great colorist. If he had shortcomings in his talent, color was the principal of them. He had individuality and personal traits in his color as he had in all he did. This was another manifestation of the spirit's influence which made a unit of his work. All that he did stood for something distinctly emanating from himself. But color was not his strong point, as were fidelity and drawing and composition and selection. He was nearly always unerring in these, but in color he was sometimes perfect in detail, as often with that difficult under-side of a wave curving to a fall where the sudzy white mingles with the ineffable green; and again he would fail to give the freshness
51
