painter, diminishing the repose and exalting the force and fire of his conceptions, and the presence of Color, as at least an essential, and often a principal, element of design.
Not that it is impossible, or even unusual, to find drawings of serene subject and perfectly quiet feeling among the compositions of this period; but the repose is in them, just as the energy and tumult were in the earlier period, an external quality, which the painter images by an effort of the will: it is no longer a character inherent in himself. The "Ulleswater," in the English series, is one of those which are in most perfect peace; in the "Cowes," the silence is only broken by the dash of the boat's oars, and in the "Alnwick" by a stag drinking; but in at least nine drawings out of ten either sky, water, or figures are in rapid motion, and the grandest drawings are almost always those which have even violent action in one or other, or in all: e.g., high force of Tees, Coventry, Llanthony, Salisbury, Llanberis, and such others.
The color is, however, a more absolute distinction, and we must return to Mr.