Perfection in Imperfection

“I believe it is a result of the experience of all artists, that it is the easiest thing in the world to give a certain degree of depth and transparency to water; but that it is next thing to impossible, to give a full impression of surface. If no reflection be given—a ripple being supposed—the water looks like lead: if reflection be given, it in nine cases out of ten looks morbidly clear and deep, so that we always go down into it, even when the artist most wishes us to glide over it.” Chapter III of Water, As Painter by Turner


This piece captures the surface of water so accurately it is almost as if I am there instead of looking at a painting. I don’t feel the water is “morbidly clear and deep”, but it does allow the viewer’s eyes to glide over it. I think the landscape surrounding the water and the clouds in the sky all help even this out and sort of draw the viewer’s attention to the center of the painting.

“We invariably, under ordinary circumstances, use the surface focus; and, in consequence, receive nothing more than a vague and confused impression of the reflected colors and lines, however clearly, calmly, and vigorously all may be defined underneath, if we choose to look for them. We do not look for them, but glide along over the surface, catching only playing light and capricious color for evidence of reflection, except where we come to images of objects close to the surface, which the surface focus is of course adapted to receive; and these we see clearly, as of the weeds on the shore, or of sticks rising out of the water, etc.”

I think this painting shows exactly what was written in this section. When looking at reflections in water directly it is as if you are almost staring at the tree or the sky itself. Especially if the water is calm it acts as a mirror of some sorts. However, if you choose not to focus on the water directly and put your sights on some point behind it like in this painting in which the artist draws the view to the center point of the landscape where the sky and earth meet, then your eyes don’t capture the reflection of the water in its entirety. The reflections in the water become obscured.

“We cannot tell when we look at them and for them, what they mean. They have all character, and are evidently reflections of something definite and determined; but yet they are all uncertain and inexplicable; playing color and palpitating shade, which, though we recognize in an instant for images of something, and feel that the water is bright, and lovely, and calm, we cannot penetrate nor interpret: we are not allowed to go down to them, and we repose, as we should in nature, upon the lustre of the level surface. It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art here, as in all other cases, consists.”

The whole concept of “saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly” creates this “perfection of art” that is really honest. The painting above along with these statements shows how heavily the artists and the school were influenced by Romanticism. The perfection of the painting is so intense it looks almost like a picture taken with a camera and shows the artist was trying to simply paint the “truth” and what was right in front of them at the time. The whole idea of these imperfect reflections amongst the “perfect” background is so real and honest. It makes the painting something that is both beautiful and simple all at once.