"In the distance is something white, which I believe must be intended for a snowy mountain, because I do not see that it can well be intended for anything else. Now no mountain of elevation sufficient to be sheeted with perpetual snow can by any possibility sink so low on the horizon as this something of Claude's, unless it be at a distance of from fifty to seventy miles. At such distances ... the mountains rise from the horizon like transparent films, only distinguishable from mist by their excessively keen edges and their brilliant flashes of sudden light; they are as unsubstantial as the air itself, and impress their enormous size by means of this aerial-ness, in a far greater degree at these vast distances, than even when towering above the spectator's head.[50] Now, I ask of the candid observer if there be the smallest vestige of an effort to attain, if there be the most miserable, the most contemptible, shadow of attainment of such an effect by Claude? Does that white thing on the horizon look seventy miles off? Is it faint or fading, or to be looked for by the eye before it can be found out? Does it look high? Does it look large? Does it look impressive? You cannot but feel that there is not a vestige of any kind or species of truth in that horizon; and that however artistical it may be, as giving brilliancy to the distance (though as far as I have any feeling in the matter it only gives coldness), it is, in the very branch of art on which Claude's reputation chiefly rests, aerial perspective, hurling defiance to nature in her very teeth. But there are worse failures in this unlucky distance.... No mountain was ever raised to the level of perpetual snow without an infinite multiplicity of form. Its foundation is built of a hundred minor mountains, and from these, great buttresses run in converging ridges to the central peak.... Consequently, in distant effect, when chains of such peaks are visible at once, the multiplicity of form is absolutely oceanic; and though it is possible in near scenes to find vast and simple masses composed of lines which run unbroken for a thousand feet or more, it is physically impossible when these masses are thrown seventy miles back to have simple outlines, for then these large features become mere jags and hillocks, and are heaped and huddled together in endless confusion.... Hence these mountains of Claude having no indication of the steep vertical summits which are characteristic of the central ridges, having soft edges instead of decisive ones, simple forms instead of varied and broken ones, and being painted with a crude raw white, having no transparency, nor filminess, nor air in it,