The coast painter can produce an excellent illusion of motion from waves breaking on a beach, for in nature this action is made up of a series of different consecutive acts each of which is easily distinguishable to the eye. The wave rises, bends over its top which becomes crested, and splashes forward on the beach, to be converted into foam which races onwards, breaking up as it goes till it reaches the watermark, then rapidly falling back to be met by another wave. Here is a series of consecutive incidents which can all be painted so as to deceive for a moment with the idea of motion. The attempt to represent the action of waves breaking against steep rocks is invariably a failure, because of the great reduction of the apparent number of incidents forming the consecutive series. In nature the eye is not quick enough to follow the separate events, and so they cannot be distinguished in a painting. Thomson's fine picture of Fast Castle is distinctly marred by a wide irregular column of water shown splashing up against a rock. There is no possibility here of representing a series of actions, and so an instant suffices to fix the water on the rock. In another work by the same artist there are waves breaking against precipitous rocks, but in this case the water first passes over an expanse of low lying rocks, and a sequence of actions is shown right up to the cliff, an excellent illusion of movement being brought about.[a] [a] Dunluce Castle, which with Fast Castle, is in the Kingsborough Collection, Scotland. Apart from those exhibiting an illusion of motion of some kind, the only landscapes which have a permanent value, are near-ground scenes in which conditions of atmosphere of common experience, as rain or storm are faithfully rendered. In these works the signs must be numerous and varied in character, for it is only in the multiplication of small changes of form and tone that the natural effects of a particular weather condition can be imitated. Jacob Ruysdael and Constable were the greatest masters of this form of landscape, Crome and Boecklin closely approaching them, but it is uncommon for a serious worker in landscape to attempt a picture where distance is not recorded. The best paintings of Constable present an illusion of opening distance, and when Jacob Ruysdael painted near-ground only, it was nearly always a hilly slope with water breaking over low rocks.