Turner's work, as has been said before, is peculiarly his own. It is true that in the earlier pictures the influence of Claude Lorraine is evident; but upon this root is engrafted an audacity in the conception of color, a research of luminosity in comparison with which nearly all painting is eclipsed. That this refulgence is tinged now and then with exaggeration, with a forcing of effect that destroys the sense of weight and solidity in depicted objects where this sense should prevail, is certain. But it is not the least of his merits that he was endowed with a sureness of taste which enabled him to avoid the rock on which all his imitators have split--his work is never spectacular. It is perhaps at its best when he has the simple elements of sea and sky as his theme. Here, with the intangible qualities of air and light, textureless and diaphanous, he is most at home. When it becomes a question of the representation of earth, buildings, or trees, one feels the lack of loving subservience to nature; the spirit against which the art of Constable is eloquent lurks here too much. [Illustration: PEACE--BURIAL AT SEA OF THE BODY OF SIR DAVID WILKIE. FROM A PAINTING BY J.M.W. TURNER IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY. "The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side, And merit's corse was yielded to the tide." --_Fallacies of Hope._ The "Fallacies of Hope" was an imaginary poem from which Turner professed to quote whenever he wanted a line or a couplet to explain his pictures, the avowed quotation being really of his own composition. Sir David Wilkie, the distinguished painter, died at sea on his way home from the Orient, June 1, 1841. His body was consigned to the sea at midnight of that day. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842.] The stone-pines of Italy are seen through the distortion of convention, the palaces of Venice were never builded by the hand of man; and we lose by this the contrast which nature provides between solid earth and filmy cloud. The onlooker must indeed be devoid of imagination, however, if he can stand before those pictures of Turner where the limitless sky is reflected in the waters, without profound emotion. They may not seem _natural_ in such sense as one finds works of more realistic aim; but one must at least agree with Turner, in the time-worn story of the lady who taxed him with violation of natural law, saying that she had never seen a sky like one in the picture before them. "Possibly," growled the unruffled painter; "but don't you wish you could?" [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A BOY. FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN OPIE, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON. This is believed to be a portrait of the painter's younger brother, William Opie.]