Sec. 22. And I shall attempt to do this, first, by examining what the real effect of the things painted--clouds, or mountains, or whatever else they may be--is, or ought to be, in general, on men's minds, showing the grounds of their beauty or impressiveness as best I can; and then examining how far Turner seems to have understood these reasons of beauty, and how far his work interprets, or can take the place of nature. But in doing this, I shall, for the sake of convenience, alter the arrangement which I followed in the first volume; and instead of examining the sky first, treat of it last; because, in many illustrations which I must give of other things, I shall have to introduce pieces of sky background which will all be useful for reference when I can turn back to them from the end of the book, but which I could not refer to in advance without anticipating all my other illustrations. Nevertheless, some points which I have to note respecting the meaning of the sky are so intimately connected with the subjects we have just been examining, that I cannot properly defer their consideration to another place; and I shall state them, therefore, in the next chapter, afterwards proceeding, in the order I adopted in the first volume, to examine the beauty of mountains, water, and vegetation. FOOTNOTES [32] Art and Artists in England, vol. ii., p. 151. The other characteristics which Dr. Waagen discovers in Turner are, "such a looseness of treatment, such a total want of truth, as I never before met with." [33] And yet, all these intricacies will produce for it another whole; as simple and natural as the child's first conception of the thing; only more comprehensive. See above, Chap. III., Sec. 21. [34] Compare Vol. III. Chap. XIV. Sec. 13. Touching the exact degree in which ignorance or incapacity is mingled with wilful conventionalism in this drawing, we shall inquire in the chapters on Vegetation. [35] Only the _main_ lines: the outer sprays have had no pains taken with them, as I am going to put some leaves on them in next volume. [36] It is quite impossible to facsimile good free work. Both Turner and Harding suffer grievously in this plate. CHAPTER VI. THE FIRMAMENT. Sec. 1. The task which we now enter upon, as explained in the close of the preceding chapter, is the ascertaining as far as possible what the proper effect of the natural beauty of different objects _ought_ to be on the human mind, and the degree in which this nature of theirs, and true influence, have been understood and transmitted by Turner.