Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/493

 are, the further he departs from this lovely impression of natural truth; and when we read the above maxim, we know why. However, the principle was not one about which he had no misgiving, for very fluctuating if not quite conflicting opinions on this point might be quoted from his writings.

No special consideration has yet been entered on here of Blake's claim as a colourist, but it is desirable that this should be done now in winding up the subject, both because his place in this respect among painters is very peculiar, and also on account of the many misleading things he wrote regarding colour, carried away at the moment, after his fiery fashion, by the predominance he wished to give to other qualities in some argument in hand. Another reason why his characteristics, in this respect, need to be dwelt upon is, that certainly his most original and prismatic system of colour,—in which tints laid on side by side, each in its utmost force, are made by masterly treatment to produce a startling and novel effect of truth,—must be viewed as being, more decidedly than the system of any other painter, the forerunner of a style of execution now characterising a whole new section of the English School, and making itself admitted as actually invoking some positive additions to the resources of the art. Some of the out-door pictures of this class, studied as they are with a closeness of imitation perhaps unprecedented, have nevertheless no slight essential affinity to Blake's way of representing natural scenes, though the smallness of scale in these latter, and the spiritual quality which always mingles with their truth to nature, may render the parallel less apparent than it otherwise would be. In Blake's colouring of landscape, a subtle and exquisite reality forms quite as strong an element as does ideal grandeur; whether we find him dealing with the pastoral sweetness of drinking cattle at a stream, their hides and fleeces all glorified by sunset with magic rainbow hues; or revealing to us, in a flash of creative genius, some parted sky and beaten sea full of portentous expectation. One unfailing sign of his true