To suggest the ordinary appearance of calm water, to lay on canvas as
much evidence of surface and reflection as may make us understand that
water is meant, is, perhaps, the easiest task of art; and even ordinary
running or falling water may be sufficiently rendered, by observing
careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little
white over it, as we see done with judgment and truth by Ruysdael. But
to paint the actual play of hue on the reflective surface, or to give
the forms and fury of water when it begins to show itself; to give the
flashing and rocket-like velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision
and grace of the sea wave, so exquisitely modelled, though so mockingly
transient, so mountainous in its form, yet so cloudlike in its motion,
with its variety and delicacy of colour, when every ripple and wreath
has some peculiar passage of reflection upon itself alone, and the
radiating and scintillating sunbeams are mixed with the dim hues of
transparent depth and dark rock below--to do this perfectly is beyond
the power of man; to do it even partially has been granted to but one or
two, even of those few who have dared to attempt it.
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