From the book, "The Oxford Book of the Sea", Jonathan Raban
Aaron T. Farr
book, "The Oxford Book of the Sea", Jonathan Raban, a large collection of
short stories and poems about the sea.
Best wishes,
Aaron
PROFESSOR ANSTED
from 'The Representation of Water'
The mobility of water is at the bottom of all the properties which render
the element artistic. It is
the life which ensures such incessant power to express I ideas; it is the
perpetual change which
gives the highest of all interest. 'To paint water in all its perfection is
as impossible as to paint the
soul.' This remark of Mr Ruskin's, as striking as it is accurately true, is
only one of the innumerable
passing hints by which that suggestive writer has enriched the literature of
Art.
The variety of colour of water is not less remarkable than its infinite
mobility. Water has its own
tint; it reflects and transmits a true shade. But the colour actually seen
depends on the transparency
of the water, on the nature of the light that it is exposed to, on the
nature of the bottom if of any
moderate depth, on the angle at which the light falls, and on the objects
around, whose colour is
also reflected. Look, for example, at a spit of flat sand, just covered by
a few ,inches of water on
an advancing tide: at first, and close to the observer, the sand will be
seen through the water; but at
a little distance, shallow as the water really is, it will look to grow
deeper and deeper, because the
reflected rays from its surface are more and more y transmitted rays, in
proportion as the distance
of the water from the eye increases. This is easily verified if we watch
larger extent of the sand
becomes covered, so does the e deeper water seem to advance. just in the
same way from a pond or
shallow pool of fresh water, whether clear or muddy, differs according to
the distance. What
seems, and is, muddy when quite near, loses that appearance altogether a
little farther off. Under
these circumstances, the colour is modified by the distance in reality, and
the depth in appearance.
That water has a colour of its own is almost certain, but it is also the
,that it very easily assumes,
or appears to assume, different tints. Entering the British Channel from
the Atlantic, every sailor
knows, passengers soon learn to know, the diminished depth from the altered
colour. A nearer
approach to land is yet more marked; and yet the comparatively shallow
water thus first observed is
several hundred feet deep, and the actual quantity of transmitted colour
cannot in differ. The effect is,
perhaps, derived from other causes than absolute tint of the water, as we
know that in open sea mar
currents will have a somewhat similar effect.
Of the physical properties that help to lead the artist in the right
direction in the delineation of water,
that power of acting u almost all substances in nature which especially
characterises it, perhaps, the most
important; it is certainly the most remarkable Water acts directly on all
rocks, partly by dissolving and
helping decompose them, and partly by eating away and bodily removing such
broken portions as come
under its influence. In this sense, an this manner, the whole surface of
the earth-every rock, every c every
plain and valley-certainly owes its peculiarities of form, all that in
itself is characteristic, to water action.
Almost every r has been deposited from water, has been washed and worn by
waves, has been eaten into
by marine currents and rivers, has b bored through by water trickling down
from the surface into interior,
or up from the interior to the surface. Thus, water b connected with all
natural appearances, and with
most changes, study of it is really the most important of all studies, and
to understand the nature of its
action is desirable for every artist.
Proceeding now to special phenomena, let us first consider that reservoir
covering three-fifths of the
surface of our globe, presenting from time to time, all conceivable
differences of condition, -- raging and
furious, presently calm and peaceful; its bosom gently heaving with the
rising or falling tide, or lashed
into foam by tempest and the whirlwind.
The colour of water in the open ocean we have already alluded and it is not
less varied than it is beautiful.
In fine weather, of deepest and most exquisite clear blue, it is so
sensitive as to thicken and become
muddy with approaching change. During a great it is sometimes of one
uniform dead whiteness of foam,
and black and colourless, having lost all the tints so characteristic of
other times. Immediately after a
storm, the air and water worked into a strange and fitful state-fearful to
watch, but h be expressed either
by the pencil or pen. But, not only does the vary with these extremes of
weather. From day to day, and
even hour to hour, as he is carried into other latitudes, and departs and
more from his starting-place, the
traveller sees new phases of beauty; sea-weed drifts past him of unfamiliar
forms, and this alters the tone
of the water in which it floats. A fringe of snow-white breakers marks a
dangerous coral reef, or a low
mist on the surface a treacherous shoal. Each change in depth, or in the
current he crossing, is indicated
by a fresh tint; and whether he is able to look down scores of fathoms to
white rocks and shells below, or
his eye seeks in vain for repose in the unfathomable blue deep on who bosom
he is gently rocked, there is
always enough to satisfy the most restless and curious student, and always
abundant interest in
contemplating the reflections of the ever-changing sky.
But the phenomena of waves are, perhaps, more striking, and are quite as
difficult to represent. They also
involve variety without end. From the gentlest ripple to the most violent
disturbance the gradations
infinite; and the waves vary, not only with their magnitude, but the depth
of the water in which they are
formed. Every wave surface, besides having its own height and width as a
wave, is also covered with
small ripples, so that perfectly smooth surfaces of water are rare and
exceptional appearances. The waves
on a rocky shore exhibit a metallic greenness, and a rich depth of colour,
that is illustrated, but not
exaggerated, in Hook's admirable and well known pictures. In them the pure
water-character is retained,
in spite of the apparent hardness of the tone, and they afford studies of a
high order, teaching some most
difficult and little known truths.