[109] Educated, as we shall see hereafter, first in this school. 
  Turner gave the hackneyed composition a strange power and
  freshness, in his Glaucus and Scylla. [Ruskin.]

[110] Flodden, Flodden Field, a plain in Northumberland, famous as the battlefield where James IV of Scotland was defeated by an English army under the Earl of Surrey, Sept. 9, 1513.  The sixth canto of Scott’s Marmion gives a fairly accurate description of the action.

  Chevy-Chase, a famous old English ballad recounting the incidents
  of the battle of Otterburn [Aug. 19, 1388] in which the Scots under
  the Earl of Douglas defeated the English under the Percies.

  [111] Shenstone’s Rural Elegance, 201 ff., quoted with some
  slight inaccuracies.

OF MODERN LANDSCAPE

VOLUME III, CHAPTER 16

We turn our eyes, therefore, as boldly and as quickly as may be, from these serene fields and skies of mediaeval art, to the most characteristic examples of modern landscape.  And, I believe, the first thing that will strike us, or that ought to strike us, is their cloudiness.

Out of perfect light and motionless air, we find ourselves on a sudden brought under sombre skies, and into drifting wind; and, with fickle sunbeams flashing in our face, or utterly drenched with sweep of rain, we are reduced to track the changes of the shadows on the grass, or watch the rents of twilight through angry cloud.  And we find that whereas all the pleasure of the mediaeval was in stability, definiteness, and luminousness, we are expected to rejoice in darkness, and triumph in mutability; to lay the foundation of happiness in things which momentarily change or fade; and to expect the utmost satisfaction and instruction from what it is impossible to arrest, and difficult to comprehend.

We find, however, together with this general delight in breeze and darkness, much attention to the real form of clouds, and careful drawing of effects of mist; so that the appearance of objects, as seen through it, becomes a subject of science with us; and the faithful representation of that appearance is made of primal importance, under the name of aerial perspective.  The aspects of sunset and sunrise, with all their attendant phenomena of cloud and mist, are watchfully delineated; and in ordinary daylight landscape, the sky is considered of so much importance, that a principal mass of foliage, or a whole foreground, is unhesitatingly thrown into shade merely to bring out the form of a white cloud.  So that, if a general and characteristic name were needed for modern landscape art, none better could be invented than “the service of clouds.”