He was a chiaroscurist, and not naturally offended by their violent light and shade, until George Richmond showed him the more excellent way in colour, the glow of Venice, first hinting it at Rome in 1840, and then proving it in London in the spring of 1842 from Samuel Rogers' treasures, of which the chief (now in the National Gallery) was the "Christ appearing to the Magdalen." Much as the author of "Modern Painters" owed to these friends and teachers, and to the advantages of his varied training, he would never have written his great work without a further inspiration.

Harding's especial forte was his method of drawing trees.

He looked at Nature with an eye which, for his period, was singularly fresh and unprejudiced; he had a strong feeling for truth of structure as well as for picturesque effect, and he taught his pupils to observe as well as to draw.

But in his own practice he rested too much on _having observed_; formed a style, and copied himself if he did not copy the old masters; Hence he held to rules of composition and conscious graces of arrangement; and while he taught naturalism in study, he followed it up with teaching artifice in practice.
Turner, who was not a drawing-master, lay under no necessity to formulate his principles and stick to them.

On the contrary, his style developed like a kaleidoscope.