Chapter III: Preface: To the Second Edition (2)

I repeat then, generalization, as the word is commonly understood, is the act of a vulgar, incapable, and unthinking mind. To see in all mountains nothing but similar heaps of earth; in all rocks, nothing but similar concretions of solid matter; in all trees, nothing but similar accumulations of leaves, is no sign of high feeling or extended thought. The more we know, and the more we feel, the more we separate; we separate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the thoughts of the peasant, lie as they do on his field, one is like another, and there is no connection between any of them. The geologist distinguishes, and in distinguishing connects them. Each becomes different from its fellow, but in differing from, assumes a relation to its fellow; they are no more each the repetition of the other,--they are parts of a system, and each implies and is connected with the existence of the rest. That generalization then is right, true, and noble, which is based on the knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relations of individual kinds. That generalization is wrong, false, and contemptible, which is based on ignorance of the one, and disturbance of the other. It is indeed no generalization, but confusion and chaos; it is the generalization of a defeated army into indistinguishable impotence--the generalization of the elements of a dead carcass into dust.

Let us, then, without farther notice of the dogmata of the schools of art, follow forth those conclusions to which we are led by observance of the laws of nature.

I have just said that every class of rock, earth and cloud, must be known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic accuracy.[K] Nor is this merely for the sake of obtaining the character of these minor features themselves, but more especially for the sake of reaching that simple, earnest, and consistent character which is visible in the _whole_ effect of every natural landscape. Every geological formation has features entirely peculiar to itself; definite lines of fracture, giving rise to fixed resultant forms of rock and earth; peculiar vegetable products, among which still farther distinctions are wrought out by variations of climate and elevation. From such modifying circumstances arise the infinite varieties of the orders of landscape, of which each one shows perfect harmony among its several features, and possesses an ideal beauty of its own; a beauty not distinguished merely by such peculiarities as are wrought on the human form by change of climate, but by generic differences the most marked and essential; so that its classes cannot be generalized or amalgamated by any expedients whatsoever. The level marshes and rich meadows of the tertiary, the rounded swells and short pastures of the chalk, the square-built cliffs and cloven dells of the lower limestone, the soaring peaks and ridgy precipices of the primaries, having nothing in common among them--nothing which is not distinctive and incommunicable. Their very atmospheres are different--their clouds are different--their humors of storm and sunshine are different--their flowers, animals and forests are different. By each order of landscape--and its orders, I repeat, are infinite in number, corresponding not only to the several species of rock, but to the particular circumstances of the rocks' deposition or after treatment, and to the incalculable varieties of climate, aspect, and human interference:--by each order of landscape, I say, peculiar lessons are intended to be taught, and distinct pleasures to be conveyed; and it is as utterly futile to talk of generalizing their impressions into an ideal landscape, as to talk of amalgamating all nourishment into one ideal food, gathering all music into one ideal movement, or confounding all thought into one ideal idea.

There is, however, such a thing as composition of different orders of landscape, though there can be no generalization of them. Nature herself perpetually brings together elements of various expression. Her barren rocks stoop through wooded promontories to the plain; and the wreaths of the vine show through their green shadows the wan light of unperishing snow.

The painter, therefore, has the choice of either working out the isolated character of some one distinct class of scene, or of bringing together a multitude of different elements, which may adorn each other by contrast.

I believe that the simple and uncombined landscape, if wrought out with due attention to the ideal beauty of the features it includes, will always be the most powerful in its appeal to the heart. Contrast increases the splendor of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power. On this subject I shall have much to say hereafter; at present I merely wish to suggest the possibility, that the single-minded painter, who is working out on broad and simple principles, a piece of unbroken, harmonious landscape character, may be reaching an end in art quite as high as the more ambitious student who is always "within five minutes' walk of everywhere," making the ends of the earth contribute to his pictorial guazzetto;[L] and the certainty, that unless the composition of the latter be regulated by severe judgment, and its members connected by natural links, it must become more contemptible in its motley, than an honest study of roadside weeds.

Let me, at the risk of tediously repeating what is universally known, refer to the common principles of historical composition, in order that I may show their application to that of landscape. The merest tyro in art knows that every figure which is unnecessary to his picture, is an encumbrance to it, and that every figure which does not sympathize with the action, interrupts it. He that gathereth not with me, scattereth,--is, or ought to be, the ruling principle of his plan: and the power and grandeur of his result will be exactly proportioned to the unity of feeling manifested in its several parts, and to the propriety and simplicity of the relations in which they stand to each other.

All this is equally applicable to the materials of inanimate nature. Impressiveness is destroyed by a multitude of contradictory facts, and the accumulation, which is not harmonious, is discordant. He who endeavors to unite simplicity with magnificence, to guide from solitude to festivity, and to contrast melancholy with mirth, must end by the production of confused inanity. There is a peculiar spirit; possessed by every kind of scene; and although a point of contrast may sometimes enhance and exhibit this particular feeling more intensely, it must be only a point, not an equalized opposition. Every introduction of new and different feeling weakens the force of what has already been impressed, and the mingling of all emotions must conclude in apathy, as the mingling of all colors in white.

Let us test by these simple rules one of the "ideal" landscape compositions of Claude, that known to the Italians as "Il Mulino."

The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery, with a dance of peasants by a brookside; quite enough subject to form, in the hands of a master, an impressive and complete picture. On the other side of the brook, however, we have a piece of pastoral life, a man with some bulls and goats tumbling headforemost into the water, owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this group is one too many; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle. But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive a sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance, amidst things pastoral and musical, of the military: a number of Roman soldiers riding in on hobby-horses, with a leader on foot, apparently encouraging them to make an immediate and decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the soldiers is a circular temple, in exceedingly bad repair, and close beside it, built against its very walls, a neat water-mill in full work. By the mill flows a large river, with a weir all across it. The weir has not been made for the mill, (for that receives its water from the hills by a trough carried over the temple,) but it is particularly ugly and monotonous in its line of fall, and the water below forms a dead-looking pond, on which some people are fishing in punts. The banks of this river resemble in contour the later geological formations around London, constituted chiefly of broken pots and oyster-shells. At an inconvenient distance from the water-side stands a city, composed of twenty-five round towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge; beyond the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of aqueducts; beyond the Campagna, the chain of the Alps; on the left, the cascades of Tivoli.

This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an "ideal landscape," _i.e._, a group of the artist's studies from nature, individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as may insure their neutralizing each other's effect, and united with sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association to insure their producing a general sensation of the impossible. Let us analyze the separate subjects a little in this ideal work of Claude's.

Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men.[M] The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep; scattered blocks of black stone, four-square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull purple, poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the Alban mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories, of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, passing from a nation's grave.

Let us, with Claude, make a few "ideal" alterations in this landscape. First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices of the Apennines to four sugar-loaves. Secondly, we will remove the Alban mount, and put a large dust-heap in its stead. Next, we will knock down the greater part of the aqueducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with round white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant ruins in the foreground; we will plant some handsome trees therein, we will send for some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and a picnic party.

It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species of improvement is made on the materials which Claude had ready to his hand. The descending slopes of the city of Rome, towards the pyramid of Caius Cestius, supply not only lines of the most exquisite variety and beauty, but matter for contemplation and reflection in every fragment of their buildings. This passage has been idealized by Claude into a set of similar round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached, beyond the difficulty of conjecturing what they could have been built for. The ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive by the juxtaposition of the water-mill, and inexplicable by the introduction of the Roman soldiers. The glide of the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and Anio through the Campagna, is impressive in itself, but altogether ceases to be so, when we disturb their stillness of motion by a weir, adorn their neglected flow with a handsome bridge, and cover their solitary surface with punts, nets, and fishermen.

It cannot, I think, be expected, that landscapes like this should have any effect on the human heart, except to harden or to degrade it; to lead it from the love of what is simple, earnest and pure, to what is as sophisticated and corrupt in arrangement, as erring and imperfect in detail. So long as such works are held up for imitation, landscape painting must be a manufacture, its productions must be toys, and its patrons must be children.

My purpose then, in the present work, is to demonstrate the utter falseness both of the facts and principles; the imperfection of material, and error of arrangement, on which works such as these are based; and to insist on the necessity, as well as the dignity, of an earnest, faithful, loving, study of nature as she is, rejecting with abhorrence all that man has done to alter and modify her. And the praise which, in this first portion of the work, is given to many English artists, would be justifiable on this ground only, that although frequently with little power and desultory effort, they have yet, in an honest and good heart, received the word of God from clouds, and leaves, and waves, and kept it,[N] and endeavored in humility to render to the world that purity of impression which can alone render the result of art an instrument of good, or its labor deserving of gratitude.

If, however, I shall have frequent occasion to insist on the necessity of this heartfelt love of, and unqualified submission to, the teaching of nature, it will be no less incumbent upon me to reprobate the careless rendering of casual impression, and the mechanical copyism of unimportant subject, which are too frequently visible in our modern school.[O] Their lightness and desultoriness of intention, their meaningless multiplication of unstudied composition, and their want of definiteness and loftiness of aim, bring discredit on their whole system of study, and encourage in the critic the unhappy prejudice that the field and the hill-side are less fit places of study than the gallery and the garret. Not every casual idea caught from the flight of a shower or the fall of a sunbeam, not every glowing fragment of harvest light, nor every flickering dream of copsewood coolness, is to be given to the world as it came, unconsidered, incomplete, and forgotten by the artist as soon as it has left his easel. That only should be considered a picture, in which the spirit, (not the materials, observe,) but the animating emotion of many such studies is concentrated, and exhibited by the aid of long-studied, painfully-chosen forms; idealized in the right sense of the word, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of degrading God's works which man calls his "imagination," but by perfect assertion of entire knowledge of every part and character and function of the object, and in which the details are completed to the last line compatible with the dignity and simplicity of the whole, wrought out with that noblest industry which concentrates profusion into point, and transforms accumulation into structure; neither must this labor be bestowed on every subject which appears to afford a capability of good, but on chosen subjects in which nature has prepared to the artist's hand the purest sources of the impression he would convey. These may be humble in their order, but they must be perfect of their kind. There is a perfection of the hedgerow and cottage, as well as of the forest and the palace, and more ideality in a great artist's selection and treatment of roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles, than in all the struggling caricature of the meaner mind which heaps its foreground with colossal columns, and heaves impossible mountains into the encumbered sky. Finally, these chosen subjects must not be in any way repetitions of one another, but each founded on a new idea, and developing a totally distinct train of thought; so that the work of the artist's life should form a consistent series of essays, rising through the scale of creation from the humblest scenery to the most exalted; each picture being a necessary link in the chain, based on what preceded, introducing to what is to follow, and all, in their lovely system, exhibiting and drawing closer the bonds of nature to the human heart. Since, then, I shall have to reprobate the absence of study in the moderns nearly as much as its false direction in the ancients, my task will naturally divide itself into three portions. In the first, I shall endeavor to investigate and arrange the facts of nature with scientific accuracy; showing as I proceed, by what total neglect of the very first base and groundwork of their art the idealities of some among the old masters are produced. This foundation once securely laid, I shall proceed, in the second portion of the work, to analyze and demonstrate the nature of the emotions of the Beautiful and Sublime; to examine the particular characters of every kind of scenery, and to bring to light, as far as may be in my power, that faultless, ceaseless, inconceivable, inexhaustible loveliness, which God has stamped upon all things, if man will only receive them as He gives them. Finally, I shall endeavor to trace the operation of all this on the hearts and minds of men; to exhibit the moral function and end of art, to prove the share which it ought to have in the thoughts, and influence on the lives of all of us; to attach to the artist the responsibility of a preacher, and to kindle in the general mind that regard which such an office must demand.

It must be evident that the first portion of this task, which is all that I have yet been enabled to offer to the reader, cannot but be the least interesting and the most laborious, especially because it is necessary that it should be executed without reference to any principles of beauty or influences of emotion. It is the hard, straightforward classification of material things, not the study of thought or passion; and therefore let me not be accused of the feelings which I choose to repress. The consideration of the high qualities of art must not be interrupted by the work of the hammer and the eudiometer.

Again, I would request that the frequent passages of reference to the great masters of the Italian school may not be looked upon as mere modes of conventional expression. I think there is enough in the following pages to prove that I am not likely to be carried away by the celebrity of a name; and therefore that the devoted love which I profess for the works of the great historical and sacred painters is sincere and well-grounded. And indeed every principle of art which I may advocate, I shall be able to illustrate by reference to the works of men universally allowed to be the masters of masters; and the public, so long as my teaching leads them to higher understanding and love of the works of Buonaroti, Leonardo, Raffaelle, Titian, and Cagliari, may surely concede to me without fear, the right of striking such blows as I may deem necessary to the establishment of my principles, at Gasper Poussin, or Vandevelde.

Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the present day, for advocacy of Michael Angelo against the pettiness of the moderns, as there is for support of Turner against the conventionalities of the ancients. For, though the names of the fathers of sacred art are on all our lips, our faith in them is much like that of the great world in its religion--nominal, but dead. In vain our lecturers sound the name of Raffaelle in the ears of their pupils, while their own works are visibly at variance with every principle deducible from his. In vain is the young student compelled to produce a certain number of school copies of Michael Angelo, when his bread must depend on the number of gewgaws he can crowd into his canvas. And I could with as much zeal exert myself against the modern system of English historical art, as I have in favor of our school of landscape, but that it is an ungrateful and painful task to attack the works of living painters, struggling with adverse circumstances of every kind, and especially with the false taste of a nation which regards matters of art either with the ticklishness of an infant, or the stolidity of a Megatherium.

I have been accused, in the execution of this first portion of my work, of irreverent and scurrile expression towards the works which I have depreciated. Possibly I may have been in some degree infected by reading those criticisms of our periodicals, which consist of nothing else; but I believe in general that my words will be found to have sufficient truth in them to excuse their familiarity; and that no other weapons could have been used to pierce the superstitious prejudice with which the works of certain painters are shielded from the attacks of reason. My answer is that given long ago to a similar complaint, uttered under the same circumstances by the foiled sophist:--"[Greek: (Hos d'estin ho anthropos; hos apaideutos tis, os ouio phaula onomata onomazein tolma en semno pragmati.) Toioutos tis, o Hippia, ouden allo phrontizon e to alethes]."

It is with more surprise that I have heard myself accused of thoughtless severity with respect to the works of contemporary painters, for I fully believe that whenever I attack them, I give myself far more pain than I can possibly inflict; and, in many instances, I have withheld reprobation which I considered necessary to the full understanding of my work, in the fear of grieving or injuring men of whose feelings and circumstances I was ignorant. Indeed, the apparently false and exaggerated bias of the whole book in favor of modern art, is in great degree dependent on my withholding the animadversions which would have given it balance, and keeping silence where I cannot praise. But I had rather be a year or two longer in effecting my purposes, than reach them by trampling on men's hearts and hearths; and I have permitted myself to express unfavorable opinions only where the popularity and favor of the artist are so great as to render the opinion of an individual a matter of indifference to him.

And now--but one word more. For many a year we have heard nothing with respect to the works of Turner but accusations of their want of _truth_. To every observation on their power, sublimity, or beauty, there has been but one reply: They are not like nature. I therefore took my opponents on their own ground, and demonstrated, by thorough investigation of actual facts, that Turner _is_ like nature, and paints more of nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition (the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been disputed with desperate struggles, and that I should have had to fight my way to my position inch by inch. Not at all. My opponents yield me the field at once. One (the writer for the Athenaeum) has no other resource than the assertion, that "he disapproves the natural style in painting. If people want to see _nature_, let them go and look at herself. Why should they see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other, (Blackwood,) still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more remarkable line of defence. "It is not," he says, "what things in all respects really are, but how they are convertible by the mind into what they are _not_, that we have to consider." (October, 1843, p. 485.) I leave therefore the reader to choose whether, with Blackwood and his fellows, he will proceed to consider how things are convertible by the mind into what they are _not_, or whether, with me, he will undergo the harder, but perhaps on the whole more useful, labor of ascertaining--What they are.

FOOTNOTES

[A] One or two fragments of Greek sculpture, the works of Michael
Angelo, considered with reference to their general conception and
power, and the Madonna di St. Sisto, are all that I should myself
put into such a category, not that even these are without defect,
but their defects are such as mortality could never hope to rectify.

[B] This principle is dangerous, but not the less true, and
necessary to be kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does
not admit of being wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny
the desirableness of originality, because men may err in seeking for
it, or because a pretence to it may be made, by presumption, a cloak
for its incompetence. Nevertheless, originality is never to be
sought for its own sake--otherwise it will be mere aberration--it
should arise naturally out of hard, independent study of nature; and
it should be remembered that in many things technical, it is
impossible to alter without being inferior, for therein, as says
Spencer, "Truth is one, and right is ever one;" but wrongs are
various and multitudinous. "Vice," says Byron, in Marino Faliero,
"must have variety; but Virtue stands like the sun, and all which
rolls around drinks life from her aspect."

[C] It is with regret that, in a work of this nature, I take notice
of criticisms, which, after all, are merely intended to amuse the
careless reader, and be forgotten as soon as read; but I do so in
compliance with wishes expressed to me since the publication of this
work, by persons who have the interests of art deeply at heart, and
who, I find, attach more importance to the matter than I should have
been disposed to do. I have, therefore, marked two or three passages
which _may_ enable the public to judge for themselves of the quality
of these critiques; and this I think a matter of justice to those
who might otherwise have been led astray by them--more than this I
cannot consent to do. I should have but a hound's office if I had to
tear the tabard from every Rouge Sanglier of the arts--with bell and
bauble to back him.

[D] Chrysoprase, (Vide No. for October, 1843, p. 502.)

[E] Every school-boy knows that this epithet was given to Poussin in
allusion to the profound classical knowledge of the painter. The
reviewer, however, (September, 1841,) informs us that the expression
refers to his skill in "Composition."

[F] Critique on Royal Academy, 1842. "He" (Mr. Lee) "often reminds
us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is _superior_ to him always
in subject, composition, and variety."--Shade of
Gainsborough!--deep-thoughted, solemn Gainsborough,--forgive us for
re-writing this sentence; we do so to gibbet its perpetrator
forever,--and leave him swinging in the winds of the Fool's
Paradise. It is with great pain that I ever speak with severity of
the works of living masters, especially when, like Mr. Lee's, they
are well-intentioned, simple, free from affectation or imitation,
and evidently painted with constant reference to nature. But I
believe that these qualities will always secure him that admiration
which he deserves--that there will be many unsophisticated and
honest minds always ready to follow his guidance, and answer his
efforts with delight; and therefore, that I need not fear to point
out in him the want of those technical qualities which are more
especially the object of an artist's admiration. Gainsborough's
power of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift)
is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens; he is the purest
colorist--Sir Joshua himself not excepted--of the whole English
school; with him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part
die, and exists not now in Europe. Evidence enough will be seen in
the following pages of my devoted admiration of Turner; but I
hesitate not to say, that in management and quality of single and
particular tint, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is
a child of Gainsborough. Now, Mr. Lee never aims at color; he does
not make it his object in the slightest degree--the spring green of
vegetation is all that he desires; and it would be about as rational
to compare his works with studied pieces of coloring, as the
modulation of the Calabrian pipe to the harmony of a full orchestra.
Gainsborough's hand is as light as the sweep of a cloud--as swift as
the flash of a sunbeam; Lee's execution is feeble and spotty.
Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division in heaven
of light from darkness; Lee's (perhaps necessarily, considering the
effects of flickering sunlight at which he aims) are as fragmentary
as his leaves, and as numerous. Gainsborough's forms are grand,
simple, and ideal; Lee's are small, confused, and unselected.
Gainsborough never loses sight of his picture as a whole; Lee is but
too apt to be shackled by its parts. In a word, Gainsborough is an
immortal painter; and Lee, though on the right road, is yet in the
early stages of his art; and the man who could imagine any
resemblance or point of comparison between them, is not only a
novice in art, but has not capacity ever to be anything more. He may
be pardoned for not comprehending Turner, for long preparation and
discipline are necessary before the abstract and profound philosophy
of that artist can be met; but Gainsborough's excellence is based on
principles of art long acknowledged, and facts of nature universally
apparent; and I insist more particularly on the reviewer's want of
feeling for his works, because it proves a truth of which the public
ought especially to be assured that those who lavish abuse on the
great men of modern times, are equally incapable of perceiving the
real excellence of established canons, are ignorant of the commonest
and most acknowledged principia of the art, blind to the most
palpable and comprehensible of its beauties, incapable of
distinguishing, if left to themselves, a master's work from the
vilest school copy, and founding their applause of those great works
which they praise, either in pure hypocrisy, or in admiration of
their defects.

[G] There is a fine touch in the Frogs in Aristophanes, alluding
probably to this part of the Agamemnon. "[Greek: Ego d' hechairon te
siope kai me tout' heterpeu ouk hettou e nun hoi lalountes]." The
same remark might be well applied to the seemingly vacant or
incomprehensible portions of Turner's canvas. In their mysterious,
and intense fire, there is much correspondence between the mind of
Aeschylus and that of our great painter. They share at least one
thing in common--unpopularity. [Greek: 'Ho demos aneboa krisin
poiein, XA. o ton panourgon; Ai. ne Di, ouranion g' hoson. XA. met'
Aischylou ho ouk esan heteroi symmachoi; AI. oligon to chreston
estin].

[H] I do not know any passage in ancient literature in which this
connection is more exquisitely illustrated than in the lines,
burlesque though they be, descriptive of the approach of the chorus
in the Clouds of Aristophanes,--a writer, by the way, who, I
believe, knew and felt more of the noble landscape character of his
country than any whose works have come down to us except Homer. The
individuality and distinctness of conception--the visible cloud
character which every word of this particular passage brings out
into more dewy and bright existence, are to me as refreshing as the
real breathing of mountain winds. The line "[Greek: dia ton koilon
kai ton daseon, plagiai]," could have been written by none but an
ardent lover of hill scenery--one who had watched, hour after hour,
the peculiar oblique, sidelong action of descending clouds, as they
form along the hollows and ravines of the hills. There are no
lumpish solidities--no pillowy protuberances here. All is melting,
drifting, evanescent,--full of air, and light, and dew.

[I] Let not this principle be confused with Fuseli's, "love for what
is called deception in painting marks either the infancy or
decrepitude of a nation's taste." Realization to the mind
necessitates not deception of the eye.

[J] I shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are
principles of universal beauty common to all the creatures of God;
and that it is by the greater or less share of these that one form
becomes nobler or meaner than another.

[K] Is not this--it may be asked--demanding more from him than life
can accomplish? Not one whit. Nothing more than knowledge of
external characteristics is absolutely required; and even if, which
were more desirable, thorough scientific knowledge had to be
attained, the time which our artists spend in multiplying crude
sketches, or finishing their unintelligent embryos of the study,
would render them masters of every science that modern
investigations have organized, and familiar with every form that
Nature manifests. Martin, if the time which he must have spent on
the abortive bubbles of his Canute had been passed in working on the
seashore, might have learned enough to enable him to produce, with a
few strokes, a picture which would have smote like the sound of the
sea, upon men's hearts forever.

[L] "A green field is a sight which makes us pardon
The absence of that more sublime construction
Which mixes up vines, olive, precipices,
Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices."

_Don Juan._

[M] The vegetable soil of the Campagna is chiefly formed by
decomposed lavas, and under it lies a bed of white pumice, exactly
resembling remnants of bones.

[N] The feelings of Constable with respect to his art might be
almost a model for the young student, were it not that they err a
little on the other side, and are perhaps in need of chastening and
guiding from the works of his fellow-men. We should use pictures not
as authorities, but as comments on nature, just as we use divines,
not as authorities, but as comments on the Bible. Constable, in his
dread of saint-worship, excommunicates himself from all benefit of
the Church, and deprives himself of much instruction from the
Scripture to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the
reading of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beaumont,
on the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes given of him in
Constable's life, a melancholy instance of the degradation into
which the human mind may fall, when it suffers human works to
interfere between it and its Master. The recommending the color of
an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and the
vapid inquiry of the conventionalist, "Where do you put your brown
tree?" show a prostration of intellect so laughable and lamentable,
that they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery,
a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile
indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous
extremes to be shunned,--forgetfulness of the Scripture, and scorn
of the divine--slavery on the one hand, free-thinking on the other.
The mean is nearly as difficult to determine or keep in art as in
religion, but the great danger is on the side of superstition. He
who walks humbly with Nature will seldom be in danger of losing
sight of Art. He will commonly find in all that is truly great of
man's works, something of their original, for which he will regard
them with gratitude, and sometimes follow them with respect; while
he who takes Art for his authority may entirely lose sight of all
that it interprets, and sink at once into the sin of an idolater,
and the degradation of a slave.

[O] I should have insisted more on this fault (for it is a fatal
one) in the following Essay, but the cause of it rests rather with
the public than with the artist, and in the necessities of the
public as much as in their will. Such pictures as artists themselves
would wish to paint, could not be executed under very high prices;
and it must always be easier, in the present state of society, to
find ten purchasers of ten-guinea sketches, than one purchaser for a
hundred-guinea picture. Still, I have been often both surprised and
grieved to see that any effort on the part of our artists to rise
above manufacture--any struggle to something like completed
conception--was left by the public to be its own reward. In the
water-color exhibition of last year there was a noble work of David
Cox's, ideal in the right sense--a forest hollow with a few sheep
crushing down through its deep fern, and a solemn opening of evening
sky above its dark masses of distance. It was worth all his little
bits on the walls put together. Yet the public picked up all the
little bits--blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn--all
that was clever and petite; and the real picture--the full
development of the artist's mind--was left on his hands. How can I,
or any one else, with a conscience, advise him after this to aim at
anything more than may be struck out by the cleverness of a quarter
of an hour. Cattermole, I believe, is earthed and shackled in the
same manner. He began his career with finished and studied pictures,
which, I believe, never paid him--he now prostitutes his fine talent
to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his way to
emolument and oblivion. There is commonly, however, fault on both
sides; in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank
tricks of the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the
knowledge and labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he
has himself formed in his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a
common actor will oftentimes render apparently vapid the finished
touches of perfect nature; and in the public, for taking less real
pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate, the various
powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate the excellence
of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer.