(Go to Summary of review of Modern Painters I and II, Prospective Review, May 1847, pp. 212-22.)
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The critic, subordinating the accessory and the technical to its nobler perfections, yet duly prizing all in language and form that allies itself with, and subserves to these, assumes his high and rightful position as the Interpreter of Genius. Of such a discipline, hardly the smallest trace appears in the 'Discourses'. Indeed, their whole tendency is to reduce the exercise of Art to a mere play of the Intellect.. their pernicious influence may be recognised throughout his feeble efforts in historical and religious art. The theory to which we allude, is briefly contained in his favourite injuction to generalize... We may observe, that the 'Oxford Graduate', in his preface, has preserved and commented on some curious specimens of these dicta... against these erroneous views he first directs his efforts, ably combating such false and insufficient interpretations of the Ideal.
Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal character of landscape?
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
Undoubtedly;
and Sir Joshua, with the great master of this character,
Nicolo Poussin,
present to his thoughts, ought to have arrived -at more
true conclusions
respecting its essence than, as we shall presently see, are
deducible
from his works. The true ideal of landscape is precisely the.
same as
that of the human form ; it is the expression of the specific
not the
individual, but the specific-characters of every object, in their
perfection
; there is an ideal form of every herb, flower, and tree : it is
that
form to which every individual of the species has a tendency to
arrive,
freed from the influence of accident or disease. Every landscape
painter
should know the specific characters of every object he has to
represent,
rock, flower, or cloud; and in his highest ideal works, all their
distinctions
will be perfectly expressed, broadly or delicately, slightly or
completely,
according to the nature of the subject, and the degree of
attention which
is to be drawn to the particular object by the part it
plays in the composition.
Where the sublime is aimed at, such dis
tinctions will be indicated with
severe simplicity, as the muscular markings
in a colossal statue ; where
beauty is the object, they must be expressed
with the utmost refinement
of which the hand is capable.
This may sound like a contradiction of
principles advanced by the
highest authorities ; but it is only a contradiction
of a particular and
most mistaken application of them. Much evil has
been done to art by
the remarks of historical painters on landscape.
Accustomed themselves
to treat their backgrounds slightly and boldly,
and feeling (though, as I
shall presently show, only in consequence of
their own deficient powers)
that any approach to completeness of detail
therein, injures their picture
by interfering with its principal subject,
they naturally lose sight of the
peculiar and intrinsic beauties of things
which to them are injurious,
unless subordinate. Hence the frequent advice
given by Reynolds and
others, to neglect specific form in landscape,
and treat its materials in
large masses, aiming only at general truths,-the
flexibility of foliage,
but not its kind ; the rigidity of rock, but
not its mineral character. In
the passage more especially bearing on
this subject (in the eleventh
lecture of Sir J. Reynolds), we are told
that " the landscape painter
works not for the virtuoso or the naturalist,
but for the general observer
of life and nature." This is true, in precisely
the same sense that the
sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but
for the common observer
of life and nature. Yet the sculptor is not,
for this reason, permitted
to be wanting either in knowledge or expression
of anatomical detail ;
and the more refined that expression can be rendered,
the more perfect
is his work. That which, to the anatomist, is the end,-is,
to the
sculptor, the means. The former desires details, for their own
sake; the
latter, that by means of them, he may kindle his work with
life, and
stamp it with beauty. And so in landscape --botanical or geological
details
are not to be given as matter of curiosity or subject of search,
but
as the ultimate elements of every species of expression and order of
loveliness[.]
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This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an " ideal
"
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
landscape, i. e. a group of the artist's studies from nature, individually
spoiled,
selected with such opposition of character as may ensure 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 analyse the separate subjectsa 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.' 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 stedfastly
along the promon.
tories of the Appenines. 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 Appenines 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 pic-nic 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
watermill, 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[.]
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[I]f, in the application of these principles, in spite of my
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
endeavour
to render it impartial, the feeling and fondness which I
have for some
works-of modern art escape me sometimes where it
should not, let it be
pardoned as little more than a fair counter
balance to that peculiar
veneration with which the work of the older
master, associated as it
has ever been in our ears with the expres
sion of whatever is great or
perfect, must be usually regarded by
the reader. I do not say that this
veneration is wrong, nor that
we should be less attentive to the repeated
words of time: but let
us not forget, that if honour be for the dead,
gratitude can only
be for the living. He who has once stood beside the
grave, to
look back upon the companionship which has been for ever closed,
feeling
how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to
give one
instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the
lowest measure
to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness,
will scarcely for
the future incur that debt to the heart, which can
only be discharged
to the dust. But the lesson which men receive
as individuals, they do
not learn as nations. Again and again they
have seen their noblest descend
into the grave, and have thought it
enough to garland the tombstone when
they had not crowned the
brow, and to pay the honour to the ashes, which
they had denied
to the spirit. Let it not displease them that they are
bidden, amidst
the tumult and the dazzle of their busy life, to listen
for the few
voices, and watch for the few lamps, which God has toned
and
lighted to charm and to guide them, that they may not learn their
sweetness
by their silence, nor their light by their decay[.]