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specify in what the poetry of the art consists. There are certain fundamental principles, from whence our ideas of the beauty of nature are derived, which the slightest sketch is capable of illustrating, but which cannot be neglected without offence even to the most indifferent beholder. Of these principles, light and shade are the most important and conspicuous. Thus two objects, one to receive the rays of light, and another to re

the most important, there are minor points, which cannot be neglected without so glaring a violation of good taste that the eye is offended; and as we have often had occasion to remark, no sooner are the senses unpleasantly affected, than the powers of the mind are arrested in their agreeable exercise, and the poetic illusion is totally destroyed. In the choice of costume, it is highly essential to the poetical charm of the portrait, that every thing wearing the cha-ceive the shadow of the first, are sufficient racter of constraint or conceit should be avoided. All those striking peculiarities which belong only to a class of beings whose feelings and avocations are entirely separate from the sphere of high mental refinement, or intellectual power, will be rejected by an artist of good taste. The coarse habit of the monk may be made sub-weedy banks of a silent river, in whose clear servient to the poetical interest of a portrait, because it is associated in our minds with ideas of reflection, study, and strict mental discipline; even that of a peasant is admissible, because his hardy frame may be animated by the bold independence and rude energy of a mountaineer; but he who would paint a butcher or a harlequin in their characteristic costume, must forfeit every pretension to the poetry of his art.

The local partiality of the Dutch painters has rendered this error strikingly conspicuous in some of their historical pieces. Whatever may be the merits of this school of artists, the national prejudice which retained the familiar costume, habits, and customs of their own peculiar people, even when representing the higher scenes and circumstances of life, proves them to have been but lle qualified for the most noble and interesting branch of their art.

Besides the choice of costume, and of far higher importance, is the proper adjustment of colours, and other mechanical branches of the art of ainting, which cannot properly be discussed in a chapter on poetry, but which are of unspeakable importance in producing that delightful combination of form and colour by which the eye is so entirely gratified as to repose in perfect enjoyment and to leave the imagination to

wander as it will.

to constitute a picture. Let one of these be the massive stem of an old tree, grey with time, and shattered with the storms of ages, wearing round its hoary brow a wild wreath of clustering ivy, and stretching forth one verdant branch, still clothed with dense foliage as in former years. Let the other be the

Still

depths the shadow of this ancient tree is re-
flected, and we have at once a scene of
sufficient interest and beauty to rivet the
eye and fascinate the imagination.
much must depend, even in a scene so sim-
ple as this, not only upon the skilful conduct
of the pencil, but upon the poetical feeling
of the artist. Perhaps the subject may be
better understood by illustrating it with a
case in point.

It was, a few years ago, my good fortune to receive instruction from a gentleman,* who, whatever may be his other pretensions, must be unanimously acknowledged to be one of the most poetical artists of the present day; a fact which is sufficiently proved by the fearless and independent manner in which he can snatch up the most barren subject, and invest it with a mysterious beauty of his own creating. The piece which this artist first gave me to copy, was a pencil sketch of a rude entrance by a little wooden bridge, over a narrow stream, to what might be a copse-wood, or indeed a wood of any kind; for the whole picture contained nothing more than three or four trees, a few planks of time-worn timber, and the reedy banks of this stream or pool. My task was performed with diligence, and with no little self-approbation, for my friends pronounced it to be admirable; and I saw myself that

Mr. Cotman, now professor of drawing at King's

Entering upon the subject of landscape painting, it becomes much less difficult to College, London.

the foliage of the oak was edged round with the most accurate precision, the rooks in the distance were eked out with the same economy of number, and the bulrushes that stood in the water were all manifestly tipped at the ends. While my heart bounded with internal triumph, I drew forth the interesting deposit from the portfolio in which I had conveyed it into the presence of my master, and impatiently watched the expression of his eye as he glanced over it. After looking at it for some time with iess and less of what was agreeable in his countenance, he at last gave utterance to a low growl of disapprobation, and finally pronounced it to be bad in two ways-bad as a copy, and bad as a drawing. Although I was at that moment very much inclined to execrate the art so often called divine, I have since learned to look with feelings of interest almost like affection upon that simple drawing, to which my master, with a few strokes from his own able and accomplished pencil, gave a character at once touching, beautiful, and poetic. What was practically the work of this pencil, it would be foreign to my purpose (even were I able) to define. It is sufficient to say, that through the illusion of the eye, the mind was forcibly presented with the ideas of space and atmosphere. My drawing represented nothing but an even surface, covered with a minutely extended texture, woven according to the pattern, of oak leaves, reeds, water, or whatever the uninitiated pencil might vainly attempt to imitate. In the same picture, after it had received a few touches from an able hand, the most unpractised eye might behold a distinct representation of a quiet day in autumn. The rooks, which had been stationary and silent, were now winging their way towards that woodland scene, cawing at intervals with the musical and melancholy cadence, which at that particular time of the year, and especially at that particular distance, turns their harsh tones to melody. The passage of the wooden bridge had now become quite practicable, and after looking down into the bosom of the unruffled water, you might enter upon that unfrequented path, and hear the rustling of the withered grass beneath your feet; while high overhead were the majestic branches of old and stately trees, extended by the

imagination beyond what was perceptible to the eye, farther and farther, into the silent depth of the forest.

From what I then saw of the metamorphosis wrought upon this picture, and what I have since learned by observation and experience, I am inclined to think that the poetry of landscape painting is dependent, in a great degree, upon the idea of atmosphere being clearly conveyed to the mind. That scene, however laboriously or delicately executed, which, from its want of general harmony, conveys no such idea to the mind, deserves not the name of a picture; but that which draws forth the emotions of the soul by a correspondence with impressions made upon it by the sun, the sky, the seasons, or the hour of the day, may be highly and intensely poetical, though simple and unpretending in itself. This idea must be strongly impressed upon the memory and the imagi nation of the painter before he begins his task. As in the natural world the colour and character of every visible object is affected by the air which is invisible, so in all representations of external nature there must be that perfect harmony pervading the whole scene, which is in keeping with any particular state of the atmosphere, of which the artist may wish to convey an impression to others; and thus, through the medium of form and colour operating upon the eye, the mind receives distinctly and forcibly the idea of that which possesses neither form nor colour in itself, and which no eye is capable of beholding.

I never saw the want of atmosphere more striking than in a picture full of peacocks. It was intended to illustrate the fable of the presumptuous jackdaw adorned in borrowed plumes; but the jackdaw was only to be found upon examination, for there were three peacocks nearly as large as life crowded into a moderate sized painting, and two of them having their tails expanded, the canvass was literally covered with feathers. These feathers, it is true, were beautifully executed, and had the piece been called a picture of peacock's feathers, it might have been admired; but there was a total absence of some of the most essential parts of a scene, and the eye turned away with weariness or disgust, while the mind remained unin

formed as to the meaning of the painter, unimpressed with a single idea.

In describing this picture, my mind very naturally reverts to one in the same exhibition, almost immediately opposed to it in situation, but still more so in character. It was, if I recollect right, by one of the Nasmiths, and represented a sunset upon a level beach. The sky was still glowing with all the gorgeous tints of evening, but the sun was not visible, and there was neither cliff nor wave, nor headland to reflect his light. All was a complete flat, gilded with his sidelong beams, and the sea and the shore were alike unruffled. But the artist, acquainted with the principles of mind as well as matter, had not sent forth this mere flat to brave the consequent contempt of mankind. He had wisely given to his picture a focus of interest, without which it must have been a complete blank. We have before observed, that whatever is beautiful or sublime, does not create intense sensations of pleasure, without some link of human fellowship, either real or imaginary; so the painter of this picture had placed in the middle distance, or rather in the foreground of his piece, two human beings, whose tall shadows fell behind them on the ground. They might be fishermen consulting about the tides, or travellers rest- | ing by the way, or poets gazing on the golden sky; their dress and appearance revealed nothing, nor was it of consequence that they should. They were human, and that was enough. Imagination could supply the rest, and people that glowing scene with all the images, familiar or fantastic, that wait upon the sun's decline.

It was the perfect harmony of this picture which made the charm so irresistible-the illusion so complete; and whenever the delight or the beauty of landscape painting is considered, harmony must be acknowledged to be the basis upon which both are founded. It is true that the external aspect of nature presents perpetual contrast, both in form and colour; but this very contrast is in harmony with the whole for our ideas of beauty are chiefly derived from the principles which pervade the external world, and amongst these we may reckon it not the least important that there can be no brilliant light, without deep shadow.

In speaking of the pleasure derived from painting, I have found in necessary to make frequent use of the word illusion, a word which might unquestionably be applied to many other sources of human gratification. But in reference to the illusion to which we willingly and necessarily submit ourselves, in order to find greater pleasure in the productions of the pencil, it may not be illtimed to offer a few remarks in this place.

Those who have never studied the art of painting, intellectually, are not aware how much we are indebted for the pleasure we receive from it, to a natural process which takes place in the mind of the beholder. The painter who has no brighter materials than red and yellow clay to work with, can so dispose them as to represent the splendour and brilliance of a summer sunset, upon which we gaze till our eyes are almost dazzled with the refulgence of those burning beams. In the centre of his piece he places the glowing orb of day, smiling his brightest before he sinks to rest upon his couch of crimson clouds; on either side are trees whose foliage is bathed in the same golden hues, and if skilfully managed, they will form a vista terminating in excess of light; while the whole is enlivened by a group of panting cattle, some of them holding down their heads as if in the very prostration of patient endurance, while their tails are curled about in every possible variety of posture, to show with what assiduity they are lashing off the myriads of insects, whose busy and unceasing hum is almost loud enough to be heard. On first asking why the little spot of yellow paint which represents the sun looks so much more brilliant in the picture than on the palette, we are told it is the adjustment of the different grades of light which thus increases the brightness of the centre. But let the same colours be placed without any regard to form in the same order on the palette, and we behold nothing but a heap of paint, upon which we might gaze till doomsday without being dazzled. It is because we know that that particular appearance of the sun, the sky the earth, the trees, and the cattle, is in reality the invariable accompaniment of intense heat, so, on perceiving the same appearance in a picture, we persuade ourselves that it

*

is so there. If in the same scene, and with presents itself, is that of a wild and varied precisely the same colours, the artist should landscape, with distant mountains, rugged represent the violence of a gale of wind; or precipices, deep groves, green slopes, foamif instead of the cattle, but in the same situa- ing cataracts, and wandering rills. Upon tion, and still with the same colours, he the verdant banks of one of these, beneath should place a leafless tree, a cottage with the shade of a “wide spreading beech," the its roof covered with snow, and a miserable, artist places, immediately in the foreground, half-starved man, vainly endeavouring to no less a personage than Apollo himself, fold a blanket round his shivering limbs, while the Muses dance before him to the there is no eye that would feel the same dif- | music of his lyre, and winged loves, and ficulty, in gazing on the picture, no mind, agile graces, skip from rock to rock, or float either of man or woman, that would be able, upon the ambient air. Does the picture while contemplating such a scene, to un- please? No; because, in the first instance, dergo the process of (what is now commonly it is not true to nature, and wherever the called) realizing the ideas of light and heat. conceit of man's imagination breaks in upon In the selection of animals, or individual the harmony and pathos which belong to objects thrown in from choice to diversify a nature alone, the poetical charin must in picture, the landscape painter finds wide some measure be destroyed; and, secondly, scope for the display of his poetic feeling. because in the picture of a landscape, the The introduction of fat cattle is an error into ideal of rural scenery should be distinct and which none could fall who was not either a predominant, which it is impossible it should novice in his art, or an agriculturalist irre- be where characters so important as Apolle vocably wedded to the best system of rear- and the Muses are introduced. But let us ing live stock. And why? Because our still retain the landscape, and see whether associations with fat cattle, whatever satis- something better may not be made of it. faction they may yield in the kitchen or The artist who enters into the real spirit of larder, are decidedly too gross and vulgar poetry, will place upon the broken crags of in their nature to afford any gratification in the mountain a few shaggy goats, and pera poem or a picture. Far be it from thehaps a solitary stag, a wanderer from the writer of this chapter to depreciate the value of fat cattle, or any other agricultural produce; but everything has an appropriate place, and there is but one kind of picture in which fat cattle would be in theirs. I will leave the reader to judge how far that kind is worthy of the graphic art. Let the subject be a red brick farm house, with a barn extending on one side, and a square plot of garden ground on the other, circular corn stacks, and a red-tiled pigeon house in front, with fields in the distance, smoothed down by constant culture, and intersected with neatly clipped hedgerows running at right angles all over them; then fat cattle would unquestionably be well placed in the foreground, and the picture, merely as such, would possess the beauty of harmony in all its parts, though it might be impossible to call it poetical.

After condemning an extreme case, the mind, by a natural effort, rushes towards its opposite in search of that gratification which it has failed to find, and the idea which now

herd, will be stooping over the side of the stream to lave its thirst in the cool waters of the forest. The foreground he will enliven with the rich colouring of innumerable wild plants, woven into a gorgeous carpet, which here and there gives place to a sharp projecting rock, or yields to the wild vagaries of a small silvery torrent, that sparkles up from a gray stone fountain, and after filling a rude trough, shoots forth in bubbling eddies, and then loses itself amongst the thick leaves and brushwood overhanging the little narrow bed, which with the strife of ages it has worked out for its own repose. Beside this fountain, a woman is standing, not an angel, or a goddess, but a simple peasant woman, whose dress, coarse but gorgeous in its colouring, corresponds with the rich and varied tints of the foreground. She has

"My notion of nature comprehends not only the forms which nature produces, but also the nature and internal fabric and organizations, as I may call it. of the human mind and imagination.”—Sir Joshua Reynolds.

just filled her pitcher from the pure stream, and is resting it for a moment on the side of the stone trough, before she treads back her lonely way to the herdsman's cottage, whose low thatched roof may be seen half hid by the sheltering trees. Here is at once a picture, which, by awakening our sympathies, calling to mind a thousand delightful recollections, and giving birth to the most agreeable associations, rivets our attention, delights our fancy, and demonstrates more clearly than would a volume of definitions, what it is that constitutes the poetry of painting; and in this manner, the most pleasing landscapes may be composed out of materials extremely simple, and sometimes even barren in themselves.

most grotesque, ludicrous, or familiar; and then soaring away amongst the wild, the melancholy, and sometimes the sublime, yet retaining throughout the same moral impress, either dignified or abused.

I was once so circumstanced as to become intimately acquainted with the private studies of an artist, whose talent bore so striking a resemblance to ballad writing, that I feel confident had circumstances in early life directed his choice to the pen instead of the pencil, he would have used it with equal facility, and probably with as much lasting fame. The subjects which came under my notice were extremely small, and seldom contained more than a little patch of mountain scenery, with two or three goats or wild sheep; yet such was the character of these fairy pictures, that while the eye dwelt upon them, the illusion was so perfect as almost to beguile the fancy with the belief, that the bleat of those wandering sheep, the scent of the purple heather, and the hum of the wild bee, were really present to the senses. You might gaze, and gaze upon those simple

Perhaps no one was ever more intimately acquainted with the poetry of this branch of the art, than Salvator Rosa. In all his delineations of the savage dignity of nature, may be found a perfect correspondence between the subjects which he chose, and his manner of treating them. "Everything is of a piece, his rocks, trees, sky, even to his handling, have the same rude and wild cha-scenes until you felt the cool elasticity of the racter which animates his figures."

mountain breeze, and the influence of the clear blue sky, stretching pure and high and distant over the wide moor; while you wandered on, amongst the rustling furze and

As the art of poetry may be classed under several different heads, so that of painting has, to the poetical observer, many distinctions of character not laid down in the tech-yellow broom, startling the timid moor-¡ow!. nical phraseology of the schools. Leaving the more celebrated productions of the studio, to which there might doubtless be found corresponding specimens in the sister art, I will turn to a case in point, which to my mind is both striking and familiar. It is the resemblance of character between Bewick's woodcuts, and the poems of Robert Burns. It is true, the artist in this instance has confined himself to a mode of conveying his ideas so simple and unpretending, that the comparison hardly holds good between the productions of the pencil and the pen. All that I maintain is the similarity of talent, of tone of mind, and moral feeling, displayed in their separate works. We find in both the same adherence to nature, without ornament or affectation, and we discover the same pathos in those slight touches of which genius alone is capable, with the same freaks of fancy, lawless and unrestrained, describing as if in very wantonness, scenes the

man.

and rousing the slumbering lark to spread again its folded wing, and soaring into upper air, to sing another hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Author of this perfect and wonderful creation, of which we feel ourselves in such moments to be no inconsiderable or unworthy part. What is there to remind us that we are unworthy? We feel not the stirrings of mean or sordid passion. We are away from the habitations of Away from the envy and strife, the tumult and contention, which mar the peace of his hereditary and social home. Away amongst the hills-away in the boundless and immeasurable realm of nature, where it is impossible not to feel the love of a benign and superintending Providence-not to behold the work of an omnipotent Creator-not to acknowledge the dominion of a pure and holy God. If we are not worthy of his countenance and protection when we feel and acknowledge all this, when we bow in

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