Charles John Holmes

“ Founding his art upon the dull tradition of the Eclectics, he made the masses graceful, filled void spaces with appropriate detail, drew trees that had some resemblance to the trees of nature, painted a sea that could glitter with waves that actually seemed to splash, and spread over all a sky that was like a real sky—no convenient conventional twilight, but veritable day, with a warm sun in full view. ”

“ In the work of the primitives of Italy and the Low Countries we are constantly meeting with delicate renderings of natural fact—a trim town, a green meadow, woods and waters unstirred by the wind, a distant blue peak, and, almost always, a space of liquid air beyond. Yet the landscape element is kept strictly subordinate to the main matter of the picture, both in tone, colour, and proportion, while the technical treatment is as simple and precise as that employed for the figures. ”

“ The method of Titian, which consisted of a first solid painting (probably tempera) of a broad and simple kind, followed by elaborate glazes with transparent or semi-transparent pigment, was admirably adapted for the breadth of mass and richness of colour at which he aimed. Being a thoroughly professional painter, he realized exactly the limitations and advantages of a method which enabled him to reduce his interpretations of natural effect to the unity of tone which had already become a recognised condition of pictorial success ”

“ Rembrandt and Claude proved that rustic life could provide material enough for admirable sketches, but the work of the lesser Dutchmen showed that average country scenery was by itself an inadequate motive for elaborate oil-painting. Gainsborough and Crome, it is true, made charming pictures out of very simple subjects, but they are made charming by art, and not by sincere imitation of nature.
The case of Turner is somewhat different. Turner all his life held to the ideals of the riper old masters, that is to say, his primary object was the making of splendid pictorial compositions. ”

“ Before entering upon such an inquiry, it is necessary to understand quite clearly what the ancient tradition of landscape was.
When the revival of the arts in Europe had progressed so far that painters were no longer content to set their figures against a background of gilding or flat colour, the effort to represent persons in their natural surroundings brought landscape into existence. ”

“ Then the conditions are occasionally reversed, and figure-painting with a landscape background develops into the landscape with figures. Thus in the work of Titian, who was the first great master to cultivate both branches of the art side by side, we find landscape and figures treated alike, without any radical difference in technique. ”

“ His naturalism was essentially secondary to that main purpose, which in middle and late life resolved itself into studies in harmonized and contrasted colours. Nevertheless, his amazing memory, observation, and skill, compelled him to use natural forms and sometimes natural colours, as his vehicles of expression ”

“ To supply an interest comparable in some degree to that aroused by figure-painting, landscapes were either peopled with historical or mythological figures, or were animated with striking atmospheric effects. ”