Landscape

“ The sun was shining upon a landscape over which clouds never hover. You pull your overcoat around you on this cold July day, and look through your closed windows for the other canard—the landscape. The landscape is all there according to the book, and for that you are thankful, but how changed! As far as the eye can reach and ten times farther are beautiful rock-colored rocks, and dust-colored dust and thorny thorns and dust-hidden sky. ”

“ Mountain and meadow, forest and field, river and lake, hill and dale, village and farmland, far-off city and shimmering water--all lay open to our sight, and over all the westering sun wove a transparent robe of gem-like hues. Every feature of the landscape seemed alive, quivering, pulsating with conscious beauty. You could almost see the world breathe. ”

“ It is a noble landscape, where every feature is bold, and throughout which light and shade alternate in broad, effective masses, showing that you are gazing on a scene of great extent, and taking in miles of country with your eye. ”

“ Here is the landscape seen with a poet’s eye, and the color and shining quality of a landscape, it must be remembered, are in the exquisitely sensitive eye that sees, not in the structure and substance upon which it rests. ”

“ What atmospheric effects, what changing lights, all beautiful, invest the outer landscape with magic, even where the scenery is tame. How rarely is it unpleasing to the eye. And it is the same when we turn our eyes inwards, and contemplate the landscape of our own selves, what glories of light flood all, what richness of foliage clothes all, how picturesque are the inequalities! ”

“ There is another landscape, a primeval forest, vague and disquieting, and a solitary figure, the figure of a man who is half a tree, like some forgotten deity of a lost race: the forest and the man are at one, and hold converse. ”

“ It unveils the lofty mountains and the forests with which they are crowned—the fruitful fields with the crops that cover them—the meadows, with the rivers which water and refresh them—the plains adorned with verdure, the placid lake and the expansive ocean. It removes the curtain of darkness from the abodes of men, and shows us the cities, towns and villages, the lofty domes, the glittering spires, and the palaces and temples with which the landscape is adorned. ”

“ In all of them landscape bears an important part, and in some the background has become the picture and completely subordinated the figures. In this little 'Golden Age' the landscape is quiet in tone, tinged with melancholy, romantic, to suit the mood of the figures. ”

“ Nowhere else are such pictures of sea and sky and plain and mountain, such magnificence of landscape, such bright sunshine and tempering breeze, such fragrant foliage, such brilliant colorings in bush and tree, such dazzling moonlight. ”

“ Have you never, dear reader, felt, in gazing on some fair landscape, with mountain and stream and forest before you, that the scene was perfect, wanting nothing in form or tone or color, till suddenly a flash of strong sunlight from behind a cloud lit up some spot with a glorious lustre, to fade away as quickly into the cold tint it had worn before? ”

“ Why pile our mole-hills by the side of the mountains? We can see the landscape itself any day;—whence this extraordinary interest in seeing a bit of it painted,—except, indeed, as furniture for the drawing-room, to be ordered with the frame at so much the yard from the picture-dealer?
The root of the difficulty lies in this slippery phrase, Nature. We talk of the facts of Nature, meaning the existence now and here of the hills, sky, trees, etc., as if these were fixed quantities,—as if a house or a tree must be the same at all times and to everybody. ”

“ The landscape is an armory of powers,
Which, one by one, they know to draw and use.
They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work;
They prove the virtues of each bed of rock,
And, like the chemist mid his loaded jars,
Draw from each stratum its adapted use
To drug their crops or weapon their arts withal.
They turn the frost upon their chemic heap,
They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain,
They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime,
And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow,
Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods
O'er meadows bottomless. ”

“ The interest of a landscape consists wholly in its relation either to figures present—or to figures past—or to human powers conceived. The most splendid drawing of the chain of the Alps, irrespective of their relation to humanity, is no more a true landscape than a painting of this bit of stone. For, as natural philosophers, there is no bigness or littleness to you. ”

“ If the beauties and charms of a natural landscape bear witness to the power and the benevolence of Him who formed it—how much more those of a heavenly landscape! If the elegance and nicety of structure visible in earthly objects, be proofs of the Divine skill and benignity,—how much more the exquisiteness of those spiritual realities, of which material things are but as the shadows! ”

“ Imagine a supernatural landscape, or rather a perspective in metal, marble, and water, from which all vegetation is banished. All is rigid, polished, mirrored under a sky without sun, without moon, without stars. ”

“ I have already disclaimed all pretensions, as a writer, to the power of scenic description or imaginary landscape—though no person existing is more gratified than myself with the contemplation of splendid scenery. In saying this, however, I do not mean that savage sublimity of landscape—that majestic assemblage of stupendous mountain and roaring cataract—of colossal rocks and innumerable precipices—where Nature appears to designate to the bear and the eagle, to the boar or chamois—those trackless wilds which she originally created for their peculiar accommodation. ”

“ The landscape combined all the elements of sublimity and of beauty, with towering mountains and lovely meadows, streams and lakes watering the interior, and harbors inviting the commerce of the world. ”

“ Often in a landscape we first single out particular objects,—this old oak,—that cascade,—that ruin,—and derive from them, an individual joy; then relapsing, we view the landscape as a whole, and seem, to be surrounded by a kind of atmosphere of thought, the result of the combined influence of all. ”

“ Every quality of landscape that has a name would then be visible in her at once—all that is delicate or graceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or cheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. ”

“ I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature. ”

“ Sitting with our faces now up stream, we studied the landscape by degrees, as one unrolls a map, rock, tree, house, hill, and meadow, assuming new and varying positions as wind and water shifted the scene, and there was variety enough for our entertainment in the metamorphoses of the simplest objects. ”

“ Now, the material mystery of actual landscape arises from the presence of an appreciable atmosphere, softening forms, etherealizing distances, modifying color, and lending the glow of variously refracted light to every object falling under its influence. ”

“ All that determines the character of a landscape,—the outline of the mountains, which, in the far-vanishing distance, bound the horizon,—the dark shade of the pine forests,—the sylvan torrent rushing between overhanging cliffs to its fall,—all are in antecedent mysterious communion with the inner feelings and life of man. ”

“ It is so natural to suppose that the main interest of landscape is essentially in rocks and water and sky; and that figures are to be put, like the salt and mustard to a dish, only to give it a flavor. ”

“ In fact, the term 'landscape,' as generally understood, applies badly to your paintings, which I should prefer to call 'historical representations.' In a deeper sense, it often seems that this or the other rock, that or the other tree, gazes on us with an earnest look: and that this and the other group of strangely-attired people is like some wonderful crag which has come to life. All Nature, moving in marvellous unity, speaks out the sublime thought which glowed within you. ”

“ Landscape has been from the first the central tradition of English art. Life spent amidst pictorial scenery like ours that is striking in itself and rendered more impressive and animated by the rapid atmospheric changes, the shifting lights and shadows, the life and movement in the sky, and the vivid intense colouring of our moist climate, has given our tastes a decided bent this way, and fashioned our Arts of Poetry, Painting, and Gardening. Out-of-door life [Pg 71] among such scenery puts our senses on the alert, and the impressions of natural phenomena supply our device with all its images. ”

“ In an artificial landscape, where there is no wild unmixed nature, where every inch of ground is cultivated, it is the appropriate culmination of that triumph of human art which is visible everywhere. ”

“ Such are the chief features of this landscape, the principal characteristic of which is a rugged wildness softened by smiling accidents, by a happy blending of the finest works of men’s hands with the capricious lay of a land full of unexpected contrasts, by a something, hardly to be explained, which surprises, astonishes, and puzzles. ”

“ And from them he has learned to think of a landscape as a rosy sunset, or as a country road with a church steeple and a silver moon. One day he goes to the country, and for hours he does not see a single landscape. ”

“ The sudden change from the soft, low, and comparatively tame, to the bold, stern, and high, serves admirably to show how much the character of a landscape may depend on the formation which composes it. ”

“ The grand, free lines of the Moorish landscape are unbroken; no trees, no houses, no hedges, and no highways are there to spoil the composition of the picture drawn and painted by the master artist, Nature. ”

“ That is a landscape, even greatly varied with respect to forms, but a landscape from which all water has departed,—the very last atom of moisture has dried from it; a dead landscape, where not only all vegetation has vanished, but even the fertile stratum of earth has been ground into dust or dried up into rock slabs. ”

“ The artist in form and color bathes his landscape in 'the light that never was, on sea or land,' or, if not that, in some light or other, some 'tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies,' and which serves to reveal the feeling which he aimed to express through the landscape. ”

“ Now this particular instance of a pregnant brevity reminds me that in descriptions of landscape the very obligations of the short story are an advantage to its art. Nature, in Fiction, requires to be seen, not in endless detail, as a botanical or geographical study, but, as in Classic Landscape Composition, a noble glimpse of it, over a man’s shoulder, under a man’s arm. ”

“ Formerly landscapes had been used as backgrounds, oftentimes attractive and beautiful, while the real purpose of the pictures centred in the human figures. The distinctive feature of nineteenth-century landscape is the representation of Nature alone, and the variety of method used and the differing aims of the artists cover the entire gamut between absolute Realism and the most pronounced Impressionism. ”

“ Perhaps you may know that I dabble a little in geology—only dabble—but every tyro must have noticed how the features of a landscape depend on its geological formation, and not only the look of the landscape, but the occupations of the people. ”

“ Landscape, whether it be considered as the transcript of a spot, or the rich combination of congenial objects, or as the scene of a phenomenon, as subject and as background, dates its origin from him. ”

“ I will reply by an illustration from nature. When one is familiar with a landscape that is marked by bold mountains, prominent headlands, or rushing torrents, it is not difficult to describe such scenery so that it is at once recognized. ”

“ So comes it, my son, that the finest parts of the universe are concealed from our sight and reveal themselves only to the learned, provided with apparatus proper for this discovery. The rivers and the aerial landscapes, for example, remain invisible, even as their aspect is a thousand times richer and more variegated than the most beautiful terrestrial landscape. ”

“ The effect of landscape upon the mind is characterized by a peculiar feeling of significance not explained by the separate objects that meet the eye. What is the content of this unexplained element? The basal feeling in landscape-presentation is that of environment pure and simple — of the not-me. This element is due to nature's independence of us — an independence not ascribed to the walls and furniture of our rooms. ”

“ Hence the value given to space in their designs, the semi-religious passion for nature, and the supremacy of landscape. Beauty is found not only in pleasant prospects, but in wild solitudes, rain, snow and storm. ”

“ I observed, "can paint the beauties of nature, in all their varied forms, and hues, and rich combinations. The landscape pleases when on the canvas; but there is no life, no motion, no sound, all which are necessary to make the representation really correct." ”

“ Though actually the work of man's hands—or, more properly speaking, the work of his travelling feet,—roads have long since come to seem so much a part of Nature that we have grown to think of them as a feature of the landscape no less natural than rocks and trees. ”

“ What was formerly a grand and magnificent landscape, with mountains ascending above the clouds, and depths whose gloom we can not now appreciate, has become serene and peaceful. The depths have been filled, and the heights leveled, and the wavy harvests and smoky factories cover the landscape.
As far as the average man is concerned, the change is for the better. ”