Picturesqueness

“ It is the landscape, not of dreams or fancy, but of places far withdrawn, and hours selected from a thousand with a miracle of finesse. Through his strange veil of sight things reach him so; in no ordinary night or day, but as in faint light of eclipse, or in some brief interval of falling rain at daybreak, or through deep water.
And not into nature only; but he plunged also into human personality, and became above all a painter of portraits; faces of a modelling more skilful than has been seen before or since, embodied with a reality which almost amounts to illusion on dark air. ”

“ Even in the grayest days, when the clouds are bursting into tears and the whole landscape is desolate as the barrenest and bleakest of mountain sides, these infinite gradations of color permeate and redeem its barrenness, and to the true painter fill it with joy and beauty. [76]
There are many of us, however, who are not true painters and to whom the most exquisite of color schemes are but dull results. Many of us walk around our galleries passing the best pictures in silence; others ridicule what they cannot understand. ”

“ It is strange to think how a scene, in itself uninteresting, becomes agreeable to look at in a picture, from the truth with which it is depicted, and a perfection of colouring which at once contrasts and harmonises the hues of sky and water. ”

“ And the pictures of natural scenery, simple or mingled with art, in life or in ruins, in the various landscapes drawn from different parts of the earth and presented to the eye of the mind as in thought, we stand in the midst of them as they arise, admiring them in their own grandeur and loveliness, or finding in them a fit place for reflection and prayerful meditation, are well worth beholding, recalling, and gazing upon with quickened and cultured powers and imagination, extracting, combining and storing. ”

“ Superb color portraits of many familiar flowers in their living tints, and no less beautiful pictures in black and white of others—each blossom photographed directly from nature—form an unrivaled series. ”

“ You, as a great landscape painter, know that, in painting a favourite scene, you do a little embellish, and can’t help it, you avail yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere, and if anything be ugly, you strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. ”

“ But pass on to another picture which may or may not have the same exact likeness, and we are possessed with quite another feeling; instead of being merely surprised by the cleverness of the imitation, we feel a thrill of delight at a reproduction of nature. In this picture there are not only the clouds we remember, but we can almost feel the shadows which they cast, and the air which stirs them. ”

“ To imaginative feeling, every landscape is a potential painting, every life-story a romance, history a drama, every man or woman a statue or portrait. Beauty is everywhere, where we who are perhaps not artists but only art lovers can find it; we cannot embody it in enduring form or throw over it the glamour of sensuous loveliness, but we can perceive it with that free appreciation that is the essence of art. ”

“ Its beauty is like the sunset; not a fresco painting on a wall, flat and bounded, but atmospheric and roving or free. In reality, history fluctuates as the face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment is its hue and color. Time hides no treasures ”

“ Still the elevation was sufficient to let the eye roam wide over scenes where line after line, in sweet variety, presented a continual change of beautiful forms, softening in tint, in depth of colour, and in distinctness of outline as the objects became more remote, and forming a view such as that which is offered to the eye of youth, when after having climbed over the light ascent of boyhood, the joys of existence, grouped together without its cares, are first presented to the sight, one beyond another, to the very verge of being, all lighted up by hope, and coloured by imagination. ”

“ He, no less than the artist and the poet, delights to gaze at that enchanting scenery which, day by day, is displayed in infinite beauty overhead; that scenery which is not wholly withheld even from observers whose lives may be passed amid the busy haunts of men, that scenery which is so often displayed on fine days at all seasons. We are alluding to those clouds which add the charm of infinite variety to the sky above us. ”

“ You see as you look around you that nature has been as unreal as art itself, and that all the bright hues of foliage and flower, all the odors that floated from bed and parterre, all the rippling flow of stream and fountain, have been just as artistically devised, and as much “got up,” as the transparencies or the Tyrolese singers, the fireworks or the fancy fair, or any other of those ingenious “spectacles” which amuse the grown children of fashion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a remarkable picture, and leads us deep into the secrets of the human heart—a picture which in all times must be ranked amongst the master-works of art, and which to be intelligible needs no previous inquiry into the relative period and circumstances of the artists who created it. The landscape background, the rocky defile, the wooded declivity, and the trees laden with fruit, are all eminently beautiful. The eye would almost lose itself in this rich sense of still life if it were not constantly led back to the interest of the foreground. ”

“ Especially is this the case in early life, when the character is still plastic and the eye still keen: pictures are formed in that brilliant sunshine and under those dim arches of hot grey sky that photograph themselves for ever on the lasting tablets of the human memory. ”

“ Having thus given the origin of Light and Shade, it will be necessary next to proceed to give some idea of the various effects of Nature, and the class of scenery suitable to each effect; as the great merit of a picture depends on the most appropriate Effect given to each scene. ”

“ I thus associate the compact world of the admirable hill-top, the world of a predominant golden-brown, with a general invocation of sensibility and fancy, and think of myself as going forth into the lingering light of summer evenings all attuned to intensity of the idea of compositional beauty, or in other words, freely speaking, to the question of colour, to intensity of picture. ”

“ You may always be looking at a natural landscape as at a fine pictorial imitation of one; it seems eternally producing new thoughts in your bosom, as it does fresh beauties from its own. I cannot fancy more delightful, cheerful, silent companions for a man than half a dozen landscapes hung round his study. Portraits, on the contrary, and large pieces of figures have a painful, fixed, staring look, which must jar upon the mind in many of its moods. ”

“ Now, if we are making a picture, we shall not hesitate a moment: in goes the red; for the artist, while he wishes to render the actual impression of the presence of cold in the landscape as strong as possible, does not wish that chilliness to pass over into, or affect, the spectator, but endeavors to make the combination of color as delightful to his eye and feelings as possible. ”

“ Art is indeed my only world and life. Again look at the pictures. How tender, how soft, and how warm in tone and atmosphere! And how deep is the shadow of the pictures! And that deep shadow is never dirty. ”

“ A delightfully chatty volume, introducing us to a land that to the great majority is a veritable terra incognita. The pictures, reproduced in colour, are the work of a genuine artist who sees nature in all her beauty. ”

“ We admire splendid views and great pictures; and yet what is truly admirable is rather the mind within us, that gathers together these scattered details for its delight, and snakes out of certain colours, certain distributions of graduated light and darkness, that intelligible whole which alone we call a picture or a view. ”

“ Above these moving and noisy scenes, the eye discerns masses of shadow, here relieved by a glance of day, there deepening in their gloom by the foliage of a cedar or pine, till finally, as the sight travels 100 through the long vista of lofty galleries, it is greeted by a distant perspective of such mild beauty, that a sentiment of placid happiness steals upon the mind. ”

“ Then there may be something in the air, and more in your own heart, that invests every ordinary object with extraordinary beauty; old images affect you with a new delight; a grandeur grows upon your eyes in the undulations of the simplest hills; and you feel there is sublimity in the common skies. It is thus that all the stores of imagery are insensibly gathered, with which the minds of men are filled, who from youth have communed with Nature. ”

“ Resemblance, character, costume, are the three requisites of portrait: the first distinguishes, the second classifies, the third assigns place and time to an individual.
236. Landscape is either the transcript of a spot, or a picturesque combination of homogeneous objects, or the scene of a phenomenon. The first pleases by precision and taste; the second adds variety and grandeur; the third may be an instrument of sublimity, affect our passions, or wake a sentiment.
237. Selection is the invention of the landscape painter.
[148] 238. He never can be great who honours what is little. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I will allow them to say, that a picture is too warm, too cold, too red, too yellow to please them, but let them not deny that these hues are all in nature, and that well-managed they are all pictoresque.
32 LETTER XXI. AT the revival of the arts, some evil genius, who was determined to retard the progress of painting, dictated this rule. “A picture should always have its horizon the height of the eye that looks at it—in nature, the eye being always the height of the horizon; therefore a picture will be most like nature that has its horizon the height of the natural eye.” ”

“ Reader, think of some lovely picture of rustic life, with tender lights and pleasant shadows, with hard lines softened, and sharp angles touched into gentle curves, with a background of picturesque, satisfying appropriateness, with the magic touches that bring out the beauty and refinement and elegance of the scene, which are really there, and that subtly tone down all the roughness and awkwardness and coarseness, which are also equally there. ”

“ He who would judge adequately of a landscape must regard it not only with the painter’s eye, but with the poet’s. The feelings which the sight of any scene in Nature conveys to the mind—more especially of any scene on which history or fiction has left its trace—must depend upon our sympathy with those associations which make up what may be called the spiritual character of the spot. ”

“ A commonplace observer, had such been there to mark him, would have pronounced him one passionately devoted to scenery,—a man who loved to watch the passing cloud-shadows of a landscape, enjoying with all a painter's delight the varying tints, the graceful lines, the sharp-thrown shadows, and the brilliant lights of a woodland picture ”

“ Continued study from the antique and painting from the nude in a life-class give, or ought to give, an acquaintance with light and shadow which to a landscape-painter is invaluable—nature affects our feelings so much in landscape by light and shadow. ”

“ The loveliness of a pretty bit of scenery or of a landscape may be enhanced by art, but the impressive grandeur of nature, when the feature of vast and varied expanse predominates, cannot be adequately expressed. ”

“ Your doing the same by the sky, making parts broad and of a good shape, that they may come in with your composition, forming one grand plan of light and shade, this must always please a good eye and keep the attention of the spectator and give delight to every one. Trifles in Nature must be overlooked that we may have our feelings raised by seeing the whole picture at a glance, not knowing how or why we are so charmed. ”

“ Looking out from some commanding eminence, a wide spreading and diversified landscape is presented to view. Though hard and rugged, the picture, as seen at a distance, looks soft and smooth and its details of form and color make an absorbing study. ”

“ But the whole is compacted, refined and poured forth in one flood of liquid harmony. It is light, airy and soft of movement, yet sharp and precise in its details; every face is a portrait, and the whole a group in clear photography. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Every object and scene appeals so forcibly to the senses, enraptures the eye, and so sweetly attunes the mind, as to place this feeling among even the extacies of our nature, and; the most refined we are capable of enjoying. ”