Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 408, January 1849. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
of parts would make a picture, doubtless Richard Wilson, with his simple, sweeping, free lines, could have no chance in competition with such a painter. Every niche was crowded – and equally so – every niche might have made a picture, such as it was, but all the niches made none, or a bad one. Why, the variety was universal; it should have been confined to the smaller space. The picture is objectionable in other points of view; but this ignorance of the very nature of composition was fatal. Yet this work was evidently an imitation of Claude, whose variety, however, of distance, the modern imitator brought into his very foreground. He could not see the simplicity of Claude. Not that Claude himself was a learned composer; his lines are often incongruous, and there is not unfrequently a poverty of design, scarcely concealed by the magic of his colouring. Now, I find, in looking over my sketches, that I had selected those scenes where the passages of variety lay in the distance, and, it being a narrow valley, they occupied but a small space; but, though small, it was mostly the place of interest – there was the more vivid light or the deeper shade, the change, the life of the picture, and the embellished way of escape out of a defile, that from its closeness would have been otherwise painful. In saying "painful," I seem to point to a defect in this Lynmouth valley. Indeed, it will not suit those who do not love close scenery. That certainly is its character. Yet is it not so close, but that there is room for this kind of variety. I think what I have said upon this point, of interest and variety lying in the smaller portion of the canvass – for I here speak even of nature as a picture – may be applicable generally to light. I imagine those scenes will be found most pleasing, where the light is by far the smallest portion, the half-tone by far the larger, and the dark but to show the power of both. Take, for instance, a garden scene – a broad walk, trees on each side – all is in broad light, but all is in painful glare, monotony, and sameness of endless detail. Let a shadow pass over it, a broad shadow – or rather a half-tone of light, that shall only show the local colour subdued – how, let a gleam pass across it, and just touch here and there the leafage, and seem to escape behind it – how small is the light, but it has given life to the picture. I cannot but think it a fault of our day that half-tone is neglected; light is made a glare, and therefore the very object of light is lost. I believe it was the aim at a mere novelty that first introduced this false principle. It was recommended to Guido, but he failed in it: pictures so painted by him are far from being his best. Rubens erred in it; but modern artists have carried the false principle to the utmost limit; and, in doing so, are liable to a palpable incongruity; an impossibility in nature, which they profess to imitate. For it is the property of light to take away colour; yet in this school, the whitest light, and the most vivid colours, are in the same piece. The old painters, aware of this property of light, in their out-of-door scenes, avoid, not to say a white, but even a light sky – especially the Venetian – so that their great depth and power of colour was rendered natural, by the depth of their skies. Their blues were dark – intensely so – but they were sustained by the general colour. If it be said the Italian skies are notoriously the bluest, Mr Ruskin has, in contradiction, pronounced them to be white, but I believe the fact is, that the great painters considered colour, as a beauty in art, sui generis, and that there was no need of a slavish adherence, in this respect, to nature herself. Indeed, they delighted, even when aiming at the richest colouring, to subdue all glare, and to preserve rather a deep half-tone.
I believe they studied nature through coloured glasses; and we learn from Mrs Merrifield that Gaspar Poussin used a black mirror, which had been bequeathed to him by Bamboccio. The works of some of the Flemish painters evidently show that they used such a mirror.
Have I not, then, reached Lynmouth yet? I found it in full leafage, and the little river as clear as amber, and like it in colour. It is always beautiful, and variable too – after rain it assumes more variety of colour, and of great richness. For most part of the time of my visit, it was more shallow than I had ever seen it. I was pleased that it was so, though I heard many complaints on that score. To those who sketch close to the water, it is, in fact, an advantage; for where the scenery is so confined, it is a great thing to be able to reach the large stones in mid-stream, and thus many new views are obtained; and when you are pretty close to water, whether it be a fall, or still, there is really but very little difference whether the river be full or not – the falls still retain sufficient body, and the still pools are sufficiently wide.
There are but two parties who know anything of the painter-scenery of Lynmouth – the sketchers and the anglers. The common road generally taken by tourists shows not half the beauty of the place. Did Lynmouth appear less beautiful? – certainly not. I easily recognised the chosen spots, and was surprised to find what little change had taken place. I knew individual trees perfectly, and, strange to say, they did not seem to have acquired growth. There were apparently the same branches stretching over the stream.
In one spot where large ledges of rock shoot out in mid-stream, down whose grooves the river rushes precipitously, (I had, sixteen years ago, sketched the scene,) there was growing out of the edge of the rock a young ash-tree shoot – to my surprise, there it was still, or the old had decayed, and a similar had sprang up. There is something remarkable in this continued identity, year after year, as if the law of mutability had been suspended. Yet there were changes. I remember sketching by a little fall of the river, where further progress was staid by a large mass of projecting rock. I felt sure there must be fine subjects beyond, and in my attempt to reach it from the opposite side by climbing, and holding by the boughs of a tree, one broke off, and I fell into the cauldron. I found now that the whole mass of this ledge of rock had given way, and opened a passage, and one of no great difficulty. Here, as I suspected, were some very fine studies. The place where I descended is about half a mile, or less, from Lynmouth, where the road turns, near to a little bridge across a watercourse intercepting the road. The view of this little fall from above is singularly beautiful; and, being so much elevated, you see the bed of the river continuous for a long distance, greatly varied. I know no place where there are such fine studies of this kind, though they are rarely taken, being only parts for composition – the whole not making a view.
Was Lynmouth, then, to me as it was? – not quite. The interval of years had not, I trust, been lost. If there was little change in the place, there was a change in the mind's eye and head of the sketcher. Though I recognised nearly all the spots where I had sketched, I found many new – some that might have escaped me, because I had not taken the feeling with me, at least not in the degree, in which I now possessed it. During all the years that had intervened, I had scarcely painted a single view. I could not but observe that the new scenes were those more especially suggestive, leading to the ideal.
A friend who was part of the time with me observed that he had thought some of my pictures, which he had seen, compositions without the warranty of nature; but he now saw that nature supplied me with what I wanted, and acknowledged that the sketches were correct. It was then I observed that the sketcher may find almost everywhere what he has learnt to look for. The fact is, that it is not whole and large scenery, nor the most beautiful, that best suits the painter, but those parts which he can combine. The real painter looks to nature for form and colour, the elements of his art: upon these he must work; and they seldom reach any great magnitude, or are diffused over large space.
Why is it, that generally what we term beautiful scenery was seldom the ground of the old painters? They were not, generally speaking, painters of views; and why not? There the pictures were made for them. They, and all the world had the thing before them to love and to admire – it was already done; there was no room for their genius, which is a creative, not an imitative faculty. The scene for every eye was not theirs. They found that, by their art, they could take nature's best feeling, even from her fragments. It requires not an Alp to portray grandeur. Fifty feet of rock, precipitous or superimpending, will better represent the greatness of danger; for it is a more immediate and solid mass to crush the intruder, and the form may frown with a demon malice. The whole awe of darkness may be felt in a cavern of a few feet space. Indeed, it may be almost said that largeness is not to be obtained on the canvass, by the largeness of whole extensive scenes in nature, but by the continuous lines of near masses: whatever is actually largest in nature – the forest and the mountain – in art may with advantage occupy the smallest space. For the best magnitude here is in perspective, and in that aerial tone which, as a veil, half conceals, and thereby makes mysterious, and converts into one azure whole the parts which would, otherwise seen,