352 PINE ARTS. 



Spirit ; and that baldness, which is produced by the omission of essential 

 details, for breadth. Opposed to this is the irksome extreme of the 

 matter-of-fact man, or fac-similist, who mistakes painful elaboration for 

 high finishing, and the insertion of accidental and unessential littlenesses, 

 for truth of nature. 



We find, with very few exceptions, a beautiful attention to the taste 

 of the handling and touch, in the best works of all the great masters, 

 both ancient and modem. It is a princpal excellence in the landscapes 

 of Titian, and Claude, of Paul Brill, the Caracci, Dominichino, Caspar, 

 and Nicholas Poussin ; of Vernet, and all those Italians or foreigners, 

 who rank high in the old landscape schools. The touch and penciling of 

 Salvator are pregnant with character^ yet his attention to that excel- 

 lence has not impaired the savage grandeur of his general effect, or 

 the poetry of his scenery and banditti. Notwithstanding the freshness 

 And harmony of their colouring, if you take away from Canaletti, 

 Guardi, Marieschi, and Zuccarelli, their brilliant touch, you take away 

 half their merits. TTie taste of their handling is, also a leading charm 

 in the landscapes of Ruysdael, and Hobbema, the two most admired 

 landscape painters of the Dutch and Flemish schools. 



How much does the exquisite handling of Calcott, Danby, and Stan- 

 field, differing as they do in particulars, add to the charm of their 

 scenery? Of how many other distinguished metropolitan artists may 

 not the same be said ? Do we not see a similar study to excel in this 

 excellence in the performances of a number of able landscape painters in 

 different parts of the kingdom ; of Giles, of Aberdeen, in whose works 

 the spirit of Claude appears to revive ; of Rogers, of Plymouth, whose 

 pure taste and admirable execution leave nothing to be wished for in his 

 charming landscape, ** No. 84" ; of Balmer, of Sunderland, in whose 

 moonlights the lovely serenity of that lonely hour is so deliciously 

 painted ; in the landscapes of Henry Lines and Creswick, of Birmingham, 

 to whose striking merits I have of late adverted ; of William Sympson, 

 of Edinburgh, who displays so much versatile excellence in landscapes, 

 cattle, rustic figures, small whole-length portraits, river-scenes, boats, 

 fishermen, shipping, and almost every class of cabinet representations in 

 familiar life ? How many more eminent provincials might be named on 

 this point, who have risen to professional celebrity under heavy local 

 disadvantages. In this splendid exhibition by the Society of Artists in 

 Birmingham, for one landscape in the *^ general effect," splashing, 

 DASHING, SPOTTY MANNER, there are, perhaps, a hundred, in which 

 every other merit is set off by the taste and spirit of the penciling, and 

 about a hundred more in which that taste and spirit are objects of well- 

 directed emulation. 



Here I have to correct an oversight into which I fell in my first com- 

 munication, arising from the exhibition having opened so late in 

 September as the Uth, which necessitated me to hurry my penciled 

 notes in the rooms, to be in time for insertion in the next publication of 

 •' The Analyst." I subsequently had also to write out my manuscript at 

 a distance from the exhibition, and to hasten it off by post, without an 

 opportunity of comparing it with the paintings. ITie general difficulty of 

 avoiding some mistakes in the names of artists and sizes of paintings, 

 may be instanced by the fact that several pictures are misplaced and 

 misnamed in the printed catalogue, notwithstanding all the utmost care 

 and vigilance usual in writing out such publications. The oversight of 

 mine is not of any consequence. In page two hundred of *' The 

 Analyst" for October, line 16 from the bottom, " the four little gems'* 

 ought to be " the three little gems." They are 110 and 112, by T. Baker, 

 and 111, by T. Creswick. " 109 — Morning," by the latter, is a good- 

 sized cabinet picture, an enchanting landscape, exquisitely painted j but. 



