34 Old Pictures. [Juny, 
which we scarcely thought it possessed. We now refer chiefly to the 
landscape portion of the picture. The figures are full of delicacy and 
beauty, and, in several instances, include a very extraordinary truth of 
individual expression ; a quality not always paramount in Wouvermans’ 
figures—at least the human ones. The two that are conspicuous in this 
respect are, the blind beggar, on the right, and the boy sitting on the 
ground, on the left, and making active war on certain troublesome com- 
panions, who seem to have established colonies on various parts of his 
person. But our chief reason for noticing this picture is, the character 
of the landscape portion of it, which is of a higher class than any we 
remember to have seen in this artist’s works. There is at once a gran- 
deur and a lightness about it which remind us of Claude. There is, how- 
ever, a coldness—a want of vitality—which is injurious to the truth, no 
less than the beauty of the general effect. It is by crowding his canvass 
with figures, that Wouvermans usually contrives to hide or get over this 
defect ; and it is probable that, in the present instance, he refrained from 
doing so expressly with the view of making the landscape part the prin- 
cipal point of attraction—perceiving, no doubt, that he had succeeded in 
giving to that a character not common with him. His picture would have 
been finer, in all respects, if he had avoided this, and had filled it with 
his usual proportion of active and human interest. It would then have 
presented the rare case of a picture in which the landscape and the 
figures act mutually upon each other and upon the spectators; and the 
effect to the latter would have been increased in much more than the 
mere arithmetical proportion : for if the lover of pictures will call to mind 
his experience in these matters, he will find that, in almost every case 
where a strong impression has been produced upon him, it has resulted 
either from the landscape or the figures—scarcely ever from both united. 
The Peter Martyr of Titian—and, indeed, all Titian’s landscapes—are 
exceptions to this; and all Paul Potter’s, too, so far as relates to the 
cattle. But with these exceptions, the rule is almost universally true 
of the old masters. 
127. A Woody Scene, with Sportsmen. Hackert and VANDEVELDE, 
— This is, in it its way, a most capital production. It represents one of 
those spots of absolute seclusion which are only to be met with in the 
heart of a “ forest old ;’—lofty trees, spiring up like columns high above 
and out of the limits of the picture, and carrying the imagination with 
them, till they seem to reach a supernatural elevation: while, between 
their stems, you catch glimpses into an interminable distance, which 
answers to the imaginary height, both in extent and in vagueness. On 
the other hand, when the attention is confined to the mere literal extent 
of the scene, a directly contrary effect is produced. You feel yourself, 
for the time being, shut in from all communion but with your own 
thoughts and fancies ; and are only reminded that there is a world of 
life and light elsewhere, by the gleams of sunshine that penetrate through 
one small opening, and by the human figures that seem to have Jost (not 
found) their way into this “temple of the woods.” It may be asked; 
perhaps, whether we suppose that the painters ixtended to produce all 
these effects upon the spectator. Of this we can know nothing, and need 
care as little. It is the privilege of genius, and one of its surest cha- 
racteristics, to produce more and other effects than it seeks to produce ; 
and that the above picture is calculated to produce these which we have 
described, can scarcely be questioned, when, in point of fact, it has now 
produced them. 
