8 irntroDuctton 



signs resembling well-bordered carpets, regu- 

 larly variegated with shades of color. 



"This villa is a fragment, the fossil skeleton 

 of an organism that lived two hundred years, 

 its chief pleasure being conversation, fine dis- 

 play, and the manners of the salon and the 

 ante-chamber. Man was not then interested in 

 animate objects ; he did not recognize in them 

 a spirit and beauty of their own ; he regarded 

 them simply as an appendix to his own exist- 

 ence ; they served as a background to the pic- 

 ture, and a vague one, of less than accessory 

 importance. 



"His attention was wholly absorbed by the 

 picture itself that is to say, by its human drama 

 and intrigue. In order to divert some portion 

 of attention to trees, water, and landscape, it 

 was necessary to humanize them, to deprive 

 them of their natural forms and tendencies, of 

 their savage aspect, of a disorderly desert air, 

 and to endow them as much as possible with 

 the air of a salon or a colonnade gallery, or a 

 grand palatial court. The landscapes of Poussin 

 and Claude L,orraine all bear this imprint. 



