54 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



hill is not to be represented in painting, although it is 

 often one of the most pleasing circumstances of natural 

 landscape. 



Fourthly. The light which the painter may bring 

 from any point of the compass must, in real scenery, 

 depend on the time of day. It must also be remem- 

 bered that the light of a picture can only be made 

 strong by contrast of shade ; while in nature every ob- 

 ject may be strongly illumined without destroying the 

 composition or disturbing the keeping. And, 



Lastly. The foreground, which, by framing the view, 

 is absolutely necessary to the picture, is often totally 

 deficient, or seldom such as a painter chooses to repre- 

 sent; since the neat gravel walk or close-mown lawn 

 would ill supply the place, in painting, of a rotten tree, 

 a bunch of docks, or a broken road, passing under a 

 steep bank, covered with briers, nettles, and ragged 

 thorns. 



Real landscape, or that which my art professes to 

 improve, is not always capable of being represented on 

 paper or canvas ; for although the rules for good nat- 

 ural landscape may be found in the best painters' works, 

 in which 



"we ne'er shall find 

 Dull uniformity, contrivance quaint. 

 Or labour'd littleness ; but contrasts broad. 

 And careless lines, whose undulating forms 

 Play though the varied canvas ' ' ; 



Mason. 



yet Monsieur Gerardin"* is greatly mistaken when he 

 directs that no scene in nature should be attempted 

 till it has first been painted. And I apprehend the cause 

 of his mistake to be this : in an artificial landscape the 

 foreground is the most important object; indeed, some 



