Affinity Between Painting and Gardening 55 



of the most beautiful pictures of Claude de Lorraine con- 

 sist of a dark foreground, with a very small opening 

 to distant country. But this ought not to be copied in 

 the principal view from the windows of a large house, 

 because it can only have its effect from one window out 

 of many ; and, consequently, the others must all be 

 sacrificed to this sole object. In a picture, the eye is 

 confined within certain limits, and unity is preserved 

 by artificial means, incapable of being applied to real 

 landscape, in all the extent which Monsieur Gerardin 

 recommends. 



By landscape, I mean a view capable of being repre- 

 sented in painting. It consists of two, three, or more 

 well-marked distances, each separated from the other by 

 an unseen space, which the imagination delights to fill 

 up with fancied beauties that may not perhaps exist 

 in reality. 



** Of Nature's various scenes, the painter culls 

 That for his favourite theme, vv^here the fair whole 

 Is broken into ample parts, and bold ; 

 Where, to the eye, three well-mark' d distances 

 Spread their peculiar colouring. ' * 



Mason. 



Here Mr. Mason supposes an affinity between paint- 

 ing and gardening, which will be found, on a more 

 minute examination, not strictly to exist. 



The landscape painter considers all these three dis- 

 tances as objects equally within the power of his art; but 

 his composition must have a foreground; and though 

 it may only consist of a single tree, a rail, or a piece of 

 broken road, it is absolutely necessary to the painter's 

 landscape. 



The subjects of the landscape gardener are very dif- 

 ferent ; though his scenery requires, also, to be broken 



