Theory and Practice 149 



and often gaudy sketches by which I have found it neces- 

 sary to elucidate my opinions are the strongest proofs 

 that I do not profess to be a landscape painter, but to 

 represent the scenes of nature in her various hues of 

 blue sky, purple mountains, green trees, etc., which are 

 often disgusting to the eye of a connoisseur in painting. 



The best painters in landscape have studied in Italy 

 or France, where the verdure of England is unknown : 

 hence arises the habit acquired by the connoisseur of 

 admiring brown tints and arid foregrounds in the pic- 

 tures of Claude and Poussin, and from this cause he 

 prefers the bistre sketches to the green paintings of 

 Gainsborough. One of our best landscape painters 

 studied in Ireland, where the soil is not so yellow as in 

 England ; and his pictures, however beautiful in design 

 and composition, are always cold and chalky. 



Autumn is the favourite season of study for landscape 

 painters, when all nature verges towards decay, when 

 the foliage changes its vivid green to brown and orange, 

 and the lawns put on their russet hue. But the tints 

 and verdant colouring of spring and summer will have 

 superior charms to those who delight in the perfection 

 of nature, without, perhaps, ever considering whether 

 they are adapted to the painter's landscape. 



It is not from the colouring only but the general 

 composition of landscapes that the painter and land- 

 scape gardener will feel the difference in their respect- 

 ive arts ; and although each may occasionally assist the 

 other, yet I should no more advise the latter, in laying 

 out the scenery of a place, to copy the confined field 

 of vision or affect the careless graces of Claude or 

 Poussin than I should recommend, as a subject proper 

 for a landscape painter, the formal rows or quincunx posi- 

 tion of trees in geometric gardening. It has been wittily 



