FLOWER-PAINTING. 67 



While a garden owes so much to the poet's 

 pen, it is strange that it should owe compara- 

 tively little to the artist's brush. Who can recall 

 a single picture of gardens or of flowers that 

 ever gave him any great amount of pleasure ! Is 

 Watteau an exception ? But it is the figures in 

 the foreground, not the garden, for which one 

 really cares. And of flower-painters, there are 

 Van Huysum and the Dutchmen, with their piles 

 and masses of blossom, of large size, but gener- 

 ally of dull colour, and without light or warmth 

 about them. Then there are our English flower- 

 painters ; with some the flowers are only sub- 

 sidiary to the picture, and they seem to have 

 adopted Gilpin's advice that 



" By a nice representation of such trifles, he [the painter] would be 

 esteemed puerile and pedantic. Fern-leaves perhaps, or dock, if 

 his piece be large, he might condescend to imitate ; but if he 

 wanted a few touches of red or blue or yellow, to enliven and 

 enrich any particular spot on his foreground, instead of aiming at 

 the exact representation of any natural plant, he will more judi- 

 ciously give the tint he wants in a few random general touches of 

 something like nature, and leave the spectator, if he please, to find 

 out a resemblance. Botanical precision may please us in the flower- 

 pieces of Van Huysum, but it would be paltry and affected in the 

 landscapes of Claude or Salvator." 



F 2 



