April — Broom in Flower, 121 



darkened the damp recesses behind them. You will 

 find, too, in similar situations, the marsh marigold, often 

 in the most splendid abundance, making a rich yellow 

 foreground color, and those more modest little plants, 

 the creeping bugle and the small-flowered calamint, both 

 which are good and agreeable in hue, and some places 

 are known to me where the small purple flowers of the 

 calamint are sufficiently powerful from their quantity 

 to deserve the attention of a painter. 



I suppose that no prudent artist would undertake to 

 paint a field of broom in full flower, as we see them 

 towards the end of April. The broom is certainly less 

 objectionable than a field of flowering rape, for the 

 yellow is more supportable and not so unmixed with 

 green ; besides, the green is much richer and darker 

 than that of the rape plant, even if the latter were 

 visible ; but the broom yellow is too powerful to be 

 acceptable in landscape-painting unless in very moderate 

 quantity. It is conceivable that an artist might admit a 

 broom amongst other plants in his* foreground, but only 

 with the greatest care and moderation as to the painting 

 of its flowers ; and in saying this I do not wish to main- 

 tain the authority of the brown masters, but that of 

 sober and right judgment, which in art, as in other 

 matters, must always predominate in the end. When- 

 ever an artist admits any glaring and positive color 

 in quantity relatively great, he incurs the risk of not 

 being able to harmonize it with the quieter hues of 

 which the rest of his picture is composed ; and I may 

 add that Nature herself, from the artistic point of view, 



