ILLUSIKATIONS (34). LANDSCAPE-PAINTING. 347 



impressions, which, when imbibed from external contempla- 

 tion, must be fertilized by the powers of the mind in order 

 to be presented to the senses of others as a creative work 

 of art. The grander style of heroic landscape-painting is 

 the combined result of a profound appreciation of nature, 

 and of this inward process of the mind. 



" Everywhere, in every separate portion of the earth, nature 

 is indeed only a reflex of the whole. The forms of organi- 

 zation recur again and again in different combinations. Even 

 the icy north is cheered for months together by the presence 

 of herbs and large Alpine blossoms covering the earth, and by 

 a mild azure sky. Hitherto landscape painting among us 

 has pursued her graceful labours familiar only with the 

 simpler forms of our native floras, but not therefore without 

 depth of feeling and richness of creative fancy. Dwelling 

 only on the native and indigenous form of our vegeta- 

 tion, this branch of art, notwithstanding that it has been 

 circumscribed by such . narrow limits, has yet afforded 

 sufficient scope for highly-gifted painters, such as the Ca- 

 racci, Gaspar Poussiu, Claude Lorraine, and Ruysdael, to 

 produce the happiest and most varied creations of art, by 

 their magical power of managing the grouping of trees, and 

 the effects of light and shade. That progress which may 

 still be expected in art, from a more animated intercourse 

 with the tropical world, and from ideas engendered in the 

 mind of the artist by the contemplation of Nature in her 

 grandest forms, will never diminish the fame of the old 

 masters. I have alluded to this, to recal the ancient bond 

 which unites a knowledge of Nature with poetry and a taste 

 for art. For in landscape painting, as in every other branch 

 of art, a distinction must be drawn between the elements 

 generated by a limited field of contemplation and direct 

 observation, and those which spring from the boundless depth 

 of feeling, and from the force of idealising mental power. 

 The grand conceptions which landscape painting, as a more or 

 less inspired branch of the poetry of nature, owes to the 

 creative power of the mind, are, like man himself, and the 

 imaginative faculties with which he is endowed, independent 

 of place. These remarks especially refer to the grada- 

 tions in the form of trees from Ruysdael and Everdingen, 

 through the works of Claude Lorraine, to Poussin and 

 Annibal Caracci. In the great masters of art there is no 



