84 LANDSCAPE PAINTING. 



infinite is the field which still remains to be opened to land- 

 scape painting in the tropical portions of either conti- 

 nent, and in the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and the 

 Philippines ; and how all that this department of art has yet 

 produced, is not to be compared to the magnitude of the 

 treasures, of which at some future day it may become pos- 

 sessed. Why may we not be justified in hoping that land- 

 scape painting may hereafter bloom with new and yet un- 

 known beauty, when highly-gifted artists shall oftener pass 

 the narrow bounds of the Mediterranean, and shall seize, 

 with the first freshness of a pure youthful mind, the living 

 image of the manifold beauty and grandeur of nature in the 

 humid mountain valleys of the tropical world ? 



Those glorious regions have been hitherto visited chiefly 

 by travellers to whom the want of previous artistic train- 

 ing, and a variety of scientific occupations, allowed but 

 little opportunity of attaining perfection in landscape 

 painting. But few among them were able, in addition 

 to the botanical interest excited by individual forms of 

 flowers and leaves, to seize the general characteristic impres- 

 sion of the tropical zone. The artists who accompanied 

 great expeditions supported at the expense of the states 

 which sent them forth, were too often chosen as it were by 

 accident, and were thus found to be less prepared than the 

 occasion demanded ; and perhaps the end of the voyage was 

 approaching, when even the most talented among them, 

 after a long enjoyment of the spectacle of the great scenes of 

 nature, and many attempts at imitation, were just beginning 

 to master a certain degree of technical skill. Moreover, in 

 voyages of circumnavigation, artists are seldom conducted 

 into the true forest regions, to the upper portions of the 



