336 THE AESTHETICS OF 



herself renders it altogether inadequate to paint her wealth ; 

 but it is here that we feel most the want of accurate and 

 at the same time artistic delineations. Travellers, only too 

 often dull collectors, have as yet far too little cultivated this 

 department of the study of Nature. Even among those 

 who have taken account of it, there are many whose vision 

 is not calm and clear enough to separate what appeared to 

 them, subjectively, striking and interesting, from that which 

 defined the character of the landscape ; many, in the 

 frivolous desire to say something singular, string together 

 laboriously sought words, yet give no picture, or deliver 

 themselves over to the excess of feeling and the flight of 

 an unbridled imagination. Rarely do we find the classic 

 objectivity and the plastic subjectivity, which distinguish 

 the sketches of Nature of the clear Gothe, of the rich and 

 lively Seatsfield, but above all, of the Master of Science, 

 Artistic perception and Language, Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt. 



I have arranged these forms according as they merely 

 clothe the bare earth or rise above it as independant 

 shapes, and the latter according as they especially by 

 foliage, or more through the characteristic appearance of 

 the stem, or, lastly, through a combination and blending 

 of the two, excite the particular impression which is made 

 upon the beholder of a landscape determined by them. 

 But it is possible to establish another, more important 

 ground of division, one taking up more the artistic stand- 

 point. As we divide the landscape itself into foreground, 

 middle distance and distance, so above all must the 

 characteristic vegetable Forms be comprehended in their 

 varying importance to these three portions of the picture 

 of Nature, and be introduced in accurate drawing. The 



