598 De Quincy on Imitation in the Fine Arts. 



has yet appeared ; and we freely acknowledge ourselves more 

 indebted to it than to all the other works on landscape-garden- 

 ing, or the fine arts, put together. 



The fundamental principle laid down by Quatremere de 

 Quincy is, that man is an imitative animal ; and that the pro- 

 ductions of the fine arts, or arts of imagination, differ from 

 those of the common arts, or of those which do not address 

 themselves to the imagination, in imitating things in a different 

 medium from that in which they actually exist in nature. Thus, 

 the imitation of a landscape by a painter on canvass is a work of 

 imagination, and the production ranks as one of the fine arts; 

 while to imitate it in the actual materials of nature, such as 

 ground, wood, water, rocks, &c., requires no imagination, but 

 mere mechanical imitation ; and, consequently, the subject pro- 

 duced has no more claim to be considered as belonffino; to the 

 fine arts, than an artificial flower, made of silk, wax, or paper ; 

 and so correctly coloured as to be almost mistaken for nature. 



What, then, becomes of modern landscape-gardening as a fine 

 art, and of the expressions of Alison and others, that it is an 

 art as superior to landscape-painting, as the original is to an 

 imitation ? According to Quatremere de Quincy, modern land- 

 scape-gardening is not a fine art at all. Its avowed object 

 being an imitation of nature, in nature's own materials, it attempts 

 nothing more than the repetition of what already exists ; whereas, 

 to become a fine art, the object imitated must be imitated by 

 the artist in a different material, or in some medium different 

 from that in which it is presented by nature, so as to produce 

 something which did not before exist. The modern style of 

 landscape-gardening, therefore, has even less pretensions to 

 being a fine art, as Quatremere de Quincy very justly observes, 

 than the ancient or geometrical style ; for in this latter style 

 nature was not imitated in a fac-simile manner. Ground, wood, 

 and water, in the ancient style, all underwent a kind of remodel- 

 ing, which removed its productions farther from nature than those 

 of the modern style; and thus, to a certain extent, rendered it a 

 fine art. This doctrine will, no doubt, shock a number of per- 

 sons who have been long accustomed to heap every epithet of 

 abuse on the ancient style, and to bestow unlimited praise on 

 the modern manner; but Quatremere de Quincy's theory is not 

 on this account the less just. The truth is, the applause which 

 has been bestowed on the modern style is not so much owing 

 to any intrinsic merit that it possesses in itself, as it is to the 

 contrast between the scenes which are produced by it, and those 

 of the surrounding country. It has changed places with the 

 geometrical style in England ; because the entire country is now 

 covered with straight hedges and rows of trees, and may, conse- 

 quently, be considered as laid out geometrically ; while natural 



