_Teniers_ (Flemish: 1610-1694). _See 154._
Very interesting little pictures, as characteristic of the entire
want of poetry in Teniers' art. Compare Mantegna's version of
Summer and Autumn (1125), or recall Botticelli's lovely vision of
Spring at Florence, and one sees in a moment the difference in art
between poetical imagination and vulgarity. To Teniers, Spring--"the
sweet spring, the year's pleasant king"--is only a man carrying a
flower-pot. Summer--"all the sweet season of summertide"--suggests
nothing but a man holding a wheat-sheaf. Autumn--"season of mists
and mellow fruitfulness"--brings him only a first glass of wine;
and Winter--"white winter, rough nurse, that rocks the dead cold
year"--only a second. These pictures (which are painted on copper),
were once in the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and Sir Robert Peel
bought them in 1823 for £189.