OF THE NOVELTY OF LANDSCAPE.
Sec. 1. Having now obtained, I trust, clear ideas, up to a certain
point, of what is generally right and wrong in all art, both in
conception and in workmanship, we have to apply these laws of right
to the particular branch of art which is the subject of our present
inquiry, namely, landscape-painting. Respecting which, after the
various meditations into which we have been led on the high duties
and ideals of art, it may not improbably occur to us first to
ask,--whether it be worth inquiring about at all.
That question, perhaps the reader thinks, should have been asked and
answered before I had written, or he read, two volumes and a half
about it. So I _had_ answered it, in my own mind; but it seems time
now to give the grounds for this answer. If, indeed, the reader has
never suspected that landscape-painting was anything but good,
right, and healthy work, I should be sorry to put any doubt of its
being so into his mind; but if, as seems to me more likely, he,
living in this busy and perhaps somewhat calamitous age, has some
suspicion that landscape-painting is but an idle and empty business,
not worth all our long talk about it, then, perhaps, he will be
pleased to have such suspicion done away, before troubling himself
farther with these disquisitions.
Sec. 2. I should rather be glad, than otherwise, that he _had_ formed
some suspicion on this matter. If he has at all admitted the truth
of anything hitherto said respecting great art, and its choices of
subject, it seems to me he ought, by this time, to be questioning
with himself whether road-side weeds, old cottages, broken stones,
and such other materials, be worthy matters for grave men to busy
themselves in the imitation of. And I should like him to probe this
doubt to the deep of it, and bring all his misgivings out to the
broad light, that we may see how we are to deal with them, or
ascertain if indeed they are too well founded to be dealt with.
Sec. 3. And to this end I would ask him now to imagine himself
entering, for the first time in his life, the room of the Old
Water-Color Society; and to suppose that he has entered it, not for
the sake of a quiet examination of the paintings one by one, but in
order to seize such ideas as it may generally suggest respecting the
state and meaning of modern as compared with elder, art. I suppose
him, of course, that he may be capable of such a comparison, to be
in some degree familiar with the different forms in which art has
developed itself within the periods historically known to us; but
never, till that moment, to have seen any completely modern work. So
prepared, and so unprepared, he would, as his ideas began to arrange
themselves, be first struck by the number of paintings representing
blue mountains, clear lakes, and ruined castles or cathedrals, and
he would say to himself: "There is something strange in the mind of
these modern people! Nobody ever cared about blue mountains before,
or tried to paint the broken stones of old walls." And the more he
considered the subject, the more he would feel the peculiarity; and,
as he thought over the art of Greeks and Romans, he would still
repeat, with increasing certainty of conviction: "Mountains! I
remember none. The Greeks did not seem, as artists, to know that
such things were in the world. They carved, or variously
represented, men, and horses, and beasts, and birds, and all kinds
of living creatures,--yes, even down to cuttle-fish; and trees, in a
sort of way; but not so much as the outline of a mountain; and as
for lakes, they merely showed they knew the difference between salt
and fresh water by the fish they put into each." Then he would pass
on to mediaeval art: and still he would be obliged to repeat:
"Mountains! I remember none. Some careless and jagged arrangements
of blue spires or spikes on the horizon, and, here and there, an
attempt at representing an overhanging rock with a hole through it;
but merely in order to divide the light behind some human figure.
Lakes! No, nothing of the kind,--only blue bays of sea put in to
fill up the background when the painter could not think of anything
else. Broken-down buildings! No; for the most part very complete
and well-appointed buildings, if any; and never buildings at all,
but to give place or explanation to some circumstance of human
conduct." And then he would look up again to the modern pictures,
observing, with an increasing astonishment, that here the human
interest had, in many cases, altogether disappeared. That mountains,
instead of being used only as a blue ground for the relief of the
heads of saints, were themselves the exclusive subjects of reverent
contemplation; that their ravines, and peaks, and forests, were all
painted with an appearance of as much enthusiasm as had formerly
been devoted to the dimple of beauty, or the frowns of asceticism;
and that all the living interest which was still supposed necessary
to the scene, might be supplied by a traveller in a slouched hat, a
beggar in a scarlet cloak, or, in default of these, even by a heron
or a wild duck.
And if he could entirely divest himself of his own modern habits of
thought, and regard the subjects in question with the feelings of a
knight or monk of the middle ages, it might be a question whether
those feelings would not rapidly verge towards contempt. "What!" he
might perhaps mutter to himself, "here are human beings spending the
whole of their lives in making pictures of bits of stone and runlets
of water, withered sticks and flying frogs, and actually not a
picture of the gods or the heroes! none of the saints or the
martyrs! none of the angels and demons! none of councils or battles,
or any other single thing worth the thought of a man! Trees and
clouds indeed! as if I should not see as many trees as I cared to
see, and more, in the first half of my day's journey to-morrow, or
as if it mattered to any man whether the sky were clear or cloudy,
so long as his armor did not get too hot in the sun!"
Sec. 5. There can be no question that this would have been somewhat the
tone of thought with which either a Lacedaemonian, a soldier of Rome in
her strength, or a knight of the thirteenth century, would have been
apt to regard these particular forms of our present art. Nor can there
be any question that, in many respects, their judgment would have been
just. It is true that the indignation of the Spartan or Roman would
have been equally excited against any appearance of luxurious
industry; but the mediaeval knight would, to the full, have admitted
the nobleness of art; only he would have had it employed in decorating
his church or his prayer-book, nor in imitating moors and clouds. And
the feelings of all the three would have agreed in this,--that their
main ground of offence must have been the want of _seriousness_ and
_purpose_ in what they saw. They would all have admitted the nobleness
of whatever conduced to the honor of the gods, or the power of the
nation; but they would not have understood how the skill of human life
could be wisely spent in that which did no honor either to Jupiter or
to the Virgin; and which in no wise tended, apparently, either to the
accumulation of wealth, the excitement of patriotism, or the
advancement of morality.
Sec. 6. And exactly so far forth their judgment would be just, as the
landscape-painting could indeed be shown, for others as well as for
them, to be art of this nugatory kind; and so far forth unjust, as
that painting could be shown to depend upon, or cultivate, certain
sensibilities which neither the Greek nor mediaeval knight possessed,
and which have resulted from some extraordinary change in human nature
since their time. We have no right to assume, without very accurate
examination of it, that this change has been an ennobling one. The
simple fact, that we are, in some strange way, different from all the
great races that have existed before us, cannot at once be received as
the proof of our own greatness; nor can it be granted, without any
question, that we have a legitimate subject of complacency in being
under the influence of feelings, with which neither Miltiades nor the
Black Prince, neither Homer nor Dante, neither Socrates nor St.
Francis, could for an instant have sympathized.
Sec. 7. Whether, however, this fact be one to excite our pride or not,
it is assuredly one to excite our deepest interest. The fact itself
is certain. For nearly six thousand years the energies of man have
pursued certain beaten paths, manifesting some constancy of feeling
throughout all that period, and involving some fellowship at heart,
among the various nations who by turns succeeded or surpassed each
other in the several aims of art or policy. So that, for these
thousands of years, the whole human race might be to some extent
described in general terms. Man was a creature separated from all
others by his instinctive sense of an Existence superior to his own,
invariably manifesting this sense of the being of a God more
strongly in proportion to his own perfectness of mind and body; and
making enormous and self-denying efforts, in order to obtain some
persuasion of the immediate presence or approval of the Divinity. So
that, on the whole, the best things he did were done as in the
presence, or for the honor, of his gods; and, whether in statues, to
help him to imagine them, or temples raised to their honor, or acts
of self-sacrifice done in the hope of their love, he brought
whatever was best and skilfullest in him into their service, and
lived in a perpetual subjection to their unseen power. Also, he was
always anxious to know something definite about them; and his chief
books, songs, and pictures were filled with legends about them, or
especially devoted to illustration of their lives and nature.
Sec. 8. Next to these gods he was always anxious to know something
about his human ancestors; fond of exalting the memory, and telling
or painting the history of old rulers and benefactors; yet full of
an enthusiastic confidence in himself, as having in many ways
advanced beyond the best efforts of past time; and eager to record
his own doings for future fame. He was a creature eminently warlike,
placing his principal pride in dominion; eminently beautiful, and
having great delight in his own beauty: setting forth this beauty by
every species of invention in dress, and rendering his arms and
accoutrements superbly decorative of his form. He took, however,
very little interest in anything but what belonged to humanity;
caring in no wise for the external world, except as it influenced
his own destiny; honoring the lightning because it could strike him,
the sea because it could drown him, the fountains because they gave
him drink, and the grass because it yielded him seed; but utterly
incapable of feeling any special happiness in the love of such
things, or any earnest emotion about them, considered as separate
from man; therefore giving no time to the study of them;--knowing
little of herbs, except only which were hurtful, and which healing;
of stones, only which would glitter brightest in a crown, or last
the longest in a wall; of the wild beasts, which were best for food,
and which the stoutest quarry for the hunter;--thus spending only
on the lower creatures and inanimate things his waste energy, his
dullest thoughts, his most languid emotions, and reserving all his
acuter intellect for researches into his own nature and that of the
gods; all his strength of will for the acquirement of political or
moral power; all his sense of beauty for things immediately
connected with his own person and life; and all his deep affections
for domestic or divine companionship.
Such, in broad light and brief terms, was man for five thousand
years. Such he is no longer. Let us consider what he is now,
comparing the descriptions clause by clause.
Sec. 9. I. He _was_ invariably sensible of the existence of gods, and
went about all his speculations or works holding this as an
acknowledged fact, making his best efforts in their service. _Now_
he is capable of going through life with hardly any positive idea on
this subject,--doubting, fearing, suspecting, analyzing,--doing
everything, in fact, _but_ believing; hardly ever getting quite up
to that point which hitherto was wont to be the starting point for
all generations. And human work has accordingly hardly any reference
to spiritual beings, but is done either from a patriotic or personal
interest,--either to benefit mankind, or reach some selfish end, not
(I speak of human work in the broad sense) to please the gods.
II. He _was_ a beautiful creature, setting forth this beauty by all
means in his power, and depending upon it for much of his authority
over his fellows. So that the ruddy cheek of David, and the ivory
skin of Atrides, and the towering presence of Saul, and the blue
eyes of Coeur de Lion, were among the chief reasons why they
should be kings; and it was one of the aims of all education, and of
all dress, to make the presence of the human form stately and
lovely. _Now_ it has become the task of grave philosophy partly to
depreciate or conceal this bodily beauty; and even by those who
esteem it in their hearts, it is not made one of the great ends of
education: man has become, upon the whole, an ugly animal, and is
not ashamed of his ugliness.
III. He _was_ eminently warlike. He is _now_ gradually becoming more
and more ashamed of all the arts and aims of battle. So that the
desire of dominion, which was once frankly confessed or boasted of as
a heroic passion, is now sternly reprobated or cunningly disclaimed.
IV. He _used_ to take no interest in anything but what immediately
concerned himself. _Now_, he has deep interest in the abstract
natures of things, inquires as eagerly into the laws which regulate
the economy of the material world, as into those of his own being,
and manifests a passionate admiration of inanimate objects, closely
resembling, in its elevation and tenderness, the affection which he
bears to those living souls with which he is brought into the
nearest fellowship.
Sec. 10. It is this last change only which is to be the subject of our
present inquiry; but it cannot be doubted that it is closely
connected with all the others, and that we can only thoroughly
understand its nature by considering it in this connection. For,
regarded by itself, we might, perhaps, too rashly assume it to be a
natural consequence of the progress of the race. There appears to be
a diminution of selfishness in it, and a more extended and heartfelt
desire of understanding the manner of God's working; and this the
more, because one of the permanent characters of this change is a
greater accuracy in the statement of external facts. When the eyes
of men were fixed first upon themselves, and upon nature solely and
secondarily as bearing upon their interests, it was of less
consequence to them what the ultimate laws of nature were, than what
their immediate effects were upon human beings. Hence they could
rest satisfied with phenomena instead of principles, and accepted
without scrutiny every fable which seemed sufficiently or gracefully
to account for those phenomena. But so far as the eyes of men are
now withdrawn from themselves, and turned upon the inanimate things
about them, the results cease to be of importance, and the laws
become essential.
Sec. 11. In these respects, it might easily appear to us that this
change was assuredly one of steady and natural advance. But when we
contemplate the others above noted, of which it is clearly one of
the branches or consequences, we may suspect ourselves of
over-rashness in our self-congratulation, and admit the necessity of
a scrupulous analysis both of the feeling itself and of its
tendencies.
Of course a complete analysis, or anything like it, would involve a
treatise on the whole history of the world. I shall merely endeavor
to note some of the leading and more interesting circumstances
bearing on the subject, and to show sufficient practical ground for
the conclusion, that landscape painting is indeed a noble and useful
art, though one not long known by man. I shall therefore examine, as
best I can, the effect of landscape, 1st, on the Classical mind;
2ndly, on the Mediaeval mind; and lastly, on the Modern mind. But
there is one point of some interest respecting the effect of it on
_any_ mind, which must be settled first, and this I will endeavor to
do in the next chapter.