IN LANDSCAPE IN ART BEFORE CLAUDE & SALVATOR FIG. 121. TITIAN'S LANDSCAPE AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE. Frontispiece. LANDSCAPE IN ART BEFORE CLAUDE & SALVATOR BY JOSIAH GILBERT AUTHOR OF ' CADORE, OR TITIAN'S COUNTRY ' ; AND ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF 'THE DOLOMITE MOUNTAINS,' ETC. ETC. ' ' Since the men who have come before me have taken for their own every useful or necessary theme, I must do like one who, being poor, comes last to the fair, and can find no other way of providing himself than by taking all things already seen by other buyers, and not taken, but refused, by reason of their lesser value. I then will load my humble pack with this despised and rejected merchandise. " LEONARDO DA VINCI. WITH 141 ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1885 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. UCLA Art Lib. HI) 1540 TO MARY STEWARD GILBERT THE INSPIRER OF THIS WORK AND THE UNWEARIED ASSOCIATE IN ALL THE LABOUR OF ITS PREPARATION, THE COMPLETED VOLUME IS NOW GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. PEEFACE. SEVERAL years ago, when engaged upon the work entitled Cadore, or Titian's Country, I had occasion to examine the landscape introduced more or less as background in the works of several Italian masters of the sixteenth century. My object was to ascertain how far the strange forms of the Dolomite mountains, constantly to be recognised in Titian's landscape, could be identified in that of contemporary painters. During this investigation I was struck with the amount of landscape beauty which passed unnoticed amidst the imposing claims of great sacred subjects, or those of mythologic legend ; I felt, too, that in these neglected corners of canvases, if the study of them were sufficiently wide and thorough, might be traced the rise and early progress of landscape-painting. Some years had passed when it was proposed to me to write something like a history of this delightful art. It was a task too large to undertake, but the suggestion drew my thoughts again to the germs of landscape spread through all mediaeval art. The more I looked into the subject, the more interesting it became, and it had also the fascination of a region hitherto unexplored, and retreating into a dim unknown. For it soon appeared that landscape showed itself in art almost as soon as there was art at all, and that in the pictorial decorations of ancient Eome landscape had reached a high degree of picturesque expression ; then it became necessary to follow the course of its decline, with the decline of everything else, through the periods, viii PREFACE. curiously interesting in themselves, of early Christian mosaic and manuscript illumination, till all was lost in the Byzantine bog. Manuscript illumination, however, in some sort bridged the gulf to mediaeval times, and at length I found myself in Flanders, amidst the art of the Van Eycks an art closely linked, so far as landscape is concerned, with that of Italy on the one hand, and of Germany on the other. The result of these different lines of inquiry is now placed before the reader, and, as the characteristic attitude of each great master towards landscape is incidentally touched upon, the history of art during its great periods may be said to disclose itself from a new standpoint. Two chapters upon the appreciation of landscape in literature, up to the date when art fully adopted landscape as a subject worthy of its highest powers, have been added in illustration of the growth of this perception ; and in one more chapter of this introductory kind I have ventured to set forth the principles of art applied in the landscape branch of it, which form the basis of subsequent criticisms. My subject closes with the advent of Claude and Salvator, because with them landscape-art reached its first illustrious period of development, expanding afterwards in an ever-widening stream to the days of Turner, the era of its greatest glory. Such have been the inception and the purpose of the work. In carrying out the plan proposed I am sufficiently conscious of many shortcomings, and the likelihood of many errors. I would fain have rendered my work more complete within the limits marked out for it, but, while " art is long, life is short," and I have been forced to stop, lest completion should fail altogether. It is a pleasant duty to acknowledge my obligations to friends to whom different portions of the manuscript have been submitted. Mr. Douglas W. Freshfield, Mr. James Beddard, and Mr. John G-. Waller, have each done me kind and valuable service. Mr. Pearson PREFACE. ix has bestowed great pains in rendering drawings which, many of them but hasty sketches to assist the memory, were often difficult for a wood-engraver to interpret. Messrs. Dawson's photo -typographic process has enabled me to increase the number of illustrations, and to introduce some excellent reproductions of engravings, though reduced in size. I have already resorted to the great Leonardo for a motto let me now conclude with a few more words of his : " I believe that before I am at the end of this (task) I shall have to repeat the same thing several times, for which, reader, do not blame me, for the subjects are many." HARDEN ASH, 1st November 1884- CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. PAGE THE SCOPE OF LANDSCAPE AKT 1 What is Landscape ? Limitations of the term. CHAPTEE II. LANDSCAPE IN LITERATURE GREEK AND LATIN . . . 6 Early Myths Homer Hesiod Sophocles Plato Aristophanes Theo- critus Lucretius Catullus Virgil Horace Tibullus Cicero Pliny. CHAPTEE III. LANDSCAPE IN LITERATURE MEDIAEVAL AND TO THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . . . . . .26 Hebrew poetry St. Basil St. Gregory of Nyssa St. Chrysostom Ausonius Claudian Indian poetry Troubadours and Minnesingers The early Romances Dante Petrarch Boccaccio Lorenzo di Medici Leonardo da Vinci Ariosto Bembo Aretino Tasso Camoens Chaucer Raleigh Sidney Spenser Shakespeare Cowley Milton Summary Relations between landscape-art and literature. CHAPTEE IV. PRINCIPLES OF ART APPLIED TO LANDSCAPE . . . .53 FORM : Character of line Nature of the beautiful Composition of lines Proportion of parts Perspective Organic unity Fitness Record of time Dignity Generalisation Composition. SHADOW : Relief Effect Concentration Mystery Pathos. COLOUR : Harmonies Con- CONTENTS. trasts Influence of atmosphere Gradation Effects of shadow, of re- flection, of transparency Colour a help to composition Expresses sentiment Appeals to imagination. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS: In- herent powers of art The real and the ideal Noble art Pathos of nature Its gradual apprehension in art Conventionalism Personality of painters. CHAPTEE V. THE LANDSCAPE or ANCIENT ART . . . . .86 Egyptian Assyrian Indian Chinese Japanese. GREEK : Polygnotus Agatharchos Scenery of the Greek stage Apollodorus Zeuxis Parrhasius Apelles Genre-painting Mural decoration. ROMAN : Pompeian An olive grove Coast scenery Scenic illusion Wall-paint- ings at Rome Ludius Livia's Villa Tombs The Palestrina Nymph- seum The Odyssey pictures. Summary. CHAPTER VI. THE LANDSCAPE OF EARLY CHRISTIAN MOSAICS . . .114 FRESCOS of the Catacombs. CHURCH MOSAICS : Ravenna Rome. CHAPTEE VII. THE LANDSCAPE OF MANUSCRIPTS . . . . .123 Italian Byzantine Irish Age of Charlemagne Gothic vulgate of the ninth century Origin of Diaper Influence of glass-painting Awaken- ing in the thirteenth century French manuscripts Netherland manu- scripts Disappearance of Diaper The landscape of various manuscripts Illustrations to the poems of Christina of Pisa The Bedford Missal Book of Hours by Gerhard Hoornbach Thesaurus Historiarum Influence of manuscript-art upon landscape. CHAPTEE VIII. EARLY FLEMISH LANDSCAPE . . . . . .146 Hubert van Eyck John van Eyck Roger van der "Weyden Ouwater Hans Memlinc Dierick Bouts Gerard van der Meire Gheerardt David Joachim Patenier Quentin Matsys Henri de Bles Jan Mostaert. CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE THE LANDSCAPE or EARLY ITALIAN ART . . . .178 Duccio Giovanni di Paolo Taddeo di Bartolo Giotto Jacopo Casentino Fra Angelico Masaccio Filippo Lippi Uccello Pesellino Benozzo Gozzoli Piero Delia Francesca Piero Pollainolo Verrocchio Ghir- landaio Filippino Lippi Cosimo Roselli Sandro Botticelli. CHAPTEE X. THE LANDSCAPE OF ITALIAN ART IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . 214 Leonardo da Vinci Lorenzo di Credi Piero di Cosimo Bernardino Luini Beltraffio Pietro Perugino Luca Signorelli Francia Lorenzo Costa Amico Aspertini Pinturicchio Bernardino Fungai Ant. de Bazzi (II Sodoma) Fra Bartolommeo Mariotto Albertinelli Andrea del Sarto. CHAPTER XI. LANDSCAPE OF ITALIAN ART THE RAPHAEL PERIOD . . 251 Michael Angelo Raphael Correggio Garofalo Ludovico Mazzolino Dosso Dossi. CHAPTER XII. GERMAN LANDSCAPE OF THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CEN- TURIES ......... 271 Wilhelm of Cologne Stephan Lochner Master of the Lyversberg Passion Martin Schongauer Michael "\Vohlgemuth Albrecht Diirer Hans Kulmbach Hans L. Schaufelein Hans Burgkmair George Pencz Sebald Beham Bartel Beham Hans Baldung Nicholas Manuel Albrecht Altdorfer Mathias Grunewald Melchior Feselen Lucas Cranach Hans Holbein, the elder Hans Holbein. CHAPTER XIII. LANDSCAPE OF THE VENETIAN SCHOOL, FIFTEENTH CENTURY . 309 Gentile da Fabriano Antonello da Messina Andrea Mantegna Francesco Mantegna The Vivarini Carlo Crivelli Gentile Bellini Giovanni Bellini Vittore Carpaccio Cima da Conegliano Marco Basaiti Gior- gione Palma Vecchio Pordenone. CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. PAGE LANDSCAPE OF THE VENETIAN SCHOOL IN CULMINATION AND DECLINE ......... 341 Titian Savoldo Lorenzo Lotto Bonifazio Paris Bordone Bassano Schiavone Veronese Tintoretto. CHAPTER XV. THE LANDSCAPE OF THE CAERACCI SCHOOL . . . .378 Ludovico Carracci Agostino Carracci Annibale Carracci Domenichiuo Francesco Albani Guido Reni Allori (Bronzino) Alessandro Allori Cristofano Allori Scarsellino Lanfranco Sisto Badalocchio Schedone Caravaggio Domenico Feti Guercino. CHAPTER XVI. ITALIANISED FLEMINGS AND GERMANS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 402 Mabuse Bernhard van Orley Lucas van Leyden Jan Schoreel Lucas Gassel J. Cornells Vermeyen Martin de Vos Abraham Bloemart Paul Bril Pieter Brueghel Jan Brueghel Jodocus Momper Roeland Savery David Vinckebooms Lucas van Valkenburg Pieter Last- mann Bartholomew de Bruyn Adam Elsheimer. CHAPTER XVII. THE LANDSCAPE OF RUBENS ...... 424 Influence of Italy Home scenery Changeful effects. CHAPTER XVIII. THE ADVENT OF CLAUDE AND SALVATOR .... 434 Claude Lorraine Salvator Rosa Caspar Poussin Rembrandt Turner. LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. FIG - PAGE 1. TURNER'S ALPS FROM TURIN . . . . .57 2. CYCLAMEN ......... 58 3. MOUNTAIN OUTLINES : VAN EYCK ...... 58 4. TURNER'S TREES AT BOLTON . . . . . . 59 5. HILLS ABOVE FLORENCE : TURNER . . . . .60 6. EXAMPLES OF PROPORTION . . . . . . . .60 7. CYCLAMEN LEAVES . . . . . . . .61 8. VIEW FROM ASOLO OVER THE TREVISANA . . . . .62 9. TURNER'S ROUEN ........ 64 10. BELLINI'S MOUNTAINS . . . . . .65 11. AN ASSYRIAN TREE, BRIT. Mus. ...... 88 12. TREES FROM THE CAVES AT BAGH . . . . .89 13. MOUNTAIN PEAKS, FROM A JAPANESE JAR . . . . .92 14. GATEWAY, FROM A POMPEIAN PICTURE ..... 100 15. AN OLIVE GROVE, POMPEIAN COLLECTION . . . . . 101 16. LEAF DECORATION, FROM POMPEII . . . . ... 102 17. ROCKY COAST SCENE, POMPEII ...... 102 18. CYPRESS, POMPEII . . . . . . . . 103 19. TREE FROM LIVIA'S VILLA . . . . . . 107 20. THE PALESTRINA NYMPH^UM ...... 109 21. TREE IN THE LATERAN COLLECTION -,'.-'. . . 115 22. MOSAICS, STA. MARIA MAGGIORE, ROME ..... 116 23. FRAGMENT OF ROCK, SS. COSMO E DAMIANO, ROME . . . 116 24. TREE AT SAN VITALE, RAVENNA ...... 117 25. TREES FROM S. APOLLINARE Nuovo, RAVENNA .... 118 26. TREE AND ROCK FRAGMENTS, S. APOLLINARE IN CLASSE . . 118 27. ROCK IN THE BAPTISTERY OF STA. MARIA IN COSMEDIN, RAVENNA . 118 28. CLOUDS AT STA. MARIA MAGGIORE, ROME ..... 119 29. CLOUDS AT SS. COSMO E DAMIANO, ROME ..... 120 30. CUMULUS CLOUD. S. VITALE, RAVENNA ..... 120 31. EVENING CLOUDS, S. APOLLINARE IN CLASSE, RAVENNA . . . 121 32. CLOUDS AND TREE. S. PRASEDE, ROME . . , . . . 121 33. TREES FROM BOOK OF GENESIS, VIENNA . . . . . 124 xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIO. . PAOE 34. STEP ROCKS IN BOOK OF GENESIS, VIENNA . . . .125 35. BYZANTINE ROCKS OF NINTH CENTURY ..... 125 36. GOATS AND ROCKS FROM MS. OF TENTH CENTURY . . . 126 37. TREES IN A GREEK PSALTER, 1066 A.D. . . . . . 126 38. TREES FROM THE MELISENDA MS. ...... 127 39. TREE FROM A GOTHIC VULGATE OF THE NINTH CENTURY . . 129 40. TREE OF LIFE, GOTHIC VULGATE . . . . . .130 41. DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH, AND A TWELFTH-CENTURY TREE . .130 42. TREE OF THE SEPULCHRE, ANGLO-NORMAN, TWELFTH CENTURY . . 131 43. PlGS UNDER AN OAK, THIRTEENTH CENTURY . . . .134 44. TREE AND ROCK, NETHERLAND WORK, FOURTEENTH CENTURY . . 137 45. ROCKS AND TREES, FROM A PRAYER-BOOK, BODLEIAN . . . 138 46. A ROCK OF THE SEASHORE, HISTORY OF JUSTIN .... 138 47. HILLS AND TREES IN THE POEMS OF CHRISTINA OF PISA . . . 139 48. ROCK PLATFORM AND WAVES IN THE CHRISTINA MINIATURES . .139 49. SUPERNATURAL CLOUDS ....... 139 50. HERALDIC SIGN FOR CLOUDS ....... 140 51. CALIGRAPHIC CLOUDS IN THE ST. ETHELWOLD MS. . . .140 52. LAMINATED ROCKS OF THE BEDFORD MISSAL . . . .141 53. ANGELS AND THE SHEPHERDS, BEDFORD MISSAL . . . .141 54. ENTOMBMENT BY GERHARDT HOORNBACH ..... 142 55. FROM THE HOLY WARRIORS : VAN EYCK, BERLIN . . . .150 56. VIEW OF A CITY : J. VAN EYCK, LOUVRE . . . . .152 57. VIEW OF A CITY : VAN DER WEYDEN, MUNICH .... 156 58. ALPINE SCENERY : MEMLINC, BRUGES . . . . . 161 59. THE BAPTISM : MEMLINC, BRUGES . . . . . .162 60. ST. CHRISTOPHER : STUERBOUDT, MUNICH ..... 164 61. LANDSCAPE OF THE ST. ERASMUS, LOUVAIN .... 167 62. LANDSCAPE BY VAN DER MEIRE, GHENT . . . . .169 63. FROM THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT : PATENIER, ANTWERP . . .172 64. FROM THE HOLY FAMILY BY QUENTIN MATSYS . . . .173 65. FROM THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY : H. DE BLES . . . 175 66. CHRIST APPEARING TO MARY : Duccio, SIENA .... 181 67. ROCKS OF GIOVANNI DI PAOLO, SIENA ..... 181 68. TREES AND ROCKS OF GIOTTO, PADUA . . . . . .183 69. LANDSCAPE OF THE "DEPOSITION": FRA ANGELICO . . . 187 70. ROCKS FROM THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH : LORENZETTI, PlSA . . 188 71. LANDSCAPE OF THE TRIBUTE MONEY : MASACCIO .... 192 72. LANDSCAPE AT S. CLEMENTE, ROME : MASACCIO .... 193 73. FROM THE CAMPO SANTO PISA : BENOZZO GOZZOLI .... 198 74. LANDSCAPE BY GHIRLANDAIO, SISTINE CHAPEL .... 205 75. ROCKS BY GHIRLANDAIO, STA. MARIA NOVELLA .... 206 76. ROCKS IN THE ST. BERNARD OF FILIPPINO LIPPI .... 207 77. TREES AND PATH: SANDRO BOTTICELLI, SISTINE .... 211 78. FROM A SKETCH BY L. DA VINCI 216 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xvii FIO. p AOE 79. MOUNTAIN OUTLINES : L. DA VINCI ..... 217 80. STORM OVER AN ALPINE VALLEY : L. DA VINCI .... 220 81. FROM THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS : L. DA VINCI, LOUVRE . . 222 82. FROM THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN : PERUGINO . . . 231 83. LANDSCAPE OF CHRIST IN THE GARDEN : PERUGINO . .'. . 231 84. LANDSCAPE OF THE MADONNA : PERUGINO, NATIONAL GALLERY . . 233 85. LANDSCAPE IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL BY SIGNORELLI . . . 235 86. FROM AN ANNUNCIATION BY FRANCIA, BRERA .... 238 87. LANDSCAPE OF A NATIVITY : FRANCIA, BOLOGNA .... 239 88. LANDSCAPE OF THE ST. CATHERINE : FRA BARTOLOMMEO . . 247 89. LANDSCAPE TO LEFT IN THE " CONNESTABILE " MADONNA : RAPHAEL . 255 90. LANDSCAPE TO RIGHT IN THE "CONNESTABILE" MADONNA: RAPHAEL . 256 91. LANDSCAPE OF APOLLO AND MARSYAS : RAPHAEL .... 258 92. LANDSCAPE OF THE VISION OF EZEKIEL : RAPHAEL . . . 264 93. LANDSCAPE OF CORREGGIO'S MADONNA, TRIBUNE, FLORENCE . . 266 94. MOUNTAIN SCENE FROM THE ENTOMBMENT : DURER . . . 277 95. VIEW IN DURER'S PORTRAIT AT THE UFFIZI .... 278 96. LANDSCAPE FROM VISITATION OF THE VIRGIN : DURER . . . 284 97. FROM THE RAISING OF DRUSIANA : BURGKMAIR, AUGSBURG . . 288 98. RECOVERY OF THE BODY OF ST. QUIRINUS : ALTDORFER . . . 294 99. MOONLIGHT AMONG TREES : ALTDORFER ..... 298 100. MARTYRDOM OF ST. QUIRINUS : ALTDORFER .... 300 101. FAC-SIMILE, REDUCED, OF A PEN-DRAWING BY ALTDORFER . . 302 102. THE TARPEIAN ROCK, CRANACH ...... 305 103. LUCERNE, FROM PART OF A DRAWING : HOLBEIN .... 306 104. MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE : HOLBEIN . .... 307 105. MANTEGNA'S HILLSIDE ....... 313 106. MANTEGNA'S ROCKS, FROM A DRAWING ..... 314 107. BELLINI'S LANDSCAPE OF THE BARBARIGO PICTURE AT MURANO . 321 108. BELLINI'S LANDSCAPE OF THE MADONNA AT S. FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA 322 109. BELLINI'S ST. JEROME AT S. CRISOSTOMO, VENICE . . . 323 110. LANDSCAPE FROM A PICTURE AT S. ALVISE : CARPACCIO . . . 325 111. ARCH OF ROCKS AT S. GIORGIO DE' SCHIAVONE : CARPACCIO . . 327 112. ALPINE MEADOW-SCENE : CIMA, PARMA GALLERY . . . 329 113. THE CHALDEAN SAGES : GIORGIONE, VIENNA .... 335 114. FROM A FRESCO BY TITIAN IN THE SCVOLA DEL SANTO, PADUA . 344 115. LANDSCAPE IN THE SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE : TITIAN . . 345 116. LANDSCAPE OF THE MADONNA IN GLORY, SERRAVALLE : TITIAN . 346 117. FROM TITIAN'S PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESS OF URBINO, UFFIZI . 347 118. THE ST. JEROME OF TITIAN, FROM AN ENGRAVING . . . 349 119. FROM TITIAN'S SKETCH FOR HIS FRESCO AT PADUA . . ' 350 120. FROM TITIAN'S ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS .... 351 121. FROM THE LANDSCAPE BY TITIAN AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE . Frontispiece 122. CASTLE OF CADORE, IN THE PICTURE AT ALNWICK . . . 354 123. PESARO, FROM SIR A. H. LAYARD'S ST. JEROME : SAVOLDO . . 357 xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIO. PAGE 124. FROM AN ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS : SAVOLDO, TURIN . . 358 125. FROM A PICTURE IN THE VENICE ACADEMY : BONIFAZIO . . 361 126. LANDSCAPE IN THE STA. GIUSTINA: P. VERONESE . . . 368 127. THE MAGDALEN IN THE WILDERNESS: TINTORETTO . To face page 371 128. LANDSCAPE OF THE CRUCIFIXION, SCUOLA DI SAN Rocco : TINTORETTO To face page 372 129. SUNSET OVER THE LAGOONS : TINTORETTO . . . . .375 130. FROM A DRAWING BY AGOSTINO CARRACCI, PITTI . . . 383 131. LANDSCAPE WITH MUSICIANS : ANNIBALE CARRACCI, LOUVRE To face page 383 132. ERMINIA AND THE SHEPHERDS : DOMENICHINO .... 388 133. FROM AN ENGRAVING, AFTER A DRAWING BY GUERCINO . . .400 134. LANDSCAPE BY P. BRIL, BERLIN ...... 410 135. LANDSCAPE BY J. BRUEGHEL, FROM AN ENGRAVING . To face page 415 136. FLIGHT INTO EGYPT : ELSHEIMER, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY GOUDT To face page 422 137. LANDSCAPE BY RUBENS, FROM AN ENGRAVING BY BOLSWERT To face page 429 138. VIEW OF THE ESCURIAL : RUBENS .... To face page 430 139. THE SHIPWRECK OF ./ENEAS : RUBENS, FROM AN ENGRAVING . . 432 140. LANDSCAPE BY CLAUDE, FROM AN ENGRAVING . . To face page 436 141. LANDSCAPE BY SALVATOR ROSA, FORMERLY IN THE GUADAGNI COLLECTION To face page 438 ERRATA. Page 325, line 14, and page 326, title of Fig. Ill, for Schiavone read Schiavoni. Page 422, line 10, for Leichtenstein read Liechtenstein. CHAPTER I. THE SCOPE OF LANDSCAPE- ART. THE spirit of art, first shown, it may be presumed, in device of apparel and personal ornament, must have found its first definite and large embodiment in architecture. The earliest of all social necessities would be the dwelling, and with construction of the dwelling, however rude, came the opportunity to display some notion of symmetry, some feeling for proportion, some expression of an idea. Then, as the dwelling increased in magnitude and importance, as it became the royal dwelling, and the dwelling for the god, this expression gained in dignity, and there came also symbolical repre- sentation ; a mute but potent world of figures rose in colour upon the walls, or stood carved in marble or cast in bronze. Here art found great and endless scope and reached an endless fame. But in time, along with the human figure depicted upon the walls in every variety of action and office, there came hints of the world it lived in. A tree, or something like a tree ; a river, if that could be put before the eye ; a hill ; the semblance of walls and towers how much would these help to tell the story ? Thus was added, but only as an explanatory adjunct to the human figure or the divine personage concerned in human affairs, something of the external scene of things. Hence it was in architecture, the home of the man, in sculp- ture and painting, recording the doings and feelings of the man or the man-god, that art found its sufficient scope, and for ages had no other. In architecture thoughts of beauty and grandeur could be expressed ; sculpture and painting found in the human frame all they needed for rendering what thought conceived or heart could feel. But all the while there lay at hand untouched, except for casual illustration, a vast region abundantly rich in the beautiful, the grand, and the emotional, waiting to be explored waiting to yield up its / ^/ B 2 THE SCOPE OF LANDSCAPE -ART. [CHAP. i. powers to whomsoever could use them. Landscape offered all this to art, but long in vain. The time came at last, though by slow degrees, and then art saw and seized a new opportunity. But what is landscape ? To what is this new word properly applied ? The dictionary does not help us much, for landscape, after all, was the creation of art. It was the artistic eye that dis- covered landscape in the surrounding scene of things, though poetic vision had, as we shall see, frequent forecasts of its charm. "This green earth," we say, "that blue sky;" and such vague and general terms may serve for the occasion nay, sufficiently express all that some minds care to see. But what of the real spectacle ? Look, and the green dissolves away into a maze of soft sweet colours ; look more closely still, and objects of infinitely varied form as well as tint fill up the scene. Trees spring from the soil, spread their arms abroad, and uphold a weight of foliage ; hills swell upon the sight and break in crags, or soar in rocky pinnacles ; woods climb the steeps and hang in purple folds ; vales wind among the hills, disappearing in their recesses ; a stream, a river, wanders and widens into shimmering reaches, or yields its waters to a lake that shines, a second sky; a mountain rises dark into the blue, and along the far horizon mountain rolls on mountain bathed in tints of azure, or white with gleaming snows. Or view that vast floor of waters which we call the sea, restless with glittering waves that are lost at last in one level waste, bounded only as it seems by the very verge of the world ! Above, the overarching sky changes to all colours with the opening and the closing day. The moon succeeds, and, " Empress of the noon of night," pours forth her silver splendour. Nor day nor night, nor sun nor moon alone, brings change into the sky. From time to time it is mottled with pearl, or swathed in veils of vapour, or hidden in part or altogether by huge bulks of cloud that, swift or slow, pursue their windborne way. And all these powers of the sky are potent too on earth, working endless witchery with alternate gloom and brightness, storm and calm. It is also a living spectacle, a world of creatures busy or at rest. Among them man appears, and all other life becomes sub- servient ; he invades the scene with his works ; a dwelling thrusts its roof into sight; a town displays itself, curving along a shore, set stately in the plain, or climbing the hillside with walls and towers that catch the morning or the evening glow ; gardens and CHAP, i.] THE SCOPE OF LANDSCAPE -ART. 3 groves enhance its beauty ; industries many and various give to it life and interest. Siich in brief are the main features of the panorama which surrounds us. Evidently here is an interminable array of objects, and of objects full of beauty. There are ceaseless diversities of form, ceaseless interchanges of light and shade ; colours radiant, soft, and deep ; contrasts, harmonies, and combinations without end ; while amidst the abounding intricacy perspective brings unity and order. Yet this is not all. This great spectacle has power to suggest ideas, to raise emotion ; there is discovered in it an answering to the human soul as it thinks and as it feels. To poet and artist this long hidden mystery was at last revealed, and modern civilisation has been abundantly leavened with a sense of landscape beauty. Yet there is much that is superficial in popular admiration. We have spoken of human industries as taking part in the scene, but to many observers the industries alone are the feature to be observed ; economics offer the only source of interest. They look at the field for its cultivation, and note the trimness of its fences ; they look at the wood not for its trees but for its timber, at the stream for its navigable capabilities or its water power ; roads are interesting as they suit the traveller, houses as they are four-square and weather -tight; towns stand well if they command the sources of trade. All this cannot be objected to. The hand of man has been creating after its fashion, contriving, altering, such action is man's prerogative ; he must needs turn the surface of the earth to all manner of account; but admiration of this is not admiration of landscape. Nor is it landscape that is sought by the majority of those whose object in the outdoor world is pleasure not business. Sport which carries so many people over miles of country, and into some of the wildest solitudes, is a brave exercise of limb and lung, and sends the eye searching far and wide over field and moor and forest. There is no doubt in this an exhilarating sense of freedom ; there may belong to it in some of the selecter minds an enjoyment of scenery nearly allied to that of which we speak, but the exigencies of the chase allow no pause for landscape to make its true appeal. So far we cannot even except the angler, though of all forms of sport his seems to breed most sympathy with nature. The ride, the drive, the promenade, afford a pleasure in which, to most, the landscape element is quite subordinate. It is fresh air, 4 THE SCOPE OF LANDSCAPE -ART. [CHAP. i. space of sky and breadth of earth, brightness and colour, more than all perhaps, people crowds of people that make the charm. It is the moving play of life that captivates, although to the intercourse with folk, a background of nature may not be amiss ; and if the promenade command a prospect, all the better. So the picnic is by choice spread in some charming spot; but whatever the gifts of nature around, they are but adjuncts to the talk and the viands they set off the grace of life. The great sea must be only a murmur and a sparkle ; the great mountains must not be too great. Nor can we call delight in garden or park a test of true land- scape feeling. The garden is too limited, too formal, too clearly ruled by man's device. It is devoted too evidently to flowers as a show, to fruit as a luxury; its lawns are too soft, its paths too carefully ordered. Yet the garden may, under certain conditions, come very near to landscape, and the park still more so ; size helps this last, the majesty of trees dignifies it ; it lies up and down the hills ; it may cunningly imitate a natural scene. Yet with all its delights and the avenue is a noble feature, and the ornamental water charming (only that it is ornamental), and the palace in the midst may be of lordly grace still the park is not exactly landscape. For landscape in the sense that poetry and art have learnt to apprehend it must be nature's work. It is in the main what the powers of nature vegetation, sunshine and storm, the winds, the waters have concurred to fashion. The seasons and the years have had free course over it. It is the careless beauty unmeddled with, unforced, that has come to be, and which, if here and there destroyed or interrupted, rises in some new form under nature's hand. This is what poet and artist have to deal with, and this under all those transient effects of colour and of light in which the moods of nature seem to be expressed. Poet and artist alike have in all this to interpret nature's appeal to the imagination, and to utter her response to human feeling. The special office of the artist is to render this interpretation, by means of lines and tints, a language addressed to the eye, the adequacy of which we shall presently discuss. But in confining landscape-art to the natural scene, we must remember that we have already admitted the presence not only of "the cattle upon a thousand hills " but of man and his works, for in this sense man is a part of nature, and nature is always claiming what he does for herself. Landscape-art welcomes man as introducing the momentous CHAP, i.] THE SCOPE OF LANDSCAPE -ART. 5 human story into the spectacle which it is her function to interpret. The natural scene accepts, and art delights, in the path that lies across the sward and the road that penetrates the forest or winds over the hill, while the stately tree is all the more interesting as it lends to the human habitation a protecting shade. All those in- dustries that are concerned with the outdoor world find, when not too obtrusive, a legitimate place. Over the work of the plough and the ingathering of harvest Nature smiles and Art rejoices ; boats glide along the streams, and all manner of navigable craft track their way upon the deep ; they partake of all the accidents of light and shade which grace the natural scene ; and to art they are a special gain, for they bring with them colours of their own which enhance those of nature. Landscape-art may even depict a town or a street, but this must be under the condition that it is but a part of the scene, or that nature rules over it with her effects of sunshine and cloud, and the history she has written upon the age-worn walls. A building would be incongruous with landscape, had it not become, by virtue of time or vegetation or incidents of light, all but a natural object itself. Thus landscape - art has a noble sphere, and beauty of a kind peculiar to itself. Historical and portrait art must ever indeed take precedence, because there is no greater object within the scope of our senses than the human being. His form, the ideal of beauty, grace, and strength, the fit instrument of a moral and spiritual nature ; his countenance " a tablet of unutterable thoughts," and a sensitive index of emotion these afford an inexhaustible range for art and its absolutely noblest subject. But landscape -art comes next, and with this advantage, that its highest excellences are more ready of attainment. It searches out the grace, the beauty, the grandeur, and the pathos that dwell in earth and sky. It reads the face of nature; it finds therein a wondrous reflex of the human soul, and refuses to take this reading as a " fallacy." It discovers that as music touches and thrills the innermost chords of being, so will landscape, in its harmonies and contrasts, soothe or rouse the spirit, and with this great privilege, that no subtle foul suggestion ever accompanies the spectacle. The fair robe of nature is the vesture of innocence ; she walks in beauty and in mystery, and her " word is pure, enlightening the eyes." CHAPTEE II. LANDSCAPE IN LITEKATURE GEEEK AND LATIN. Early Myths Homer Hesiod Sophocles Plato Aristophanes Theocritus Lucretius Catullus Virgil Horace Tibullus Cicero Pliny. ALTHOUGH landscape -art possesses, as we have seen, so rich and fair a field, it is comparatively a modern art. This naturally follows from the fact that appreciation of natural scenery has only in modern times become a distinctive feature of civilisation. It is beyond the limits of our subject to set forth the complex conditions which have led to this. Incidentally some of them may be suggested in the following pages, and we may briefly state now the conclusion that the change is mainly due to the development of a moral sensitiveness which has affected all culture, and which has discovered a sympa- thetic response in the spectacle of nature. No doubt other things have helped. The discovery of the New World, and the subse- quent and ever-growing spirit of travel; the safety and leisure which now attend the ordinary traveller ; the revolt against conventions of society, and the trammels of a highly -wrought civilisation ; an awakened interest in the past, and in all historic lands and scenes ; the charm of solitude, more scarce as the human crowd increases these and other circumstances have had their influence, though mental and moral problems still more. Any way the fact that the modern sense of landscape beauty has become a power in life unknown to the ancient and mediaeval world is patent. If the full and intelligent enjoyment of landscape is still confined to the few, yet the many talk about it and profess to seek it. They flock to all beautiful scenes, and, what is more remarkable, learn to find pleasure in sucli as are only stern and wild. The spell of landscape is upon all literature ; the historian claims its aid ; the traveller, in page after page deals in vivid description; poetry dwells with passionate delight upon the loveliness or grandeur of natural scenes ; and CHAP, ii.] EAKLIEST OBSERVATION OF LANDSCAPE. 7 landscape painting takes a foremost place in the practice of art. But were the long ages sightless and dumb amidst the landscape beauty of the world ? Certainly not, and our object in the present and following chapter is to show that much was seen and felt in literature before it was fully expressed in art. The modern feeling for landscape has been denned as " a consciously sentimental view of natural phenomena." We have rather put it as a finding in scenery an original source of noble or pathetic emotion ; but, how- ever modern this feeling, however recent this discovery, we may be sure the germs lie deep in human nature. Admiration as well as wonder, more or less intelligent, must have accompanied the earliest perception of the thousandfold forms, colours, and objects of the natural world, and a certain sympathy would soon stir in the breast. That landscape was indeed a potent factor in the education of man we have positive evidence in the fact that written language was derived from pictures of natural objects objects which were often components of landscape. Thus in the oldest Chinese char- acters the tree, the mountain, the river, the cloud, the sun, and the dome of sky appear in rude symbol, and symbolising much beyond themselves. We may even recognise something of the poetry evoked in the very childhood of the race by the observation of natural phenomena, when we find in the oldest Cuneiform a repre- sentation of the setting sun, wherein two horizontal wedges stand for parallel bars of clouds near the horizon, and the whole "ideo- graphic picture " forms a symbol of " ending " or rest. 1 In pictorial characters, like these, of untold age and common to widely-separated systems of speech, we find art and literature at one ; but it was an art of symbol rather than of representation, and its application to landscape lay dormant for long cycles of time. Meanwhile literature was gradually preparing the way. Poetry was sure to find a voice for the enjoyment, wherever it was felt, of the spectacle of nature, and to the poetry of literature, ancient and mediaeval, we now turn for the signs of that enjoyment. Art in the end, though perhaps earlier than has usually been supposed, found voice for it too sometimes, as we shall hope to show, taking up the strain in advance of literature, or when for a time literature had fallen into senility. 1 See History of the Alphabet, by Dr. Isaac Taylor, vol. i. p. 52. 8 LANDSCAPE IN LITERATURE. [CHAP. n. Nature-myths, whatever might be the necessities of language to which we are told they owe their origin, are due also to a poetical apprehension of nature. The beauty and victorious promise of the dawn, the tender loveliness of the evening twilight, are reflected in many a cunning myth. Clouds must have been watched by an imaginative gazer before they were likened to white flocks of sheep, to the cattle of the Sun-god, to maidens riding upon steeds the winds from whose inanes there fell " dew in the deep dales, And on the high trees, hail." Or again, when they are likened, as they lie level at sundown, to swans upon a lake sailing in single file. One of the most recent of the world's poets has sung of the " breeze " that " flung The lilies to and fro, and said The dawn, the dawn, and died away," but no less truly had that preluding breath been noticed by those who described the winged Hermes leading on the day. Mythologic stories all over the world, and varying with the zones, coloured now with southern, now with northern nature, now dealing with the conquering sun, now with stormy winds, now with gracious summer on the earth, now with cruel winter, are all pictures by primeval man of nature nature as Titian saw it and as Turner loved it. But the persuasion that hidden powers were at work amidst all the phenomena of the outward world rendered landscape a scene of mysterious or curious awe, rather than a spectacle of beauty or sublimity in itself; and though, when the myths were all crystallised, and had peopled earth and heaven with definite beings of human semblance, as we find in the Homeric period, this mystery had changed its character, still landscape was not a subject for its own sake ; it was the sphere of the Immortals, and in relation to man but a background, a playground, a workplace, and an endless repertory of simile. Homer is in this way graphic enough, and affords delightful evidence that the changeful effects of wind and cloud and sun upon field, mountain, and sea (especially upon the latter) were accurately observed and enjoyed by him. A landscape worthy of any pencil is struck off in the lines CHAP, ii.j LANDSCAPE OF HOMER. 9 " As when the king of lightnings, Jove, dispels From some huge eminence a gloomy cloud, The groves, the mountain tops, the headland heights, Shine all, illumined from the boundless heaven." Iliad, xvi. 297. COWPER'S TRANS. This sudden disclosure of the forms of hills or crags against the sky, one of the most imposing effects in scenery, had evidently caught the attention of the bard, for he repeats the incident with the variation of suddenness in the famous night scene rendered by Tennyson " And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to the highest." "When he spoke of the departing Hector in day-bright arms, white plume, and white scarf as " conspicuous as the height Of some snow-crested mountain," Iliad, xiii. 754. COWPER. Homer must have thought a snow-covered mountain a noble object. And he must have known and felt something of the powers astir among the mountains when he speaks of the hero again in the same book (line 136) as rushing into battle like a boulder loosened by heavy rains, that crashes down the mountain side, leaping high in air, while the woods around echo till it reaches the plain, " and then for all its haste it rolls no further." But he is most at home among the wild coast waves, watching the "fervent blore Of th' east and south winds ; when they break from Jove's clouds and are borne On rough backs of th' Icarian seas," Iliad, ii. 144. CHAPMAN. or observing with thorough pictorial perception how " Out at sea first, the wave lifts up its crest, And then breaking on the coast roars mightily, And advancing arched upon the headlands Lifts itself to a head, and spues afar the salt foam." It is he too who from some " look-out " has seen " a cloud advancing o'er the sea Beneath the west wind's breath . . . . . . black as pitch, it sweeps along O'er the dark face of ocean, bearing on A hurricane of rain." Iliad, iv. 275. LORD DERBY. 10 LANDSCAPE IN LITER ATUKE. [CHAP. n. These and many others are striking landscape effects, and justify Dr. Shairp's assertion that Homer was not so insensible as Mr. Buskin would imply to the wild beauty of nature ; still it must be observed that in all such allusions there is no dwelling upon the scene as in itself suggestive of emotion, nor is there any sense of the pathos of nature. They are similes brought in only to illustrate human action the port, the movement of the heroes, or of the hosts they led. Further, and it is a curious point, there is small notice of colour. Occasionally we come across a " gray " shore, and a gray or gray -green (y\avKij) sea, " violet " or wine-coloured waves, but, as Mr. Gladstone asserts, no orange, green, or even blue are to be recognised in the descriptions. There are whiteness and brightness, gloom and blackness ; and these applying to objects and separate parts of the landscape rather than to the landscape itself, which indeed never stretches to a large horizon. In the Odyssey the wanderings of the hero in various lands necessarily led to some direct descriptions of landscape, and it is these that have provoked Mr. Buskin to say that " every Homeric land- scape intended to be beautiful is composed of a fountain, a meadow, and a shady grove." Perhaps if for beautiful we substituted " habitable " we should obtain a more correct notion of the poet's feeling, while this word would describe a style of landscape very widely admired and prevailing through a vast extent of time both in literature and in art. And if in these days the same quality is still charming to multitudes, it is not surprising that in early ages it should have been supremely so, for it was then comparatively rare the exception amidst the wildernesses. Wild nature could only be thoroughly enjoyed when the eye became fatigued with order and culture, and safety was sufficiently secured. So, though as our great landscape critic has pointed out, two chief elements of scenery woods and rocks are in these poems continually referred to, it is not their beauty that attracts, but their comfortableness. In the wood, though the entanglement of branches is described with almost a painter's eye, yet it is the comfortable look after the forlorn wastes of the sea, or the shelter of the boughs, or the soft warm bed of fallen leaves, that moves the poet. The rocks, too, have their one comniendableness as they form a harbour for ships, or provide a cave for boats to be run into. We get it all in one quotation (adopting Mr. Buskin's rendering). In the Cyclops country " they have soft marshy meadows near the sea, and a good rich crumbling CHAP. IT.] LANDSCAPE OF HOMEE. 11 ploughing land, giving fine deep crops and vines always giving fruit." Then " a port so quiet that they have no need of cables in it ; and at the head of the port a beautiful clear spring, just under a cave, and aspen poplars all round it." Now there is undeniable beauty in some of the features of such a scene, but that, we take it, had little to do with the poet's admiration, which fastened upon it as a choice, cheerful, and safe bit of liveable country. Of true landscape in the Odyssey there is very little. Ulysses climbs indeed a rocky point and sees in the distant plain the smoke that rises from Circe's palace embosomed in " the gloom of trees and thickets;" it is certainly a definite picture, but, characteristically, there is no colour ; there is no recognition of the scene as spread in richness and in summer glory far and wide within the circling hills, and soaring in purple harmonies into the azure sky. Nor does Homer dwell upon the careless natural beauty of sequestered spots such for instance as we shall find frequently described in Dante. But the fact that his hero visited wild shores, wandered in strange lands, and encountered the vicissitudes of the sea, must have stirred the imagination of his readers, and indeed we find that these adven- tures furnished eventually the most popular subjects for the land- scape-art of the ancients. Homer, in general, was not in advance of his age any more than Hesiod, who, though he deals in his Works and Days with the open country, does so entirely in a utilitarian sense ; he is more concerned with his husbandman's calendar than anything else. The fairest sight to him is " The ripe harvest of the teeming ground," or, " The rich glebe of inward- winding vales." His famous description of a winter storm dwells more upon the sounds than the sights, and is full of commonplaces about the destruction wrought in the forests. The poet is not roused to any sense of grandeur. Greek landscape we may fairly say was enjoyed more for use, for ease, for the evidence of cultivation, than for anything else, and Homer so far was a Greek. But he was a poet also, and a poet for all time, and among the signs of this supreme greatness is the power to break at will the bounds of ordinary or social thought, and hence those glimpses in Homer of the romantic side of nature to use a 12 LANDSCAPE IN LITERATURE. [CHAP. n. modern word for what has only found its full appreciation in modern times. Of Sophocles we are told that he was the first who in some kind of scene-painting made use of landscape to enhance the effect of dramatic performances. This is a very significant fact, to which we shall presently return. We only point out now that looking through his works he has the landscape of his situations very clearly in his thought. It always forms part of his poetic vision. Yet for his personal tastes we do not get much farther than the fountain, the meadow, and the shady grove " The voiceless grass-grown grove, Where flows with constant stream The calm soft rivulet." Plumtree's (Edipus at Colonos. The olive, whose landscape charm is great, is certainly a favourite with him, and there is a notable passage rendered by Mr. Euskin " the sweetest resting - place " haunted perpetually by nightingales which sing " in the green glades and in the dark ivy, and in the thousand -fruited sunless and windless thickets" thickets which the translator believes were rather glades or avenues among trees. But we can hardly call this a landscape admired for its own sake. It is still a place pleasant as a resting-place from its quiet and shade. When we read in the Phcedrus that Socrates was not accus- tomed in his walks to go outside the walls of Athens, saying, " Trees and fields tell me nothing ; men are my teachers," we know what to think of his love of scenery. And that the philosopher really cared very little for it is quite as much shown by the statement that on a notable occasion he was tempted out by expectation of dis- course and the promise of shade, gentle breezes and grass on which to rest under a certain tall plane tree, with opportunity also on the way of cooling the unsandalled feet in the fresh waters of the Ilissus. Yet Plato's perception of landscape beauty went, we may suppose, farther than this. Such a description as the following shows subtle observation of certain qualities in Mediterranean scenery : " There the whole earth is made up of colours brighter far and clearer than ours ; there is a purple of wonderful lustre, also the radiance of gold, and the white which is in the earth is whiter than any chalk or snow. Of these and other colours the earth is made up, and they are brighter and more in number and fairer than CHAP, ii.] ARISTOPHANES AND THEOCRITUS. 13 the eye of man has ever seen, like light flashing among the other colours, and have a colour of their own which gives a sort of unity to the variety of earth." Phcedo, Jowett's Trans. One Greek poet alone, Aristophanes, is by Mr. Buskin associated with Homer for apprehension of noble landscape, and indeed his description of the clouds in the play of that name goes beyond Homer in largeness of view and discrimination of beauty. Mr. Collins translates it thus " Eternal clouds ! Rise we to mortal view, Embodied in bright shapes of dewy sheen, Leaving the depths serene Where our loud -sounding Father Ocean dwells For the wood-crowned summits of the hills : Thence shall our glance command The beetling crags which sentinel the land, The teeming earth, The crops we bring to birth ; Thence shall we hear The music of the ever-flowing streams, The low deep thunders of the booming sea." Clouds, 1. 275-284. We might have found this in Shelley. The picture of the clouds resting upon the summits of the wood-crowned hills, with the sea pulsating far beneath at the foot of the beetling crags, 1 is of almost the highest order of landscape beauty. But such a picture is rare for Aristophanes, rarer still in others ; and as hills wooded to the top are not mountains, this scene does not include what to us is the grandest element of scenery. Mountains to the Greeks were still the mysterious dwelling-places of the gods they had been to earlier races, and were so far beyond the range of their work-a-day landscape. Some two hundred years later than Aristophanes, Greek literature bore its last rich fruit in the Idylls of Theocritus. Although the founder of that pastoral poetry which ran so long a course through so many literatures, his Idylls must not be confounded with it. They drew their inspiration directly from scenes of rural life in the poet's native Sicily, and took their form from the ancient songs of 1 To this it has been objected that "beetling crags" seems to be a picturesque suggestion hardly warranted by the original ; "far seen look-out places," " T^Xe^avets