the consequence of which is, that every
one takes it in the most obvious sense, that objects are represented
naturally when they have such relief that they seem _real_. It may
appear strange perhaps to hear this rule disputed; but it must be
considered that, if the excellence of a painter consisted only in this
kind of imitation, painting must lose its rank, and be no longer
considered as a liberal art, and sister to poetry--this imitation being
merely _mechanical_, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to
succeed best! for the painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in
which the understanding has no part;--and what pretence has the art to
claim kindred with poetry, but its powers over the imagination? To this
power the painter of genius directs _his_ aim; in this sense _he studies
Nature_, and often arrives at the end, even by being unnatural, in the
confined sense of the word. The grand style of painting requires this
minute attention to be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate
from it as the style of poetry from that of history. Poetical ornaments
destroy that air of truth and plainness which ought to characterize
history; but the very being of poetry consists in departing from this
_plain narration_, and adopting every ornament that will warm the
imagination.

'The Italian attends only to the invariable--the great and general ideas
which are fixed and inherent in _universal_ Nature; the Dutch, on the
contrary, to _literal_ truth, and a minute exactness in the detail, as I
may say, of Nature _modified_ by accident. The attention to these petty
peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness, so much admired in
the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose to be a beauty, is certainly of
a lower order, that ought to give place to a beauty of a superior kind,
since one cannot be obtained but by departing from the other.'

With the most practised hands, in painting from Nature on the spot, the
_hue and character of the artist_ will frequently pervade all his
efforts to paint nothing but what _he sees_ spread out before him; and
his system, prevailing even to this extent, has this advantage, that
accustomed as he is to consider Nature _generally_, his performance may
resemble Nature _more at another time_ than that one he painted it at!
as Nature seldom looks the _same_ two hours together.

The simple music of a bird may as well be compared to the most refined
compositions of the Italian school, th