t builds and adorns temples more worthy of the great Maker of
all, and praises Him in sounds too noble for the common intercourse and
business of life, which demand of the most cultivated that they put
themselves upon a lower level than they are capable of assuming. So
far, therefore, is a servile imitation from being necessary, that
whatever is familiar, or in any way reminds us of what we see and hear
every day, perhaps does not belong to the higher provinces of art,
either in poetry or painting. The mind is to be transported, as
Shakspeare expresses it, _beyond the ignorant present_, to ages past.
Another and a higher order of beings is supposed, and to those beings
every thing which is introduced into the work must correspond." He
speaks of a picture by Jan Steen, the "Sacrifice of Iphigenia," wherein
the common nature, with the silks and velvets, would make one think the
painter had intended to burlesque his subject. "Ill taught reason" would
lead us to prefer a portrait by Denner to one by Titian or Vandyke.
There is an eloquent passage, showing that landscape painting should in
like manner appeal to the imagination; we are only surprised that the
author of this description should have omitted, throughout these
Discourses, the greatest of all landscape painters, whose excellence he
should seem to refer to by his language. "Like the poet, he makes the
elements sympathize with his subject, whether the clouds roll in
volumes, like those of Titian or Salvator Rosa--or, like those of
Claude, are gilded with the setting sun; whether the mountains have
hidden and bold projections, or are gently sloped; whether the branches
of his trees shoot out abruptly in right angles from their trunks, or
follow each other with only a gentle inclination. All these
circumstances contribute to the general character of the work, whether
it be of the elegant or of the more sublime kind. If we add to this the
powerful materials of lightness and darkness, over which the artist has
complete dominion, to vary and dispose them as he pleases--to diminish
or increase them, as will best suit his purpose, and correspond to the
general idea of his work; a landscape, thus conducted, under the
influence of a poetical mind, will have the same superiority over the
more ordinary and common views, as Milton's "Allegro" and "Penseroso"
have over a cold prosaic narration or description; and such a picture
would make a more forcible impression on the mind tha