Landscape Painting

England.

The English people admired Dutch art, espe cially in the eastern part of England where the intercourse of commerce with Holland was very active and where many Dutch families migrated. Many Dutch pictures were owned in Norfolk and the influence of them was strong upon the development of the Norwich school. Jan Griffers, a pupil of Rembrandt, who lived in London, had great influence on English landscape. English landscape developed a little earlier in London than in the Nor wich school in east England. Richard Wilson (q.v.), the "Father of English landscape painting," was a prosperous figure painter until he visited Italy. Upon seeing the work of Claude, he abandoned his former work to face starvation and experiment in a new manner of painting which was ioo years ahead of his time. Until this time the brown tree was a strict convention and Wilson strove to uproot it by painting in fat juicy colours and in other respects anticipating modern art. His influence on Constable was very great. Constable writing a friend said, "I recollect nothing so much as a large, bright, fresh landscape by Wilson." Rembrandt's "Mill" was first seen in England in a loan col lection in 1815 and had great influence upon Constable, Turner and Crome. Ruben's "Chateau de Steen" was shown in the same collection. It produced a sensation. Its golden blazes of sun light were immediately copied by Turner in his "Walton Bridges." Constable changed his style on the spot and in Crome's "Wind mill" it seems as if he tried to carry out the "Mill" of Rembrandt in the key of Ruben's "Chateau de Steen." Thomas Girtin, a boy hood friend of Turner was an artist of remarkable promise who died in his early youth. Two water-colour landscapists, Alexander Couzens, an experimenter, and his son John exerted great in fluence upon landscape art in their time. Of the latter's "Han nibal Crossing the Alps" Turner said he had learned more from it than from any other painting.

Joseph Mallard Turner (q.v.), one of the best known of all landscape painters was fortunate to find an impassioned critic whose fierce controversy of his claims to genius aroused great interest in Turner's work in his lifetime. His work is either ve hemently liked or disliked ; Ruskin at 17 began his career by defending and praising Turner. Ruskin divides Turner's work into three periods, the work of the first being distinguished by boldness of handling; generally gloomy tendency of mind, subdued colour and perpetual reference to precedent in composition. In his second period colour appears everywhere, instead of grey. His shadows are no longer one hue. He discovers that it is much more difficult to draw tenderly than ponderously and that all the most beautiful things in nature depend on infinitely deli cate lines. Thirdly, quantity takes the place of mass. He sees that nature is infinitely full; that painters had not only missed her pitch of hue but her power of accumulation. "He saw that there were more clouds in every sky than had ever been painted, more trees in every forest, more crags on every hillside, and set himself with all his strength to proclaim the great quantity of the universe. He saw that there were no limits to creation,

but forgot that there was to reception. He thus spoiled his most careful work by the very richness of invention they contained, and concentrated the materials of twenty noble pictures into a single failure." These words from Ruskin's Modern Painters de scribe Turner's art. He was called the Claude Lorrain of England.

The desire of Wilson to paint in a less conventional manner was felt by Constable (q.v.), who was greatly enamoured of Claude and broke away from tradition completely. He was long in finding himself, but tireless in his effort to discover means of interpreting nature as he saw it. He succeeded late in life by a singular persistence that carried him through moods of de pression in the years of his unrecognized efforts to paint with sincerity and conviction and to overcome the discouraging neglect of his early and middle years. His art steadily improved until the time of his death. He gained a fame that was never dimin ished and his influence in later life and after his death was enor mous. His influence upon French painting and the subsequent art of all nations is acknowledged by all writers in art of every nationality. In 1828 he sent an exhibition of landscapes to Paris which created a sensation, so general was the enthusiasm for his work. The furore of Constable's success abroad established his success in England as her greatest landscape painter.

One of

his contemporaries was Gainsborough (q.v.), whom he admired greatly. Gainsborough's landscapes are not so greatly admired by posterity as are his superlatively fine portraits. He regarded them as a luxury and left 4o of them in his studio when he died. Ruskin said of him, "His touch was as light as the sweep of a cloud, as swift as the flash of a sunbeam." His landscapes are of no particular place and are done in a manner peculiarly Gainsborough's own. He tried to be classic and to conform to an ideal of beauty.

In the east of England, in Norfolk, there developed a land scape school of a different character. While the London paint ers were so much influenced by Italian art the Norwich painters were mainly influenced by Dutch art. Many Dutch paintings were owned in the locality so that Hobbema was an early love of Crome, who died mentioning that painter by name. Crome was the leader of the Norwich school. He was peasant born and self taught. He did not seek to crowd splendour upon splendour, so his landscapes are remarkable for their simplicity and wonderful dignity. They were carefully planned, spacious and luminous with exquisitely coloured atmosphere. He taught and advised the painters of the Norwich school. He said to his son, "If you paint a pigsty, dignify it." His letter to his pupil Stark is a famous one of advice to a landscapist.