This has been most strongly shown by the landscape painters, among
whom there are many who have raised an entirely new school of natural
painting, and whose productions undoubtedly surpass all others in the
simple attention to nature in detail as well as in generalities. By
this they have succeeded in earning for themselves the reputation of
being the finest landscape painters in Europe. But, although this
success has been great and merited, it is not of them that we have at
present to treat, but rather to recommend their example to their
fellow-labourers, the historical painters.
That the system of study to which this would necessarily lead
requires a somewhat longer and more devoted course of observation
than any other is undoubted; but that it has a reward in a greater
effect produced, and more delight in the searching, is, the writer
thinks, equally certain. We shall find a greater pleasure in
proportion to our closer communion with nature, and by a more exact
adherence to all her details, (for nature has no peculiarities or
excentricities) in whatsoever direction her study may conduct.
This patient devotedness appears to be a conviction peculiar to, or
at least more purely followed by, the early Italian Painters; a
feeling which, exaggerated, and its object mistaken by them, though
still held holy and pure, was the cause of the retirement of many of
the greatest men from the world to the monastery; there, in
undisturbed silence and humility,
"Monotonous to paint
Those endless cloisters and eternal aisles
With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint,
With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard.
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