Essays on the Picturesque, as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful

Page.

In all this, convenience and propriety are not the objects of

confideration, though not to be neglected

The best landscape-painters would be the beft landscape-

gardeners, were they to turn their minds to the practical

part; confequently, a study of their works the most useful

study to an improver

Mr. R. has endeavoured to confine his readers' ideas to mere

garden fcenes, and to perfuade them that Mr. P. wishes

that every thing should be facrificed to picturefque effect 52

That notion refuted by references to the Effay on the Pic-
turesque

Mr. R.'s illuftration of a garden scene, by a didactic poem,

examined

- 59

Alfo his quere, whether the painter's landscape is indifpenfible
to gardening?-as likewife the meaning of both thofe terms 58
Instead of the painter's landscape, Mr. R. ought, in candour,
to have put a study of the principles of painting. All painting
not rough-instances of too great fmoothnefs

Such a painter as Van Huyfum would be a much better

judge of the merits and defects of the moft dreffed fcene

-of a mere flower-garden-than a gardener; and from

the general principles of the art, his judgment and that

of the wildest painter-even of S. Rofa-would probably

agree

- 63

The more the scene was extended, the more it would belong
to the painter, and the lefs to the gardener. Mr. R. has
addreffed himself to the fears of his employers, and alarm-
ed them for their health in picturefque fcenes
Dirt and rubbish not picturesque, asfuch
Many pleafing scenes which cannot be painted-that notion,
and the argument Mr. R. has drawn from it, examined

Mr. P. had been warned, that the Brownifts in general would

take advantage of his diftinction, and give up the pictu-

refque, and keep to beauty only; the advantage it would

be of to him, fhould they do fo; his furprife and regret

that Mr. R. fhould have done what nearly amounts to it

Before he fays any thing further on the use of the picturesque
in landscape-gardening, Mr. P. wishes three points to be
confidered, 1ft. the distinct character of the picturesque
2dly. The vague meaning of the term gardening
And, 3dly. The general mixture of the picturesque with the
beautiful. Mr. R. has always chofen to confider the pic-
turefque in its roughest ftate, but has avoided any allufion
to picturefque fcenery

He therefore transfers the picturefque to gipfies, &c. not to
cafcades and foreft fcenes. Mr. R.'s criticifm of Mr. P.'s
obfervation, on the effect of deer in groups, examined
The juftness of that observation defended, by the pictures
of Claude and Berchem

The picturefque applied to landscape-gardening

Picturesque parts in the most fimply beautiful rivers

- 79

- ibid.

- 88

Those parts must be destroyed or concealed, if the picturesque
be renounced. Beauty no more the immediate result of
smoothness, &c. than picturesqueness is of roughness, &c. 84
Should Mr. R. allow of a mixture of roughness in his idea of
beauty, it is no longer unmixed, no longer feparate from
the picturefque; and in that cafe, all he has faid about re-
nouncing the latter has no object

Propofed alteration at Powis Castle, by a profeffed improver 86

That inftance fhews the danger of trying to ridicule the study
of painting, and of the picturesque
The diffidence which Mr. R. fhewed in confulting Mr. Knight
about the improvements at Ferney Hall, first gave Mr. P.
a defire of being acquainted with him. The character he
had heard of his drawings, added to that defire
The improver not lefs in danger of becoming a mannerist
than the painter. Kent an example of it
Mr. P. did not intend to call in queftion the respectability
of Mr. R.'s profeffion; but on the contrary, to give it a
refpectability it hitherto had not deferved

Parallel drawn by Mr. R. between the painter's ftudies of

wild nature, and the uncontrouled opinions of favages

- 89

· 93

By wild nature, he probably means fimple nature unim-

proved by art. How far fuch wild nature, when arranged

by the painter, may accord with dreffed scenery

Many scenes in unimproved nature highly beautiful in the

ftricteft fenfe, and which are of course produced by acci-

dent, not defign

Mr. R.'s parallel between modern gardening and the Eng-

lish conftitution

A more apt and instructive one might have been drawn be-

tween it and the art of painting

Mr. R.'s defence of the detail of Mr. Brown's practice-the

clump

Mr. Brown ftudied diftin&tnefs, not connection. Connection

the leading principle of the art, and the most flagrantly

and fyftematically violated

The two principal defects in the compofition of landscapes,

that of objects being too crowded or too icattered. Mr.R.'s

condemnation of fingle trees in heavy fences very just

The ground must be prepared, fenced, and planted too

thick at firft. Remedies propofed for the defects which

that method, though the best, will occafion

Caufes affigned for its introduction and continuance

Nothing fo convenient as to work by general receipts, such
as clumps, belts, &c.

- ibid.

The belt a gigantic hedge-difference between that and the

accidental screens to old parks-thofe are true objects of

imitation to the landscape-gardener. Mr. R.'s improved

belt not properly a belt; certainly not Mr. Brown's, &c. 116

Even that improved belt fhewn to be tedious from his own

account

Mr. P.'s recommendation to gentlemen to become their

own landscape-gardeners, not likely to injure the pro-

feffion, and ftill less the art

118

. 119

No art more adapted to men of liberal education who have

places in the country; its practice not difficult

- 120

Lefs

Lefs danger in quacking one's felf, than in trufting to a bold
émpyric

Parallel between the education of a phyfician, and of a
landfcape-gardener

The most perverse and ignorant improver of his own place,

will feldom do such extenfive mischief as is produced by

the regular fyftem of clearing and levelling-allufion to

the fyftem of torture in the inquifition, compared with the

cruelty of favages

No plan, or medicine, proper in almost every case-neither
Brown's plan nor James's Powder

ibid.

Why profpects in general are not proper fubjects for painting 129

The fame caufes equally operate on all views

Profpects are to be judged of, like any other views, on the

principles of painting

But however exquifitely painted, will not have the effect of

thofe in nature-they are not real, and therefore do not

excite the curiofity which reality excites

This accounts for what Mr. R. relates of the vifitors at Mat-

lock. Mr. P. had called the two arts fifters, but has no

objection to adopting Mr. R.'s idea, and calling them

hufband and wife

Mr. R.'s illuftration of the habit of admiring fine pictures

and bold fcenery, by that of chewing of tobacco

In the fame manner that Mr. R. has represented Mr. P. as

liking nothing but what is rough and picturefque, a

wrong-headed friend of Mr. Gilpin's might very plausibly

reprefent him as loving nothing but smoothness

Mr. R.'s examples of fubjects he fuppofes Mr. P. to despise,

because they are incapable of being painted

They all may be painted

Except the immediate defcent down a steep hill

That deficiency of the art, and the argument drawn from
it, confidered
Recapitulation of the contents, and the design of Mr. R.'s

146

Remarks

Remarks on the general, and on the confined, fense of the

term beautiful

Illuftrated by that of virtue

Page.

151

- 153

A picturesque scene without any mixture of the beautiful - 157

Contrafted with a beautiful scene, unmixed with any thing

picturesque

158

Effect of the different characters of light and shadow on
these two scenes
Effect of mixing the characters of the two scenes-effect of
Mr. Brown's ftyle of improvement on both

In what points the defign of the Effay on the Picturesque
has been mifconceived

On gravel walks and paths

The effect of diftinct cutting lines, illuftrated by a remark of
A. Caracci, on Raphael and Correggio
Gravel walks accord more with beautiful, than with pictu-
refque scenes