SECTION I.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES RESPECTING IDEAS OF TRUTH.

Chapter I.—Of Ideas of Truth in their connection with those of Beauty and Relation.

[§ 1.]The two great ends of landscape painting are the representation of facts and thoughts.[44]
[§ 2.]They induce a different choice of material subjects.[45]
[§ 3.]The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition.[45]
[§ 4.]The second necessitating variety.[45]
[§ 5.]Yet the first is delightful to all.[46]
[§ 6.]The second only to a few.[46]
[§ 7.]The first necessary to the second.[47]
[§ 8.]The exceeding importance of truth.[48]
[§ 9.]Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth.[48]
[§ 10.]How truth may be considered a just criterion of all art.[48]

Chapter II.—That the Truth of Nature is not to be discerned by the Uneducated Senses.

[§ 1.]The common self-deception of men with respect to their power of discerning truth.[50]
[§ 2.]Men usually see little of what is before their eyes.[51]
[§ 3.]But more or less in proportion to their natural sensibility to what is beautiful.[52]
[§ 4.]Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling.[52]
[§ 5.]And of the intellectual powers.[53]
[§ 6.]How sight depends upon previous knowledge.[54]
[§ 7.]The difficulty increased by the variety of truths in nature.[55]
[§ 8.]We recognize objects by their least important attributes. Compare Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4.[55]

Chapter III.—Of the Relative Importance of Truths:—First, that Particular Truths are more important than General Ones.

[§ 1.]Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths.[58]
[§ 2.]Misapplication of the aphorism: "General truths are more important than particular ones."[58]
[§ 3.]Falseness of this maxim, taken without explanation.[59]
[§ 4.]Generality important in the subject, particularity in the predicate.[59]
[§ 5.]The importance of truths of species is not owing to their generality.[60]
[§ 6.]All truths valuable as they are characteristic.[61]
[§ 7.]Otherwise truths of species are valuable, because beautiful.[61]
[§ 8.]And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in connection with others.[62]
[§ 9.]Recapitulation.[63]

Chapter IV.—Of the Relative Importance of Truths:—Secondly, that Rare Truths are more important than Frequent Ones.

[§ 1.]No accidental violation of nature's principles should be represented.[64]
[§ 2.]But the cases in which those principles have been strikingly exemplified.[65]
[§ 3.]Which are comparatively rare.[65]
[§ 4.]All repetition is blamable.[65]
[§ 5.]The duty of the painter is the same as that of a preacher.[66]

Chapter V.—Of the Relative Importance of Truths:—Thirdly, that Truths of Color are the least important of all Truths.

[§ 1.]Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies.[67]
[§ 2.]The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so.[67]
[§ 3.]Color is a secondary quality, therefore less important than form.[68]
[§ 4.]Color no distinction between objects of the same species.[68]
[§ 5.]And different in association from what it is alone.[69]
[§ 6.]It is not certain whether any two people see the same colors in things.[69]
[§ 7.]Form, considered as an element of landscape, includes light and shade.[69]
[§ 8.]Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of bodies, and unimportance of color.[70]
[§ 9.]Recapitulation.[71]

Chapter VI.—Recapitulation.

[§ 1.]The importance of historical truths.[72]
[§ 2.]Form, as explained by light and shade, the first of all truths. Tone, light, and color, are secondary.[72]
[§ 3.]And deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of all.[73]

Chapter VII.—General Application of the Foregoing Principles.

[§ 1.]The different selection of facts consequent on the several aims at imitation or at truth.[74]
[§ 2.]The old masters, as a body, aim only at imitation.[74]
[§ 3.]What truths they gave.[75]
[§ 4.]The principles of selection adopted by modern artists.[76]
[§ 5.]General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin, contrasted with the freedom and vastness of nature.[77]
[§ 6.]Inadequacy of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret.[78]
[§ 7.]Causes of its want of influence on subsequent schools.[79]
[§ 8.]The value of inferior works of art, how to be estimated.[80]
[§ 9.]Religious landscape of Italy. The admirableness of its completion.[81]
[§ 10.]Finish, and the want of it, how right—and how wrong.[82]
[§ 11.]The open skies of the religious schools, how valuable. Mountain drawing of Masaccio. Landscape of the Bellinis and Giorgione.[84]
[§ 12.]Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.[86]
[§ 13.]Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna.[88]
[§ 14.]Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins.[89]
[§ 15.]German and Flemish landscape.[90]
[§ 16.]The lower Dutch schools.[92]
[§ 17.]English school, Wilson and Gainsborough.[93]
[§ 18.]Constable, Callcott.[94]
[§ 19.]Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.[95]
[§ 20.]G. Robson, D. Cox. False use of the term "style."[95]
[§ 21.]Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color.[97]
[§ 22.]Beauty of mountain foreground.[99]
[§ 23.]De Wint.[101]
[§ 24.]Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding.[101]
[§ 25.]Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient.[103]
[§ 26.]Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.[104]
[§ 27.]Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail.[106]
[§ 28.]Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio.[107]
[§ 29.]And of the Venetians generally.[109]
[§ 30.]Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto.[110]
[§ 31.]Expression of the effects of age on Architecture by S. Prout.[112]
[§ 32.]His excellent composition and color.[114]
[§ 33.]Modern architectural painting generally. G. Cattermole.[115]
[§ 34.]The evil in an archæological point of view of misapplied invention, in architectural subject.[117]
[§ 35.]Works of David Roberts: their fidelity and grace.[118]
[§ 36.]Clarkson Stanfield.[121]
[§ 37.]J. M. W. Turner. Force of national feeling in all great painters.[123]
[§ 38.]Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject.[125]
[§ 39.]Its peculiar manifestation in Turner.[125]
[§ 40.]The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.[127]
[§ 41.]Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The latter deficient.[129]
[§ 42.]His rendering of Italian character still less successful. His large compositions how failing.[130]
[§ 43.]His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundant quantity.[133]
[§ 44.]Changes introduced by him in the received system of art.[133]
[§ 45.]Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies.[134]
[§ 46.]Reflection of his very recent works.[137]
[§ 47.]Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects.[139]