'The Italian attends only to the invariable—the great and general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth, and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of Nature modified by accident. The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness, so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose to be a beauty, is certainly of a lower order, that ought to give place to a beauty of a superior kind, since one cannot be obtained but by departing from the other.'
With the most practised hands, in painting from Nature on the spot, the hue and character of the artist will frequently pervade all his efforts to paint nothing but what he sees spread out before him; and his system, prevailing even to this extent, has this advantage, that accustomed as he is to consider Nature generally, his performance may resemble Nature more at another time than that one he painted it at! as Nature seldom looks the same two hours together.
The simple music of a bird may as well be compared to the most refined compositions of the Italian school, that requires the most industrious efforts to reach: both originate in Nature, but the latter is 'Nature to advantage dressed.'
Nature, the best source we can go to for instruction, is 'always at hand!'—'but Nature herself is not to be too closely copied. There are excellencies in the art of painting beyond what is commonly called the imitation of Nature. A mere copyer of Nature can never produce any thing great; for the works of Nature are full of disproportion.' It is the beau ideal of the mind alone that reaches this great end. It is comparing our observations on Nature, that enables us to acquire this ideal perfection. It is to skill in selection, and the separating her beauties from her defects, that qualifies us to reach this grand acquisition, which cannot be reduced to practical principles; but, by being enabled to discover those defects, we learn the art of supplying her wants. 'Correcting Nature by herself—her imperfect state by her more perfect,'—'and Nature denies her instructions to none who desire to become her pupils.'
Young people, and even men and women, who make respectable, and often very excellent copies from the works of others, frequently show me their 'sketches from Nature;'—Oh, if Nature could see them—for, to say they are in general perfectly frightful, is to use the gentlest expression. I invariably trace, in these productions, their individuality is the cause of their unsuccess; and the incapacity to even see Nature generally, which must be necessary before they can paint her so.
Thus to abstract as it were her beauties, and to form one general idea of them, in that abstract, is to enlarge the sphere of our understandings, and invest our works with that intellectual grandeur which alone lifts them above the efforts of common minds, by the nobleness of conception, and a higher degree of excellence: while the student may be assured that his reputation will become permanent and universal, from this system of contemplating Nature in the abstract, and ennoble all he undertakes. His picture will have a mental effect over all that is mechanical.
Dr. Johnson has most ably explained the hypothesis, so much urged by his friend, of the necessity of generalizing our ideas of Nature, when he says, 'It is not to examine the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances: he does not number the streaks of the tulip, nor describe the different shades of the forest; he is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such permanent and striking features, as recall the original to every mind; and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness.'
The idleness of laborious finish, opposed to the overwhelming majesty of breadth, cannot be better explained.