Aquilius.—Views! oh, I thought we were speaking of Pastoral. That is quite another thing; I am somewhat of Fuseli’s opinion, who said, speaking contemptuously, “I mean those things called Views.”
Curate.—But you will admit, Aquilius, that we have real scenes that are very beautiful, always pleasing to look at, and therefore fit to be painted. Is there not our lake scenery?
Aquilius.—There is; and as our subject is art, I should say such scenery is more valuable for what it suggests, than for what it actually represents in the painter’s mirror. In fact, nature offers with both hands: it requires a nice discretion to tell which hand holds the true treasure. She may purposely show you the ornament to deceive.
“So may the outward shows be least themselves,
The world is still deceived with ornament.”
It was the leaden casket, in which was hidden the perfect beauty of Portia; there was the choice, and made with a judgment that won the prize, and took the inheritance of Belmont.
“You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair, and choose as true.”
Would you take away from landscape painters the high privilege of genius?—invention—which you allow to historical painters? You do this, if you do not grant to the fullest extent the suggestive character of nature. The musician takes music from the air, which is his raw material; the conception, which works from mere sounds the perfect mystery of power, to shake, to raise, and melt to pity and to love the whole soul, belongs to the mind. And so, for the more perfect work of landscape, the mind must add of its own immortal store, the keeper and dispenser of which is genius.
Curate.—You would raise landscape painting to the dignity of a creative, from the lower grade of an imitative art.