In general, Wilson’s views of English scenery want almost every thing that ought to recommend them. The subjects he has chosen are not well fitted for the landscape-painter, and there is nothing in the execution to redeem them. Ill-shaped mountains, or great heaps of earth, trees that grow against them without character or elegance, motionless waterfalls, a want of relief, of transparency and distance, without the imposing grandeur of real magnitude (which it is scarcely within the province of art to give),—are the chief features and defects of this class of his pictures. In more confined scenes, the effect must depend almost entirely on the difference in the execution and the details; for the difference of colour alone is not sufficient to give relief to objects placed at a small distance from the eye. But, in Wilson, there are commonly no details,—all is loose and general; and this very circumstance, which might assist him in giving the massy contrasts of light and shade, deprived his pencil of all force and precision within a limited space. In general, air is necessary to the landscape painter; and, for this reason, the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland afford few subjects for landscape-painting. However stupendous the scenery of that country is, and however powerful and lasting the impression which it must always make on the imagination, yet the effect is not produced merely through the medium of the eye, but arises chiefly from collateral and associated feelings. There is the knowledge of the physical magnitude of the objects in the midst of which we are placed,—the slow, improgressive motion which we make in traversing them;—there is the abrupt precipice, the torrent’s roar, the boundless expanse of the prospect from the highest mountains,—the difficulty of their ascent, their loneliness and silence; in short, there is a constant sense and superstitious awe of the collective power of matter, of the gigantic and eternal forms of nature, on which, from the beginning of time, the hand of man has made no impression, and which, by the lofty reflections they excite in us, give a sort of intellectual sublimity even to our sense of physical weakness. But there is little in all these circumstances that can be translated into the picturesque, which makes its appeal immediately to the eye.
Wilson’s historical landscapes, his Niobe, Celadon and Amelia, &c. do not, in our estimation, display either true taste or fine imagination, but are affected and violent exaggerations of clumsy common nature. They are made up mechanically of the same stock of materials,—an over-hanging rock, bare shattered trees, black rolling clouds, and forked lightning. The figures, in the most celebrated of these, are not like the children of Niobe, punished by the Gods, but like a group of rustics, crouching from a hail-storm. We agree with Sir Joshua Reynolds, that Wilson’s mind was not, like N. Poussin’s, sufficiently imbued with the knowledge of antiquity to transport the imagination three thousand years back, to give natural objects a sympathy with preternatural events, and to inform rocks, and trees, and mountains with the presence of a God. To sum up his general character, we may observe, that, besides his excellence in aërial perspective, Wilson had great truth, harmony, and depth of local colouring. He had a fine feeling of the proportions and conduct of light and shade, and also an eye for graceful form, as far as regards the bold and varying outlines of indefinite objects; as may be seen in his foregrounds, &c., where the artist is not tied down to an imitation of characteristic and articulate forms. In his figures, trees, cattle, and in everything having a determinate and regular form, his pencil was not only deficient in accuracy of outline, but even in perspective and actual relief. His trees, in particular, frequently seem pasted on the canvass, like botanical specimens. In fine, we cannot subscribe to the opinion of those who assert, that Wilson was superior to Claude as a man of genius; nor can we discern any other grounds for this opinion, than what would lead to the general conclusion,—that the more slovenly the performance the finer the picture, and that that which is imperfect is superior to that which is perfect. It might be said, on the same principle, that the coarsest sign-painting is better than the reflection of a landscape in a mirror; and the objection that is sometimes made to the mere imitation of nature, cannot be made to the landscapes of Claude, for in them the Graces themselves have, with their own hands, assisted in selecting and disposing every object. Is the general effect in his pictures injured by the details? Is the truth inconsistent with the beauty of the imitation? Does the perpetual profusion of objects and scenery, all perfect in themselves, interfere with the simple grandeur and comprehensive magnificence of the whole? Does the precision with which a plant is marked in the fore-ground, take away from the air-drawn distinctions of the blue glimmering horizon? Is there any want of that endless airy space, where the eye wanders at liberty under the open sky, explores distant objects, and returns back as from a delightful journey? There is no comparison between Claude and Wilson. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, that there would be another Raphael before there would be another Claude. His landscapes have all that is exquisite and refined in art and nature. Every thing is moulded into grace and harmony; and, at the touch of his pencil, shepherds with their flocks, temples and groves, and winding glades, and scattered hamlets, rise up in never-ending succession, under the azure sky and the resplendent sun, while
‘Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces, and the hours in dance,
Leads on the eternal spring.——’
Michael Angelo has left, in one of his sonnets, a fine apostrophe to the earliest poet of Italy:
‘Fain would I, to be what our Dante was,
Forego the happiest fortunes of mankind.’
What landscape-painter does not feel this of Claude.[[55]]
Gainsborough.—We have heard an anecdote connected with the reputation of Gainsborough’s pictures, which rests on pretty good authority. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the Academy dinners, speaking of Gainsborough, said to a friend,—‘He is undoubtedly the best English landscape-painter.’ ‘No,’ said Wilson, who overheard the conversation, ‘he is not the best landscape-painter, but he is the best portrait-painter in England.’ They were both wrong; but the story is creditable to the versatility of Gainsborough’s talents.