Such an improvement, however, is greatly admired; and I have frequently heard it wondered at, that a green lawn, which is so charming in nature, should look so ill when painted. It must be owned, that it does look miserably flat and insipid in a picture; but that is not entirely the fault of the painter, for it would be difficult to invent any thing more wretchedly insipid, than one uniform green surface dotted with clumps, and surrounded by a belt. If, however, instead of such accompaniments, we supposed a lawn to be adorned with trees disposed in the happiest manner, still I believe it would scarcely be possible to make a long extent of smooth uniform green interesting in a picture: such a scene, even painted by a Claude, would want precisely what it wants in nature; that happy union of warm and cool, of smooth and rough, of picturesque and beautiful, which makes the charm of his best compositions. But though such scenes as the great masters made choice of, are much more varied and animated than one of mere grass can be, yet I am very far from wishing the peculiar character of lawns to be destroyed: the study of the principles of painting would be very ill applied by an improver, who should endeavour to give each scene every variety that might please in a picture separately considered, instead of such varieties as are consistent with its own peculiar character and situation, and with the connections and dependencies it has on other objects. Smoothness, verdure, and undulation, are the most characteristic beauties of à lawn, but they are in their nature closely allied to monotony; improvers, instead of endeavouring to remedy that defect, towards which those essential qualities of beauty are constantly tending, have, on the contrary, added to it and made it much more striking, by the disposition of their trees, and their method of forming the banks of artificial rivers : nor have they confined this system of levelling and turfing to those scenes where smoothness and verdure ought to be the ground work of improvement, but have made it the fundamental principle of their art. With respect to those objects where a very different art is concerned, the impressions are also very different: a perfectly flat square meadow, surrounded by a neat hedge, and neither tree nor bush in it, is looked upon not only without disgust, but with pleasure, for it pretends only to neatness and utility, and the same may be said of a piece of arable of excellent husbandry: but when a dozen pieces are laid together and called a lawn, or a pleasure-ground, with manifest pretensions to beauty, the eye grows fastidious, and has not the same indulgence for taste, as for agriculture. Where indeed men of property, either from false taste, or from a sordid desire of gain, disfigure such scenes or buildings as painters admire, our indignation is very justly excited: not so when agriculture, in its general progress, as is often unfortunately the case, interferes with picturesqueness or beauty, The painter may indeed lament; but that science, which of all others most benefits mankind, has a right to more than his forgiveness, when wild thickets are converted into scenes of plenty and industry, and when gypsies and vagrants give way to the less picturesque figures of husbandmen and their attendants. I believe the idea that smoothness and verdure will make amends for the want of variety and picturesqueness, arises from our not distinguishing those qualities that are grateful to the mere organ of sight, from those various combinations, which through the progressive cultivation of that sense, have produced inexhaustible sources of delight and admiration. Mr. Mason observes, that green is to the eye, what harmony is to the ear; the comparison holds throughout; for a long continuance of either without some relief, is equally tiresome to both senses. Soft and smooth sounds, are those which are most grateful to the mere sense; the least artful combination, even that of a third below sung by another voice, at first distracts the attention from the tune; when that is got over, a Venetian duet appears the perfection of melody and harmony. By degrees however the ear, like the eye, tires of a repetition of the same flowing strain; it requires some marks of invention, of original and striking character as well as of sweetness, in the melodies of a composer; it takes in more and more intricate combinations of harmony and opposition of parts, not only without confusion, but with delight; and with that delight (the only lasting one) which is produced both from the effect of the whole, and the detail of the parts*. At the same time, the having acquired a relish for such artful combinations, so far from excluding, except in narrow * This I take to be the reason why those who are real connoisseurs in any art, can give the most unwearied attention to what the general lover is soon tired of. Both are struck, though not in the same manner or degree, with the whole of a scene; but the painter is also eagerly employed in examining the parts, and all the artifice of nature in composing such a whole. The general lover stops at the first gaze; and I have heard it said by those, who in other pursuits shewed the most discriminating taste, "Why should we look at these things any more---we have seen them." Non ragionar di lor; ma guarda e passa. |