Landscapes.—­Although Watts will ever be remembered for his allegorical, biblical, and portrait painting, yet he was by no means deficient in landscape art.  Indeed, he carried into that branch of work his peculiar personality.  Not only do his landscapes depict beautiful scenery in a fitting manner, joining atmosphere, sunshine, and colour, but they convey in an extraordinary degree the mood of Nature and of Man.  “The Sphinx by Night” has an air of mystery about it that immediately impresses the spectator, and tells him something that cannot be communicated by words.  The Italian and the Asiatic canvases by Watts, “Florence,” “Fiesole,” “Correna,” “Cos,” and “Asia Minor,” all induce the feeling of repose and happiness, and the message that Nature sends to her devotees comes sweetly and calmly in “The Rainbow,” where we look over an extensive valley from high ground, while heavy clouds and the rainbow adorn the upper air.  In “The Cumulus” we “see skyward great cloud masses rolling, silently swelling and mixing.”  They recall perhaps the memories of the child, to whom the mountains of the air are a perpetual wonder.  When in Savoy in 1888, Watts painted the Alps, again with a cloudy sky and a rocky foreground.  In this the quietude of the scene penetrates the beholder.  English landscape, to which all true hearts return, was successfully depicted, both in form and spirit, by Watts’ “Landscape with Hayricks” (like the Brighton Downs), a quiet view from the summit of a hillside, on which are seen some hayricks.  But perhaps the highest of them all is that very peaceful idyll named “All the air a solemn stillness holds.”  It was a view from the garden of Little Holland House.  The time is sunset; a man and two horses are wending their way home.  There are farm buildings on the left, and a thick wood in the background.  In this one we feel how thoroughly Watts uses all forms as expressions of his invisible moods.  In purely imaginative landscape, however, Watts struck his highest note.  His “Deluge” canvases are wonderful attempts; in “The Dove that returned in the Evening,” the bird is the only creature seen flying across the dreary waste of waters, placid but for three long low waves.  On the horizon the artist has dimly suggested the ark of Noah.  “Mount Ararat” is especially worthy of mention among the landscapes.

[Illustration:  PLATE VIII.—­PRAYER

(At the Manchester Art Gallery)

     This is one of the most simple and beautiful of Watts’ early
     works.  The young woman is kneeling at the table, book in hand,
     her mind absorbed in thoughts of reverence.  Painted in 1860.]