But in the history of British Art, the great merit of Gainsborough is, to have broken us entirely loose from old conventions.  Wilson had turned aside from Dutch art to ennoble landscape by selecting from the higher qualities of Italian art; but Gainsborough early discarded all he had learned from the bygone schools, and gave himself up wholly to Nature; he was capable of delicate handling and minute execution, but he resolutely cast them aside lest any idol should interfere between him and his new religion.  There may be traced a lingering likeness in his landscapes to those of Rubens; but this arose more from his generalization of details, his sinking the parts in the whole, than to any imitation of the great Fleming.  It is like the recollection of some sweet melody which the musician weaves into his theme, all unconscious that it is a memory and not a child of his own creation.

The pictures of Gainsborough, on the whole, stand better far than those by Reynolds.  “Landscape with Cattle,” a picture belonging to the Marquis of Lansdowne, is lovely for colour and freshness; it has been lined and repaired, but evidently had parted widely in the lights.  Could any closeness of individual imitation give the truth, beauty of colour, and luminous sunlight of this picture?  It somewhat reminds one of Zuccarelli, but how completely has Gainsborough sucked the honey and left the comb of the master!  Viewed near, this picture is somewhat loose in texture, and hesitating in execution; the colour obtained by semi-transparents, as yellow-ochre, terra-verte, and ultramarine; while viewed at a proper distance, it is in perfect harmony.

In examining the landscapes of this painter, much must, however, be allowed for the present state of some of his works.  Many are covered with a dark-brown varnish, obscuring the silvery freshness of their first state.  This has cracked up in the darks and quite changed them.  The Market-Cart and the Watering-Place, as well as others in the National collection, are in a very different condition to that in which they left the easel.  The world, however, has become so conservative, and has such belief in the picture-vamper’s “golden tones,” that so they must remain.  It would be most impolitic to touch them until they have become too dark to be seen at all.

    A Century of Painters of the English School (London, 1866).

BACCHUS AND ARIADNE

(TINTORET)

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

It is more difficult for me to speak to you of the Venetian painters than of any others.  Before their pictures one has no desire to analyze or reason; if one does this, it is by compulsion.  The eyes enjoy, and that is all:  they enjoy as the Venetians enjoyed in the Sixteenth Century; for Venice was not at all a literary or critical city like Florence; there painting was nothing more than the complement of the environing pleasure, the decoration of a banqueting-hall or of an architectural alcove.  In order to understand this you must place yourself at a distance, shut your eyes and wait until your sensations are dulled; then your mind performs its work....