y or delicately, slightly or completely, according to the nature
of the subject, and the degree of attention which is to be drawn to the
particular object by the part it plays in the composition. Where the
sublime is aimed at, such distinctions will be indicated with severe
simplicity, as the muscular markings in a colossal statue; where beauty
is the object, they must be expressed with the utmost refinement of
which the hand is capable.

This may sound like a contradiction of principles advanced by the
highest authorities; but it is only a contradiction of a particular and
most mistaken application of them. Much evil has been done to art by
the remarks of historical painters on landscape. Accustomed themselves
to treat their backgrounds slightly and boldly, and feeling (though, as
I shall presently show, only in consequence of their own deficient
powers) that any approach to completeness of detail therein, injures
their picture by interfering with its principal subject, they naturally
lose sight of the peculiar and intrinsic beauties of things which to
them are injurious, unless subordinate. Hence the frequent advice given
by Reynolds and others, to neglect _specific_ form in landscape, and
treat its materials in large masses, aiming only at general truths,--the
flexibility of foliage, but not its kind; the rigidity of rock, but not
its mineral character. In the passage more especially bearing on this
subject (in the eleventh lecture of Sir J. Reynolds), we are told that
"the landscape painter works not for the virtuoso or the naturalist, but
for the general observer of life and nature." This is true, in precisely
the same sense that the sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but
for the common observer of life and nature. Yet the sculptor is not, for
this reason, permitted to be wanting either in knowledge or expression
of anatomical detail; and the more refined that expression can be
rendered, the more perfect is his work. That which, to the anatomist, is
the end,--is, to the sculptor, the means. The former desires details,
for their own sake; the latter, that by means of them, he may kindle his
work with life, and stamp it with beauty. And so in landscape;--botanical
or geological details are not to be given as matter of curiosity or
subject of search, but as the ultimate elements of every species of
expression and order of loveliness.

In his observations on the foreground of the St. Pietro Martire, Sir
Joshua