atness of manner chiefly
consists in seizing the specific character of the object, together with
all the great qualities of beauty which it has in common with higher
orders of existence,[J] while he utterly rejects the meaner beauties
which are accidentally peculiar to the object, and yet not specifically
characteristic of it. I cannot give a better instance than the painting
of the flowers in Titian's picture above mentioned. While every stamen
of the rose is given, because this was necessary to mark the flower, and
while the curves and large characters of the leaves are rendered with
exquisite fidelity, there is no vestige of particular texture, of moss,
bloom, moisture, or any other accident--no dew-drops, nor flies, nor
trickeries of any kind; nothing beyond the simple forms and hues of the
flowers,--even those hues themselves being simplified and broadly
rendered. The varieties of aquilegia have, in reality, a grayish and
uncertain tone of color; and, I believe, never attain the intense purity
of blue with which Titian has gifted his flower. But the master does not
aim at the particular color of individual blossoms; he seizes the type
of all, and gives it with the utmost purity and simplicity of which
color is capable.

These laws being observed, it will not only be in the power, it will be
the duty,--the imperative duty,--of the landscape painter, to descend to
the lowest details with undiminished attention. Every herb and flower of
the field has its specific, distinct, and perfect beauty; it has its
peculiar habitation, expression, and function. The highest art is that
which seizes this specific character, which develops and illustrates it,
which assigns to it its proper position in the landscape, and which, by
means of it, enhances and enforces the great impression which the
picture is intended to convey. Nor is it of herbs and flowers alone that
such scientific representation is required. Every class of rock, every
kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied with equal industry,
and rendered with equal precision. And thus we find ourselves
unavoidably led to a conclusion directly opposed to that constantly
enunciated dogma of the parrot-critic, that the features of nature must
be "generalized,"--a dogma whose inherent and broad absurdity would long
ago have been detected, if it had not contained in its convenient
falsehood an apology for indolence, and a disguise for incapacity.
Generalized! As if it we