ette of
with white cirri. | Rialto, and Bridge.
| of Sighs

SECTION IV.

OF TRUTH OF EARTH.

CHAPTER I.

OF GENERAL STRUCTURE.

Sec. 1. First laws of the organization of the earth, and their importance
in art.

By truth of earth, we mean the faithful representation of the facts and
forms of the bare ground, considered as entirely divested of vegetation,
through whatever disguise, or under whatever modification the clothing
of the landscape may occasion. Ground is to the landscape painter what
the naked human body is to the historical. The growth of vegetation, the
action of water, and even of clouds upon it and around it, are so far
subject and subordinate to its forms, as the folds of the dress and the
fall of the hair are to the modulation of the animal anatomy. Nor is
this anatomy always so concealed, but in all sublime compositions,
whether of nature or art, it must be seen in its naked purity. The laws
of the organization of the earth are distinct and fixed as those of the
animal frame, simpler and broader, but equally authoritative and
inviolable. Their results may be arrived at without knowledge of the
interior mechanism; but for that very reason ignorance of them is the
more disgraceful, and violation of them more unpardonable. They are in
the landscape the foundation of all other truths--the most necessary,
therefore, even if they were not in themselves attractive; but they are
as beautiful as they are essential, and every abandonment of them by the
artist must end in deformity as it begins in falsehood.

Sec. 2. The slight attention ordinarily paid to them. Their careful study
by modern artists.

That such abandonment is constant and total in the works of the old
masters, has escaped detection, only because of persons generally
cognizant of art, few have spent time enough in hill countries to
perceive the certainty of the laws of hill anatomy; and because few,
even of those who possess such opportunities, ever think of the common
earth beneath their feet, as anything possessing specific form, or
governed by steadfast principles. That such abandonment should have
taken place cannot be surprising, after what we have seen of their
fidelity to skies. Those artists wh