er satisfies the mind; the one
starts off from a given point, the other reposes on itself; the one
is determined by an excess of form, the other by a concentration of
feeling.

The picturesque may be considered as something like an excrescence
on the face of nature. It runs imperceptibly into the fantastical and
grotesque. Fairies and satyrs are picturesque; but they are scarcely
_ideal._ They are an extreme and unique conception of a certain thing,
but not of what the mind delights in or broods fondly over. The image
created by the artist's hand is not moulded and fashioned by the love of
good and yearning after grace and beauty, but rather the contrary: that
is they are ideal deformity, not ideal beauty. Rubens was perhaps the
most picturesque of painters; but he was almost the least _ideal._ So
Rembrandt was (out of sight) the most picturesque of colourists; as
Correggio was the most _ideal._ In other words, his composition of light
and shade is more a whole, more in unison, more blended into the same
harmonious feeling than Rembrandt's, who staggers by contrast, but does
not soothe by gradation. Correggio's forms, indeed, had a picturesque
air; for they often incline (even when most beautiful) to the quaintness
of caricature. Vandyke, I think, was at once the least picturesque and
least _ideal_ of all the great painters. He was purely natural, and
neither selected from outward forms nor added anything from his own
mind. He owes everything to perfect truth, clearness, and transparency;
and though his productions certainly arrest the eye, and strike in a
room full of pictures, it is from the contrast they present to other
pictures, and from being stripped quite naked of all artificial
advantages. They strike almost as a piece of white paper would, hung up
in the same situation--I began with saying that whatever stands out from
a given line, and as it were projects upon the eye, is picturesque; and
this holds true (comparatively) in form and colour. A rough terrier dog,
with the hair bristled and matted together, is picturesque. As we say,
there is a decided character in it, a marked determination to an
extreme point. A shock-dog is odd and disagreeable, but there is nothing
picturesque in its appearance; it is a mere mass of flimsy confusion. A
goat with projecting horns and pendent beard is a picturesque animal; a
sheep is not. A horse is only picturesque from opposition of colour;
as in Mr. Northcote's study of Gads