And yet, exquisite as is Claude's

§ 27. And yet, exquisite as is Claude's instinct for blunder, he has not strength of mind enough to blunder in a wholly original manner, but he must needs falter out of his way to pick up other people's puerilities, and be absurd at second-hand. I have been obliged to laugh a little—though I hope reverently—at Ghirlandajo's landscapes,decorative paintings, which yet we saw had a certain charm of quaintness in them when contrasted with his grand figures; but could any one have believed that Claude, with all the noble landscapes of Titian set before him, and all nature round about him, should yet go back to Ghirlandajo for types of form. Yet such is the case. I said that the Venetian influence came dimly down to Claude; but the old Florentine influence came clearly. The Claudesque landscape is not, as so commonly supposed, an idealized abstract of the nature about Rome. It is an ultimate condition of the Florentine conventional landscape, more or less softened by reference to nature. Fig. 8., from No. 145. of the Liber Veritatis, is sufficiently characteristic of Claude's rock-drawing; and compared with Fig. 5. (p. 314), will show exactly the kind of modification he made on old and received types. We shall see other instances of it hereafter. still life oil paintings

Fig. 8

Imagine this kind of reproduction of whatever other people had done worst, and this kind of misunderstanding of all that he saw himself in nature, carried out in Claude's trees, rocks, ships—in everything that he touched,—and then consider what kind of school this work was for a young and reverent disciple. As I said, Turner never recovered the effects of it; his compositions were always mannered, lifeless, and even foolish; and he only did noble things when the immediate presence of nature had overpowered the reminiscences of his master. original oil paintings wholesale
§ 28. Of the influence of Gaspar and Nicolo Poussin on Turner, there is hardly anything to be said, nor much respecting that which they had on landscape generally. Nicolo Poussin had noble powers of design, and might have been a thoroughly great painter had he been trained in Venice; but his Roman education kept him tame; his trenchant severity was contrary to the tendencies of the age, and had few imitators compared to the dashing of Salvator, and the mist of Claude. Those few imitators adopted his manner without possessing either his science or invention; and the Italian school of landscape soon expired. Reminiscences of him occur sometimes in Turner's compositions of sculptured stones for foreground; and the beautiful Triumph of Flora, in the Louvre, probably first showed Turner the use of definite flower, or blossom-painting, in landscape. I doubt if he took anything from Gaspar; whatever he might have learned from him respecting masses of foliage and golden distances, could have been learned better, and, I believe, was learned, from Titian. cheap oil paintings on canvas

§ 29. Meantime, a lower, but more living school had developed itself in the north; Cuyp had painted sunshine as truly as Claude, gilding with it a more homely, but far more honestly conceived landscape; and the effects of light of De Hooghe and Rembrandt presented examples of treatment to which southern art could show no parallel. Turner evidently studied these with the greatest care, and with great benefit in every way; especially this, that they neutralized the idealisms of Claude, and showed the young painter what power might be in plain truth, even of the most familiar kind. He painted several pictures in imitation of these masters; and those in which he tried to rival Cuyp are healthy and noble works, being, in fact, just what most of Cuyp's own pictures are—faithful studies of Dutch boats in calm weather, on smooth water. De Hooghe was too precise, and Rembrandt too dark, to be successfully or affectionately followed by him; but he evidently learned much from both. flower oil paintings on canvas