Sketching from nature by Tristram James Ellis

Author:Tristram James Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

On taking liberties with nature.—A great service has been done to art by photography. The public are more critical in the matter of character and drawing, and are better able to weed out the bad pictures from the good. At one time artists used to take liberties with nature in a way that would not be permitted for a moment now. The great arch-liberty-taker was Turner. He would put the sun, moon, and stars, into one sky if it helped his composition or interest. He would put trees growing in impossible places, and in making a view of a well-known town would put that which was behind him into the view in front, and he would pile up hills till they were mountains. Any one who now did the same things would not have his pictures looked at. And yet Turner is a great man, and we always gather knowledge and strength from looking at his works. In early days, he copied nature with an almost slavish care, and the knowledge he gained was so great that he was able to take liberties with nature afterwards, and do it well. When he painted a celebrated hill, and made it appear like a mountain ten times as high, he yet made it seem to be a real mountain, as if he had actually seen it that height. If any one with less knowledge had tried to do the same he would most likely not have made it look like a real mountain at all, but like paint and canvas. One of the marks of a great landscape painter seems to be that he can alter nature well. Stanfield could do so, though not to the same extent as Turner, so could Crome, or to go farther back, Claude, and Salvator Rosa. None of these men could have done such work without having previously obtained a great knowledge of nature from careful and minute study.

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