THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN LANDSCAPE.
[TO THE EDITOR Or TELE SPECTATOR:1
Ssa,—The writer of an interesting article in your last number, on " The Human Element in Landscape Painting," quotes a passage of a letter from an artist friend, expressing the views of the artist ; and after combating those views, expounds his own. Will you permit me to suggest that neither the writer of the article nor the artist has dealt satisfactorily with the subject? The artist (to put it shortly) divides all landscapes into two classes, the imaginative and the real, contending that human interest " is only applicable to the former. The writer objects to this hard-and-fast line of demarcation, and he is in the right. In the best of imaginative landscapes there is a good deal of realism, and most realistic landscapes would probably be the better for some imagination ; but even if the strictest realism be insisted on, there is no reason why man should not be treated realistically, as well as inanimate nature. Having dis- posed of the fallacies of his friend, the writer, I think, falls into error himself, in maintaining (as I understand him) that all landscapes require, or would, at least, be improved by human interest. The following passage appears to assert this pro- position very broadly ;—"A landscape which bears upon it no mark of man's presence on the earth suggests what may be almost called a lie, for there must have been one man to see it, or the scene could not have been painted ; and after all, the painting is not nature herself, but only nature as she appeared to that man's mind, who looked at her through the medium of a thousand un- known prejudices, thoughts, and feelings." It may be freely conceded that "nature herself" may possibly be something very different from what she appears to us, that a landscape does not reveal the substance of matter (whatever that may be), but only such of its attributes as are cognisable by the human vision. Ib may be further conceded that all men are not alike impressed by the same scene, any more than they are by the same picture,. but how is the argument thereby advanced ? The only definite meaning of which this passage appears susceptible is that if a scene' bearing no marks of man's presence is viewed by one person. only, that person must be represented in the picture of it, or the- picture will be a lie, in other words, that in such pictures we• must always have the contemplating artist in the foreground ; and yet this cannot be the real meaning of the writer. The artist does not see himself, be forms no part of the natural landscape,. and has no business on the canvas.
I submit that no more definite rule can be safely laid down than that the appropriateness of human interest (of which I, accept the wide definition of the writer) must depend upon the subject-matter of the picture and the object of the artist. Of many landscapes the interest is chiefly human,—such, for example, as Turner's " Building of Carthage," his Venetian pictures, and. indeed all pictures of cities and of the works of man. To many pictures of another class, dealing principally with nature, human, interest is appropriate and almost necessary. A harbour suggests. shipping ; a down, a shepherd and his flock ; a highway, way- farers ; a brook, with stepping-stones, persons crossing it,—and so forth ; and had the writer contented himself with contending that most landscapes would be the better for some human interest, he might not have been far wrong. But surely it is a legitimate object of landscape art to represent, pure and simple, the sublimest effects in nature.
Perhaps the grandest natural forms are mountain ranges, such ase those of the Alps and the Himalayas, and their grandeur is often' greatly heightened by certain aspects of the sky. In the presence of such scenes, the mind is filled with the sentiment of the sublime in nature ; if we think, it is not of man nor of his concerns, but of those tremendous forces by which the mountains have been upheaved,—of Him at whose bidding " the heaven and earth rose out of Chaos." It is for the painter to reproduce, and intensify, if he can, the emotions and thoughts awakened by the scene, and in pictures of such scenes the "human element" is not only unnecessary, but intrusive.
The writer has, I think, hit upon an unfortunate illustration. He refers to the Swiss pictures of Mr. Elijah Walton, of which) he observes that " they produce absolutely no effect whatever," and assumes the cause of this non-impressiveness to be their " want of connection with humanity." May I suggest another ?, That although in some respects clever, they are untrue to nature ; that their effects are forced and false, and that neither in drawing nor in colouring are they what the French call" sincere." The writer would have done better to refer to the exhibition of M. Loppd, which was open in Conduit Street two or three years ago, and is now to be seen at Chamounix. M. Loppd is a genuine artist, and has painted the High Alps with much fidelity and a good deftl of power, though not with the highest technical dexterity. I assert that some of his pictures of the vast Alpine solitudes, accessible only to himself and the chamois, under effects of storm, cloud; and sunshine, do produce a great and a permanent effect upon most people who have seen them. Many of them, which I have not beheld for years, are at this moment fresh in my memory. M. Loppe, in pictures of this class, avoids " human interest." If he occasionally inserts a figure, it is only as an index to the height of the mountains ; and I am satisfied that the writer of the article, if he saw the pictures, would have the candour to acknowledge that M. Loppd is in the right. —I am, Sir, &c., R. P. C.
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