File:John Constable - Landscape with Stormy Sky.jpg

Identifier: landscapefigurepai00sher (find matches)
Title: Landscape and figure painters of America
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Sherman, Frederic Fairchild, 1874-1940
Subjects: Landscape painting Figure painting
Publisher: New York : Privately printed
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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of these men do put their verythought into their work without consciouslyknowing it. At the same time they are stillquite genuine in thinking that art is realistic,and is not determined by the individual mentalendowment of the painter. Such artists, however, as Nicolas Poussin,Delacroix, Millet, and Fromentin see furtherinto the heart of the matter, and having thegift of expression they have given their viewsto the world. They believe that great art isideal and subjective, and that nature is changedas its varied scenes pass through the alembicof the artists imagination ere he bodies themforth on his canvas. There needs must be both realism andidealism in art, but the former should besubordinate to the latter. There must berealism; for the correct rendering of facts isthe basis of all art, and it is the only meansthat the artist has to express himself. Butthe personal element comes in whenever theartist commences to work, and the only reallyimportant things in a picture are the charac-
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VARIOUS OPINIONS ABOUT ART 37 ter and the harmony of colour that the mindof the artist gives to the facts of realism. John Ruskin and P. G. Hamerton in thelatter part of the nineteenth century werethe two best known writers on art subjectsin England. If Hamerton had been endowedwith more poetry and imagination, he wouldhave been one of the best of critics. As it ishe stands very high. Every person interestedin scenery and in painting should be familiarwith the very fine thirteenth chapter of hisbook on Landscape. Although it readsas if he, a conscientious and painstaking artistby training, were somewhat annoyed thatgood, faithful, and honest work did not producea great picture, yet he shows that he doessee the higher truths about art, and he statesthem clearly. He writes in a very interest-ing manner and has published a number ofinstructive and entertaining books on art. Ruskin has the gift of poetic expression ina very high degree, and as a writer of mag-nificent English prose has sc

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