PAINTING.

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the wings of fancy transport himself to Egypt, to Thebes , or toRome ; and summoning to his'imagination the physiognomy, thedress, the plants, the buildings, suitable to his subject, with tiieparticular spot where he has chosen to lay his scene, so managedhis pencil, as, by the magic of it, to make the enraptured specta-tors fancy themselves there along with him.

Of the different Classes of Painting.

As all the subjects in nature are susceptible of imitation by the-pencil, the masters of this art have applied themselves to differentsubjects, each one as his talents, his taste, or inclination, may haveled him. From whence have arisen the following classes :

I. History-painting: which represents the principal events inhistory sacred and profane, real or fabulous; and to this class be-longs allegorical expression. These are the most sublime produc-tions of the art; and in which Raphael, Guido, Rubens, LeBiiui,Arc. have excelled.

II. Rural history ; or the representation of a country-life, ofvillages and hamlets, and their inhabitants. This is an inferiorclass; and in which Teniers, Breughel, Watteau , &c. have greatreputation, by rendering it at once pleasing and graceful.

III. Portrait-painting; or the representation of persons either aslarge as life or in miniature, which is an admirable branch of thisart, and has engaged the attention of the greatest masters in allages, as Apelles, Guido, Vandyke, Rembrandt , Regauds, Pesne,Kneller, La Tour, &c.

IV. Grotesque histories ; as the nocturnal meetings of witches;sorceries and incaptations ; the operations of mountebanks, &c. asort of painting in which the younger Breughel, Teniers , andothers, have exercised their talents with success.

V. Battle-pieces; by which liuchtemberg, Wouwerman , Sec.have rendered themselves famous.

VI. Landscapes: a charming species of painting, that has beentreated by masters of the greatest genius in every nation.

VII. Landscapes diversified with waters, as rivers, lakes, cata-racts, &c. which require a peculiar talent, to express the watersometimes smooth and transparent, and at others foaming andrushing furiously along.

VIII. Sea-pieces; in which are represented the ocean, har-bours, and great rivers; and the vessels, boats, barges, &c. withwhich they arc covered ; sometimes in a calm, sometimes with afresh breeze, and at others in a storm. In this class Backhuysen ,Vandervelde, Blome, and many others, have acquired great repu-tation.

IX. Night-pieces; which represent all sorts of objects, eitheras illuminated by torches, by the flames of a conflagration, or bythe light of the moon. Schalck, Vanderneer, Vanderpool, &c.have here excelled.

X. Living animals: a more difficult branch of painting than iscommonly imagined ; and in which Rosa, Carrh, Vandervelde,and many others, have succeeded marvellously well.

XI. Birds of all kinds; a very laborious class, and which re-quires extreme patience minutely to express the infinite varietyand delicacy of their plumage.

XII. Culinary pieces; which represent all sorts of provisions,and animals without life, &c. A class much inferior to the rest,in which nature never appears to advantage, and which requiresonly a servile imitation of objects that are but little pleasing. Thepainting of fishes is referred to this class.

XIIL Fruit-pieces, of every kind, imitated from nature.

XIV. Flower-pieces ; a charming class of painting, where art inthe hands of Huyzum, P. Segerts, Merian, &c. becomes the rivalof nature. Plants and insects are usually referred to the painters offlowers, who with them ornament their works.

XV. Pieces of architecture; a kind of painting in which theItalians excel all others. Under this class may be comprehend-ed the representations of ruins, sea-ports, streets, and publicplaces; such as are seen in the works of Caneletti, and other ablemasters.

XVI. Instruments of music, pieces of furniture, and other ina-nimate objects ; a trifling species, and in which able painters onlyaceiden'ally employ their talents.

XVII. Imitations of bas-reliefs; a very pleasing kind of paint-ing, and which may be carried by an able hand to a high degreeof excellence.

VOL. iv.— no. 108.

XVIII. linnting-pieces: these also require a peculiar talent, asthey unite the painting of men, horses, dogs, and game, to that oflandscapes.

We have already noticed several particulars in history-painting,we shall add a few observations relative to landscapes and por-traiture, these forming the principal articles of painting.

Landscapes.

Landscape-painting includes every object that the country pre-sents; and is distinguished into the heroic, and the pastoral orrural ; of which indeed all other styles are but mixtures. Theheroic stvle is a composition of objects, which in their kinds drawboth from art and nature every thing that is great and extraordi-nary in either. 'The situations are perfectly agreeable and sur-prising. 'The only buildings are temples, pyramids, ancientplaces of burial, altars consecrated to the divinities, pleasure-houses of regular arduteclure; and if nature appear not there aswe every day casually see her, she is at least represented as wethink she ought to be. This style is an agreeable illusion, and aSort of enchantment, when handled by a man of line genius and agood understanding, as 1’oussin was, who had so happilv express-ed it. But if, in the course of this style, the painter has nottalent enough to maintain the sublime, he is often in danger offalling into the childish manner. 'The rural style is a representa-tion of countries, rather abandoned to the caprice of nature, thancultivated : we there see nature simple, without ornament, andwithout artifice; but with all those graces wherewith she adornsherself much more when left to herself than when constrained byart. In this style, situations bear all sorts of varieties . sometimesthey are very extensive and open, to contain the flocks of theshepherds; at others very wild, for the retreat of solitarypersons, and a covert for wild beasts. There are numberlesspieces wherein both these styles happily meet; and whichhas the ascendant, will appear from their respective properties.The chief parts of landscapes are, their sites and openings,accidents, skies, and clouds, offskips and mountains, verdureor turfing, rocks, grounds or lands, terraces, fabrics, wa-ters, fore-grounds, plants, figures, and trees. The word site, orsituation, signifies the view, prospect, or opening, of a country.Situations ought to be well put together ; and disengaged in theirmake, that the conjunction of grounds may not seem to he ob-structed though we should see but a part of them. 1. Situationsare various, and represented according to the plan of the painter,as either open or close, mountainous or watery, tilled and inha-bited, or wild and lonely ; or, in fine, variegated by a prudentmixture of some of these. But if the painter be obliged to imi-tate nature in a flat and regular country, he must make it agree-able b y a good disposition of the claro obscuro, and such pleasingcolouring as may make one soil unite with another. 52. An ac-cident in painting is an obstruction of the sun’s light by the inter-position of clouds, in such manner, that some part of the earth shallbe in light and others in shade, which, according fo the motion ofthe clouds, succeed each other, and produce such wonderful ef-fects and changes of the claro-obscuro, as seem to create so manvnew situations. 3. The sky, in painter’s language, is the etherealpart over our heads; but more particularly the air in which webreathe, and that where clouds and storms arc engendered. Itscolour is blue, growing clearer as it approaches the earth, because-of the interposition of vapours arising between the eye and thehorizon ; which, being penetrated by the light, communicates it toobjects in a greater or less degree, as they arc more or less re-mote. But this light, being either yellow or reddish, at sunsetthese objects partake not only of the light, but of the colour: thusthe yellow light mixing with the blue colour of the sky, alters it,and gives it a tint more or less greenish, as the yellowness of the’light is more or less deep. This observation is general and infal-lible ; but there is an infinity of particular ones, which the paintermust make upon the natural, with his pencil in his hand, when oc-casion offers; for there are very fine and singular effectsappearingin the sky, which it is difficult to describe or account for by phy-sical or optical reasons. 4. Offskips have a near affinity with thesky ; it is the sky which determines either the force or faintness ofthem. They are darkest when the sky is most loaded, and bright-est when it is most dear. They sometimes intermix their shapesand lights; and there are times, and countries, where the clouds3 D pass