But Rousseau's selection seems
instinctive and not sought out. He knows the secret of nature's
pictorial element. He is at one with her, adopts her suggestions so
cordially and works them out with such intimate sympathy and
harmoniousness, that the two forces seem reciprocally to reinforce each
other, and the result gains many fold in power from their subtle
co-operation. His landscapes have in this way a Wordsworthian
directness, simplicity, and severity. They are not troubled and dramatic
like Turner's. They are not decorative like Dupre's, they have not the
solemn sentiment of Daubigny's, or the airy aspiration and fairy-like
blitheness of Corot's. But there is in them "all breathing human
passion;" and at times, as in "Le Givre," they rise to majesty and real
grandeur because they are impregnated with the sentiment, as well as are
records of the phenomena, of nature, and one may say of Rousseau,
paraphrasing Mr. Arnold's remark about Wordsworth, that nature seems
herself to take the brush out of his hand and to paint for him "with her
own bare, sheer, penetrating power.
Pages:
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93