There is indeed another version of the
story, that the picture was sold for a pot of porter and a cheese, which,
however, does not give a higher idea of the appreciation of the art of
landscape at that date.
Until very recently the general feeling with reference to mountain scenery
has been that expressed by Tacitus. "Who would leave Asia or Africa or
Italy to go to Germany, a shapeless and unformed country, a harsh sky, and
melancholy aspect, unless indeed it was his native land?"
It is amusing to read the opinion of Dr. Beattie, in a special treatise on
_Truth, Poetry and Music_, written at the close of the last century, that
"The Highlands of Scotland are in general a melancholy country. Long
tracts of mountainous country, covered with dark heath, and often obscured
by misty weather; narrow valleys thinly inhabited, and bounded by
precipices resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so rugged, and a
climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amenities of
pasturage, nor the labors of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves
along the firths and lakes: the portentous noises which every change of
the wind is apt to raise in a lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks,
and caverns; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by
the light of the moon: objects like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy,"
etc.
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