Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-02-18

David and Ingres. That feel
ing, that nature is worth a
look, even without figures in
the foreground, is precisely
the contribution of the Eng
fish painters in the century
preceding impressionism and
it is especially the contribu-
ton of the English water
colorists.
At this point some of the
connection between the Eng
liSh landscape and the water
color medium begins to be-
come clear. The connection
is based not on the mist in
the air but on the simple
fact that, earlier than most,
the English began to enjoy
their landscape. Earlier still,
the French and the Italians
had begun to manipulate
landscape, often in very in
genious ways, but the Eng
fish were content to enjoy
the stuff as it was.
The Americans, on the
other hand, during this period
were so preoccupied with
conquering the land itself
that the very notion of land
scape hardly existed in this
country until we'll into the
10Th century. The English
were happily situated between
the ingenious manipulation
of the Latins and tireless
homesteading of the old
frontier. They could see the
land without thinking either
how it might be tastefully re-
arranged or how it might be
turned to advantage. They
could enjoy just looking. They
could love the land. And, as
the popular novelist, Henry
Miller. points out, ITO paint
is to love again."
Art ond Nature
The record OF English love
for the land contained in the
show at the National moves
from the English pastures
and the Scottish highlands
along the coasts and beyond
the coasts to Europe, cul-
minating in the Venice of
Turner. Through the record
the growth of a passion may
be seen and the varieties of
love. Art and nature move
forward together. There is no
thought that the two can be
in opposition. The function of
art is patiently and accu-
rately to set down the look
of nature in a certain place
at a certain time. The func-
ton of nature is to provide
work for art to Go. The water
color painter necessarily re
duces" his subject to a choice
of colors and an arrange
ments of areas on the paper.
In doing so, if he is success
full, he penetrates, first for
himself, then for us, into an
understanding of how tile
view is put together. For the
colored arrangements on
paper are at once a record of
how things look and a recon-
struction of the process
whereby they got to look that
way. The plastic relation
ships OF the pictures are
shorthand notes on the in
finitely more complex rela-
tlonships of nature, the rela-
tionships of botany and
meteorology, for example, or
those among a method Of
agriculture, prevailing winds
and the mean annual rain
fell. All such facts enter in
to the formation of a land
scape. The translation of a
landscape into a picture in
vclves the creation of a new
set of facts, which also have
their interrelations.
Not only man regarding
nature is the subject of the
show, although it is the
chief part. The pictures also
take up the image of man
itself and when they do they
reveal a strange thing. Of the
artists here represented
whose work deals more i'm
pcrtantly with people than
with places, surely the most
important are Blake, Fuseli
and RoWlandson. In their
different ways, all three con-