Buchanan, William: Memoirs of painting: with a chronological history of the importation of pictures by the great masters into England since the French Revolution (Band 2) (London: Ackermann, 1824)

34

THE ALTIERI CLAUDES.

extreme distance; the composition of it is rich
and highly classical, and the whole is finished in
the most enamelled style of penciling. It may
truly be said to be a model of art for all landscape
painters to imitate.
In considering the relative beauties of these two
very celebrated pictures, the connoisseur is staggered
to which he is to give the preference. The splen-
dour of the Marine takes the observer by surprise,
and for a while rivets him to the spot; the more
classical and chaste composition of the other, the
purity of the air in it, which one would wish to
breathe, the freshness of a fine morning in spring,
where the meadows are adorned with a verdant
foliage of wild plants and shrubs, next demands
his attention, and excites a comparative and ana-
logous sentiment, that if the one possesses the
splendour of a Titian, the other enjoys the purity
and chastity of a Raphael. Would it not be a
triumph for the arts if such pictures could be placed
vis-a-vis to each other ? a matter certainly worthy
of the attention of those who know how to value
works of this superlative class. -