Note 649 — Chapter VI · LANDSCAPE PAINTING

Biese in “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls,” pp. 209–48, gives a brief résumé of the development of landscape painting in Germany. He calls Rubens and his school the first to make the painting of Nature an independent branch of art, while Ruysdael (1681) is the one in whom “die ganze Poesie der Natur” finds expression. His chapter closes with these words: “Alle diese grossen Niederländer eilen weit der Poesie ihrer Zeit voraus; Gebirge und Meer finden im Wort erst 100 Jahre später ihrer begeisterten Schilderer, und ein in sich stimmungsvoll, abgeschlossenes, lyrisches Landschaftsbild wird erst am Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts in der deutschen Dichtung geboren.” In England, it will be observed, the love of Nature finds earlier and more abundant expression in poetry than in painting, and its completest expression in Wordsworth’s poetry precedes its complete expression in the great English landscape painters of the early nineteenth century. See also for brief résumé of “Landschaftsmalerei” as an indication mainly of the increasing knowledge of distant lands, new forms of vegetation, etc., Humboldt, “Kosmos,” II, 47–58.