Volume 23, Number 20 · December 9, 1976
The Not-So-Innocent Eye
By Francis Haskell
Landscape into Art
by Kenneth Clark
Harper and Row, 2nd ed., 248 pp., $17.50
Le Paysage français au XIX siècle, 1824-1874: L'École de la nature
by Pierre Miquel
Éditions de la Martinelle, 3 vols., 800 pp., 1420 francs
In a famous outburst Michelangelo is supposed to have told the Portuguese painter Francisco de Holanda that 'they paint in Flanders only to deceive the external eye, things that gladden you and of which you cannot speak ill. Their painting is of stuffs, bricks and mortar, the grass of the fields, the shadows of trees, and bridges and rivers, which they call landscapes, and little figures here and there. And all this, though it may appear good to some eyes, is in truth done without reason, without symmetry or proportion, without care in selecting or rejecting.' Such pictures, concluded Michelangelo, were only suitable for 'young women, monks and nuns, or certain noble persons who have no ear for true harmony.'
Review, 4132 words
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