Landscape in Art Before Claude and Salvator (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Landscape in Art Before Claude and SalvatorSeveral years ago, when engaged upon the work entitled Cadore, or Titian's Country, I had occasion to examine the landscape introduced more or less as background in the works of several Italian masters of the sixteenth century. My object was to ascertain how far the strange forms of the Dolomite mountains, constantly to be recognised in Titian's landscape, could be identified in that of contemporary painters.During this investigation I was struck with the amount of landscape beauty which passed unnoticed amidst the imposing claims of great sacred subjects, or those of mythologic legend; I felt, too, that in these neglected comers of canvases, if the study of them were sufficiently wide and thorough, might be traced the rise and early progress of landscape-painting. Some years had passed when it was proposed to me to write something like a history of this delightful art. It was a task too large to undertake, but the suggestion drew my thoughts again to the germs of landscape spread through all mediæval art. The more I looked into the subject, the more interesting it became, and it had also the fascination of a region hitherto unexplored, and retreating into a dim unknown.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.