SIMPLICITY OF NATURE-PASSAGES

Compared with the fervent praises, the elaborate descriptions, the éloquent ecstasies of, say, Shelley, or Keats, or Meredith, or Browning, tWs will appear crude, and without form or comeliness. Yet it is very tj^ical of C arpenter. Alike in the précision and the economy of the strokes he uses, he is the Phil May among nature-painters. Or, perhaps better, one may compare him to Giotto, who, deserting the formai, classical, artificial, stifï, heavily-gilded figures and compositions of his predecessors (say, Cimabue), determined to peint what he saw, and just as he saw it ; brought back a natural realism to break down the tjnranny of classical romanticism and idealism ; in his frescoes, theref ore, there is much that may be f ound f ault with in the matter of drawing, for example, yet there is no doubt about the life, vigour, movement, naturalness of his compositions, nor about the vividness and concrète reality of the stories they are painted to tell.

The same fact may be stated in another way. Carpenter describes Nature as one who is at home in the world of natural phenomena — " at home " in the sensé of the phrase as used in that lovely little poem " The Open Secret," which begins :

Sweet secret of the open air — That waits so long, and always there, unheeded. Something uncaught, so free, so calm large confident — The floating breeze, the far hills and broad sky, And every little bird and tiny fly or flower ^/ Aoiif^inthegreatwhole,nor fedinglostatallorforsaken,^