. Essays and Belles Lettres. the ValdAosta. And 396. Glacier and Source of the Arveron ;showing with what enthusiasm he entered on the new fieldsopened to him in the Alps. This wonderful picture of the Hesperides is, however, thefirst composition in which Turner introduced the mountainknowledge he had gained in his Swiss journey : and it is acombination of these Swiss experiences, under the guidanceof Nicolas Poussin, whose type of landscape has been fol-lowed throughout. Nearly all the faults of the picture areowing to Poussin ; and all its virtues to the Alps. I say nearlyall the faults of t
. Essays and Belles Lettres. the ValdAosta. And 396. Glacier and Source of the Arveron ;showing with what enthusiasm he entered on the new fieldsopened to him in the Alps. This wonderful picture of the Hesperides is, however, thefirst composition in which Turner introduced the mountainknowledge he had gained in his Swiss journey : and it is acombination of these Swiss experiences, under the guidanceof Nicolas Poussin, whose type of landscape has been fol-lowed throughout. Nearly all the faults of the picture areowing to Poussin ; and all its virtues to the Alps. I say nearlyall the faults of the picture, because it would not be fairto charge Poussin wholly with its sombre colour, inasmuch 1 Exhibited at the British Institution in 1806, under the title,The Goddess of Discord choosing the Apple of Contention in theGardens, &c. At Marlborough House 359 as many of his landscapes are beautifully golden and deepblue. Possibly the Goddess of Discord may have hadsomething to do with the matter; and the shadow of her. presence may have been cast on laurel bough and goldenfruit; but I am not disposed to attribute such a pieceof far fetched fancy to Turner at this period ; and I supposeit to be partly owing to the course of his quiet practice,partly to his knowledge of the more sombre pictures of 360 The Turner Gallery Poussin rather than of the splendid ones, and partly tothe continued influence of Wilson and Morland—that thegarden of the Hesperides is so particularly dull a it is a sorrowful fault in the conception that it shouldbe so. Indeed, unless we were expressly assured of the fact,I question whether we should have found out that thesewere gardens at all, as they have the appearance ratherof wild mountain ground, broken and rocky ; with a pool ofgloomy water; some heavy groups of trees, of the speciesgrown on Clapham Common; and some bushes bearingvery unripe and pale pippins—approaching in no wise thebeauty of a Devonshire or Normandy orchard, much lesst
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