Pagina 204 di 788

"Friend," said the Count, "beautiful nature is the form, the

ground, the material, but the soul is inspiration, which rises on

the wings of imagination, is polished by taste, and is supported

by rules. Nature is not enough, enthusiasm is not enough; the

artist must fly away into the spheres of the ideal! Not

everything that is beautiful can be painted! You will learn all

this from books in the course of time. As for painting: for a

picture one requires viewpoints, grouping, ensemble-and sky, the

Italian sky! Hence in landscape art Italy was, is, and will be

the country of painters. Hence also, except for Breughel-not Van

der Helle, but the landscapist, for there are two Breughels55-and

except for Ruysdael, in the whole north where has there been a

landscape artist of the first rank? The sky, the sky is

necessary."