Art and Nature

Where it surfaces

• On the Pleasure of Painting

  Central theme: painting as a direct, peaceful communion with Nature, where the artist learns to see 'face to face' and 'into the life of things.'

• The Same Subject Continued

  Hazlitt argues that deep knowledge of art, not just natural sensibility, is required to perceive the true beauty and harmony in works like those of Titian and Claude.

• The Same Subject Continued

  Hazlitt argues that originality is seeing nature differently yet truly, and that genius reveals nature's hidden aspects, as exemplified by Rembrandt's chiaroscuro.

• The Indian Jugglers

  Hazlitt distinguishes between mechanical skill (the juggler's feats) and fine art, which requires capturing nature's essence through sentiment and imagination.

• The Same Subject Continued

  The central debate concerns the relationship between art and nature: whether art should transcend nature by seeking an ideal form or faithfully represent nature's variety and particularity.

• On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin

  Hazlitt argues that Poussin's art is a 'second nature,' not a copy but a re-creation that gives form and color to ideas, contrasting with those who fail to capture nature.

• Why Distant Objects Please

  The essay discusses how the imagination transforms natural scenes and objects into artful, idealized forms, and how memory preserves them with heightened sensory detail.

• On the Picturesque and Ideal

  Hazlitt distinguishes between the natural, the picturesque, and the ideal in visual art, using examples from painters and natural objects.