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"Views of Chatsworth" are dated 1744, and Vivares engraved some of his views of Derbyshire in 1745. A print from his "View of Dunnington Cliff," dated 1745, shows a river winding in tortuous fashion into the remote distance, with wooded hills on one side, balanced on the other by meadows stretching away to a low hill crowned with a little church. The foreground shows scraggly trees, a waterfall, a lock, cattle grazing, and figures variously occupied. The crowded canvas lacks unity of impression and is thoroughly conventional in arrangement, but the details are English and are painted with manifest appreciation and a very evident attempt at fidelity. George Smith (1714-76), or "Smith of Chichester," belongs in time with Lambert and Thomas Smith. He and his brothers were the first to establish a local school of landscape art. In 1760 he was awarded a premium of fifty pounds for "A Landskip, half-length," the first premium given by the "Society of Arts" for landscape work, but he had done considerable Claudesque painting before this time. In spite of his imitative manner his themes are the lovely scenes about Chichester, and he painted them with genuine affection. A pleasing example of his Italian style is in the South Kensington Gallery. A dark line of foreground with tufted brownish trees on each side frames in a still lake; a fine effect of distance is given by misty blue hills beyond the lake; and sunset effects—a tender blue sky with grayish little clouds softly brighter.ed by yellow light from the diffused golden glow along the horizon-are delicately repeated in the mirror-like water. Another early artist of whom little seems to be known is William Bellers. Numerous engravings by Mason from landscapes "Painted after Nature by William Bellers" occur from 1752 to 1759. He was a Cumberland man and nearly all of his pictures are of scenes in that county

I See Print Room, British Museum, for prints from his paintings.

and in Westmoreland. As art his work cannot rank high, but not even his fluffy hills, tossed together without a suggestion of rock foundation, nor his lack of aërial perspective, can obscure the delight with which he painted the picturesque scenery of his native regions. Bellers was apparently the first one of the long line of Lake Country artists and his pictures antedate by some years the known descriptions in poetry, travels, and fiction. Thomas Smith also painted in Westmoreland and other northern counties but there is no means of determining whether his pictures are earlier or later than those of Bellers. Alexander Cozens (d. 1786), was sent to study art in Italy. He returned to England in 1746 and exhibited from 1760 to 1781. There are at South Kensington several examples of his work, especially two interesting mountain landscapes. In the British Museum are fifty-four drawings which belong to his Italian period. Some of these are extensive views. Some of them show interesting experiments such as the attempt to represent sunlight streaming through clouds. "Altogether," says Mr. Monkhouse, "these show that Cozens before his arrival in England, was a welltrained artist who observed Nature for himself, and was not without poetical skill" and Mr. Monkhouse finds in the "imagination, ingenuity, and trained skill" of the father adequate explanation of his son, John Robert Cozens, whose work will be noted in the next section.' The work of Alexander Cozens was particularly that of teaching art.'

John

1 Cosmo Monkhouse, "The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters," PP. 35, 36.

• Cozens had a curious way of getting hints for landscape composition. He taught his pupils to splash paint on the bottoms of earthenware plates and to stamp impressions therefrom on sheets of damp paper. The accidental forms thus struck out were counted a help to invention. The early exhibitions record many bizarre attempts at landscapes such as "A landscape done in needlework and human hair" (1773), "three drawings made

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