He sat,
an impartial recorder of the phases of nature's triumphal procession.
Early and late, in the fields, among the rocks, or under the trees
of the forest, his cunning hand noted an innumerable variety of facts
which before him, through ignorance or disdain, the landscape painter
had never seen. It is but fair to say that, like all pioneers in the
untrodden fields of art, his means of expression at times failed to
keep pace with his intention. His work is occasionally overburdened
with detail, through the embarrassment of riches which nature poured
at his feet. Then, heir to the processes of painting of former
generations, it seemed to him necessary to endow nature with a warmth
of coloring, an abuse of the richer tones of the palette, which we may
presume he would have discarded but for the fact already noted, that
a painter carries through his earthly pilgrimage a baggage of
early-formed habits difficult to throw off _en route_. The belief that
color to be beautiful must of necessity be warm, rich, and deep in
tone was shared by all painters of Rousseau's time, and lingers still
in the minds of many, despite the fact that nature has created the
tea-rose as well as the orange. When, however, Rousseau was completely
successful--as, for instance, in the "Hoar-frost," in the Walters
gallery in Baltimore--the reward of his painstaking methods was
measurably great.
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