_Henri Valenciennes_ was the Lenôtre of this Classicism, the admired teacher of several generations. The beginner in landscape painting modelled himself upon Valenciennes as the figure painter upon Guérin. His _Traité élémentaire de perspective pratique_, in which he formulated the principles of landscape, contains his personal views as well as the æsthetics of the age. Although, as he premises, he "is convinced that there is in reality only one kind of painting, historical painting, it is true that an able historical painter ought not entirely to neglect landscape." Rembrandt, of course, and the old Dutch painters were without any sort of ideal, and only worked for people without soul or intelligence. How far does a landscape with cows and sheep stand below one with the funeral of Phocion, or a rainy day by Ruysdael below a picture of the Deluge by Poussin! Hardly does Claude Lorrain find grace in the eyes of Valenciennes. "He has painted with a pretty fidelity to nature the morning and evening light. But just for that very reason his pictures make no appeal to the intelligence. He has no tree where a Dryad could dwell, no spring in which nymphs could splash. Gods, demigods, nymphs, satyrs, even heroes are too sublime for these regions; shepherds could dwell there at best." Claude, indeed, loved Italy, but knew the old writers all too little, and they are the groundwork for landscape painters. As David said to his pupil Gros, "Look through your Plutarch," Valenciennes advised his own pupils to study Theocritus, Virgil, and Ovid: only from these authors might be learnt what were the regions suitable for gods and heroes. "Vos exemplaria græca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna." If, for example, the landscapist would paint Morning, let him portray the moment when Aurora rises laughing from the arms of her aged spouse, when the hours are yoking four fiery steeds to the car of the sun-god, or Ulysses kneels imploring before Nausicaa. For Noon the myth of Icarus or of Phaëton might be turned to account. Evening may be represented by painting Phoebus hastening his course as he nears the horizon in flaming desire to cast himself into the arms of Thetis. Having once got his themes from the old poets, the landscape painter must know the laws of perspective to execute his picture; he must be familiar with Poussin's rules of composition, and occasionally he ought even to study nature. Then he needs a weeping willow for an elegy, a rock for the death of Phaëton, and an oak for the dance of the nymphs. To find such motives he should make journeys to the famed old lands of civilisation; best of all on the road which art itself has traversed--first to Asia Minor, then to Greece, and then to Italy. [Illustration: _Baschet._ HUBERT ROBERT. MONUMENTS AND RUINS.]