, a Russian by birth, was a landscape painter in London, but chiefly
, a Russian by birth, was a landscape painter in London, but chiefly practised as a drawing-master. He taught in a way that was new and peculiar, and which appears to have been adopted from the
hint given by Leonardo da Vinci, who recommends selecting the ideas of landscape from the stains of an old plaster
wall, and his method of composing his drawings may be
considered as an improvement upon the advice of Da Vinci.
His process was to dash out, upon several pieces of paper,
a number of accidental large blots and loose flourishes,
from which he selected forms, and sometimes produced
very grand ideas; but they were in general too indefinite
in their execution, and unpleasing in their colour. He
published a small tract upon this method of composing
landscapes, in which he has demonstrated his process. He
also published some other works, the most considerable of
which was a folio, entitled “The Principles of Beauty
relative to the Human Head,
” The various
species of Composition in Nature, in sixteen subjects, on
four plates,
” with observations and instructions and
“The shape, skeleton, and foliage of thirty-two species of
Trees,
”