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Of improved

and insipid; and men look for, in imitative art, something of character and expression, which Perception. may awaken sympathy, excite new ideas, or expand and elevate those already formed.

5. To produce this requires a knowledge of mind, as well as of body; and of the interior, as well as exterior construction of the human frame, or of whatever else be the object of imitation; whence art becomes engrafted upon science; and as all the exertions of human skill and ingenuity are indefinitely progressive, and never stop at the point, which they originally aimed at, this art of science or science of art has been extended, particularly in painting and music, to the production of excellencies, which are neither of imitation nor expression; but which peculiarly belong to technical skill, and which can only be relished or perceived by those, who have acquired a certain degree of knowledge in those arts. Such are, in general, the compositions of Bravura, as they are called, in music; and such, in painting, are the works of the great Venetian painters; whose style of imitation is any thing but exact; whose expression is never either dignified or forcible; and whose tone of colouring is too much below that of nature to please the mere organs of sense; but whose productions have, nevertheless, always held the highest rank in the art; and, as far as the mere art and science of painting are

concerned, are unquestionably among its most perfect productions.

6. The taste for them, however, is, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed, entirely acquired*; and acquired by the association of ideas: for, as great skill and power, and a masterly facility of execution, in any liberal art, raise our admiration, and consequently excite pleasing and exalted ideas; we, by a natural and imperceptible process of the mind, associate these ideas with those excited by the productions of these arts; and thus transfer the merit of the workman to the work. There is, however, another reason why we value facility of . execution in works of this kind, which shall be explained hereafter. ·

7. It is upon the same principle that we prefer an original to a copy: for a copy may be equally exact in imitation, equally correct and dignified in expression, and display a tone of colouring and distribution of light and shade. equally pleasing to the sense; whence none but the most acute and experienced judges of the art can distinguish the one from the other: but the copy will never have that masterly intelligence in the execution-that union between the conceptions of the mind and the operations of the hand, which constitute the superior merit.

Discourses.

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Of improved
Perception.

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of the original in the estimation of the real Of improved judge of art: for to all others it is imperceptiPerception. ble; and, indeed, unlooked for.

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8. This intelligence is often more prominent and striking in a drawing or slight sketch, than in a finished production: whence persons, who have acquired this refined or artificial taste, generally value them more; since finishing often blunts or conceals this excellence: but then the drawings or sketches so valued must be the works of great painters, who knew how to finish; for, from their perfect knowledge, is derived the intelligence, which they are enabled to display in their imperfect exertions of it. The drawings of a mere draftsman are never highly esteemed, however excellently designed or brilliantly executed; a loose incorrect sketch of Rembrandt or Salvator Rosa being always preferred by persons conversant in the art, to the most elaborate productions of the light and brilliant pens of Pietro Testa and La Fage.

9. Collectors of pictures and drawings are often ridiculed for paying great prices for slight or juvenile productions of great artists; and it must be owned that vanity, and a silly desire of possessing what is rare, are often the motives for such purchases. But, nevertheless, they are, in many instances, of a more liberal and more reasonable kind: for, by the association. of ideas, we often trace a connection between

the earliest and the latest-between the most

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imperfect and the most perfect productions of a Of improved
great master, which makes, not only his slight Perception.
sketches, but his boyish studies interesting. The
question, therefore, which is often insultingly
put to such collectors, "would you give such a
sum for this, if the artist had done nothing bet-
ter?" does not rest upon a full or fair state-
ment of the case: for the collector might very
candidly answer, no-without incurring any
just imputation of false taste, or servile defe-
rence to the authority of great names.

10. When I say that the colouring of the great Venetian masters is too much below the tone of nature to please the mere organs of sense, I mean, of course, the unimproved organs of sense for I am well aware that even the mere pleasures of sense are so far under the influence of mind, and liable to be modified by habit, that they may, in some instances, be made to descend by an inverted scale, from a higher to a lower stimulus, instead of ascending, in their natural progression, from a lower to a higher. But of this, however, I recollect no instance but in those of hearing and sight, which are so intimately connected with mental sympathies that they naturally fall under the influence of the mind. No person, I believe, unacquainted with music, ever preferred the tone of a violoncello to that of a flute :-yet,

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I.

CHAP. when it is perceived to be so much more coOf improved pious, and so much better adapted to all the Perception. scientific as well as expressive compositions in

music, which require a more extensive scale of harmony, and a more refined display of chromatic variation, the understanding so far influences the ear, that I have frequently met with persons, who had learned to think even the tones of it pleasanter. Upon the same principle, I believe that no person unacquainted with the art of painting ever preferred the colouring of Titian to that of Denner or Vander Werf: but, nevertheless, when it is discovered how much better adapted it is to fulfil all the great purposes of the art, the eye by degrees assents to the testimony of the mind, and learns to feel it more pleasant.

11. Though the pleasures, which painting affords to the mass of mankind, be derived entirely from the artifice and trick of imitation; yet to refined judges, who have accustomed their minds to seek for merits of a higher kind, all this artifice and trick, and even extreme attention to exactitude, if it be ostentatiously displayed, are offensive: for experience, by detecting the artifice, teaches us to despise it; and how much soever we may be delighted with the results of care and labour, we do not like that the means, by which they are produced, should be displayed with them; as they not

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