only divide the attention, and obstruct all sympathy with the expression, but proclaim that to have been done with toil and difficulty, a principal part of whose merit should consist in a masterly display of ease and intelligence; such as might be supposed to proceed from supernatural inspiration. 12. If, however, the defects of exactitude in imitation appear to proceed from want of knowledge or power, instead of want of care and attention, they are more glaringly offensive to the learned than to the ignorant; especially if they extend to those parts or properties of the' object, which belong to its general nature, or to the particular character, which the artist means to give it; and are not variable with the transient fluctuations of fashion. The Grecian painter, who altered the shoe of his figure at the suggestion of a cobbler, showed, perhaps, a superfluous degree of attention to exactitude: but the criticism of the Turkish emperor upon the work of the Venetian artist was as reasonable as it was just; for the shrinking of the skin from the wounded part of the neck, in a decollated head, is the peculiar circumstance, which shows the head to have been cut from a living body; and the omission of it, in a picture of the decollation of St. John the Baptist, entirely breaks that association of ideas, by which the story is connected with the representation CHAP. I. Of improved CHAP. Of improved of it, and the subject of the picture made known. 13. Exactitude of imitation is much more requisite in sculpture than in painting: but, nevertheless, even in this art, if it display itself in ostentatious trick or artifice, such as colouring statues to imitate life, it becomes offensive and disgusting to all experienced and intelligent persons: for such persons never look for deception; which they know to be mere trick, the pleasure of which ends with the surprise that it has once occasioned. To attempt to produce it, therefore, by mixing two separate arts, is to weaken the proper effects of both; as the trains of ideas, which severally belong to each, have arisen separately in the mind, and do not therefore readily or properly unite. The great sculptors of Greece, however, often composed one figure of different splendid materials; such as ivory and gold, marble and brass, &c.; but this was not for the purpose of any deception, or greater exactitude of imitation; but to produce an imposing effect of splendor and magnificence in the ideal or allegorical images of supernatural beings. They also frequently made the eyes of silver, gems, or some other shining material; but never, I believe, exactly to resemble the life; and, certainly, not for the purpose of deception; but merely to keep up that energy and vivacity of expression, which characterized the other fea CHAP. I. tures, in which it could be exhibited in forms; Of improved whereas, in the eyes, it could only arise from Perception: brightness or colours. The effect is, accordingly, the most animated and striking, that can be conceived, in the instances which we have remaining of bronze statues with silver eyes; of which there are many, and some of exquisite work, but all of a small size. From these, nevertheless, we may form some ideas of the imposing and commanding effects, which those of heroic or colossal dimensions must have had, when exhibited as objects of devotion in the temples. Those of Phidias and Lysippus must have been sufficient to reconcile even a Jew or a Mahometan to idolatry. 14. Sculpture, being properly a simple imitation of form, does not seem intended to afford any merely sensual pleasure to the eye for such pleasure can only arise from colour, or variation of light and shadow; whereas sculpture, considered abstractedly, has no colour, and the lights and shadows, in which it most delights, are regular, feeble, or harsh; so as to be always either too much, or too little broken to suit painting; and, therefore, certainly not in themselves pleasing to the eye. Rembrandt laughed at those artists, who talked of improving themselves in painting by studying the antique sculptures; and showed, as his cabinet CHAP. I. Of improved of antiques, a room furnished with cloaks, hats, turbans, &c. of various stuffs and tissues. As Perception. a mere painter, whose object was to please the eye, Rembrandt was quite right; and, indeed, no man ever understood that branch of the imitative art better, or practised it with more delicacy and success; his works arriving nearer to abstract perfection, in what they pretend to, than those of any other modern artist in any branch of art. 15. As sculpture is to painting, so, in some respects at least, is the melody of poetry compared with that of music. Sculpture and poetry require order and regularity: painting and music delight in wild and irregular variety: sculpture and poetry, too, are addressed entirely to the imagination and the passions; while painting and music are, in a degree, addressed to the organs of sight and hearing, and calculated to produce pleasures merely sensual. 16. Articulate language is entirely artificial and acquired; as appears from the case of deaf persons, who never learn to speak; and as has been further proved by the learned author, who has written expressly upon the subject*. But, nevertheless, inarticulate notes are natural to men, as well as to other animals; wherefore music is, in its principle, natural, while poetry * Lord Monboddo. is wholly artificial: for though the tones of the voice be from nature, the division of them into syllables and words is from acquired habit *. 17. In the habitual modes of distribution and combination of words into sentences, in order to express the sentiments and operations of the mind, the idiom of language consists; which thus depending upon accidental habit, is different in every different tongue. Rhythm is the disposition and arrangement of the long and short syllables in the order most easy and pleasant to the speaker, and most grateful and harmonious to the hearer; while prosody is a similar disposition and arrangement of the high and low syllables; that is, of those which the habitual idiom of the language has decreed to be respectively pronounced in a high or low tone of voice; which words high and low may mean either acute and base, as in the Greek prosody; or loud and its contrary, as in the modern. 18. In a just and skilful application of the variations of rhythm and prosody, such as arises from just feeling only, does the melody of lan, guage consist: but, nevertheless, this melody affords no gratification to the mere organs of hearing; but is solely perceived and felt by mental sympathy, as appears from our feeling * See Origin and Progress of Language, by Lord Monboddą. CHAP. I. Of improved |