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imitating another, and still adding something to what he had acquired, imitation is both naturally and habitually pleasing to him*. Hence there is no effort of painting or sculpture so rude, no composition in music or poetry so artless, as not to delight those, who have known no better; and, perhaps, the pleasures, which the ignorant feel from mere imitation, when it has arrived at any degree of exactitude, are more keen and vivid, though less exquisite and exalted than those which the learned in art receive from its noblest productions: at least, I have seen more delight expressed at a piece of wax-work, or a painting of a mackarel upon a deal board, or a pheasant on a table, than I ever observed to be produced by the Apollo of the Belvidere, or the Transfiguration of Raphael. It is true that the vulgar express their feelings more boisterously and impetuously than the learned; but it is also true that the feelings of. nature have universally more of rapture in them than those which are excited through the medium of science,

4. These feelings of nature, however, are of short duration: for when the novelty of the first impression is over, and the interest of curiosity and surprise has subsided, mere imitátion of common objects begins to appear trifling

* Ibid. c. vi.

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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.

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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 expres sion 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

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concerned, are unquestionably among its most

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Of improved 6. The taste for them, however, is, as Sir Perception. 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 the original in the estimation of the real judge of art: for to all others it is impercepti ble; and, indeed, unlooked for.

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

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the earliest and the latest-between the most imperfect and the most perfect productions of a 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 better?" does not rest upon a full or fair statement of the case: for the collector might very candidly answer, no-without incurring any just imputation of false taste, or servile deference 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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