CHAP. . I. of the original in the estimation of the real judge of art: for to all others it is imperceptiOf improved Perception. 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 CHAP. 1. the earliest and the latest-between the most 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 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, CHAP. I. Of improved when it is perceived to be so much more copious, and so much better adapted to all the 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 СНАР. I. only divide the attention, and obstruct all sympathy with the expression, but proclaim that to Of improved have been done with toil and difficulty, a prin- Perception. cipal 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 СНАР. I. 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 |