CHAP. II. tion. the otherwise able and elegant Essays on the Picturesque, is seeking for distinctions in ex- Of Imaginaternal objects, which only exist in the modes. and habits of viewing and considering them. The author had viewed nature, and examined art with the eye of a painter, the feelings of a poet, and the discernment of a critic: but not having been accustomed to investigate and discriminate the operations of mind, he unfortunately suffered himself to be misled by the brilliant, but absurd and superficial theories of the Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful. Show either picturesque, classical, romantic or pastoral scenery to a person, whose mind, how well soever organized, is wholly unprovided with correspondent ideas, and it will no otherwise affect him than as beautiful tints, forms, or varieties of light and shadow would, if seen in objects, which had nothing of either of these characters. Novelty will, indeed, make mountainous scenery peculiarly pleasing to the inhabitant of a plain; and richly cultivated scenery, to the inhabitant of a forest; and vice versa; but this is upon another principle which will be hereafter explained. All this, indeed, is admitted; and it is further stated that ugliness itself may be picturesque; and through the power of painting, be gazed on with delight by those, who have been accustomed to be charmed with it in the CHAP. tion. imitative productions of that art*: an observation, which could not but have led its Of Imagina- author to the true cause and source of that delight, had not the natural clearness of his discernment been pre-occupied by a system: for where objects in themselves ugly, that is, displeasing to sight, become pleasing objects of sight, to persons skilled in a particular art, and to no others, by means of ideas derived from that art, it surely did not require his sagacity to perceive that the pleasure must proceed from those ideas, and not from the necessary and inherent qualities of the objects †. 75. Man, both from his natural and social habits, is so accustomed to respect order and regularity, that it may properly be considered, Vol. I. p. 28, 231, 241, 404. Vol. I. pref. xiii. Vol. I. p. 221. A set of northern critics defend this distinction of picturesqueness by an auxiliary, which they create for the purpose, and call by a name still less intelligible and more uncouth, unexpectedness. Edinburgh Review, N° XIV. It would be amusing to hear them define, after the example which they illustrate, the particular modifications of colour, shape, and size, under which this distinct character appears to those, who do expect the objects, to which it is attributed: since if it really belong to the objects, and not to the minds of the observers, it must be equally perceptible to those who do, as to those who do not expect them; unless indeed prescience destroy perception, instead of rendering it more acute. CHAP. II. Of Imagina both physically and morally, as a principle of his existence. All our limbs and organs serve us in pairs, and by mutual co-operation with each other whence the habitual association of ideas has taught us to consider this uniformity as indispensable to the beauty and perfection of the animal form. There is no reason to be deduced from any abstract consideration of the nature of things why an animal should be more ugly and disgusting for having only one eye, or one ear, than for having only one nose or one mouth: yet if we were to meet with a beast with one eye, or two noses or mouths, in any part of the world, we should, without inquiry, decide it to be a monster, and turn from it with abhorrence: neither is there any reason, in the nature of things, why a strict parity, or relative equality, in the correspondent limbs and features of a man or a horse, should be absolutely essential to beauty, and absolutely destructive of it in the roots and branches of a tree. But, nevertheless, the Creator having formed the one regular, and the other irregular, we habitually associate ideas of regularity to the perfection of the one, and ideas of irregularity to the perfection of the other; and this habit has been so unvaried, as to have become natural. 76. Hence, though irregularity of appearance is generally essential to picturesque beauty, no tion. CHAP. painter has ever thought of making a man or animal more picturesque, by exhibiting them Of Imagina- with one leg shorter than the other, or one eye tion. smaller than the other; and, though men have cut off the ears and tails of their horses, and cropped their manes, to make them more beautiful, no one has ever thought of cutting off only one ear, shearing the tail on one side, or cropping the mane in one part and not in another, in order to produce this effect. Nevertheless men do commit similar violations of nature in the vegetable creation, and with the happiest effect: for we often see trees of the fir kind cropped and mutilated in order to make them grow irregularly, and the beauty, which they thus acquire, is universally felt and acknowledged. 77. But it must be remembered that irregularity is the general characteristic of trees, and regularity that of animals; so that the mutilations, in one instance, tend to render a single species more, and in the other less, conformable to its kind; and consequently, in the ane, to connect and extend, and in the other to interrupt and destroy the association of ideas. It must be remembered, also, that our mental sympathies extend, in some degree, to every thing, which seems to participate of mind; or in any degree to possess the faculties of feeling and thinking: whence the mutilation of an animal, and that of a plant, excite very different sentiments; and it is to be lamented, for the honour of human nature, that these sentiments are not still more different than they appear, from the general practice of mankind, to be. 78. The regular conformation of animals, however, is rather perceived by the mind than the eye; for there is no object, composed of parts, either in nature or art, that can appear regular to the eye, unless seen at right angles; and this is the point of sight, which a painter of any taste always studiously avoids: consequently, in his compositions, the forms of men and animals, as well as those of trees, are irregular, in their appearance to the eye; at the same time, that he takes care to represent them, in such a manner, as to inform the mind, that their conformation is according to the laws of nature. Even when the point of sight is at right angles with the limbs of the figure, the form will not appear regular to the eye, unless each corresponding limb be exactly in the same posture; and the position of the whole be perpendicularly erect, with the weight distributed, exactly in due proportions, on the parts intended to bear it still, however, the painter has a resource; for if he should be compelled, by the nature of his subject, to introduce, into his composition, a figure in CHAP. 11. Of Imagina tion. |