ened by decay, and whose crude and uniform tints are mellowed and diversified by weatherstains and wall plants; streams, that flow alternately smooth and agitated, between broken or sedgy banks, reflecting, sometimes clearly, and sometimes indistinctly, the various masses of rock or foliage, that hang over them; in short, almost all those objects in nature or art, which my friend Mr. Price has so elegantly described as picturesque: for painting, as it imitates only the visible qualities of bodies, separates those qualities from all others; which the habitual concurrence and co-operation of the other senses have mixt and blended with them, in our ordinary perceptions, from which our ideas are formed. The imitative deceptions of this art unmask the habitual deceptions of sight, as those of the ventriloquist do the habitual deceptions of hearing, by showing that mere modifications upon one flat surface can exhibit to the eye the semblance of various projecting bodies at different degrees of distance from each other, in the same manner as the mere modifications of one voice could convey to the ear the semblance of different voices coming in different directions, and from places differing in their degrees of proximity. Hence it was with some difficulty that the nature of painting could be explained to the boy, restored to sight by Cheselden, even after his eyes had acquired all the CHAP. V. Of Sight. CHAP. Of Sight. ordinary powers of perception, as well as those of sensation for when he saw, upon a surface, which he felt to be flat, all those visible effects produced, by which he had lately been taught to estimate visible projection and distance, he concluded that either his sight or his touch was erroneous, but had not been sufficiently in the habit of comparing their evidence to decide which. 18. In many of the objects of these mixt sensations, there must necessarily occur a mixture of pleasing and displeasing qualities; or of such as please one sense and displease another: or please the senses, and offend the understanding or the imagination. These painting also separates; and, in its imitations of objects, which are pleasing to the eye but otherwise offensive, exhibits the pleasing qualities only; so that we are delighted with the copy, when we should, perhaps, turn away with disgust and abhorrence from the original. Decayed pollard trees, rotten thatch, crumbling masses of perished brick and plaster, tattered worn-out dirty garments, a fish or a flesh market, may all exhibit the most harmonious and brilliant combinations of tints to the eye; and harmonious and brilliant combinations of tints are certainly beautiful in whatsoever they are seen but, nevertheless, these objects contain so many properties that are offensive to other senses, or to the imagination, that in nature we are not pleased with them, nor ever consider them as beautiful. Yet in the pictures of Rembrandt, Ostade, Teniers, and Fyt, the imitations of them are unquestionably beautiful and pleasing to all mankind; and as these painters are remarkable for the fidelity of their imitations, whatever visible qualities existed in the objects. must appear in their copies of them: but, in these copies, the mind perceives only the visible qualities; whereas, in the originals, it perceived others less agreeable united with them. Painters, indeed, and persons much conversant with painting, often feel pleasure in viewing the objects themselves: but this is from a principle of association, which will be hereafter explained. 19. A great authority, I know, denies that the imitations of such objects can ever produce "beautiful, that is, lovely pictures" and if beautiful is thus limited to the sense of lovely, I may perhaps not think the point worth contesting; though, even with this arbitrary and unexampled limitation, I can produce at least equal authority in support of a contrary opinion. "D'un pinceau delicat, l'artifice agréable Du plus affreux objet, fait un objet aimable +." Price's Dialog. + Boileau, Art Poetique, c. iii. CHAP. V. Of Sight. CHAP. Of Sight. The same great authority had before admitted that the picturesque, which renders such objects pleasing in pictures, is that which painting can, and sculpture cannot express *; and what is that but colour, and its gradations of light and shade, or distinctness and indistinctness? 20. The beauty of those whimsical and extravagant paintings, called, from the subterraneous apartments in Rome, where the first specimens of them were found, grottesque, has never, I believe, been questioned: the brilliance and variety of the tints having afforded pleasure to every eye; and the airy lightness, and playful elegance of the forms, to every imagination, that has been acquainted with them. Yet, were we to meet with such extravagant and disproportioned buildings in reality; or such monstrous combinations of human, animal, and vegetable forms in nature, our understandings would revolt at them, and we should turn from them with scorn and disgust: but, in judging of the imitative representations of them, we do not consult our understandings, but merely our senses and imaginations; and to them they are pleasing and beautiful. 21. I am aware that I am here laying myself open to the cavils of a captious adversary; who may accuse me of calling the tattered 22. The natural consequence of confining beauty to smoothness or undulation, either of form or colour, is, that a person of such just taste and feeling, as my friend above mentioned, should discover it to be insipid, as he has done : and to remedy this defect, he proposes that a 10 CHAP. V. Of Sight. |