enthusiasm, I shall only say, that those who censure it are not
conversant in the works of the great Masters. It is very difficult to
determine the exact degree of enthusiasm that the arts of Painting and
Poetry may admit. There may perhaps be too great an indulgence, as
well as too great a restraint of imagination; and if the one produces
incoherent monsters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless
insipidity. An intimate knowledge of the passions and good sense, but
not common sense, must at last determine its limits. It has been
thought, and I believe with reason, that Michel Angelo sometimes
transgressed those limits; and I think I have seen figures by him, of
which it was very difficult to determine whether they were in the
highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous. Such faults may be
said to be the ebullition of genius; but at least he had this merit,
that he never was insipid; and whatever passion his works may excite,
they will always escape contempt.
What I have had under consideration is the sublimest style,
particularly that of Michel Angelo, the Homer of Painting. Other kinds
may admit of this naturalness, which of the lowest kind is the chief
merit; but in Painting, as in Poetry, the highest style has the least
of common nature.
One may safely recommend a little more enthusiasm to the modern
Painters; too much is certainly not the vice of the present age. The
Italians seem to have been continually declining in this respect from
the time of Michel Angelo to that of Carlo Maratti, and from thence to
the very bathos of insipidity to which they are now sunk; so that
there is no need of remarking, that where I mentioned the Italian
Painters in opposition to the Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the
heads of the old Roman and Bolognian Schools; nor did I mean to
include in my idea of an Italian Painter, the Venetian School, which
may be said to be the Dutch part of the Italian Genius. I have only
to add a word of advice to the Painters--that however excellent they
may be in painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves very
much upon it; and to the Connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a
fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, _it looks as if you
could take it up_, they would not for that reason immediately compare
the Painter to Raffaelle and Michel Angelo.
NUMBER 82. _Saturday, November 10, 1759._
TO THE IDLER.
SIR--Discoursing in my last letter on the different practice of the
Italian and Dutch Painters, I observed that "the Italian Painter
attends only to the invariable, the great, and general ideas, which
are fixed and inherent in universal nature."
I was led into the subject of this letter by endeavouring to fix the
original cause of this conduct of the Italian Masters. If it can be
proved that by this choice they selected the most beautiful part of the
creation, it will show how much their principles are founded on reason,
and, at the same time, discover the origin of our ideas of beauty.
I suppose it will be easily granted that no man can judge whether any
animal be beautiful in its kind, or deformed, who has seen only one of
that species; this is as conclusive in regard to the human figure; so
that if a man, born blind, were to recover his sight, and the most
beautiful woman were brought before him, he could not determine
whether she was handsome or not; nor if the most beautiful and most
deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he
should give the preference, having seen only those two. To distinguish
beauty, then, implies the having seen many individuals of that
species. If it is asked, how is more skill acquired by the observation
of greater numbers? I answer, that, in consequence of having seen
many, the power is acquired, even without seeking after it, of
distinguishing between accidental blemishes and excrescences which are
continually varying the surface of Nature's works, and the invariable
general form which Nature most frequently produces, and always seems
to intend in her productions.
Thus amongst the blades of grass or leaves of the same tree, though no
two can be found exactly alike, the general form is invariable: a
Naturalist, before he chose one as a sample, would examine many; since
if he took the first that occurred, it might have by accident or
otherwise such a form as that it would scarce be known to belong to
that species; he selects as the Painter does, the most beautiful, that
is, the most general form of nature.
Every species of the animal as well as the vegetable creation may be
said to have a fixed or determinate form, towards which Nature is
continually inclining, like various lines terminating in the centre;
or it may be compared to pendulums vibrating in different directions
over one central point: and as they all cross the centre, though only
one passes through any other point, so it will be found that perfect
beauty is oftener produced by Nature than deformity: I do not mean
than deformity in general, but than any one kind of deformity. To
instance in a particular part of a feature; the line that forms a
ridge of the nose is beautiful when it is straight; this, then, is the
central form, which is oftener found than either concave, convex, or
any other irregular form that shall be proposed. As we are then more
accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the
reason why we approve and admire it, as we approve and admire customs
and fashions of dress for no other reason than that we are used to
them; so that though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause
of beauty, it is certainly the cause of our liking it; and I have no
doubt but that if we were more used to deformity than beauty,
deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of
beauty: as if the whole world should agree, that _yes_ and _no_ should
change their meaning; _yes_ would then deny, and _no_ would affirm.
Whoever undertakes to proceed further in this argument, and endeavours
to fix a general criterion of beauty respecting different species, or to
show why one species is more beautiful than another, it will be required
from him first to prove that one species is really more beautiful than
another. That we prefer one to the other, and with very good reason,
will be readily granted; but it does not follow from thence that we
think it a more beautiful form; for we have no criterion of form by
which to determine our judgment. He who says a swan is more beautiful
than a dove, means little more than that he has more pleasure in seeing
a swan than a dove, either from the stateliness of its motions, or its
being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove,
does it from some association of ideas of innocence which he always
annexes to the dove; but if he pretends to defend the preference he
gives to one or the other by endeavouring to prove that this more
beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude,
undulation of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit
of his imagination he shall fix on, as a criterion of form, he will be
continually contradicting himself, and find at last that the great
Mother of Nature will not be subjected to such narrow rules. Among the
various reasons why we prefer one part of her works to another, the most
general, I believe, is habit and custom; custom makes, in a certain
sense, white black, and black white; it is custom alone determines our
preference of the colour of the Europeans to the Ethiopians, and they,
for the same reason, prefer their own colour to ours. I suppose nobody
will doubt, if one of their Painters were to paint the Goddess of
Beauty, but that he would represent her black, with thick lips, flat
nose, and woolly hair; and, it seems to me, he would act very
unnaturally if he did not, for by what criterion will anyone dispute the
propriety of his idea? We indeed say that the form and colour of the
European is preferable to that of the Ethiopian; but I know of no other
reason we have for it, but that we are more accustomed to it. It is
absurd to say that beauty is possessed of attractive powers, which
irresistibly seize the corresponding mind with love and admiration,
since that argument is equally conclusive in favour of the white and the
black philosophers.
The black and white nations must, in respect of beauty, be considered as
of different kinds, at least a different species of the same kind; from
one of which to the other, as I observed, no inference can be drawn.
Novelty is said to be one of the causes of beauty. That novelty is a
very sufficient reason why we should admire is not denied; but because
it is uncommon, is it therefore beautiful? The beauty that is produced
by colour, as when we prefer one bird to another, though of the same
form, on account of its colour, has nothing to do with the argument,
which reaches only to form. I have here considered the word Beauty as
being properly applied to form alone. There is a necessity of fixing
this confined sense; for there can be no argument, if the sense of the
word is extended to everything that is approved. A rose may as well be
said to be beautiful because it has a fine smell, as a bird because of
its colour. When we apply the word Beauty, we do not mean always by
it a more beautiful form, but something valuable on account of its
rarity, usefulness, colour, or any other property. A horse is said to
be a beautiful animal; but had a horse as few good qualities as a
tortoise, I do not imagine that he would then be deemed beautiful.
A fitness to the end proposed is said to be another cause of beauty;
but supposing we were proper judges of what form is the most proper in
an animal to constitute strength or swiftness, we always determine
concerning its beauty, before we exert our understanding to judge of
its fitness.
From what has been said, it may be inferred, that the works of Nature,
if we compare one species with another, are all equally beautiful, and
that preference is given from custom or some association of ideas; and
that, in creatures of the same species, beauty is the medium or centre
of all its various forms.
To conclude, then, by way of corollary: if it has been proved that the
Painter, by attending to the invariable and general ideas of Nature,
produce beauty, he must, by regarding minute particularities, and
accidental discriminations, deviate from the universal rule, and
pollute his canvas with deformity.
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