Simplicity in composition or distinctness of parts is ever to be
attended to, as it is one part of beauty, as has been already said: but
that what I mean by distinctness of parts in this place may be better
understood it will be proper to explain it by an example.
When you would compose an object of a great variety of parts, let
several of those parts be distinguished by themselves, by their
remarkable difference from the next adjoining, so as to make each of
them, as it were, one well-shaped quantity or part (these are like what
they call passages in music, and in writing paragraphs) by which means
not only the whole, but even every part, will be better understood by
the eye: for confusion will hereby be avoided when the object is seen
near, and the shapes will seem well varied, though fewer in number, at a
distance.
The parsley-leaf, in like manner, from whence a beautiful foliage in
ornament was originally taken, is divided into three distinct passages;
which are again divided into other odd numbers; and this method is
observed, for the generality, in the leaves of all plants and flowers,
the most simple of which are the trefoil and cinquefoil.
Observe the well-composed nosegay, how it loses all distinctness when it
dies; each leaf and flower then shrivels and loses its distinct shape,
and the firm colours fade into a kind of sameness; so that the whole
gradually becomes a confused heap.
If the general parts of objects are preserved large at first, they will
always admit of further enrichments of a small kind, but then they must
be so small as not to confound the general masses or quantities; thus,
you see, variety is a check upon itself when overdone, which of course
begets what is called a _petit taste_ and a confusion to the eye.
_Hogarth._