NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO PART SECOND.

NOTE S, (p. 192.)-Essay I. chap. 1.-Beauty.

I do not here go so far as to assert, that a blind man might not receive, by means of touch, something analogous to our notion of beauty. In the case of those who see, the word is, in no instance that I can recollect, applied immediately to the perceptions of that sense; but this question, though started in one of the volumes of the Encyclopédie, is of no moment whatever in the present inquiry. I have no objection, therefore, to acquiesce in the following statement, as it is there given :"Il n'y a ni beau ni laid pour l'odorat et le goût. Le Père André, Jesuite, dans son Essai sur le Beau, joint même à ces deux sens celui de toucher: mais je crois que son système peut être contredit en ce point. Il me semble qu'un aveugle a des idées de rapport, d'ordre, de symmétrie, et que ces notions sont entrées dans son entendement par le toucher, comme dans le nôtre par la vue, moins parfaites peut-être, et moins exactes; mais cela prouve tout-au-plus, que les aveugles sont moins affectés du beau que nous autres clairvoyans.-En un mot, il me paroit bien hardi de prononcer, que l'aveugle statuaire qui faisoit des bustes ressemblans, n'avoit cependant aucune idée de beauté."—Encyclop. Art. Beauté.—[By Diderot.—Ed.]

That our notions of the beauty of visible objects are, in many instances, powerfully modified by associations originally suggested by the sense of touch, will afterwards appear.

NOTE T, (p. 212.)-Essay I. chap 2.-Swift on Landscape Gardening. The following extract from a letter of Dr. Swift's to Lord Peterborough, in which he ridicules some of the partial and confined maxims concerning gardening which were current in his time, may be applied (mutatis mutandis) to most of the theories hitherto proposed with respect to the beautiful in general:—

"That this letter may be all of a piece, I'll fill the rest with an account of a consultation lately held in my neighbourhood, about designing a princely garden. Several critics were of several opinions: one declared he would not have too much art in it; for my notion (said he) of gardening is, that it is only sweeping nature; another told them, that gravel-walks were not of a good taste, for all the finest abroad were of loose sand; a third advised peremptorily there should not be one lime-tree in the whole plantation; a fourth made the same exclusive clause extend to horse-chesnuts, which he affirmed not to be trees, but weeds. Dutch elms were condemned by a fifth; and thus about half the trees were proscribed, contrary to the Paradise of God's own planting, which is expressly said to be planted with all trees. There were some who could not bear evergreens, and called them never-greens; some who were angry at them only when cut into shapes, and gave the modern gardeners the name of ever-green tailors; some who had no dislike to cones and cubes, but would have them cut in forest trees; and some who were in a passion against any thing in shape, even against clip't hedges, which they called green walls. These (my Lord) are our men of taste, who pretend to prove it by tasting little or nothing. Sure such a taste is like such a stomach, not a good one, but a weak one."

"I have lately been with my Lord, who is a zealous yet a charitable planter, and has so bad a taste, as to like all that is good."-Pope's Works.

NOTE U, (p. 230.)—Essay I. chap. 5.—The Picturesque.

The following definition of the word Picturesque is given by the Abbé du Bos, in his critical reflections on poetry and painting. I do not think it corresponds exactly with any acceptation in which it has ever been understood in this country. In one respect, it approaches to the definition of Gilpin, mentioned in the text:

J'appelle composition pittoresque, l'arrangement des objets qui doivent entrer dans un tableau par rapport à l'effet général du tableau. Une bonne composition pittoresque est celle dont le coup-d'œil fait un grand effet, suivant l'intention du peintre et le but qu'il s'est proposé. Il faut pour cela que le tableau ne soit point embarrassé par les figures, quoiqu'il y en ait assez pour remplir la toile. Il faut que les objets s'y démêlent facilement. Il ne faut pas que les figures s'estropient l'une l'autre, en se cachant réciproquement la moitié de la tête, ni d'autres parties du corps, lesquelles il convient au sujet de faire voir. Il faut enfin, que les groupes soient bien composés, que la lumière leur soit distribuée judicieusement, et que les couleurs locales, loin de s'entretuer, soient disposées de manière qu'il résulte du tout une harmonie agrécable à l'œil par elle-meme."'1

The chief difference between this definition and that of Gilpin is, that the latter refers chiefly to natural objects; the former exclusively to painting. But both agree in one common idea, that of a landscape so composed as to produce a happy effect in a picture. Du Bos applies the epithet to this composition when exhibited by the artist on canvass; Gilpin, to such compositions when they happen to be sketched out to the painter's pencil by the hand of nature herself. Gilpin's definition, therefore, presupposes the idea which Du Bos attempts to explain; and may, perhaps, be considered as a generalization of it, applicable both to the combinations of nature, and to the designs of art. It is in the former of these senses, however, that he in general uses the word through the whole of his Essay.

It is remarkable, that Sir J. Reynolds seems, at one time, to have been disposed to restrict the meaning of picturesque to natural objects; while the definition of Du Bos would restrict it to the art of painting. From a note of Mr. Gilpin's, it appears, that when his Essay was first communicated to Reynolds, the latter objected to the use he sometimes made of the term picturesque; observing, that, in his opinion, "this word should be applied only to the works of nature."2 But on this point he seems to have afterwards changed his opinion. In an earlier performance, too, of Reynolds, we find the word employed by himself, in the very same sense in which he objects to it in the above sentence. Speaking of a picture of Rubens, (the crucifixion of Christ between the two thieves, at Antwerp,) he observes, that "the three crosses are placed prospectively in an uncommonly picturesque manner," &c. &c. (See the rest of the passage, which is worth consulting, in his journey through Flanders and Holland, in the year 1781.)

1 Réflexions Critiques, &c. sect. 31.

2 Three Essays on Picturesque Beauty, pp. 35, 36.

3 Letter to Gilpin.-Ibid.

NOTE X, (p. 233.)-Essay I. chap. 5.-The Beautiful and the Picturesque. Mr. Price has stated, with his usual acuteness and candour, the essential dif ference between the philological question concerning the propriety of his language upon this subject; and the philosophical question concerning the reality of the distinction upon which his treatise hinges. I differ from him only in this, that I consider the former question as of much greater importance than he seems to attach to it. His words are these:

"I must here observe, (and I wish the reader to keep it in his mind,) that the inquiry is not in what sense certain words are used in the best authors, still less what is their common and vulgar use and abuse; but whether there are certain qualities which uniformly produce the same effects in all visible objects, and, according to the same analogy, in objects of hearing, and of all the other senses; and which qualities (though frequently blended and united with others in the same object or set of objects) may be separated from them, and assigned to the class to which they belong.

"If it can be shown, that a character composed of these qualities, and distinct from all others, does prevail through all nature; if it can be traced in the different objects of art and of nature, and appears consistent throughout, it surely deserves a distinct title; but, with respect to the real ground of inquiry, it matters little whether such a character, or the set of objects belonging to it, is called beautiful, sublime, or picturesque, or by any other name, or by no name at all.”1

These remarks must be received with very important limitations; for, granting them to hold (as they certainly do to a considerable extent) with respect to the use of words in any particular language, they certainly will not apply to cases where the same transitive or metaphorical meanings follow, in a variety of dif ferent tongues, the corresponding terms in all of them. This, I flatter myself, I have already shown with sufficient clearness.

As to the philosophical question about the two sets of qualities distinguished by Mr. Price, I not only agree with him in almost all the critical observations which he has introduced in the course of the discussion, but I esteem his work, as eminently calculated, in its practical tendency, to reform and to improve the public taste. I confess, at the same time, I am somewhat afraid, that the vagueness and ambiguity of his favourite term may give rise to many misapplications of his principles, very remote from the intentions of the author. The picturesque cottages, and picturesque porters'-lodges, which have lately been starting up all over the country, (to the greater part of which we may apply the happy expression of De Lille-("Veut être pittoresque et n'est que ridicule, ") afford a proof, that this apprehension is not without some foundation.

[Addition, (p. 238.)—In confirmation of his own peculiar notions concerning the picturesque, the following anecdote is told by Mr. Price:-" A person of the most unquestioned abilities and general accuracy of judgment, but who had not paid much attention to this subject, asserted that the picturesque was always included either in the sublime or the beautiful. I asked him, what he would call an old rugged mossy oak, with branches twisted into sudden and irregular deviations, but which had no character of grandeur? He said he should call it a pretty tree. He 1 Essay on the Picturesque, pp. 40, 41.

would probably have been surprised if I had called one of Rembrandt's old hags a pretty woman; and yet they are as much alike as a tree and a woman can well be."—Essay on the Picturesque, London, 1794, pp. 101, 102.

On this anecdote it may be remarked, 1. That the comparison ought to have been made, either between Rembrandt's picture of the old hag, and an equally good picture of the old rugged mossy oak, or between the old oak itself, and the original hag from whom Rembrandt's portrait was taken. By comparing the original oak with the portrait of the woman, the subject is involved in unnecessary perplexity.

If Mr. Price's question had been addressed to me, I would have answered without hesitation, (supposing the old oak to have been as remarkably picturesque as he describes it,) that it was a beautiful subject for a picture, (which, by the way, is only a concise mode of expressing a fine subject for a beautiful picture;) and I should probably have answered the question in the same words, if it had related to the old hag whom Rembrandt had selected for his pencil. The word picturesque, as employed in this instance by Mr. Price, is a still more concise, though not quite so unequivocal an expression of the same idea.

Had Rembrandt's picture been faithfully copied from nature, without any modifications whatsoever, (which is not very probable, if he meant to produce a pleasing portrait,) it is by no means impossible, that it might have been said of the original with the most exact propriety, that she was a beautiful old woman. In like manner, there is many an old oak, of which, though it would be absurd to call it a beautiful or a pretty tree, I should not consider it a deviation from the common use of language to say, that it was a fine, or even a beautiful old oak.

That many things which are offensive in the reality may be beautiful in a picture, is an observation at least as old as Aristotle. For this various reasons may be assigned.—1. The pleasure we receive from the mere imitation; a circumstance on which Aristotle lays by far too much stress, but which yet must be allowed to have a considerable share in producing the effect. We may judge of this, from the pleasure we take in witnessing a good exhibition of mimicry, where we would have studiously avoided the company of the original. 2. A picture being addressed to the eye alone, whatever is offensive to the other senses in the reality, is completely annihilated in the representation. Hence the beauty of many Flemish paintings of dead game, dead fishes, and even of the ordinary furniture of a larder. 3. If there be anything in the original disagreeable to the eye, the painter has it in his power to suppress it; while, on the other hand, he may heighten whatever details are of a pleasing nature. In this lies the triumph of the artist's taste; when, without destroying the resemblance, he keeps blemishes out of view, and places beauties in a happier light. In portrait painting this produces what is called a flattering or a pleasing likeness; when the painter "tells the truth, and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth." The beauties which in such instances we ascribe to the picture, belong not to the original, but to the fancy and taste of the artist; as fur, at least, as by removing blemishes he gives an agreeable effect to circumstances which would otherwise be overlooked. 4. The transcendent skill displayed in the execution; the beauties of colouring, of drawing, and of design, may overpower what is revolting in the things represented; and even the difficulty of accomplishing this pleasing effect in spite of so many difficulties,

may render it to the eye of the connoisseur more pleasing still. Mr. Hume, in one of his Essays, has endeavoured to account in this way for the pleasure we receive from scenes of distress, when skilfully represented by poets and orators"; and although he has pushed this, as well as many other of his principles too far, he has had the merit of pointing out one of the chief causes concerned in the phenomenon.

"What is it (says he) which, in this case, raises a pleasure from the bosom of uneasiness; and a pleasure which still retains all the features and outward symptoms of distress and sorrow?"

"I answer (continues Mr. Hume): This extraordinary effect proceeds from that very eloquence, with which the melancholy scene is represented. The genius required to paint objects in a lively manner, the art employed in collecting all the pathetic circumstances, the judgment displayed in disposing them; the exercise, I say, of these noble talents, together with the force of expression and beauty of oratorial numbers, diffuse the highest satisfaction on the audience, and excite the most delightful movements. . . The same principle takes place in Tragedy; with this addition, that Tragedy is an imitation; and imitation is always of itself agreeable."-Essay xxii. Of Tragedy.

The observation here made on tragedy is manifestly equally applicable to explain the pleasure we receive from things not naturally beautiful, when presented to the eye with the recommendations of beautiful design, and of beautiful execution. It is in this way alone we can explain our delight in viewing some of the noblest productions of the pencil and of the chisel;-the pictures, for example, of martyrdoms which fill the churches in Roman Catholic countries; or the torments of Laocoon and his sons in the masterpiece of ancient sculpture. It is not certainly, in these cases, the beauty of the things represented which pleases the eye; but it is the beauty of the representation; and our admiration of the powers of the artist, which, in rivetting our attention to such objects, triumphs over the strongest antipathies of our nature.

From these various considerations it is evident, that, as there may be an offensive portrait of a beautiful original, so there may be a beautiful portrait of an offensive original. It is not surprising, therefore, that the words beautiful and picturesque should sometimes appear to be at variance, when a little attention to the meaning of our terms would at once reconcile the seeming inconsistency. One thing is certain, that it is in contending with nature by a beautiful imitation of a beautiful original, that a master artist attains the highest praise of his art; and consequently, there is no incompatibility between the two ideas, which Mr. Price has stated as being always in opposition or contrast to each other.]

NOTE Y, (p. 254.)-Essay I. chap. 6.-Colouring.

"Un peintre, qui de tous les talens nécessaires pour former le grand artisan, n'a que celui de bien colorer, décide qu'un tableau est excellent, ou qu'il ne vaut rien en général, suivant que l'ouvrier a sçu manier la couleur. La poësie du tableau est comptée pour peu de chose, pour rien même, dans son jugement. Il fait sa décision, sans aucun égard aux parties de l'art qu'il n'a point."-[Du Bos] Réflexions Critiques sur la Poësie et sur la Peinture.