Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

It is

that are fitted for the purposes of the painter. in this sense that the word is used by Mr Gilpin in his Observations on Picturesque Beauty; * and I am inclined to think, that it is in this sense it is now 'most commonly understood, in speaking of natural scenery, or of the works of the architect.

I do not object to this employment of the word (although I certainly think it an innovation), for it conveys a clear and definite idea, and one for which there was no appropriate expression in our language. Nor do I see any impropriety in connecting the words Picturesque and Beauty together; for although an object may be beautiful without being picturesque, or picturesque without being beautiful, yet there is not any inconsistency or incompatibility in the ideas. On the contrary, it is only when the two qualities are united, that landscape-painting produces its highest effect. †

According to Mr Price, the phrase Picturesque Beauty is little better than a contradiction in terms; but although this may be the case in the arbitrary interpretation which he has given to both these words, there is certainly no contradiction in the expression, if we employ Beauty in its ordinary sense, and Picturesque in the sense very distinctly stated in Mr Gilpin's definition. ‡

* The same author, in another work, expresses himself thus: "Picturesque Beauty is a phrase but little understood. We pre"cisely mean by it, that kind of beauty which would look well in a picture."-Gilpin's Observations on the Western Parts of Eng land, 2d edit. p. 328.

66

+ See Note (X.)

Mr Price himself appears to be sensible of this, from the pas

The same remark may be extended to the Sublime; between which and the Beautiful there certainly does not exist that incongruity which most English writers have of late been pleased to suppose. The

*

renthesis in the following sentence: "There is nothing more ill"judged, or more likely to create confusion (if we agree with "Mr Burke in his idea of beauty), than the joining of it to the "picturesque, and calling the character by the title of Pictu "resque Beauty."-P. 42.

• The prevalence of this idea (which does not seem to have gained much ground on the Continent) is to be ascribed chiefly to the weight of Mr Burke's authority. To many of the passages which both he and Dr Blair have quoted from poets and orators, as examples of the Sublime, a Frenchman would undoubtedly consider the epithet Beau as at least equally applicable.

Mr Burke's theory concerning the connection between Beauty and Smallness, could not fail to confirm him in his opinion of the incompatibility of the Beautiful with the Sublime. In this theory also, he has founded a general conclusion on certain local or temporary modes of judging, instead of consulting that more important class of facts confirmed by the consent of different ages and nations.

With respect to the taste of the ancient Greeks upon this subject, according to which, Magnitude and Strength were considered as ingredients in the Beauty even of the female form. See the very learned and ingenious notes, subjoined by Mr Twining to his excellent translation of Aristotle's Treatise on Poetry, pp. 263, 264, 265.

From the contrast perpetually stated between the meanings of the words Beau and Joli, Mr Price concludes, that "the French, "like the more ancient Greeks, appear to have considered "large stature as almost a requisite of beauty, and not only in "men, but in women." In this reference I am inclined to agree with him; although I must, at the same time, confess, that I know of no French writer (not excepting the Abbé Girard) who * Pp. 16 and 21 of the Essay on Beauty, prefixed to Mr Price's Dia logne.

Sublime Beauties of nature; the Sublime Beauties of the sacred writings as it is one of the most common, so it is also one of the most intelligible forms of expression employed by critics. The Sublime and the Picturesque, therefore, it would appear, are most properly used as qualifying epithets, to limit the meaning of the generic name Beauty in particular instances. A great variety of other epithets besides these are found to be necessary, for the expression of our feelings on different occasions. It is thus that we speak of the simple beauties of the Doric order; and of the rich or ornamented beauties of the Corinthian. It is thus that we contrast with the wild and savage beauties of Nature the regular, the refined, the chaste, the finished, the classical beauties of Art. It is thus, too, that we contrast, in the well-known picture of Garrick, the beauties of the tragic with those of the comic muse; or, in the poetry of Milton, the gay and lively beauties of his Allegro with the serious and melancholy

has enabled me to draw a line between these two epithets, completely satisfactory to myself. I recollect at present two instances, in which I should be glad to see their respective imports happily translated into our language. In the first, both epithets are applied to the same person, and at the same period of her life; and, consequently, the one is not absolutely exclusive of the other. In neither instance can the contrast turn, in the slightest degree, on any circumstance connected with stature.

"Seliane, dans sa jeunesse, avoit été jolie et belle: elle étoit "belle encore; mais elle commençoit à n'etre plus jolie."-Marmontel, Les Quatre Flacons.

"Une femme ne peut guères être belle que d'une façon, mais "elle est jolie de cent mille."-Montesquieu, Essai sur le Gout.

beauties of his Penseroso. In a word, to oppose the Beautiful to the Sublime, or to the Picturesque, strikes me as something analogous to a contrast between the Beautiful and the Comic; the Beautiful and the Tragic; the Beautiful and the Pathetic; or the Beautiful and the Romantic.

I have said, that it is only when the Beautiful and the Picturesque are united, that landscape-painting produces its highest effect. The truth of this proposition seems to be unquestionable, unless we suppose that no part of the effect of a picture arises from its conveying the idea of a beautiful original.

It is true that, in the details of a landscape, there are often many circumstances possessing no intrinsic beauty, which have a far happier effect than the highest beauties which could be substituted in their place. On examination, however, it will be found, that the effect of these circumstances does not depend on their intrinsic qualities, but on their accidental significance or expression, as hints to the imagination; and, therefore, if we apply to such circumstances the epithet Picturesque * (which is a use of the word not very remote from its meaning, when

* Neither Mr Price nor Mr Gilpin appear to me to have been sufficiently aware of the difference between the meaning which they annex to the word Picturesque, when applied to those details in a landscape, which are peculiarly characteristic and ex. pressive, and its meaning when applied to the general design and composition of the piece. In the former sense, it conveys an idea quite distinct from the Beautiful, and (as will afterwards appear) sometimes at variance with it. In the other sense, there can be no doubt that the beauty of the scene represented wil! add proportionally to the pleasing effect of the picture.

applied to verbal description), that the pleasure which the Picturesque in this case conveys, is ultimately resolvable into that which is connected by means of association with the perception of the Beautiful. Its effect depends on its power of conveying to the fancy more than the pencil of the artist has delineated, and, consequently, is to be referred ultimately to the beauties which are supplied or understood; for the same reason that the pleasing effect of the profile, or silhouette, of a beautiful woman is ultimately to be referred, not to what is seen, but to what is recalled to the memory; or (to take an instance still more general in its application) for the same reason that the pathetic effect of the veil thrown over the face of Agamemnon, in the Iphigenia of Timanthes, was owing, not to the veil, but to the features which it was imagined to conceal. "Velavit ejus caput, says Quinctilian, "et suo cuique animo dedit æsti"mandum." Of the same painter it is observed by Pliny : "In omnibus ejus operibus intelligitur plus 66 semper quam pingitur."

Among the various applications of the word Picturesque to painting, this last use of it is more closely analogous to its primary application to verbal description, than any of the others. In this sense (which, for the sake of distinctness, I shall call its poetical sense) it does not denote what is actually represented; but what sets the imagination at work, in forming pictures of its own; or, in other words, those parts of a picture where more is meant and suggested than meets the eye. Of this sort is a group of cattle standing in a river, or collected

« AnteriorContinuar »