DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18734#0036
28
B E A
that it not eafy to compofe beauty that all fhall admire*
It was not therefore without reafon the ancients praifed
the flatue of Polycletes, called the Canon ; to which
no one could add, or from which no one could diminifli
for the better; But then, this was beauty only for that
character, however harmonious its parts might lie, how-
ever accordant, or however animated.
There is a pofitive kind of beauty in the richnefs of
materials, when there is little or no beauty in their ap-
plication: there is, on the contrary, a beauty arifing from
•the happy arrangement of very ordinary materials. In many
ornaments beauty is very variable, and may without de-
triment be changed, and beauty of other kinds fubftituted.
Beauty in the arts, is the fource of pleafure : and
is either elevated, or natural. The firlt, when whatever
is moft uncommonly perfect, is happily affembled with
harmonious and correfponding beauty, and nobly applied;
the fecond, when what we fee, is beautiful in imitation
to what we are ufed to fee of the fame kind. A capital
picture may be thought a beauty of the firft clafs : while
a picture by a good mafter, though not a phoenix, may
yet be a handfome reprefentation of nature.
To this kind of beauty contribute (i.) the abfence of
apparent deformity: (2.) the making the beft ufe of
the ingredients introduced, putting them in the beft
places, according to their importance, and enabling them
to exert their powers on the fpectator. In elevated
beauty Rafaelle haslong been acknowledged eminent.
A very conliderable mean of acquiring beauty, is a
ftudious intimacy with what is moft beautiful; an avoid-
ing of impure, grofs, trivial, and falfe ideas, of whateief
debafes the mind ; for that will debilitate the tafte.
1 - Beau-
B E A
that it not eafy to compofe beauty that all fhall admire*
It was not therefore without reafon the ancients praifed
the flatue of Polycletes, called the Canon ; to which
no one could add, or from which no one could diminifli
for the better; But then, this was beauty only for that
character, however harmonious its parts might lie, how-
ever accordant, or however animated.
There is a pofitive kind of beauty in the richnefs of
materials, when there is little or no beauty in their ap-
plication: there is, on the contrary, a beauty arifing from
•the happy arrangement of very ordinary materials. In many
ornaments beauty is very variable, and may without de-
triment be changed, and beauty of other kinds fubftituted.
Beauty in the arts, is the fource of pleafure : and
is either elevated, or natural. The firlt, when whatever
is moft uncommonly perfect, is happily affembled with
harmonious and correfponding beauty, and nobly applied;
the fecond, when what we fee, is beautiful in imitation
to what we are ufed to fee of the fame kind. A capital
picture may be thought a beauty of the firft clafs : while
a picture by a good mafter, though not a phoenix, may
yet be a handfome reprefentation of nature.
To this kind of beauty contribute (i.) the abfence of
apparent deformity: (2.) the making the beft ufe of
the ingredients introduced, putting them in the beft
places, according to their importance, and enabling them
to exert their powers on the fpectator. In elevated
beauty Rafaelle haslong been acknowledged eminent.
A very conliderable mean of acquiring beauty, is a
ftudious intimacy with what is moft beautiful; an avoid-
ing of impure, grofs, trivial, and falfe ideas, of whateief
debafes the mind ; for that will debilitate the tafte.
1 - Beau-