DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0115
COMPOSITION. 101
The preceding rules are given, not with a view to deter the student from following simplicity,
but to prevent his resigning to her the supreme command. Simplicity, ever since the improvement
of the arts, alwaysjustly had, and ever will retain a high veneration and respectfrom men of genius ;
as she is the barrier against that inveterate enemy to nature and truth, affectation, which is ever
clinging to the pencil, and ready to contaminate, with its baneful poison, the most beautiful ob-
jects. If it be asked why the student must beware of resigning up too much of his powers to sim*
plicity ? the answer is obvious; because the mind has a natural aversion from every kind of af-
fectation : and if it be also enquired—why then is such a stress laid upon this virtue? It may be
answered—because most artists, in the earlier stages of their practice, are found to fall into ex-
cesses of novelty, variety, and contrast: a guard is therefore placed on that side which is most in
danger. When a student is first told that his composition and his attitudes must be contrasted ;
that he must turn the head contrary to the position of the body, in order to produce grace, and
give grandeur ; and that the eye must be gratified with a variety of colours: when he is directed
to give spirit, dignity, energy, and grace to his figures; and desired to imitate a greatness of style,
he immediately conceives he has a clear idea of the rationale of the art, and imagines he can.
never err while he adheres to these precepts. It is at this critical juncture that simplicity should
be recommended to his notice, to check the exuberance of youthfu ardour, and restrain his pencil
from extravagant excess. In his first essay in imitating nature, he would probably make the
whole mass of one colour, as was the practice of the ancient artists ; till he was taught to observe
the variety of tints in the objects themselves, and the differences produced by the gradual decline
of light: he then immediately puts his instructions in practice, introduces a variety of tints, and
launches out into a number of distinctly marked colours. Then he should be corrected by sim-
plicity, and reminded that though there be this variety in nature, yet its effect upon the eye is a
unity and simplicity of colouring.
A profusion of ornaments tends more than any thing to destroy repose, and is certainly destitute
of simplicity. The number of ornaments in a piece must be regulated by the professed style of the
work : but we must not forget that the most ornamental style requires the most repose to display
even its embellishments to advantage. Whether the ornaments consist of a multiplicity of objects,
a variety of bright colours, or any other accidental decorations, the above rules hold equally good.
Ornaments also are, with great caution and limitation, admissible iuto the grand style, which they
more frequently injure than serve, by destroying the grandeur and dignity which shonld here ap-
pear. On the other hand, a work without any ornaments, instead of having the appearance of sim-
plicity, indicates poverty, and seems to proclaim the indigence of its author's mind. He who con-
siders ornaments as undeserving his attention, because they are accidental and arbitrary contrivan-
ces, acts contrary to both nature and reason. Human nature would be imperfect, and life uncom-
fortable, without man)'- of our ornaments. The arts would have no existence, and we should lose
many valuable enjoyments with the loss of those arts. Though I do not mean to rank these with
positive and substantial beauties, yet I would advise the student to be acquainted with both, that
he may introduce either in its proper place; otherwise his taste will be imperfect, and he will be
unable to form a composition that shall have the appearance of a whole. But we must here ob-
serve generally, that the artists of every age and country, where taste has begun to decline, pro-
fusely adorn every object: their imagination is always upon the stretch, and their'invention in-
cessantly emplo}red in search of new ornaments : they never give their pictures any repose, by
condescending to be natural: but all is perpetual splendour, bombast, and exaggeration.
2 i> A fundamental
The preceding rules are given, not with a view to deter the student from following simplicity,
but to prevent his resigning to her the supreme command. Simplicity, ever since the improvement
of the arts, alwaysjustly had, and ever will retain a high veneration and respectfrom men of genius ;
as she is the barrier against that inveterate enemy to nature and truth, affectation, which is ever
clinging to the pencil, and ready to contaminate, with its baneful poison, the most beautiful ob-
jects. If it be asked why the student must beware of resigning up too much of his powers to sim*
plicity ? the answer is obvious; because the mind has a natural aversion from every kind of af-
fectation : and if it be also enquired—why then is such a stress laid upon this virtue? It may be
answered—because most artists, in the earlier stages of their practice, are found to fall into ex-
cesses of novelty, variety, and contrast: a guard is therefore placed on that side which is most in
danger. When a student is first told that his composition and his attitudes must be contrasted ;
that he must turn the head contrary to the position of the body, in order to produce grace, and
give grandeur ; and that the eye must be gratified with a variety of colours: when he is directed
to give spirit, dignity, energy, and grace to his figures; and desired to imitate a greatness of style,
he immediately conceives he has a clear idea of the rationale of the art, and imagines he can.
never err while he adheres to these precepts. It is at this critical juncture that simplicity should
be recommended to his notice, to check the exuberance of youthfu ardour, and restrain his pencil
from extravagant excess. In his first essay in imitating nature, he would probably make the
whole mass of one colour, as was the practice of the ancient artists ; till he was taught to observe
the variety of tints in the objects themselves, and the differences produced by the gradual decline
of light: he then immediately puts his instructions in practice, introduces a variety of tints, and
launches out into a number of distinctly marked colours. Then he should be corrected by sim-
plicity, and reminded that though there be this variety in nature, yet its effect upon the eye is a
unity and simplicity of colouring.
A profusion of ornaments tends more than any thing to destroy repose, and is certainly destitute
of simplicity. The number of ornaments in a piece must be regulated by the professed style of the
work : but we must not forget that the most ornamental style requires the most repose to display
even its embellishments to advantage. Whether the ornaments consist of a multiplicity of objects,
a variety of bright colours, or any other accidental decorations, the above rules hold equally good.
Ornaments also are, with great caution and limitation, admissible iuto the grand style, which they
more frequently injure than serve, by destroying the grandeur and dignity which shonld here ap-
pear. On the other hand, a work without any ornaments, instead of having the appearance of sim-
plicity, indicates poverty, and seems to proclaim the indigence of its author's mind. He who con-
siders ornaments as undeserving his attention, because they are accidental and arbitrary contrivan-
ces, acts contrary to both nature and reason. Human nature would be imperfect, and life uncom-
fortable, without man)'- of our ornaments. The arts would have no existence, and we should lose
many valuable enjoyments with the loss of those arts. Though I do not mean to rank these with
positive and substantial beauties, yet I would advise the student to be acquainted with both, that
he may introduce either in its proper place; otherwise his taste will be imperfect, and he will be
unable to form a composition that shall have the appearance of a whole. But we must here ob-
serve generally, that the artists of every age and country, where taste has begun to decline, pro-
fusely adorn every object: their imagination is always upon the stretch, and their'invention in-
cessantly emplo}red in search of new ornaments : they never give their pictures any repose, by
condescending to be natural: but all is perpetual splendour, bombast, and exaggeration.
2 i> A fundamental