DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0120
GENIUS AND TASTE.
through what road he could most safely pass, and in what form he should dispose his troops.
With such thoughts and disquisitions he had, from his early years, so exercised his mind, that on
these occasions nothing could happen which he had not been already accustomed to consider."
Before we conclude this chapter it is necessary, for the satisfaction of the learner, that some-
thing should be said of genius, to which, he has no doubt heard, that the art owes its greatest
obligations. It is a vulgar, and formerly a generally received opinion, though now almost wholly
exploded by the enlightened part of mankind, that genius alone is sufficient to produce an artist;
and further, that this desirable and all-powerful principle is never to be acquired by rules of art
and industry, where it is not inherent. This assertion has, no doubt, been an insurmountable
check to many a risiug artist, who might otherwise have become eminent. The most industrious
and enterprising minds meet with innumerable difficulties in their first essays, in any art or science
whatsoever. Assiduity is the only path to perfection ; and eminence the reward of labour onfy.
This art, like all other human inventions, is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical trade.
Its foundations are laid in solid science, and on certain principles, under the direction of which,
practice will lead us to perfection.
Taste and genius therefore act by certain indubitable rules, are capable of being defined, and
by the generality of mankind to be attained. By the former is always understood the power of
distinguishing right from wrong in works of art: and by genius is meant no more than the power
of producing the former; or of uniting theory with practice. In reducing genius and taste to
rules of common sense, or more properly to shew that they are the result of reason, we may, per-
haps, incur the censure of wanting both. We are, however, so far from being singular in this
opinion, that the most enlightened masters in the art, whose minds and views are not too confined
to fear its propagation, have readily concurred in it. And, however poets and rhetoricians may
embellish their narratives with the flowers and metaphors of language, it is necessary that the
student, in any art or science, should be permitted to see things as they really are, and not be im-
posed upon by a mere play of words, and deterred from his pursuits by an apprehension of diffi-
culties which exist only in the poet's imagination.
When the poet talks of courting the muse in, shady bowers, drinking the waters of Helicon, as-
cending the heights of Parnassus, wraiting the call and inspiration of genius, tracing his haunts
and residence, availing himself of times and seasons, when the imagination shoots with the greatest
vigour, and despising all rules of art as inimical to works of genius : when we hear such language
as this, we are led to believe that the facility of excelling in either of the sister arts, poetry or
painting, consists in some secret impregnating capricious power, inherent in some, perfectly un-
attainable by others, but to be commanded at all times by none. All these, however, and a thou-
sand other metaphors, familiar to every one in the least conversant with the polite arts, mean no
mote than that, in order to excel in these subjects, a man must seclude himself from the
commerce of the world ; that the country is more favourable for study than the tumultuous town;
that as the body is in better health at one time than another, so consequently the mind is more
disposed at those times for thinking and hard study : but to understand those metaphors literally,
would be as absurd as to conclude, that because painters sometimes represent poets writing with
a little winged boy or genius at their side, the same genius did really dictate to the poet in a
whisper; and thus to reduce him to a mere machine.
Nevertheless, such is the frailty of our nature, that we implicitly adopt, without examination,
many absurd opinions, merely because they are generally received. Popular and vulgar maxims
we
through what road he could most safely pass, and in what form he should dispose his troops.
With such thoughts and disquisitions he had, from his early years, so exercised his mind, that on
these occasions nothing could happen which he had not been already accustomed to consider."
Before we conclude this chapter it is necessary, for the satisfaction of the learner, that some-
thing should be said of genius, to which, he has no doubt heard, that the art owes its greatest
obligations. It is a vulgar, and formerly a generally received opinion, though now almost wholly
exploded by the enlightened part of mankind, that genius alone is sufficient to produce an artist;
and further, that this desirable and all-powerful principle is never to be acquired by rules of art
and industry, where it is not inherent. This assertion has, no doubt, been an insurmountable
check to many a risiug artist, who might otherwise have become eminent. The most industrious
and enterprising minds meet with innumerable difficulties in their first essays, in any art or science
whatsoever. Assiduity is the only path to perfection ; and eminence the reward of labour onfy.
This art, like all other human inventions, is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical trade.
Its foundations are laid in solid science, and on certain principles, under the direction of which,
practice will lead us to perfection.
Taste and genius therefore act by certain indubitable rules, are capable of being defined, and
by the generality of mankind to be attained. By the former is always understood the power of
distinguishing right from wrong in works of art: and by genius is meant no more than the power
of producing the former; or of uniting theory with practice. In reducing genius and taste to
rules of common sense, or more properly to shew that they are the result of reason, we may, per-
haps, incur the censure of wanting both. We are, however, so far from being singular in this
opinion, that the most enlightened masters in the art, whose minds and views are not too confined
to fear its propagation, have readily concurred in it. And, however poets and rhetoricians may
embellish their narratives with the flowers and metaphors of language, it is necessary that the
student, in any art or science, should be permitted to see things as they really are, and not be im-
posed upon by a mere play of words, and deterred from his pursuits by an apprehension of diffi-
culties which exist only in the poet's imagination.
When the poet talks of courting the muse in, shady bowers, drinking the waters of Helicon, as-
cending the heights of Parnassus, wraiting the call and inspiration of genius, tracing his haunts
and residence, availing himself of times and seasons, when the imagination shoots with the greatest
vigour, and despising all rules of art as inimical to works of genius : when we hear such language
as this, we are led to believe that the facility of excelling in either of the sister arts, poetry or
painting, consists in some secret impregnating capricious power, inherent in some, perfectly un-
attainable by others, but to be commanded at all times by none. All these, however, and a thou-
sand other metaphors, familiar to every one in the least conversant with the polite arts, mean no
mote than that, in order to excel in these subjects, a man must seclude himself from the
commerce of the world ; that the country is more favourable for study than the tumultuous town;
that as the body is in better health at one time than another, so consequently the mind is more
disposed at those times for thinking and hard study : but to understand those metaphors literally,
would be as absurd as to conclude, that because painters sometimes represent poets writing with
a little winged boy or genius at their side, the same genius did really dictate to the poet in a
whisper; and thus to reduce him to a mere machine.
Nevertheless, such is the frailty of our nature, that we implicitly adopt, without examination,
many absurd opinions, merely because they are generally received. Popular and vulgar maxims
we