DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0121
GENIUS AND TASTE.
107
we consider as a sort of inheritance; we succeed to them as tenants for life, and transmit them,
with our other freeholds, unimproved to posterity: or they may rather be considered as incum-
brances upon our possessions, which we should by all means endeavour to discharge. Among
them are the true and the false : and the follower of every art should carefully distinguish between
them, and determine which should be retained, and which rejected. Yet even artists themselves
pay too much deference to some very pernicious opinions, the principal of which is, ascribing
too.much merit to genius; denying to sober reason, and effectual application their due merit.
Another error they frequently entertain is, that tastes are not to be disputed, as if this sublime
and useful criterion were reducible to no certain rules, or fixed principles; but existed merely in.
the erroneous, various opinions, and vague conceits of individuals ; a sort of airy nothing, which
can neither be defined, nor scarcely conceived : whereas, notwithstanding the practice of -different
schools ; the rules and merits of various masters; the principles of taste are as unalterable as those
of nature; equally investigated by reason, and known by study and application; though some with
more, and others with less clearness, but all exactly in the same wa}^: whether we are pleased with
a demonstration in Euclid, the beauty of a finished picture, or the harmony of music, it is only the
effect of taste which has its foundation in nature, in reason, and, more or less-, in the understanding
of every individual. In a word, taste may strictly be defined, the general ideaof nature, which com-
prehends the beginning, the middle, and the end of every thing that is truly valuable in taste: for
whatever notions are not conformable to those of nature, or universal opinion, must be considered
as capricious in the extreme, reducible to no settled principles, and consequently erroneous.
Thus we see that taste is nothing more than a correct method of judging of what is true
or false, in a representation of that great model nature. But there is besides this real truth,
in artificial objects, also an apparent truth, the effect of opinion or prejudice. This appa-
rent, or secondary species of truth, consists in a local resemblance of objects, such as an observ-
ance and attention to the drapery and ornaments of characters, according to the age and country
in which they lived, the scene of particular actions in landscape, and every other local consider-
ation which will readily occur to the mind of the artist. This tolerated truth, as it may be called,
must be attended to with a solicitude nearly equal to that of the former. For while opinions and
prejudices exist, which will ever be the case with human nature, they operate upon the minds
even of the most enlighted men, with considerable effect; but, with the generality of mankind,
they are admitted as the most incontrovertible natural truths : and this art, which is to please as
well as instruct the mind, must conform to opinion however absurd. Whatever maxims the phi-
losopher may adhere to in his closet, or the divine inculcate from his pulpit; the professor of the
fine arts should beware of incurring the displeasure of mankind, whomiiis province it is to please,
by indulging too wide a departure from prejudice ; otherwise he will open every avenue to vanity,
•singularity, self-conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices. His office is not to reprove vice so
much as to ridicule it, by a just and natural portraiture of its effects. If he dispute and wrangle
with mankind, he will find them contemn him, his pieces may hang neglected in a public exhi-
bition, and his name be nearly lost in oblivion among his contemporaries. These remarks are il-
lustrated by an anecdote pretty generally known :—*-Soon after the decease of the French philo-
sopher Voltaire, his admirers ordered a statue to be made to his memory, intended also as a public
ornament. The sculptor, not having a proper respect for the prejudices of mankind, and no
<loubt intending to exceed other artists in a strict observance of nature, made the philosopher en-
tirely naked, and as meagre and emaciated as the original. It is said the sculptor had done him
justice. But it was too natural: for it was " Nature all/' but not <( Nature methodised." It
107
we consider as a sort of inheritance; we succeed to them as tenants for life, and transmit them,
with our other freeholds, unimproved to posterity: or they may rather be considered as incum-
brances upon our possessions, which we should by all means endeavour to discharge. Among
them are the true and the false : and the follower of every art should carefully distinguish between
them, and determine which should be retained, and which rejected. Yet even artists themselves
pay too much deference to some very pernicious opinions, the principal of which is, ascribing
too.much merit to genius; denying to sober reason, and effectual application their due merit.
Another error they frequently entertain is, that tastes are not to be disputed, as if this sublime
and useful criterion were reducible to no certain rules, or fixed principles; but existed merely in.
the erroneous, various opinions, and vague conceits of individuals ; a sort of airy nothing, which
can neither be defined, nor scarcely conceived : whereas, notwithstanding the practice of -different
schools ; the rules and merits of various masters; the principles of taste are as unalterable as those
of nature; equally investigated by reason, and known by study and application; though some with
more, and others with less clearness, but all exactly in the same wa}^: whether we are pleased with
a demonstration in Euclid, the beauty of a finished picture, or the harmony of music, it is only the
effect of taste which has its foundation in nature, in reason, and, more or less-, in the understanding
of every individual. In a word, taste may strictly be defined, the general ideaof nature, which com-
prehends the beginning, the middle, and the end of every thing that is truly valuable in taste: for
whatever notions are not conformable to those of nature, or universal opinion, must be considered
as capricious in the extreme, reducible to no settled principles, and consequently erroneous.
Thus we see that taste is nothing more than a correct method of judging of what is true
or false, in a representation of that great model nature. But there is besides this real truth,
in artificial objects, also an apparent truth, the effect of opinion or prejudice. This appa-
rent, or secondary species of truth, consists in a local resemblance of objects, such as an observ-
ance and attention to the drapery and ornaments of characters, according to the age and country
in which they lived, the scene of particular actions in landscape, and every other local consider-
ation which will readily occur to the mind of the artist. This tolerated truth, as it may be called,
must be attended to with a solicitude nearly equal to that of the former. For while opinions and
prejudices exist, which will ever be the case with human nature, they operate upon the minds
even of the most enlighted men, with considerable effect; but, with the generality of mankind,
they are admitted as the most incontrovertible natural truths : and this art, which is to please as
well as instruct the mind, must conform to opinion however absurd. Whatever maxims the phi-
losopher may adhere to in his closet, or the divine inculcate from his pulpit; the professor of the
fine arts should beware of incurring the displeasure of mankind, whomiiis province it is to please,
by indulging too wide a departure from prejudice ; otherwise he will open every avenue to vanity,
•singularity, self-conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices. His office is not to reprove vice so
much as to ridicule it, by a just and natural portraiture of its effects. If he dispute and wrangle
with mankind, he will find them contemn him, his pieces may hang neglected in a public exhi-
bition, and his name be nearly lost in oblivion among his contemporaries. These remarks are il-
lustrated by an anecdote pretty generally known :—*-Soon after the decease of the French philo-
sopher Voltaire, his admirers ordered a statue to be made to his memory, intended also as a public
ornament. The sculptor, not having a proper respect for the prejudices of mankind, and no
<loubt intending to exceed other artists in a strict observance of nature, made the philosopher en-
tirely naked, and as meagre and emaciated as the original. It is said the sculptor had done him
justice. But it was too natural: for it was " Nature all/' but not <( Nature methodised." It