DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0161
COLOURING.
147
a It is a necessary warrantable pride to disdain to walk servilely behind any individual how-
ever elevated his rank. The true and liberal ground of imitation is an open field where, though he
who precedes has had the advantage of starting before you, yet it is enough to pursue his course:
you need not tread in his footsteps; and you certainly have a right to outstrip him if you can.
" Nor whilst 1 recommend studying the art from artists can 1 be supposed to mean that nature
is to be neglected : [ take this study'in aid and not in exclusion of the other. Nature is and must
be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellencies must originallyflow.
fi The great use of studying our predecessors is to open the mind, to shorten our labour, and
to give us the result of the selection made by those great minds of what is grand or beautiful in
nature : her rich stores are all spread out before us; but it is an art, and no easy art, to know how
or what to choose ; and how to attain and secure the object of our choice.
. " Thus the highest beauty of form must be taken from nature; but it is an art of long dura-
tion and great experience to know how to find it. I cannot avoid mentioning here an error which
students are apt to fall into.
" He that is forming himself must look with great caution and wariness on those peculiarities
or prominent parts which at first force themselves on view, and are the marks of what is commonly
called the manner by which that individual artist is distinguished.
" Peculiar marks I hold to be generally if not always defects, however difficult it may be
whollv to escape them.
" Peculiarities, in the works of art, are like those in the human figure ; it is by them that we are
cognizable and distinguished one from another; but they are always so many blemishes which
however, both in the one case and in the other, cease to appear deformities to those who have
them continually before their eyes. In the works of art a man of even the most enlightened
mind, when warmed by beauties of the highest kind, will by degrees find a repugnance within
him to acknowledge any defects; nay, his enthusiasm will carry him so far as to transform them
into beauties and objects of imitation.
" It must be acknowledged that a peculiarity of style, either from its novelty or by seeming
to proceed from a peculiar turn of mind, often escapes blame ; on the contrary, it is sometimes
striking and pleasing; but it is vain labour to endeavour to imitate it, because novelty and pecu-
liarity being its only merit, when it ceases to be new it ceases to have value.
" A manner therefore being a defect, and every painter however excellent having a manner,
it seems to follow that alt kinds of faults, as well as beauties, may be learned under the direction
of the greatest authorities."
SECTION II.
OF COLOURING.
THOUGH colouring properly belongs to the mechanical part of painting, and is undoubtedly
an inferior qualification, yet as it is that peculiar property which immediately distinguishes it
from the other imitative arts it is evident it deserves the student's particular attention. Compo-
sition, imitation, design, expression, &c. are common to all the ai ts : but colours are in a great
measure the principles upon which painting depends for its successful imitation. They impose
upon the eye of the observer by their resemblance to natural colours: the more therefore they
imitate those colours the greater is their success.
6 The
147
a It is a necessary warrantable pride to disdain to walk servilely behind any individual how-
ever elevated his rank. The true and liberal ground of imitation is an open field where, though he
who precedes has had the advantage of starting before you, yet it is enough to pursue his course:
you need not tread in his footsteps; and you certainly have a right to outstrip him if you can.
" Nor whilst 1 recommend studying the art from artists can 1 be supposed to mean that nature
is to be neglected : [ take this study'in aid and not in exclusion of the other. Nature is and must
be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellencies must originallyflow.
fi The great use of studying our predecessors is to open the mind, to shorten our labour, and
to give us the result of the selection made by those great minds of what is grand or beautiful in
nature : her rich stores are all spread out before us; but it is an art, and no easy art, to know how
or what to choose ; and how to attain and secure the object of our choice.
. " Thus the highest beauty of form must be taken from nature; but it is an art of long dura-
tion and great experience to know how to find it. I cannot avoid mentioning here an error which
students are apt to fall into.
" He that is forming himself must look with great caution and wariness on those peculiarities
or prominent parts which at first force themselves on view, and are the marks of what is commonly
called the manner by which that individual artist is distinguished.
" Peculiar marks I hold to be generally if not always defects, however difficult it may be
whollv to escape them.
" Peculiarities, in the works of art, are like those in the human figure ; it is by them that we are
cognizable and distinguished one from another; but they are always so many blemishes which
however, both in the one case and in the other, cease to appear deformities to those who have
them continually before their eyes. In the works of art a man of even the most enlightened
mind, when warmed by beauties of the highest kind, will by degrees find a repugnance within
him to acknowledge any defects; nay, his enthusiasm will carry him so far as to transform them
into beauties and objects of imitation.
" It must be acknowledged that a peculiarity of style, either from its novelty or by seeming
to proceed from a peculiar turn of mind, often escapes blame ; on the contrary, it is sometimes
striking and pleasing; but it is vain labour to endeavour to imitate it, because novelty and pecu-
liarity being its only merit, when it ceases to be new it ceases to have value.
" A manner therefore being a defect, and every painter however excellent having a manner,
it seems to follow that alt kinds of faults, as well as beauties, may be learned under the direction
of the greatest authorities."
SECTION II.
OF COLOURING.
THOUGH colouring properly belongs to the mechanical part of painting, and is undoubtedly
an inferior qualification, yet as it is that peculiar property which immediately distinguishes it
from the other imitative arts it is evident it deserves the student's particular attention. Compo-
sition, imitation, design, expression, &c. are common to all the ai ts : but colours are in a great
measure the principles upon which painting depends for its successful imitation. They impose
upon the eye of the observer by their resemblance to natural colours: the more therefore they
imitate those colours the greater is their success.
6 The