DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2056#0005
INTRODUCTION.
JMr. Hogarth frequently asserted, that no man
was so ill qualified to form a true judgment of
pictures as the professed Connoisseur; whose
taste being originally formed upon imitations,
and confined to the manners of Masters, had
seldom any reference to Nature. Under this con-
viction, his subjects were selected for the crowd,
rather than the critic,* and explained in that uni-
versal language common to the world, rather than
in the lingua technica of the arts, which is sacred
to the scientific. Without presuming to support
his hypothesis, I have endeavoured to follow his
example.
My original design was to have comprised, in
two hundred pages, a moral and analytical de-
scription of seventy-eight prints ;t and, during the
progress of the first series, this plan was adhered
to. As the work advanced, such variety of anec-
dote, and long train of etcetera, imperceptibly
clung to the narrative, that the limits were found
• Two of the prints must be excepted : Time smoking a
Picture, and the Bathos, arc addressed to the Connoisseur.
f They were originally engraved for the work published
by Truster; and for these volumes have been carefully rc-
■ VOL." I. * a
JMr. Hogarth frequently asserted, that no man
was so ill qualified to form a true judgment of
pictures as the professed Connoisseur; whose
taste being originally formed upon imitations,
and confined to the manners of Masters, had
seldom any reference to Nature. Under this con-
viction, his subjects were selected for the crowd,
rather than the critic,* and explained in that uni-
versal language common to the world, rather than
in the lingua technica of the arts, which is sacred
to the scientific. Without presuming to support
his hypothesis, I have endeavoured to follow his
example.
My original design was to have comprised, in
two hundred pages, a moral and analytical de-
scription of seventy-eight prints ;t and, during the
progress of the first series, this plan was adhered
to. As the work advanced, such variety of anec-
dote, and long train of etcetera, imperceptibly
clung to the narrative, that the limits were found
• Two of the prints must be excepted : Time smoking a
Picture, and the Bathos, arc addressed to the Connoisseur.
f They were originally engraved for the work published
by Truster; and for these volumes have been carefully rc-
■ VOL." I. * a