DOI article:
Mount, Harry: Shaftesbury V. Richardson: A Counterfactual Exercise
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56525#0009
8
HARRY MOUNT
gave for his book was that it would enable those of the ‘Better Sort’ to defend their interest in the visual arts
against critics.22 Shaftesbury’s belief was that the improvement in British painting for which he hoped would
stem not from the ambitions of British painters but from the taste and knowledge of British patrons. As he
stated in the Letter Concerning Design'.
without a public voice knowingly guided and directed, there is nothing which can raise a true ambition in the artist;
nothing which can exalt the genius of the workman or make him emulous of after fame, and of the approbation of his
country, and of posterity.23
For Shaftesbury artists were workmen who must be led by those with taste, much as he himself had
directed Paolo de Matteis in the realisation of his blueprint for the Judgment of Hercules.24
Such an opinion is consistent with the views about modern painters Shaftesbury expressed in his notes
for Plasticks, in which he describes them as ‘mere wretches’ and ‘mechanick Knaves’ lacking in any learn-
ing.25 While Shaftesbury may have toned down these opinions in the published version of Plasticks, he clearly
saw artists as needing direction by men of taste. Richardson, a practising portraitist, inevitably took a differ-
ent view on this matter, and throughout the Theory of Art placed the responsibility for the improvement of the
arts in the hands of the artists themselves.
Shaftesbury did, however, also intend his book to be read beyond his core target audience, which he
defined as ‘the Critick, the real Virtuoso, or Philosopher.’26
He even planned to include illustrations, in the form of engravings after key works, in order to help his
readers understand his ideas.27 He had no time for those philosophers who were unable to communicate with
anyone other than other philosophers,28 and remarked that ‘Nothing in the text’ should be included:
but what shall be of easy smooth & polite Reading; without seeming Difficulty, or hard Studdy: so as that the better
& gentiler Rank of Painters & Alli sts, the Ladys, Beaux, courtly Gentlemen, & more refin’d sort of Country & Town-
-Wits, and notable Talkers, may comprehend, or be persuwded that they comprehend what is there written, in the Text.
To make life easier for these classes of reader, he resolved to keep his main text simple and straight-
forward in content and style and to put all the hard philosophising and quotes from Latin and Greek in
footnotes.29 To judge from the copious quotes in ancient languages in his notes for Plasticks, these footnotes
would have been quite long, resulting in a Talmud-like structure (Shaftesbury admitted that his actual model
was the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique of the French philosopher Pierre Bayle, another work with copi-
ous footnotes).30
While Shaftesbury also criticised those who used affected French and Italian technical terms in discuss-
ing the arts, he was not above inventing a few technical terms of his own.31 In all cases these were drawn
from ancient sources. From classical theories of rhetoric, for example, he borrowed the terms hyperbole and
ellipsis P For Shaftesbury hyperbole meant the deliberate exaggeration of the size of a person or thing above
that which would be expected within the perspectival scheme of a painting, while ellipsis means a tactical
reduction in the detail and finishing of the subsidiary parts of a painting. Among his other neologisms was the
22 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 170
23 Shaftesbury, A Letter Concerning Design, [in:] idem, Second Characters..., p. 22.
24 For Shaftesbury’s own account of this process see Shaftesbury, A Letter Concerning Design, [in:] idem, Second Characters...,
pp. 18-19.
25 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, pp. 204, 211, cf. p. 252.
26 Ibidem, p. 166.
27 Ibidem, p. 285
28 Ibidem, p. 282.
29 Ibidem, pp. 165-166. He also promised to translate material in foreign languages ‘for such Artists in the modern way as are not
Schollars in the antienf (p. 164).
30 Ibidem, pp. 163, 165.
31 He was, indeed, quite self-conscious about the fact that he was doing this. See Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 262. The care with
which Shaftesbury was thinking about the language he was going to use to put across his ideas is also evident from his notes for a glossary,
see ibidem, pp. 262-265.
32 For hyperbole see Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 236-238; for ellipsis see ibidem, pp. 239-241; for both terms see ibidem, p. 281.
HARRY MOUNT
gave for his book was that it would enable those of the ‘Better Sort’ to defend their interest in the visual arts
against critics.22 Shaftesbury’s belief was that the improvement in British painting for which he hoped would
stem not from the ambitions of British painters but from the taste and knowledge of British patrons. As he
stated in the Letter Concerning Design'.
without a public voice knowingly guided and directed, there is nothing which can raise a true ambition in the artist;
nothing which can exalt the genius of the workman or make him emulous of after fame, and of the approbation of his
country, and of posterity.23
For Shaftesbury artists were workmen who must be led by those with taste, much as he himself had
directed Paolo de Matteis in the realisation of his blueprint for the Judgment of Hercules.24
Such an opinion is consistent with the views about modern painters Shaftesbury expressed in his notes
for Plasticks, in which he describes them as ‘mere wretches’ and ‘mechanick Knaves’ lacking in any learn-
ing.25 While Shaftesbury may have toned down these opinions in the published version of Plasticks, he clearly
saw artists as needing direction by men of taste. Richardson, a practising portraitist, inevitably took a differ-
ent view on this matter, and throughout the Theory of Art placed the responsibility for the improvement of the
arts in the hands of the artists themselves.
Shaftesbury did, however, also intend his book to be read beyond his core target audience, which he
defined as ‘the Critick, the real Virtuoso, or Philosopher.’26
He even planned to include illustrations, in the form of engravings after key works, in order to help his
readers understand his ideas.27 He had no time for those philosophers who were unable to communicate with
anyone other than other philosophers,28 and remarked that ‘Nothing in the text’ should be included:
but what shall be of easy smooth & polite Reading; without seeming Difficulty, or hard Studdy: so as that the better
& gentiler Rank of Painters & Alli sts, the Ladys, Beaux, courtly Gentlemen, & more refin’d sort of Country & Town-
-Wits, and notable Talkers, may comprehend, or be persuwded that they comprehend what is there written, in the Text.
To make life easier for these classes of reader, he resolved to keep his main text simple and straight-
forward in content and style and to put all the hard philosophising and quotes from Latin and Greek in
footnotes.29 To judge from the copious quotes in ancient languages in his notes for Plasticks, these footnotes
would have been quite long, resulting in a Talmud-like structure (Shaftesbury admitted that his actual model
was the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique of the French philosopher Pierre Bayle, another work with copi-
ous footnotes).30
While Shaftesbury also criticised those who used affected French and Italian technical terms in discuss-
ing the arts, he was not above inventing a few technical terms of his own.31 In all cases these were drawn
from ancient sources. From classical theories of rhetoric, for example, he borrowed the terms hyperbole and
ellipsis P For Shaftesbury hyperbole meant the deliberate exaggeration of the size of a person or thing above
that which would be expected within the perspectival scheme of a painting, while ellipsis means a tactical
reduction in the detail and finishing of the subsidiary parts of a painting. Among his other neologisms was the
22 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 170
23 Shaftesbury, A Letter Concerning Design, [in:] idem, Second Characters..., p. 22.
24 For Shaftesbury’s own account of this process see Shaftesbury, A Letter Concerning Design, [in:] idem, Second Characters...,
pp. 18-19.
25 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, pp. 204, 211, cf. p. 252.
26 Ibidem, p. 166.
27 Ibidem, p. 285
28 Ibidem, p. 282.
29 Ibidem, pp. 165-166. He also promised to translate material in foreign languages ‘for such Artists in the modern way as are not
Schollars in the antienf (p. 164).
30 Ibidem, pp. 163, 165.
31 He was, indeed, quite self-conscious about the fact that he was doing this. See Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 262. The care with
which Shaftesbury was thinking about the language he was going to use to put across his ideas is also evident from his notes for a glossary,
see ibidem, pp. 262-265.
32 For hyperbole see Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 236-238; for ellipsis see ibidem, pp. 239-241; for both terms see ibidem, p. 281.