DOI article:
Mount, Harry: Shaftesbury V. Richardson: A Counterfactual Exercise
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56525#0013
12
HARRY MOUNT
toons and to the works of Van Dyck and Rubens. However, Richardson’s enthusiasm for Flemish art cannot
only be attributed to its availability. He showed, in contract to Shaftesbury, a genuine interest in the more sen-
sual, formal and mechanical aspects of art. While Shaftesbury referred to painters as ‘mechanick Knaves’,67
Richardson argued at some length that the manual skills needed by painters placed them above writers,
since they were required to use both their hands and their brains.68 While Shaftesbury saw colour as merely
sensual, Richardson wrote enthusiastically and sensitively about colour and drawing and added handling, or
brushwork, to the key parts of the art.69 In his sensitivity to colour and to light and shade Richardson was very
indebted to de Piles, and, like de Piles, he advanced a theory of art which was at least in part formalist. Like
de Piles, Richardson was capable of admiring the formal qualities of a work regardless of its subject. For
Shaftesbury, by contrast, subject matter was all important.
This difference is also evident in the ways in which our two authors discussed pictorial composition.
For Shaftesbury, following Fréart, composition was a matter of organising the key figures within a strict per-
spectival scheme in such a way that they could tell the story being represented most effectively.70 Richardson,
on the other hand, followed de Piles in advancing the possibility of seeing pictures of attractive patterns of
colour or of light and shade, even repeating de Piles’ famous argument that the light and shade in a picture
should be focused in masses so that it resembles a bunch of grapes rather than separate individual grapes.71
In arguing thus de Piles and Richardson were laying down the foundations for a modern, abstracted way of
thinking about composition, a way of thinking that would later be taken up by Reynolds, and later still and
much more emphatically by members of the Aesthetic movement in the nineteenth century.72 It is indicative
of Richardson’s formalism that he frequently compares painting to both poetry and music, in both of which,
he argues, there is a sensual dimension. Of painting, for example, he writes that:
its beautiful Forms, Colours and Harmony, ai e to the Eye what Sounds, and the Harmony of that kind ai e to the Ear;
and in both we are delighted in observing the Skill of the Artist.73
Shaftesbury, on the other hand, preferred to compare painting to philosophy, most famously in the Judg-
ment of Hercules in which he likens history painting to moral philosophy and landscape painting to natural
philosophy.74 While Shaftesbury does at times compare painting to poetry, at others he denies the conven-
tional ut picture poesis parallel between the two arts.75 In his notes for Plasticks, he even prefigures Lessing’s
Laokoon (1766) in contending that there are some subjects, especially horrible or violent ones, which while
acceptable in poems are unsuitable for paintings, because the painter has of necessity to give determinate
form to what he is representing rather than leaving that realisation to take place in the mind of the reader.76
That Shaftesbury belonged to the more austere school of the Poussinistes was consistent with what is
perhaps the most distinctive feature of his art theory: his insistence on the moral role of painting. Far more
emphatically than any of his French predecessors, Shaftesbury believed that the purpose of painting, the
quality that raised it above a mere mechanical trade, was its ability to give moral guidance to the spectator.
‘All true Painting’, he asserted in his notes for Plasticks, is ‘moral’.77 Shaftesbury’s ideal painting of the Judg-
ment of Hercules offered a lesson in virtue, and he famously imagined that it might be hung in the gallery of
a young prince in order to contribute to his moral education.78 It was for this reason that Shaftesbury placed
67 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 211.
68 Richardson, Theory of Painting, pp. 26-35.
69 Ibidem, pp. 144-160.
70 A good example of this is Shaftesbury ’s description of an ideal imagined depiction of the stoiy of Bacchus and Ariadne (Plasticks,
pp. 260-261), veiy much along the same lines as his blueprint for an ideal depiction of Judgement of Hercules (Shaftesbury, Judgment of
Hercules). Cf. Fréart’s analysis of Raphael’s School of Athens, which again focuses heavily on how the subject matter is conveyed (An Idea
of the Perfection..., pp. 109-117).
71 See Richardson, Theory of Painting, pp. 114-133, and especially pp. 115, 121 (in which he borrows de Piles’ analogy of the
bunch of grapes) and p. 128 (in which he talks about the importance of giving the ‘mass’ of light an ‘agreeable form’).
72 See H. Mount, Reynolds, Chiaroscuro and Composition, [in:] Pictorial Composition from Medieval to Modern Art, eds. P. Taylor,
F. Quiviger, London-Turin 2000, pp. 172-197.
73 Richardson, Theory of Painting, p. 8, cf. p. 144.
74 Shaftesbury, HAo/zow ofthe Historical Draught or Tablature ofthe Judgment ofHercules, [in:] idem, Second Characters..., p. 53.
75 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, pp. 166,222.
76 Ibidem, pp. 286-288.
77 Ibidem, p. 177. See also pp. 177, 179-183, 186, 217, 264.
78 Shaftesbury, A Letter Concerning Design, [in:] idem, Second Characters..., p. 26.
HARRY MOUNT
toons and to the works of Van Dyck and Rubens. However, Richardson’s enthusiasm for Flemish art cannot
only be attributed to its availability. He showed, in contract to Shaftesbury, a genuine interest in the more sen-
sual, formal and mechanical aspects of art. While Shaftesbury referred to painters as ‘mechanick Knaves’,67
Richardson argued at some length that the manual skills needed by painters placed them above writers,
since they were required to use both their hands and their brains.68 While Shaftesbury saw colour as merely
sensual, Richardson wrote enthusiastically and sensitively about colour and drawing and added handling, or
brushwork, to the key parts of the art.69 In his sensitivity to colour and to light and shade Richardson was very
indebted to de Piles, and, like de Piles, he advanced a theory of art which was at least in part formalist. Like
de Piles, Richardson was capable of admiring the formal qualities of a work regardless of its subject. For
Shaftesbury, by contrast, subject matter was all important.
This difference is also evident in the ways in which our two authors discussed pictorial composition.
For Shaftesbury, following Fréart, composition was a matter of organising the key figures within a strict per-
spectival scheme in such a way that they could tell the story being represented most effectively.70 Richardson,
on the other hand, followed de Piles in advancing the possibility of seeing pictures of attractive patterns of
colour or of light and shade, even repeating de Piles’ famous argument that the light and shade in a picture
should be focused in masses so that it resembles a bunch of grapes rather than separate individual grapes.71
In arguing thus de Piles and Richardson were laying down the foundations for a modern, abstracted way of
thinking about composition, a way of thinking that would later be taken up by Reynolds, and later still and
much more emphatically by members of the Aesthetic movement in the nineteenth century.72 It is indicative
of Richardson’s formalism that he frequently compares painting to both poetry and music, in both of which,
he argues, there is a sensual dimension. Of painting, for example, he writes that:
its beautiful Forms, Colours and Harmony, ai e to the Eye what Sounds, and the Harmony of that kind ai e to the Ear;
and in both we are delighted in observing the Skill of the Artist.73
Shaftesbury, on the other hand, preferred to compare painting to philosophy, most famously in the Judg-
ment of Hercules in which he likens history painting to moral philosophy and landscape painting to natural
philosophy.74 While Shaftesbury does at times compare painting to poetry, at others he denies the conven-
tional ut picture poesis parallel between the two arts.75 In his notes for Plasticks, he even prefigures Lessing’s
Laokoon (1766) in contending that there are some subjects, especially horrible or violent ones, which while
acceptable in poems are unsuitable for paintings, because the painter has of necessity to give determinate
form to what he is representing rather than leaving that realisation to take place in the mind of the reader.76
That Shaftesbury belonged to the more austere school of the Poussinistes was consistent with what is
perhaps the most distinctive feature of his art theory: his insistence on the moral role of painting. Far more
emphatically than any of his French predecessors, Shaftesbury believed that the purpose of painting, the
quality that raised it above a mere mechanical trade, was its ability to give moral guidance to the spectator.
‘All true Painting’, he asserted in his notes for Plasticks, is ‘moral’.77 Shaftesbury’s ideal painting of the Judg-
ment of Hercules offered a lesson in virtue, and he famously imagined that it might be hung in the gallery of
a young prince in order to contribute to his moral education.78 It was for this reason that Shaftesbury placed
67 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, p. 211.
68 Richardson, Theory of Painting, pp. 26-35.
69 Ibidem, pp. 144-160.
70 A good example of this is Shaftesbury ’s description of an ideal imagined depiction of the stoiy of Bacchus and Ariadne (Plasticks,
pp. 260-261), veiy much along the same lines as his blueprint for an ideal depiction of Judgement of Hercules (Shaftesbury, Judgment of
Hercules). Cf. Fréart’s analysis of Raphael’s School of Athens, which again focuses heavily on how the subject matter is conveyed (An Idea
of the Perfection..., pp. 109-117).
71 See Richardson, Theory of Painting, pp. 114-133, and especially pp. 115, 121 (in which he borrows de Piles’ analogy of the
bunch of grapes) and p. 128 (in which he talks about the importance of giving the ‘mass’ of light an ‘agreeable form’).
72 See H. Mount, Reynolds, Chiaroscuro and Composition, [in:] Pictorial Composition from Medieval to Modern Art, eds. P. Taylor,
F. Quiviger, London-Turin 2000, pp. 172-197.
73 Richardson, Theory of Painting, p. 8, cf. p. 144.
74 Shaftesbury, HAo/zow ofthe Historical Draught or Tablature ofthe Judgment ofHercules, [in:] idem, Second Characters..., p. 53.
75 Shaftesbury, Plasticks, pp. 166,222.
76 Ibidem, pp. 286-288.
77 Ibidem, p. 177. See also pp. 177, 179-183, 186, 217, 264.
78 Shaftesbury, A Letter Concerning Design, [in:] idem, Second Characters..., p. 26.