DOI Artikel:
Mount, Harry: Shaftesbury V. Richardson: A Counterfactual Exercise
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56525#0016
SHAFTESBURY V. RICHARDSON: A COUNTERFACTUAL EXERCISE
15
He also foreshadows Winckelmann in arguing that the quality of ancient Greek art was attributable in part to
the healthy diets, regular exercise and unabashed display of nudity in ancient Greek culture.101 Meanwhile, the
revival of the arts in Renaissance Italy took place, according to Shaftesbury, in the republics of Venice and Flor-
ence, where the citizens had, for the first time since antiquity, the freedom to develop taste and judgment.102 Had
these thoughts been published we might well now be describing Shaftesbury, rather than Winckelmann, as the
father of the social history of art. Richardson, by contrast, followed the older Vasarian model in describing the
rises and falls of quality during the history of art without really explaining why they happened.
Another feature of Shaftesbury’s thought which sets him apart from his French forbears was his disap-
pointment that the greatest modern art had been so dominated by Christian iconography. In an extraordinary
passage in his notes for Plasticks he ridicules depictions of God the Father, whom he describes as being
shown as a broken, haggard old man bearing a carcass in his lap and a pigeon in his bosom. Christ, too, he
saw as a graceless, barbaric and, I’m sorry to say, unaesthetically Jewish figure.103 For Shaftesbury, ancient
gods, goddesses and heroes were far more suitable as models for the artist. Richardson was also troubled
by images of God the Father as a decrepit old man.104 Rather than poking fun at them, however, Richardson
wondered if God was an appropriate subject for depiction, on the grounds that he was beyond the imagin-
ation of any mortal being. He was, indeed, so nervous on this point that he never actually refers to God by
name, instead preferring circumlocutions like the ‘Supreme Being’.105 Just fifty years after the iconoclasm of
the Civil War, such an anxiety about religious, and specifically Catholic, imagery is understandable in two
Protestant Britons who were trying to sell painting to their Protestant countrymen.106 Again, however, there is
a big difference between Richardson’s more tactful, deferential approach and Shaftesbury’s fearlessly outspo-
ken views. These differences may be attributed in part to the fact that the former was an orthodox Anglican
while Shaftesbury was a Deist, and also no doubt to the fact that one man was a working painter and the other
a wealthy aristocrat.
Shaftesbury’s views on religious art epitomise the uncompromising nature of both the language and
arguments found in the notes for Plasticks. Even if he had toned them down for the final, published version,
it is difficult to imagine that a completed Second Characters would not have been far more definitive in its
arguments and far more vivid in its language than Richardson’s Theory of Painting. Richardson’s book was
written in a spirit of compromise, as an attempt to find some middle ground between the demands of the
classical theory he had inherited from the continent and the state of affairs in Britain - a spirit of compromise
best exemplified by his attempt to elevate the portraiture which was so dominant in Britain to a status close
to that of history painting. While Richardson believed that painting did have a moral purpose, his de Pilesian
formalism opened the door to a far wider range of artistic appreciation than that advocated by Shaftesbury,
a range of appreciation that made it possible to enjoy the Dutch, Flemish and Venetian art which were popular
among British collectors in addition to the greatest art of Florence and Rome. For Richardson it was import-
ant to continue to get on with the British art lovers who were commissioning portraits and buying Dutch and
Flemish pictures. Shaftesbury, on the other hand, had no need to compromise and no interest in doing so, and
consequently advanced his vision of a moral and ideal history painting, large in scale, free in brushwork and
derived from Raphael and the more austere Bolognese painters as the only way in which the British would be
able to produce a satisfactory artistic equivalent to their enlightened political state.
If Shaftesbury’s Second Characters had been published in 1715 how, then, might it have changed the
landscape of thinking about art in Britain? We are now in the realm of pure speculation, but I think we can
suggest two alternative stories, in one of which that landscape was profoundly transformed, in the other of
which Second Characters had little effect.
In the first story Second Characters was published in 1715, immediately attracting an excited reaction
among both virtuosi and painters, to such an extent that when Richardson’s Theory of Painting appeared in
print two months later little notice was taken of it. The reaction of the virtuosi was especially significant. It
101 Ibidem, pp. 199, 208.
102 Ibidem, p. 211.
103 Ibidem, pp. 202-203
104 Richardson, Theory of Painting, p. 54.
105 E.g., ibidem.
106 Shaftesbury especially associated the painting of unacceptably cruel and horrible things like bloody martyrdoms with ‘Popish’
taste, see Plasticks, pp. 286-268.
15
He also foreshadows Winckelmann in arguing that the quality of ancient Greek art was attributable in part to
the healthy diets, regular exercise and unabashed display of nudity in ancient Greek culture.101 Meanwhile, the
revival of the arts in Renaissance Italy took place, according to Shaftesbury, in the republics of Venice and Flor-
ence, where the citizens had, for the first time since antiquity, the freedom to develop taste and judgment.102 Had
these thoughts been published we might well now be describing Shaftesbury, rather than Winckelmann, as the
father of the social history of art. Richardson, by contrast, followed the older Vasarian model in describing the
rises and falls of quality during the history of art without really explaining why they happened.
Another feature of Shaftesbury’s thought which sets him apart from his French forbears was his disap-
pointment that the greatest modern art had been so dominated by Christian iconography. In an extraordinary
passage in his notes for Plasticks he ridicules depictions of God the Father, whom he describes as being
shown as a broken, haggard old man bearing a carcass in his lap and a pigeon in his bosom. Christ, too, he
saw as a graceless, barbaric and, I’m sorry to say, unaesthetically Jewish figure.103 For Shaftesbury, ancient
gods, goddesses and heroes were far more suitable as models for the artist. Richardson was also troubled
by images of God the Father as a decrepit old man.104 Rather than poking fun at them, however, Richardson
wondered if God was an appropriate subject for depiction, on the grounds that he was beyond the imagin-
ation of any mortal being. He was, indeed, so nervous on this point that he never actually refers to God by
name, instead preferring circumlocutions like the ‘Supreme Being’.105 Just fifty years after the iconoclasm of
the Civil War, such an anxiety about religious, and specifically Catholic, imagery is understandable in two
Protestant Britons who were trying to sell painting to their Protestant countrymen.106 Again, however, there is
a big difference between Richardson’s more tactful, deferential approach and Shaftesbury’s fearlessly outspo-
ken views. These differences may be attributed in part to the fact that the former was an orthodox Anglican
while Shaftesbury was a Deist, and also no doubt to the fact that one man was a working painter and the other
a wealthy aristocrat.
Shaftesbury’s views on religious art epitomise the uncompromising nature of both the language and
arguments found in the notes for Plasticks. Even if he had toned them down for the final, published version,
it is difficult to imagine that a completed Second Characters would not have been far more definitive in its
arguments and far more vivid in its language than Richardson’s Theory of Painting. Richardson’s book was
written in a spirit of compromise, as an attempt to find some middle ground between the demands of the
classical theory he had inherited from the continent and the state of affairs in Britain - a spirit of compromise
best exemplified by his attempt to elevate the portraiture which was so dominant in Britain to a status close
to that of history painting. While Richardson believed that painting did have a moral purpose, his de Pilesian
formalism opened the door to a far wider range of artistic appreciation than that advocated by Shaftesbury,
a range of appreciation that made it possible to enjoy the Dutch, Flemish and Venetian art which were popular
among British collectors in addition to the greatest art of Florence and Rome. For Richardson it was import-
ant to continue to get on with the British art lovers who were commissioning portraits and buying Dutch and
Flemish pictures. Shaftesbury, on the other hand, had no need to compromise and no interest in doing so, and
consequently advanced his vision of a moral and ideal history painting, large in scale, free in brushwork and
derived from Raphael and the more austere Bolognese painters as the only way in which the British would be
able to produce a satisfactory artistic equivalent to their enlightened political state.
If Shaftesbury’s Second Characters had been published in 1715 how, then, might it have changed the
landscape of thinking about art in Britain? We are now in the realm of pure speculation, but I think we can
suggest two alternative stories, in one of which that landscape was profoundly transformed, in the other of
which Second Characters had little effect.
In the first story Second Characters was published in 1715, immediately attracting an excited reaction
among both virtuosi and painters, to such an extent that when Richardson’s Theory of Painting appeared in
print two months later little notice was taken of it. The reaction of the virtuosi was especially significant. It
101 Ibidem, pp. 199, 208.
102 Ibidem, p. 211.
103 Ibidem, pp. 202-203
104 Richardson, Theory of Painting, p. 54.
105 E.g., ibidem.
106 Shaftesbury especially associated the painting of unacceptably cruel and horrible things like bloody martyrdoms with ‘Popish’
taste, see Plasticks, pp. 286-268.