DOI article:
Kern, Ulrike: Shaftesbury's Dictionary of Terms of Art
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56525#0026
SHAFTESBURY’S DICTIONARY OF TERMS OF ART
25
by French writers and was in use among connoisseurs. It was a terminology that had proved to be useful.
Shaftesbury might have found inspirations and helpful discussions in English in John Dryden’s influential
translation of Dufresony’s De arte graphica, the edition by de Piles of 1668.40 A compositional issue that
Dufresnoy was greatly concerned with is the problem of grouping. Shaftesbury picked up on the discussion
and added a note about ‘groups’ and ‘masses’:
In ease of the word group or groups (in the same manner) the word mass.
This note appears to recommend that ‘mass’ can be used similarly to ‘group’, though Shaftesbury must
have been aware that ‘mass’ and ‘group’ are not synonymous in their meaning. A group refers to the dis-
tribution of a group of figures or objects, a mass to the distribution of light and shade in relation to a figure or
group of figures or objects. De Piles marked the difference clearly in his commentary on a verse by Dufresnoy
on light and shade, instancing some prints after Rubens:
Rubens has given us a full information of this in those prints of his which he caus’d to be engrav’d; and I believe that
nothing was ever seen more beautifiill in that kind: the whole knowledge of Grouppes, of the Lights and Shadows,
and of those Masses which Titian calls a Bunch of Grapes, is there expos’d so clearly to the Sight...41
In an engraving by Lucas Vorsterman (Fig. 2), who worked closely with Rubens in the production of
prints after his art works, we can observe a grouping of the figures around the cross, and how masses of light
and shade are applied to direct the eyes through the picture. We can perceive the lit parts of the man standing
far up on the ladder on the left, releasing the body of Christ, the white shroud, and St. John and Mary Mag-
dalene at the foot of the cross, securing the dead body. In his Cours de Pcinture par principes of 1708, De
Piles provided an image of the metaphor of a bunch of grapes that Dufresnoy had initially mentioned in his
poem, to illustrate the analogy. As with the grapes, the grouping of the figures has been achieved by the way
in which they are positioned in the picture, the mass, however, results from several shadows of these figures
merging together to form one.
In the Plastics, Shaftesbury speaks about groups once, in a description of an imaginary painting of Bac-
chus and Ariadne with ‘cupids being allowed in a distinct group in the air or otherwise, so as not to intermix
with Juno, or her car, or attendance’.42 Since I have not been able to find an image of this subject with all the
elements and figures listed here, I wifi discuss Shaftesbury’s statement in an example with a distinct group
of putti and angels in the air by Shaftesbury’s champion Nicholas Poussin, The Return of the Holy Family to
Nazareth (Fig. 3). The painting may be useful for illustrating what Shaftesbury wrote about masses: he com-
pared masses of fight to a chameleon that borrows colours from other bodies, and warned against blue-, red-,
rose-, and yellow- coloured draperies, because they ‘communicate too much and can take or receive but little
or nothing.’43 This seems to conform to De Piles’ idea of masses, in which the single shadows of the grapes,
to use Dufresnoy’s metaphor, unify to a large one that encompasses the whole bunch of grapes. Colours can
be brought into a similar connection with one another, if they are used in adjacent objects, figures or draper-
ies, but the chromatic colours of the draperies of the Holy Family in the barque in Poussin’s painting stand
isolated and do not converge into a mass. There cannot even be observed too many instances of borrowing
of colours through reflections, like a small reflection at the lower belly of Christ child from the yellow gown
of his father. The shaded parts at the back and shoulder of the putto on top of the cross, for instance, which
would receive red from the blowing drapery or white from the wings according to optical law, show none.
However, while in this painting colours are hardly used to produce masses, the putti and angels with the cross
in the sky form a group, as do the figures of the holy family in the barque. Groups and masses are treated as
different elements in this painting, and this seems to agree with Shaftesbury’s understanding of the two terms.
40 Dob ai, op. cit., I, p. 71
41 Ch. A. Dufresnoy, The Art of Painting, tr. and ed. J. Diyden, London 1695, p. 163.
42 Shaftesbury/Rand, p. 133, describing the ‘machine’ of the subject.
43 ‘For eveiy considerable mass which carries light, eveiy illuminated and coloured body in a picture, is a chameleon and borrows
something. Everything gives and takes and from this multiplicity of tints is formed that chief and amiable simplicity, the veiy perfection of
colouring.’ Shaftesbury/Rand, p. 147. In a note is added: ‘For this reason a mass of blue draperies red, rose, yellow, etc., not sufferable;
because it must communicate too much and can take or receive but little or nothing. For how go about to break such a bright original and
wrongly-simple mass? Above all, blue the worst. ’
25
by French writers and was in use among connoisseurs. It was a terminology that had proved to be useful.
Shaftesbury might have found inspirations and helpful discussions in English in John Dryden’s influential
translation of Dufresony’s De arte graphica, the edition by de Piles of 1668.40 A compositional issue that
Dufresnoy was greatly concerned with is the problem of grouping. Shaftesbury picked up on the discussion
and added a note about ‘groups’ and ‘masses’:
In ease of the word group or groups (in the same manner) the word mass.
This note appears to recommend that ‘mass’ can be used similarly to ‘group’, though Shaftesbury must
have been aware that ‘mass’ and ‘group’ are not synonymous in their meaning. A group refers to the dis-
tribution of a group of figures or objects, a mass to the distribution of light and shade in relation to a figure or
group of figures or objects. De Piles marked the difference clearly in his commentary on a verse by Dufresnoy
on light and shade, instancing some prints after Rubens:
Rubens has given us a full information of this in those prints of his which he caus’d to be engrav’d; and I believe that
nothing was ever seen more beautifiill in that kind: the whole knowledge of Grouppes, of the Lights and Shadows,
and of those Masses which Titian calls a Bunch of Grapes, is there expos’d so clearly to the Sight...41
In an engraving by Lucas Vorsterman (Fig. 2), who worked closely with Rubens in the production of
prints after his art works, we can observe a grouping of the figures around the cross, and how masses of light
and shade are applied to direct the eyes through the picture. We can perceive the lit parts of the man standing
far up on the ladder on the left, releasing the body of Christ, the white shroud, and St. John and Mary Mag-
dalene at the foot of the cross, securing the dead body. In his Cours de Pcinture par principes of 1708, De
Piles provided an image of the metaphor of a bunch of grapes that Dufresnoy had initially mentioned in his
poem, to illustrate the analogy. As with the grapes, the grouping of the figures has been achieved by the way
in which they are positioned in the picture, the mass, however, results from several shadows of these figures
merging together to form one.
In the Plastics, Shaftesbury speaks about groups once, in a description of an imaginary painting of Bac-
chus and Ariadne with ‘cupids being allowed in a distinct group in the air or otherwise, so as not to intermix
with Juno, or her car, or attendance’.42 Since I have not been able to find an image of this subject with all the
elements and figures listed here, I wifi discuss Shaftesbury’s statement in an example with a distinct group
of putti and angels in the air by Shaftesbury’s champion Nicholas Poussin, The Return of the Holy Family to
Nazareth (Fig. 3). The painting may be useful for illustrating what Shaftesbury wrote about masses: he com-
pared masses of fight to a chameleon that borrows colours from other bodies, and warned against blue-, red-,
rose-, and yellow- coloured draperies, because they ‘communicate too much and can take or receive but little
or nothing.’43 This seems to conform to De Piles’ idea of masses, in which the single shadows of the grapes,
to use Dufresnoy’s metaphor, unify to a large one that encompasses the whole bunch of grapes. Colours can
be brought into a similar connection with one another, if they are used in adjacent objects, figures or draper-
ies, but the chromatic colours of the draperies of the Holy Family in the barque in Poussin’s painting stand
isolated and do not converge into a mass. There cannot even be observed too many instances of borrowing
of colours through reflections, like a small reflection at the lower belly of Christ child from the yellow gown
of his father. The shaded parts at the back and shoulder of the putto on top of the cross, for instance, which
would receive red from the blowing drapery or white from the wings according to optical law, show none.
However, while in this painting colours are hardly used to produce masses, the putti and angels with the cross
in the sky form a group, as do the figures of the holy family in the barque. Groups and masses are treated as
different elements in this painting, and this seems to agree with Shaftesbury’s understanding of the two terms.
40 Dob ai, op. cit., I, p. 71
41 Ch. A. Dufresnoy, The Art of Painting, tr. and ed. J. Diyden, London 1695, p. 163.
42 Shaftesbury/Rand, p. 133, describing the ‘machine’ of the subject.
43 ‘For eveiy considerable mass which carries light, eveiy illuminated and coloured body in a picture, is a chameleon and borrows
something. Everything gives and takes and from this multiplicity of tints is formed that chief and amiable simplicity, the veiy perfection of
colouring.’ Shaftesbury/Rand, p. 147. In a note is added: ‘For this reason a mass of blue draperies red, rose, yellow, etc., not sufferable;
because it must communicate too much and can take or receive but little or nothing. For how go about to break such a bright original and
wrongly-simple mass? Above all, blue the worst. ’