DOI article:
Kern, Ulrike: Shaftesbury's Dictionary of Terms of Art
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56525#0029
28
ULRIKE KERN
which is dated to about one year earlier, symmetry and size are given in the similar attitude and positions of
the two sitters (Fig. 5). The brothers are depicted in a setting out of doors, a forest landscape with an Apol-
lonian temple, a reference to the liberal Socratic philosophy that Shaftesbury pursued in his writings, as has
been argued.45 From a compositional point of view, this setting and arrangement is not liable to conflict with
Shaftesbury’s ideals of size and symmetry at all.
When we read subsequently to Shaftesbury’s concerns about size and symmetry in portraits a statement
that ‘[t]he same rule holds as well in the masses or groups as between the particular pieces or figures’, it is
probably a similar point he was making: a warning that visibly different proportions should not be put side by
side in a single painting.46 Shaftesbury regarded size and symmetry of the objects and figures of a painting as
related to groups and masses. This connection exists of course: in the distribution of both groups and masses
it is important to create visual balance. This includes considerations of size and proportional arrangements of
and in the figures and objects in a painting. It seems that Shaftesbury’s ‘rule’ is directed towards an aesthetic
of symmetrical composition, but he is only explicit about breaches of proportions. This applies equally to
aspects of size, symmetry, grouping and masses.
CONCLUSION
One of the qualities of Shaftesbury’s dictionary project was his approach to regard artistic concepts as in-
terconnected. No writer on art before him compared and related artistic terms to such a degree as did Shaftes-
bury. Although the Dictionary is heavily fragmented, it is clearly perceptible that it was meant to be more
than an informative list of art terms. Shaftesbury had recognised that an art dictionary can be a useful tool for
shaping an aesthetic vocabulary and he tried to extend the aesthetic language by new words and concepts. The
aesthetic and moralist considerations of his discussions of words in the fragment of the Plastics are apparent
in particular in the instructional and explanatory parts of the Dictionary. Shaftesbury’s literary expertise
helped him to develop methods of creating new words and use them in new discourses. He could, as Italian
and French writers of art theory before him, borrow terms form ancient rhetoric. In addition, he could build
on the extended discussions of the French Académie Royale, which had established an aesthetic language
that was universally understood by connoisseurs and savants. A notable fact is Shaftesbury’s expression of
his depreciatory attitude against Fréart at this early stage of his project, as if it had been of great concern for
him to make sure that his intentions would not be understood as a continuation of the French tradition. The
outline and initial statements indicate that Shaftesbury’s dictionary project should have offered a new access
to artistic language with potentials that extended those of traditional art discourses.
45 Formore about the literary and philosophical context of the painting see M. Rogers, John and John Baptist Closterman: A Cata-
logue of their Works, “The Walpole Society”, 49, 1983, p. 259; D. Solkin, ReWrighting Shaftesbury: The Air Pump and the Limits of Com-
mercial Humanism, [in:] Painting and the Politics of Culture. New Essays on British Art, 1700 /850. ed. J. Barrell, Oxford 1992, pp. 73-99;
I. Woldt, Architektonik der Formen in Shaftesburys ‘Second Characters ’, Munich 2004, p. 139; M. Baur-C allwey, Die Differenzierung des
gemeinsamen männlichen Doppelportraits in England von Hans Holbein d. J. bis Joshua Reynolds, Munich 2007, pp. 120-125.
46 The statement on ‘masses or groups’ seems to me to refer to this issue rather than the next one of the hyperbole, as D ob ai, op. cit.,
I, pp. 80-81 suggests. In addition, Dobai refers to ‘masses and gloups’. He transfers Shaftesbury’s statement to the hyperbole, which may be
achieved with ‘ a voluntary and premeditated error from the rules of perspective’ and requires knowledge and reason, a description that Shaftes-
bury explains by referring to a painting of Christ and the Samaritan woman by Poussin, in which an elongated pointing finger is justified as
a derivation from perspective to clarify the narrative. This example cannot really be explained in terms of either masses or gr oups.
ULRIKE KERN
which is dated to about one year earlier, symmetry and size are given in the similar attitude and positions of
the two sitters (Fig. 5). The brothers are depicted in a setting out of doors, a forest landscape with an Apol-
lonian temple, a reference to the liberal Socratic philosophy that Shaftesbury pursued in his writings, as has
been argued.45 From a compositional point of view, this setting and arrangement is not liable to conflict with
Shaftesbury’s ideals of size and symmetry at all.
When we read subsequently to Shaftesbury’s concerns about size and symmetry in portraits a statement
that ‘[t]he same rule holds as well in the masses or groups as between the particular pieces or figures’, it is
probably a similar point he was making: a warning that visibly different proportions should not be put side by
side in a single painting.46 Shaftesbury regarded size and symmetry of the objects and figures of a painting as
related to groups and masses. This connection exists of course: in the distribution of both groups and masses
it is important to create visual balance. This includes considerations of size and proportional arrangements of
and in the figures and objects in a painting. It seems that Shaftesbury’s ‘rule’ is directed towards an aesthetic
of symmetrical composition, but he is only explicit about breaches of proportions. This applies equally to
aspects of size, symmetry, grouping and masses.
CONCLUSION
One of the qualities of Shaftesbury’s dictionary project was his approach to regard artistic concepts as in-
terconnected. No writer on art before him compared and related artistic terms to such a degree as did Shaftes-
bury. Although the Dictionary is heavily fragmented, it is clearly perceptible that it was meant to be more
than an informative list of art terms. Shaftesbury had recognised that an art dictionary can be a useful tool for
shaping an aesthetic vocabulary and he tried to extend the aesthetic language by new words and concepts. The
aesthetic and moralist considerations of his discussions of words in the fragment of the Plastics are apparent
in particular in the instructional and explanatory parts of the Dictionary. Shaftesbury’s literary expertise
helped him to develop methods of creating new words and use them in new discourses. He could, as Italian
and French writers of art theory before him, borrow terms form ancient rhetoric. In addition, he could build
on the extended discussions of the French Académie Royale, which had established an aesthetic language
that was universally understood by connoisseurs and savants. A notable fact is Shaftesbury’s expression of
his depreciatory attitude against Fréart at this early stage of his project, as if it had been of great concern for
him to make sure that his intentions would not be understood as a continuation of the French tradition. The
outline and initial statements indicate that Shaftesbury’s dictionary project should have offered a new access
to artistic language with potentials that extended those of traditional art discourses.
45 Formore about the literary and philosophical context of the painting see M. Rogers, John and John Baptist Closterman: A Cata-
logue of their Works, “The Walpole Society”, 49, 1983, p. 259; D. Solkin, ReWrighting Shaftesbury: The Air Pump and the Limits of Com-
mercial Humanism, [in:] Painting and the Politics of Culture. New Essays on British Art, 1700 /850. ed. J. Barrell, Oxford 1992, pp. 73-99;
I. Woldt, Architektonik der Formen in Shaftesburys ‘Second Characters ’, Munich 2004, p. 139; M. Baur-C allwey, Die Differenzierung des
gemeinsamen männlichen Doppelportraits in England von Hans Holbein d. J. bis Joshua Reynolds, Munich 2007, pp. 120-125.
46 The statement on ‘masses or groups’ seems to me to refer to this issue rather than the next one of the hyperbole, as D ob ai, op. cit.,
I, pp. 80-81 suggests. In addition, Dobai refers to ‘masses and gloups’. He transfers Shaftesbury’s statement to the hyperbole, which may be
achieved with ‘ a voluntary and premeditated error from the rules of perspective’ and requires knowledge and reason, a description that Shaftes-
bury explains by referring to a painting of Christ and the Samaritan woman by Poussin, in which an elongated pointing finger is justified as
a derivation from perspective to clarify the narrative. This example cannot really be explained in terms of either masses or gr oups.