Rocznik Historii Sztuki (45.2020)

■‘THE JUDGMENT OF HERCULES”. SHAFTESBURY AT THE CROSSROADS OF ART THEORY

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Thus the idea of order, together with the visual graspability of the picture, proofs to be central to Shaftes-
bury’s notion of the tablature W
In the second part of his definition, Shaftesbury emphasized the unity of tablature. “In Painting”, he
wrote in a key statement, “we may give to any particular Work the name of Tablature, when the Work is in
reality ‘a Single Piece, comprehended in one View, and form’d according to one single Intelligence, Meaning,
or Design; which constitutes a real Whole, by a mutual and necessary Relation of its Parts, the same as the
Members in a natural Body.’”14 15 In this short but complex characteristic, the unity of a picture seems to be
based on a double principle: one visual - “a single piece, comprehended in one view”, the second intellectual
- “one single intelligence, meaning, or design” where “design” means an idea or thought, not the way the
picture is drawn. This ambiguity is further enhanced, still in the Introduction, by Shaftesbury’s comments on
what makes the lower genres of painting, e.g. floral pictures, worthy of the name of tablature. He points to
the visual unity of pictorial composition as a whole. In the lack of narrative and moral subject-matter, flowers,
festons, vases and other objects “serve as Machines to frame a certain proportionate Assemblage, or united
Mass; according to the Rules of Perspective, and with regard as well to the different shapes and sizes of his
several Flowers, as to the harmony of Colours resulting from the whole: this being the only thing capable of
rend[e]ring his Work worthy the name of a Composition or Real Piece”16 What makes a flower piece an art
is the composition of objects based on the principle of visual unity and harmony. But in the closing part of
the Introduction, Shaftesbury spoke of a different kind of unity. “So much more therefore is this Regulation
[of unity] applicable to History-Painting [than to flower painting], where not only Men, but Manners, and
human Passions are represented. Here the Unity of Design must with more particular exactness be preserv’d,
according to the just Rules of Poetic Art; that in the Representation of any Event, or remarkable Fact, the
Probability, or seeming Truth (which is the real Truth of Art) may with the highest advantage be supported
and advanc’d”.17 The higher genre of history painting aimed at and was controlled by Aristotelian unity of
time and action as well as by probability and verisimilitude rather than by any visual principle. Now the dis-
position of action and rhetorical clarity of narrative replaced the visual qualities of composition. This double
principle on which Shaftesbury seemed to build his theory of painting is worth exploring, especially that it
developed into critical rule. Few years after Shaftesbury’s death, Abbé Dubos was to distinguish between
“poetic and picturesque compositions” as two different modes of “the ordonance of pictures”.18
Shaftesbury could learn the principles of visual thinking about painting only from French art theoreticians.
The very word “tablature”, despite its etymology in Latin “tabula” mentioned by the author, is an obvious equiv-
alent of French “tableau” and indicates unavoidable French influence.19 In this respect, the words “unity” and
“the whole” as applied to painting are of much more interest and together with other concepts will be the subject
of the subsequent analysis. Shaftesbury must have known them from De arte graphica by Charles Antoine Du-
fresnoy, the treatise on art written as a Latin poem and published in Paris by Roger de Piles in 1668 after author’s
death, translated into French prose by the same de Piles and published together with his substantial commentary
in the same year. Arguably, de Piles’ edition of Dufresnoy, translated in extenso into English by John Dryden
in 1695, was the most popular book on art available at the beginning of the eighteenth century and must have
had a decisive influence on Shaftesbury, both as an encouragement and a source of objection.20 Shaftesbury kept

14 In his Dictionary of Art Terms Shaftesbury notes: “Venture the word and call the tablature sometimes the poem after P. Bellons’
example (p. 36,1. 8) of his pictures of Raphael in the Vatican.” {Second Characters, p. 180) Bellon described three frescoes by Raphael: Atti-
la, San Leone and E ’I ritorno ’. “Tutte tie le quali azzioni surondo ben da lui ristrette all’unita di questo suo Poema, disponendo le lìgule nel
fermarsi, nello sconere avanti, e nel tomaie in dietro con gli stessi affetti, che si convengono al moto di ciascuna.” P. Bellori, Descrizzione
delle imagini dipinte da Rafaeli e d’Urbino nelle camere del Palazzo Apostolico Vaticano, Roma 1695, p. 36.
15 Judgment of Hercules, p. 4.
16 Ibidem, p. 5.
17 Ibidem, p. 4.
18 Abbé Dubos, Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting and Music, trans. T. Nugent, vol. 1, London 1748, pp. 220-222.
19 The coinage was strange enough not to take root in subsequent ait theory written in English. Contrary to Shaftesbury’s intentions,
Samuel Johnson defined ‘Tablature’ as “Painting on walls or ceilings”. Johnson, op. cit., vol. 2, sv. Tablature.
20 Ch.A. du Fresnoy, De arte graphica liber, Lutetiae Parisiorum 1668; L 'art depeinture de Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, Traduit
en Franęois, avec des remarques necessaires & tres-amples [par Roger de Piles], Paris 1668; Ch.A. du Fresnoy, The Art of Painting, trans.
J. Diyden, London 1695. In his translation and commentaries, de Piles interpreted Dufresnoy’s original to suit his own views on ait. Diyden,
in turn, translated de Piles’ text rather than the Latin original. L. Lipking, The Shifting Nature of Authority in Versions of De arte graphica,
“Journal of Aesthetics and Ait Criticism”, 23, 1965, pp. 489^193. De Piles elaborated his Observations into ftill-fledge treatise on painting
which was published in English as The Art of Painting and the Lives of the Painters, London 1706. Shaftesbury did not mention this book.