DOI article:
Jaźwierski, Jacek: "The Judgement of Hercules": Shaftesbury at the Crossroads of Art Theory
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56525#0040
■‘THE JUDGMENT OF HERCULES”. SHAFTESBURY AT THE CROSSROADS OF ART THEORY
39
dubious; but must with ease distinguish it-self, either as historical and moral, or as perspective and merely
natural .”70 71 History and landscape were mutually exclusive and one must have given place to the other. Shaftes-
bury remained the devotee of Felibien’s strict hierarchy of genres based on the nobility of the intelligent
life as opposed to that unanimated. “The merely natural must pay homage to the historical or moral”11 For
Shaftesbury, there is no “Ordonnance or Composition of a Work” without “Subordination”. Like for Plato,
order, which guarantees beauty, requires hierarchy. Pictorial order reflected moral order of the world, with
God providing laws for humans, and humans imposing laws on the rest of nature.
Despite some modest attempts at transgressing the limits of poetical and moral approach to paint-
ing, in Conclusion Shaftesbury strongly restored the supremacy of moral reason over sensual pleasure.
“[N]othing is more fatal, either to Painting, Architecture, or the other Arts, than this false Relish which
is govern’d rather by what immediately strikes the Sense, than by what consequentially and by reflection
pleases the Mind, and satisfies the Thought and Reason.”72 “For of this imitative Art we may justly say,
‘That tho it borrows help indeed from Colours, and uses them, as means, to execute its Designs; it has noth-
ing, however, more wide of its real Aim, or more remote from its Intension, than to make a shew of Col-
ours, or from their mixture, to raise a separate and flattering Pleasure to the SENSE.”73 And in the footnote
he made it clear that “[t]he Pleasure is plainly foreign, and separate, as having no concern or share in the
proper Delight or Entertainment which naturally arises from the Subject, and Workmanship it-self. For the
Subject in respect of Pleasure, as well as Science, is absolutely completed, when the Design is executed,
and the propos’d Imitation once accomplish’d. And this it always is the best, when the Colours are most
subdu’d, and made subservient.”74
Shaftesbury recognized the visual requirements of painting but restrained from applying them to his-
tory pictures which aimed at moral instruction rather than sensual pleasure. His preference of the history
was consistent with rhetorical tradition revived by Junius and adopted by French Academy. It emphasized
the narrative and the expressions of figures as the means of conveying poetical meaning, dramatic sense
of action and its moral significance. The principles of order, unity and the whole responded to the require-
ments of reason as a residuum of moral judgment and not to the sensual eye. Nothing in the picture should
arrest the gaze on merely visual level and prevent the Platonic journey from the sensual to the rational and
moral.
At the same time, Shaftesbury was looking for critical language to formulate his ideas on art. French
art theory was a natural source of artistic language, with De arte graphica by Dufresnoy and de Piles the
most comprehensive one. But much of what Shaftesbury found there must have appalled him. He must have
decided to retain de Piles’ language while reversing its meaning. He attempted to reinterpret and apply some
of de Piles’ visual concepts, like “the whole” or “one view”, to suit his moral theory of painting but his theory
clearly could not accommodate them. What we witness in his Hercules is the confusion of language rather
than confusion of ideas. His ideas were clear, his language was not.
The source of this clarity was moral philosophy. Shaftesbury considered art as subsidiary to morals and
like morals art became for him black-and-white, with intellectual aspects opposed to visual ones. It is hard to
overlook that his art theory became a victim of this binary way of thinking. Like the hero of his exemplary
picture, he faced the choice between two competitive visions of painting. He made no attempt at reconciling
them - his critical tools being too blunt - but did make a choice based on the moral judgment, not aesthetic
pleasure.
70 Ibidem, p. 34.
71 Ibidem, p. 35.
72 Ibidem, p. 46.
73 Ibidem, pp. 46-47.
74 Ibidem, p. 47.
39
dubious; but must with ease distinguish it-self, either as historical and moral, or as perspective and merely
natural .”70 71 History and landscape were mutually exclusive and one must have given place to the other. Shaftes-
bury remained the devotee of Felibien’s strict hierarchy of genres based on the nobility of the intelligent
life as opposed to that unanimated. “The merely natural must pay homage to the historical or moral”11 For
Shaftesbury, there is no “Ordonnance or Composition of a Work” without “Subordination”. Like for Plato,
order, which guarantees beauty, requires hierarchy. Pictorial order reflected moral order of the world, with
God providing laws for humans, and humans imposing laws on the rest of nature.
Despite some modest attempts at transgressing the limits of poetical and moral approach to paint-
ing, in Conclusion Shaftesbury strongly restored the supremacy of moral reason over sensual pleasure.
“[N]othing is more fatal, either to Painting, Architecture, or the other Arts, than this false Relish which
is govern’d rather by what immediately strikes the Sense, than by what consequentially and by reflection
pleases the Mind, and satisfies the Thought and Reason.”72 “For of this imitative Art we may justly say,
‘That tho it borrows help indeed from Colours, and uses them, as means, to execute its Designs; it has noth-
ing, however, more wide of its real Aim, or more remote from its Intension, than to make a shew of Col-
ours, or from their mixture, to raise a separate and flattering Pleasure to the SENSE.”73 And in the footnote
he made it clear that “[t]he Pleasure is plainly foreign, and separate, as having no concern or share in the
proper Delight or Entertainment which naturally arises from the Subject, and Workmanship it-self. For the
Subject in respect of Pleasure, as well as Science, is absolutely completed, when the Design is executed,
and the propos’d Imitation once accomplish’d. And this it always is the best, when the Colours are most
subdu’d, and made subservient.”74
Shaftesbury recognized the visual requirements of painting but restrained from applying them to his-
tory pictures which aimed at moral instruction rather than sensual pleasure. His preference of the history
was consistent with rhetorical tradition revived by Junius and adopted by French Academy. It emphasized
the narrative and the expressions of figures as the means of conveying poetical meaning, dramatic sense
of action and its moral significance. The principles of order, unity and the whole responded to the require-
ments of reason as a residuum of moral judgment and not to the sensual eye. Nothing in the picture should
arrest the gaze on merely visual level and prevent the Platonic journey from the sensual to the rational and
moral.
At the same time, Shaftesbury was looking for critical language to formulate his ideas on art. French
art theory was a natural source of artistic language, with De arte graphica by Dufresnoy and de Piles the
most comprehensive one. But much of what Shaftesbury found there must have appalled him. He must have
decided to retain de Piles’ language while reversing its meaning. He attempted to reinterpret and apply some
of de Piles’ visual concepts, like “the whole” or “one view”, to suit his moral theory of painting but his theory
clearly could not accommodate them. What we witness in his Hercules is the confusion of language rather
than confusion of ideas. His ideas were clear, his language was not.
The source of this clarity was moral philosophy. Shaftesbury considered art as subsidiary to morals and
like morals art became for him black-and-white, with intellectual aspects opposed to visual ones. It is hard to
overlook that his art theory became a victim of this binary way of thinking. Like the hero of his exemplary
picture, he faced the choice between two competitive visions of painting. He made no attempt at reconciling
them - his critical tools being too blunt - but did make a choice based on the moral judgment, not aesthetic
pleasure.
70 Ibidem, p. 34.
71 Ibidem, p. 35.
72 Ibidem, p. 46.
73 Ibidem, pp. 46-47.
74 Ibidem, p. 47.