DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.75271#0076
perform what cannot be possibly done with a pencil ; and a pencil with
a thin liquid only what cannot be done when one has a variety
of colours to manage, especially in oil.
And there is this farther consideration to endear those drawings
we have to us; no more can be had than what are now in being;
no new ones can be made; the number of these must necessarily
diminish by time, and accidents, but cannot be supplied; the world
mull be content with what it has: for though there are ingenious
men endeavouring to tread in the Reps of these prodigies of art,
whose works we are speaking of, there is yet no appearance that
any will equal them, though I am in hopes that our own country
does, or will produce those that will come as near them as any other
nation, I mean as to history Painting, for that we already excel
all others in portraits is indisputable.
The valt pleasure I take in these great curiosities has carried me
perhaps too far: I will only add, that the first Fetches not being
intended to express more than the general ideas, any incorreCtness
in the figures, or perspeCtive, or the like, are not to be esteemed as
faults; exadness was not in the idea; the (ketch, notwithstanding
such seeming faults, may shew a noble thought, and be executed
with a vast spirit, which was all pretended to, and which being per-
formed it may be said to be well drawn, although incorreCt as to
the other matters. But when correction is pretended to, (and this
is always the case of a finished drawing, or picture) then to haye
any defect in drawing (in this sense of the term) is a fault.
a thin liquid only what cannot be done when one has a variety
of colours to manage, especially in oil.
And there is this farther consideration to endear those drawings
we have to us; no more can be had than what are now in being;
no new ones can be made; the number of these must necessarily
diminish by time, and accidents, but cannot be supplied; the world
mull be content with what it has: for though there are ingenious
men endeavouring to tread in the Reps of these prodigies of art,
whose works we are speaking of, there is yet no appearance that
any will equal them, though I am in hopes that our own country
does, or will produce those that will come as near them as any other
nation, I mean as to history Painting, for that we already excel
all others in portraits is indisputable.
The valt pleasure I take in these great curiosities has carried me
perhaps too far: I will only add, that the first Fetches not being
intended to express more than the general ideas, any incorreCtness
in the figures, or perspeCtive, or the like, are not to be esteemed as
faults; exadness was not in the idea; the (ketch, notwithstanding
such seeming faults, may shew a noble thought, and be executed
with a vast spirit, which was all pretended to, and which being per-
formed it may be said to be well drawn, although incorreCt as to
the other matters. But when correction is pretended to, (and this
is always the case of a finished drawing, or picture) then to haye
any defect in drawing (in this sense of the term) is a fault.