PART II. either dignified or forcible; and whose tone of colouring is too much below that of nature to Of improved please the mere organs of sense; but whose Perception. productions have, nevertheless, always held the CHAP. I. highest rank in the art; and, as far as the mere art and science of painting are concerned, are unquestionably among its most perfect produc tions. 6. The taste for them, however, is, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed, entirely acquired*; and acquired by the association of ideas: for, as great skill and power, and a masterly facility of execution, in any liberal art, raise our admiration, and consequently excite pleasing and exalted ideas; we, by a natural and imperceptible process of the mind, associate these ideas with those excited by the productions of these arts; and thus transfer the merit of the workman to the work. There is, however, another reason why we value facility of execution in works of this kind, which shall be explained hereafter. 7. It is upon the same principle that we prefer an original to a copy: for a copy may be equally exact in imitation, equally correct and dignified in expression, and display a tone of * Discourses. colouring and distribution of light and shade PART II. equally pleasing to the sense; whence none but CHAP. I. the most acute and experienced judges of the Of improved art can distinguish the one from the other: but Perception. the copy will never have that masterly intelli gence 8. This intelligence is often more prominent and striking in a drawing or slight sketch, than in a finished production: whence persons, who have acquired this refined or artificial taste, generally value them more; since finishing often blunts or conceals this excellence: but then the drawings or sketches so valued must be the works of great painters, who knew how to finish; for, from their perfect knowledge, is derived the intelligence, which they are enabled to display in their imperfect exertions of it. The drawings of a mere draftsman are never highly esteemed, however excellently designed or brilliantly executed; a loose incorrect sketch of Rembrandt or Salvator Rosa being always preferred by persons conversant in the art, to the PART II. most elaborate productions of the light and bril liant pens of Pietro Testa and La Fage. CHAP. I. Of improved 9. Collectors of pictures and drawings are Perception. often ridiculed for paying great prices for slight or juvenile productions of great artists; and it must be owned that vanity, and a silly desire of possessing what is rare, are often the motives for such purchases. But, nevertheless, they are, in many instances, of a more liberal and more reasonable kind: for, by the association of ideas, we often trace a connection between the earliest and the latest-between the most imperfect and the most perfect productions of a great master, which makes, not only his slight sketches, but his boyish studies interesting. The question, therefore, which is often insultingly put to such collectors, "would you give such a sum for this, if the artist had done nothing better?" does not rest upon a full or fair statement of the case: for the collector might very candidly answer, no-without incurring any just imputation of false taste, or servile deference to the authority of great names. 10. When I say that the colouring of the great Venetian masters is too much below the tone of nature to please the mere organs of sense, I mean, of course, the unimproved organs of sense: for I am well aware that even the PART II. mere pleasures of sense are so far under the in- CHAP. I. fluence of mind, and liable to be modified by Of improved habit, that they may, in some instances, be made Perception. to descend by an inverted scale, from a higher to a lower stimulus, instead of ascending, in their natural progression, from a lower to a higher. But of this, however, I recollect no instance but in those of hearing and sight, which are so intimately connected with mental sympathies that they naturally fall under the influence of the mind. No person, I believe, unacquainted with music, ever preferred the tone of a violoncello to that of a flute-yet, when it is perceived to be so much rore copious, and so much better adapted to all the scientific as well as expressive compositions in music, which require a more extensive scale of harmony, and a more refined display of chromatic variation, the understanding so far influences the ear, that I have frequently met with persons, who had learned to think even the tones of it pleasanter. Upon the same principle, I believe that no person unacquainted with the art of painting ever preferred the colouring of Titian to that of Denner or Vander Werf: but, nevertheless, when it is discovered how much better adapted it is to fulfil all the great purposes of the art, the eye by degrees PART. II. assents to the testimony of the mind, and learns to feel it more pleasant. CHAP. I. Of improved 11. Though the pleasures, which painting Perception. affords to the mass of mankind, be derived entirely from the artifice and trick of imitation; yet to refined judges, who have accustomed their minds to seek for merits of a higher kind, all this artifice and trick, and even extreme attention to exactitude, if it be ostentatiously displayed, are offensive: for experience, by detecting the artifice, teaches us to despise it; and how much soever we may be delighted with the results of care and labour, we do not like that the means, by which they are produced, should be displayed with them; as they not only divide the attention, and obstruct all sympathy with the expression, but proclaim that to have been done with toil and difficulty, a principal part of whose merit should consist in a masterly display of ease and intelligence; such as might be supposed to proceed from supernatural inspiration. 12. If, however, the defects of exactitude in imitation appear to proceed from want of knowledge or power, instead of want of care and attention, they are more glaringly offensive to the learned than to the ignorant; especially if they extend to those parts or properties of the object, which belong to its general nature, or to |