Seven Discourses on Art

J >> Joshua Reynolds >> Seven Discourses on Art


To Bassano we may add Paul Veronese and Tintoret, for their entire
inattention to what is justly esteemed the most essential part of our
art, the expression of the passions. Notwithstanding these glaring
deficiencies, we justly esteem their works; but it must be remembered
that they do not please from those defects, but from their great
excellences of another kind, and in spite of such transgressions. These
excellences, too, as far as they go, are founded in the truth of general
nature. They tell the truth, though not the whole truth.

By these considerations, which can never be too frequently impressed, may
be obviated two errors which I observed to have been, formerly at least,
the most prevalent, and to be most injurious to artists: that of thinking
taste and genius to have nothing to do with reason, and that of taking
particular living objects for nature.

I shall now say something on that part of taste which, as I have hinted
to you before, does not belong so much to the external form of things,
but is addressed to the mind, and depends on its original frame, or, to
use the expression, the organisation of the soul; I mean the imagination
and the passions. The principles of these are as invariable as the
former, and are to be known and reasoned upon in the same manner, by an
appeal to common sense deciding upon the common feelings of mankind. This
sense, and these feelings, appear to me of equal authority, and equally
conclusive.

Now this appeal implies a general uniformity and agreement in the minds
of men. It would be else an idle and vain endeavour to establish rules
of art; it would be pursuing a phantom to attempt to move affections with
which we were entirely unacquainted. We have no reason to suspect there
is a greater difference between our minds than between our forms, of
which, though there are no two alike, yet there is a general similitude
that goes through the whole race of mankind; and those who have
cultivated their taste can distinguish what is beautiful or deformed, or,
in other words, what agrees with or what deviates from the general idea
of nature, in one case as well as in the other.

The internal fabric of our mind, as well as the external form of our
bodies, being nearly uniform, it seems then to follow, of course, that as
the imagination is incapable of producing anything originally of itself,
and can only vary and combine these ideas with which it is furnished by
means of the senses, there will be, of course, an agreement in the
imaginations as in the senses of men. There being this agreement, it
follows that in all cases, in our lightest amusements as well as in our
most serious actions and engagements of life, we must regulate our
affections of every kind by that of others. The well-disciplined mind
acknowledges this authority, and submits its own opinion to the public
voice.

It is from knowing what are the general feelings and passions of mankind
that we acquire a true idea of what imagination is; though it appears as
if we had nothing to do but to consult our own particular sensations, and
these were sufficient to ensure us from all error and mistake.

A knowledge of the disposition and character of the human mind can be
acquired only by experience: a great deal will be learned, I admit, by a
habit of examining what passes in our bosoms, what are our own motives of
action, and of what kind of sentiments we are conscious on any occasion.
We may suppose a uniformity, and conclude that the same effect will be
produced by the same cause in the minds of others. This examination will
contribute to suggest to us matters of inquiry; but we can never be sure
that our own sensations are true and right till they are confirmed by
more extensive observation.

One man opposing another determines nothing but a general union of minds,
like a general combination of the forces of all mankind, makes a strength
that is irresistible. In fact, as he who does not know himself does not
know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not
know others knows himself but very imperfectly.

A man who thinks he is guarding himself against Prejudices by resisting
the authority of others, leaves open every avenue to singularity, vanity,
self-conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices, all tending to warp the
judgment and prevent the natural operation of his faculties.

This submission to others is a deference which we owe, and indeed are
forced involuntarily to pay.

In fact we are never satisfied with our opinions till they are ratified
and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and
wrangle for ever; we endeavour to get men to come to us when we do not go
to them.

He therefore who is acquainted with the works which have pleased
different ages and different countries, and has formed his opinion on
them, has more materials and more means of knowing what is analogous to
the mind of man than he who is conversant only with the works of his own
age or country. What has pleased, and continues to please, is likely to
please again: hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable
foundation they must ever stand.

This search and study of the history of the mind ought not to be confined
to one art only. It is by the analogy that one art bears to another that
many things are ascertained which either were but faintly seen, or,
perhaps, would not have been discovered at all if the inventor had not
received the first hints from the practices of a sister art on a similar
occasion. The frequent allusions which every man who treats of any art
is obliged to draw from others in order to illustrate and confirm his
principles, sufficiently show their near connection and inseparable
relation.

All arts having the same general end, which is to please, and addressing
themselves to the same faculties through the medium of the senses, it
follows that their rules and principles must have as great affinity as
the different materials and the different organs or vehicles by which
they pass to the mind will permit them to retain.

We may therefore conclude that the real substance, as it may be called,
of what goes under the name of taste, is fixed and established in the
nature of things; that there are certain and regular causes by which the
imagination and passions of men are affected; and that the knowledge of
these causes is acquired by a laborious and diligent investigation of
nature, and by the same slow progress as wisdom or knowledge of every
kind, however instantaneous its operations may appear when thus acquired.

It has been often observed that the good and virtuous man alone can
acquire this true or just relish, even of works of art. This opinion
will not appear entirely without foundation when we consider that the
same habit of mind which is acquired by our search after truth in the
more serious duties of life, is only transferred to the pursuit of
lighter amusements: the same disposition, the same desire to find
something steady, substantial, and durable, on which the mind can lean,
as it were, and rest with safety. The subject only is changed. We
pursue the same method in our search after the idea of beauty and
perfection in each; of virtue, by looking forwards beyond ourselves to
society, and to the whole; of arts, by extending our views in the same
manner to all ages and all times.

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as
fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that
will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and
habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things.

To distinguish how much has solid foundation, we may have recourse to the
same proof by which some hold wit ought to be tried--whether it preserves
itself when translated. That wit is false which can subsist only in one
language; and that picture which pleases only one age or one nation, owes
its reception to some local or accidental association of ideas.

We may apply this to every custom and habit of life. Thus the general
principles of urbanity, politeness, or civility, have been ever the same
in all nations; but the mode in which they are dressed is continually
varying. The general idea of showing respect is by making yourself less:
but the manner, whether by bowing the body, kneeling, prostration,
pulling off the upper part of our dress, or taking away the lower, is a
matter of habit. It would be unjust to conclude that all ornaments,
because they were at first arbitrarily contrived, are therefore
undeserving of our attention; on the contrary, he who neglects the
cultivation of those ornaments, acts contrarily to nature and reason. As
life would be imperfect without its highest ornaments, the arts, so these
arts themselves would be imperfect without _their_ ornaments.

Though we by no means ought to rank these with positive and substantial
beauties, yet it must be allowed that a knowledge of both is essentially
requisite towards forming a complete, whole, and perfect taste. It is in
reality from the ornaments that arts receive their peculiar character and
complexion; we may add that in them we find the characteristical mark of
a national taste, as by throwing up a feather in the air we know which
way the wind blows, better than by a more heavy matter.

The striking distinction between the works of the Roman, Bolognian, and
Venetian schools, consists more in that general effect which is produced
by colours than in the more profound excellences of the art; at least it
is from thence that each is distinguished and known at first sight. As
it is the ornaments rather than the proportions of architecture which at
the first glance distinguish the different orders from each other; the
Doric is known by its triglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and the
Corinthian by its acanthus.

What distinguishes oratory from a cold narration, is a more liberal
though chaste use of these ornaments which go under the name of
figurative and metaphorical expressions; and poetry distinguishes itself
from oratory by words and expressions still more ardent and glowing. What
separates and distinguishes poetry is more particularly the ornament of
_verse_; it is this which gives it its character, and is an essential,
without which it cannot exist. Custom has appropriated different metre
to different kinds of composition, in which the world is not perfectly
agreed. In England the dispute is not yet settled which is to be
preferred, rhyme or blank verse. But however we disagree about what
these metrical ornaments shall be, that some metre is essentially
necessary is universally acknowledged.

In poetry or eloquence, to determine how far figurative or metaphorical
language may proceed, and when it begins to be affectation or beside the
truth, must be determined by taste, though this taste we must never
forget is regulated and formed by the presiding feelings of mankind, by
those works which have approved themselves to all times and all persons.

Thus, though eloquence has undoubtedly an essential and intrinsic
excellence, and immovable principles common to all languages, founded in
the nature of our passions and affections, yet it has its ornaments and
modes of address which are merely arbitrary. What is approved in the
Eastern nations as grand and majestic, would be considered by the Greeks
and Romans as turgid and inflated; and they, in return, would be thought
by the Orientals to express themselves in a cold and insipid manner.

We may add likewise to the credit of ornaments, that it is by their means
that art itself accomplishes its purpose. Fresnoy calls colouring, which
is one of the chief ornaments of painting, _lena sororis_, that which
procures lovers and admirers to the more valuable excellences of the art.

It appears to be the same right turn of mind which enables a man to
acquire the _truth_, or the just idea of what is right in the ornaments,
as in the more stable principles of art. It has still the same centre of
perfection, though it is the centre of a smaller circle.

To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in which there is allowed to
be a good or, bad taste. The component parts of dress are continually
changing from great to little, from short to long, but the general form
still remains; it is still the same general dress which is comparatively
fixed, though on a very slender foundation, but it is on this which
fashion must rest. He who invents with the most success, or dresses in,
the best taste, would probably, from the same sagacity employed to
greater purposes, have discovered equal skill, or have formed the same
correct taste in the highest labours of art.

I have mentioned taste in dress, which is certainly one of the lowest
subjects to which this word is applied; yet, as I have before observed,
there is a right even here, however narrow its foundation respecting the
fashion of any particular nation. But we have still more slender means
of determining, in regard to the different customs of different ages or
countries, to which to give the preference, since they seem to be all
equally removed from nature.

If an European, when he has cut off his beard, and put false hair on his
head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as unlike
nature as he can possibly make it; and having rendered them immovable by
the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the whole with flour, laid on by
a machine with the utmost regularity; if, when thus attired he issues
forth, he meets a Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed as much time at his
toilet, and laid on with equal care and attention his yellow and red
ochre on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges most
becoming; whoever despises the other for this attention to the fashion of
his country, whichever of these two first feels himself provoked to
laugh, is the barbarian.

All these fashions are very innocent, neither worth disquisition, nor any
endeavour to alter them, as the change would, in all probability, be
equally distant from nature. The only circumstances against which
indignation may reasonably be moved, are where the operation is painful
or destructive of health, such as is practised at Otahaiti, and the
straight lacing of the English ladies; of the last of which, how
destructive it must be to health and long life, the professor of anatomy
took an opportunity of proving a few days since in this Academy.

It is in dress as in things of greater consequence. Fashions originate
from those only who have the high and powerful advantages of rank, birth,
and fortune; as many of the ornaments of art, those at least for which no
reason can be given, are transmitted to us, are adopted, and acquire
their consequence from the company in which we have been used to see
them. As Greece and Rome are the fountains from whence have flowed all
kinds of excellence, to that veneration which they have a right to claim
for the pleasure and knowledge which they have afforded us, we
voluntarily add our approbation of every ornament and every custom that
belonged to them, even to the fashion of their dress. For it may be
observed that, not satisfied with them in their own place, we make no
difficulty of dressing statues of modern heroes or senators in the
fashion of the Roman armour or peaceful robe; we go so far as hardly to
bear a statue in any other drapery.

The figures of the great men of those nations have come down to us in
sculpture. In sculpture remain almost all the excellent specimens of
ancient art. We have so far associated personal dignity to the persons
thus represented, and the truth of art to their manner of representation,
that it is not in our power any longer to separate them. This is not so
in painting; because, having no excellent ancient portraits, that
connection was never formed. Indeed, we could no more venture to paint a
general officer in a Roman military habit, than we could make a statue in
the present uniform. But since we have no ancient portraits, to show how
ready we are to adopt those kind of prejudices, we make the best
authority among the moderns serve the same purpose. The great variety of
excellent portraits with which Vandyke has enriched this nation, we are
not content to admire for their real excellence, but extend our
approbation even to the dress which happened to be the fashion of that
age. We all very well remember how common it was a few years ago for
portraits to be drawn in this Gothic dress, and this custom is not yet
entirely laid aside. By this means it must be acknowledged very ordinary
pictures acquired something of the air and effect of the works of
Vandyke, and appeared therefore at first sight to be better pictures than
they really were; they appeared so, however, to those only who had the
means of making this association, for when made, it was irresistible. But
this association is nature, and refers to that Secondary truth that comes
from conformity to general prejudice and opinion; it is therefore not
merely fantastical. Besides the prejudice which we have in favour of
ancient dresses, there may be likewise other reasons, amongst which we
may justly rank the simplicity of them, consisting of little more than
one single piece of drapery, without those whimsical capricious forms by
which all other dresses are embarrassed.

Thus, though it is from the prejudice we have in favour of the ancients,
who have taught us architecture, that we have adopted likewise their
ornaments; and though we are satisfied that neither nature nor reason is
the foundation of those beauties which we imagine we see in that art, yet
if any one persuaded of this truth should, therefore, invent new orders
of equal beauty, which we will suppose to be possible, yet they would not
please, nor ought he to complain, since the old has that great advantage
of having custom and prejudice on its side. In this case we leave what
has every prejudice in its favour to take that which will have no
advantage over what we have left, but novelty, which soon destroys
itself, and, at any rate, is but a weak antagonist against custom.

These ornaments, having the right of possession, ought not to be removed
but to make room for not only what has higher pretensions, but such
pretensions as will balance the evil and confusion which innovation
always brings with it.

To this we may add, even the durability of the materials will often
contribute to give a superiority to one object over another. Ornaments
in buildings, with which taste is principally concerned, are composed of
materials which last longer than those of which dress is composed; it,
therefore, makes higher pretensions to our favour and prejudice.

Some attention is surely required to what we can no more get rid of than
we can go out of ourselves. We are creatures of prejudice; we neither
can nor ought to eradicate it; we must only regulate, it by reason, which
regulation by reason is, indeed, little more than obliging the lesser,
the focal and temporary prejudices, to give way to those which are more
durable and lasting.

He, therefore, who in his practice of portrait painting wishes to dignify
his subject, which we will suppose to be a lady, will not paint her in
the modern dress, the familiarity of which alone is sufficient to destroy
all dignity. He takes care that his work shall correspond to those ideas
and that imagination which he knows will regulate the judgment of others,
and, therefore, dresses his figure something with the general air of the
antique for the sake of dignity, and preserves something of the modern
for the sake of likeness. By this conduct his works correspond with
those prejudices which we have in favour of what we continually see; and
the relish of the antique simplicity corresponds with what we may call
the, more learned and scientific prejudice.

There was a statue made not long since of Voltaire, which the sculptor,
not having that respect for the prejudices of mankind which he ought to
have, has made entirely naked, and as meagre and emaciated as the
original is said to be. The consequence is what might be expected; it
has remained in the sculptor's shop, though it was intended as a public
ornament and a public honour to Voltaire, as it was procured at the
expense of his cotemporary wits and admirers.

Whoever would reform a nation, supposing a bad taste to prevail in it,
will not accomplish his purpose by going directly against the stream of
their prejudices. Men's minds must be prepared to receive what is new to
them. Reformation is a work of time. A national taste, however wrong it
may be, cannot be totally change at once; we must yield a little to the
prepossession which has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring
people to adopt what would offend them if endeavoured to be introduced by
storm. When Battisto Franco was employed, in conjunction with Titian,
Paul Veronese, and Tintoret, to adorn the library of St. Mark, his work,
Vasari says, gave less satisfaction than any of the others: the dry
manner of the Roman school was very ill calculated to please eyes that
had been accustomed to the luxuriance, splendour, and richness of
Venetian colouring. Had the Romans been the judges of this work,
probably the determination would have been just contrary; for in the more
noble parts of the art Battisto Franco was, perhaps, not inferior to any
of his rivals.

* * * * *

Gentlemen,--It has been the main scope and principal end of this
discourse to demonstrate the reality of a standard in taste, as well as
in corporeal beauty; that a false or depraved taste is a thing as well
known, as easily discovered, as anything that is deformed, misshapen, or
wrong in our form or outward make; and that this knowledge is derived
from the uniformity of sentiments among mankind, from whence proceeds the
knowledge of what are the general habits of nature, the result of which
is an idea of perfect beauty.

If what has been advanced be true, that besides this beauty or truth
which is formed on the uniform eternal and immutable laws of nature, and
which of necessity can be but one; that besides this one immutable verity
there are likewise what we have called apparent or secondary truths
proceeding from local and temporary prejudices, fancies, fashions, or
accidental connection of ideas; if it appears that these last have still
their foundation, however slender, in the original fabric of our minds,
it follows that all these truths or beauties deserve and require the
attention of the artist in proportion to their stability or duration, or
as their influence is more or less extensive. And let me add that as
they ought not to pass their just bounds, so neither do they, in a well-
regulated taste, at all prevent or weaken the influence of these general
principles, which alone can give to art its true and permanent dignity.

To form this just taste is undoubtedly in your own power, but it is to
reason and philosophy that you must have recourse; from them we must
borrow the balance by which is to be weighed and estimated the value of
every pretension that intrudes itself on your notice.

The general objection which is made to the introduction of philosophy
into the regions of taste is, that it checks and restrains the flights of
the imagination, and gives that timidity which an over-carefulness not to
err or act contrary to reason is likely to produce.

It is not so. Fear is neither reason nor philosophy. The true spirit of
philosophy by giving knowledge gives a manly confidence, and substitutes
rational firmness in the place of vain presumption. A man of real taste
is always a man of judgment in other respects; and those inventions which
either disdain or shrink from reason, are generally, I fear, more like
the dreams of a distempered brain than the exalted enthusiasm of a sound
and true genius. In the midst of the highest flights of fancy or
imagination, reason ought to preside from first to last, though I admit
her more powerful operation is upon reflection.

I cannot help adding that some of the greatest names of antiquity, and
those who have most distinguished themselves in works of genius and
imagination, were equally eminent for their critical skill. Plato,
Aristotle, Cicero, and Horace; and among the moderns, Boileau, Corneille,
Pope, and Dryden, are at least instances of genius not being destroyed by
attention or subjection to rules and science. I should hope, therefore,
that the natural consequence likewise of what has been said would be to
excite in you a desire of knowing the principles and conduct of the great
masters of our art, and respect and veneration for them when known.