L A V. Of Sight. 11. Smoothness being properly a quality per- CHAP. ceivable only by the touch, and applied metaphorically to the objects of the other senses, we often apply it very improperly to those of vision; assigning smoothness, as a cause of visible beauty, to things, which, though smooth to the touch, cast the most sharp, harsh, and angular reflections of light upon the eye; and these reflections are all that the eye feels or naturally perceives; its perception of projecting form or tangible smoothness being, as before observed, entirely artificial and acquired; and, therefore, unconnected with pure sensation. Such are all objects of cut glass or polished metal; as may be seen by the manner in which painters imitate them: for, as the imitations of painting extend only to the visible qualities of bodies, they show those visible qualities fairly and impartially-distinct from all others, which the habitual concurrence of other senses has joined with them in the mind, in our perceptions of them in nature. Yet the imitative representation of such objects in painting is far less harsh and dazzling than the effects of them in reality for there are no materials, that a painter can employ, capable of expressing the sharpness and brilliancy of those angular reflections of the collected and condensed rays, which are emitted from the surfaces of polished nietals; so that the only way of imitating them F CHAP. Of Sight. with any tolerable success is to reduce the general tone of the picture to a degree far below nature; by which means the imperfect imitations of these very bright objects may be brought into unison with the rest. This arti fice is manifest in most of the pictures painted for effect by the great Venetian and Flemish masters; particularly Titian and Rembrandt. ; 12. I do not mean, however, to assert or insinuate that these brilliant objects are not really beautiful, especially in composition; where, to fill the scale of harmony, we must ascend to the highest pitch of brightness, and even sharpness, as well as descend to the lowest degree of mellowness and obscurity, that is compatible with vision. But what I contend for is that the visible beauty of such objects does not consist in their smoothness, according to the hypothesis of an eloquent writer*, they being the direct reverse of smooth to the eye. 13. The reflections from the polished coats of very sleek and pampered animals are also harsh and angular, though in a less degree; and the outlines of their bodies sharp and edgy: wherefore, whatever visible beauties they may possess, do not consist in their smoothness. 14. Neat new buildings also, and level lawns intersected by gravel walks marked out in exact * Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, Part III. L. xiv. lines, or winding canals distinctly bounded by shaven banks, may be properly called smooth, if we mean smoothness to the touch: but, to the eye, they present nothing but harsh and discordant oppositions of colour, distinguished by crude and abrupt lines, and only diversified by formal and angular masses of light and shadow. The only quality in visible objects, which is at all analogous to smoothness in tangible bodies, is the even monotony of a billiard-table or bowling-green; and if the bowling-green be ridged like a corn field, and the ridges covered with smooth turf, it will be exactly analogous to the undulating smoothness of tangible surfaces: yet, I doubt much whether even the love of system would have power to induce any person to find much beauty in either of these objects; though I hold that love to be full as potent as any other, and perhaps more so: for I think that affections, which are generated in the brain, are generally more vigorous, and always more permanent, than those which spring up in the heart. 15. I do not mean, however, to deny or depreciate the charms of neatness, which is so grateful in itself, and so necessary to the comfort and well being of man, as I shall show in the proper place; but it forms no part of that merely visible beauty, abstracted from all men СНАР, V. Of Sight. CHAP. V. Of Sight. tal sympathies or intellectual fitness, which is at present the subject of inquiry. 16. This consists, according to the principles which I have endeavoured to establish, in harmonious, but yet brilliant and contrasted com→ binations of light, shade, and colour; blended, but not confused; and broken, but not cut, into masses and it is not peculiarly in straight or curve, taper or spiral, long or short, little or great objects, that we are to seek for these; but in such as display to the eye intricacy of parts and variety of tint and surface. 17. Such are animals which have loose, shaggy, and curly hair; trees, whose branches are spread into irregular forms, and exhibit broken and diversified masses of foliage, and whose trunks are varied with mosses and lichens, or enriched with ivy; buildings, that are mouldering into ruin *, whose sharp angles are soft "And time hath mouldered into beauty many a tower," is one of the few happy expressions to be found in Mr. Mason's " English Garden.” According to Mr. Price, however, beauty, even in architecture, implies the freshness of youth; or, at least, a state of high and perfect preservation; and buildings are mouldered out of beauty into picturesqueness. Vol. II. p. 282, &c. and Dialog. Who shall ever understand the English language, if new and uncouth words are thus to deprive those sanctioned by long usage of their authorised and established meaning? ened by decay, and whose crude and uniform tints are mellowed and diversified by weatherstains and wall plants; streams, that flow alternately smooth and agitated, between broken or sedgy banks, reflecting, sometimes clearly, and sometimes indistinctly, the various masses of rock or foliage, that hang over them; in short, almost all those objects in nature or art, which my friend Mr. Price has so elegantly described, as picturesque: for painting, as it imitates only the visible qualities of bodies, separates those qualities from all others; which the habitual concurrence and co-operation of the other senses have mixt and blended with them, in our ordinary perceptions, from which our ideas are formed. The imitative deceptions of this art unmask the habitual deceptions of sight, as those of the ventriloquist do the habitual de? ceptions of hearing, by showing that mere modifications upon one flat surface can exhibit to the eye the semblance of various projecting bodies at different degrees of distance from each other, in the same manner as the mere modifications of one voice could convey to the ear the semblance of different voices coming in different directions, and from places differing in their degrees of proximity. Hence it was with some difficulty that the nature of painting could be explained to the boy, restored to sight by Chiselden, even after his eyes had acquired all the F S CHAP. V. Of Sight. |