Aestheticism in Art. William Hogarth

which he was either unacquainted with, or was new in its kind, I was therefore reduced to an attempt of finding such words as would best answer my own ideas, being now too far engaged to drop the design. Hereupon, having digested the matter as well as I could and thrown it into the form of a book, I submitted it to the judgement of such friends whose sincerity and abilities I could best rely on, determining on their approbation or dislike to publish or destroy it. Their favourable opinion of the manuscript eventually becoming publicly known, it gave such a credit to the undertaking, thus soon changing the countenances of those who had a better opinion of my pencil than my pen, and turned their sneers into expectation especially when the same friends had kindly made me an offer of conducting the work through the press. Here I must acknowledge myself particularly indebted to one gentleman for his corrections and amendment of at least a third part of the wording. Through his absence and avocations, several meets went to the press without any assistance while the rest had the occasional inspection of one or two other friends. If any inaccuracies are be found in the writing, I will readily acknowledge them all as my own, and am, I confess, under no great concern about them, provided the matter in general may be found useful and answerable in the application of it to truth and nature in which material points, if the reader thinks it fit to rectify any mistakes, it will give me a sensible pleasure and do great honour to the work.

      Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, The Canale di Santa Chiara looking north towards the Lagoon, c. 1723–1724. Oil on canvas, 46.7 × 77.9 cm. The Royal Collection, London.

      I now offer to the public a short essay in which I will endeavour to show what the principles are in nature by which we are directed to call the forms of some bodies beautiful, others ugly; some graceful, and others the reverse; by considering more minutely than has been done until now the nature of those lines and their different combinations, which serve to raise the ideas of all the variety of forms imaginable in the mind. At first, perhaps, the whole design, as well as the prints, may seem rather intended to trifle and confound, than to entertain and inform; however, I am persuaded that when the examples in nature, referred to in this essay, are duly considered and examined upon the principles laid down in it, it will be thought worthy of careful and attentive perusal. The prints themselves, too, will, I make no doubt, be examined as attentively, when it is found that almost every figure in them (how oddly so ever they may seem to be grouped together) is referred to singly in the essay, in order to assist the reader’s imagination when the original examples in art or nature are not themselves before him.

      It may be unnecessary to observe that some of the aforementioned are not only the dependents on, but often the only instructors and leaders of the former. In what light, however, they are so considered abroad, may be partly seen by a burlesque representation of them, taken from a print published by Mr Pond and designed by Cav. Ghezzi in Rome. To those, then, whose judgements are unprejudiced, this little work is submitted with most pleasure, because it is from such that I have hitherto received the most obligations and now have reason to express the most candour.

      Therefore I would that my readers be assured, that however they may have been awed and over-born by pompous terms of art, hard names, and the parade of seemingly magnificent collections of pictures and statues, they are in a much fairer way, ladies, as well as gentlemen, of gaining a perfect knowledge of the elegant and beautiful in artificial, as well as natural forms, by considering them in a systematic, but at the same time and familiar way as those who have been prepossessed by dogmatic rules taken from the performances of art only. Nay, I will venture to say, sooner, and more rationally, than even a tolerable painter, who has imbibed the same prejudices.

      The more prevailing the notion may be, that painters and connoisseurs are the only competent judges of things of this sort; the more it becomes necessary to clear up and confirm, as much as possible, what has only been asserted in the foregoing paragraph: that no-one may be deterred, by the want of such previous knowledge, from entering into this inquiry. The reason why gentlemen, who have been inquisitive after knowledge in pictures, are less qualified for our purpose than others, is because their thoughts have been entirely and continually employed and encumbered with considering and retaining the various manners in which pictures are painted, the histories, names, and characters of the masters, together with many other little circumstances belonging to the mechanical part of the art. Little or no time has been allotted for perfecting the ideas they ought to have in their minds, of the objects themselves in nature, for by having thus espoused and adopted their first notions from nothing but imitations, and becoming too often as bigoted to their faults as their beauties, they at length, in a manner, totally neglect, or at least disregard, the works of nature merely because they do not tally with that which their minds are already so strongly prepossessed.

      Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1808. Oil on canvas, 189 × 144 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (28th July 1830), 1830. Oil on canvas, 260 × 325 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps at the Saint-Bernard Pass, 1800. Oil on canvas, 260 × 221 cm. Musée national du château de Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison.

      Were not this a true state of the case, many a reputed capital picture that adorn the cabinets of the curious in all countries would long ago have been committed to the flames. This considered, nor would it have been possible for the Venus and Cupid to have made its way into the principal apartment of a palace.

      It is also evident that the painter’s eye may not be a bit better fitted to receive these new impressions, as he is in like manner too captivated with the works of art for he also is apt to pursue the shadow and drop the substance. This mistake happens chiefly to those who go to Rome to complete their studies; as they naturally will, without the utmost care, take the infectious turn of the connoisseur instead of the painter, and in proportion as they turn by those means bad proficients in their own arts, they become more considerable in that of a connoisseur. As a confirmation of this apparent paradox, it has been observed at all auctions of pictures that the very worst painters fit as the most profound judges and are trusted only, I suppose, on account of their disinterest.

      I apprehend a good deal of this will look more like resentment and a design to invalidate the objections of such as are not likely to set the faults of this work in the most favourable light; than merely for the encouragement, as was said above, of such of my readers, as are neither painters nor connoisseurs and I will be ingenuous enough to confess something of this may be true. However, at the same time, I cannot allow that this alone would have been a sufficient motive to have made me risk giving offence to any, unless another consideration, besides that already alleged, of more consequence to the purpose in hand made it necessary. I mean setting forth, in the stongest colours, the surprising alterations objects seemingly undergo through the prepossessions and prejudices contracted by the mind; fallacies strongly to be guarded against by those who would learn to see objects truly! Although the instances already given are pretty flagrant, though certainly true (as a further confirmation of this and for the consolation of those who may be a little piqued at what has been said), that painters of every condition are stronger instances of the almost unavoidable power of prejudice than any other people.

      What are all the manners, as they are called, of even the greatest masters which are known to differ so much from one another, and all of them from nature, but so many strong proofs of their inviolable attachment to falsehood, converted into established truth in their own eyes by self-opinion? Rubens would, in all probability, have been as much disgusted at the dry manner of Poussin, as Poussin was at the extravagance of Rubens. The prejudices of inferior proficients in favour of the imperfections of their own performances are still more amazing. Their eyes are so quick in discerning the faults of others, while at the same time they are so totally blind to their own! Indeed it would be well for us all if one of Gulliver’s flappers could be placed at our elbows to remind us at every stroke how much prejudice and self-opinion perverts our sight.

      Claude