that the artists should choose to perpetuate on their canvas such figures, animals, trees, buildings, &c. as he should wish, if he saw them in nature, to remove from his sight. He might afterwards, however, begin to observe, that among objects which to him appeared void of every kind of attraction, the painters had decided reasons of preference; whether from their strongly marked peculiarity of character, from the variety produced by sudden and irregular deviation, from the manner in which the rugged and broken parts caught the light, and from those lights being often opposed to some deep shadow, or from the rich and mellow tints produced by various stages of decay; all of which he had passed by without noticing, or had merely thought them ugly, but now began to look at with some interest: he would find at the same time, that there were quite a sufficient number of objects, which the painter would perfectly agree with him in calling ugly, without any addition or qualifica tion. Such observations as I have just supposed to be made by a single person, must have gradually occurred to a variety of observers during the progress of the art: many of them may have seen the artists at work, and remarked the pleasure they seemed to take in imitating by spirited strokes of the pencil, any rough and broken objects, any strongly marked peculiarity of character, or of light and shadow; and may have observed at the same time, with what comparative slowness and caution they proceeded, when the correct symmetry, the delicate and insensible transitions of colour, and of light and shadow in a beautiful human face or body were to be expressed; and that although the picture, when finished in its highest perfection, would be the pride and glory of the art, such a real object would to all be yet more enchanting. They might thence be led to conclude, that beauty (and grandeur stands upon the same footing) whether real or imitated, is a source of delight eyes which all men of liberal minds may claim in common with the painter: that mere ugliness is no less disgusting to him, than to the rest of the world; but that a num¬ ber of objects, neither grand, nor beautiful, nor ugly, are in a manner the peculiar property of the painter and his art, being by them first illustrated, and brought into notice and general observation. When such an idea had once begun to prevail, it was very natural that a word should be invented, and soon be commonly made use of, which discriminated the character of such objects, by their relation to the artist himself, or to his work: we find accordingly that the Italians, among whom painting most flourished, invented the word pittoresco, which marks the relation to the painter, and which the French, with a slight change, have adopted; while the English use the word picturesque, as related to the production, What has just been said, will, I trust, be thought to account with some probability for the origin of the term, as well as for the distinction of the character, and likewise to point out the reasons, why roughness, sudden deviation, and irregularity, are in a more peculiar manner suited to the painter, than the opposite, and more popular qualities of smoothness, undulation, and symmetry; and to shew that the picturesque may justly claim a title taken from the art of painting, without having an exclusive reference to it. If it be true with respect to landscape, that a scene may, and often does exist, in which the qualities of the picturesque, almost exclusively of those of grandeur and of beauty, prevail; and that persons unacquainted with pictures, either take no interest in such scenes, or even think them ugly, while painters, and lovers of painting, study and admire them: if, on the other hand, a scene may equally exist, in which, as far as the nature of the case will allow, the qualities assigned to the beautiful are alone admitted, and from which those of the picturesque are no less studiously excluded, and that such a scene will at once give delight to every spectator, to the painter no less than all others, and will, by all, without hesitation, be called beautiful*: if this be true, yet still no distinction of character be allowed to exist-what is it, then, which does create a distinction between any two characters? That I shall now wish to examine; and as the right of the picturesque to a character of its own is called in question, I shall do what is very usual in similar cases, inquire into the right of other characters, whose distinction has hitherto been unquestioned: not for the sake of disputing their right, but of establishing that of the picturesque, by shewing on how much stronger and broader foundations it has been built. Envy, and Revenge, are by all acknowledged to be distinct characters; nay both of them, as well as many of our better affections, have been so often per sonified by poets, and imbodied by painters and sculptors, that we have as little doubt of their distinct figurative exist * Letter to Mr. Repton, page 137. |