Читать книгу Aestheticism in Art - William Hogarth - Страница 6

It may be imagined that the greatest part of the effects of beauty results from the symmetry of the beautiful parts in the object, but I am very well persuaded that this prevailing notion will soon appear to have little or no foundation.

It may indeed have properties of greater consequence, such as propriety, fitness, and use; and yet but hardly serve the purposes of pleasing the eye, merely on the score of beauty.

We have, indeed, in our nature, a love of imitation from infancy, and the eye is often entertained, as well as surprised, with mimicry, and delighted with the exactness of counterparts. However, this always gives way to the superior love of variety, and soon grows tiresome.

If the uniformity of figures, parts, or lines were truly the chief cause of beauty, the more uniformly their appearances were kept, the more pleasure the eye would receive; but this is so far from being the case that when the mind has been satisfied once all of the parts are similar to one another with so exact a uniformity, so as to preserve to the whole the character of fitness to stand, to move, to sink, to swim, to fly, etc. without losing the balance, the eye is rejoiced to see the object turned and shifted so as to vary these uniform appearances. Thus the profile of most objects, including faces, is rather more pleasing than their full fronts.

Whence it is clear, the pleasure does not arise from seeing the exact resemblance which one side bears the other, but from the knowledge that they do so on account of fitness, with design, and for use. For when the head of a beautiful woman is turned a little to one side, which takes away from the exact similarity of the two halves of the face, and is somewhat reclining, so varying still more from the straight and parallel lines of a formal front face, it is always looked upon as most pleasing angle of her face. This is accordingly said to be a graceful air of the head.

It is a constant rule in composition in painting to avoid regularity. When we view a building or any other object in reality, we have it in our power, by shifting the ground, to take that view of it which pleases us best. In consequence of this, the painter, if he is left to his own choice, takes the subject on an angle, rather than focusing on its front, as is most agreeable to the eye. The regularity of the lines is taken away by their running into perspective, without losing the idea of fitness. When the artist is obliged to give the front of a building, with all its equalities and parallelisms, he generally breaks, as it is termed, such disagreeable appearances, by throwing a tree before it, or the shadow of an imaginary cloud, or some other object that may answer the same purpose of adding variety, which is the same as taking away uniformity.

If uniform objects were agreeable, why is there such care taken to contrast and vary all the limbs of a statue? In short, whatever appears to be fit and proper to answer great purposes, greatly satisfies the mind and pleases on that account. Uniformity is of this kind. We find it necessary, to some degree, to give the idea of rest and motion without the possibility of falling. But when any such purposes can be as well-effected by more irregular parts, the eye is always better pleased on the account of variety.

How pleasing is the idea of firmness in standing conveyed to the eye by the three elegant claws of a table, the three feet of a tea-lamp, or the celebrated tripod of the ancients! Thus you see regularity, uniformity, and symmetry please only as they serve to give the idea of fitness.

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1484–1485. Tempera on canvas, 172.5 × 278.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.