-
Articles/Ads
Article DISSERTATIONS ON THE POLITE ARTS. ← Page 2 of 3 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Dissertations On The Polite Arts.
Colours and sounds have sympathies and antipathies among themselves . Nature has a right to unite them according to her will , but it is-art that should do it according to rules . It is not sufficient that it burls not the taste , but it shomd . flatter it , and flatter it as much as it is capable of being flattered . " ~ This remark may be applied equally to poetry . Words , which
are its instruments or colours , have in poetry a certain degree of beauty , which they have not in common language : they are the smooth ashlar , the marble chosen , polished , and cut , which make the edifice more rich , beautiful , and substantial . There is a certain choice of words , turns , ancl above all a certain regular harmony , which gives its language something supernatural , that charms and lifts us above ourselves .
WHEREIN ELOQUENCE AND ARCHITECTURE DIFFER FROM THE OTHER ARTS . WE must recal for a moment the division which we made of arts in the First Dissertation * . There were some invented from want alone ; others for pleasure ; and some owed their birth first to necessity , but having since found out the way to adorn
themselves with beauties , they began to be reckoned in the number of those which we call Polite Arts . Thus architecture , having changed those caves which necessity had dug out for the retreat of mankind into elegant and commodious dwellings , deserved a distinction among the arts which it had not before . The same observation holds good with respect to eloquence .
The necessity which men had to communicate their thoughts and sentiments to one another , made them orators and historians , as soon as they could make use of words . Experience , time , and taste , added new degrees of perfection ' to their discourse . They'formed au art which is called eloquence , and which , for the pleasure it a'ffprds to the mind , may share the palm with poetry : its relation
and resemblance with poetry indeed gave it occasion to borrow and deck itself with those ornaments which mi ght suit it : and hence we have round periods , measured antitheses , striking pictures , and allegories well sustained : hence also the choice of words , the arrangement of phrases , the uniform progression of harmony . It was then that art served for a model to nature , which sometimes indeed hapbut
pens , always upon this condition , which ought to be the base and fundamental rule of all arts , viz . that in those arts which are for use , pleasure takes the character of necessity itself ; every thing in them ought to look as if they were for use . " in the same manner , as in those arts which are destined for deli ght , use has no right to enter , except where it has the character to procure the same pleasure as if it was calculated solely to please .
1 hus poetry and sculpture , having taken their subjects from history or from society , would have but a weak excuse for a bad performance , by urging the justness of their copy from the model they had taken ; because it is not the irue but the beautiful that we expect
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Dissertations On The Polite Arts.
Colours and sounds have sympathies and antipathies among themselves . Nature has a right to unite them according to her will , but it is-art that should do it according to rules . It is not sufficient that it burls not the taste , but it shomd . flatter it , and flatter it as much as it is capable of being flattered . " ~ This remark may be applied equally to poetry . Words , which
are its instruments or colours , have in poetry a certain degree of beauty , which they have not in common language : they are the smooth ashlar , the marble chosen , polished , and cut , which make the edifice more rich , beautiful , and substantial . There is a certain choice of words , turns , ancl above all a certain regular harmony , which gives its language something supernatural , that charms and lifts us above ourselves .
WHEREIN ELOQUENCE AND ARCHITECTURE DIFFER FROM THE OTHER ARTS . WE must recal for a moment the division which we made of arts in the First Dissertation * . There were some invented from want alone ; others for pleasure ; and some owed their birth first to necessity , but having since found out the way to adorn
themselves with beauties , they began to be reckoned in the number of those which we call Polite Arts . Thus architecture , having changed those caves which necessity had dug out for the retreat of mankind into elegant and commodious dwellings , deserved a distinction among the arts which it had not before . The same observation holds good with respect to eloquence .
The necessity which men had to communicate their thoughts and sentiments to one another , made them orators and historians , as soon as they could make use of words . Experience , time , and taste , added new degrees of perfection ' to their discourse . They'formed au art which is called eloquence , and which , for the pleasure it a'ffprds to the mind , may share the palm with poetry : its relation
and resemblance with poetry indeed gave it occasion to borrow and deck itself with those ornaments which mi ght suit it : and hence we have round periods , measured antitheses , striking pictures , and allegories well sustained : hence also the choice of words , the arrangement of phrases , the uniform progression of harmony . It was then that art served for a model to nature , which sometimes indeed hapbut
pens , always upon this condition , which ought to be the base and fundamental rule of all arts , viz . that in those arts which are for use , pleasure takes the character of necessity itself ; every thing in them ought to look as if they were for use . " in the same manner , as in those arts which are destined for deli ght , use has no right to enter , except where it has the character to procure the same pleasure as if it was calculated solely to please .
1 hus poetry and sculpture , having taken their subjects from history or from society , would have but a weak excuse for a bad performance , by urging the justness of their copy from the model they had taken ; because it is not the irue but the beautiful that we expect