IDEA (n.)
TERM USED AS TRANSLATIONS IN QUOTATION
EFFET (fra.)TERM USED IN EARLY TRANSLATIONS
IDÉE (fra.)FILTERS
LINKED QUOTATIONS
Quotation
X. In mixed and uncertain forms, where Circle and Square will do no good (but onely the Idea thereof in your own fansie) as in Lions, Horses, and the like ; you must work by reason in your own judgment, and so obtain the true proportion by daily practice. Thus,
Having the shape of the thing in your mind, first draw it rudely with your coal, then more exactly with your lead or pensil ; then peruse it well, and consider where you have erred, and mend it, according to that Idea, which you carry in your mind ; this done, view it again, correcting by degrees the other parts, even to the least Jota, so far as your judgement will inform you ; and this you may do with twenty, thirty, fourty or more papers of several things at once : having done what you can, confer it with some excellent pattern or print of like kind, using no rule or compass at all, but your own reason, in mending every fault, giving every thing its due place, and just proportion ; by this means you may rectifie all your errours, and step and Incredible way on to perfection.
Conceptual field(s)
Quotation
Idea ; the Form of any thing.
Conceptual field(s)
Quotation
I am sorry the Great, and Principal End of the Art has hitherto been so little Consider’d ; I don’t mean by Gentlemen only, or by Low, Pretended Connoisseurs, But by those who ought to have gone higher, and to have Taught Others to have Followed them. ‘tis no Wonder if many who are accustom’d to Think Superficially look on Pictures as they would on a Piece of Rich Hangings ; Or if such as These, (and some Painters among the rest) fix upon the Pencil, the Colouring, or perhaps the Drawing, and some little Circumstantial Parts in the Picture, or even the just Representation of common Nature, without penetrating into the Idea of the Painter, and the Beauties of the History, or Fable.
Conceptual field(s)
Quotation
Every thing that is done is in pursuance of some Ideas the Master has, whether he can reach with his Hand, what his Mind has conceiv’d, or no ; and this is true in every Part of Painting. As for Invention, Expression, Disposition, and Grace, and Greatness. These every body must see direct us plainly to the Manner of Thinking, to the Idea the Painter had ; but even in Drawing, Colouring, and Handling, in These also are seen his Manner of Thinking upon those Subjects, One may by These guess at his Ideas of what is in Nature, or what was to be wish’d for, or Chosen at least. Nevertheless when the Idea, or Manner of Thinking in a Picture or Drawing is opposed to the Executive part, ‘tis commonly understood of these four first mention’d, As the other 3 are imply’d by its opposite.
Conceptual field(s)
Quotation
He that would rise to the Sublime must form an Idea of Something beyond all we have yet seen ; or which Art, or Nature has yet produc’d ; Painting, Such as when all the Excellencies of the several Masters are United, and their several Defects avoided.
The greatest Designers among the Moderns want much of that exquisite Beauty, in all the Several Characters, that is to be seen in the Antique ; the Airs of the Heads, even of Rafaëlle himself, are Inferiour to what the Ancients have done ; and for Grace to some of Guido : the Colouring of Rubens and Van Dyck falls short of That of Titian, and Coreggio ; and the best Masters have Rarely Thought like Rafaëlle, or Compos’d like Rembrandt. Let us then imagine a Picture Design’d as the Laocoon, the Hercules, the Apollo, the Venus, or any of these Miraculous remains of Antiquity : The Airs of Heads like what is to be found in the Statues, Busts, Bas-releifs, or Medals, or like some of those of Guido ; and Colour’d like the most Celebrated Colourists ; with the Lightest Pencil, and the most Proper to the Subject ; and all this Suitably Invented, and Compos’d ; Here would be a Picture ! Such a one a Painter should Imagine, and So set before him for Imitation.
Nor must he stop Here, but Create an Original Idea of Perfection. The Utmost that the Best Masters have done, is not to be suppos’d the Utmost ‘tis possible for Humane Nature to arrive at ;