PICTURE (n.)
TERM USED AS TRANSLATIONS IN QUOTATION
CONTERFEYTSEL (nld.)TERM USED IN EARLY TRANSLATIONS
PEINTURE (fra.)FILTERS
LINKED QUOTATIONS
Quotation
Of the Parts of a Piece
{Five Principa parts in a Picture.} In a PICTURE from Nature, there are five Principall parts..
1. Invention or Historicall Argument.
2. Proportion, Symmetry.
3. Colour, with Light or Darknesse.
4. Motion, or Life, and their Action and Passion.
5. Disposition, or œconomicall placing, or disposing, or ordering the work.
The four first, are observed in all sorts of Pieces.
Disposition only in those Pictures, that have many figures ; not to appear mingle-mangle ; but, in all and every part of the Piece, to observe a decent comlinesse, or grace, in a mutuall accord, of all five.
Conceptual field(s)
Quotation
Of the disposition of the Parts.
{5. Of Disposition.} A Picture of many figures, must needs express some Historicall part in it ; Every figure ought to represent therein, by a speechless discourse, the connexion in them. Assigne therefore the principall place, to the principall figures, next to hand ; Other figures, farther off. Finish the Principal figures, whilst your Spirits are fresh. {In order to perfection,} Frame not your Historicall Piece, rude, loose, and scattered, but rather, in an equitable roundness of composition ; to be perceived by each observer ; to be liked of the most, but to be judged, only, by the learned. Neglects in disposition, are soon discovered.
{Soon discovered.} Pourtray in your excellent Pieces, not only the dainty Lineaments of Beauty, but shadow round about, rude thickers, rocks ; and so it yields more grace to the Picture, and sets it out : this discord (as in musicke) makes a comely concordance ; a disorderly order of counterfeit rudeness, pleaseth : so much grace, doe mean and ordinary things, receive from a good and orderly connexion.
{But altogether excellent.} All these together, make that perspicuous disposiiton in a Piece of History ; and is the effectuall expression in Posture and Action ; the very Passion of each Figure ; the Soul of the PICTURE ; the Grace and Ayr of the Piece ; or the sweet Consent of all manner of perfections heaped together, in one Picture.
{By example in brief} And so have we done with an Example of all in One : For
Invention allures the mind.
Proportion, attracts the Eyes.
Colour ; delights the Fancie.
Lively Motion, stirs up our Soul.
Orderly Disposition, charmes our Senses.
{Conclude a rare Picture.} These produce gracefull Comliness, which makes one fairer then fair ; […].
This Grace is the close of all, effected by a familiar facility in a free and quick spirit of a bold and resolute Artificer ; not to be done by too much double diligence, or over doing ; a careless shew, hath much of Art.
Conceptual field(s)
Chap. XIII, Of Drawing, Limning, and Painting: with the lives of the famous Italian Painters, p. 132
Quotation
To begin a Picture, first draw the Eye, the white thereof make of white Lead, with a little Charcoale black; having finished it, leave from the other Eye the distance of an Eye; then draw the proportion of the Nose, the compass of the Face ; after that make the Mouth, the Eare, the Haire, &c.
After you have made the white of the Eyes, and proportion of the Nose, &c. lay your Carnation or Flesh colour over the Face, casting in here and there some shadowes, which work in with the flesh colour by degrees. Your flesh-colour is commonly compounded of white lead, lake, and vermilion ; but you may heighthen or deepen it at your pleasure.
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Quotation
n the mean time, what a Treasury of excellent things might by this expedient [n.d.r. « prints », « pictures »] be conveyed, and impressed into the waxen Tables and Imaginations of children ; seeing, there is nothing more preposterous, then to force those things into the Eare, which are visible, and the proper objects of the eye, For picture, is a kind of Universal Language, how diverse soever the tongues and vocal expressions of the several Nations which speak them may appear ; Solet enim pictura tacens loqui, maximeque prodesse, as Nazianzen has it.
So as if ever, by this is that long though for Art most likely to be accomplish’d : Nor can any words whatever hope to reach those descriptions, which in a numberlesse sort of things, pictures do’s immediately, and as it were at one glance, interpret to the meanest of capacities : (...).
Conceptual field(s)
Quotation
ALL that is done in Picture is done by Invention ; Or from the Life ; Or from another Picture ; Or Lastly ‘tis a Composition of One, or More of these.
The term Picture I here understand at large as signifying a Painting, Drawing, Graving, &c.
Conceptual field(s)
Quotation
Rules may be establish’d so clearly derived from Reason as to be Incontestable. If the Design of the Picture be (as in General it is) to Please, and Improve the Mind (as in Poetry) the Story must have all possible Advantages given to it, and the Actors must have the Utmost Grace, and Dignity their several Characters will admit of : If Historical, and Natural Truth only be intended That must be follow’d ; tho’ the Best Choice of These must be made ; In Both Cases Unity of Time, Place, and Action ought to be observ’d : The Composition must be such as to make the Thoughts appear at first Sight, and the Principal of them the most conspicuously ; And the Whole must be so contrived as to be a Grateful Object to the Eye, both as to the Colours, and the Masses of Light, and Shadow. These things are so evident as not to admit of any Dispute, or Contradiction ; As it also is that the Expression must be Strong, the Drawing Just, the Colouring Clean, and Beautiful, the Handling Easy, and Light, and all These Proper to the Subject. Nor will it be difficult to know Assuredly what is so, unless with relation to the Justness of the Drawing ; but to know in the Main whether any thing is Lame, Distorded, Mis-shapen, ill Proportioned, or Flat, or on the contrary Round, and Beautiful is what any Eye that is tolerably Curious can judge of.
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Quotation
and I believe it very rarely happens, that any One Circumstance of Life is so well consider’d as it might be with the Design of extracting all possible Pleasures from it. However (besides that of Connoissance which is my main Business, and which I shall fully prosecute anon) I will not omit One which every body finds the benefit of in some measure, but which might be improv’d to a Vast Degree, and that is the getting a fine Collection of Mental Pictures ; what I mean is furnishing the Mind with Pleasing Images ; whether of things Real, or Imaginary ; whether of our own forming, or borrow’d from Others. This is a Collection which every one may have, and which will finely employ every vacant moment of ones time. I will give a Specimen or two in these in the Delicate, and in the Great kind, or to speak more like a Connoisseur, in the Parmeggiano, and in the Rafaelle Taste ;
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Quotation
There are Pictures representing not one particular Story, but the History of Philosophy, of Poetry, of Divinity, the Redemption of Mankind, and the like : Such is the School of Athens, the Parnassus, the Picture in the Vatican commonly call’d the Dispute of the Sacrament, all of Rafaelle ; and the large one of Frederico Zuccaro of the Annunciation, and God the Father, with a Heaven, the Prophets, &c. Such Compositions as These being of a different nature are not subject to the same Rules with Common Historical Pictures ; but Here must be Principal, and Subordonate Figures, and Actions ; As the Plato and Aristotle in the School of Athens, the Apollo in the Parnassus, &c.
Now I have mention’d this Design, I cannot pass it over without going a little out of my way to observe some Particulars of that Admirable Group of the three Poets, Homer, Virgil, and Dante ; […].
The Figure of Homer is an admirably one, and manag’d with great propriety ; He is Group’d with others, but is nevertheless alone :
RAFFAELLO (Raffaello Sanzio) , Dispute du Très Saint-Sacrement, 1509 - 1510, fresque, 500 × 770, Vatican, Musei Vaticani.
RAFFAELLO (Raffaello Sanzio) , L'École d'Athènes, 1509 - 1510, fresque, 440 x 770, Vatican, Musei Vaticani.
RAFFAELLO (Raffaello Sanzio) , Le Parnasse, 1509 - 1511, fresque, Vatican, Musei Vaticani.
Il semblerait que Richardson s'appuie sur une des nombreuses gravures existantes de l'Annonciation de Frederico Zuccaro. Cette dernière œuvre, une fresque, était conservée à l'église Santa Maria Annunziata (Rome), détruite en 1626. Richardson possédait par ailleurs un dessin préparatoire de la fresque réalisé par Zuccaro (voir à ce propos, L. Hamlett, « Italian Baroque Art (Rhetoric, Sublimity) and its British Translations », dans C. van Eyck, Translations of the Sublime: The Early Modern Reception and Dissemination of Longinus' Peri Hupsous in Rhetoric, the Visual Arts, Architecture and the Theatre, 2012, p. 190).
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Quotation
But Generally Small Pictures should be Well Wrought.
Jewels, Gold, Silver, and whatsoever has smart Brightness require Bold, Rough Touches of the Pencil in the Heightnings.
The Pencil should be left pretty much in Linen, Silks, and whatsoever has a Glossyness.
All large Pictures, and whatsoever is seen at a great Distance should be Rough ; for besides that ‘twould be loss of Time to a Painter to Finish such things highly, since Distance would hide all that Pains ; those Bold Roughnesses give the Work a greater Force, and keep the Tincts distinct.
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Quotation
[…] we hope for Pardon, if in this Chapter we shall not keep so strictly within the Limits of this ART [ndr : la peinture] in particular, which we are forced sometime to entrench upon the Confines of some neighbour ARTS, relating to Sculpture and Engraving, and referring to the Invention of Letters, antick Images, Pillars, or Pagan Deities of old ; which now the Maturity of these latter Ages has so variously distinguished and diversified ; of all which, yet in a general Acceptation, we conceive PAINTING to be comprehensive and of near affinity to, and the introducing of which we can hardly judge any Extravagancy, but rather (as we shall briefly endeavour to make it appear) very applicable and consonent to our Deposition in hand.
FOR Pictura and Sculptura, in the Sence of the Poets, were accounted Twins ; and as that Worthy Author M. Evelyn, joying with them Architectura, declares those Three illustrious and magnificent ARTS so dependent upon each other, that they can no more be separated than the very Graces themselves, who are always represented to us holding Hand in Hand, and mutually regarding one another ; we may reasonably conjecture that they were born together ; or however, that the Emergency, or Rise of the one was not long previous to the Invention of the other.
FOR if we take Pictura in a general Acceptation, and according to the Definition of Vitruvius, viz. Fit Imago ejus quod est seu esse potest : It may be comprehensive of not only Painting but Sculpture, Plastick and Mosaick Work, or any other Counterfeit, or Similitude, of any created, or imaginary Being whatsoever ; and so makes no essential Difference at all between them, but only ratione materia, which is only in the Mechanick and less noble Part of the ART, they agreeing notwithstanding in the Essentials, the more liberal and refined Accomplishments of it.
BUT yet this is not all that de facto, there is such Affinity and Similitude between these TWO ARTS ; but we may affirm ‘tis the Excellency also, and mutual Perfection of each other to be so : For as Sir H. Wotton takes notice out of Pliny {Elements of Architecture}, where designing to distinguish, he handsomly interweaves them together to our Purpose, saying, That Picture is best when it standeth off as if it were carved ; and Sulpture is best when it appeareth so tender as if it were painted.
AND once more to urge the entire Connection of these TWO ARTS together, we dare with Confidence enough affirm, whereever we find a compleat ARTIST in Sculpture, he must also have a competent Talent of Knowledge in PAINTING ; and particularly more than meanly skilled in the ART of ready Drawing and Designing, and have a sufficient Knowledge of the Nature and Effect of Light and Shadows, which small Commencements, perhaps, made up the compleat Character of not a few of the antient Heroes, whom Pliny does so studiously, yet not undeservedly celebrate.
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Quotation
THIS seeming strain’d Opinion, Claudius Salmatius controverts again, […] ; and further, he would establish and set up the Agreeableness and Congruity of the Use of Lines in the best of Paintings, from that sort of Picture peculiarly call’d Linearis Pictura ; which not only express’d the Proflles and Circumscriptions of the Figure, but their Practice was also, intus lineas spargere, from the Phrasings and constant Use of several Terms of ART ; for what else can be employ’d by Lineamenta, the Lineaments of a Face, or Figure, by Apelle’s Nulla dies sine linea, which became Proverbial, and as the Poet varies it,
Nulla dies abeat quin linea ducta supersit.
Hor.