Essays / by Adam Smith.

  • Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays / by Adam Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    414/482 (page 408)
    lies before me. The copy might, and probably would, in this case, be of much greater value than the original. But if this carpet was repre- sented as spread, either upon a floor or upon a table, and projecting from the background of the picture, with exact observation of perspec- tive, and of light and shade, the merit of the imitation would be still even greater. In Painting, a plain surface of one kind is made to resemble, not only a plain surface of another, but all the three dimensions of a solid substance. In Statuary and Sculpture, a solid substance of one kind, is made to resemble a solid substance of another. The disparity between the object imitating, and the object imitated, is much greater in the one art than in the other; and the pleasure arising from the imitation seems greater in proportion as this disparity is greater. In Painting, the imitation frequently pleases, though the original object be indifferent, or even offensive. In Statuary and Sculpture it is otherwise. The imitation seldom pleases, unless the original object be in a very high degree either great, or beautiful, or interesting. A butcher’s-stall, or a kitchen-dresser, with the objects which they com- monly present, are not certainly the happiest subjects, even for Paint- ing. They have, however, been represented with so much care and success by some Dutch masters, that it is impossible to view the pic- tures without some degree of pleasure. They would be most absurd subjects for Statuary or Sculpture, which are, however, capable of representing them. The picture of a very ugly or deformed man, such as jEsop, or Scarron, might not make a disagreeable piece of furniture. The statue certainly would. Even a vulgar ordinary man or woman, engaged in a vulgar ordinary action, like what we see with so much pleasure in the pictures of Rembrandt, would be too mean a subject for Statuary. Jupiter, Hercules, and Apollo, Venus and Diana, the Nymphs and the Graces, Bacchus, Mercury, Antinous, and Meleager, the miserable death of Laocoon, the melancholy fate of the children of Niobe, the Wrestlers, the fighting, the dying gladiator, the figures of gods and goddesses, of heroes and heroines, the most perfect forms of the human body, placed either in the noblest attitudes, or in the most interesting situations which the human imagination is capable of con- ceiving, are the proper, and therefore have always been the favourite, subjects of Statuary : that art cannot, without degrading itself, stoop to represent any thing that is offensive, or mean, or even indifferent. Painting is not so disdainful; and, though capable of representing the noblest objects, it can, without forfeiting its title to please, submit to imitate those of a much more humble nature. The inerit of the irnita- tion alone, and without any inerit in the imitated object, is capable o supporting the dignity of Painting : it cannot support that of Statuary. There would seem, therefore, to be more merit in the one species of imitation than in the other.