Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 3 (of 3)Ireland, John
General
Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 3 (of 3)
Ireland, John
Hogarth, William, 1697-1764
"This architects peremptorily assert is the only rule, nor dare they
deviate from the established orders. Should you press them hard for
a reason, they will tell you no man has yet been able to equal what
has been already done; which though I admit, yet have I ventured
to assert, and now repeat, that the most beautiful order in the
architecture of the ancients will perfectly agree with the rules of
composition laid down in the _Analysis_, and that new orders, adapted
to various purposes, may be still invented. I cannot help thinking it
is possible that a man who understood drawing, though he had never
seen a column, might, by applying the straight and waving line, and
correcting simplicity by variety, produce one with equal beauty to
any of them.
"In architecture, after FITNESS hath been strictly and geometrically
complied with, all the additional members or parts may, by attention
to the proper rules of composition, be continually varied and yet
be pleasing. For example, if the capitals composed of the confined
shapes of hats and wigs can be rendered tolerable, what might not
be done by selecting the elegant varieties which are displayed in
feathers, flowers, shells, etc.?"[57]
ROUND AND SQUARE HEADS.
[Illustration: SQUARE & ROUND HEADS.]
The five heads in the annexed plate are copied from sketches in
my possession, and all of them seem to have been intended for the
illustration of his _Analysis_, in which he remarks, that "the
particular expressions of a face or movement of a feature which
becomes one person shall be disagreeable in another, just as such
expressions or turns happen to fall in with the lines of beauty or
the reverse; for this reason there are pretty frowns and disagreeable
smiles: the lines that form a pleasing smile about the corners of
the mouth have gentle windings, as fig. 1,[58] but lose their beauty
in the full laugh; the expression of excessive laughter, oftener
than any other, gives a sensible face a silly or disagreeable look,
as it is apt to form regular plain lines about the mouth (like a
parenthesis), which sometimes appear like crying."
"In what we call plain lines there is this constant and remarkable
effect, that as they are more or less conspicuous in any kind of
character or expression in the face, they bring along with them
certain degrees of a foolish or a ridiculous aspect. The inimitable
Butler knew this, and describes the beard of Hudibras, fig. 2:
'In cut and dye so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile.'
"To set this in an _outréd_ light, see fig. 4,[59] a face almost as
square as a die; and fig. 5, as truly round as a globe. The effect of
the latter is rather ridiculous than ugly. Sir Plume's empty look,
described in the 'Rape of the Lock,' would not be near so vacant
without the idea of roundness:
'With round unthinking face.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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