_Painting_, as the second kind of formative art, which presents a
_sensible illusion_ artificially combined with Ideas, I would divide
into the art of the beautiful _depicting of nature_ and that of the
beautiful _arrangement of its products_. The first is _painting
proper_, the second is the art of _landscape gardening_. The first
gives only the illusory appearance of corporeal extension; the second
gives this in accordance with truth, but only the appearance of
utility and availableness for other purposes than the mere play of
the Imagination in the contemplation of its forms.[91] This latter is
nothing else than the ornamentation of the soil with a variety of
those things (grasses, flowers, shrubs, trees, even ponds, hillocks,
and dells) which nature presents to an observer, only arranged
differently and in conformity with certain Ideas. But, again, the
beautiful arrangement of corporeal things is only apparent to the
eye, like painting; the sense of touch cannot supply any intuitive
presentation of such a form. Under painting in the wide sense I would
reckon the decoration of rooms by the aid of tapestry, bric-a-brac, and
all beautiful furniture which is merely available to be _looked_ at;
and the same may be said of the art of tasteful dressing (with rings,
snuff-boxes, etc.). For a bed of various flowers, a room filled with
various ornaments (including under this head even ladies’ finery), make
at a fête a kind of picture; which, like pictures properly so-called
(that are not intended to _teach_ either history or natural science),
has in view merely the entertainment of the Imagination in free play
with Ideas, and the occupation of the aesthetical Judgement without
any definite purpose. The detailed work in all this decoration may be
quite distinct in the different cases and may require very different
artists; but the judgement of taste upon whatever is beautiful in
these various arts is always determined in the same way: viz. it only
judges the forms (without any reference to a purpose) as they present
themselves to the eye either singly or in combination, according to the
effect they produce upon the Imagination.--But that formative art may
be compared (by analogy) with deportment in speech is justified by the
fact that the spirit of the artist supplies by these figures a bodily
expression to his thought and its mode, and makes the thing itself as
it were speak in mimic language. This is a very common play of our
fancy, which attributes to lifeless things a spirit suitable to their
form by which they speak to us.
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