The Analysis of Beauty: Written with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of taste — John Shaqi
The Analysis of Beauty: Written with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of tasteHogarth, William
Philosophy
The Analysis of Beauty: Written with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of taste
Hogarth, William
Aesthetics -- Early works to 1800
[Illustration: Fig. 77]
First, then, I will give you a representation of this part of the
body, from an anatomical figure [Fig. 77 T p. II], to show what a
sameness there is in the shapes of all the teeth-like insertions of
this muscle; and how regularly the fibres, which compose it, follow the
almost parallel out-lines of the ribs they partly cover.
[Illustration: Fig. 78]
From what has been said before of the use of the natural covering of
the skin, &c. the next figure [78 T p. II] will easily be understood to
mean so tame a representation of the same part of the body, that tho'
the hard and stiff appearance of the edges of this muscle is taken off
by that covering, yet enough of its regularity and sameness remains to
render it disagreeable.
Now as regularity and sameness, according to our doctrine, is want of
elegance and true taste, we shall endeavour in the next place to show
how this very part (in which the muscles take so very regular a form)
may be brought to have as much variety as any other part of the body
whatever. In order to this, though some alteration must be made in
almost every part of it, yet it should be so inconsiderable in each,
that no remarkable change may appear in the shape and situation of any.
[Illustration: Figs. 79, 80 and 81]
Thus, let the parts mark'd 1, 2, 3, 4, (which appear so exactly
similar in shape, and parallel in situation in the muscular figure
77) and not much mended in fig. 78, be first varied in their sizes,
but not gradually from the uppermost to the lowest, as in fig. [79 T
p. II], nor alternately one long and one short, as in fig. [80 T p.
II], for in either of these cases there would still remain too great
a formality. We should therefore endeavour, in the next place, to
vary them every way in our power, without losing entirely the true
idea of the parts themselves. Suppose them then to have changed their
situations a little, and slip'd beside each other irregularly, (some
how as is represented in fig. [81 T p. II], merely with regard to their
situation) and the external appearance of the whole piece of the body,
now under our consideration, will assume the more varied and pleasing
form, represented in fig. 76, easily to be discern'd by comparing the
three figures, 76, 77, 78, one with another; and it will as easily be
seen, that were lines to be drawn, or wires to be bent, over these
muscles, from one to the other, and so on to the adjoining parts; they
would have a continued waving flow, let them pass in any direction
whatever.
The unskilful, in drawing these parts after the life, as their
regularities are much more easily seen and copied than their fine
variations, seldom fail of making them more regular and poor than they
really appear even in a consumptive person.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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