Lectures on Painting, Delivered at the Royal Academy of Arts: With a Letter on the Proposal for a Public Memorial of the Naval Glory of Great BritainLongman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1809 - 269 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
admiration AMELIA OPIE ancients appear artist attempt attention beauty branch canvass Caravaggio Carracci character chiaro scuro Cimabue circumstances colour composition considered copy Correggio defects degree delight drawing effect eminent endeavour equally excellence execution exhibited expression feel figures force friends genius Giorgione give grace Guido Reni harmony Hence honour ideas imagination imitation interest invention John JOHN OPIE justly kind labour learned lectures Leonardo da Vinci light and shadow manner masters means ment merits Michael Angelo mind nature never Northcote Norwich object observed occasion Opie Opie's opinion painter painting passion pencil perfection PETER PAUL RUBENS picture poet portrait possessed powers practice principles produced proper propriety racter Raffaelle remark Rembrandt rendered respect ROYAL ACADEMY Rubens sentiment shade Sir Joshua Reynolds spect splendour style of design sublime superior talents taste thing thought Tintoretto tion Titian true truth vivacity whole wish
Popular passages
Page 65 - It is allowed on all hands, that facts, and events, however they may bind the Historian, have no dominion over the Poet or the Painter. With us, History is made to bend and conform to this great idea of Art. And why ? Because these Arts, in their highest province, are not addressed to the gross senses ; but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up by the world which is about us.
Page 55 - ... with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude.
Page 56 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days : But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise...
Page 40 - ... great labour ; and yet he, of all men that ever lived, might make the greatest pretensions to the efficacy of native genius and inspiration.
Page 161 - Lorrain finished more minutely, as becomes a Professor in any particular branch, yet there is such an airiness and facility in the landscapes of Rubens, that a painter would as soon wish to be the author of them, as those of Claude, or any other artist whatever.
Page 61 - He remained so long absent from home, that some' uneasiness began to arise on his account, but it was dissipated by his returning dressed in a handsome coat, with very long skirts, laced ruffles, and silk stockings. On seeing his mother he ran to her, and taking out of his pocket twenty guineas which he had earned by his pencil, he desired her to keep them : adding, that in future he should maintain himself.
Page 68 - Nature, the providence of the understanding, the exemplars of the mind, the light of the fancy; the sun, which from its rising, inspired the statue of Memnon, and the fire which warmed into life the image of Prometheus...
Page 74 - are the people of this country to the sight of portraiture only, that they can scarcely as yet consider painting in any other light ; they will hardly admire a landscape that is not a view of a particular place, nor a history unless composed of likenesses of the persons represented, and are apt to be staggered, confounded, and wholly unprepared to follow such vigorous flights of imagination as would • — a$ mil be felt and applauded with enthusiasm in a more advanced and liberal stage of criticism.
Page 67 - From hence Phidias, Lysippus, and other noble Sculptors, are still held in veneration ; and Apelles, Zeuxis, Protogenes, and other admirable Painters, though their works are perished, are and will be eternally admired ; who all of them drew after the ideas of perfection ; which are the miracles of Nature, the providence of the understanding, the exemplars of the Mind, the light of...
Page 14 - I never saw him satisfied with one of his productions ; and often, very often have I seen him enter my sitting-room, and, throwing himself in an agony of despondence on the sofa, exclaim, < I never, never shall be a painter as long as I live...