CHAPTER II.

TECHNICS.

PRINCIPLES OF ART.

SECTION I.

1692. PRINCIPLES are positions or postulates, which are the primary relations upon which any thing is grounded, and they are either natural, that is, elementary or constitutive; or they are scientific, that is, theoretic reasons or axioms; or they are technical, that is, disciplinary, preceptive, or practical rules, canons, or laws: for these comprehend all other principles universally. Principles are also primary, and secondary or derived: there is also a loose and popular acceptation of the term, including every sort of motive and determinative.

1693. Such is the wide and various application of the term principles. There is, however, some confusion in the ordinary acceptation of the terms

See vol. i. p.4.

rules, principles, and precepts; for principles are employed as rules, rules are sometimes called principles, and precepts are denotive of both: and all these imply relations.

1694. In philosophic strictness, we hold principles to be purely theoretic or scientific postulates; rules to be practical principles, laws, or maxims of art; and precepts to comprehend both, and to denote discipline: they may, nevertheless, be employed synonymously, where there is no danger of confounding their signification.

1695. Natural first principles are too remote from particulars and practice to be of great utility in art and the ordinary affairs of life: thus, the chemist cannot work with elements, which are hypophysical, and the instruments of Omnipotence; and philosophy is to be reproached throughout with the unfruitfulness of its first principles: vulgarly, therefore, they are of no value. But, though of little positive utility practically, a knowledge of them is of great negative use in grounding and bounding our speculations and practice, and in supplying a barrier to imagination and every species of fanaticism and false practice: they are, in truth, the limits which reason prescribes as the conditions of all being, knowing, and doing.

1696. Principles, then, in their widest sense, have a compound signification, as elements, axioms, and laws; natural principles are elements; scientific principles are axioms; and technical principles

are rules, canons, or laws of practice: and although art, in conformity with the reciprocalness of all philosophic distinctions, from which the absolute in all things is excluded, acknowledges each of these, yet technical principles are expressively of chief consideration in art; and of these we will endeavour to disclose the most general.

1697. Accordingly, it is a universal technical principle, that all practice in art refers to nature for its model, all theory in art to science; and that these should concur harmoniously in all the productions of art, whether they be the material works of the Artificer, manual artist, or artizan, the sensible productions of the Artist, or professor of art, -or the moral performances of the Architecton, or Ruler, as we may, by way of eminence, call the moral artist: each of whose doings may be denoted by the term energy.

1698. As all art defers to nature and science, it follows as a principle of principles, and master principle of all art, that no rule of art shall stand against reason, nor any reason against nature, the fountain of all principles. And it has happened, according to this principle, that when artists of superior faculties have deviated in their practice from rule to reason, and from reason to nature, whether through spontaneous or acquired talents, they have been denominated Geniuses, Genii, or superior intelligences.

1699. As all art implies design, it follows, as

another universal and pervading principle of art, that whatever is done in art should be done with design; and, conversely, that nothing whatever should be done therein at random, or without design.

1700. When the Greek painter, Nealces, in despair threw the sponge at his picture, and produced the foam of the horse, which he had failed to accomplish by his pencil, he violated these principles, and did that which ought not in any case to be imitated; nevertheless, many things fall out unforeseen in the progress of every work that favour or obstruct its design: whence arises another general rule of art, that the attention of the artist should be incessantly awake to the advantages and impediments of accidents and circumstances, to profit by the one and avoid the other. To do which, and to know when he has done right and enough, discover presence of mind, and mark the talent of the master.

1701. It is a further universal principle of art, that there ought to be in every work a chief or master design, to which all other designs therein should be subordinated, and that there should be a unity of design throughout.

1702. These principles are of the first importance in the economy of practice, regulating and directing every motion and act of the hand, the eye, or the mind, and conducting, by the shortest and most masterly and effectual course, to the right purposes and intentions of art.

1703. They regulate, also, the thematism or decorum of art, to which good taste belongs, checking the meretricious and exuberant, and subjecting ornaments and accessories to the chief design, to which they are expedients, and not parts; expedient only, when there are defects or deficiencies: and this supplies the universal principle of ornament.

1704. In fine, these principles adjust the whole conduct of art, and point to nature for the primary model and process in every case; for art can do nothing of which nature affords not the type: in nature there is nothing, however minute, without design, and there is a master-purpose and unity to which each and every thing refers with absolute and perfect practical economy, decorum, and sufficiency, which designate the moral of art.

1705. In all the operations of Nature, it is remarkable that the means employed are always the most simple, and the shortest sufficient to the effect produced: it follows, as a general principle, that the Artist should always employ the simplest sufficient means, and follow the shortest adequate course, to the accomplishment of the ends required. Hence, whatever is luxuriant or superfluous in art, is tasteless and vicious, and denotes inferiority; for perfect art, like nature, does nothing

in vain.

1706. It is by a just elementary antagonism, in conjunction with a like subordination, that Nature