The Analysis of Beauty by Hogarth William;

Author:Hogarth, William; [William Hogarth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2015-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

OF LIGHT AND SHADE, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH OBJECTS ARE EXPLAINED TO THE EYE BY THEM

Although both this and the next chapter may seem more particularly relative to the art of painting, than any of the foregoing, yet, as hitherto, I have endeavored to be understood by every reader, so here also I shall avoid, as much as the subject will permit, speaking of what would only be well-conceived by painters.

There is such a subtile variety in the nature of appearances, that probably we shall not be able to gain much ground by this inquiry, unless we exert and apply the full use of every sense, that will convey to us any information concerning them.

So far as we have already gone, the sense of feeling, as well as that of seeing, has been applied to; so that perhaps a man born blind, may, by his better touch than is common to those who have their sight, together with the regular process that has been here given of lines, so feel out the nature of forms, as to make a tolerable judgment of what is beautiful to sight.

Here again our other senses must assist us, notwithstanding in this chapter we shall be more confined to what is communicated to the eye by rays of light; and though things must now be considered as appearances only; produced and made out merely by means of lights, shades, and colors.

By the various circumstances of which, every one knows we have represented on the flat surface of the looking-glass, pictures equal to the originals reflected by it. The painter too, by proper dispositions of lights, shades, and colors, on his canvas, will raise the like ideas. Even prints, by means of lights and shades alone, will perfectly inform the eye of every shape and distance whatsoever, in which even lines must be considered as narrow parts of shade, a number of them, drawn or engraved neatly side by side, called hatching, serve as shades in prints, and when they are artfully managed, are a kind of pleasing succedaneum to the delicacy of nature’s.

Could mezzo-tinto prints be wrought as accurately as those with the graver, they would come nearest to nature, because they are done without strokes or lines.

I have often thought that a landscape, in the process of this way of representing it, does a little resemble the first coming on of day. The copperplate it is done upon, when the artist first takes it into hand, is wrought all over with an edged tool, so as to make it print one even black, like night: and his whole work after this, is merely introducing the lights into it; which he does by scraping off the rough grain according to his design, artfully smoothing it most where light is most required: but as he proceeds in burnishing the lights, and clearing up the shades, he is obliged to take off frequent impressions to prove the progress of the work, so that each proof

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