With a view of fixing the fluctuating IDEAS OF TASTE. Printed by W. STRAHAN, for Mrs. HOGARTH, And Sold by her at her House in LEICESTER-FIELDS. I PREFACE. F a preface was ever neceffary, it may very likely be thought fo to the following work; the title of which (in the proposals published some time fince) hath much amufed, and raised the expectation of the curious, though not without a mixture of doubt, that its purpose could ever be satisfactorily answered. For though beauty is seen and confessed by all, yet, from the many fruitlefs attempts to account for the cause of its being fo, enquiries on this head have almoft been given up; and the subject generally thought to be a matter of too high and too delicate a nature to admit of any true or intelligible difcuffion. Something therefore introductory ought to be said at the presenting a work with a face so entirely new; especially as it will naturally encounter with, and perhaps may overthrow, several long received and thorough established opinions: and fince controverfies may arise how far, and after what manner this fubject hath hitherto been confidered and treated, it will also be proper to lay before the reader, what may be gathered concerning it, from the works of the ancient and modern writers and painters. It is no wonder this fubject should have fo long been thought inexplicable, fince the nature of many parts of it cannot poffibly come within the reach of mere men of letters; otherwise those ingenious gentlemen who have lately published treatises upon it (and who A 2 who have written much more learnedly than can be expected from one who never took up the pen before) would not fo foon have been bewilder'd in their accounts of it, and obliged fo fuddenly to turn into the broad, and more beaten path of moral beauty; in order to extricate themselves out of the difficulties they seem to have met with in this: and withal forced for the fame reasons to amuse their readers with amazing (but often mifapplied) encomiums on deceased painters and their performances; wherein they are continually difcourfing of effects inftead of developing causes; and after many prettineffes, in very pleafing language, do fairly fet you down just where they first took you up;. honestly confeffing that as to GRACE, the main point in. question, they do not even pretend to know any thing of the matter. And indeed how should they? when it actually requires a practical knowledge of the whole art of painting (fculpture alone not being fufficient) and that too to fome degree of eminence, in order to enable any one to pursue the chain of this enquiry through all its parts: which I hope will be made to appear in the following work. It will then naturally be asked, why the best painters: within these two centuries, who by their works appear to have excelled in grace and beauty, should have been, fo filent in an affair of such seeming importance to the imitative arts and their own honour? To which I anfwer, that it is probable, they arrived at that excellence. in in their works, by the mere dint of imitating with great exactness the beauties of nature, and by often copying and retaining strong ideas of graceful antique ftatues ; which might fufficiently ferve their purposes as painters, without their troubling themselves with a farther enquiry into the particular causes of the effects before them. It is not indeed a little ftrange, that the great Leonardo da Vinci (amongst the many philosophical' precepts which he hath at random laid down in his treatise on painting) should not have given the least hint of any thing tending to a system of this kind; especially, as he was cotemporary with Michael Angelo, who is faid to have discovered a certain principle in the trunk only of an antique ftatue, (well known from this circumftance by the name of Michael Angelo's Torfo, or Back, fig. *) which principle gave his works a grandeur *Fig. 64, of gufto equal to the best antiques. Relative to which. tradition, Lamozzo, who wrote about painting at the fame time, hath this remarkable paffage, vol. 1.. book 1. "And because in this place there falleth out a cer"taine precept of Michael Angelo much for our pur-pose, I wil not conceale it, leaving the farther inter-pretation and vnderstanding thereof to the iudicious "reader. It is reported then that Michael Angelo vp-· on a time gaue this obfervation to the Painter Mar-cus de Sciena his fcholler; that he should alwaies make "a figure Pyramidall, Serpentlike, and multiplied by one: "two and three, In which precept (in mine opinion) "the P. I.. A |