Aestheticism in Art

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, The Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist, known as La Belle Jardinière, 1507–1508. Oil on wood, 122 × 80 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

If a preface was ever necessary, it may very likely be thought so for the following work; the title of which (in the proposals published some time since) have greatly amused and raised expectations of the curious, though not without a mixture of doubt, that its purpose could ever be satisfactorily fulfilled. For, despite the fact that beauty is seen and confessed by all, from the many fruitless attempts to account for the cause of its being so, enquiries on this subject have almost been sacrificed; and the subject generally thought to be a matter of too high and too delicate a nature to admit of any true or intelligible discussion. Something, therefore, introductory ought to be offered upon the presenting of a work with a face so entirely new, especially as it will naturally encounter, and perhaps even overthrow, several long-received, thorough and established opinions. Since controversies may arise, how far, and after what manner, does this subject have to go to be considered and treated fairly? It will also be proper to lie before the reader what may be understood from the works of both ancient and modern writers and painters.

It is no wonder that this subject was considered inexplicable for so long, as the nature of many parts of it cannot possibly come within the reach of mere men with pens; otherwise those ingenious gentlemen who have published treatises about it (and who wrote much more learnedly than can be expected from one who never took up the pen before) would not so soon have been bewildered in their accounts of it and obliged so suddenly to turn into the broad and more beaten path of moral beauty, in order to extricate themselves from the difficulties they seem to have met with in this. What’s more, they were forced for the same reasons to amuse their readers with amazing (but often misapplied) encomiums on deceased painters and their performances, wherein they continually discoursed effects instead of developing causes. After much flattery, in very pleasing language, one is fairly set down just from where they were picked up, honestly confessed to that in terms of grace, the main point in question, the men do not even pretend to know anything of the matter. And, indeed, how should they? A practical knowledge of the whole art of panting (sculpture alone not being sufficient) is required and, to some degree of eminence; it would be difficult for anyone to pursue the chain of this inquiry through all its parts offhand; however, it is my hope that all will be understood following this work.

Guido di Pietro, known as Fra Angelico, Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven (predella of the altarpiece of San Domenico in Fiesole), c. 1423–1424. Tempera on panel, 31.7 × 73 cm. The National Gallery, London.

Naturally one might wonder why the best painters within these two centuries, who, according to their works, appear to have excelled in grace and beauty, should have been so silent in an affair of such seeming importance to the imitative arts and their own honour. To this, I say, that it is probable that they arrived at that excellence 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 statues which might sufficiently serve their purposes as painters without troubling themselves with a further inquiry into the particular causes of the effects before them. Is it not a little strange that the great Leonardo da Vinci (amongst the many philosophical precepts which he hath at random laid down in his treatise on painting) did not give the lead hint of anything tending to a system of this kind, especially as he was a contemporary of Michelangelo, who is said to have discovered a certain principle in the trunk of an antique statue (which became well known from this circumstance by the name of Michelangelo’s Torso, or Back), a principle which gave his works a grandeur of gusto equal to the most highly acclaimed antiques. Relative to which tradition, Lomazzo, who wrote about painting at the same time, has this remarkable passage (vol. I, book I):