The Portable William Blake (56 page)

 

Nonsense! Every Eye sees differently. As the Eye, Such the Object.

 

General Principles Again! Unless you Consult Particulars you Cannot even Know or See Mich. Ango. or Rafael or any Thing Else.

 

But as mere enthusiasm will carry you but a little way ...

 

Meer Enthusiasm is the All in All! Bacon’s Philosophy has Ruin’d England. Bacon is only Epicurus over again.

 

The Man who asserts that there is no such Thing as Softness in Art, & that every thing in Art is Definite & Determinate, has not been told this by Practise, but by Inspiration & Vision, because Vision is Determinate & Perfect, & he Copies That without Fatigue, Every thing being Definite & determinate. Softness is Produced alone by Comparative Strength & Weakness in the Marking out of the Forms. I say These Principles could never be found out by the Study of Nature with Con—, or Innate, Science.

 

A work of Genius is a Work “Not to be obtain’d by the Invocation of Memory & her Syren Daughters, but by Devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance & knowledge & sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his Altar to touch & purify the lips of whom he pleases.” MILTON.

The following Discourse is particularly Interesting to Block heads, as it endeavours to prove That there is No such thing as Inspiration & that any Man of a plain Understanding may by Thieving from Others become a Mich. Angelo.

Without Minute Neatness of Execution The Sublime cannot Exist! Grandeur of Ideas is founded on Precision of Ideas.

 

Enthusiastic Admiration is the first Principle of Knowledge & its last. Now he begins to Degrade, to Deny & to Mock.

 

The Man who on Examining his own Mind finds nothing of Inspiration ought not to dare to be an Artist, & he is a Fool & a Cunning Knave suited to the Purposes of Evil Demons.

 

The Man who never in his Mind & Thoughts travel’d to Heaven Is No Artist.

Artists who are above a plain Understanding are Mock’d & Destroy’d by this President of Fools.

 

It is Evident that Reynolds Wish’d none but Fools to be in the Arts & in order to this, he calls all others Vague Enthusiasts or Madmen.

What has Reasoning to do with the Art of Painting?

 

Singular & Particular Detail is the Foundation of the Sublime.

Knowledge of Ideal Beauty is Not to be Acquired. It is Bom with us. Innate Ideas are in Every Man, Bom with him; they are truly Himself. The Man who says that we have No Innate Ideas must be a Fool & Knave, Having No Con-Science or Innate Science.

 

One Central Form composed of all other Forms being Granted, it does not therefore follow that all other Forms are Deformity.

All Forms are Perfect in the Poet’s Mind, but these are not Abstracted nor compounded from Nature, but are from Imagination.

 

The Great Bacon—he is Call’d: I call him the Little Bacon—says that Every thing must be done by Experiment; his first principle is Unbelief, and yet here he says that Art must be produc’d Without such Method. He is Like Sr Joshua, full of Self-Contradiction & Knavery.

 

What is General Nature? is there Such a Thing? what is General Knowledge? is there such a Thing? Strictly Speaking All Knowledge is Particular.

 

The Symmetry of Deformity is a Pretty Foolery. Can any Man who Thinks Talk so? Leanness or Fatness is not Deformity, but Reynolds thought Character Itself Extravagance & Deformity. Age & Youth are not Classes, but Properties of Each Class; so are Leanness & Fatness.

 

Generalizing in Every thing, the Man would soon be a Fool, but a Cunning Fool.

 

What does this mean,
“Would have been” one of the first Painters of his Age?
Albert Durer
Is,
Not would have been. Besides, let them look at Gothic Figures & Gothic Buildings & not talk of Dark Ages or of any Age. Ages are all Equal. But Genius is Always Above The Age.

 

He is for Determinate & yet for Indeterminate.

Distinct General Form Cannot Exist. Distinctness is Particular, Not General.

 

... Bacon’s Philosophy makes both Statesmen & Artists Fools & Knaves.

 

The Two Following Discourses [iv & v] are Particularly Calculated for the Setting Ignorant & Vulgar Artists as Models of Execution in Art. Let him who will, follow such advice. I will not. I know that The Man’s Execution is as his Conception & No better.

 

All but Names of Persons & Places is Invention both in Poetry & Painting.

 

Sacrifice the Parts, What becomes of the Whole?

 

To produce an Effect of True Light & Shadow is Necessary to the Ornamental Style, which altogether depends on Distinctness of Form. The Venetian ought not to be call’d the Ornamental Style.

 

The Language of Painters cannot be allow’d them if Reynolds says right at p. 97; he there says that the Venetian Will Not Correspond with the Great Style. The Greek Gems are in the Same Style as the Greek Statues.

 

Reynolds contradicts what he says continually. He makes little Concessions that he may take Great Advantages.

Venetian Attention is to a Contempt & Neglect of Form Itself & to the Destruction of all Form or Outline Purposely & Intentionally.

Mich. Ang. knew & despised all that Titian could do.

 

If the Venetian’s Outline was Right, his Shadows would destroy it & deform its appearance.

Titian, as well as the other Venetians, so far from Senatorial Dignity appears to me to give always the Characters of Vulgar Stupidity.

 

Why should Titian & The Venetians be Named in a discourse on Art? Such Idiots are not Artists.

Broken Colours & Broken Lines & Broken Masses are Equally Subversive of the Sublime.

 

Well Said Enough!

 

How can that be call’d the Ornamental Style of which Gross Vulgarity forms the Principal Excellence?

A History Painter Paints The Hero, & not Man in General, but most minutely in Particular.

 

Of what consequence is it to the Arts what a Portrait Painter does?

 

There is No Such a Thing as A Composite Style.

 

Genius has no Error; it is Ignorance that is Error.

 

All Equivocation & Self-Contradiction!

 

Gainsborough told a Gentleman of Rank & Fortune that the Worst Painters always chose the Grandest Subjects. I desired the Gentleman to Set Gainsborough about one of Rafael’s Grandest Subjects, Namely Christ delivering the Keys to St. Peter, & he would find that in Gainsborough’s hands it would be a Vulgar Subject of Poor Fishermen & a Journeyman Carpenter.

The following Discourse is written with the same End in View that Gainsborough had in making the Above assertion, Namely To Represent Vulgar Artists as the Models of Executive Merit.

 

Passion & Expression is Beauty Itself. The Face that is Incapable of Passion & Expression is deformity Itself. Let it be Painted & Patch’d & Praised & Advertised for Ever, it will only be admired by Fools.

 

If Reynolds could not see variety of Character in Rafael, Others Can.

 

Reynolds cannot bear Expression.

Fresco Painting is the Most Minute. Fresco Painting is Like Miniature Painting; a Wall is a Large Ivory.

The Man who can say that Rafael knew not the smaller beauties of the Art ought to be contemn’d, & I accordingly hold Reynolds in Contempt ...

Rafael did as he Pleased. He who does not admire Rafael’s Execution does not Even see Rafael.

 

According to Reynolds Mich. Angelo was worse still & knew Nothing at all about Art as an object of Imitation. Can any Man be such a fool as to believe that Rafael & Michael Angelo were Incapable of the meer Language of Art & That Such Idiots as Rubens, Correggio & Titian knew how to Execute what they could not Think or Invent?

 

Damned Fool!

 

The Great Style is always Novel or New in all its Operations.

 

Original & Characteristical are the Two Grand Merits of the Great Style.

 

Salvator Rosa was precisely what he Pretended not to be. His Pictures are high Labour’d pretensions to Expeditious Workmanship. He was the Quack Doctor of Painting. His Roughnesses & Smoothnesses are the Production of Labour & Trick. As to Imagination, he was totally without Any.

 

Savages are Fops & Fribbles more than any other Men.

All Rubens’s Pictures are Painted by Journeymen &, so far from being all of a Piece, are The most wretched Bungles.

 

To My Eye Rubens’s Colouring is most Contemptible. His Shadows are of a Filthy Brown somewhat of the Colour of Excrement; these are fill’d with tints & messes of yellow & red. His lights are all the Colours of the Rainbow, laid on Indiscriminately & broken one into another. Altogether his Colouring is Contrary to The Colouring of Real Art & Science.

Opposed to Rubens’s Colouring Sr Joshua has placed Poussin, but he ought to put All Men of Genius who ever Painted. Rubens & the Venetians are Opposite in every thing to True Art & they Meant to be so; they were hired for this Purpose.

 

Why then does he talk in other places of pleasing Every body?

 

When a Man talks of Acquiring Invention & of learning how to produce Original Conception, he must expect to be call’d a Fool by Men of Understanding; but such a Hired Knave cares not for the Few. His Eye is on the Many, or, rather, the Money.

 

Bacon’s Philosophy has Destroy’d [
word cut away
] Art & Science. The Man who says that the Genius is not Born, but Taught—Is a Knave.

 

O Reader, behold the Philosopher’s Gravel

He was born quite a Fool, but he died quite a Knave.

 

How ridiculous it would be to see the Sheep Endeavouring to walk like the Dog, or the Ox striving to trot like the Horse; just as Ridiculous it is to see One Man Striving to Imitate Another. Man varies from Man mere than Animal from Animal of different Species.

 

If Art was Progressive We should have had Mich. Angelos & Rafaels to Succeed & to Improve upon each other. But it is not so. Genius dies with its Possessor & Comes not again till Another is Born with It.

 

Identities or Things are Neither Cause nor Effect. They are Eternal.

 

Reynolds Thinks that Man Learns all that he knows. I say on the Contrary that Man Brings All that he has or can have Into the World with him. Man is Born Like a Garden ready Planted & Sown. This World is too poor to produce one Seed.

Reynolds: The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, . . .

The mind that could have produced this Sentence must have been a Pitiful, a Pitiable Imbecillity. I always thought that the Human Mind was the most Prolific of All Things & Inexhaustible. I certainly do Thank God that I am not like Reynolds.

 

A Very Clever Sentence; who wrote it, God knows.

 

No Man who can see Michael Angelo can say that he wants either Colouring or Ornamental parts of Art in the highest degree, for he has Every Thing of Both.

He who Admires Rafael Must admire Rafael’s Execution. He who does not admire Rafael’s Execution Cannot Admire Rafael.

A Polish’d Villain who Robs & Murders!

 

He who can be bound down is No Genius. Genius cannot be Bound; it may be Render’d Indignant & Outrageous.

The Purpose of the following discourse [vn] is to Prove That Taste & Genius are not of Heavenly Origin & that all who have supposed that they Are so, are to be Consider’d as Weak headed Fanatics.

The Obligations Reynolds has laid on Bad Artists of all Classes will at all times make them his Admirers, but most especially for this discourse, in which it is proved that the Stupid are born with Faculties Equal to other Men, Only they have not Cultivated them because they thought it not worth the trouble.

 

Obscurity is Neither the Source of the Sublime nor of any Thing Else.

 

The Ancients did not mean to Impose when they affirm’d their belief in Vision & Revelation. Plato was in Earnest: Milton was in Earnest. They believ’d that God did Visit Man Really & Truly & not as Reynolds pretends.

 

How very Anxious Reynolds is to Disprove & Contemn Spiritual Perception!

 

He states Absurdities in Company with Truths & calls both Absurd.

The Artifice of the Epicurean Philosophers is to Call all other Opinions Unsolid & Unsubstantial than those which are derived from Earth.

 

It is not in Terms that Reynolds & I disagree. Two Contrary Opinions can never by any Language be made alike. I say, Taste & Genius are Not Teachable or Acquirable, but are born with us. Reynolds says the Contrary.

 

Demonstration, Similitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning. Invention, Identity & Melody are Objects of Intuition.

 

God forbid that Truth should be Confined to Mathematical Demonstration!